The Making of Woman   Great things happen when man falls asleep	by Jeff Priddy

eople make fun of the Bible because it's full of such ridiculous accounts. Noah's ark? Tell us another one. What folks don't realize is that God does ridiculous things on purpose so that later on He can show folks that, compared to their wisdom, Noah's ark was a piece of science (1 Cor. 1:19,25).

    But in some places, the Bible is more ridiculous than it needs to be. This is due to poor translating. Take the creation of man, for instance. It's strange enough to learn that God forms Adam from soil. Now we're told that, causing a stupor to fall on the man, God removes one of his ribs and builds a woman out of it.

    O-kaaaay.

    Even though we don't understand it, we believe it because it's "in the Bible." But, compared to this, even Noah's ark makes sense. I mean, we can at least grasp the concept: animals breathe water, animals die. Animals get in big boat, animals live. But a rib? That strains even hard core believers.

    But it wasn't a rib. Listen. God did not take a rib from Adam to build woman. What He did take will fill you with wonderment at the genius of God.

A different word

    If God had taken a rib from Adam, then in Genesis 2:21-22 (where the event is described), we would see the Hebrew equivalent of the Chaldee "ala," used in Daniel 7:5 to describe a proper, anatomical rib. But that word is not here. Instead, we see the Hebrew word "tsela," which means "a hollow, angular vault."

    A hollow, angular vault? Yes.

Rooms at the temple

    This same word, "tsela," is used for the side rooms in the millennial temple, described by Ezekiel in Ez. 41:5-26. Read this passage on your own. When you read "side rooms" in both the KJV and the NASB (the Concordant Version of the Old Testament renders them "angle cells"), you are reading the Hebrew "tsela," the same word used in Genesis 2:21 to describe what God took from Adam.

    (Note the illustration of Herod's temple, below. Though not strictly accurate, this illustration does show you a  couple side rooms--labeled "oil storage" and "Nazarites' court"--built into the walls of the temple. These are by no means ribs, but hollow chambers, vaults, rooms.)

    God took a side room from Adam? He removed an angule cell from him? Yes, in a manner.

Angular rooms

    Why does the Concordant Version use "angle cell"? Because this version is the most literal, and thus the most accurate. There are three stories of side rooms in Ezekiel's temple. With each ascending story, the side rooms widen. Read 1 Kings 6:6 to see the same design in Solomon's temple. So the cells, or rooms, are angular in that they widen from bottom to top.

    Likewise the tabernacle in the wilderness. The Hebrew word translated "boards" 15 times (KJV) in Exodus 26 ("qeresh"), describing the walls of the tabernacle, should be translated "hollow tapers," as in the Concordant Version. Why? The same word is used of the prow of a ship in Ezekiel 27:6. The prow of a ship is--what? A hollow taper. The "boards" of the tabernacle, then, were actually two sloping boards joined at the top. Curtains were hung from these, making the walls of the tabernacle angular and hollow.

    All of this just to show you that "tsela," our key word from Genesis 2:21, is not a rib, but an angular cell, vault, or chamber.

Hebrew health class

    The structure being demonstrated at right, ladies and gentlemen, is the human uterus, otherwise known as the womb. It is an angular, hollow chamber, tapering at the end, the excusive property of the fem.....

    Great God! An angular, hollow chamber? Tapering at the end? The exclusive property of the female sex? Could this be what was removed from Adam, from which God built woman?

    Yo.

    From the Concordant Version, Genesis 2:21-22: "And falling is a stupor on the human, caused by Ieue Alueim, and he is sleeping. And taking is He one of his angular organs and is closing the flesh under it. And Ieue Alueim is building the angular organ, which He takes from the human, into a woman." 

See for yourself!        In verse 21 of Genesis, chapter 2, we read that after God put Adam to sleep and removed one of his angular organs, God "closed the flesh under it."    On the male anatomy, gentlemen, at about where the tape measure stops when we measure our inseam, there is what ap- pears to be a suture, a slightly raised line of overlapping skin running front to back, dead center. Here is a gnetically transmitted rem- nant of the most sublime operation ever to be forgotten by humankind.    Do not attempt to confirm this marvel in a public place. When curiosity overcomes you, a mirror facilitates the process. If you have a lock on your bathroom door. I stringly sug- gest that you use it.

Lack produces fulfillment

    Before Eve was built from Adam/s angular organ, no mate among all the creatures was found for him. The Scripture uses an even stronger word: Adam had no complement. "Yet for the human He does not find a helper as his complement" (Gn. 2:20).

    At this time, Adam was complete in himself. He contained both sexes. In short, he "had it all." Adam had all the sensitivity Eve would posses, yet with all the ruggedness we associate with masculinity. He was the perfect human. And yet, he knew no vital enjoyment of it. He was unappreciative.

    Upon awakening from "surgery," Adam knew something had been taken from him. Note verse 23: "This was once bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This shall be called woman, for from her man is this taken."

    A compliment is "that which fills a lack." Before Adam could enjoy a filling, he had to know lack. God provided this by removing the one organ that made Adam all in himself.

The magnet principle

    Now you better understand the attraction of the sexes. In woman, man finds what he is not. He wants her because she fills up again what was taken from him. Taken was his delicateness. Taken was his sensitivity. Taken were good measures of his grace and understanding (and looks, maybe?). Yet these come to him again, with fireworks, through union with the woman.

    Ah! Our newfound truth is more evident here (in the sexual union) than anywhere, and here we see more than ever the absurdity of "rib." What does a rib have to do with a man's desire for a woman? Does man long for his lost rib? No. But in the marriage embrace, we see clearly what man does long for, and it is entirely consistent with what he lost on Eden. Thus, "the two shall be one flesh" (Mt.  19:5). Now you see how true this really is.

A blessed parallel

    The union of man and wife gives us a picture of Christ and the ecclesia which is His body (Eph 5:31-32). In an amazing verse of Scripture, Ephesians 1:22-23, the body of Christ is referred to as "the complement of the One completing the all in all."

    Just as Adam became incomplete without Eve, so has Christ become incomplete without His body. I realize this is hard to fathom, but it's true. We are Christ's complement, His body. We were taken from Him. Thus, we fill Him. As He completes us, so do we complete Him. And so there is a mutual longing, one for the other.

    Ephesians 1:3-4: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who blesses us with every spiritual blessing among the celestials, in Christ, according as He chooses us in Him before the disruption of the world."

Another kind of stirring

Yet at some point during the life of every member of the body of Christ, God stirs up a longing. This longing begins in the spirit and moves to the heart. It's a realization that we are incomplete. We came from somewhere--or from Someone--but we don't yet know where or Who.

Then God leads us to His Word. And as we read verses like those in Ephesians, chapter one, God's spirit moves us. Then the realization comes: it's us He's talking about! We were once in Him!

There is a great reunion on the horizon. I know you're longing for Christ, as are all the members of His body. But what is this compared to how much He is longing for you?