Adam and Eve is about humanity, not gender

This is my biblical spirituality class reflection from last week (wow, could I possibly have a backlog of material?) on Genesis 2-3.

In her book, which we use in class, my professor understood this creation story as a description of ideal mutuality and equality between man and woman. We’ve all grown up learning that the story of Adam and Eve and the rib is an affirmation of marriage and of married sexuality. This is an important angle, especially given the history of our faith to disproportionately value asceticism and celibacy, a prejudice that survives in the canonization process. But as a single person, I contend that writing this story off as simply marriage is simply not good enough. This story is one of our fundamental Biblical insights into our relationships to God and to one another. Is there nothing deeper to say about men and women in the world than “it’s good when they’re married?” (It’s very odd that traditional Catholic biblical commentators have explained away the Song of Songs, which clearly does describe earthly love, as a metaphor for Christ’s love for the church, and yet the best they could do with this mythic and mystical Creation story has been “an affirmation of marriage.” )

I’m glad that the church is moving towards affirming marriage and married sexuality, and that I won’t have to grow old in a church that thinks marriage and sex are the last resort of the weak and lustful. But too much conversation around relational spirituality, from the Vatican to National Catholic Reporter, still focuses exclusively on marriage and the family unit. Single people are not just miscellaneous laity in some sort of pre-married state. I know that every bit of the Bible is relevant to me now and will be at every stage in my life. There is a distinct spirituality of singlehood to be found, but our humanity and our relationship to God are the lowest common denominator brought into focus through this story. Taking the sheen of marriage off Adam and Eve not only makes their story more universally appealing to the faithful, it clears the field for deeper messages of human nature: equal to one another and created by God.