EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE 



according to the ideal image which the man had of her in his 

 mind, or could have had.^ Another suggestion is that Adam's 

 body served as an exemplar cause, in the sense that the woman 

 was fashioned according to the pattern furnished by the man."^ 

 In that case. Eve would be derived from Adam in the way a 

 portrait or a statue is derived from an artist's model. 



In such interpretations the incident of the rib is an apt 

 symbol stressing the love and respect a man ought to have 

 for his wife, seeing that God has so exquisitely proportioned 

 her to the desires of his heart. It further explains the mutual 

 attraction between man and woman, the close union that ought 

 to reign between spouses, and the submission of the wife to 

 the husband in matrimony. Woman is man's aid, his helper, 

 at his side; she may even be said to be his side, his other half. 



The proposals that have been mentioned are, of course, no 

 more than conjectures endeavoring to apply the theory of 

 literary forms. They do, however, seem to safeguard the truth 

 that the origin of the woman is intimately linked, in God's 

 intention and execution, with the origin of the man. They 

 also eliminate some perplexities. In the supposition that Eve's 

 body was derived physically from Adam's, we have to admit 

 a priority of existence for the latter. How long an interval 

 elapsed between the creation of the two? If the man lived for 

 a time without the woman, then he, during that time, was not 

 perfect or even wholly content, because he lacked the neces- 

 sary complement of his nature, and could not exercise his 

 destined function to be the progenitor of mankind. Moreover, 

 the obvious sense of the text resurrects a bizarre difficulty 

 that intrigued earlier commentators: how many ribs did Adam 

 have at first, and how many remained after one was removed? 

 Either before or after he was imperfect. 



The entire passage about Eve heaps up anthropomorphic 

 expressions. God reflects and deliberates. He organizes a 

 procession of animals before Adam. He notices that Adam 

 cannot find in the animal world a being of his own nature. 

 Like a good surgeon. He puts the man to sleep. He extracts 

 a rib. He uses the rib as a core around which to construct the 



® L. Arnaldich, O.F.M., El origen del mundo y del hombre segiin la 



Biblia (Madrid, 1957) 120. 

 "* H. Lusseau, Precis d'histoite biblique (Paris, 1949) 55 f. 



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