Did Adam have a scar?

I received a booklet in the mail today about marriage. It listed statistics on marriage and divorce and gave various bits of information but something in it caught my attention and has stayed with me.

Did Adam have a scar?

In Genesis we are told how God made the first man and woman. We are told how through the man’s body, the first woman…and the first marriage…was created. But we’re never told if Adam had a scar after his rib was removed to make that first woman.

Adam, upon being presented with his wife, said this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, but nothing is ever said about what became of the place on his body where the Lord removed his rib.

Did he have a scar?

I’ve heard of women…usually divorced…that chose to have their wedding ‘ring’ tattooed on their finger as opposed to wearing an actual ring. The reason is that they are saying, with that tattoe, that ‘this’ marriage is forever. Because they can’t remove the ‘ring’. Since the ‘ring’ can’t be removed, the marriage can’t be ended.

I’m not going to touch that belief…or idea…with my own thoughts but wish instead to use it as an example. Those women…once the ‘ring’ is tattooed onto their finger, wear forever the ‘proof’ of their marriage. It’s there for all time and cannot be removed.

Did Adam have a scar?

If he did…he wore the ‘proof’ of his marriage to Eve for all time. Can you imagine having a scar that was the lasting physical proof that your spouse literally came from you? It would be a reminder of ‘the two are one.’

If Adam had a scar, everytime he looked at his chest, or side, he would see the reminder that Eve was literally a part of him. Everytime Eve saw Adam unclothed she would be reminded of the oneness she shared with him and that if not for him she would not exist.

We tend to see scars as blemishes to be removed or covered up…or else as battle scars to be proud of and paraded before others…but can you imagine the importance of a scar that was constant proof that you and your spouse were one? That the wife came from the husband?

How powerful a statement that single scar would make.

We have no way of knowing if Adam had a scar but whether it was there or not, Eve was very literally taken from Adam’s body and formed from him. She was walking proof of the oneness between them.

And even as I write this my mind muses on the question…

Did Adam have a scar?

Did God close the wound so well that there was never any physical reminder of the ‘surgery’ he underwent to receive his wife? Or did God give him a scar as a reminder?

We can never know the answer to that question because Scripture doesn’t tell us. It’s one of those details that has no bearing on the reason the Bible was written but it is one of those little details that sometimes leaves us wondering. And today, I wonder…

Did Adam have a scar?