Splitting the Adam

You may have been told that women have one less rib than men, but this is not true, as both men and women have 24 ribs. You may have also been told that God made Eve from Adam’s rib, but this is not correct either, as God made Eve out of Adam’s ṣēlāʿ, a Hebrew…

Jamin Bradley

January 8, 2024

2–3 minutes

Adam, deep sleep, Eve, rip, sela, side, split, tardema, vision

The image is one of a man split in half. Eve is not subservient or subordinate to Adam, rather, she is on the same exact level as him. She is his coequal, assigned to help with the same Godly mission that he has been assigned. While Jesus and other Bible characters prove to us that the single, celibate life is completely acceptable, the point of marriage is to strengthen us. Men and women can support one another by unifying their sides into one person. The cliché statement that we’re all looking for our other half has more biblical precedent than we once thought.

But how could God literally split Adam in half without killing him? Genesis 2:21 mentions that Adam was put into a tardēmâ or a “deep sleep.” Such tardēmâs were often supernaturally induced and occasionally came with powerful dreams and visions. That being said, while God may have put Adam into a tardēmâ for supernatural surgery, it’s also possible that Adam beheld an intense dream of being split in two and awoke to discover the interpretation: his new wife, Eve.

I’ve sensed the Holy Spirit communicate several important things to me in dreams, but there’s maybe only one dream I’ve had that I’d describe as something like a tardēmâ. I struggled immensely to discern the difference between the dream and reality, but as it went on, it felt like God was trying to tell me my own story in a way that might teach me a few things. There is much to be learned in such moments, and good theology and life decisions rest upon waking up from our tardēmâs with a willingness to understand what God is saying and doing.

2 responses to “Splitting the Adam”

From Coequal Partners to Patriarchy: How the Fall Distorted God’s Vision – Jamin Bradley

August 22, 2024 at 11:04 am

[…] made Eve from Adam’s ṣēlāʿ, a Hebrew word meaning “side.” The image is one of a man split in half. Eve is not subservient or subordinate to Adam, rather, she is on the same exact level as him. She […]

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Shaun Schofield

February 25, 2025 at 11:28 am

Eve had died in sin when she ate the apple. Adam could have said no I will not eat the apple, then God would have sent Eve out of the garden alone! Or he could have said I will take the blame and punishment for her, being sinless himself his death would have paid the debt, though he did not know that at the time, he would have been brought back to life, End of story no need for Jesus. Simples. Instead he ate the apple!! Of course the great divorce was not eating the apple, but the splitting of the hermaphrodite Adam, note god’s male and female unity was not disturbed or so we think. This predestined the fall, opening Adam to a lack of self-reliance that being hermaphrodite would have provided him, instead placing a tension in the garden which together with the fact his relationship with God alone was not enough for him led to the second great divorce, the fall. So in Adam’s creation by God the seed of sin was already placed, since God alone was not enough for him. Perhaps a hint also why God made us, he/she her/himself was not enough for him/her, he was alone. If we believe the serpent was Satan, there was also another fall before that. Perhaps another split in his nature, since the creation of physical world universe would need both good and evil to work. Or why else 1) make Satan (Lucifer in the first place 2) Why let him in the garden since one must assume without his presence Adam and Eve may not have fallen without prompt. Meaning all was intended by God in first place or as he says in Kings “There is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things” (Isaiah 45:6–7, KJV, without which we would not have the great drama of life or even the creation of life without years of death and life as animals evolved to form us through survival of the fittest. Of course god may have already himself suffered a split of his male and female character in the act of creation and the creation of man in part was to have a working model to work this problem out. In sense his own great divorce.

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Jamin Bradley