Adam, Eve & Bestiality

[Logical_Phallacy]

So Adam was apparently a bit confused growing up, and had sex with just about every female animal under the sun before he complained to g-d and demanded a suitable mate.

My question is this: If Adam was in G-d’s good books till he bit the apple w/ eve, does than mean G-d was cool with the bestiality phrase? Not a sin?

[tomndebb]

I’m almost afraid to ask, but just what prompts you to believe that Adam was having sex with the animals? In Gn 2:19 - 20, Adam merely names the animals, finding none suitable for a companion. There is not even a use of the verb “to know” for high schoolers to giggle over in that passage.

So where does your idea of bestiality originate?

[Nametag]

And, to answer the other question, there was no apple, just the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Before eating it, Adam and Eve did not know that their nakedness was sinful, and so “they were naked, and were not ashamed.” One presumes this would apply to other “sinful” acts as well.

[MEBuckner]

You clearly have a rather unorthodox take on Genesis 2:18-25:

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, ’
for she was taken out of man.”

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

While yours is certainly an…interesting…interpretation of that part of the Garden of Eden creation myth in Genesis, I think the only GQ-suitable response to make it that it is not an interpretation which would likely be widely shared by most Jews or Christians, and they would therefore reject the premise of your question.

And to expand on what Tom said, there does not appear to be anything about the Hebrew of Genesis 2:20 and subsequent verses to indicate that anything is going on other than “A is for Antelope…Z is for Zebra” (or rather, I suppose, “Aleph is for Ox…”), at least not by looking at the concordance for various verbs in that passage.

[zev_steinhardt]

Logical Phallacy may have misunderstood a passage in the Talmud.

The Talmud states that Adam “came to” each animal, found it unsuitable as a mate, and then, finding himself “alone” asked God for a mate. “Came to” is a common Talmudic euphamism for sex. Therefore, one can easily interpret the passage to state that Adam had sex with all the animals (how this would be accomplished with beasts such as mosquitos is beyond me…)]

However, in any event, that very same Talmud teaches that Adam was commanded not to engage in beastiality. It is therefore highly unlikely that the passage should be translated literally. Rather, it should probably be interpreted that he considered each animal as a possible mate and rejected them.

Zev Steinhardt

[Logical_Phallacy]

thanks zev!