Paula

1a – So do you agree with me then that the words are not poetic but literal?

But of course!

1b – So then if the organ was a “female” organ and it belonged to Adam, what was Adam in the creation male or female or both?

Or neither.

Okay, but since God said that he created male and female and I think we can agree the Eve was female, what was Adam? Creation means creation for Adam. God created male and female.

Timing is the key here. The statement “male and female he created them” is in the first, less detailed overview of creation week. Chapter two goes into detail absent from chapter one. After Eve, we have no doubt that Adam was male and Eve female. Before that, we just don’t know. The important thing of course is that Eve and Adam were made of the same flesh and bone, making them absolutely equal.

If God created Adam as a male-female, then we can help God out by putting that into the text. Otherwise it appears God made a mistake. Adam wasn’t exclusively male so then God didn’t create the male, he became male by default. Had God taken out the male part, he would have been female?

There’s a lot God left out of the text, on a gazillion topics. I mean, come on… “there was light”. Little help, eh?

There isn’t any other kind of creation but male and female.

How about “human”?

If Adam wasn’t exclusively male, then God would have told us.

How do you know?

I prefer to just take what God said.

Me too! And I don’t try to supply what God didn’t say either.

Gen. 2:23 doesn’t argue against my position at all. Adam’s rib belonged to his body. It was taken out of him and formed into a woman. She then became a woman but from his flesh and his bone. This preserves the unity and equality of both and ribs aren’t
“male”. It wasn’t a “male” part that was taken out. It was a “part” of a male.

Sounds like the same thing I was saying…

I don’t know how you can say that the Hebrew word is not the one used for “rib” since other than these verses in Genesis, the word rib doesn’t appear in the Hebrew bible. I am saying that it must mean rib because there is no other bone in one’s side. Can you point to another bone?

Which puts us both in the same boat. If there’s no mention of ribs anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible, then how do you know it means rib and not just “side”? I considered the LXX too. And you still haven’t told me what “flesh” came out of Adam.

Well, I normally don’t have people telling me that I am making up a meaning for a biblical word, but I am happy to prove that I am not. The Brown-Drive-Briggs definition is as follows:

BDB Definition:
1) side, rib, beam
1a) rib (of man)
1b) rib (of hill, ridge, etc)
1c) side-chambers or cells (of temple structure)
1d) rib, plank, board (of cedar or fir)
1e) leaves (of door)
1f) side (of ark)

Again, if the word for rib is only found here in Genesis, then nobody can say for sure what it must mean in this context. Side is the meaning in the LXX which predates (AFAIK) any Hebrew text available by several hundred years. It’s at least something to go on. If we say it must mean rib because we think the context supports it, that would be circular reasoning since there is no other context to compare it to.

As far as how much flesh went along with the rib, I don’t know, but for sure some was on the rib. I enjoy ribs once in awhile and the ribs I eat are not just bone. They all have some tasty flesh with them.

So it wasn’t only a bone after all? Just a little muscle attached to it? Can we arbitrarily decide that’s what “flesh” means here, and not anything else?

I am not claiming that the bones are “male”. I am claiming that they are Adam’s bones not bones belonging to anyone else including Eve.

Same thing I’m saying.

The text does rule it out.

I disagree.

It appears to me that those who see another option have something that they would like to see in the text.

Cheryl, I’ve been biting my tongue all this time so I wouldn’t accuse you of this, even though I could. Let’s not judge motives now, okay? That’s what male supremacists do to us all the time.

I think that inference can be made if there is two or three witnesses. I haven’t seen any witness either in Genesis or anywhere else that would imply in any way that Adam was not a regular male (with all his ducks in order) at his creation.

And I haven’t seen any witness to say he was a male as we know them. The text just calls the pre-Eve Adam “human”. Only this, and nothing more.

I do not think that this issue will be a dividing point in fellowship nor will it send someone to hell. However I strongly believe that making Eve come from a female part inside Adam …

I don’t argue that the part taken from Adam was necessarily a “female part”. It was an Adam part. Maybe it was something we associate now with the exclusively female now, maybe not.

You bet. I just don’t want them to reject me because they see me embracing a Greek mythology. I don’t see that as helpful or needed.

Are you saying I’m embracing a Greek myth, just because I won’t close a door I don’t see closed in scripture?

Thanks for jousting with me, Paula. These issues can be very important to many people reading my blog and it was my desire to give a thorough answer… I have learned a lot from you Paula that has been a tremendous help to me. I very much value the interaction.

You’re welcome, Cheryl. I know I’ve learned a lot from you too.