Chavah or Chivya?
Posted on October 10th, 2007 by cyberdov
(Hat tip - DovBear blog)
Should Chavah have been called Chaya? Here is Gen 3:20:
Shem ishto Chavah, ki hi hayta em kol Chai
Robert Alter notes that Chavah is similar to chivya, the Aramaic for serpent, and wonders if Chava’a name might contain an allusion to an old Mesopotamian myth in which a giant primordial serpent is imagined to be the progenitor of all things, or, in other words, the ‘em kol chai’.
The Zohar also notes this similarity and speculates that Adam gave his wife a name connected to her sin, but does not explain how Adam knew Aramaic back in the early days when all the world spoke Biblical Hebrew.
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