Tuesday, 12 January 2010 15:58 | and posted in Sex & Relationships
The NIV Bible translation has a very subtle way of talking about two people having sex: they use the word 'lay'.* Adam lay with his wife Eve... Cain lay with his wife... Adam lay with his wife again... (and just so you know it wasn't just the first humans doing this) Elkannah lay with Hannah his wife.**
Each time, perhaps in case you're confused about what is really happening, a child results from this "lay" activity.
Other translations can be more explicit. Many use the phrase Adam "had sexual relations" or merely just "had relations" with his wife Eve. While the recent TNIV has taken a really modern approach and plumped for "Adam made love with his wfe Eve" (Genesis 4:1). Ah! That's what's going on, wink-wink-nudge-nudge.
However, what euphemism we call sex is really to miss the point in all these verses. What all these translations do is actually distance us from what the author really wants to communicate about what's going on. In this regard the King James Version says it most accurately: Adam knew his wife Eve.
You see the word the NIV translates as "lay" is the Hebrew word yada. Only 4 times is it translated as "lay" out of 946 occurences within the OT. Majoritively (422 times) it is translated as "know".
Yada means to be known and make oneself known. It is used to describe sex, but also to know, recognise and understand. In the Bible to know (yada) has such an intimate dynamic to it that the Biblical authors can use it to describe both sexual activity between a husband and wife as well as head and heart knowledge.
Check out these examples of yada from well known verses: Ex 33:13, Psalm 46:10, Jeremiah 31:34. What is God saying through these verses? Isn't He saying that the intimacy found in sex (yada) is like the intimate spiritual knowledge (yada) He desires us to have of Him?
Have you ever noticed that the first thing that happens once God closes off access to the Garden of Eden after the fall with "cherubim and a flaming sword..." (Gen 3:24) is that Adam and Eve have sex (Gen 4:1)?
To be honest if I was Adam, and Eve had been my wife, that's exactly the move I would have made too! Adam and Eve are profoundly aware of the severity of their disconnection from God, from each other and from the paradise of Eden. Unsurprisingly, they grasp at the most intimate thing available to them in order to find some kind of renewed connection: sex.
Sex is about connection; about knowing and being known. Our sexuality is about all the ways we seek to reconnect with everything humanity lost in the fall. Ultimately, you can't really talk or make sense of sex without talking about God.
In the coming months on ignite we'll be exploring sex and God, God and sex. What does the one have to tell us about the other?
FOOTNOTES:
* You can see how the phrases "You're a good lay," and "I got layed last night" came from can't you... [Back to top]
** Gen 4:1, 17 & 25 , and 1 Sam 1:19 respectively. [Back to top]
