When my sister and I were growing up, we were not “plugged in” like so many kids are these days. We didn’t have Atari, Pac-Man, or any of those things. As a matter of fact, during the summers as soon as we ate our breakfast and did our chores, we were ushered outside. As a result, I think my sister and I may be more curious and maybe even a little warped in our perspective.
For example, when my sister was in elementary she would pose all kind of off-the-wall questions. After a while, mom (who was an educator) would tell Lori to go ask her teacher. But one of the questions Lori asked was interesting, I thought, and it provoked some conversation. Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? Now, before you spit out your answer think carefully.
There are so many interesting things about Adam and Eve’s story, but too many times as adults we gloss over them because we’ve heard the story for as long as we can remember. The story never changes. This is true, but your perspective can change when you read it inquisitively. Ask questions as you read the story. Ask questions a child might ask like, “Did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons?” You might even want to ask a child. Maybe that will help get your creative juices flowing.
Here are some other observations I have wondered about:
- What were Adam and Eve’s thoughts when they saw each other the first time? Keep in mind they were naked, or as some of us in the South say “nekked.”
- What did they say to each other?
- How old were they when God created them? Were their bodies adult bodies, teens, kids?
- God had to probably explain how to live as husband and wife, but they had no role models and no mentors to talk to when there were disagreements.
- Mark Twain wrote about Adam and Eve, and one of the questions he could hear Adam ask God was, “What is a headache?” Because obviously Eve had used it as an excuse to not be intimate.
- Eve’s first pregnancy. She didn’t have a mother or girlfriend to tell her what she was experiencing was normal. There was no normal. This was groundbreaking reproduction for humans.
- Eve may have seen other animals nurse their young, but she had no one to help her teach her baby to attach and nurse.
- Watching her babies develop, Eve had no way of knowing if Cain and Abel were within the normal limits. There were no charts or immunizations.
- Eve watched her body change with each birth and as she aged. No one had done that before her. There were no magazines to tell her to do these certain exercises, take a multi-vitamin, and stay out of the sun.
- Both Adam and Eve had never seen a human age. I wonder if it was frightening or more perplexing for them to watch each other grow old.
- When Abel was killed, the grief these parents shared over losing both children. No one was there to tell them the different stages of grief. How did they deal? How did they cope? Did they have any hope they would see Abel again?
So many things changed in their lifetime right before their eyes with no library or internet to search to find out what a certain rash meant or what to do when someone had a stomach virus.
We are bombarded with information and data, but Adam and Eve were data-less.
The fact is God still spoke to them outside of the Garden of Eden, but we don’t know the extent of information He provided.
How was fire discovered? They couldn’t eat the meat raw.
I bet they did a lot of experiments trying to figure out what would work and what wouldn’t. I bet there were a lot of failures, and when there were successes, it was sweet victory.
Do any of the questions make you stop and wonder a little more about Adam and Eve? They were real people with real emotions living in a new world without any prior exposure to living life.
Why should we read the Bible inquisitively? If we don’t read the Bible inquisitively then we miss the awe of who God is. We miss out on the realness of those who are in the Bible. We miss out on being able to relate to those in the Bible because we fail to identify the depth of their situation. We also miss out on those AHA! and OOHHH! moments. It is okay to ask questions for which you may never receive an answer this side of heaven. The important thing is you ask, you dig, and you share your curiosity with others.