Genesis 2:21 “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (KJ)
Word says in two places that God used “rib” only to create the female. In the Hebrew “rib” is defined as (from “The Strong‘s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible“):
“a rib (as curved), lit. (of the body) or fig. (of a door, i.e. leaf); hence, a side, lit. (of a person) or fig. (of an object or the sky, i.e. quartet); arch. A (espec. Floor or ceiling) timber or plank (single or collect., I.e. a flooring):- beam, board, chamber, corner, leaf, plank, rib, side (chamber).
As a further point of reference, this use of the word “flesh,” is based upon a primary root word meaning “to be fresh, i.e. (rosy (fig.) cheerful); to announce (glad news):- messenger, preach, publish, shew forth, (bear, bring, carry, preach, good, tell good) tidings." The word ”flesh” itself means: "flesh (from it’s freshness), by extension body, person; also (by euphem.) the pudenda of man:-body, (fat, lean) flesh (-ed), kin, (man -) kind, + nakedness, self, skin.”
Within the whole of the Bible the word “rib” is used a total of five (5) times, and “ribs” a total of two (2) times. In each instance the same Hebrew definition as given above applies whether it be “rib“ or “ribs.” With exception of Genesis 2:22, in every other four (4) instances, the word “rib” is used in direct reference to stabbing a person in the rib, hence even the “side” as defined in the Hebrew. Of the two (2) uses of the word “ribs,” one is in Genesis 2:21 and the other is found in Daniel 7:5. In Daniel 7:5 it says:
“And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.”
Here reference made to “ribs” also, I believe, may very well include that of flesh. Yet the issues surrounding the use of “ribs” in Genesis 2:21, and then “rib,” in Genesis 2:22 is a different matter.
In Genesis 2:21-22, the word is symbolically speaking within the realm of Creation, about a specific action taken by God, as completed upon a specific person, and within the life of one man. As such, as a Creative action and though while also symbolic, it is literal.
That is, the word states in Genesis 2:21-22, that God used “rib” alone from the man, yet in Genesis 2:24 we learn that it was the actual desire of God to create the male and the female as “one flesh.” But what did God do with the “flesh” of Adam? In Genesis 2:21 word records that he “closed up the flesh instead thereof.”
The word “instead” indicates that God had a will, a will even confirmed in Genesis 2:24, to use the “flesh” of Adam but did not, he made a choice “instead,” against what was his own highest desire, to reject the use of this man’s flesh by closing “up the flesh instead thereof.” And unless we believe now that God is unable to separate the flesh from the bone, what is twice stated in Genesis 2:21-22 is literally what he used, bone alone (and not the “side” and therefore also the “flesh”). If God proved able to create according to his highest desire for the male and female in his use of an Adam as a man exercising free-will, then word would certainly have recorded it and even to the delight and glory of God. Instead we have word in Genesis 2:24 speaking about what was (is) the highest desire of God in marriage for the male and the female but we know this is not inclusive of an Adam, for reasons already stated, but also because Adam had no parents to leave.
God speaks in this manner about a man leaving his father and his mother in Genesis 2:24 (parents which an Adam had not), because due to the flesh his foreknowledge was compelled to reject, he could not use an Adam along with a freshly created Eve as a model in word of marriage for believers. The only action left that He could take was to speak his desire for marriage purposed for future hearers and readers of his word, in the stark absence of the garden model he actually desired to use in an Adam and a freshly created Eve of “one flesh.” But a garden Adam and Eve were never of one flesh, they only shared a bone which God by the way did not otherwise symbolically purpose for anything between this man and woman as husband and wife.
The "flesh" of an Adam and an Eve, even as proven by the foreknowledge of God, were in fact opposite one from another. This act of God, in refusing the use of an Adam’s flesh (and having already called this man an “Adam,” meaning to be ashamed, mean man of low degree, a hypocrite) only further serves to confirm what was the foreknowledge of God about what and who this man would prove to be in the garden. It was a reality for an Adam not so, according to the foreknowledge and proven actions of God, for a fallen but righteously confessed and honored Eve (an “Eve“ with name meaning “life-giver“ and title won from God as “mother of all living” and that even as a virgin, childless female).
Given what is proven about the mind of God, we also cannot allow Adam to interpret Scripture for us when he in error says in Genesis 2:23: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of “Man.” God rejected his flesh.
But how do you interpret this?
*PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THERE ARE THOSE ON THE BPN UNABLE TO DIGEST THE LIGHT OF THE HEBREW AND EVEN FEAR THE VERY DISCUSSION OF IT. LIKE THE GESTAPO, THEY FOLLOW ME FROM PAGE TO PAGE SPEAKING NOT TO THE WORD BUT ONLY IN LAUNCHING CHARACTER ASSAULTS DEVOID OF SOUND WORD ITSELF IN AN EFFORT TO EXTINGUISH AND BY-PASS THE THINKING OF THE INDIVIDUAL MIND BASED UPON THE TRUTH OF WORD AND NOT TRADITION. YET IF THE TRADITIONAL TEACHING REGARDING AN ADAM IS TRUE, THEN WHAT IS THERE TO FEAR? PROVE THE WORD WITHIN THE FULL CONTEXT OF THE WORD AND EVEN IN RIGHT ALIGNMENT OF THE HEBREW. COMMENTS INCLUSIVE OF PERSONAL ASSAULT WILL BE IDENTIFIED AS SUCH AND OTHERWISE IGNORED. I HAVE BEEN ADVISED TO DELETE THEIR COMMENTS BUT HAVE YET TO DETERMINE HOW TO DO SO ON THE EDIT PAGE OF A POST. IF YOU KNOW, PLEASE ADVISE.
If we believe God is Truth and Truth is Word, then why can’t we talk about it? If God is his Truth, then whatever truth we believe we have, if of God, ought to be strong enough to stand up to the test in the absence of finding need to resort to character assault. If what you believe in word cannot be credibly proven in the absence of character assault, then take a second look at what and how you believe. For any part I have ever allowed myself to be dragged into this, again I apologize, yet it has no place.