From
https://redeeminggod.com/boners-in-the-bible/Euphemisms for Boners in the Bible
The Bible doesn’t contain the word “penis.” Post-biblical Hebrew uses the clinical term ebar (organ/limb) or ebar qatan (small organ/limb) but no such term exists in biblical Hebrew. Instead, the Bible uses innuendo and euphemism to refer to the male sexual organ. Here are a few of these:
regel, “foot/feet,”
Exodus 4:25: “and Zipporah took a flint and cut off the foreskin of her son and brought it next to his ragla.”
2 Kings 18:27 (cf. Isa 36:12): “Did my lord send me to say these words against your lord and to you, was it not to the people sitting on the wall who will eat their dung and drink from the waters of their ragleyhem.”
keliy, “instrument, tool”
2 Samuel 21:5-6: “There is no common bread at hand, only sacred bread if the young men have guarded themselves from women. And David responded to the priest, “Indeed, women are kept away from us as always when I go out, and the keliym of the young men are holy even on a common journey.”
qoten, “small one”
1 Kings 12:10 (2 Chr 10:10): “My qotonniy is thicker than the loin of my father.”
es, “stick,” and maqel, “staff”
Hosea 4:12: “My people inquire from their stick and ask counsel from their staff because a spirit of whoring made them stray, and they whored away from their God.”
yad, “hand”
Isaiah 57:8: “You mounted and you widened your bed … you loved their bed, you saw a yad.”
Isaiah 58:10: “You found the life force of your yad.”
sekobet, “lying”
Leviticus 20:15: “and a man who places his sekobet in an animal will be put to death.”
mebuwsiym, “embarrasments”
Deuteronomy 25:11: “The wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from his attacker, and she extends her hands and grabs his mesuwsiym.”
basar, “flesh, meat”
Exodus 28:42: “Let them make for themselves linen pants to cover the basar of nakedness.”
Leviticus 15:2-3, 16. This is a chapter dealing with genital discharges. Basar is the word that is used.
Leviticus 18:6: “Don’t approach the relative of your basar to reveal nakedness.”
Ezekiel 16:26: “And you whored with the sons of Egypt, your neighbors big of basar, and you multiplied your whoring to anger me.”
Ezekiel 23:20: “She lusted on account of their concubines, those whose basar is the basar of donkeys, and their flow the flow of stallions.”
yarek, “thigh”
Genesis 46:26: “All people … who came from his yarek.”
Judges 8:30: “And Gideon had seventy sons who came out of his yarek.”
The author of this book goes on to argue (quite persuasively) that the “rib” in Genesis 2:21-22 is another euphemism.
The “Rib” as the Missing Baculum
baculumIn his book, the Hebrew scholar points out that nearly all mammals and all primates (except humans) have a penis bone called a baculum. Ancient people would have recognized that it was missing from human males, and Genesis 2:21-23 is the etiological (a story to explain something’s origin … like how the skunk got it’s stripe) story for why human males do not have a baculum.
He shows that the word for “rib” (tsela) never means rib anywhere in the Bible, but instead refers to a plank, side, or beam in a building or boat. The word “rib” snuck into our translations through the LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, and has become the traditional (and safe) understanding of this Hebrew word.
Now, I read some online articles that have discussed this idea, and I understand that people will think scholars are trying to get the Bible to say something different than what it actually says. But the truth is that the word “rib” is actually the result of scholars trying to get the Bible to say something different than what it actually says.
The Hebrew word in Genesis 2:21-22 doesn’t mean rib, and it never has.
boner in the BibleThis Hebrew scholar goes on to say that the word refers to the missing penis bone. The Hebrew people didn’t have a word for this bone like we do (we call it a baculum), and so they used the word tsela, which refers to a sideways plank, beam, or board. In other words, it would be another euphemism in Scripture. A boner without a bone…
Further evidence for this view is that when Adam sees Eve, he says “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” The word for flesh there is basar, which is the most common euphemism in Scripture for the “meat” of a man. So when Adam cries out in excitement in Genesis 2:23 after seeing Eve for the first time “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” … well … you get the picture.
So is this Jewish Rabbi right? Maybe. Lots of Christian scholars think so. Check out this book by three Christians who think that Genesis 2:21-23 does in fact refer to the first boner in the Bible.
Personally, I am leaning away from this understanding, but I wanted to put it out there for your input. Weigh in with a comment below…
One reason not to reject this view, however, is because it is shocking.