Eternally Eve: Images of Eve in the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and Modern Jewish Poetry

All of us interested in issues of gender and the relationships between men and women recognize the significance of the first chapters of Bereishit and the narrative of Adam and Eve. In “Eternally Eve,” Anne Lapidus Lerner, Professor of Jewish Literature and Director of the Program in Jewish Women’s Studies at Jewish Theological Seminary, explores the role of Eve in the Bible, in rabbinic midrashim, in modern poetry and in modern biblical scholarship. She presents a vast array of sources, and explains how both the midrashim and the modern poetry enable the reader to understand that the biblical text has many potential meanings. As she brings the different texts “into conversation” with one another, she shows us Eve as a complex personality, not merely as the one who brought evil into the world as many of the rabbinic midrashim stress. On the contrary, the biblical Eve can be seen as evolving into an independent and colorful person who reaches the height of her influence when she names Cain. Lerner includes poems in Hebrew, Yiddish and English that all give us insight into the biblical text. The English poems include “Apple Sauce for Eve” by Madge Piercy which applauds Eve as being intellectually curious, a knowledge seeker and the world’s first scientist. Piercy praises Eve for the legacy she left, “We are all the children of your bright hunger. We are all the products of that first experiment.” Eternally Eve is a book of remarkable scholarship that is also highly accessible to the reader. Lerner’s close reading of the texts presented is always fascinating; the very last footnote of the book reminds us that Eve is one of the very few women characters in the humash who does not have a fertility problem. There are similar gems on every page of this engrossing book.