The story of Adam’s rib must be understood as one of the utmost critical and ultimate failures of his life because it laid the foundation for the destruction of Paradise. It is also the trickiest to decipher. Unfortunately for us, Adam’s part in this disaster seems to have been deliberately camouflaged by the writers of the Bible, within a story that makes no immediate sense to the casual reader. It seems that this section was written intentionally in an idiotic jargon, so that this immense blunder that Adam committed, would be hidden away where no one would discover the truth within the story. Therefore, it is my intention to uncover and decipher the clues within this very important section of his life, so that we can discover why, through his personal actions, the Eden project failed.
There are three parts that have to be decrypted and studied in order to understand the hidden meaning within this old fairy tale. The first would be why was so much emphasis put on finding him a mate. The second is the investigation into who put Adam to sleep and why. The third would be the meaning of the rib. If we can decrypt these three images, we will obtain and perceive a whole new understanding to this story.
The story begins with the Lord God saying that Adam needed a partner and that He would make a suitable helper for him.[i] It is understandable that at some point in his life of 930 years[ii] Adam would have wanted a mate. It is part of our biological make-up. Besides, the Lord God had specifically announced that now every species was capable of reproducing itself. This can be seen in the Noah’s Ark story. The underlining reason for the search for a mate was because Adam was part of a pilot project that would have given the Earth children in the true image of Man, as Jesus had been. That is partly why Adam had been given the Breath of Life and this particular mission within the garden. For in order to give birth to such divine children, Adam would have had need of a companion capable of understanding what needed to done. Someone who could participate and appreciate being part of the group who operated with the Breath of Life. An equal in this intellectual and spiritual connection with the true God. I also believe that was the reason for the naming lesson which comes up in the very next sentence after the decision was made that Adam needed a mate. [iii] For the lesson was to help him learn how to decipher the different human natures that surrounded him in order to help him make a good choice. At this point it is said that no suitable helper could be found.
Now the next part of this story is very tricky to decode, so we will have to go at it slowly. It is right after the statement that no mate could be found, that God put Adam into a deep sleep[iv] and that a mate seemed to have been imposed on him. Here is one of those hidden deceptions or rather blatant lies that people have been believing for ages. The problem with that statement is that the Lord God being awareness itself would never have put anyone to sleep nor impose a mate. Such an image would have sent out the wrong message to humanity. On the contrary, He specifically gifted Adam with the Breath of Life so the he could work and comprehend what true Life was about as well as the naming lesson in order to make a better decision. To understand and work for God one must be awake. When someone is sleeping, they are not spiritually and mentally alert and can easily be taken advantage of. When the subconscious or sleep takes over, there is a lack of awareness. This was not the moment for Adam to be sleeping, especially since he had the serious decision of choosing a mate. Furthermore, there was no reason to physically put Adam to sleep in order to create a woman, since in Genesis chapter one, God had already made humans, both male and female.[v] Besides, since God is seen as perfection, He would have made the human form to work perfectly, like He did with all of His creations. [vi] It, therefore, would have been inhuman and cruel to rip Adam’s flesh apart and remove a rib, which would have unbalanced Adam’s physical form. Hence, one must recognize that this peculiar sleep was symbolic. The strangely imposed sleep here could only be that of spiritual torpor. In other words, Adam was not paying attention to the task at hand and he was not taking this important decision seriously. A decision that would have a future impact on every soul imprisoned on this planet.
The next question to be raised is that, if it wasn’t the Creator that put Adam to sleep, then what god did? Who was this god that had so much influence that he could put Adam into a spiritual inactive mode. It could only be the one, whom we loyally and blindly followed when we got kicked out of Heaven. The one who preferred to rule in Hell rather than serve in Heaven. The reason that this little god or rather devil needed to put Adam into a slumber was to ensure that he would not properly assess the situation at hand, that of choosing a trustworthy mate. For if Adam did that, then the Lord God’s children would have reigned triumphantly over the planet. On the other hand, if Adam, the official representative of God in Eden, could be manipulated into a spiritual slumber, then this would ensure the survival of this old enemy, who needed to oust the real God out of the control of this realm. If this hypothesis is right then two points emerge. The first would be that Adam was once again sleeping on the job and not using the Breath of Life in order to fulfill his duty to the real Lord God. The second would be that Lucifer or better yet, lets call him by his more recognized name Satan, “the adversary”, had a lot of influence on this planet, as demonstrated by the serpent in the tree within the region of Eden.
We now come to the part of the story that deals with the extraction of the rib itself. The question that we must ask is why would God physically cause bodily harm to his creation. When He opened up and supposedly took out one of Adam’s rib to formulate Eve, why such an image of a gruesome operation in paradise. I believe this verse holds three particular symbolic images to study.
The first is the image of the rib itself. Men have been using this metaphor over the millenniums as a means to project the idea that women are lesser beings then men. Unfortunately, as usual they got it wrong and women have been paying for this inaccuracy ever since. Its not very hard to decipher the symbol of the rib. The rib is part of the body that protects the vital organs of the body. Here, the image was that Adam was meant to protect the most vital part of the project, the only being that could bring onto this planet a new and divine world. People in the image of children of God, like Jesus. She would have needed protection because Satan and his minions still had a lot of influence on this planet and were even then prowling within the garden. This truth can be seen in the fact that the human/serpent was hanging around the ‘do not touch tree’ and that he deliberately introduced himself only to Eve and not Adam. Why you wonder? It was because as procreator, she was the true power within this project not Adam. In order to ensure his survival and his victory down here, Satan needed to seduce the only person whose descendants, if they were born divine, would have reduced his power to nothing. As we see with Jesus, Satan could never tempt him. That was the real image for the story of the rib. Adam’s job as her mate was to teach her about God and protect her from the existing evil hanging around. Which we now know he failed at because he did not recognize the danger of the serpent that was within his jurisdiction, that of the garden, and that he also ate the forbidden fruit.
A second symbolic interpretation of the rib story can be seen within the French language where the rib is called a côte and the verb a côté means on or by the side. Hence, the use of the rib here would simply symbolize that a woman had been selected to remain by his side. In modern terms, to remain by a man’s side would symbolize a union or better yet marriage.
The third point to be analysed, is that it was written that Adam was sleeping during this operation while this woman was being fashioned physically from him. As the procedure never really happened, it must be assumed that the symbol of the rib is telling us that he chose her because she was characteristically just like him in nature. She had the same attitude and failures such as disobedience and lack of comprehension as he did, especially when she w mingling with the human/serpent and eating that prohibited fruit. By electing to choose someone characteristic and spiritually perfidious like him, he became indirectly the reason why paradise was lost to us.
Now we can understand the real reason why the story of the rib was introduced into this chapter and why this self-proclaimed god put Adam to sleep. For while he was spiritually sleeping, Adam was swayed into making the wrong choice in a mate that eventually led to the fall of paradise. This whole section has always been about the introduction of Eve to Adam and the loss of paradise. It can now be seen that due to the fact that he allowed himself to fall into a spiritual slumber and that he chose a mate who was similar to him in nature, this decision ended up causing the banishment of every soul out of paradise and into hell. By choosing Eve as a mate and accepting her failure later on, Adam demonstrated three important facts. The first being that he was acting as a simpleton when he had one of the most important position on the planet. Secondly, that he had not learned to analyse human nature very well, establishing once again that he failed the naming lesson and could not decern the various dangerous souls that surrounded him including the serpent in the garden. Thirdly, that he failed in his duties as a teacher of the law and the commands of the Lord God in Eden by unsuccessfully protecting his mate from the human/serpent who seduced her. A mate of his choosing who was so characteristically shallow and thoughtless like him that she did not understand the danger she was incurring in talking to this enemy. If he was put to sleep by the influences of the enemy, one must wonder if she had been given enough knowledge to know who she was dealing with and what would be the horrible consequences for us all. All this failure because Adam had been sleeping on the job and not doing his duty. Something that preachers will not be able to hide anymore nor pretend that all this responsibility should fall on her shoulders alone, for one should not forget that in the end Adam also ate of the forbidden fruit.[vii]