[lit-ideas] Adam's Navel
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 15:42:12 EDT
We are discussing Gen. 1, 2:
It is not good that the man should
be alone. I will make him an help meet
for him.
And out of the ground the Lord formed
EVERY BEAST of the field.
But for Adam there was [still] not
found an help meet for him."
Geary writes:
"That God didn't know what he was doing doesn't surprise me. What I do find
puzzling is that He created a WOMAN to help him -- a guy. What was He
thinking?"
In my previous post, I put forward the exegesis that God having created
"every beast of the field" and yet realise that Adam (perhaps _then_ more than
ever) an 'help-meet' was to help to manure the Garden (of Eden).
On second thoughts, I put forward now a more sexological exegesis. The focus
in this exegesis is on the word _mate_, as in:
A (at a bar): Do you come here often.
B: Only on the mating season.
-- 'mate' (or 'meet') was an Old English expression for 'to copulate' (as in
'breed'). So Adam may have found that of 'every beast in the field' no such
beast (and rightly so) would serve him as a _mate_ in that respect.
It's obvious that there is a lot of scientific thinking here. It was a
question of DNA. Not even the tallest orangoutan would do the job. It has to
have
the same DNA to reproduce (or at least 'mate' -- the senses were confused in
Old English).
Note that to provide Adam with a 'mate to mate' (if you excuse me the
redundancy) he had to work as from Adam's DNA. He _could_ have chosen the left
little toe (as Geary suggests) which would have involved no surgery (as we
clipped off the little toe in dogs like Yorkshire terriers). He chose a rib,
well
into the stomach.
One interpretation for this is that God chose a 'genital' area (almost), and
that, upon extracting the rib, created Adam's navel. The surgery was indeed
made
_http://www.landoverbaptist.org/sermons/navel.html_
(http://www.landoverbaptist.org/sermons/navel.html)
in the very area where God intended to attach
future children within the wombs of their mothers. T
he outward thrust created a puncture hole, and thus
became, for Adam, the first belly-button.
and not to dissimilar in form to the bodies of Cain and Abel -- who would
not be asking embarrassing questions to his father as to why _they_ had a
navel
but he hasn't.
Cheers,
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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