 | | "construction."
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Said R. Hama in the name of R. Hanina, "Do you suppose, that he simply placed her under a carob or a sycamore tree, rather he ornamented her with twenty-four ornaments and then brought her to him, as it says, 'When you were in Eden, the Garden of God, every precious stone was your decoration: carnelian, chrysolite, amethyst, beryl, lapis lazuli, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, emerald, and gold'" [Ezekiel 28:3].
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| | (Theodor and Albeck 1965, 161)
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Although there is no reason to assume that the midrash here is in any way dependent on Hesiod, the comparison of the treatment of the motif of women's ornaments gives us a very neat contrast in the cultures. We can easily see that the valence of the motif is exactly turned on its head here. God does not adorn the woman in order to trap the man but in order, rather, to enhance the beauty of the first wedding night, of the first erotic encounter between husband and wife. Once more, as in the motif of the divine gift, we see the same narrative element but with its values precisely overturned.
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As Zeitlin has remarked in a passage quoted above, there can be little doubt that these adornments are "externalized tokens of sexual allure." Thus, the opposite values that they are assigned in the two discourses represent the diametrically opposed valuations of women's sexuality in the two cultural practices. The Hesiodic text reflects a discursive practice of contempt for clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry, which was a commonplace in both Roman and Greek literature. It is not biblical in origin, nor is it current in rabbinic culture, but it does appear in a Jew like Philo, in such Hellenized Jewish texts as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,
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and
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| | 34. [=
banayta
]. In other words, when the Torah says "And he constructed a woman," it can be read as "And he braided the woman's [hair]."
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| | 35. For women are evil, my children, and by reason of their lacking authority or power over man, they scheme treacherously how they might entice him to themselves by means of their looks. And whomever they cannot enchant by their appearance they conquer by a strategem. Indeed, the angel of the Lord told me and instructed me that women are more easily overcome by the spirit of promiscuity than are men. They contrive in their hearts against men, then by decking themselves out they lead men's minds astray, by a look they implant their poison, and finally by the act itself they take them captive . . . .
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| | Accordingly, my children, flee from sexual promiscuity, and order your wives and your daughters not to adorn their heads and their appearances so as to deceive men's sound minds.
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| | (Kee 1983, 784)
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