Creation Studies Institute
Adam's Rib

I was wondering if it is really true that men have one less rib than women because of the account of is it true?

The concept that men and women have a differing number of ribs is incorrect. Both men and women have 12 pairs
of ribs.

The story of Adam and Eve is translated from the original ancient Hebrew language and the term rib is actually translated from the Hebrew is the same word for 'side.' There is no word in the Hebrew for rib at all. It is the same thing for the word 'hand'. In the Hebrew the same word for 'hand' is used for 'arm'. It can designate the entire arm from the shoulder to the finger tips.

The idea that men would then be born with one less rib is a mistaken understanding of hereditary laws. When we remove the tail from a Boxer breed of dog, their offspring are not born missing their tails. The belief that a lost rib, or a cut-off thumb, or a chopped-off tail, could pass from parent to child was a theory, long-discredited, derived from the ideas of French biologist Lamarck.

If you have to have a finger or toe amputated, it would not mean you would produce children with a finger or toe missing. Likewise, if a human baby is born with a tail, it does not imply they evolved from monkeys. So a rib taken from Adam does not mean that any of his sons and daughters would have a rib missing. Men and women have the same number of ribs.

I hope this will help you in your understanding of truths of biology. Remember that the Bible is accurate on any subject it speaks on, whether it is science, psychology, philosophy or any other subject matter.

The Bible clearly affirms the truth that all living things reproduce according to their own kind. They are genetically pre-programmed in their DNA at the cellular level to reproduce exact replicas of themselves. Dogs produce the dog 'kind' and humans produce the human 'kind'. This is clearly demonstrated by what we see in nature and it is also confirmed in the fossil record where every living thing appears abruptly, fully formed in the fossil record, just as it is recorded in the Book of Genesis, Gen. 1:21, 24-25.

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