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[34]
Moreover, Moses, after the seventh day was over 1
begins to talk philosophically; and concerning the formation of man, says
thus: That God took dust from the ground, and formed man, and inserted
in him a spirit and a soul.2
This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that
is red, because he was formed out of red earth, compounded together;
for of that kind is virgin and true earth. God also presented the living
creatures, when he had made them, according to their kinds, both male and
female, to Adam, who gave them those names by which they are still called.
But when he saw that Adam had no female companion, no society, for there
was no such created, and that he wondered at the other animals which were
male and female, he laid him asleep, and took away one of his ribs, and
out of it formed the woman; whereupon Adam knew her when she was brought
to him, and acknowledged that she was made out of himself. Now a woman
is called in the Hebrew tongue Issa; but the name of this woman
was Eve, which signifies the mother of all living.
1 Since Josephus, in his Preface, sect. 4, says that Moses wrote some things enigmatically, some allegorically, and the rest in plain words, since in his account of the first chapter of Genesis, and the first three verses of the second, he gives us no hints of any mystery at all; but when he here comes to ver. 4, etc. he says that Moses, after the seventh day was over, began to talk philosophically; it is not very improbable that he understood the rest of the second and the third chapters in some enigmatical, or allegorical, or philosophical sense. The change of the name of God just at this place, from Elohim to Jehovah Elohim, from God to Lord God, in the Hebrew, Samaritan, and Septuagint, does also not a little favor some such change in the narration or construction.
2 We may observe here, that Josephus supposed man to be compounded of spirit, soul, and body, with St. Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, and the rest of the ancients: he elsewhere says also, that the blood of animals was forbidden to be eaten, as having in it soul and spirit, Antiq. B. III. ch. 11. sect. 2.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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