Everyone knows the basic story of Adam and
Eve. They were the first humans, created by God
in the Garden of Eden. All was well until a snake tricked Eve into
eating an apple, then Eve tricked Adam, then God kicked them both out, and it turned into
a whole thing. Well, here's the real story of Adam and Eve. If you actually read Genesis, you'll notice
God creates the universe and everything in it twice, and the two accounts directly contradict
each other in some places. If you don't take the creation story literally,
as many Christians and Jews don't, then it's not an issue, but it's a huge problem for
some Biblical scholars who believe Genesis was one story completely written by Moses. Some people in history have gone to great
lengths to make the two versions mesh, like when they made Adam a hermaphrodite. In the first version of creation, it says
God formed Adam and Eve at the same time, and the story used the phrasing: "... male and female he created them." Some early Christian theologians decided this
meant that they were made to have both sexes, and while many church leaders were uncomfortable
with that idea, it stuck around as a theory for centuries. The two versions of creation are also where
the idea of Lilith comes from, and Jewish mythology says she was Adam's first wife. She later became a demon, as usually happens
in these stories. Lilith is the woman mentioned in the first
creation story, while Eve is the one made later from one of Adam's bones. It's always important to remember that if
you're reading the Bible in English, you're reading a translation. This becomes especially vital when you learn
things like Eve was created from one of Adam's ribs, because that's not what the original
Hebrew word means. Biblical Archaeology says the word "tsela"
appears 40 times in the Bible, and the only time it's translated as "rib" is in reference
to Eve. It usually refers to the side of something,
so this leaves a lot of room for interpretation. And interpret, people have done. A legitimate Biblical professor put forward
the idea that Eve was in fact made from Adam's baculum, which is a penis bone that's extremely
common in mammals. Even other primates have one, and Dr. Ziony
Zevit thinks Genesis holds the answer as to why humans are missing it. If God took a bone from Adam, then his descendants
presumably wouldn't have that bone. Men have an even number of ribs but are missing
the baculum, so it stands to reason, he says, that's the real bone God formed Eve from. It seems like such a minor thing, and it's
the question of whether or not Adam and Eve had belly buttons. But it's far from minor, and has been a theological
nightmare for millennia. If they had them, then they have the scar
of a gestation that never occurred, so why would God put it there? On the other hand, if they didn't have them,
how were they perfect representations of humans? The book Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? details just how big a deal this debate was,
and includes a record of a Congressional committee getting involved in the debate in 1944, when
it objected to a pamphlet given to soldiers that included an image of Adam and Eve with
belly buttons. The debate has been a huge problem for artists
through the centuries, too. Some just added a few convenient navel-covering
leaves, but many left Adam and Eve with completely smooth stomachs. In a bizarre twist, the belly button debate
has met the evolution debate. An 1857 book said the fact Adam and Eve had
belly buttons proved the Earth was only a few thousand years old. All the seemingly older stuff, like the fossil
record, was just the Earth's version of an unused belly button, "... a past history of the earth that never
existed except in the Divine Mind." Ask anyone what fruit Adam and Eve ate to
make God angry, and they'll tell you it was an apple. But if you actually read the Bible, it doesn't
say anything at all about what specific kind of fruit it was. In English translations, it's just "the fruit"
on "the tree." Even if in the original language, the Hebrew
word is "peri," which is equally as vague. According to NPR, peri has been interpreted
in different ways by different Jewish scholars, who have identified it as a fig, a grape,
pomegranate, an apricot, or even wheat. Still others thought of it as an intoxicating
drink, like wine. So why is everyone so sure it's an apple? Because of a pun. In the fourth century A.D., Pope Damasus decided
the Bible needed to be translated into Latin. The scholar Jerome was given the job, and
when he got to the mention of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," he apparently
decided to make a pun. In Latin, "malus" means evil, but it also
means apple. So the fruit of the tree that introduced Adam
and Eve to evil was an apple. John Milton really cemented the image when
he called the forbidden fruit an apple twice in Paradise Lost. The human race has big skulls and slim hips,
so childbirth is extremely painful. Even before epidurals, there were plenty of
ways to make birthing a baby less horrible for the mother, but for a long time, men said
no because Eve's sin of eating the forbidden fruit meant women had to suffer. God does punish Eve in Genesis 3:16 when he
says, "I will make your pains in childbearing very
severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children." But as pointed out by Christianity Today,
there's a translation issue here. The original word used means "labor, toil,
or work" everywhere else in the Bible, and it's only when talking about giving birth
did translators decide it also included pain. Women in the throes of labor pains might not
care about the deep theological implications, but religious men through the centuries sure
have. Martin Luther once wrote that women should
be thrilled they got to "gloriously suffer" to bring forth babies, and a New England pastor
once volunteered the opinion that alleviating the pain of women in childbirth would, "... deprive God of the pleasure of their
deep, earnest cries of help." This theological argument resulted in a huge
backlash when pain medication started being used during labor in the 1800s. Since God allegedly demanded that there be
pain, taking it away was sacrilegious. In the 1800s, scholars started to understand
more about the Ancient Egyptian civilization. Texts were being deciphered, monuments were
dated, and a lot of the stuff was really old. But it also caused a crisis in religion, forcing
people to ask how, if the Bible is literal and Adam and Eve were only created a few thousand
years ago, could this Egyptian stuff be older than that? The pre-Adamite theory held the answer. Pre-Adamite is a 17th-century idea that simply
suggests there were people alive before Adam. In Genesis, only Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel
have been mentioned by the time Cain murders his brother, and the pre-Adamite theory explains
where his wife came from, along with all the other cities that suddenly appeared. Some Christians also liked this idea because
it meant some people on Earth were descended from people who weren't Adam and Eve, and
it allowed for the argument that those people were not as important. Shocking no one, that idea was used to justify
slavery and explain just how some people's lives could be worth more than others. There were lots of people throughout history
who believed the Garden of Eden was a real place, and some of them set out to find it. This was complicated, since Genesis says it's
where one river splits into four, and that's it. That's not a lot to go on, and it's safe to
say even Indiana Jones wouldn't be able to follow that map. Christopher Columbus was just one explorer
who was invested in finding the Garden of Eden, and he thought he was close when he
landed on Hispaniola and even closer in Venezuela. David Livingstone declared once it was at
the source of the Nile (although he was mad with malaria at the time), and the Methodist
minister William Warren wrote a book in 1881 explaining how he figured out Eden was located
at the North Pole. The 20th century saw "proof" it was in Ohio,
Florida, and Mongolia, while The New York Times reported some residents of the Seychelles
were hoping to rediscover Eden on one of their islands. Other theories include Azerbaijan, Armenia,
Bahrain, South Carolina, Somalia, or submerged in the Persian Gulf. The most commonly accepted location over the
years has been Iraq, but that's not even clear-cut, either. If you go to that country wanting to visit
Paradise, there are two competing places that both claim to be the real Garden of Eden. There is often an assumption that Christians
believe the creation story in Genesis is absolutely literal and that Adam and Eve actually existed. There definitely are people who believe that,
but in America, at least, they're dwindling. According to a Gallup poll in 2017, only 38
percent of adult American Christians surveyed believed God created Adam and Eve as fully
human individuals about 10,000 years ago. An equal amount believed evolution happened
but with God's guidance in some way, and 19 percent of the group believed in a God-free
evolution process, with Protestants more likely to believe in some version of evolution than
Catholics. Even evangelicals are starting to break from
a strict interpretation, along with many Christian scholars who are finding new ways to merge
faith and science. In this, they are just following what the
original writers of Genesis probably had in mind. Christian scholars have long believed it was
originally written as allegory and poetry more than history. So where did the idea of a literal interpretation
come from? It wasn't until St. Augustine started thinking
deep theological thoughts about creation in the fourth century A.D. that anyone said it
should be taken literally. In 2018, tabloids and other less reputable
news sources reported on a study published in the journal Human Evolution. If you believed the headlines, scientists
had proven the existence of Adam and Eve. They traced our genetics back and discovered
we all come from one couple who lived tens of thousands of years ago. Of course, that's not how anything works,
and the story was largely mis-reported. The study was only looking at mitochondrial
and Y-chromosome DNA, which leaves a whole lot more chromosomal DNA that could and almost
certainly did come from other people. Despite her misleading nickname, Mitochondrial
Eve was supposed to represent, "... the most recent common mitochondrial
ancestor of all living humans… not the first human woman ever." But so many news stories got it wrong that
the researchers had to release a statement saying they believed in evolution and were
not saying there was a single Adam and Eve, and they definitely weren't a couple. Scientists narrowed the time Mitochondrial
Eve was on earth to 100,000-230,000 years ago, and a Y-chromosomal Adam that probably
lived about 75,000 years before her. And scientists were definitely not saying
these two people were the first people on Earth, either. It was strange this was reported on at all,
considering it wasn't even a new idea. A 2013 study in the journal Science made headlines
for coming to the same basic conclusion, and it just goes to show that it's very, very
important to read the fine print. Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
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His sarcastic voice diluted the Bible. Can’t take him seriously