I had an interesting little article sent to me about the term צלע (tzela) found in the second creation narrative. This term is usually translated as ‘rib,’ which is where we get the story of Eve being formed out of the rib of Adam while he is in a deep sleep.
Scott F. Gilbert and Ziony Zevit, in a 2001 article originally published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics entitled “Congenital Human Baculum Deficiency,” propose a different translation.
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.
Because humans lack a penile bone, which is something most mammals and most primates have, they propose that צלע (tzela) should be understood as referring to Adam’s baculum and that this particular part of the narrative is an myth explaining why humans do not have a baculum.
What do you think of the article? If Gilbert and Zevit are correct, what do you think the implications of this interpretation in terms of the way the ancients understood the sexes? Do you think this interpretation explains further the patriarchal and misogynistic (pardon the anachronism) nature of the ancient world? And if it does, what would the interpretation of ‘rib’ contribute to this discussion? Would that contribute to a more egalitarian reading of the narrative? These are all questions I’ve been kicking around since reading this short article. I’d be interested in your thoughts.
4 August 2009 at 7.36 pm
One important support for the thesis, in my view, is form critical: most of the narratives of the primeval history have an etiological function. So, this story would explain why humans are built the way we are, without a penis bone.
This thesis is the inspiration for this book:
Kaltner, John, Steven L. McKenzie, and Joel Kilpatrick. *The Uncensored Bible : The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book.* 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008.
Chapter One goes at this penis-bone theory, and every chapter thereafter goes at a similarly “racy” critical issue in biblical studies.
I’ve assigned the book to my fall students in Intro to the OT. For their final paper, they’ll have to pick a chapter and write a research paper on its thesis!
4 August 2009 at 8.28 pm
@annumabrooke: That book came up in the discussion with the person who sent me the link. I’m going to check it out at the library tomorrow.
I agree with the etiological function of the narratives in the primeval history. The one thing that has me hung up, and something that the authors didn’t go into, was the phrase in which the term is found: וַיִּקַּ֗ח אַחַת֙ מִצַּלְעֹתָ֔יו. It seems to imply that Adam had more than one, since צלע is in the plural form and God took אחד of them. I wonder how the authors of this article would explain that…
5 August 2009 at 7.49 am
Perhaps it’s my ‘liberal’ education speaking, but I’m very, very reluctant to argue that eve was created from Adam’s penis-bone for the sake of arguing inerrancy.
I realize that probably isn’t exactly what’s going on, but it seems like a very unbalanced trade. We gain another argument for a literal creation story in exchange for making womankind an extension of the male genitalia. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me.
But then again, perhaps that’s why I’m ‘liberal’.
5 August 2009 at 8.52 am
I’m suspicious of this interpretation for several reasons. First, I wonder if this reflects more on our overly sexualized culture than the content of the biblical text. Sure, good old Queen Elizabeth didn’t write our bible and there are some “Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book”, but it seems to me that they are often more explicit than what this text seems to exhibit (Ehud in Jdg 3).
Second, I’m suspicious of interpretations that take points in the text as having an etiological function. Its not that they don’t serve to explain certain beliefs but that we are so far removed from the culture that there needs to be substantiation from other sources, otherwise interpretation says more about the interpreter than the text. I remember being taught that Cain’s mark was the reason why black people were black!
Third, the point of the story seems to be more about “marriage” or unity of male and female and man’s need for woman than a discourse on the reason for the difference between the anatomy of man and certain animals. Again, perhaps reflecting more about our “scientific” culture than about the text? I mean, man no longer needs woman and woman no longer needs man, right?
5 August 2009 at 10.41 am
This made me giggle….
5 August 2009 at 11.03 am
@Earl: I’m not sure the authors are arguing this point for the sake of inerrancy. In fact, they are clear that they view the second creation narrative as a myth. Inerrancy does not come up in the article.
I think, rather, that they are explaining why this etiological myth includes this little bit of information: because they realized many mammals had penis bones, yet humans did not…ergo, this bit added into the myth for the sake of etiology.
@Steve: Your first point, I think, is off base. Early Jewish literature, such as the Midrashim, Mishnah, and Talmud, oversexualize many of the narratives in the Hebrew Bible. I actually sat in a paper at SBL last fall in Boston where someone made this case by pointing out many examples of this oversexualized reading of the HB from early Jewish literature. So I don’t think that an oversexualized reading of a narrative can be blamed on our place in history.
The second point: there are many etiological stories in the HB. I don’t think the authors of this article are making the point that the second creation narrative exists simply to tell us this bit of etiological information. I think they are making the point that within this narrative, which has a larger purpose, there is a bit of etiological information. I, too, would be suspicious if they made etiology the paradigm through which to read this narrative…but I don’t think that is what they are doing.
The third point does not undercut their interpretation. Unity and marriage can still be part of the purpose for the narrative whether Eve was formed from Adam’s rib or his baculum. I’m not sure why you think this would undercut these points.
10 August 2009 at 12.54 am
I do not subscribe to this arguement about the origin of creation (Adam’s rib or Adam’s baculum). Gods ways are not human ways. The creation has been, is and will be a mystery for human understanding. That is why God is He and will be Yahweh! The mystery cannot be understod by human discernment. The arguement about how God created or from what Eve was created is asking Gods wisdom and a ridicule of Him! There are a number of situations in the bible that cannot be explained by our scientific thinking and difficult to imagine (how did God make them happen). That complexity explains why God is God. He is difficult to be explained and what He can do is difficult to explain. I dont want to say more than this.
10 August 2009 at 12.18 pm
@Kenneth: We are not talking about Gen 1-3 as being a scientific narrative (in the modern sense of science), nor are we claiming that Eve was ‘actually’ created out of a rib or a penis bone. Rather, the article attempts to understand how the original audience would have understood the story. It does not attempt to say something about the relationship of the second creation narrative and history.
5 February 2010 at 3.43 pm
[...] a boy. Many other primates do have a baculum as do most bats, rodents, carnivorans etc. There is a wonderful (but sadly, probably apocryphal) reading of the Genesis creation narrative that…tzela in Hebrew) removed from Adam to make Eve in Genesis 2 was actually a baculum – which [...]
28 April 2010 at 3.39 pm
Looking at the shape and curves of a baculum shows that these guys certainly have a point. Woman have the same curved shape from most any angle. The etiology is absent if Eve would have been built from Adam’s rib, the baculum view introduces the otherwise absent sexual dimension into the narrative.
The baculum is far more probable to have been Adam’s body part from which God created Eve.
28 April 2010 at 3.43 pm
Just look at this
http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/69/126769-004-6B1A0C3A.jpg
for evidence….