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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

The argument from theology

return to the main-page article on "Image Of God: Part I"

made in the image of God: the battle to define Gen. 1: 26, 27

Harvard scholar Elaine Pagels informs us that the early Church, for its first 400 years, found primary inspiration from Gen. 1: 26, 27. Mankind, male and female, given dominion over the earth, made in the image of God, enjoyed a unique dignity within God's creation; which, as the first Christians saw it, and rightly so, implied that they deserved respect and freedom. This was the spirit of the Church for four centuries.

What happened? It started with the Councils. It all changed when the Church gained political power. Now, the problem for the bishops, as they saw it, was keeping the uneducated masses in line.

Gen. 1: 26, 27; the magna carta of spiritual dignity and freedom

Let's look at the actual text of Gen. 1: 26,27 in four different translations. We will, most often, be referring to the King James Version (KJV) as, traditionally, despite the archaic language of 1611, it has been the standard reference for most Bible scholars.

• And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over [the animals and the earth.] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (King James Version)

• God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature, So they can be responsible for the [animals and the earth]." God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God's nature. He created them male and female. (The Message)

• Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the [animals and the earth]." So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (New Living Translation)

• And God saith, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over [the animals and the earth]." And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them. (Young's Literal Translation)

Editor's note:  A word of warning to the reader. There is a great deal of information to digest on this page. Though some of the following I've been thinking about for a long time, much of it was discovered in the last few years. You are about to be treated to an overview and summary of thirty or more scholarly works that deal with the subject at hand. I intend to take you on a trip through material not often encountered. You will not be disappointed, but you'll have to stay with me, and follow closely the clues as we stumble upon them. The information, often seemingly disparate and disjointed, will, I think, begin to offer us a new view of reality, but only at the end of our review.

I've offered nearly 100 articles, 100 reasons supporting the thesis that the Bible is not an infallible word dropped from heaven; yet, I quote it.

• Father Robert Benson:  "...primitive man, as he is called, made his scratchy drawings upon the walls of his caves, the first attempts at self-expression through the art of drawing... How far has the earth world advanced since those very distant days? It has progressed much in purely material things, and at a fairly rapid pace. But spiritually? That is another story. The earth has never been 'out of touch' with the spirit world. In those far off times inspiration of one kind and another came to the earth with regularity. The wise beings of the highest realms have been and are always responsible for sending to the earth those ... transmissions of thought ... to be used for the benefit and betterment of man. It needs not me to tell you that they have not always been so employed."

In my past studies of the Torah, I had long sensed a deep wisdom expressed in the opening chapters of Genesis. Father Benson asserts, however, as I have also come to see, that we are not to take the Adam and Eve story literally. The Genesis account offers a metaphor, an allegory, something far more wonderful than the literalistic surface meaning.

• Father Robert Benson: "The spirit world ... has seen the dawn of the earth world ... have beheld the evolution of man on earth, and they have assisted in that evolution. They have watched man's steady spiritual and material progression. Man, as he now is, was not created upon the instant, as the Church teaches, in the image and likeness of his Creator. He was slowly and steadily evolved from a lower order of creatures. The image and likeness were to come later. The Paradise of Eden is the best attempt at an explanation of the creation of man... The story of the first man and woman, whom the earth world has come to name Adam and Eve, is natural corollary to the legend of their creation."

How the Genesis story was recorded

Many thousands of years ago, a psychic-shaman received from the Spirit World a cryptic, allegorical message concerning the sanctity and dignity of human life. It was written down, etched, on clay tablets.

• Dr. R. K. Harrison (1920-1993) was Professor of Old Testament theology at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. He is famous for his "Genesis Tablet Theory." I think it's more than theory. Archaeologists have found libraries of thousands of Mesopotamian clay tablets. These tablets were composed with a certain literary structure, just as a modern letter is designed with its inside address, salutation, body, and signature; likewise, many of these tablets ended with a certain characteristic construction. Dr. Harrison noticed that Genesis contains many of these same concluding formularies. For example, in Gen 2: 4 we find "these are the generations" of the origin of the earth and the universe. This phrase, Prof. Harrison asserts, is reminiscent of the concluding literary constructs of the Mesopotamian clay tablets. This means that the phrase in Gen 2: 4, "these are the generations," signals the end of a particular subject on a clay tablet! A separate clay tablet commenced with Gen. 2:5 and ends with Gen. 6:9, "these are the generations" of the family of Noah; that is, the family of Noah that extended all the way back to the Garden of Eden, the beginning of the 2nd tablet which introduces the Garden. The evidence suggests that Genesis is not a single book as such, but a collection of writings, a collection of tablet-stories.

Sumerian clay tablet

Just because every word of the Genesis account might not be from God and infallible does not mean that some of it does not contain wisdom; but we must carefully discern, extract, and interpret the data.

And just because a shaman-mystic received a message from the Spirit World does not mean that s/he...

(1) received the whole message;

(2) understood the whole message;

(3) did not misconstrue or edit the message;

(4) reliably and accurately recorded the message;

(5) did not filter the message through a personal worldview, thereby distorting it.

And this is why the apostle John, in his letter, warns us to be careful when we receive messages purportedly from heaven. "Test the spirits," he says; that is, critically evaluate; see if it makes sense to your deepest self. If it does, cautiously accept it, acknowledging that all knowledge is incomplete; but if it offends your soul, or spiritual sense of things, cast it away. Don't fall for the old line that "this has been dropped from heaven so you must obey." Only Dear Leaders talk like that.

Gen. 1. 26, 27 may be the most wonderful verse in the entire Bible; thrilling to contemplate, awesome in its implications - but, extremely threatening to some.

• And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over [the animals and the earth.] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (KJV)

Why do some hate this verse? It is hated because it elevates both male and female to an equal status!

So often, religion in this troubled world is just another word for subjugating women and maintaining a male-dominated authority structure.

I ask you to carefully analyze the above famous verse from Genesis. Look at it afresh. What are your impressions? The plain words may say many things - as we shall see - but how could an honest assessment of these words be construed as anything other than a divine equality of male and female?

• Father Robert Benson: "We find that the sense of the original [scripture] has been so altered in many cases that words, in their ordinary, everyday use, have almost ceased to have any meaning. Theologians have become adept in twisting words beyond all recognition of their true import. With the adoption of such practices, there is no limit to the number of meanings or interpretations that can be accorded to any simple sentence of words."

• Franchezzo, A Wanderer In Spirit Lands: "I have also been taught that the soul-germ in its first stage is only like a seed, like any other seed in the minuteness of its size and powers. It is, in fact, a spark of the Divine Essence containing in itself all that will constitute the perfected human soul. Of its very essence it is immortal and indestructible, because it is seed from that which is Immortal and Indestructible. But as a seed has to be sown into the darkness and degradation of the material earth in order that it may germinate... The [Spirit Guides] watch over the soul-germ during all of what may be termed its childhood and youth, which lasts from the moment it first sees the light of individual consciousness till through repeated experiences and developments it attains to such a degree of intellectual and moral consciousness that it stands upon the same level as its Spiritual Guardians, and then it in turn becomes the spiritual guardian of some new-born soul."

So, what does Gen. 1: 26, 27 really say?

Well, as we might guess, that depends on who you ask.

I will tell you what I think, and will spend the remaining article supporting my thesis.

Male and Female represent the image of God. This God, as indicated by the pronouns "our" and "us," is some sort of Plurality. How many comprise this Entity? Could the answer be Two? Could the human male and female, that "image" and copy of God, have something to do with determining quantity here?

This straightforward interpretation has been resisted by churchmen for centuries.

• Doug Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

Doug Adams is very funny here, but Gen. 1: 26, 27 has made a lot of people very angry. And this reaction comes especially from those who crow about the "infallibility" of every word of God; unless, of course, it threatens the male hierarchy. Male religionists will often attempt to diminish ideas of male-female equality by casting pejorative labels, calling it "feminist theology" - a clear sign that they've lost the argument on the merits of the case.

Before we speak about Gen. 1: 26, 27 in detail, an important maintenance item should be clearly noted:

the researcher's state of mind affects the quality of the research

This should strike us as an obvious point, but one cavalierly dismissed by those who are intent upon prevarication and preserving the status quo.

analogia entis - the "analogy of being"

This Latin phrase refers to a mental construct employed to explain the existence of God. The idea is that the very being (entis) or essence of the creation becomes an analogy (analogia) by which we might understand God. Maybe you've looked at a flower or a baby animal and said to yourself that this natural beauty represents the mind of God - this is analogia entis.

I submit to you that the greatest "analogy of being" is to be found in Gen. 1: 26, 27. In some sense, male and female image the very God of the universe. The question is, in what sense? - what does this concept mean?

Male-hierarchy theologians dislike analogia entis as a process of interpretation because, as they claim, it can be misused; translated, this means that it doesn't help their case as the creation itself bears witness against their traditional, warped views of God, the angry authoritarian. The picture of the austere lawgiver, for them, must be maintained as it provides cover for their totalitarian ways. This dark and severe symbol of God represents how they like to run things as his purported agents.

one of the great Bible scholars of the 20th century offers support for my assessment of Gen. 1: 26, 27

• The Zohar (a Kabbalistic work dating from the 2nd century): "The world rests upon the union of the male with the female principle. That form in which we do not find the male and the female principle is neither a complete nor a superior form. The Holy One does not establish His residence in any place where such union does not exist. The name Adam was given to man and woman united as one sole being." Editor's note: The Zohar affirms the ancient yin-yang male-female energy undergirding the universe.

the Hebrew words for man and woman and their deeper meaning

A study of Hebrew word origins proved to be far more enlightening than I might have expected. There is something very deep, and very spiritual, revealed in the details of the Hebrew text; strong evidence - to me, at least - that the message of the opening chapters of Genesis, metaphorical though it may be, is, nonetheless, given to us by the Spirit World.

There is much here to consider:

Rabbi David E. Stein has written a paper which explores the meaning of ish, a study based on thousands of occurances of the Hebrew word in the Torah.

"Man," at his etymological roots, is not one who exists in isolation, but is seen as living in community; in its largest scope, I would suggest, a oneness with all. But his "affiliation," in terms of early biblical usage of ish in Genesis chapter 1, I would suggest, begins with, is to be focused upon, one woman, the "one with whom he is to be affiliated."

Consider this most beautiful spiritual gem, the mystery of God's male-female name in the Hebrew text

YHVH, and the forgotten Goddess... How could God be male and not female?

the Asymmetrical Binary Force, the opposite-sameness, the eternal yin-yang energy, the underlying ordering power of the cosmos

the Mother-Father God

We will say more of ish and isha, but let us now consider other gendered terms. A Hebrew lexicon reveals:

Do the Hebrew words for male and female reveal a sexist bias?

Many believe this to be the message here. According to this view, he is "gendered," while she is merely "sexed"; that is, he represents a new class, a new species, while she is merely female, a receptacle for the male, much like any other female animal. As such, the English male and female, in terms of literalistic surface meaning, could be translated man and his mate. According to this rendering, man is the primary one, giving orders, directing things, while she is inferior, merely derivative of the male, designed to receive orders, with no real standing in the divine economy.

• Editor's note: With this literalist interpretation of male and female we might read Matt. 19 with new eyes. Jesus is addressing hardened and cynical men who view marriage in an extreme John-and-Mary way. For them, she is nothing more than an asset on the balance sheet, along with cattle and sheep. "God commands us to procreate and to be fruitful!" they retorted. "And a wife is a 'hole to be filled' and nothing more. It's in the Hebrew! It's the law!" 

Can their literalist view, and the Hebrew origin of these words, offer a fair rendition of the Genesis story?

I say that it cannot.

At first, the sexist interpretation seemed to me insurmountable. Much of history, of course, chronicles just this sort of oppressive dynamic. But how could this kind of dark-spirited subjugation find its way into a text that, as we'll soon see, takes us to the heights of male-female egalitarianism regarding the purpose of romantic love?

This apparent anomaly troubled me. But then I remembered a crucial point that I'd learned decades ago from scholarly rabbis.

Let's review, once more, the Hebrew words for male and female:

And now, let's use a mashal approach in our investigation:

What does the mashal, the "comparison," reveal to us here? If you've learned to play the game, it's not that hard to see - follow the color-coding:

The Mashal principle supplies for the Hebrew words, male and female, a two-part definition, (1) biological and (2) spiritual.

(1) On the elemental animal level, man and woman are common male and female, just two members of the natural world; their complementary anatomical parts indicating a natural coming together, efficacious toward the physical one person.

But, there is another side to these Special Two of Creation, ones deemed by the Creator as made "in our likeness, after our image."

(2) Elsewhere I have discussed how woman seems to have been granted the role of spiritual leader; how ancient cultures viewed her in this light; and how, according to the testimony of her own feminine nature, she will often be the first to find God. The word origins of male and female reveal nothing but concordance with this proposition.

Mr. Testosterone, while serving a vital role in a dangerous world, easily falls prey to his own desire to take center stage as "the one remembered"; but not without a price to pay. His macho ways dull his spiritual sensibilities. During the prime of physical life, he is often insufferably domineering and thinks himself naturally fitted to be unforgettable - "the one who is remembered."

To be sure, she has weaknesses, too, but hers are a little different; and, I would submit, most times, not as blatant as his. She tends to be more sensitive, more intuitive, more in touch with the energy flows of her own body and of life. As the old joke goes, she is more likely to ask for directions while he just pushes on. There is a time for pushing on, and we are all glad for the male's energy in its proper sphere, but he often does not know when to quit.

Again, their predispositions of body and soul indicate a natural desire, and a natural need, to come together. They require each other; he, the spiritually weaker, especially, needs her. All this push for affinity points them toward spiritual growth; a process, we are persuaded, meant to be led by her. It is a foreordained coming together, but only for Soul Twins, to create the spiritual and cosmic One Person.

don't send us any more girls! 

Editor's note: I was speaking with a social worker who works with emotionally damaged youth. The care-facility with which she's associated houses 75 children, 13 girls and 62 boys. I queried her about this imbalance, to which she responded:

"We don't get that many girls here. Generally speaking, the girls are more in touch with their feelings and are more sensitive. If a counselor here asks a girl what is troubling her, she often will know right away and will tell you. She's aware of her problems. But the boys are not that way. They tend to identify with the abusers that they've been exposed to in their lives. If you ask them how they're feeling, they usually say, 'I don't know' or 'I'm ok.' They are not in touch with their deeper self and feelings."

I marvelled at her testimony which closely corroborated the mashal-definitions of male and female! The social worker added this:

"We have foster-parents who say, 'Don't send us any more older girls,' as they are almost impossible to work with."

We begin to piece together an expanded view of the male-female psyche. When boys suffer trauma, they tend to self-protectively shut down emotionally. They angrily block out all who might reach them, even those who love them. In this state of hyper-insensitivity, they will also fall out of touch with themselves; rescue from which, if at all in this life, might be decades in the making. I think this assessment is correct, as some of this happened to me as a young person.

The terrible metamorphosis: from tender sweetness to wide-open raging eyes

But it can be different with girls. When she is hurt and mistreated, while she also will become angry, her natural propensities toward openness and sensitivity often will keep her from shutting down and falling out of touch in the same way that boys do. This is not necessarily good news. In her trauma, she rages and lashes out, but with eyes wide open. This is what Lateece tried to explain to Kairissi and Elenchus.

• James Fenimore Cooper: "It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil."

She sees more than he does; therefore her sense of outrage is the keener. She deeply resents and feels the unfairness, the injustice, regarding what happens to her; as such, her rebellion can be more intense, more focused; her spirit of vengeance toward the world, and life, more acute; hence, "Don't send us any more older girls!"

 I'd be released in your tenderness...

How terribly sad. An emotionally-injured young girl, "the one who remembers," blessed with her keen sensibilities, designed by God to lead the male to spirituality, finds herself offline in terms of her own soul energies. Her blinding and soul-numbing rage might last a long time before she recovers both herself and "the things she used to love."

the polar but complementary opposites

The meaning of Yin-Yang: (from the 'net) This symbol represents the ancient Chinese understanding of how reality works. The outer circle represents "everything", while the black and white shapes within the circle represent the interaction of two energies, called "yin" (black) and "yang" (white), which cause everything to happen. They are not completely black or white, just as things in life are not completely black or white, and they cannot exist without each other. While "yin" would be dark, passive, downward, cold, contracting, and weak, "yang" would be bright, active, upward, hot, expanding, and strong.

The shape of the yin and yang sections of the symbol actually gives you a sense of the continual movement of these two energies, yin to yang and yang to yin, causing everything to happen: just as things expand and contract, and temperature changes from hot to cold. In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang is used to describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only exist in relation to each other. Yin yang are complementary opposites that interact within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, but either of these aspects may manifest more strongly in particular objects, and may ebb or flow over time. Many natural dualities — e.g. dark and light, female and male, low and high, cold and hot — are thought of as manifestations of yin and yang.

God is not the author of marriage - not the way the Church explains it.

Only churchmen use the phrase, "God is the author of marriage"; meaning, the "marriage ceremony." Why don't they make the meaning of this verse more general, like "God is the author of romance"; or "God is the reason why a man and woman want to be together"; or "God made male and female bodies to reflect their destiny of oneness"; or "The male and female are to picture the Male-Female God!"

But no; instead, they love to emphasize the "marriage ceremony," the ritual - that part of the love process that they purport to control. That's why they are so one-tracked about "God is the author of marriage."

As with everything Dear Leader does, his intentions lean toward power and control. Wedding festivities are part of a couple's joy in sharing with others their official coming together. Celebrations such as these - wedding parties, not wedding ceremonies -  are often desired in Summerland. At these events, no one is confused about exalting form over substance. A wedding ceremony, in our world, by itself, offers nothing more than symbolism. If the lovers are not "married" before the ceremony, they will never be married; not in any real sense, as many painfully discover.

But churchmen are after something else. They seek to regulate the process of marriage; as they do, they derive power over people's lives. Just like demagogue-politicians who claim that the U.S. economy could not prosper without their regulations and their so-called stimulus, churchmen will try to convince you that, without them, you cannot be married at all.

Just as the church and religion have nothing to do with entering the afterlife, so, too, they have nothing to do with marriage, properly viewed. We will go to the afterlife in a natural way, just as we entered this world, in a natural way - and the church has neither say nor part in the process; except, as so often is the case, to inject fear into the hearts of the unsuspecting; likewise, the church has no part in uniting two people together in marriage.

Quite frankly, the concept of ritualistic marriage, popularly conceived, is a bogus one. The Nice Young Man at Church has no power to bind any, be they a Destined Two or a John-and-Mary. He is an interloper to the process.

she's the girl who said she loved me... 

The opening chapters of Genesis offer a summary-view of Cosmic Twin-Soul love. Those thus conjoined have enjoyed such status since the "soul nursery," and, in this larger sense, they were born married. These Sacred Two, if they currently suffer immaturity, may be unaware of who they are to each other. Such existential deficit cannot frustrate, but only delay, their coming together. The Nice Young Man at Church cannot stop this, nor can he help them. He stands entirely outside the process.

Joy And Sorrow, Kahlil Gibran

Mystics in tune with the Spirit World, such as the writer of the Genesis story, have long understood what marriage really means. In recent times, a noteworthy sage in this regard was the poet Kahlil Gibran. As I have mentioned before, he provocatively referred to the churchmen's "holy matrimony" as the "sinful marriage" - their presumptuous claim to join two who do not possess the harmonizing soul-energies of Twins.

These unnatural patched-together unions officiated by the Nice Young Man at Church have no real standing in the eyes of the Spirit World, and will last only so long as the immaturity of the parties involved.

how to be a real man; let's have words about this

Please excuse a measure of redundancy here as I seek to make a point.

Hebrew scholars tell us, in the first chapters of Genesis, that the English word "man" (adam) is always with the definite article; that is, "the man." As such, the adam could easily be translated "mankind," "human being," or "humankind." We see this idea in some of the modern translations:

• God spoke: "Let us make human beings (the adam) in our image, make them reflecting our nature, So they can be responsible for the [animals and the earth]." God created human beings (the adam); he created them godlike, Reflecting God's nature. He created them male and female. (Gen. 1: 26, 27, The Message )

"The man" (the adam) refers to both male and female.

Later, in the second document (clay tablet), we find The Adam naming the animals.

• Editor's note: Do not worry about why Eve's delayed coming was not mentioned in Gen. 1: 26, 27. Remember: all this is a fictional account, an allegorical mashal teaching device, meant not to be taken literally. The second account of Adam and Eve differs from the first because the psychic-shaman author wished to make a different point, and he did so by offering a new scenario. In both cases, it's all fiction.

• Editor's note: Fiction or not, among the many points of wisdom offered in these first chapters of Genesis - one of the most startling - is that of the equality of the male and the female. This was radical for the day! Clearly, this narrative does not represent the spirit of the ancient times but is very avant-garde. The psychic-shaman wrote his account when women were considered to be no more valuable than cattle; and this would be the general view for thousands of years to come. The fact that male and female are given equal billing in Genesis is one more indication that the Adam and Eve story was a message out-of-time, one sent by the Spirit-Troubadours.

Consider the underlying Hebrew of Gen. 2:18: "It is not good for the man (the adam) to be alone." Adam is not addressed by God here as one with a first name, like George or Bill. Here, when he is called "the Adam," we are to understand "humankind."

the adam is more title than name

"The man," in fact, does go by an ordinary first name, Adam - but, according to Hebrew scholars, he is not referred to as Adam, an ordinary personal first name, until Gen. 4. In the opening chapters, it is always "the man," or "the adam." There, he is always seen as the representative human. This does not mean, as some would assert, that "the Adam" is The Big Honcho, a term of exclusivity meant to belittle Eve, whom, they say, could never be a Representative Adam.

• This is wrong. We know it's wrong because she, too, is called "the man" in Gen. 1: 26, 27; also, in Gen. 5: 1, 2. "The Man" refers to both male and female. In any case, in this fictional account, when Adam is called "the man" or "the adam," we are to understand that he represents what every human being is or does or might do or could do - simply by virtue of sharing a common humanity!

The ancient churchmen, steeped in their dark and nonsensical ideas of sin, guilt, eternal punishment, hellfire, and The Wrathful Celibate Father, misconstrued the notion of "the Adam" as representative man (see Romans chapter 5) to mean that Adam's deeds of long ago, like catching a pestilent virus from another, somehow - without our knowledge, or permission, even before our births - directly infected all of us. Father Robert Benson, not one to take kindly to such fantasy, calls all of this a "monstrous idea," a "stupid and wicked fiction."

Notice how it's no longer just "the Adam" when Eve arrives. The Adam now becomes Ish.

I have a good reason for telling you about "the Adam." You need to understand this in order to appreciate what comes next.

Consider Adam's first gushing reaction, his joy and wonder, upon seeing Eve for the first time. Here are his words, with the Hebrew added:

• And the man (the adam) said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman (isha), because she was taken out of Man (ish)." Therefore shall a man (ish) leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife (a form of isha, meaning, his woman); and they shall be One Person. (Gen. 2: 23, 24)

(For more on the Hebrew meaning here, see What is the relationship between a Husband and a Wife? by Yochanan Zaqantov.)

What does all this mean?

I think there's more here than we can presently receive, and that we'll be considering the mystery of "the adam's" romantic love for a very long time to come.

But it appears that we can know some things.

• The Adam, this representative human, is meant to speak to Everyman, both male and female. The story of the Archetypal Man seeks to inform us of grand universal themes which apply to all human beings; cosmic concepts, such as the purpose of the universe, the meaning of life, the reason for romantic love, and the reality of Twin-Soul affinity.

Here is another version of Gen. 2: 23, 24, but with amplifications based upon the deeper sense of the Hebrew:

• And the man (the adam: the representative human, the clay image of God, the one identified with the earth) said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman (isha: one with whom ish is affiliated; one who receives the need of another to be in relationship), because she was taken out of Man (ish: one who affiliates, lives in community and relationship)." Therefore shall a man (ish: the one who is designed to seek relationship) leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave (gluing: an existential desire to seek wholeness with one's divinely ordained Cosmic Half) unto his wife (isha, that is, his woman: that particular one, against all others, designed just for him by virtue of her soul energies which exactly match his own); and they shall be One Person. (Gen. 2: 23, 24)

I will say more about this, but let us consider a few other clues in this mystery.

Whose helper?

Notice that after the naming of the animals, after reviewing all of their kinds and species, "The Adam," despondent and alone, notes to himself that "there was no help suitable for him."

• The context of the Genesis story tells us much about this "help meet." The Adam was not feeling dejected because of a failure to find an inferior over whom to reign. The animal world, closely encountered during the naming process, offered any number of opportunities to exercise regal subjugation, if that were his aim. Such draconian interpretation is impossible here.