GENESIS 4:23-24 - Lamech: Short, Significant, Settlement (Re-examining Polygamy)

Lamech said to his wives,

“Adah and Zillah,
Listen to my voice,
You wives of Lamech,
Give heed to my speech,
For I have killed a man for wounding me;
And a boy for striking me;

If Cain is avenged sevenfold,Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

Short

Tucked in-between the better-known stories of the fall and the flood is a short - 3 verses in total - yet significant mention of a man named Lamech: the first-ever polygamist (verse 19, mentioned in my previous post), second-ever murderer, and first recorded poet of sorts.

Significant

As if the reason for the inclusion of these verses in Genesis weren't hard enough to interpret due to the complete lack of background or context, Lamech's exploits are not mentioned anywhere else in scripture or world history. Genesis 4 is all we have to work from.

I was initially caught off guard by the overwhelming condemnation of Lamech I found in most commentaries, not simply their disapproval but their over-exegesis:

• They read his act as cold-blooded murder, I saw a text that didn't rule out self-defense.
• They read his speech as boastful and oppressive to his wives, I figured this might have been how everyone talked at the time.
• They saw verse 23's description of his son being a forger of bronze and iron to mean they were a family whom relied on metal weapons, I saw it as an excessive inference.
• They saw his proclamation of vengeance to be a prideful twisting of God's word, I thought - assuming it was self-defense - it was a logical enough interpretation of God's word.
  

I decided to examine the word used for 'kill' (harag), having heard on multiple occasions that different Hebrew words are used for murder (malicious intent) versus killing (legal, accidental, self-defense etc.). The word, 'harag' is indeed the same one used to describe Cain's murder of Abel, however, a quick search of other instances in the old testament where it is used reveals the word's intent to be less clearcut than I had been led to believe (instances of 'harag'). In Exodus 4:23 for example, God Himself uses the term, "...and if thou refuse to let him go, behold,I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn."

Settlement

In the end, the most compelling argument came not from anything in Lamech's speech but from the only other information offered to us earlier in the chapter - and the topic of my previous post - that he is a polygamist.

In taking a second wife, Lamech shows himself to be a distorter of God's word (Genesis 3:23 - "...be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh."). In light of this, it would seem safe to say that we are meant to read his next ad hoc extrapolation of God's word - the promise of protection - to be wrong.

Re-examining Polygamy

Thus far we've determined that Genesis is a very concise book, and yet, between the major events of the fall and the flood, God finds space to include these miniscule details on a seemingly insignificant man's life. Why? Why not give us the straight facts about Lamech's killing like the Bible does a few verses earlier with the murder of Abel? Why only give us Lamech's twisted interpretation of the event? Obviously because that's all we need to know to get "the point". So what is the point? Well, it's simple enough to summarize what little we are told about Lamech:

1. He was the first ever polygamist (Genesis 4:19)
2. He misinterpreted God's word (Genesis 4:24)
   

So what does that say about polygamy? This to me seems to be the most compelling proof - short of the Word's direct commands - of God disapproval of polygamy from the beginning of time.

(As an aside, while reading up on interpretations of Genesis 4:23-24, every commentator I read agreed upon Lamech's speech being a complete misinterpretation of God's word, with the exception of this completely baffling interpretation by Saint John Chrysostom. History appears to have proven him to be a righteous and Godly man - a saint after all - but his interpretation seems so completely incompatible - and foolish - that I find it impossible to reconcile the two things. Insights are most certainly welcome on this)

(back to Genesis 4)

GENESIS 4:11-12 - Curses: How Fair?

“'Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.'”

FYI: I'm writing this post months following my original analysis of the verses which it's linked to (prompted by questions arising from reading about Cain's curse in Genesis 4:11-12).

Curses: How Fair?

Before addressing the specifics of the curse that God places upon Adam & Eve - which have been subsequently passed onto us - a more basic question I needed answered was the fairness of a hereditary curse in the first place. I can easily grasp the logic of punishing Adam for his sins, but how is it fair to disadvantage me (via a meddled-with-hand-me-down body and mind which has been perverted over the ages) for that?

So I decided to play a little make believe: imagine we had the benefit of being born with un-cursed flawless minds and bodies as God intended. We're now all equally free from internal flaws. But wait, those born in say, war-torn Africa, are still at a disadvantage from external influences. Fair enough, we'll transport our equally perfect bodies to equally perfect environments. We now have what is effectively Eden - and isn't that what we've been getting at all along? Let's continue and say that for every man, an identical but separate Eden is created, so alongside Adam on Earth A, God creates Mike on Earth B. On Earth A, well, we know how that turns out, but on Earth B, Mike's wife manages to resist Satan's temptations, warns Mike, and as a result they live happily ever after. An outside observer could still argue that Mike had it easier than Adam by virtue of his wife making the better decision and thus not "weighing the odds against his own free choice". Very well, we'll remove the last potentially "unfair" variable available: other people.

Success! At last, a universe in which we, oh wait, I mean you, can live and make your own decisions, removed from the dangers of other "unpredictable" people who might tilt the scales against you; it's the truly fair universe you've always wanted: sterile, surgically-controlled, and completely alone.

Admittedly, none of this haphazard reasoning got me any closer to an answer of my original question, but more importantly helped me bridge the gap between the seemingly contradictory ideas of a hereditary curse and God's absolute fairness.

C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity: Morality and Psychoanalysis

The bad […] material is not a sin but a disease. […] And by the way, that is very important. Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. […] When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty […] he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

[…] It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man's psychological makeup is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us : all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.

C.S. Lewis - The Problem of Pain (p. 65)

It would, no doubt, have been possible for God to remove by miracle the results of the first sin committed by a human being; but this would not have been much good unless He was prepared to remove the results of the second sin, and of the third, and so on forever. If the miracles ceased, then sooner or later we might have reached our present lamentable situation: if they did not, then a world, thus continually underpropped by Divine interference, would have been a world in which nothing important ever depended on human choice, and in which choice itself would soon cease

Partiality, in the sense that objectors commonly use the word, is impossible in the sphere of grace. It can exist only in the sphere of justice, where the persons concerned have certain claims and rights. -Loraine Boettner

If by “fair” we insist on meaning that God be absolutely equitable in how He relates to, or gifts, every individual, then we end up with what may amount to an impossible criteria for even an omnipotent God. No two individuals - not even clones - could ever be given the exact same gifts and circumstances in life.
-Is God Biased?

(back to Genesis 4)

GENESIS 4:11-12 - Curses: How Far?

“'Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.'”

FYI: I'm writing this post months following my original analysis of the verses which it's linked to (prompted by questions arising from reading about Cain's curse in Genesis 4:11-12).

Curses: How Far?

All Christians - so far as I know - accept the notion that God's original curse upon Adam & Eve (and the serpent) were hereditary and as such, affect us all to this day (a pre-supposition I subconsciously worked from in my analysis of those verses here and here).

Reading about Cain's curse prompted me to backtrack and investigate why it is we make this assumption: Dissecting the verses, we see that God directly curses Adam/Eve/Serpent (i.e. no implication that they are to be hereditary). Is it simply because today's reality affirms it (snakes still slither, women still hurt during childbirth etc)? If so, that's a rather backwards - and potentially dangerous - method of analysis: interpreting the Bible via our reality rather than interpreting our reality via the Bible.

To further make a case against assumptions, a few short verses later, we are told of God's second-ever documented curse (Genesis 4:11-12). Here God curses Cain, again, directly and without implication of heredity, to be "a vagrant and a wanderer" for the murder of his brother, Abel. And yet, a few verses (Genesis 4:17) and a mere generation later, we're told that he builds the city of Enoch for his eponymous son (presumably to settle down in)!

So, how are we to interpret the length of God's curses? Genesis 12:3 records God declaring to Abraham: "And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse." So does that mean that if one of my ancestors a couple centuries back happened to curse the Jews that I, via bloodlines, am also somehow cursed because of him/her? Or did the curse die with them? Or their children?

How then do Christians objectively justify the permanency of the original curse? More generally, how are we expected to interpret the length and scope of any curse handed down by God?

(back to Genesis 4)

GENESIS 3:17-19 - Man's Easier Curse

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;

Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.

“Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;

By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.”

Man's Easier Curse

As an isolated incident, the judgments as a whole make sense to me: both screwed up, both are punished in unique ways relating to their unique roles: Eve is punished via her role as childbearer, mother and wife, Adam via his (assumed) role as worker and provider.

But when you view the results of the curse historically - which is not only justifiable but crucial to an understanding of why we are the way we are - I find myself with questions.

We have come to understand the curses directed at Adam & Eve to be directly passed down through their genders, or species in the case of the serpent. From that perspective however, Adam's curse appears dramatically different from that of Eve's and the serpent's in terms of its directness.

Today, all serpents still crawl on their bellies and all women still experience excruciating pain in childbirth, but everyone is subjected to Adam's curse: Both genders work, are forced to "eat the plants of the field" and are subject to death ("for you are dust and to dust you shall return").

Sure you can make arguments that each gender is directly affected by the curse of their partner (as I noted in my post on Eve's curse) but in the end I don't think there's any avoiding - at least the impression - the disparity between man's curse vs. woman's and the serpent's.

(back to Genesis 3)

GENESIS 3:16 - The Curse on the Woman

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.”

The Curse on the Woman

Had I never before read or heard this verse being referenced, I probably would have skipped straight over it thinking it was pretty straightforward. Instead, I found myself spending even more time than usual verses trying to get to the bottom of it thanks to all the muck that has buried this verse beneath feminism and the gender wars of our culture.

This verse can be practically broken-up into two parts:

1) Mothers & Children

"I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth". No real differing opinions or grand examinations of this section, it's pretty straightforward: before the fall there was no physical pain in childbirth and after the fall there was to be.

"In pain you will bring forth children". On the surface, this appears to simply re-iterate what the former already said but it does imply a bit more. Women form a unique bond with their children (even if in some cases it is, sadly, only one-way) from having to bear them, and unfortunately, because they are sinners and will inevitably give birth to a son/daughter who is a sinner. That child is bound to sin and wickedness and as such the mother will experience much pain in raising the child and will have a heart that never rests. An interesting point, that said, not one that really tells us anything new.

2) Wives & Husbands

"This is a description of the curse. It is a description of misery, not a model for marriage." (John Piper - Manhood and Womanhood) This change of perspective makes all the difference in the world. When God tells us that our sinful natures will cause us to want to steal and murder no one interprets that as a license to do those things, so why should we treat Genesis 3:16 any differently?

"Yet your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you". To further Piper's point, the use of desire here can be explained by its identical usage in Genesis 4:7 where God tells Cain:

"Sin desires you. What does that mean? Sin wants to control you. Sin wants to dominate you. Sin wants to take over your life. "But you must master it." You must rule over it. It's the very same expression. The woman desires to control the man and he rules over her. Sin desires to have you, you must control it. The woman then has the same desire for the man that sin has for Cain; a desire to control, a desire to have its way. And the husband has the same need to control his wife that Cain had to control sin.

[...] She usurped authority. She took the place of leadership. He submitted to her. And he was, therefore, sentenced to have to deal with such rebellion on a permanent basis. The wife then seeks control. She seeks to have her way; what she wants when she wants it. The husband resists and tries to maintain his control. And that, of course, is not always balanced. It's not always loving. It's not always kind. And therein lies the conflict of marriage that is so universal." (John F. MacArthur - The Curse on the Woman)

While I obviously like this exposition by MacArthur, I am left with the feeling that he - like almost all of the writers I encountered in researching this - is almost trying too hard to "even the playing field" by equally implicating men into God's statement in verse 16. While it's understandable given the state of our society, the goal of my Bible blog was to understand everything as it was written and the fact is that the gender issues we have today did not exist (or at least weren't anywhere near as prominent) when Genesis was written.

Back to Basics?

Truth be told, despite the multitude of writings which exist on the latter half of verse 16, almost all of them seemed to simply use it as a launching point for a extended discussion on gender roles and few if any addressed what the verse itself means. And so despite reading a lot of good enlightening things, I find myself coming back to the basics, politically correct or not.

"Yet your desire will be for your husband". Is this not simply saying that women will have a greater desire for their husbands than vice versa? From what little life experience I have I've observed this to generally be the case with men and women in relationships. If "desire" simply means a desire to control which the man also possesses (as MacArthur and other authors essentially posit) the lexicon certainly doesn't back him up (tshuwqah: a longing -- desire) and more significant is the question of why God would bother mentioning it in the woman's curse at all?

So in many ways I leave this verse right back where I started, and in some respects, more confused.

(back to Genesis 3)

GENESIS 3:15 - The First Preaching of the Gospel

And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel.

The First Preaching of the Gospel

Confession: In all my previous - and obviously hasty - readings, I had always assumed this verse was being addressed to Adam rather than Satan! What a difference altering the recipient makes! All of a sudden this verse went from being relatively straightforward (God saying that guys and gals will rule over gals and they won't get along) to being the most singularly loaded and difficult verse I've encountered yet.

Messianic Prophecy:

"This is one of the most remarkable verses in the Bible. The early church fathers called it the Protevangelium, which means "the first preaching of the gospel." It is the clearest promise of the coming of a Redeemer." (Ray Stedman)

"Here was the dawn of the gospel day: no sooner was the wound given, than the remedy was provided and revealed." (Matthew Henry Bible Commentary)

Most commentaries concerning this particular verse emphasize its messianic foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus:

• "her seed": as opposed to the seed of a man, i.e. the virgin Mary, mother of Jesus
• "He shall bruise...": masculine pronoun, indicating that Christ would be a man.
• "you shall bruise him on the heel": Christ would be made to suffer and die.
• "He shall bruise you on the head": Christ would be ressurected and in doing so defeat death and Satan whilst redeeming mankind in the process for their original sin.

The only thing more amazing than the amount of prophecy that's crammed into this verse is the content of the prophecy itself!

Enmity and the Woman:

While I can certainly agree with above-started interpretation of this verse as being a foretelling of the coming of Jesus who would redeem us from this original sin, I have a bit more trouble understanding some of the specifics of this verse.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman..."

What is God talking about here? Not the dictionary sense of the word, "a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will; animosity; antagonism" (Dictionary.com), as it goes without saying that Adam & Eve would hate Satan after what he's done. The majority of commentaries the figures of Satan and the woman here to be representative of sin vs. righteousness, i.e. Satan's way vs. God's way, "this enmity cuts into the human race and divides mankind. Between those who stem from the woman and are true sons of Eve and those who follow the serpent and his master" (Answers in Genesis). But despite the relative unanimity of the commentaries, I still have problems buying into this explanation.

If indeed this is the correct interpretation than what is it exactly - at this point in time, void from everything else that would come after it - that makes the woman pure? After all, was she not the first one to sin? What makes woman anymore righteous than man at this point? God's decision to juxtapose Eve/woman against Satan and sinfulness seems baffling given that it comes directly on the heels of Eve sinning.

Perhaps I just need someone to explain it to me in even further layman's terms...

(back to Genesis 3)

GENESIS 3:1 - A "Crafty" Serpent? Talking Animals?

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden '?"

A "Crafty" Serpent?

I had always assumed from quick reads that craftiness was supposed to be attributed to Satan, but after inspecting multiple translations, it seems clear to me that the verse maps the trait to the animal itself. But how can an animal be "crafty" unless it possesses a level of intelligence which no animal we know of today does?

"It is not improbable, that reason and speech were then the known properties of the serpent. And therefore Eve was not surprised at his reasoning and speaking, which otherwise she must have been." (John Wesley Commentary) This makes sense, considering the degenerative effects of the fall of man, which would have affected every single thing, including animals. However, this answer leads me to another question...

Talking animals?!

The satisfactory answer above as to why we no longer find crafty talking snakes anymore leads me to another question: does that mean that - at least before the fall of man - animals used to be able to talk?

The most common supportive answer for this was that because Eve didn't seem surprised by the snake speaking to her, logically, animals must have spoken. Rational Christianity shows how you can accept those same two points without coming to the same conclusion: "As for Eve, she didn't necessarily have the same perspective we do on talking animals. We know from history as well as our own experience that animals don't talk. We also grew up with stories of animals talking, and were taught to regard them as imaginary. Adam and Eve didn't have a childhood, nor did they have other humans to learn from. They may not even have been alive for very long when the incident occurred. For all they knew, animals did speak from time to time." Inconclusive.

Numbers 22:28: And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” Now this verse too could be interpreted as being supportive, but looking at multiple translations and the lexicon for the word 'opened' (pathach: to open wide; specifically, to loosen, begin, plough, carve) it doesn't seem clear cut. Inconclusive.

A House Church Network Association article adds to the above by asking the - admittedly intriguing - question: "Who did Adam and Eve talk about? [...] there was not only no one else to talk about (except perhaps to talk about God), but there was not yet any sin and gossip [...] So the traditional answer would be there was no one to talk about. Except... Could it be that there were others to talk about?" They go on to mention two other supportive points for talking animals:

1) Genesis 2:18, God himself notes that "it is not good for the man to be alone" and so he makes the animals.
It would seem to make sense that God, recognizing a human's need for companionship and communication would create animals with the ability to speak. But you could then also argue the opposite side saying that 's perhaps one of the reasons why he ended up needing to create Eve. Inconclusive

2) The animals are named by Adam.
Interesting point. If the animals can't speak, why bother having Adam name them? Just for himself and God to appreciate? Maybe, maybe not. Inconclusive.

This issue remains for me... inconclusive.

(back to Genesis 3)

GENESIS 2:10-14 - River Details

Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

River Details

Up to this point, in reading the account of Genesis and the creation of the universe, everything is understandably brief and summarized. With regards to landscapes, plants, animals etc. we're only told what we absolutely need to know. Given this approach I figure - and this is how I've been reading Genesis thus far - anything that is mentioned in detail is done so for a reason.

Having said that, I'm at a loss to explain why it is that five incredibly detailed verses are devoted to these four rivers within Eden: names, descriptions, surrounding areas etc. Up until this point everything, including mankind, has been described in very broad and poetic terms and these verses just seem to stick out like a sore thumb both in their written style and detail.

Does anyone have any ideas?

(back to Genesis 2)

GENESIS 2:2-3 - The Sabbath

By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

The Sabbath

God is God, He obviously didn't need to take a day off to rest. And with Genesis being pretty short on details - the creation of the entire world in two chapters! - it can be reasoned that anything that is in there is probably pretty important. With those two things considered it would make sense to consider what the significance of this seventh day of rest is.

Seven Day Week: First, in researching this issue I came across a more fundamental issue that was quite interesting. The significance of the seven day week adopted around the world. You would think there would be a simple secular explanation, but in fact there isn't: "Society's seven day calendar week is the only major rhythm of human activity that is totally oblivious to external nature." And then consider that "in all the ancient world, so far as is known, there was no seven-day calendar cycle except for the Jewish week" (God's Mysterious 7-Day Cycle). Put em together and it seems to me that you get a decent boost for the validity of the creation story put forth in Genesis.

Ten commandments: The sabbath is one of them! Exodus 20:8-10: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. Well, this is definitely #1 on the list of commandments that I'm most likely to forget. It doesn't seem to be as important as all the other ones, true, but on the flip side, it is a commandment all the same, and it does say in James 2:10: "...whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all." Pretty strong.

In his sermon on work & rest I thought it was really cool how Pastor Dan had mentioned that if you look at the ten commandments, the first three are more focused towards God (love God, no idols etc.) and the last six towards other people (don't kill, don't steal etc.). And then there's the Sabbath which has its hand in both.

Physical: Yes, it provides those of us looking for a break a regularly scheduled chance to do so, but more interesting I think is the flip-side: it acts as a command to those who are not looking to take a break to do so; and in this age of the Blackberry, divorcing couples and alienated children, it makes the idea of a forced Sabbath look all the more logical.

Spiritual: It forces us to rely on God. As Pastor Dan pointed out, observing the Sabbath put the Israelites at a severe disadvantage as an agricultural society when you can't work 1 out of 7 days. And yet, when they relied upon God they still managed to prosper. Likewise, the irony of me saying I'm too busy to observe a sabbath or help out the church is precisely the reason why I need to. I'm placing too much emphasis on my own strength, my own ability to get things done, and taking my own direction in life when I should be handing all that over to God.

Observing the Sabbath is not only our way of honouring God but His way of helping us grow closer to Him in forcing us to rely upon Him. That's pretty awesome to see how it all comes together.

Is the day important? In his sermon Pastor Dan cited Romans 14:5-6: "One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God." This seems to be in support of the idea that we can observe different personal Sabbath days, which seems to make sense to me in that the most important thing is the regularity and what's going on between you and God which has nothing to do with the day itself. That said, in researching this topic there seemed to be a ton of sites dedicated towards rigidly keeping the date of the Sabbath without compromise, and I can also see where they're coming from. Comments?

(return to Genesis 2)

GENESIS 1:22 - Females Before Eve

God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”

Females Before Eve

Given that God tells the animals to multiply, I assume that means there must have been female animals at this point. But this is before Eve has even been created by God. This doesn't really present a problem for me in the typical sense with regards to logic or contradiction but rather, symbolism? It seems to me that if females existed before Eve was created than the entire symbolism of her being created from Adam's rib seems somehow, diminished. Or am I missing the point? Does this chronology of events give even more significance to the human race and/or human females by virtue of the fact that he comes up with this different way of creating human females vs. female animals?

Another possibility could be that my assumptions are wrong and that animals had a way of multiplying without male and female animals having sex. This doesn't seems so far-fetched to me despite there being no modern day equivalent, just like how we're told that all animals were vegetarian before the fall.

Either way, I've had problems finding any other sources that address this issue. Unresolved.

(back to Genesis 1)