In reading Genesis 1:26-28, and Genesis 5:2 we find that at first the name "Adam" belonged equally to male and female. God said: "Let US make man [or "Adam,"--it is the same word] in our likeness" and the story proceeds "In the image of God made HE HIM, male and female made HE THEM." Note that in the second clause, man is spoken of as both singular and plural. Adam was of both sexes- a hermaphrodite.
There is no "and" in the Hebrew. It is "in the image of God made HE HIM,"male-female" made He them." And you see that this was before Eve was formed, so it wasn't talking about her. This was known by Blavatsky and Steiner too.
This theory has been held among the Jews, at least as far back as the days of Jesus Christ, as shown by the writings of Philo, that man was, at the beginning male and female in one person. This belief will also be found among other peoples besides the Jews. After the androgynous state, it is thought that human beings were born in pairs, male and female twins.
This is called the separation of the sexes. In the past children born as hermaphrodites were considered to be quite special, godlike - not like in recent years where they have been operated on because they don't 'fit in' with a notion of normality.
This is called the separation of the sexes. In the past children born as hermaphrodites were considered to be quite special, godlike - not like in recent years where they have been operated on because they don't 'fit in' with a notion of normality.
Eve was not made from Adam's rib either. The Hebrew word is "tsela" which means "side". Nowhere else in the Bible is the word "tsela" translated as "rib".
This lends force to the Lord's words in Matthew 19:4, concerning the sanctity of marriage. We must remember He was speaking to men who were doubtless familiar with the theory: "Have, ye not read, that He Who made [no "them" in the original] from the beginning made them male and female." Again the rabbis did not seem to recognize an "and" in the expression in Genesis, "male and female," but read "male-female."
This saying of our Lord now makes perfect sense. We now know what He meant by "one flesh"- reflective of the first perfect Man- Adam Kadmon.
Dr. Hershon, in his book, Talmudic Miscellany, says: "There is a notion among the rabbis that Adam was possessed originally of a bi-sexual organism, and this conclusion they draw from Gen. 1:27, where it is said, 'God created man in His own image; male-female created He them.'..."
The first chapter of Genesis describes the original creation of "Adam," mankind - bearing in mind the fact that the word "Adam" is applied sometimes to mankind, and sometimes to the individual being who was husband of Eve. The second chapter describes the development of the first Adam into two sexes. Nowhere in the second chapter is found the word "create," of Adam, but a totally different word,"formed". "Formed" is used in Isaiah 44:2, 24 and 49:5, and used there exclusively of all idea of creation. Turn to Isa. 43:1, 7; 45:18, and see how it is used of a process additional to creation. This is what St. Paul refers to, where he says, "Adam was first formed then Eve"- 1 Tim. 2:13. He is speaking of development, not of original creation. Adam and Eve (as far as their primal state is concerned) were created simultaneously; but Adam was "formed," elaborated, first.
From Hebraic Literature Translations from the Talmud Midrashim & Kabbala:
These two natures, it was thought, lay side by side; according to some, the male on the right and the female on the left; according to others, back to back; while there were those who maintained that Adam was created with a tail, and that it was from this appendage Eve was fashioned.
-Bruce
Note: Some information in the above came from the God's Word to Women website.
More Reading: the Making of Adam
This lends force to the Lord's words in Matthew 19:4, concerning the sanctity of marriage. We must remember He was speaking to men who were doubtless familiar with the theory: "Have, ye not read, that He Who made [no "them" in the original] from the beginning made them male and female." Again the rabbis did not seem to recognize an "and" in the expression in Genesis, "male and female," but read "male-female."
This saying of our Lord now makes perfect sense. We now know what He meant by "one flesh"- reflective of the first perfect Man- Adam Kadmon.
Dr. Hershon, in his book, Talmudic Miscellany, says: "There is a notion among the rabbis that Adam was possessed originally of a bi-sexual organism, and this conclusion they draw from Gen. 1:27, where it is said, 'God created man in His own image; male-female created He them.'..."
The first chapter of Genesis describes the original creation of "Adam," mankind - bearing in mind the fact that the word "Adam" is applied sometimes to mankind, and sometimes to the individual being who was husband of Eve. The second chapter describes the development of the first Adam into two sexes. Nowhere in the second chapter is found the word "create," of Adam, but a totally different word,"formed". "Formed" is used in Isaiah 44:2, 24 and 49:5, and used there exclusively of all idea of creation. Turn to Isa. 43:1, 7; 45:18, and see how it is used of a process additional to creation. This is what St. Paul refers to, where he says, "Adam was first formed then Eve"- 1 Tim. 2:13. He is speaking of development, not of original creation. Adam and Eve (as far as their primal state is concerned) were created simultaneously; but Adam was "formed," elaborated, first.
From Hebraic Literature Translations from the Talmud Midrashim & Kabbala:
These two natures, it was thought, lay side by side; according to some, the male on the right and the female on the left; according to others, back to back; while there were those who maintained that Adam was created with a tail, and that it was from this appendage Eve was fashioned.
-Bruce
Note: Some information in the above came from the God's Word to Women website.
More Reading: the Making of Adam
4 comments:
Genesis Rabbah and Leviticus Rabbah are two collections of midrash which comment on this unusual interpretation, the former using a passage from Psalms to justify it:
“’You have formed me before and behind’ (Psalms 139:5)… R. Jeremiah b. Leazar said: When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the first ‘adam, He created it with both male and female sexual organs, as it is written, ‘Male and female He created them, and He called their name ‘adam.’ (Genesis Rabbah 8:1)
Rabbi Samuel b. Nahman said: At the time that the Holy One, Blessed Be He created Man, He created him as an Androgynos.
Resh Lakish said that at the time that [Adam] was created, he was made with two faces, and [God] sliced him and gave him two backs, a female one and a male one, as it says And He took from his sides, as it says, And to the side of the Tabernacle. (Leviticus Rabbah 12:2)
https://biblebrisket.com/2014/03/17/androgynousadam/
In the Book of Enoch we have Adam,the first divine androgyne, separating into man and woman, and becoming Jah-Heva in one form, or Race, and Cain and Abel* (male and female) in its other form or Race — the double-sexed Jehovah† — an echo of its Aryan prototype, Brahma-Vach. After which come the Third and Fourth Root-Races of mankind‡ — that is to say, Races of men and women, or individuals of opposite sexes, no longer sexless semi-spirits and androgynes, as were the two Races which precede them. This fact is hinted at in every Anthropogony. It is found in fable and allegory, in myth and revealed Scriptures, in legend and tradition. Because, of all the great Mysteries, inherited by Initiates from hoary antiquity, this is one of the greatest. It accounts for the bi-sexual element found in every creative deity, in Brahma-Viraj-Vach, as in Adam-Jehovah-Eve, also in “Cain-Jehovah-Abel.” For “The Book of the Generations of Adam” does not even mention Cain and Abel, but says only: “Male and female created he them. . . and called their name Adam” (ch. v. 5). Then it proceeds to say: “And Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image, and called his name Seth” (v. 3); after which he begets other sons and daughters, thus proving that Cain and Abel are his own allegorical permutations. Adam stands for the primitive human race, especially in its cosmo-sidereal sense. Not so, however, in its theo-anthropological meaning. The compound name of Jehovah, or Jah-Hovah, meaning male life and female life — first androgynous, then separated into sexes — is used in this sense in Genesis from ch. v. onwards. As the author of “The Source of Measures” says (p. 159): “The two words of which Jehovah is composed make up the original idea of male-female, as the birth originators”; for the Hebrew letter Jod was the membrum virile and Hovah was Eve, the mother of all living, or the procreatrix, Earth and Nature. The author believes, therefore, that “It is seen that the perfect one” (the perfect female circle or Yoni, 20612, numerically), “as originator of measures, takes also the form of birth-origin, as Hermaphrodite one; hence the phallic form and use.”
* Abel is Chebel, meaning “Pains of Birth,” conception.
-H.Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine
"Men-animals also split into two kingdoms, into the two sexes. This split gives rise to the human love that initially is still physical. Man can lift himself into the Gods' realm through this love. They lived from men's physical love just as men and animals live from the oxygen that plants emanate, and as plants live from light that's radiated back from the mineral kingdom. The nectar and ambrosia that the Gods feed on is the love of men and women. Man's ascent takes place through the overcoming of physical love,"
-Rudolf Steiner
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