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Plato in Separation of the Genders

Kaplok Kaplok

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ṣēlāʿ​

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept: and he took one of his ṣēlāʿ, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the ṣēlāʿ, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. (Genesis 2: 21-22)

In these verses, ṣēlāʿ (tsêlâ‛) was translated into rib in modern translations. However, this was the only instance it was translated to ribs. In every other part, of the Bible, and in Hebrew speech, it refers to a side, a chamber, or like on a two sided gate or door, the two identical pieces that forms the whole.
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Here is a list of all instances it was used in the Bible:
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This translation was one of the most used rationale for women to be considered inferior, because she was made from a mere rib of a man. Understandably, when you say "side" to a human body, it is easy to say that it is referring to the ribs covering his side.

Unless.... the Bible authors did not imagine "the man" to be a anatomically the same as humans.

Splitting of the Androgyne​

In Plato’s Symposium, each participant in turn gives his definition of love. Aristophanes, a comic playwright that parodied Socrates in his Clouds, is portrayed as being good friends with Socrates, and both their speeches are the best ones of the evening.

When Aristophanes’ turn comes, he says that humankind used to be divided into three genders: the double males, the double females, and a gender with both sexes—the androgynes. They all were very mighty, and once tried to ascend to heaven by piling up mountains, as Homer related about the giants Ephialtes and Ottos (Plato, Sym. 190 b; see also Homer, Illiad V, 385 and Odyssey XI, 305).
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Here is excerpt that follows from Plato's Symposium:

Plato, Sym. 190 c-e, - At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: ‘Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg’. He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after
another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms.

While Symposium obviously shows a very different myth, it is hard to ignore the parallels:
  • The splitting of human (androgyne) into two between it's sides or ṣēlāʿ where the hebrew word makes more sense. Plus, within the both story, they strangely have account for the healing.
  • In Aristophanes story, the split was portrayed as a punishment of the gods for human insolence, which is interesringly similar to the story of the Tower of Babel.
  • both stories were made to end up to explain the union of man and women, and the bearing of children. While Plato explicitly describes this as origin of love and derived from here an idea he wrote in Laws, The Bible is loosely interprets the their version of story the same way:

(Plato: Laws 776 a-b) Wherefore a man and his wife shall leave to his and her father and mother their own dwelling-places, and themselves go as to a colony and dwell there, and visit and be visited by their parents; and they shall beget and bring up children, handing on the torch of life from one generation to another, and worshipping the Gods according to law for ever.

(Symposium, 191 d) So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.

(Genesis 2:24) Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one in flesh.
 

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