Every gay and lesbian person has heard it before, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."
But have you ever taken a moment to think about who or what Adam was before the creation
of Eve.
That’s what we’re going examine today in a Lesson called, “Under the Fig Leaf
-- Adam Before Eve.”
But before we do that, as a reminder if you’re interested in learning more about Queer Theology
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It may be a surprise for many to hear that there are actually two separate creation stories
depicted in Genesis 1 and 2, probably written about 500 years apart.
The most notable difference between the two accounts deals with the creation of humanity.
In Genesis 1, humanity is made on the final day of creation, whereas in Genesis 2, the
first human is made before anything else and then eventually split into a second human.
Rabbis for centuries have attempted to reconcile these two accounts and have argued that the
Adam of Genesis 2 fame who is later split into Adam and Eve is the same creature, a
singular one at that, that God created in Genesis 1 when God said, “Let us make humankind
in our image.”
The Hebrew word for humankind depicted here is h’adam, literally meaning “of the earth”
or “earth creature”.
Therefore textreads “God created [ADAM] in his image, in the image of God he created
him; male and female he created them.”
At first glance it would appear that God is creating two seperate sexes, but that’s
not what Hebrew text says at all.
God is creating Adam in God’s androgynous image -- which is male and female, or what
is referred to today as intersex!
This then brings us to Genesis 2 when God sees that Adam is lonely.
“It is not good that [ADAM] should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”
Don’t be misled by the masculine language here… since gender Neutral pronouns weren’t
part of the Hebrew language, masculinity was the default.
The Hebrew translation of helper here, “ezer kenegdo”, means “equal strength” or
“corresponding help”.
Of course this wasn’t accomplished through the accompaniment of cattle, birds, and fish,
but through a being just like Adam.
Queer Theologian Austen Hartke explains: “God is not concerned about Adam’s gender
or sex.
God is concerned with Adam’s need for love and community.
“So verse 21 says that God took one of Adam’s ribs, closed up the place with flesh, and
made a woman.
This here is the first time the Hebrew words for Man/Male and Woman/Female are used in
Genesis 2.
Therefore prior to this moment, gender did not exist!
Textual scholars have pointed out that a better translation of the word rib, is actually side.
So, the phrase used to describe woman’s creation from man’s rib actually means an
entire side of the original Adam’s body is used.
This would be consistent with what 2nd and 3rd century Jewish scholars have said about
the creation stories: God separated Adam’s feminine side from
his masculine.
And from that moment onward, men and women spend their days longing for the completion
of their other side.
In short, “This is a conversation about one thing, becoming two, then longing
to become one again.”
Or how Genesis 2 concludes: “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings
to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
In the New Testament, it appears that St. Paul might agree with this interpretation
in his Letter to that Galatians.
Pauline Scholar, Dr. Wayne Meeks argues that Galatians 3:28 reflects the philosophical
ideal of the unification of opposites that was widespread in the ancient world, especially
as this ideal was expressed in the myth of the primal androgyne….
(what the Bible calls ADAM).
According to Meeks, when Paul claims that in Christ there is ‘no
male and female’, he is quoting an early Christian baptismal formula which imagined
the reunification of the divided male and female.”
When you are baptized you are clothed with Christ, according to Paul.
Putting on new clothes symbolizes the new person who is “renewed according to the image of [the] Creator”
Through baptism, we become more like Christ -- like literally, one of the rituals of this
Sacrament is the anointing with oil.
Christ means anointed one.
So, when we receive the oil, we are also anointed ones -- or little Christs, so to speak.
So if gender is rendered meaningless once we are part of Christ’s body, is this the
same as saying that Jesus too was androgynous?
Well if you tuned into my Christmas Lesson, we already broached that theory.
And since Jesus is God it would make theological sense that the incarnation reflects the fullness
of the image of god and hence the totality of gender.
Paul also refers to Jesus as the New Adam and so, I think it’s feasible to suspect
that either at his birth or maybe after his death when he returns in an unrecognizable
glorified body…
Jesus exhibited characteristics of androgynous first human that was Adam before Eve.