Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

HANS GOEDICKE: Anthropological Problems - Gynecological Questions

Anthropological Problems Gynecological Questions These days, when the English language has been enriched by some do=gooders with such gracious formulations as "he and/or she" or "his and/or hers," it is difficult to speak about family. Fortunately, the residues of this institution in our enlightened times can be left to the sociologists who promise solutions, but we will rather turn our eyes back two-, three - or four thousand years, when people were less advanced technologically, but certainly more human. Despite our sophistication, we occasionally, at least on weekends, entertain the notion that humankind is a divine product. The notion - and there is not much to support it empirically - is based on the traditions of a Creator, who step by step filled the void from which He had emanated. After five days of toiling, according to the Bible, there was nothing left to do, except to populate the earth. And so, according to Genesis 1:27, "God created man in His image, in the image of God. He created him; male and female. He created them" Nowadays it might be said that this account is sexist, but according to Genesis 2 it is quite clear that "man' was made first and the companion was made later. I am certainly not prepared to solve the age-old dispute, if Eve was an afterthought, or if Adam was a trial-run in preparation for the final job. Much more interesting is the way the two are said to have been made. There is the statement that man was made of a "clod of earth" or "dust of earth". It is indeed noteworthy that in the line immediately preceding this (Gen. 2:6) it is said that "a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth" an indication that the earth used was moist, and thus shapable. There are a number of curious aspects in this description. One is the use of clay for the shaping of man's form, which is not necessarily the most logical notion for people living in a land where deep, pliable mud-deposits are not particularly common. The other is the notion that a water flow "would well up from the ground," which would seem to presuppose the notion that the arable soil was above water and that at one point this water surfaced and flowed from then on to