Myth #23:

Eve came from Adam’s rib.

The Myth: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Gen. 2:21-24)

The Reality: The story of Eve’s birth integrates the Egyptian story of the separation of heaven and earth with portions of the Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag.

The character of Eve draws upon a number of myths, both Egyptian and Sumerian. According to Genesis, God created Eve out of Adam’s rib. As a result of this relationship, God instituted the idea of marriage.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Gen. 2:24)

Initially, Adam’s wife was known simply as “the woman,” because “she was taken out of Man.” Only after she and her husband were expelled from the Garden of Eden did she receive the name Eve. In giving her that name, Adam says it was because “she was the mother of all living.”

In Myth #17 we saw that Adam and Eve corresponded to the Egyptian deities Geb (Earth) and Nut (Heaven). According to Egyptian Coffin Text 80, Atum said he created Nut so that “she could be over my head and Geb could marry her.” In other words, the Egyptians saw the union of Earth and Heaven as the basis for marriage, and this principle is carried over into Genesis with Adam and Eve.

While Adam became the sole parent of Eve, just as Atum (the Heliopolitan Creator) became the sole parent of his children, the idea that Eve came from Adam’s ribderives from a pun in ancient Sumerian, Mesopotamia’s earliest literary language. It originates with the Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag (see Myth #22).

In that myth, Enki suffered from eight pains, one of which was in the rib.

“My brother, what hurts thee? ”
“[My] rib [hurts me] .”
(ANET, 41 .)

The name of the deity who cured Enki’s rib was Ninti—a name that in Sumerian has a double meaning. The first part, “Nin,” means “the lady of ” but the second part, “ti” (pronounced “tee”), means both “rib” and “to make live.” Ninti, therefore, signifies both “the lady of the rib” and “the lady who makes life.”

Eve, too, combines both titles. She is truly the “lady of the rib,” as she came from the rib. And, as her earlier title, “mother of all living,” indicates, she is the “lady who makes life.”