Musings on Eve, Ribs and Wisdom

Where did you learn about Adam and Eve? The Myth that is almost as old as time.

Did you learn about them? Or does your religion have a different myth of origin? Did Ask and Embla step off a beach? Did Prometheus give you fire, or did some god breathe life into clay?

Adam and Eve are a part of the creation 'myth' I subscribe to, with lashings of science and a little bit of stardust to form a more cohesive whole. I first learned about them at primary school back in the day when bible study classes were still a thing.

There, I was taught about Adam and Eve, about a man made in God’s image and a woman formed from a rib and I thought, how did that work?

Did God walk up to Adam one day, asking, “What are you willing to give for a companion?”

Was Adam confused when he pointed at the animals populating the Garden, asking in turn, “A companion, Lord? But I have so many.”

Did God smile, a little condescending, a little patronizing and say, “A companion like you, Adam”?

I don’t know.

A rib. That’s what Adam gave, what God took, action and reaction. A rib. Why a rib? Why not his hand, or his heart? An arm, a leg. An eye, the way Odin gave his for wisdom?

He gave a rib. Maybe he chose a rib because he had many, because one more or less didn’t matter.

I wonder what Eve thought about that, about being made from something that wouldn’t be missed, something non-essential.

Did she ask herself, do you think, why she was made from Adam at all? If God made Adam, then why not her? Why remove her from Himself? Why make Adam her creator by proxy, her father by DNA?

And what did Eve’s DNA look like? Adam’s?

Did it look like that of the Chimpanzees dancing between the trees, or was it a double helix of stardust and divinity?

Did Adam ever wonder about the things that made him up? I think Eve did. I think she looked at her reflection in the water, at the curvature of the rib reflected in her body, and she wondered why that bone? Why that shape? Why her?

I think that, maybe, the Serpent was kicking down open doors.

And anyway, who puts a tree in a garden, puts apples on it, and then puts up a sign saying, do not touch?

That’s like telling a seven-year-old, “Do not go into the spare bedroom,” three days before Christmas.

You know, inevitably, that the words, “I just wanted to look,” will be spoken. You know that Eve looked at that tree, at Odin’s wisdom made succulent flesh, and she listened to the Serpent hisspering in her ear about ribs and hearts and stardust helixes. And she thought, “I just want to know.”

So she ate the fruit and she looked down at herself and she still saw the curvature of the rib.

And she must have wondered if being made in His image means having His grace inside of you. And if grace diminishes over time and generations, was it less in her than in Adam? Did she carry the grace stored in a single bone in her? Does grace accumulate?

Or does it spread until it equals zero?

Adam, Adam. Adam ate that apple, too. Adam gained his wisdom in exchange for a rib and a chance at eternal life. I was seven when I heard about Eve’s crime, or her temptation, and I thought, “Was he mad?”

Did he hate Eve? Did he look at her and see something that wouldn’t be missed, something non-essential? Did he see what Eve saw, the curvature of a rib bone turned flesh? And if he did see, did he love himself in Eve, or did he hate her, the fruit in her hand, the knowledge she brought?

Did he ask himself, after the apple, why he was only willing to give a rib? Did he offer his heart as recompense for the slight?

And when they left the Garden on bare feet, wind biting into bare skin, did Adam lead, or did Eve?