This article examines the evolution of rabbinic interpretative discourse on the creation of woman, as depicted in the Hebrew Bible, addressing well-known rabbinic writings from the fifth to the tenth centuries. My feminist and genealogical discourse-analytic exploration illustrates the accumulation of gender-biased elements and the concomitant strengthening of an obvious, all-encompassing patriarchal ethos along this hermeneutical trajectory. I argue that the diachronic development of the rabbinic discourse on the creation of woman took place in three consecutive discursive stages representing self-dependent characteristics. The tradition corpus was first established in Genesis Rabbah and Leviticus Rabbah, then reinforced in the Babylonian Talmud, and finally it became embroidered with versatile elaborations, as demonstrated in passages from Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer, and Alphabet of Ben Sira.

This article examines the diachronic development of Shiʿi exegetic discourse on the sentence Khalaqakum min nafs wāḥida wa-khalaqa minhā zawjahā (“created you from a single soul and created its mate from it”) in the Quranic verse 4:1, customarily read as describing the creation of the first couple, Adam and Eve. Applying feminist discourse analysis and focusing on the Arabic-language commentaries of twelve premodern Imāmī exegetes from the third/ninth to the eleventh/seventeenth century, my study reveals that the medieval commentary material both accumulated and transformed along a hermeneutical trajectory comprising three distinctive discursive stages. The first stage established the lore on Eve’s creation in dismissive terms, and the second strengthened these misogynous views to make the potential substance of Eve’s creation even more negligible. This concept was further expanded in the third discursive stage, in which the weak woman, inclined toward the material and the corporal, was seen as created to provide service and entertainment for the man. Her creation was thus used to justify gender hierarchy, even the seclusion of women.

This article examines the biblical narrative regarding human creation in the light of rabbinic literature, contesting its hierarchical interpretations and calling for ethical rereading of the text. The novel reading is guided by fundamental Jewish principles—bal tashḥit (“not destroying”), tsaʻar baʻlei ḥayyim (“distress of living creatures”), and tiqqun ha-ʻolam (“repair of the world”)—promoting all-encompassing justice. Seeking support from ancient Near Eastern myths, the paper presents a systematic ecofeminist analysis of the biblical narrative describing, as is argued, the creation of a primordial being (Gen. 1:26–28), the formation of humanity into a sustainable part of the ecosystem (Gen. 2:7), and the construction of genders (Gen. 2:18–23). The close reading of the creation story is informed by postmodern hermeneutics emphasizing reader response and meaning making.