Adam and Eve

Those who are soldiers of the temple are of God.

Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve is a familiar story for most people in the whole world. It is about creation, the origin of man and why we are on earth.
There are people who see the story as a metaphor, others take it for granted that it happened that way.
No matter how you look at it, there are fascinating facts about this beautiful biblical story.
First of all, it is striking that there are also similar creation stories in other cultures and religions.

Khnemu is the Egyptian god of fertility and Prometheus, the Greek god (also the god of fire), made humans out of clay.
In the first story of the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish, it is that Gilgamesh makes man out of dust. The gods make a male companion for Gilgamesh. Unable to resist the temptation of a serpent, he loses his immortality. After which a woman disrupts the lives of the men.

Now Eve was not the first woman on earth. Lilith has that honor. Lilith did not listen to Adam and was therefore banished from the Garden of Eden. After that, her life takes a drastic turn: she becomes a demon.
With Liltith out of the court, there is room for Eve. Eve is made from Adam’s rib. But is that really true? It has been translated from Hebrew. The Hebrew word is < tsela > which is translated as rib. But Tsela translated is the side of the body. In other words: limbs lateral to the vertical axis of an upright human body. So Eve could just as well have been made of other bones from Adam’s side region.
Then there are theologians who say that Eve comes from Adam’s bacelum = penis bone. The vast majority of mammals have a penis bone, humans do not. Because Eve is made of that. As a result, the children of Adam and Eve and all grandchildren/everyone after that: do not have a penis bone.   Many Christians also believe that Adam and Eve did not have navels. Even though this is often depicted in paintings/drawings. But artists did not take this into account.

Satan did not exist in the time of Adam and Eve. The serpent is later interpreted as the devil.

In Islam, Allah commanded the angels to worship Adam. Because Allah had made Adam. But Iblis – known as satan – definitely did not do this. So in the Qur’an, the serpent is the devil.

So is the apple. The Bible does not mention the apple as the forbidden fruit at all. The Hebrew word is < peri >. You can translate that differently: it can also be grape, fig or wheat. Hieronimus of Stridon, the creator of the Vulgate, translated the Latin word < malus > into apple. But Malus can also go to < evil >  be translated. He used apple to describe the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.

Another translation problem is in Genesis about Eve: Genesis 3:16 : “I will make your pains heavy during childbirth; with painful labor you will bear children”. Everywhere in the Bible, the Hebrew word < etzev > is translated to labor, toil, work. But during childbirth it is translated to: sadness, pain or fear.

And where was that Garden of Eden? We still don’t know exactly. We do have this data from the Bible: Genesis 2:10 says, “There flowed a river out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided, and four rivers were made.” Again, translation-dependent. What is named is: Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel (= the Tigris) and Phirat (= the Euphrates). From which we can deduce that the Garden of Eden is located in Mesopotamia. Today’s Iraq and Kuwait, or in present-day Turkey or Armenia. But we don’t know exactly yet.