Redeeming God

Liberating you from bad ideas about God

Learn the MOST ESSENTIAL truths for following Jesus.

Get FREE articles and audio teachings in my discipleship emails!


  • Join Us!
  • Scripture
  • Theology
  • My Books
  • About
  • Discipleship
  • Courses
    • What is Hell?
    • Skeleton Church
    • The Gospel According to Scripture
    • The Gospel Dictionary
    • The Re-Justification of God
    • What is Prayer?
    • Adventures in Fishing for Men
    • What are the Spiritual Gifts?
    • How to Study the Bible
    • Courses FAQ
  • Forum
    • Introduce Yourself
    • Old Testament
    • New Testament
    • Theology Questions
    • Life & Ministry

Boners in the Bible

By Jeremy Myers
54 Comments

Boners in the Bible

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.”

rib of Adam

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.

phallus in human cultureI 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

baculumIn 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.

boner in the BibleThis 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

God is Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: bible, Genesis 2:21-23, sex, violence

Advertisement

Some Christians will not find this funny. But I did.

By Jeremy Myers
30 Comments

Some Christians will not find this funny. But I did.

Some Christians might not think this is funny, but I do…

The Bible in One Facebook post

God is Redeeming Scripture Bible & Theology Topics: bible, Bible Study, humor, Jesus, sin, Theology of the Bible

Advertisement

Because the Bible Tells Me So… or does it?

By Jeremy Myers
28 Comments

Because the Bible Tells Me So… or does it?

Do you struggle with the Bible? Do you wrestle with what it says, what it means, and how to apply it to your life?

Confession time…

I do.

Here’s another confession….

When it comes to helping me understand what to do with Scripture, Bible college and seminary didn’t help me much. In fact, some days, I wonder if Bible College and Seminary hindered more than they helped.

We have probably all had run-ins with Christians who like to condemn others (or condemn you) by saying, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.”

Okay, here’s another confession…

god said it I believe it that settles itI used to be one of those Christians. I used to preach that very thing.

Anyway, the only thing that Bible College and Seminary really did for me was giving a more “scholarly” way of saying, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it.”

We were trained to talk about the Greek and Hebrew, and to reference the cultural, historical, and grammatical contexts of whatever passage were were studying, thereby giving us more and better ammunition against those with whom we disagreed.

In the end though, it all boiled down to the same thing…

Though the uneducated masses say, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it!” I could now say, “The Hebrew says this, the cultural background study backs it up, therefore, I believe it, and you better not disagree with me, you ignorant and uneducated worm!”

Anyway, I have begun to try to back away from that sort of approach to Scripture, mostly because it looks nothing like Jesus, and have begun to try to figure out what the Bible is, how it should be used, and how it should be read, taught, and applied to our lives.

The Bible Tells Me So

So it was with great interest that I recently picked up The Bible Tells Me So, by Peter Enns. I had previously read his book, Inspiration and Incarnation, and found it extremely helpful, and so decided to read this newest book of his as well.

The Bible Tells me So

As with everything Dr. Enns writes, this book was full of deep insights and helpful ideas about the nature and authority of Scripture. What surprised me most about this most recent book, however, was the keen sense of humor that was displayed on every page. There were numerous places where I laughed out loud at what I was reading. Dr. Enns has a very good sense of humor!

Humor is important for a book like this, where so much of what is foundational to many forms of modern Christianity is being challenged.

In The Bible Tells Me So, Peter Enns attempts to present an approach to Scripture which allows for us to accept that it has historical and scientific errors and that it contradicts itself at various places, and yet still retain the Bible as an important witness to the theological and spiritual struggles which were faced by our forefathers in the faith, and more importantly, as a historical document about the life of Jesus and how the death and resurrection of Jesus resulted in the transformation of the first century mediterranean world.

Reading over that paragraph again, I am pretty sure that Peter Enns would not agree with how I phrased everything in there…

…Maybe it is best to say this: Peter Enns wants us to stop agreeing with the Bible in everything it says, and instead, begin arguing with God about what is in the Bible. That, he says, is the purpose of Scripture. He says that if the Bible teaches us anything about God, it is that we learn about God and develop a relationship with Him, not by simply accepting everything the Bible says, but by actually engaging with God in a spirited (both senses of the word are intended there) discussion about the Bible.

In other words … don’t be this guy…

wrong approach to Scripture

Frankly, I really, really like this approach, because (as you may know if you have been reading my blog for the past six years or so), this is all I have been able to do with Scripture for the past decade or so. Despite all my training and education, I still cannot make heads or tails of the Bible. If Peter Enns is right, this is exactly how God wants it!

Though not directly stated anywhere, Peter Enns appears to be a proponent of the idea that the Bible is a library of books written by various authors from various theological perspectives, who are in dialogue with each other over the nature of God and what the human response to Him should be. Others who hold this view say that rather than the Bible being “uni-vocal,” it is “multi-vocal.” That is, rather than speaking with one voice on various topics and subjects, there are numerous voices, and sometimes they disagree with and even contradict one another.

In The Bible Tells Me So, Peter Enns begins by showing that most of the traditional approaches to the Bible don’t match up with what the Bible actually appears to be. Following this, he goes through several sections of the Bible, forcing us to read it and see it in a way that you probably won’t hear in most seminaries, churches, or home Bible studies. Then, the book concludes with some explanation of how Jesus, Paul, and the apostles used Scripture, and what we should do with the Bible as it is. 

Frankly, this book is going to require a second read for me, and I plan on reading it out loud to my wife. She is a better theologian than I am, and I trust that she will have discernment to see the right (and wrong) with what Peter Enns has written. I figure that if he invites us to argue with God about the Bible, he will not mind too much if my wife and I argue with him…

For now, though, here is my one main reservation about what Peter Enns has written (I have many reservations about the book …. please don’t read my review as a glowing endorsement)…

The problem with the approach of Peter Enns in The Bible Tells Me So is not so much in what he says, but in the logical ramifications of what he says.

For example, he says that the Bible teaches us about Jesus (p. 237). But does it? If large chunks of Scripture are stories that have been fabricated to answer the pressing social and theological questions of the author’s day (pp. 75, 94, 105, 107-130, etc.), why could this not also have been true about the stories of Jesus? This is especially true if the Gospel authors were not actually eyewitnesses to Jesus (as Enns believes – p. 78).

Ultimately, if Enns is right, the Bible is little more than the best-selling piece of historical literature of all time. Is it inspiring? Yes! Interesting? Sure! Can it guide us in our own life and with our own questions? You bet! Is it life changing? It can be. But is it really from God? Not so much.

the bible tells me soLook, this approach to Scripture is way better than the fundamentalist approach where we carry out all manner of atrocities in Jesus’ name. But I just struggle with having a Bible like this. If Enns is right, what sets the Bible apart from other religious books? How can it be authoritative at all? How can it be reliable or trustworthy in what it says about anything?

In the end, I highly recommend you buy and read The Bible Tells Me So. I recommend it, not because I agree with everything that is written (though in time, maybe I will!), but because the book made me think. This is the best kind of book! I like books that make me think, even when I disagree.

Hmmm…. maybe that is what the Bible is after all….

Until then,  what sort of issues do you have with Scripture? Do you think that the approach of Peter Enns (according to my woefully inadequate summary above) could provide a way of escape from your problems with the Bible? Or do you think his approach simply creates more (and greater) difficulties? Let me know in the comment section!

God is z Bible & Theology Topics: bible, bible reading, Bible Study, books, Books I'm Reading, Theology of the Bible

Advertisement

The post is perfectly inerrant

By Jeremy Myers
46 Comments

The post is perfectly inerrant

In Bible college and seminary, I always found it strange that one of the primary reasons given for divine inspiration and the inerrancy of Scripture was “because the Bible says so.”

I always thought…. “Really? We know the Bible is divinely inspired because the Bible says so? We know it is inerrant because it claims to be?” This is not a compelling argument…

Anyway… I am obviously not the only one who has noticed this. Here is a little image I found online last week which pokes fun a the same idea:

the Bible is not proof

Whether you believe in inerrancy or not, invite others to react to this image by sharing it using the buttons below… Thanks!

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: bible, Bible Study, humor, inerrancy, inspiration of Scripture, Theology of the Bible

Advertisement

Making Sense of the Bible

By Jeremy Myers
45 Comments

Making Sense of the Bible

Making Sense of the Bible

Making Sense of the Bible is the book I wish I had read 20 years ago. It would have saved me so much headache, heartache, and trouble as I have sought to make sense of how to understand what the Bible teaches about God, and how to reconcile the enemy-loving Jesus with the enemy-killing God in the Old Testament.

In Making Sense of the Bible , Adam Hamilton brings sanity back to the Bible wars. With clear explanation and compelling exhortation, he explains the doctrines of canonization, inspiration, and inerrancy in ways that make sense and liberate the Bible from the theological shackles in which we have bound it. In the end, Hamilton shows that the Bible is much more than what we’ve been led to believe.

making sense of the BibleAs I finished the book, it gave me a new hope that the Bible is for today, and that God can speak to me through the pages of Scripture. Yet it did this by arguing against the traditional doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy, showing that the way these doctrines are taught today was not the way they were understood in the early church, and is not even what Scripture says about itself. Yet this does not mean the Bible not inspired, or that the Bible is hopelessly full of errors and cannot be trusted. Far from it, Adam Hamilton shows how we can trust the Bible, and how the Holy Spirit breathes life into the Bible so that we can understand it for today.

Best of all, this book closed with several chapters on pertinent theological questions for today, such as how to reconcile the Bible and science, how to understand the violence of God in the Old Testament, and how to make sense of what the Bible teaches about women, homosexuality, and the fate of those who have never heard the gospel.

The pastoral heart of Adam Hamilton really comes out in the book, and if you have ever had concerns about “going down the slippery slope” by giving up the belief in the inspiration or inerrancy of Scripture, this book is an excellent source to see how someone can abandon these and still hold on to their faith. In fact, this book helped me see that giving up the traditional understandings of these doctrines can actually help strengthen one’s faith in God and aid one in following Jesus more closely. I highly recommend Making Sense of the Bible .

God is Uncategorized Bible & Theology Topics: bible, books, Books I'm Reading, Theology of the Bible

Advertisement

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • Next Page »
Join the discipleship group
Learn about the gospel and how to share it

Take my new course:

The Gospel According to Scripture
Best Books Every Christian Should Read
Study Scripture with me
Subscribe to my Podcast on iTunes
Subscribe to my Podcast on Amazon

Do you like my blog?
Try one of my books:

Click the image below to see what books are available.

Books by Jeremy Myers

Theological Study Archives

  • Theology – General
  • Theology Introduction
  • Theology of the Bible
  • Theology of God
  • Theology of Man
  • Theology of Sin
  • Theology of Jesus
  • Theology of Salvation
  • Theology of the Holy Spirit
  • Theology of the Church
  • Theology of Angels
  • Theology of the End Times
  • Theology Q&A

Bible Study Archives

  • Bible Studies on Genesis
  • Bible Studies on Esther
  • Bible Studies on Psalms
  • Bible Studies on Jonah
  • Bible Studies on Matthew
  • Bible Studies on Luke
  • Bible Studies on Romans
  • Bible Studies on Ephesians
  • Miscellaneous Bible Studies

Advertise or Donate

  • Advertise on RedeemingGod.com
  • Donate to Jeremy Myers

Search (and you Shall Find)

Get Books by Jeremy Myers

Books by Jeremy Myers

Schedule Jeremy for an interview

Click here to Contact Me!

© 2025 Redeeming God · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Knownhost and the Genesis Framework