This post relates to my recent article about how religious believers generally know very little about the faith doctrines they follow or the gods they worship. They just do it largely out of habit.
The classical paintings posted here are a case in point.
Christians should know, of course, that their supposedly divinely authored Bible proclaims that God made the first human, Adam, “out of the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7), and that the first woman, Eve, was created from “Adam’s rib.”
If that were true, and fundamentalists believe everything in their so-called “holy book” is true, then neither Adam nor Eve would have belly buttons, right? Said “buttons” are, in fact, artifacts of umbilical cords, which always connect unborn infants with their mothers and provide sustenance during gestation.
So, either the artists who created the paintings of the first two prototype humans shown here hadn’t read their Bibles very closely or, more likely, as medieval men, couldn’t read at all. Or the Bible is just factually wrong — as it is about the Sun orbiting the Earth. The paintings, then, represent humans simply depicting humans as their experience has led them to understand them, with belly buttons.
True believers would certainly argue that God made the first people exactly as the Bible says (because, you know, God can do anything) but also created them to procreate themselves in the way we all know very well today. Umbilical cords would then necessarily be a natural part of that evolution. Or some such.
Yet, beside some fanciful descriptions in an ancient book, there is no indication that these dust-and-rib hypotheses might be even remotely true.
The evidence, shall we charitably say, is thin.
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See full Kirkus review, HERE. Find “3,001 Arabian Days” on Amazon, HERE