Welcome to the third
weekly guest post
at A Night's Dream of Books,
on the tour for The Door Is Open,
sponsored by
Innovative Online Book Tours!!
Dr. Andrew Cort
Andrew Cort
Paperback, 186 pages
CreateSpace
May 19, 2012
Genre: Religion, Mythology, Spirituality
This is the third of several weekly guest posts by Dr. Cort, who is an authority on religion and spirituality, as well as mythology, politics, history, science, education, and healing. He has written several books on these topics. His most recent one, The Door Is Open, deals with the fascinating topic of the steps to spiritual awakening, as presented in world scriptures and mythologies. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Cort to A NIGHT'S DREAM OF BOOKS!
I hope you will find Dr. Cort's third post to be as fascinating as I did!
A NEW LOOK AT
ADAM & EVE: Part 1 – “The Rib”
The story of Adam
and Eve is the foundational story of western civilization, and I believe it has
been terribly misinterpreted with devastating results for us all. Let’s take a
fresh look:
The Hebrew word
that is translated as ‘Adam’ is actually a gender-neutral word that means ‘a
creature of earth’. In other words, Adam was initially created neither Male nor
Female.
The creature was placed in the Garden and given only one restriction – not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Adam lived a quiet, comfortable, and all but purposeless life in the Garden, tending the flora and distributing names to the animals. But God saw that Adam was alone with no emotional life, no tension, hardship or struggle. So God decided to put Adam to sleep and separate it into Male and Female in order to provide an emotionally meaningful life for humanity.
Here is an extremely important point: The Hebrew word tsela appears many times in the Bible. With one exception it is translated as ‘side’, typically referring to the side walls of important structures such as the Tabernacle. On one occasion only, here in Genesis, tsela is translated as ‘rib’.
This unique translation has had horrendous repercussions.
But if we give the word the same meaning that it has on every other occasion, the story makes more sense. God took one side of the creature and out of this he made Eve, the woman, and the other side became Adam, the man – where neither had existed before. The ‘One’ has become ‘Two’, and there is nothing in this description to indicate anything other than perfect equality.
The isolation of one human creature can now be replaced with a new form of wholeness that is attainable through love and erotic longing between two individuals.
One possible reason for the early translator’s choice of the word 'rib’ in this one place is that by taking a rib God revealed the Heart of the creature, analogous to opening Pandora’s Box, thus bringing emotions (which are universally symbolized by the Feminine) into the realm of human life. Like Pandora’s story, this is where pain and difficulty enter the world, but also happiness and meaning, and only then do mortal beings become moral beings with the ability to make choices and mistakes, and thus to evolve and grow.
Even if we retain the word ‘rib’ as the translation of tsela, we see that this rib did not come from a previously created male, thereby suggesting some sort of primacy for the ‘man’. On the contrary, the rib came from a previously created earth creature of no gender.
And in fact, the Woman, Eve, in the story, was created before the Man!
The creature was placed in the Garden and given only one restriction – not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Adam lived a quiet, comfortable, and all but purposeless life in the Garden, tending the flora and distributing names to the animals. But God saw that Adam was alone with no emotional life, no tension, hardship or struggle. So God decided to put Adam to sleep and separate it into Male and Female in order to provide an emotionally meaningful life for humanity.
Here is an extremely important point: The Hebrew word tsela appears many times in the Bible. With one exception it is translated as ‘side’, typically referring to the side walls of important structures such as the Tabernacle. On one occasion only, here in Genesis, tsela is translated as ‘rib’.
This unique translation has had horrendous repercussions.
But if we give the word the same meaning that it has on every other occasion, the story makes more sense. God took one side of the creature and out of this he made Eve, the woman, and the other side became Adam, the man – where neither had existed before. The ‘One’ has become ‘Two’, and there is nothing in this description to indicate anything other than perfect equality.
The isolation of one human creature can now be replaced with a new form of wholeness that is attainable through love and erotic longing between two individuals.
One possible reason for the early translator’s choice of the word 'rib’ in this one place is that by taking a rib God revealed the Heart of the creature, analogous to opening Pandora’s Box, thus bringing emotions (which are universally symbolized by the Feminine) into the realm of human life. Like Pandora’s story, this is where pain and difficulty enter the world, but also happiness and meaning, and only then do mortal beings become moral beings with the ability to make choices and mistakes, and thus to evolve and grow.
Even if we retain the word ‘rib’ as the translation of tsela, we see that this rib did not come from a previously created male, thereby suggesting some sort of primacy for the ‘man’. On the contrary, the rib came from a previously created earth creature of no gender.
And in fact, the Woman, Eve, in the story, was created before the Man!
Author Bio
Andrew Cort is an expert on the inner message of Spiritual Awakening that is always ready to be found in the wonderful stories of the Bible and Greek Mythology. To receive several FREE GIFTS from Dr. Cort (a copy of Chapter One, ‘Making the Decision’, from his new book, THE DOOR IS OPEN; a copy of his article on RECONCILING SCIENCE AND RELIGION; and a complete version of the Bible’s erotic masterpiece, SONG OF SONGS , adapted as a Poetic Dialogue to be read out loud by lovers; as well as a subscription to his SPIRITUAL GROWTH NEWSLETTER) click here http://www.andrewcort.com/Gifts . You can also learn more on his blog, Spirituality and Religion.
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This is a fascinating interpretation of the creation story Adam and Eve. I myself have never heard or thought about the genders being divided DURING the creation of Eve. Indeed this would put an entirely new light on the story.
ReplyDeleteI am thinking of this in light of what Harold Bloom's theory that the original writer of the early Bible stories, before they went through multiple revisions, was a woman.
Thank you for hosting Andrew today.
ReplyDeleteHey, Brian!
ReplyDeleteYes, this is a fascinating guest post! I've never come across such an interpretation before, but now that I have, I think it makes a lot of sense.
As for Bloom's theory, I'd like to do some research about it. The Bible is a series of books, though, written across many years, so I would think that a woman might have authored one or more books, but not the entire Bible. Some time back, I came across the opinion that a woman had written something titled 'the Book of J', which is supposed to be part of the Bible. I wonder if this is the theory you're referring to. I don't remember much about this. I'll have to look it up again...
Thanks for such an interesting comment!! : )
Hi, Susie!
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome! I'm enjoying all these posts that Dr. Cort has written! They're all fasciinating!!
Thanks for commenting!! : )
Hi Maria - I believe that some, but not all scholars believe that then first five books of the Old Testament were originally written by a single writer that the scholars call 'J". The theory goes that the original texts were seriously edited into what today is called the Torah or the fist five books of the old Testament.
ReplyDeleteBloom's theory which he spells out in his "The Book of J" is that the J writer was a Noblewomen who was a member of King Solomon's court.
I find reading about the origins of the Bible fascinating! I do not have nearly enough knowledge to have anything like a strong opinion however on these theories.
I find Bloom to be a fascinating writer, but he seems grouchy, dismissive and rude towards those he disagrees with. i do have a problem when his writings exhibit these traits.
Hi, again, Brian!
ReplyDeleteOh, so it was Bloom who wrote "The Book of J"...I know I have that book somewhere in this library I live in...I've had it for years, too, and haven't read it! Shame on me! I'll have to look for it.
Now that you mention that a woman wrote the first five books of the Bible, according to Bloom and other scholars, I have to tell you that I'm very surprised by such an assertion. Why? Well, because these books are full of mysoginistic statements and scenarios (as is much of the Bible, I've heard, because I must confess that I've never read it from cover to cover). For instance, one chapter of Numbers gives a detailed description of a 'test' which will help a jealous husband 'find out' whether or not his wife has been unfaithful. There is no corresponding test for a wife to determine whether her husband has been unfaithful. That's very biased and unfair! But perhaps the text should not be judged by today's standards. I will definitely have to find this book!! I'll make it my weekend project!
Thanks for commenting again!! : )
Bloom's has real interesting take on some of the supposed misogynistic aspects. He asserts that the writer is really sympathetic to the plight of women and is attempting to show how badly that they were treated at the hand of men who were often their husbands.
ReplyDeleteMany of his views on the Old Testament are counter to how it has been interpreted over the years.