Adam's Rib or Adam's Baculum?
The following is the pertinent portion of an article I edited several years ago for the American Journal of Medical Genetics, which (tangentially) explored the question of the sex differentiation of Adam and Eve. The reference citation is Am. J. Med. Genet. 101:284, 2001.
I don't unreservedly subscribe to the authors conclusions about the meaning to "Adam's rib," but they certainly aren't the first to speculate about the missing baculum in the human male.
Our opinion is that Adam did not lose a rib in the creation of Eve. Any ancient Israelite (or for that matter, any American child) would be expected to know that there is an equal (and even) number of ribs in both men and women. Moreover, ribs lack any intrinsic generative capacity. We think it is far more probable that it was Adam's baculum that was removed in order to make Eve. That would explain why human males, of all the primates and most other mammals, did not have one. The Hebrew noun translated as ``rib'', tzela (tzade, lamed, ayin), can indeed mean a costal rib. It can also mean the rib of a hill (2 Samuel 16:13), the side chambers (enclosing the temple like ribs, as in 1 Kings 6:5,6), or the supporting columns of trees, like cedars or firs, or the planks in buildings and doors (1 Kings 6:15,16). So the word could be used to indicate a structural support beam. Interestingly, Biblical Hebrew, unlike later rabbinic Hebrew, had no technical term for the penis and referred to it through many circumlocutions. When rendered into Greek, sometime in the second century BCE, the translators used the word pleura, which means side, and would connote a body rib (as the medical term pleura still does). This translation, enshrined in the Septuagint, the Greek
Bible of the early church, fixed the meaning for most of western civilization, even though the Hebrew was not so specific.
I don't unreservedly subscribe to the authors conclusions about the meaning to "Adam's rib," but they certainly aren't the first to speculate about the missing baculum in the human male.
Our opinion is that Adam did not lose a rib in the creation of Eve. Any ancient Israelite (or for that matter, any American child) would be expected to know that there is an equal (and even) number of ribs in both men and women. Moreover, ribs lack any intrinsic generative capacity. We think it is far more probable that it was Adam's baculum that was removed in order to make Eve. That would explain why human males, of all the primates and most other mammals, did not have one. The Hebrew noun translated as ``rib'', tzela (tzade, lamed, ayin), can indeed mean a costal rib. It can also mean the rib of a hill (2 Samuel 16:13), the side chambers (enclosing the temple like ribs, as in 1 Kings 6:5,6), or the supporting columns of trees, like cedars or firs, or the planks in buildings and doors (1 Kings 6:15,16). So the word could be used to indicate a structural support beam. Interestingly, Biblical Hebrew, unlike later rabbinic Hebrew, had no technical term for the penis and referred to it through many circumlocutions. When rendered into Greek, sometime in the second century BCE, the translators used the word pleura, which means side, and would connote a body rib (as the medical term pleura still does). This translation, enshrined in the Septuagint, the Greek
Bible of the early church, fixed the meaning for most of western civilization, even though the Hebrew was not so specific.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by newview on
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"...That would explain why human males, of all the primates and most other mammals, did not have one..."
What would be the significance of hyenas or kangaroos not having a baculum. Neither of them do either.
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Permalink Reply by Joseph Gill on
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Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) don't either. And there are other mammals that don't. It is a hole in the argument of these medical geneticists, I agree.
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Permalink Reply by Chaplain Pat Harris on
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This is truly interesting and very informative. This also further clarifies the statement God made in Genesis 1:27.
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Permalink Reply by Pastor valentine on
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If GOd Said it was rib , it was a rib
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It is my understanding the Bro. Gill was merely giving us the translation of the word rib from the original language.
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