Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek
Ya know, the whole thing about man being made from dirt/clay and a woman being made from his rib...that sort of thing just doesn't make sense to me.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS
I would take that Bible story more seriously if it said that man and woman were made from dirt/clay.  I never understood why man had to be created first and woman had to be created from the man's rib. |
As jeni said earlier, one has to be
very careful about translations. The word we translate as "Adam" means "human" generically, and it comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for "earth" or "ground." (
Adamah; the word for "blood" also comes from this root.) "Eve" means "living one" or "source of life." In Genesis 2, the words for "man" and "woman" are
ish and
ishshah.
What is typically translated as "helper" literally translates as "one who corresponds to," while the word typically translated as "rib" (
tsela) can also mean "side" -- these alternate transations show not a "helper" who is formed from a part of man, but basically an equal who is formed by splitting man. With this understanding, the "man" after the creation of woman is not really the same as the "man" before the creation of woman. This is how the ancients would have understood the origin of the male-female attraction -- the desire to return to the original "whole" -- and male and female can be seen to represent complimentary aspects of the
imago Dei, the image of God.