A master moviemaker can put together a picture where the audience can follow the plot even without a soundtrack. The book of Genesis does a similar thing using names. Even if the story was obscured, the names in Genesis 2-3 would clue us in on the plot.

Take the name “Adam.” In Hebrew, Adam is similar to the word “ground” (adamah) cluing us in on Genesis 2:7-8, where God formed Adam from the dust of the adamah (the ground). Another interesting twist on Adam is the word for humanity (ha’adam — literally “the Adam”), which points us to Adam being the origin of the human race (ha’adam). Adam comes from the ground, and we come from Adam.

God knew that it was not good for Adam to be alone (Genesis 2:18) and after naming all the animals, Adam came to realize that “none proved to be a suitable partner” (Genesis 2:18). God then put Adam into a deep sleep and formed his helpmate.

The compatibility between Adam and his helpmate can be seen in their names. A Hebrew word used for man in general is ’ish. The Hebrew word for woman is ’ishshah. Unlike the animals, which presumably had different names, man and woman shared two different forms of the same word, showing their natural compatibility. This is why Adam, after seeing his helpmate exclaims: “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken” (Genesis 2:23). In other words, she is called ’ishshah (woman) because is taken from the ’ish (man).



After the fall, something perplexing happens. Adam changes the name of the Woman to Eve: “The man called his wife Eve, because she became the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20). What’s perplexing is the timing. Immediately before this verse, God had come in judgment and pronounced sentence upon the Serpent, the Woman, and Adam (Genesis 3:14-19). The Serpent was told of his ultimate defeat, and man and woman were punished with increased labor in bringing forth fruit (i.e., bringing forth offspring and bringing forth the fruit of the ground, respectively). The judgment ends with the foreboding words: “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Adam will return to the adamah (the ground). What’s strange is that in the very next verse, after this terrifying incident, Adam names the Woman “Eve” (Hebrew, ḥawwah). The root of this name is the Hebrew word for “life” (ḥay) and he calls her “the mother of all the living.”

On the surface, the woman’s new name makes sense. Eve will be the “mother of all the living,” but that goes without saying. Who else would be the mother of the human race? Still, all of fallen Eve’s children may be physically alive (until they return to the dust of the earth), but they are all spiritually dead by being estranged from God. Furthermore, Eve won’t become a mother until Genesis 4:1. Why not change it then? Adam’s timing is so strange, in fact, that some commentators believe that this verse was accidentally transposed by a copyist from a different context.

The early Church fathers offered an interesting insight into this matter. They saw that the name change was somehow linked to the promise of the future Redeemer in Genesis 3:15. In other words, the Woman’s name change mystically points to a New Eve, who would gift birth to the one who would give eternal life. As St. Epiphanius wrote:

“Physically speaking, every human being in the world is born of that Eve but here life itself has truly been born into the world of Mary, so that Mary brings forth the Living One [Christ] and becomes the mother of the Living. Mary then, was called the ‘mother of the living’ in a riddle.”

Therefore, Mary shares both names of Eve. Jesus twice calls his mother “Woman” (John 2:4, 19:26), and Mary being the mother of he who is the “resurrection and the life” (John 11:25-26) is the “mother of all the living.” As you can see, these names really do tell their own story.

Gary Michuta is an apologist, author and speaker and a member of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Livonia. Visit his website at www.handsonapologetics.com.