Bible Romances, First SeriesFoote, G. W. (George William)
Religion
Bible Romances, First Series
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Bible; Free thought
We now proceed to examine the Jehovistic account of Creation in detail.
We read that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, the
Hebrew word for which is _adamah_. The word Adam means "be red," and
_adamah_ may be referred to the red soil of Palestine. Kalisch also
observes that man may have been originally called Adam on account of the
red color of his skin. The Chinese represent man as kneaded of _yellow_
earth, and the _red_ Indians of _red_ clay. The belief that man was
formed of earth was not confined to the Jews, but has been almost
universal, and undoubtedly arose from the fact that our bodies after
death return to the earth and resolve into the elements. The Lord God
placed this forlorn first man in the Garden of Eden with the command to
till it, and permission to eat of the fruit of all its trees except "the
tree of knowledge of good and evil." How Adam trespassed and fell, and
brought a curse upon himself and all his innocent posterity, we shall
consider in another pamphlet. The story of the Fall is infinitely
curious and diverting, and must be treated separately.
Adam's first exploit, after he had taken a good look round him, was very
marvellous. All the cattle and beasts of the field and fowl of the air
were brought before him to be named, and "whatsover Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof." This first Zoological
Dictionary is unfortunately lost, or we should be able to call every
animal by its right name, which would doubtless gratify them as well as
ourselves. The fishes and insects were not included in this primitive
nomenclature, so the loss of the Dictionary does not concern them.
The Lord made the animals pass before Adam seemingly with the
expectation that he would choose a partner from amongst them. Nothing,
however, struck his fancy. If he had fallen in love with a female
gorilla or ourang-outang, what a difference it would have made in the
world's history!
After this wonderful exploit "the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon
Adam," who surely must have been tired enough to fall into a good sound
natural sleep, without a heavenly narcotic. While in this state one of
his ribs was extracted for a purpose we shall presently refer to, and
which he discovered when he awoke. This curious surgical operation
involves a dilemma. If Adam was upright after it, he must have been
lopsided before; if he was upright before it, he must have been lopsided
after. In either case the poor man was very scurvily treated.
It has been maintained that God provided Adam with another rib in place
of the one extracted. But this is a mere conjecture. Besides, if the
Lord had a spare rib in stock he might have made a woman of it, without
cutting poor Adam open and making a _pre mortem_ examination of his
inside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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