by Bill Cosby
Missing pages!
When I do a television show, the writers bring pages to the set every day. And the producers check to make sure there are no pages missing. The writers and editors of Genesis didn’t seem to do any of that. If I went to any of the seven networks and handed them Genesis and said, “This guy has written a spec outline for a new show,” they’d want to know where the characters are going to be in episode 89 and then pass on the whole project.
So there’s Adam sitting in the garden when God started bringing animals to him:
Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
I’m not sure how many animals there were back then—today there are more than fifty thousand different species—but Adam named them all. And God made them all.
Aha! Ohhhh! So that’s why God rested. Fifty thousand species! Male and female. That’s one hundred thousand animals. And God did all of that in six days. Now I understand why God rested. Anybody would’ve. Never mind, I think you get it. I feel like resting right now just thinking about it.
Adam must’ve gotten tired naming fifty thousand species. He was human, and being a human being, he had to nod off every now and then, but God kept coming and coming and waking him up. And if you look at some of the animal names, I believe there’s proof that God woke Adam up and Adam was startled. I can imagine God waking Adam up and showing him an animal and saying, Name this! And one time when God woke Adam up, Adam just blurted out, Sloth!
And God asked, How do you spell it?
Then God held up another animal. Name this one!
Adam asked, What does it do?
God said, It eats ants.
Anteater! Adam said; then he went back and took another nap.
I defy you to come up with a word like “sloth.” Or “manatee.” “Wombat.” “Barramundi.” “Armadillo.” You name it, Adam named it. But he had plenty of time. There wasn’t much else to do in the garden.
The picture of God enjoying himself, going off somewhere that cannot be seen, God walking and enjoying putting together the anatomy, the physiology, and everything that goes into making an animate object. Fifty thousand species, male and female, and bringing them to Adam. And Adam, this servant of God, and God must have had a conversation, gained a familiarity over this period of time. I can see God holding up two animals and hear Adam saying:
Beavers!
And God says, Okay! Beavers!
And Adam can’t wait to see what God will bring next. I can see God smiling and bringing two more animals to be named and wondering, Now, what is he going to call this? And Adam asking, Is that the front or the back? Imagine God, smiling and energized and happy—probably the most fun God has had in a long time—knowing that he likes Adam, his creation, a man in his own image. Just imagine! God and Adam having a wonderful time. Not as two men but as God and man. No sin, no corruption, no violence, no drinking, no smoking. Just making animals and laughing. Maybe the only time God laughed.
Because of the missing pages, we have to imagine for ourselves whether God put the animals down and they ran away or God took them away after Adam named them. The writers just don’t tell us, and they don’t tell us the names of the animals in Genesis. So how do we know what Adam called the animals? Maybe he wrote them down and somebody found the names later. But the writers don’t say if Adam had anything to write with. I’m thinking that one of the animals was a cockatoo. Whatever Adam said, the cockatoo repeated. When the cockatoo flew from the garden, that’s when we got the names, because the press was waiting outside the gate.
Now this guy Adam, who is actually the first person to see things, has seen everything, but he has never seen a woman. He has no idea anything like that exists. He wasn’t even sure about the word “mate.” I mean, what is he supposed to do with a helpmate? I think Adam may have been a little bit concerned. We’re not sure if he’d seen any animals mating, because the writers didn’t put any of that in there.
Missing pages!
And Adam must’ve thought, Here we were, having a good time making animals and naming them, and now God says I need a helpmate? Adam knew nothing except he was having fun and all of a sudden: You need a helpmate.
What did Adam say to God about having a helpmate? Did Adam just say: Okay? Or did he say, Okay, but I don’t want a boss? We’ll never know because the writers didn’t write that down.
Missing pages!
So God said to Adam, You need a helpmate. Now God goes off. (I don’t know if it’s like show business and God walks off into a fog of blue smoke and then comes out with something.) All Adam knew is that God said, You need a helpmate. And Adam had watched when God actually made things and brought them back for Adam to name, and they were all so different. A mouse. A giraffe. A frog. A walrus. All different. So Adam had no idea what God was going to bring back. God could’ve brought back a chamois.
Here, Adam.
What is it?
It’s a chamois. And it’ll hold a cubit of water. You can wring it out and it’s dry and you can sop and mop.
There’s no conversation between God and Adam describing this helpmate, and therefore Adam has no idea what “helpmate” means. Or maybe Adam did have an idea because these other animals that he named—there’s a male and a female, male sloth, female sloth—were in pairs, so now he would have someone too. A helpmate. For him. We’ll never know which it was, because the writers left that out too.
Missing pages!
After telling Adam he needed a helpmate, the next thing that happens is:
The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs.
God plucked a rib from Adam. And God was very good at that. But why did God need a rib to make a woman? I have no idea, because nowhere do the writers mention God using anything but dirt to make Adam and all the animals.
Once again, because there are so many missing pages, I can only assume that God spoke with Eve before he took her to meet Adam. I also think God told Eve wonderful things about Adam and she was looking forward to meeting him. Maybe she fixed herself up—I’m not talking about lipstick, just the hair—and she asked God, How do I look? And God said, You look fine. Let’s go meet him.
When Eve arrives, Adam is asleep. I can only assume that God is standing there with her. We don’t know for sure.
Once again, more missing pages!
So God calls unto Adam, I assume, and wakes him up and says, Behold! And there’s Eve standing there. But Eve is not happy. Why? Because she got all fixed up and when she finally meets Adam, the guy is napping, which bothered her greatly. Remember, Eve is human—a woman—and this is the first time we see a woman not happy. I won’t say she was angry; I will say she was not happy. And to this day, women still have Eve DNA in them.
Those of us who are married more than three decades know wives don’t really appreciate it if you nap. In fact, wives hate to see their husbands napping. When a wife finds her husband on the sofa napping, the wife clenches her fists, looks to the Heavens, and bites down on her teeth. These are the actions and motions of a person who wants to kill something just because she sees a man napping. People feel warm and fuzzy when they see a baby napping, but wives want to kill when they see their husbands napping on the sofa. Which is great for the home-furnishing business. Stores sell thousands of pillows to wives so they can cover the sofa to keep the husband from getting on it. And these pillows don’t match the color of anything.
All because wives have Eve DNA in them.
So Adam woke up—we don’t know if God woke him up or he woke up by himself, because the writers left that out—and he saw this woman who wasn’t there before. Keep in mind that Adam named all the animals, so the minute he saw this woman he knew there was a difference. And I would imagine—when he woke up, not used to speaking with anybody except God, and he saw God st
anding there with a woman, he thought he was dreaming. And I would further imagine that Adam was so quick at naming things from habit—after you go through fifty thousand of God’s species, you really do develop a knack for it—but this time it wasn’t a name; it was an expression.
Whoa! Man!
And that’s how woman got the name. It’s pronounced differently today, but that’s how it happened back then. Adam saw that she was beautiful and that this was his mate. Whoa! Man!
I don’t know what God promised Eve about this fellow, but I think it’s safe to say that Adam didn’t really know how to talk to a woman. All Adam knew was that God had taken a rib from him to make her. So when he did his welcome-to-the-garden speech, he called her “bone of my bones.” And I think this is the first time any human ever said, Oh God! That’s what Eve said, Oh God! And Adam, upon seeing that Eve wasn’t really all that impressed with “bone of my bones,” went deeper and called her “flesh of my flesh” And Eve said, Oh God! Which was the second time a human said, Oh God!
But how did the first female go from being named woman to being named Eve? Our friends the writers and editors and publishers and, of course, our friend the bottom-line man, the accountant, claiming not enough space, left that part out, so we’ll never know where she got the name Eve. All Genesis says is this:
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living creatures.
Maybe Eve meant “mother of all living” back then. I don’t know.
So now Eve has moved in. But we don’t see her saying anything about the way things look. When a woman moves in, it becomes her house. But the writers don’t get into that conversation between Adam and Eve.
Eve: What are those sticks doing all over the ground?
Adam: They fell off the trees.
Eve: Pick them up.
Adam: Why?
Eve: Because I can’t live in this mess.
A male can step over things. A female can’t. So Eve walks around complaining and making corrections and changing everything in the place where Adam used to live. Fixing things the way she wants them. Where was Adam? No mention of where he went. I would imagine he was off someplace just sitting and thinking that he’s not bothering anybody.
The next thing the writers tell us is that Eve talked to the serpent. Now, God must’ve told her not to eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. I’m sure God was clear about that and said something like: If you eat that fruit you’re going to become wise, but you will surely die. But the serpent talked her into eating the fruit.
Hark! Stop right there. Why did the serpent talk to Eve and not Adam? Didn’t any of the animals talk to Adam? He named all these animals; how come none of them talked to him? There is nothing written about Adam talking to any of the animals great and small, with or without a shell.
Nothing talked to Adam? What did Adam do before Eve got there? Just sit in the garden without talking to anything? Not one thing—there’s no report—I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but why did the writers leave that out? Adam should have had a conversation with something. Birds. Something. I mean, Tarzan started to communicate with the animals right away and used the same sound to call a thousand elephants that he used to call thousands of lions. Tarzan could summon a lot of things. But then that’s Edgar Rice Burroughs, a writer who didn’t leave things out. Plus, I think he had a better editor. Then again, he’s not quoted on Sunday mornings.
Females see things differently than males. When God told Adam not to eat the fruit, he was okay with that. But Eve, being a woman, probably thought, Why can’t you eat this fruit? This makes sense because we know that the serpent told Eve it was all right to eat the forbidden fruit and Eve plucked one from the tree and ate it. Then she took a piece of fruit back to Adam and said, Eat this.
It’s here where I feel really sorry for Adam. If God tells you to do something and your wife tells you to do something else, what should you do? Adam has never had an argument—not with God, not with his wife—so he has to figure out which would be worse. Adam chose not to start something with his wife and ate the fruit. I think Adam may have rationalized this because he wasn’t there—he didn’t hear the conversation Eve had with the serpent—so when Eve said Eat this, he ate it because he remembered God saying, You need a helpmate. And so Adam thought, Okay, this is my helpmate—the helpmate God gave to me—and so I’ll eat the fruit.
As the writers of Genesis tell us:
And she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together.
But it seems Adam knew this was the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden because he later must explain to God why he ate it. Adam knew this was the forbidden fruit and he watched Eve eat it. There he is looking at his helpmate eating forbidden fruit, and there’s no mention of him trying to stop her. He could’ve said, Hark! God said don’t eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden! Yes, he could’ve said, Hark! Which was a big word then in stopping things.
But he didn’t.
Or he could’ve squealed like a three year old:
Ooooooo! I’m telling!
And then Adam could have gone to God and said, Go ahead. Help yourself. I’ve got another rib.
But Adam didn’t do that either. He ate of the forbidden fruit.
After eating the fruit, Adam knew good and evil. What does that mean? This working man who does what God says and there’s no trouble. But now he knows the difference between good and evil and he’s ashamed. Eve is ashamed too. So they sewed leaves together because they were naked and wanted to cover themselves.
But why cover yourself if everything else is naked? There’s nothing else walking around covered. Nothing else is embarrassed. When God created these things, the word “naked” was not there. And I suppose the animals are not wearing leaves because they hadn’t eaten any of the fruit. We can only imagine that if the animals had eaten of the fruit, what fifty thousand species would look like trying to use a needle and thread and covering themselves and putting flaps on the back. Of course, some of them didn’t need a flap on the back because they had a tail.
Let me remind you again: There have to be some missing pages, because the writers don’t say anything about where Eve got the needle and thread to sew the leaves together. Or even the words “needle and thread.” I can picture a man saying “hook and ladder,” but I can’t think of a man saying “needle and thread.”
So Eve must’ve said, Get me some needle and thread. But Adam couldn’t find either of those things.
Adam (calling from a distance): Where did you say it was?
Eve: Oh, never mind, I’ll get it myself.
Even today, if you asked a husband to find needle and thread, he could not. So it had to be Eve who came up with the needle and thread. Obviously a wife could find needle and thread, not a husband. Especially if she’s ashamed.
Let’s assume it was Eve who found the needle and thread, and then she sent Adam out for some leaves. Now, when you think of leaves—one’s mind when reading can only go to that which one has seen—you can only imagine the leaves that fall from the tree at your house or when you walk through the park. I’m sure everybody’s picturing tree leaves, but who knows what was growing in those days. According to the film One Million B.C., there were some huge leaves back then. I called the botanical garden and asked the guy there how big leaves grow these days, and he said there is a tree called raphia farinifera, which has leaves more than sixty-five feet across. Adam could have dragged a leaf like that back.
Eve: What is that?
Adam: It’s a leaf.
Eve: Where’d you get that?
Adam: Over by the pond.
Eve: It’s too big.
Adam: Can’t you cut it?
Eve: We don’t have scissors. Go back and find something smaller.
A few minutes later, Adam comes back with half a beehive.
&n
bsp; Adam: Is this better?
Eve: No, that’s not a leaf. That’s a beehive. What am I supposed to do with a beehive?
Adam: Use it to cover yourself.
Eve: What about the bees?
Adam: Oh.
Eve: Leaves, Adam. Leaves. Now, go and find some small leaves.
Eventually, the writers tell us, they settled on fig leaves. Eve sewed them together and they were now covered thereof. (The word “thereof” covers a whole lot.) It seems to me that this thing about the leaves established the positioning between the two of them and also between all husbands and wives. Women are always sending their husbands out to find something or bring something back home. During that certain time of the year called fall, when the wife finds the husband napping on the couch, she tells him to go outside and rake the leaves that have fallen from the tree and are now all over the yard.
Eve DNA! Napping and leaves. Two definite links between the wife today and Eve.
You’ll also notice, when wives ask you to do something, they don’t say “will you,” they say “can you.” Can you come here for a minute and do this? And the husband says, Okay. I will. This is the mantra of the husband—I will. The mantra of the wife in response to I will is not When but Now!
So God walks through the garden. The writers wrote that God was walking. I don’t know if there’s a description like that anywhere else in the Bible, anything about God walking or God came walking. I’ve always thought of God as a spirit, a voice. Were Adam and Eve able to see God? The writers left that part out. Moses, Noah, all of them heard God, but did they see God? Were Adam and Eve the only people to see God?
Missing pages!
The writers say Adam and Eve heard God walking in the garden. Normally Adam would’ve smiled and said, Here comes God! But now Adam and Eve are ashamed. They have the leaves on and they took a position behind some bushes or whatever, hiding from God, who is walking in his garden. I must repeat: They are hiding from God in God’s garden. Obviously the fruit hadn’t kicked in yet.
