CPCC Bible Study: Adam....
      ... and Eve

"Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before him."
- Mark Twain
      There's no end to myths about the First Man. Let's hit a few that have been floating around for some time:
      Adam was named in chapter one of Genesis. Adam ate an apple. Adam was fifteen feet tall. Adam was only in Paradise for five hours. Adam was a tribe of people (the base word is also plural). It took Adam two weeks to bury Abel because he didn't know how to dig a grave. Adam was ninety feet tall.....

      Yeah, that last one is out there, and based on a statement in a holy book, and is believed, or at least is supposed to be believed, by a good percentage of the people descended from Adam, we'll come back and give that one some special attention.

      And there is also no end to the speculation about Eve. For instance:
      Eve was the most beautiful woman ever. Eve was Adam's second wife. The serpent appeared to Eve as a woman to more easily gain her trust (we have a famous sculpture to prove it!). .... and, Eve's grave is in Saudi Arabia, see link below.

      And then we have the interaction between the two. Most mentions of them turn Adam into a babbling idiot when Eve is brought to him. That is not supported by the Genesis text as we see in the study looking at the end of chapter two.

      We'll take the easy way out for a change by simply labeling ALL of the above mythology as exactly that. Stories that have arisen in the eons since the original events, and is even mentioned in books like Jubilees and in the works of Josephus.
      But first, let's look at exactly what was created in Genesis 1 : 27.
      As we saw in the study the word translated to English as 'created' means exactly that, and is the same word used in the first verse for the ultimate act of creation.
      The word 'image' includes the idea of form and likeness. It contains aspects of the creation that are not necessarily physical but includes intangibles like consciousness, the ability to receive information from the senses, to communicate to others, and the emotions. And in this case, the original 'image' being copied was The Creator.
      But many people only focus on the physical likeness. So let's look at that for a moment. If Adam was five feet ten inches (178 cm) tall, and weighed one hundred fifty pounds (68 kilos), does that mean God does as well? If Adam had olive skin and black hair, does God? In the painting "Creation of Adam" the artist depicted Adam as a younger version of The Creator, taking the "in Our image" as physical, to the extreme. See the photos at links below, and we will come back to it in a moment.
      This is perhaps one of the aspects of the Creation that is hardest for us, as physical, mortal beings, existing in a three dimensional world, with linear time, find the hardest to comprehend. That the corpse created from "the dust of the ground", as related in chapter two's creation of man story, has little to do with the sentience of the species.
      One would think that the infamous 'apple from the tree' would be a material fruit, like an apple. But does it have to be? If it were totally symbolic, a 'metaphysical' fruit, but still prohibited, it serves the same function, and ultimate purpose. We are way out in the weeds here and it will take a major change of gears to get back, but here goes... Could the 'dust of the ground' story be metaphoric to aid in our understanding and the essential original, 'as created', being of both Adam and Eve have been something other than 'blood and guts' until the moment of the fall? And they realized they were naked because they were suddenly trapped in a flesh and blood body, instead of whatever sort of existence they had before?
      Which is what is referred to in that almost impenetrable morass of Jewish teachings called The Zohar, a work that refers to Adam by the name Adam Kadmon, which is the first man as created in a spiritual body, not a physical one. There's a link to part of that below.
      Oddly enough, when you look at the original Hebrew of the Genesis passage. It is possible. And remember, the original book was written so physical, mortal, linear time restricted, Humans could understand it when it was recited to them as a poetic song.

Gear Change.
      Is there any indication of what either of the original cast of humans looked like? For a shining example we'll go back to Rome and point up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and take in Michelangelo's "Creation of Man" once again. As we mentioned earlier, if you focus on the faces of the two that are Very Nearly touching fingertips, they appear to be closely related, with Adam being significantly younger, brunette, clean shaven, and intensely muscled (as are the majority of Michelangelo's subjects) version of the Creator.
      In the painting, you can see the figure of Eve in the crook of The Creator's left arm with an 'updo' of light auburn hair. They all look Roman-istic in their facial features. Which, as the ancient texts do not specify anything else, is as good as you're going to get.

      Of course the figure of Eve is integral to the Creation of the Human Race. And she is held to an impossible standard for everything feminine, and is blamed for The Fall. Which, as we see in the study, isn't the case as per the text. The bad stuff didn't happen until Adam had a bite.
      Also, Eve as a woman has been overshadowed in Western Christianity by Mary the Mother of Christ. In some ways, Eve is held out as an example of failure whereas the Virgin is lifted up, in some traditions Literally Lifted Up, as the Perfection of Womanhood. And, again, neither is supported by the Text.

      One oddity of the painting we were talking about, and later in the "Temptation", next in the ceiling sequence, is that both Adam and Eve have a navel. Odd considering that they were not born in the usual sense.

"Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant."
- Mark Twain

      Now about Adam being a giant. Not the starting center on the local college basketball team at a tick or two over seven feet tall (two meters and change). A REAL Giant.
      That is exactly what is maintained in a selection of texts by Sahih Muslim in the Hadith.

"Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, created Adam in His image with His length of sixty cubits, ...
... So he who would get into Paradise would get in the form of Adam, his length being sixty cubits, then the people who followed him continued to diminish in size up to this day."
https://sunnah.com/muslim:2841 included in link below.

"When Adam and Eve heard God approaching, they hid among the trees - which would not have been possible before the fall. Before he committed his trespass, Adam's height was from the heavens to the earth, but afterward it was reduced to one hundred ells. Another consequence of his sin was the fear Adam felt when he heard the voice of God: before his fall it had not disquieted him in the least. Hence it was that when Adam said, "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid," God replied, "Aforetime thou wert not afraid, and now thou art afraid?"...
-and-
... "They have many other names. Sometimes they go by the name Rephaim, because one glance at them made one's heart grow weak; or by the name Gibborim, simply giants, because their size was so enormous that their thigh measured eighteen ells..."
- Rabbi Ginzberg, "The Legends of the Jews", see link below.

Background:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/alphabet-of-ben-sira

A version of the text: the Aleph Bet of Ben Sira https://www.sefaria.org/Otzar_Midrashim%2C_The_Aleph_Bet_of_ben_Sira%2C_The_Alphabet_of_ben_Sira%2C_(alternative_version).34?lang=bi

Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus Read or Download for Free! from: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2848

The Book of Jubilees, as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/c/charles/otpseudepig/files/jubilee/index.htm

the Haggada "the Legends of the Jews". The text includes: "The Creation Of Adam" and "The Soul Of Man"
-and-
"Lilith was first given to Adam as wife. Like him she had been created out of the dust of the ground. But she remained with him only a short time, because she insisted upon enjoying full equality with her husband."
https://sacred-texts.com/jud/loj/loj104.htm And the Zohar:

"From the terms male and female, we gather that every figure that does not bear the form of the male or female, is not in the image and likeness of Adam Kadmon, the primal ideal man of which we have formerly spoken."
https://sacred-texts.com/jud/zdm/zdm043.htm

"... just as Adam also buried his own son there – Abel, whom his brother Cain murdered; for he lay for 3 years unburied, until he saw a bird called Jackdaw, how it buried his own young."
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/slavonicenoch.html

Some Artwork: Adam, Eve, and the Serpent https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Adam-Eve-and-the-serpent-in-a-13-th-century-sculpture-at-the-entrance-to-Notre-Dame_fig1_325385669

More: https://www.friendsofnotredamedeparis.org/

the paintings: The Creation of Adam https://www.thesistinechapel.org/the-creation-of-adam
The Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden https://www.wga.hu/html_m/m/michelan/3sistina/1genesis/4sin/index.html

About the artist and his times.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/michelangelo

The 'sixty cubit' Adam verses:
"This hadith has been narrated on the authority of Abu Huraira through another chain of transmitters that Allah's Messenger (pbuh) said..." "The Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)" https://sunnah.com/muslim/53

Rabbi Louis Ginzberg's master work The Legends of the Jews https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1493
Downloadable, or read it online for FREE!

"Eve’s tomb in Jeddah - myth or reality? https://www.arabnews.com/node/1264876/saudi-arabia

The Book of Jubilees:
"In the first week was Adam created, and the rib - his wife: in the second week He showed her unto him ..."
chapter 3, verse 8 http://www.pseudepigrapha.com/jubilees/3.htm

read or download for Free
"the Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus" https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2848

Apocryphal Pseudepigraphica
From about 500 AD, most likely from somewhere in the Middle East. the Desk neither considers these books religious canon, nor historically reliable, however, they are interesting.

First Book of Adam and Eve, Chapter VIII
1 Then Adam cried and said, "O God, when we lived in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we can't see like we used to; no, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us."
2 Then God the Lord said to Adam, "When you were under subjection to Me, you had a bright nature within you, and for that reason could you see things far away. But after your transgression your bright nature was withdrawn from you; and it was not left to you to see things far away, but only near at hand; after the ability of the flesh; for it is brutish."
The First Book of Adam and Eve https://www.gutenberg.org/files/398/398-h/398-h.htm

The Book of Enoch https://www.holybooks.com/the-book-of-enoch-the-george-h-schodde-translation/

A look at the legend of Lilith by the Desk: http://themediadesk.com/files8/lilith.htm

Genesis Study Index Page

NOTE: The Bible Study Lesson presented above is posted as a reference document to begin a conversation of the topic. And that's it. Please accept it at such.

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