This sheet on Genesis 2 was written by Ruth Westheimer for 929 and can also be found here
Yes, in the beginning was the word, and the word was sex. From the first chapters of the Book of Genesis, God's introduction to humanity, it is apparent that here is a theology spanning from the dawn of history that accounts for psychology, sexology, and human passion. The Bible, the story of how men and women first came to know God, and the Talmud the canonized commentary on the Bible, is also the story of how men and women came to know each other…
Eve ate from the tree, gave the fruit to Adam and "then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked; they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings." Elie Wiesel writes, "Without Eve, Adam would have been man but not human…
The tree's full and proper name was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and most of the next fifty chapters of Genesis are devoted to the exploration of the potential of good and evil inherent in human relationships. In fact, throughout Genesis we are introduced to one saintly figure after another and are told almost nothing about them but their "nakedness," their pained relationships, and moments of sexual truth. With every passing biblical generation, the characters become more and more daring and expressive regarding love or its absence.
Soon, however, God sent the Great flood to destroy the world because "all flesh has corrupted his way upon the earth." …
In other words, for want of a good sex therapist, the world was destroyed. And that is not meant to be flip. Every day on our nightly news and in our morning newspapers, we learn how crimes of passion and sexual confusion continue to destroy thousands of individual "worlds" 4,000 years after the Great Flood.
(Excerpted and reprinted with permission from the essay “It Is Not Good For Man To Be Alone,” written with Jonathan Mark, in: Reading Genesis Beginnings, Beth Kissileff, editor, Bloomsbury, 2016, pp. 63-65).
Dr. Ruth, one of America's leading sexologists, teaches at Columbia Teacher's College.
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