The Literal Meaning of Genesis
rather flesh have been removed more appropriately for the formation of the woman, who belongs to the weaker sex? Since God was able to add so many other parts and build the rib into a woman, we cannot say He was unable to do the same with flesh after He had made man himself from the dust. And if a rib had to be removed, why was not another rib made to replace it? Furthermore, why was it not said "He formed" or "He made," as it was said with respect to all the preceding works? But the text says, The Lord God built the rib, as if there was question of a house rather than a human body.°*
Since these events took place, therefore, and cannot be senseless happenings, there can be no doubt that they occurred to signify something and that God, who knows the future, mercifully foreshadowed in His works from the very beginning of the human race the fruit of ages to come; and He has willed that certain things written down should be revealed in due time to His servants by tradition handed down through succeeding generations, or by His Holy Spirit, or by the ministry of angels, in order to give testimony about promises to be fulfilled in the future and signs by which men may recognize those that have come to pass. This will become clearer and clearer in what follows.
CHAPTER 14
God brought the animals to Adam by the ministry of angels.
24. In this treatise I have attempted to find not the foreshadowing of future events but the events which actually happened, understood in their proper rather than allegorical meaning.>® With this in mind, then, let us see how these words of Scripture can be taken: And again God formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven (this much I have already interpreted in the sense in which I understood it and discussed it to the extent I thought necessary), and brought them all to Adam to see what he would call them.57
Now, we should not imagine God bringing the animals to Adam in a crudely material way. What I have said in the pre-