How Adam's 'Rib' is Mistranslated

You may have heard that in the Bible Eve was created from Adam's "rib." As it turns out, the translation of the word "rib" from Hebrew to English may have been a little... off. In the Hebrew text of the Bible, the word used to describe the body part taken from Adam to create Eve is "tsela." While this word can be translated as "rib," it more accurately means "side" or "part of the body." This is supported by the fact that in all other instances where "tsela" appears in the Bible, it refers to a side or a part of something, rather than a literal rib. So, it's possible that the word was mistranslated due to cultural biases or assumptions about gender roles in early translations of the Bible

[reversefulfillment]

I'll take a rack of BBQ Alas with a tsela of potato salad.

[yournamehere]

Oh but the translation as "his other side" is so much more romantic. Literally his other half/soul mate

[HitoHitoNoMiChromosome]

As a Christian I never, not once, thought that Eve came from a little insignificant part of Adam or even cared if it was a rib or not lol

[circeciernova]

It also led to doctors spending centuries _insisting_ that this meant men had fewer ribs than women.

[MakeAmericaMoralAgain]

"The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved."

[avigailengle]

“Eve was not formed from Adam’s head, so that she wouldn’t rule over him. She wasn’t formed from his feet so that he wouldn’t walk over her. Rather, Eve was formed from his side so that they may stand together, side by side.”

[GambeTama]

This suddenly makes calling your lover you "other half" make a lot more sense.

[chelledegrasse]

Nah, she came from an electric car. They just misspelled it.

[diag]

"bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh"
Adam didn't consider her insignificant.

[shiningwaters]

“Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.”― Matthew Henry

[zgjohusociety]

What’s wholesome about this is that it infers that Adam and Eve are two halves of a whole, which means that they quite literally completed each other.

[Solid-Shizzard]

anyone who refers to a rib as tiny or insignificant has clearly never broke one before...

[NateTheMagi]

If you consider what the rib cage protects, you might not see it as misogynistic.

[Bull]

Ribs are insignificant until you break one

[amordior]

In Dutch translations, it is translated as “side”. I have always wondered where this expression came from about Eve coming from Adams ribs

[evyatarget_practice]

As someone who speaks Hebrew, I know Tzela for a person means your closest friend or companion, basically meaning equal.

[SeaChellesShore]

Basically, it's non-Christians who interpret that our Church believes women are less than man, because it's not what our Faith teaches us.

[targaryen-timelord]

My christian elementary school literally taught me that men anatomically have one less rib than women because of this story of the creation of women.

[emmanuelvelazquez]

Adam was literally created from dirt, how superior.

[NaamaCarolinaNevo]

As a Hebrew speaker: it is both right and wrong, “tzela’” (צלע) does really mean “side”, for example every line in a triangle/square is “tzela’”, a cliff is translated to “the mountain tzela’”, but in Hebrew we use body parts to describe things in a figurative way, “head of the mountain” is a mountaintop, “belly of the mountain” is in the depth of the cave, “heart of the sea” is far from land, “his right hand” is the one who was supporting him, “on the face of the land” to describe things that are on the surface (literally or figuratively) and ect.

“tzela’” in the “side” meaning is figurative use like “head of the family” in the meaning of “top”.

In the Torah, genesis chapter 2, passuk 21-22 there is a description of the plural version (tzela-single, tzla’ot-plural), this is a rough translation from Hebrew: “and (god) took one of his (Adam) tzla’ot and closed meat underneath, and (god) shaped the tzela’ that (god) took from the man(=Adam) to a woman and gave her to the man(=Adam)”

The passuk itself is misogynistic (because women are described as god gift to men), but how you described it is not true because it’s not a wrong translation, it’s a figurative use.

It is right that it came from the Aramaic word “ala” עלע but there are a lot of Hebrew words with Aramaic origin that had this letter shift (from aain to tz, from d to z, from deep t to tz, from th to sh, and ect) and sometimes the older version in use (to this day even in modern Hebrew, the root of the word 3 is th-l-th in Aramaic and in Hebrew is sh-l-sh, when we count we say “shalosh” or “shlosha”, but the 3 in the term for 3D or “3 phase electric power” for example is by the old pronunciation and is “tlat”), the book Daniel in specific have a lot of Aramaic in it and not just words that are originated in aramic, the plural word “עלעין” written there is in aramic sentence, not Hebrew.