Adam’s Rib Had DNA Problems

Breakfast Bible Study

Genesis 2: 18-24 (NIV)

3/16/2025

“Christian nationalism is just fascism cloaked in religious garb” – Grace Pecker

Grace and Christian think they know more about science than I do, but I have been working on the farm for years and know more than they think I know. This week they pick one of the most famous Bible passages we read in Sunday school—the one where God makes Eve from Adam’s rib, which was a miracle and has nothing to do with science. I take the study Bible from them and start reading aloud even before either of them starts the coffee.

“‘The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

“‘The man said,

‘This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called “woman,”
    for she was taken out of man.’

“‘That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.’”

“Can you explain the science to us?” Grace asked when I finished.

“Before coffee?” I said.

“I’ll start the coffee,” Christian said.

“Easy,” I said. “It’s a miracle. God took the rib and made a whole new person.”

“From Adam’s rib?” Grace said.

“Sure,” I said. “God can do all sorts of neat stuff like that.”

“But how is a person normally made?” Grace asked.

I blushed a little. “Like sex and stuff?”

“The woman bears the child, correct?” Grace asked.

“Yep.”

“But in this story,” Grace said, “the woman comes from the man?”

“Yep,” I said. “See, God made Adam in his own image, and God’s a man.”

“And Eve was formed from Adam’s flesh?” Grace asked.

“Yep,” I said.

“And his DNA?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were so interested in DNA a while back,” Grace said. “You learned a lot about DNA and chromosomes.”

“Yep,” I said. “Girls have XX. Boys have XY. Mostly. The Y is way smaller than the X for some reason.”

“Females receive the X chromosomes from their mother?” Grace said. “Boys can receive the Y or X chromosome from the father?”

“Yes,” I said. “And we have a bunch of other chromosomes from each parent, so we are a little bit of our mom and our dad, but everybody is different. That’s why I’m short and why Christian is tall. That’s why some diseases are genetic. They can test for that stuff. We aren’t all exactly the same even though we had the same two parents and we all came from Adam and Eve.”

“Adam didn’t have a parent?” Grace asked.

“He was made from the dirt,” I said.

“Did he have chromosomes?”

“Probably,” I said. “God probably made his DNA for him.”

“And Eve had DNA?”

“Probably,” I said.

“Whose DNA?”

“Adam’s,” I said.

“She probably had his blood type, too?” Grace asked. “She was like a twin or a clone or something?”

“She had Adam’s DNA,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

“She did?” Grace asked. “His Y chromosome, too. That would make her a boy.”

“God probably had to suck out the Y chromosome from the rib,” I said. “That’s probably why they aren’t exactly the same. She was a girl.”

“Sucked out the DNA,” Christian said under his breath.

“Is he laughing at me?” I asked Grace

“No,” Christian said. “Maybe a little.”

“So if she only had one X chromosome,” Grace said, “she might very well have had Turner syndrome, which causes problems like infertility.”

“God probably gave her two X chromosomes,” I said.

“What were their blood types?” Grace asked.

“Probably universal,” I said.

“Then Adam and Eve had Cain and Abel and Seth after Abel died?” Grace asked.

“Yep.”

“And Adam and Eve had grandchildren?” Grace asked.

“Yep.”

“How?”

“Um.”

“If Abel is dead, that means the world has three men and one woman,” Christian said as he placed my coffee in front of me. “Cain finds a wife. Who’s she?”

“Um, God created them?”

“And cursed them with original sin?” Grace asked.

“That comes from Eve.”

“So Eve is the mother of all humans?”

“Yep.”

“So she mated with Cain and Seth?”

“Um.”

“Maybe Adam and Eve had more children,” I said.

“So Cain married an unnamed sister?”

“Um.”

“That doesn’t create a lot of genetic diversity,” Christian said. “Are you sure?”

“I’m not really good at genetics,” I said, “but God can do anything. That’s why it’s not bad to teach this story in school. You just say that God can do anything.”

“What if you’re a science teacher?” Grace said. “Should you be teaching this or evolution?”

“Maybe both?”

“The people who want Bibles in school don’t want evolution in school,” Christian said.

“How come?”

“Because they like the biblical version of science,” Christian said.

“Oh,” I said. “But we have hybrids and everything like that in our seeds. We know that evolution works because we can do hybrids and stuff. We know that pests adapt, and viruses adapt, all thanks to evolution. That means our crops have to adapt. I need to know that stuff to run a farm, or our crops wouldn’t survive.”

“But you’re not a scientist,” Grace said.

“I trust the scientists to make good seeds for me every year,” I said. “They keep getting better and better the more we understand. That’s why we don’t like Trump taking away research money to give to his billionaire friends. That’s why we want smart people running agencies, not people who hate science, like everyone in Trump’s junk drawer who rode in on a clown car. That’s what Grace says.”

“So what happens when people stop learning science?” Christian said.

“That wouldn’t be good for the farm,” I said.

“Or for medicine or any sort of advanced field,” Christian said.

“They even have AI studying genomes to make the work go faster,” I said.

“Science is pretty important then?” Grace said.

“Really important on our farm,” I said.

“What if kids aren’t learning science?” Christian said. “What if they’re reading the Bible instead?”

“Instead?” I said. “Why can’t they do both?”

“Well, in the science classroom, the Bible may cause confusion,” Grace said.

“We need science,” I said. “It would make things way harder without it.”

“Does the story in the Bible sound scientific or even plausible?”

“Maybe not,” I admitted.

“Do we need a story like Adam’s rib to run the farm?” Grace asked.

“Um, it’s kind of neat how God did it,” I said, “but probably not.”

In state legislatures across the country, Christian fundamentalists are passing laws meant to force the teaching of the Christian Bible in public schools. From the posting of textually inaccurate iterations of the Ten Commandments on the walls of classrooms to the incorporation of the “Trump Bible” across multiple pedagogical disciplines, these laws and mandates are sweeping the reddest parts of this nation.

The height of hypocrisy is banning books in the name of “protecting children” while mandating one particular book rife with numerous acts of sexual violence and scenes of graphic violence and genocide.

Book bans are dangerous. The Bible is worth reading and exists online and in public school libraries across the country, but proponents of mandating its formal teaching in public schools need to know what it actually says.

Click the links below to read a sample from any of my twelve new books.