Carnal Isræl: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture
“He here14 regards the two stories as referring to two entirely different creative acts of God and accordingly to the production of two different races of "man."15 Because the texts, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, refer to two entirely different species, he can claim that only the first species is identified as "in the image of God"that is, only the singular, unbodied Adam-creature is in God's likeness, in which context its male-and-femaleness must be understood spiritually. In other words, the design...ation of this creature as male-and-female means really neither male nor female. The verse "It is not good that a man be alone" is understood in accordance with both species of man, the purely spiritual, androgynous one and the embodied, male one. For the first, the verse has the allegorical significance of the necessity of the soul for God; with reference to the second, the text says that a helper is necessary. Another passage of Philo is explicit on this point: After this he says that "God formed man by taking clay from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life" (Gen. ii. 7).MoreLess
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