The Creation of Woman

"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a helper fit for him'." (Gen 2:18). Man was alone in the midst of all creation. There was no other human being like himself with whom he can enter into a loving relationship. John Paul II refers to this as man's "experience of original solitude," the first of the three "original experiences" man and woman have undergone at the dawn of creation. This experience of original solitude sets the stage for the creation of woman (Eve) and the experience of "original unity."

Says John Paul II: “Alone,” man somehow is not yet fully complete, not yet fully human. His creation has not yet been completed. Something is missing. And so “the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man" (Gen 2:21-22).

That Eve was made from a “rib” that God-Yahweh had taken from the man is the Bible's figurative way of saying that man and woman share the same common humanity. They belong to the same species. They are made of the same “stuff.” Both are human persons made in the image and likeness of God. It is also an affirmation that man and woman are essentially equal because they are constituted on the basis of the same humanity. Both man and woman are persons made in God’s image and likeness.