Or is this just a story about God’s creative power only? How does Genesis 2:21-25 read?
“So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
What Moses was inspired to write here is an expansion of what was started in the previous chapter, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Returning back to chapter 2, we find that Eve is declared to be man’s helper (2:18, 20, 24). Is that it? Is the woman merely the helper, permitting man to be affectionate with someone else? No, she is much more. She is God’s design for heterosexuality and this is seen clearly in the evidence embedded in the language of 2:18-20:
“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.”
The English language fails to communicate picture embedded in the Hebrew, but we catch a glimpse when considering what transpires in the passage. Nothing like an animal corresponds to the human, so there must be another creature that is “according to” the man. Yes, the word translating “helper” or "according to what is in front of" is a masculine noun, but that noun is qualified by Genesis 2:24, clearly approving the heterosexual relationship and disallowing same-sex relations: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
One flesh requires a creature which corresponds to man and the female is declared to be that corresponding helper, designed for heterosexual "one flesh" union with man. An animal does not correspond to man, neither does another male. The female corresponds to the male, being taken out of him. God begins with what He created and gives man a corresponding creation.
(notes from a seminar discussion)
