If you are offended by the title of this post, just stop reading here. It only gets worse…
And no, I’m not trying to be sensational or create a “click bait” blog post. I honestly have a question for you to help me on regarding … well … whether or not Genesis 2:21-23 mentions the erect phallus … aka “a boner.”
As I work my way through Genesis 2 for my One Verse Podcast, I have been studying quite a bit about Adam’s “rib” in Genesis 2:21-23 and am wondering if the “rib” actually refers to a boneless boner. Right now, I am leaning away from such an interpretation, but the evidence for this understanding is quite compelling. I am presenting the evidence here because I want to know what you think …
Here is my thought process so far…
The Bible is a Sexual Book
We Christians often try to cover it up, but the Bible is filled with sexual euphemisms and innuendoes.
This isn’t something to be ashamed of, but to embrace and accept.
Why? Because this is the way life is, and the fact that Scripture reflects life helps us understand that the Bible truly is a book about life.
Besides, we Christians need to stop being shocked and ashamed of things that which Scripture doesn’t shy away from. Like what? Like boners, for example. Believe it or not, there is quite a bit of coarse joking about boners in the Bible.
I first began to see this because of my job.
I work with men. A lot of men. The place I work is 98% male.
It sometimes seems I can hardly go 20 minutes without hearing someone reference to the male sexual organ. There are jokes about length, girth, and size. There are titles, names, innuendoes, and euphemisms. At first I was shocked by this, but then I began to realize that the Bible talks this way too.
Such joking isn’t a result of a “sexualized” Western society. It is just the result of males being males. But we Christians think that such joking is coarse and crude and so we frown at those who make these jokes, and look down our pious noses at those who laugh.
But we better start looking down our noses as the Bible too. For the Bible also contains quite a bit of “locker room” jokes and off color comments. Even Jesus had some “potty” humor (cf. Matt 15:11) and sexual innuendoes (Luke 17:34).
A couple years ago, as I was reading through Scripture, I began to notice that there were numerous jokes, allusions, and euphemisms all over Scripture for the male sexual organ. I wrote a blog post about how no church would ever sing “Deborah’s Song” because it is so sexually suggestive. But it’s a song that God included in the Bible.
I later published a post (written by someone else) about how Jesus used sexual euphemisms to refer to two male lovers and two female lovers. Not surprisingly, I received quite a number of comments on this post who were outraged that I would suggest that Jesus talked about such things. Many of the comments were from people who were outraged at the suggestion that God’s Holy Bible contained sexual innuendoes and euphemisms. (I imagine I will get similar comments on this post, though I predict that few of these comments will also provide sound exegetical reasons for reading these texts differently.)
I argued in those posts, as I argue now, that we should not be surprised that the Bible contains references to sex. After all, God made sex, and sex is good. Also, the Bible is a book written by humans and for humans, and since humans throughout time and around the world all engage in sex and joke about sex, what would be really shocking is if the Bible didn’t talk about sex.
Anyway, as I was doing some research for my upcoming podcast on Genesis 2:21-23 (to listen to it, make sure you subscribe), I found a study by a Jewish Rabbi and Hebrew scholar who compiled a short list of “Euphemisms for Penis in Biblical Hebrew.” Here it is for your reading pleasure:
Euphemisms for Boners in the Bible
The Bible doesn’t contain the word “penis.” Post-biblical Hebrew uses the clinical term ebar (organ/limb) or ebar qatan (small organ/limb) but no such term exists in biblical Hebrew. Instead, the Bible uses innuendo and euphemism to refer to the male sexual organ. Here are a few of these:
regel, “foot/feet,”
Exodus 4:25: “and Zipporah took a flint and cut off the foreskin of her son and brought it next to his ragla.”
2 Kings 18:27 (cf. Isa 36:12): “Did my lord send me to say these words against your lord and to you, was it not to the people sitting on the wall who will eat their dung and drink from the waters of their ragleyhem.”
keliy, “instrument, tool”
2 Samuel 21:5-6: “There is no common bread at hand, only sacred bread if the young men have guarded themselves from women. And David responded to the priest, “Indeed, women are kept away from us as always when I go out, and the keliym of the young men are holy even on a common journey.”
qoten, “small one”
1 Kings 12:10 (2 Chr 10:10): “My qotonniy is thicker than the loin of my father.”
es, “stick,” and maqel, “staff”
Hosea 4:12: “My people inquire from their stick and ask counsel from their staff because a spirit of whoring made them stray, and they whored away from their God.”
yad, “hand”
Isaiah 57:8: “You mounted and you widened your bed … you loved their bed, you saw a yad.”
Isaiah 58:10: “You found the life force of your yad.”
sekobet, “lying”
Leviticus 20:15: “and a man who places his sekobet in an animal will be put to death.”
mebuwsiym, “embarrasments”
Deuteronomy 25:11: “The wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from his attacker, and she extends her hands and grabs his mesuwsiym.”
basar, “flesh, meat”
Exodus 28:42: “Let them make for themselves linen pants to cover the basar of nakedness.”
Leviticus 15:2-3, 16. This is a chapter dealing with genital discharges. Basar is the word that is used.
Leviticus 18:6: “Don’t approach the relative of your basar to reveal nakedness.”
Ezekiel 16:26: “And you whored with the sons of Egypt, your neighbors big of basar, and you multiplied your whoring to anger me.”
Ezekiel 23:20: “She lusted on account of their concubines, those whose basar is the basar of donkeys, and their flow the flow of stallions.”
yarek, “thigh”
Genesis 46:26: “All people … who came from his yarek.”
Judges 8:30: “And Gideon had seventy sons who came out of his yarek.”
The author of this book goes on to argue (quite persuasively) that the “rib” in Genesis 2:21-22 is another euphemism.
The “Rib” as the Missing Baculum
In his book, the Hebrew scholar points out that nearly all mammals and all primates (except humans) have a penis bone called a baculum. Ancient people would have recognized that it was missing from human males, and Genesis 2:21-23 is the etiological (a story to explain something’s origin … like how the skunk got it’s stripe) story for why human males do not have a baculum.
He shows that the word for “rib” (tsela) never means rib anywhere in the Bible, but instead refers to a plank, side, or beam in a building or boat. The word “rib” snuck into our translations through the LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, and has become the traditional (and safe) understanding of this Hebrew word.
Now, I read some online articles that have discussed this idea, and I understand that people will think scholars are trying to get the Bible to say something different than what it actually says. But the truth is that the word “rib” is actually the result of scholars trying to get the Bible to say something different than what it actually says.
The Hebrew word in Genesis 2:21-22 doesn’t mean rib, and it never has.
This Hebrew scholar goes on to say that the word refers to the missing penis bone. The Hebrew people didn’t have a word for this bone like we do (we call it a baculum), and so they used the word tsela, which refers to a sideways plank, beam, or board. In other words, it would be another euphemism in Scripture. A boner without a bone…
Further evidence for this view is that when Adam sees Eve, he says “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” The word for flesh there is basar, which is the most common euphemism in Scripture for the “meat” of a man. So when Adam cries out in excitement in Genesis 2:23 after seeing Eve for the first time “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” … well … you get the picture.
So is this Jewish Rabbi right? Maybe. Lots of Christian scholars think so. Check out this book by three Christians who think that Genesis 2:21-23 does in fact refer to the first boner in the Bible.
Personally, I am leaning away from this understanding, but I wanted to put it out there for your input. Weigh in with a comment below…
One reason not to reject this view, however, is because it is shocking.
Don’t be shocked about boners in the Bible
We Christians sometimes get shocked by all the wrong things.
I was once listening to a sermon and the pastor said this from the pulpit: “Children are dying of starvation in Africa, and most of you in the pews don’t give a shit … But you know what is the saddest thing of all? Right now, most of you are more upset that I said ‘shit’ from the pulpit than the fact that children are dying in Africa.”
That pastor probably got fired for that sermon. After all, you can’t have a pastor who says shit from the pulpit. (Though actually … that’s probably what most sermons are … Ok. Ok. I’m sorry. That was a low blow.)
I am sometimes amazed at what Christians get upset over while completely ignoring the things we should be upset over.
I was reading an interview with George R. R. Martin a while back, the author of the Game of Thrones books and the popular HBO television series. He said that he finds it interesting and sad how people respond to the graphic nature of his books and movies. He said “I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.”
Think whatever you want about George R. R. Martin and his books, Scripture agrees with him on this one. Though Scripture also is both graphically violent and graphically sexual, it celebrates sexuality (read Song of Solomon) but condemns violence (when read with the proper crucivision lens). Yet some Christians get angry and outraged when a scholar says the Bible contains numerous allusions to a male boner, but they won’t blink an eye if a pastor uses Scripture to justify the bombing of our enemies.
If this post had been about how Scripture tells us to bomb Muslims, many would have praised it. But since it suggests that the Bible uses the ancient equivalent of words like “boner,” well, I can predict what sort of comments it will receive…
So, what are your thoughts?
Additional Resources:
–The Patriarch’s Nuts
If the baculum was part of Adam’s DNA like ribs are, men would still have a baculum.
Yes, if a baculum was part of the DNA, men would still have them. But the ancient people would have noticed that human males did not have the baculum whereas most others animals did, and so this story would then be read as an etiological story … like “How the skunk got it’s stripes.”
Is it bad that I giggled my way through this entire article?
Ha! I wanted it to be a bit lighthearted…. glad you enjoyed it.
Really though, this is super fascinating! And reading some of those verses you quoted in there with the word “penis” where you have italics… “You found the life source of your penis!” Bahahaaha!
Men do have them. Read a literal translation of the Song of Solomon. Brian Godawa has some good things to say on the topic of sex and the Bible and a lot more.
Are you saying men have baculums?
No. Men have a penis. If it was a baculum, men should still have one.
I haven’t read it yet but I am dying laughing right now… Hahaha… So random on my feed…lol
No doubt you have heard that there is only one bone in the human body that can be carefully removed and expected to grow back. It is the lowermost ‘floating’ rib.
Yes. I read that. It’s just too bad the word there in the Hebrew doesn’t mean “rib” anywhere in the Bible.
Isn’t ‘used’ to mean ‘rib’. Perhaps (just speculating) a different word was used here do to the the unique (floating) nature of that rib. ??? The point of the passage is that Woman was made from the flesh of Man, making them equal; of the same flesh. Another interesting point can be found in verse 20 which seems to suggest (with the word ‘Neged’) that Woman was mean’t to be equal and opposite; a perfect counterpart.
Yes. This is exactly the direction I think I will go when I record my podcast later today. I will take the word quite literally as “side” and have it refer to a chunk of meat and bone from Adam’s side … indicating that Eve is Adam’s equal (but different) partner.
Dude, I love you!!!! Your willingness to just throw out things for us to think about, grapple with and examine is awesome! This is definitely an interesting article. It makes a lot of sense, and it causes us to think (or should cause us to think). Most of the time we are ready to defend what we already believe, not willing to be open minded enough to change. Your posts, and your One Verse podcast, challenge our way of thinking. I have gotten a lot out of both. Keep up the good work!
This post would have been even better if it was on your old blog … “Till He Comes.” Ha!
Excellent!
The last time I saw a theological discussion on weiners was when I read an article about ‘penile substitution’. Haha, this was both an interesting and an entertaining read. On a serious note though, I think it robs from the beauty of Ephesians 5 if we are all picturing ‘basar’s’ when reading it.
God created sex… created pleasure for us …
First commandment before the 10 …. multiply. …
Hear this ….
http://podbay.fm/show/158029989/e/1445967710?autostart=1
I think “be fruitful and multiply” was more of a blessing than a command…
Thanks, Jose. That’s what I’ve been saying as well since partway through my studies of Genesis 1… though of course, as Tessa points out, this is a command with a blessing. ha!
Jeremy,
Thought you may be interested in this article……….
https://claudemariottini.com/2009/07/09/congenital-human-baculum-deficiency-adam%E2%80%99s-rib-and-the-formation-of-eve/
As usual, I never heard or read anything about “boners” in the bible, but sex is mentioned so often, that what your saying makes sense. Thanks for making me laugh, and you confirmed my belief that our God has a great sense of humor.
Hmmm…that’s a pretty compelling argument… somehow this never came up in Bible College in my undergrad 🙂 LOL
Ha! Not in any of my classes either.
Political correctness isn’t limitted to the secular world it seems.
Jeremy Myers Wyarek, “thigh” as you say is a euphemism for male genitalia. Genesis 46:26: “All people … who came from his yarek.”
Judges 8:30: “And Gideon had seventy sons who came out of his yarek.”
How about when they take an oath in the Old Testament by having someone place their hand “under the thigh” of another man? Swearing on testicles! Heck, maybe they thought the “foreskin” got in the way of taking a more perfect oath? And don’t the words testicles, testimony and testament all come from the same root?
BIBLE QUIZ QUESTION Abraham said to his male servant, “Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my _______, And I will make thee swear by the Lord.” (Gen. 24:2-3 & 47:29, KJV)
[Answer: thigh. “Putting one’s hand under the thigh” was a euphemism for placing it on a person’s genitals. That was apparently how the ancient Hebrews took solemn oaths because of the blessedness of the “seed” which God had promised to multiply to Abraham and his descendants. Today we take solemn oaths by “placing one hand on the Bible.” I guess if we lived in a “Bible-less” society like Abraham’s, the job of bailiff might be more “interesting”: “Please step up to the bench, Miss Jones, and place your right hand under my thigh, and repeat after me, I solemnly swear… OOOO! You’ve got cold hands Miss Jones!” And Miss Jones would repeat, “I solemnly swear OOOO!” (Wes “Duke of Doubt” Anderson)]
Speaking of the Bible’s male genital fetish, there is also Job 40:15-17 which doesn’t describe the mythical beast’s “tail.” (Creationists teach little children to sing these verses in Job and tell them it’s behemoth’s “tail” in the song, Behemoth was a Dinosaur!) Note what the passages says in context. The King James Version of the Bible translates it:
“Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eats grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.” See http://biblehub.com/job/40-17.htm
Steven Mitchell in his translation puts it,
“Look now: the Beast that I made: he eats grass like a bull. Look: the power in his thighs, the pulsing sinews of his belly. His penis stiffens like a pine; his testicles bulge with vigor!” (Steven Mitchell, The Book of Job)
Mitchell employs the word “penis” while the KJV uses the word “tail,” and Mitchell employs the phrase, “testicles bulge with vigor,” while the KJV says, “stones, wrapped together.” “Stones” was an Elizabethan English euphemism for “testicles.” The context leaves little doubt that the “tail” is most likely the beast’s “penis.”
But most translations of Job fail to inform readers, even in a footnote, that the ancient Hebrew word for “tail” could also be a euphemism for “penis.”
Ancient rabbis understood it that way, as Mitchell points out in a footnote. And the context in this case points to such a translation. After all, what else could “sinews of his stones wrapped together” (KJV) be besides testicles?
Evangelical Christian translators of the New International Version of the Bible (the NIV) add in a footnote that the word translated as “tail” might possibly refer to “trunk,” which means the translators of the NIV can’t seem to tell one end of this mythical beast from the other! Trunk or tail? Who knows what it’s talking about!?
But one thing translators of the NIV Bible agree upon is not to let their pious readers know that the original Hebrew might also be referring euphemistically to a behemoth-sized penis.
The penis translation in Job also makes sense in light of how Hebrew culture was oriented around the penis. See the BIBLE QUIZ that I shared in a previous comment. I should add that the word translated “stones” in the KJV is often literally translated as “thigh,” but that is merely a well known Hebrew euphemism for “penis,” per the oath-taking examples I mentioned from the Bible, “put your hand under my thigh and take an oath.” Or, as another translation of the crucial verse in Job puts it, “Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs [that word again!] are close-knit.” http://biblehub.com/job/40-17.htm
Wow. Great reading! There is more to this than we imagined.
What about Ruth … when Ruth goes to Boaz and “uncovers his feet”? My wife and I have been trying to figure out what might have been going on there? Any ideas?
I’m sure there’s a commentary on that. Seems obvious. On the other hand, I also read something about the phrase “covers his feet” meaning to drop one’s robe and take a dump, found in some other portion of the Old Testament. And let’s not get into “piss against the wall.”
Jeremy Myers Yad also appears as submit נָתַן יַד תַּחַת שְׁלֹמֹה in 1 Chronicles 29:24, i.e. they acknowledged him as their lord. See Young’s Literal Translation, “and all the heads, and the mighty men, and also all the sons of king David have GIVEN A HAND UNDER Solomon the king;”
Did all the mighty men and sons of David literally touch king Solomon’s testicles beneath his robe with their hands? If so, what a ceremony! Or had it become a figure of speech based on earlier stories involving the patriarchs, “put your HAND UNDER my thigh and take an oath?”
Jeremy Myers http://www.jmmsweb.org/issues/volume5/number2/pp41-52
Jeremy Myers The Hebrew word for “mountain” is “shaddai,” and if you add one consonant on the end (the common ending for body parts that occur in pairs), you get, “shaddayim,” the Hebrew word for “breasts.” The French also have a word, “titans,” that refers to both mountains and breasts as in the “Gran Titans.”
Moreover, the Hebrews appeared to have favored women with large (dare I say “mountainous”) breasts:
My breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favor.
– Song of Sol. 8:10
Laban had two daughters: and the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favored. And Jacob loved Rachel.
– Gen. 29:16-17
Apparently Rachel was not only beautiful but was also “well favored,” which was the same terms employed by the author of the Song of Solomon when describing “breasts… like towers.”
Rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times… Why embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
– Proverbs 5:19-20
Also note what Marvin H. Pope wrote in his article, “The Bible, Euphemism and Dysphemism In” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. I:
Poetic allusions to the most intimate of female charms are sometimes overlooked or studiously ignored by translators. In the Song of Songs 2:17 the lady invites her lover to be like a gazelle on “cleft mount(s)” and in 8:14 the invitation is to “spice mound(s).”
The lady of the Song speaks of her unguarded vineyard (1:6), and there is frequent reference (2:16; 4:5; 5:1; 6:2) to the garden(s) where the lover grazes, not among “lilies” (as traditionally understood), but on the lotus, an ancient and famous sexual symbol. The body part praised as a rounded crater (mixing bowl) never to lack mix (7:2) is hardly the navel but a receptacle not far below. The all-spice part(s) of the lady (4:13) are not “shoots” but a “groove” or “conduit” [the vulva].
Song of Songs 5:4 states, “My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him” which is suggestive of intercourse…”Hand” appears as a euphemism in another part of the Bible which states, “You have loved their bed, You have looked on their manhood [literal Hebrew, ‘looked on their hand’].” (Isaiah 57:8, NASB) And the Dead Sea scrolls refer to a member of the Hebrew religious community at Qumran being fined for exposing his “hand.”
There is even sexual suggestiveness in the use of the word “couch” in Song of Songs 1:12-13 (which states, “While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.”–RSV). The double entendre meaning of “couch” is illuminated by Rabbi Judah’s ancient remark that Jerusalem men were lewd: “One would say to his colleague, ‘On what did you dine today? On well-kneaded bread or on bread not kneaded; on white wine or dark wine; on a broad couch or a narrow couch; with a good companion or a poor companion?’” “All these queries,” Hisda explained, refer “to fornication.”
Also note the following verses:
Let us get up early to the vineyard… There will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell and at our gates [or doors] are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
– Song of Songs 7:12-13
“Gates” or “doors” are euphemisms for the genitalia. And the two-pronged “mandrake” root is crotch-shaped. Since ancient times “mandrakes” have been related to sexual potency. Take Genesis chapter 30 in which Jacob’s barren wife tells him she has “hired him [a child] with mandrake.” Speaking of “pleasant fruits,” notice how “breasts” are described as “clusters of grapes,” and be sure to keep an eye on further appearances of “fruit” in the Song of Solomon:
Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts like clusters of grapes… I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also your breasts shall be as clusters of the vine.
– Song of Songs 7:7-8
As the apple tree among the trees of the world, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
– Song of Songs 2:3
Fellatio?
The smell of your nose, like apples.
– Song of Songs 7:8
Translated literally it’s puzzling. “Noses” do not “smell like apples.” The Anchor Bible dissects the linguistics, concluding that this refers to the scent of a woman’s “vulva.” The reference to “apples” also mirrors verse 2:3 where the female “sits in the shadow” of the male’s “apple tree” and finds his “fruit” “sweet” to her “taste.” Should not her “fruit” smell equally as “sweet” to him?
Your navel [literal Hebrew, “groove” or “slit”] a rounded crater, may it never lack punch!
– Song of Songs 7:2
Cunnilingus?
Edward T. Babinski Thanks for that article. I added it to a resource section at the bottom of my post. Thanks!
Interesting thought. While I think our culture tends to sanitize the Bible way to often (see Abraham’s oath “putting his hand under the thigh”), I’m not sure I’d buy the “boner theory”.
This is largely because Frank Viola has me convinced that Eve coming from Adam’s side (not sexual organ) is a parallel to the church coming from Jesus’ pierced side.
Wow. ..thought provoking ref the original names. ..and scripture evidence but my heart is still out on how eve was created.
Yes. I am recording the podcast later today, and think I will steer away from the “baculum” option.
http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/flaccid-interpretation-eden-by-joseph-ryan-kelly/
yarek, “thigh”
Genesis 46:26: “All people … who came from his yarek.”
Judges 8:30: “And Gideon had seventy sons who came out of his yarek.”
How about when they take an oath in the Old Testament by having someone place their hand “under the thigh” of another man? Swearing on testicles! Heck, maybe they thought the “foreskin” got in the way of taking a more perfect oath? And don’t the words testicles, testimony and testament all come from the same root?
BIBLE QUIZ QUESTION Abraham said to his male servant, “Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my _______, And I will make thee swear by the Lord.” (Gen. 24:2-3 & 47:29, KJV)
[Answer: thigh. “Putting one’s hand under the thigh” was a euphemism for placing it on a person’s genitals. That was apparently how the ancient Hebrews took solemn oaths because of the blessedness of the “seed” which God had promised to multiply to Abraham and his descendants. Today we take solemn oaths by “placing one hand on the Bible.” I guess if we lived in a “Bible-less” society like Abraham’s, the job of bailiff might be more “interesting”: “Please step up to the bench, Miss Jones, and place your right hand under my thigh, and repeat after me, I solemnly swear… OOOO! You’ve got cold hands Miss Jones!” And Miss Jones would repeat, “I solemnly swear OOOO!” (Wes “Duke of Doubt” Anderson)]
Speaking of the Bible’s male genital fetish, there is also Job 40:15-17 which doesn’t describe the mythical beast’s “tail.” (Creationists teach little children to sing these verses in Job and tell them it’s behemoth’s “tail” in the song, Behemoth was a Dinosaur!) Note what the passages says in context. The King James Version of the Bible translates it:
“Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eats grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.” See http://biblehub.com/job/40-17.htm
Steven Mitchell in his translation puts it,
“Look now: the Beast that I made: he eats grass like a bull. Look: the power in his thighs, the pulsing sinews of his belly. His penis stiffens like a pine; his testicles bulge with vigor!” (Steven Mitchell, The Book of Job)
Mitchell employs the word “penis” while the KJV uses the word “tail,” and Mitchell employs the phrase, “testicles bulge with vigor,” while the KJV says, “stones, wrapped together.” “Stones” was an Elizabethan English euphemism for “testicles.” The context leaves little doubt that the “tail” is most likely the beast’s “penis.”
But most translations of Job fail to inform readers, even in a footnote, that the ancient Hebrew word for “tail” could also be a euphemism for “penis.”
Ancient rabbis understood it that way, as Mitchell points out in a footnote. And the context in this case points to such a translation. After all, what else could “sinews of his stones wrapped together” (KJV) be besides testicles?
Evangelical Christian translators of the New International Version of the Bible (the NIV) add in a footnote that the word translated as “tail” might possibly refer to “trunk,” which means the translators of the NIV can’t seem to tell one end of this mythical beast from the other! Trunk or tail? Who knows what it’s talking about!?
But one thing translators of the NIV Bible agree upon is not to let their pious readers know that the original Hebrew might also be referring euphemistically to a behemoth-sized penis.
The penis translation in Job also makes sense in light of how Hebrew culture was oriented around the penis. See the BIBLE QUIZ that I shared in a previous comment. I should add that the word translated “stones” in the KJV is often literally translated as “thigh,” but that is merely a well known Hebrew euphemism for “penis,” per the oath-taking examples I mentioned from the Bible, “put your hand under my thigh and take an oath.” Or, as another translation of the crucial verse in Job puts it, “Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs [that word again!] are close-knit.” http://biblehub.com/job/40-17.htm
This is great. Just goes to show how much of Church taboos are in fact cultural rather than ‘scriptural’ in nature. In other words, someone got offended by something and decided to make a ‘God-backed rule’ about it.
No better book than the Bible for doing things like that…..
Great article, Jeremy – thanks for writing it. 🙂
No better book than the Bible indeed… Thanks for reading!
Yad also appears as submit נָתַן יַד תַּחַת שְׁלֹמֹה in 1 Chronicles 29:24, i.e. they acknowledged him as their lord. See Young’s Literal Translation, “and all the heads, and the mighty men, and also all the sons of king David have GIVEN A HAND UNDER Solomon the king;”
Did all the mighty men and sons of David literally touch king Solomon’s testicles beneath his robe with their hands? If so, what a ceremony! Or had it become a figure of speech based on earlier stories involving the patriarchs, “put your HAND UNDER my thigh and take an oath?”
See also
The Patriarch’s Nuts: Concerning the Testicular Logic of Biblical Hebrew
http://www.jmmsweb.org/issues/volume5/number2/pp41-52
The Hebrew word for “mountain” is “shaddai,” and if you add one consonant on the end (the common ending for body parts that occur in pairs), you get, “shaddayim,” the Hebrew word for “breasts.” The French also have a word, “titans,” that refers to both mountains and breasts as in the “Gran Titans.”
Moreover, the Hebrews appeared to have favored women with large (dare I say “mountainous”) breasts:
My breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favor.
– Song of Sol. 8:10
Laban had two daughters: and the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favored. And Jacob loved Rachel.
– Gen. 29:16-17
Apparently Rachel was not only beautiful but was also “well favored,” which was the same terms employed by the author of the Song of Solomon when describing “breasts… like towers.”
Rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times… Why embrace the bosom of a foreigner?
– Proverbs 5:19-20
Also note what Marvin H. Pope wrote in his article, “The Bible, Euphemism and Dysphemism In” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. I:
Poetic allusions to the most intimate of female charms are sometimes overlooked or studiously ignored by translators. In the Song of Songs 2:17 the lady invites her lover to be like a gazelle on “cleft mount(s)” and in 8:14 the invitation is to “spice mound(s).”
The lady of the Song speaks of her unguarded vineyard (1:6), and there is frequent reference (2:16; 4:5; 5:1; 6:2) to the garden(s) where the lover grazes, not among “lilies” (as traditionally understood), but on the lotus, an ancient and famous sexual symbol. The body part praised as a rounded crater (mixing bowl) never to lack mix (7:2) is hardly the navel but a receptacle not far below. The all-spice part(s) of the lady (4:13) are not “shoots” but a “groove” or “conduit” [the vulva].
Song of Songs 5:4 states, “My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him” which is suggestive of intercourse…”Hand” appears as a euphemism in another part of the Bible which states, “You have loved their bed, You have looked on their manhood [literal Hebrew, ‘looked on their hand’].” (Isaiah 57:8, NASB) And the Dead Sea scrolls refer to a member of the Hebrew religious community at Qumran being fined for exposing his “hand.”
There is even sexual suggestiveness in the use of the word “couch” in Song of Songs 1:12-13 (which states, “While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.”–RSV). The double entendre meaning of “couch” is illuminated by Rabbi Judah’s ancient remark that Jerusalem men were lewd: “One would say to his colleague, ‘On what did you dine today? On well-kneaded bread or on bread not kneaded; on white wine or dark wine; on a broad couch or a narrow couch; with a good companion or a poor companion?’” “All these queries,” Hisda explained, refer “to fornication.”
Also note the following verses:
Let us get up early to the vineyard… There will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell and at our gates [or doors] are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
– Song of Songs 7:12-13
“Gates” or “doors” are euphemisms for the genitalia. And the two-pronged “mandrake” root is crotch-shaped. Since ancient times “mandrakes” have been related to sexual potency. Take Genesis chapter 30 in which Jacob’s barren wife tells him she has “hired him [a child] with mandrake.” Speaking of “pleasant fruits,” notice how “breasts” are described as “clusters of grapes,” and be sure to keep an eye on further appearances of “fruit” in the Song of Solomon:
Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts like clusters of grapes… I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also your breasts shall be as clusters of the vine.
– Song of Songs 7:7-8
As the apple tree among the trees of the world, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
– Song of Songs 2:3
Fellatio?
The smell of your nose, like apples.
– Song of Songs 7:8
Translated literally it’s puzzling. “Noses” do not “smell like apples.” The Anchor Bible dissects the linguistics, concluding that this refers to the scent of a woman’s “vulva.” The reference to “apples” also mirrors verse 2:3 where the female “sits in the shadow” of the male’s “apple tree” and finds his “fruit” “sweet” to her “taste.” Should not her “fruit” smell equally as “sweet” to him?
Your navel [literal Hebrew, “groove” or “slit”] a rounded crater, may it never lack punch!
– Song of Songs 7:2
Cunnilingus?
I’m reading through the Old Testament and what is so sriking is just how many wives all these men had with who. They had umpteen sons and daughters. They had it going all the time!!
Interesting and a funny read. But I’m going to go with the 2 Biblical pictures given of Eve and the Church. The first Adam fell asleep and God took from his “side” a wife/bride. The second Adam fell asleep in death and had his side opened by a spear. And it is said, the Church is born out of His side.
So, working backward from Jesus to Adam, a hunk of flesh from his side, is the most equal picture. The Church coming from Jesus’s “junk” doesn’t work for me.
Thank you for your post about boners in the Bible. I am the author of a book titled “The Epiphany of the Body – The Naked Human Body Through the Eyes of the Creator,” a self-published expose about the naked human body and human sexuality. In my studies of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptural manuscripts, I have discovered MANY of the same things you discovered.
Now, I understand that much of the sexual innuendos and euphemisms are usually from co-authors of the Scriptures, but one passage in particular that I was impressed with was Job 40:17. God Himself points out the testicle and spermatic cord of the behemoth, which probably isn’t an elephant, as some scholars have implied, mainly because the elephant’s tail cannot be compared to a cedar tree, which is how God describes the behemoth’s tail.
I instructed my Christian brothers in my small men’s group about this passage this past Monday night. With my extensive knowledge related to the Scriptural passages related to sexuality or sexual organs, we are getting a better perspective on our sexuality and sexual identity that is more in line with the mind of Christ.
It may really serve your men well to discuss the profound Truth of where “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” is written in Revelations. Then, how further words are conjoined with the Sword of the Spirit, sharper than any two edged sword. This may be too hard to handle for most men but your group appears to have the balls to discuss such things. I’d be interested to hear a conclusion.
Dear Brother,
Thank you for your suggestions. And, you’re right about my men having enough “balls” to handle anything i throw at them, as far as sex and sexual innuendo in the Scriptures.
It’s so refreshing for me to hear you call me “Brother” because it’s a term of endearment in the Body of Christ amongst men, so I guess we just did a cyber handshake.
I have some brothers with whom I discuss all things male but they have complicated schedules with business and family and my best buddy is over 100 miles away, all of which is not too easy for a dedicated men’s group. Having been a caregiver for my father until his passing, still doing all of the legal work and downtime during the Covid Pandemic, I’ve had a lot of contemplative time with the Lord in prayer and in doing studies on my computer. Long story short, I grew up in a home and church culture of men not being able to talk about Christian men’s issues.
I’m in the beginning stages of my retirement years and I’ve been around the block. In my 43 years as a believer, I have been to many churches in NYCity and the tristate area, across the USA, Israel and several other countries. Guys talk openly about men’s issues at sports bars, jokingly referred to as “sausage bars,” but they avoid going to churches where they can only expect to be put in an unnaturally structured box. Most of those churches have not been “redeemed,” as our brother Jeremy so clearly delineates, and male issues have been pasteurized into a blend, not always entirely Biblical. Men outside the church know it, instinctively, and avoid going. This would be just to satisfy a Sunday “requirement” for the family, but Sunday football meets their needs.
I’d love to do a Whatsapp or a Zoom with your men’s group. Maybe this will be the future of men’s meetings?
The Bible says that “the church will be known for the love they have for one another,” and I don’t think we’re at that place because the understanding of men being Biblical male leaders is no longer “allowed” in our cancel culture. There is a powerful truth to the placement of “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” that I’m still hoping your men’s group will contribute to with great revelations from God, which I hope to see posted through you on Jeremy’s thread. I have a lot to say on this issue too.
God bless you in the important work you and your men are doing.
Thumbs up, FullGospelGuy
I really appreciate your perspective and analysis and in a follow up brief word study, found that in four of the five instances where the King James uses the word ״rib״, it is inserted into the text. The only place where the word “rib” actually appears is Daniel chapter 7:5 and there it is translated “ribs” and is the Chaldee word עלה.
Jc hear you all should re read the first 3 chaps of genesis reguarding who Satan was in the garden and how he deceived eve as you read Gid told Adam and Eve that they could eat freely from any tree in the garden except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil don’t mess either that tree … welll if you think about it cherry trees ; Pine trees or any tree for that matter do not have knowledge of good and evil… why ; you ask … simple there made of wood! So God uses different language a metaphor ok .. think for a moment are not our arms & legs limbs ? Yes and our midsection of our body a trunk … sure it it and what dits on that trunk ? A head right ? Yup that has what? A brain… that knows what ….?? Good and evil there’s your answer so who’s God talking about there ? The devil see in the beginning it says that Adam and Eve were nakedand not ashamed? ?why? Because they were covered in Gods shekina Glory that’s why they it goes on to say that eve she took if it’s fruit and gave to Adam Adam he took with her so you tell me what that means I looked up it’s fruit in the Hebrew Bible flductonary and it said sex well that devil looked like a handsome male in the garden and you better beleave it! Then toward the end of chai 3 if genusis it also says that the tree of life is also there who was he talking about there … it was Jesus because he always said I’m the way the truth and the life. No one come unto the father except thru me now you know the tree of life was snd is Jesus so then you ask nary bore both cane & able … who’s seed was able ‘s And who’s seed was canes… getting the picture I did God uses the metaphors and certain words have hyphens and Astrid’s by them then that’s when you pay attention to as well becsuse ut gives you a thurough meaning
Are there not any references to boners in the Song of Songs? That book would seem to be the obvious place for them.
This is the first time I read your article, it was fantastic! I love your wording and method of delivery. Amazing work!
For certain, boners are in the Bible. In fact, Genesis 1:27 male is zakar which means “sharp penetrating point” as in “erect penis.” So, God created us male to be like an erect penis: hard, bold, and penetrating to deposit the essence of who we are as men. “Be strong and show yourself a man” 1 Kings 2:2 where David gave this charge to his son, Solomon, in order to rule the Kingdom of Israel as a man. God commands the same to us men through Paul the Apostle in the New Testament: “Be alert, stand firm in the faith, act like a man, be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13). Effeminacy (soft to the touch) is the opposite, and it is so condemned by God that men who are effeminate are unrighteous and won’t go to heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9).
As far as Adam’s rib being a penis bone, that is absolutely true. Men, think about it: what part of your body do you cherish and enjoy the most? Now Ephesians 5 should make sense: “[H]usbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it…” (Ephesians 5:28-29). “Flesh” very much means penis particularly in the context of the husband. So, we men are to love our wife as we love our penis, cherishing her as we cherish our penis. It’s what we do when we are having sex with our wife, cherishing her body as we cherish our own penis. So, we are to cherish our wife in total as we cherish our penis. Afterall, she is our penis bone.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
God sucks cock and swallows everyday.