This omission is not the result of variations in the original biblical texts. As Parker notes, the Hebrew word is undisputed in the MT, and ancient textual witnesses all include it, with the noteworthy exception of Jerome’s Vulgate. And the omission is a critically important one. Without this phrase, the reader is left with the impression that Eve sins alone.

In her 2013 Journal of Biblical Literature article, “Blaming Eve Alone: Translation, Omission, and Implications of עמה in Genesis 3:6b,” Julie Faith Parker documents the curious omission of “[her husband who was] with her” (Gen. 3:6b) from many English translations. She carefully explores the biblical text, commentaries, ancient sources, grammars, fifty English translations, and translation committee reports. A well-organized chart documents eighteen out of fifty translations where she has discovered the phrase is missing. The guilty translations in the list include influential and familiar editions of the Bible: Wycliffe, Coverdale, Douay Rheims (both 1609 and the American text of 1899), Challoner, Moffatt, the RSV (1952), New Berkeley, New English Bible, Living Bible, Today’s English Translation/Good News Bible, Bible in Basic English, JPS New Tanakh, the Revised English Bible, Robert Alter (1996), The Message, and the Contemporary Torah (2006).

This omission is not the result of variations in the original biblical texts. As Parker notes, the Hebrew word is undisputed in the MT, and ancient textual witnesses all include it, with the noteworthy exception of Jerome’s Vulgate. And the omission is a critically important one. Without this phrase, the reader is left with the impression that Eve sins alone. Parker is generally persuasive in her argument that the translators appear to be motivated to excuse the man and blame the woman. This certainly comports with history of early and medieval Christian imaginings of the Eden saga, alongside which we see a tradition of female inferiority developing. Jerome’s infamously low view of women may be an example of this, particularly since both the MT and the LXX from which he worked include the phrase, and yet his Vulgate does not. (Readers should consult Parker’s article for a refreshing note from Robert Alter, who had also neglected to translate the word in his edition. In 2011, Alter e-mailed Parker on the matter, saying “I should have written ‘with her’ but didn’t realize I had skipped the word. Thank you for pointing this out.”)

However, the theological consequences of the omission which Parker has capably documented reach more deeply than matters of translation and Edenic mythologies. Without appreciating that Adam was in fact “with her” when Eve was tempted, we lose a critical feature of his sin: he failed to act upon his charge as the priestly guardian (Gen. 2:15, priestly samar) of sacred space, namely, the garden-temple and especially Eve herself.

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