1. Hermaphrodite Adam „… fecit ipsum masculofeminam“
 

The Book of Genesis contains two different versions of the creation of humans. The first version states that God created both Adam and Eve at the same time, in his own image, as male and female. The second version is a more detailed story that explains how God first created Adam from the mud of the earth, and then later created Eve from one of Adam's ribs.

While modern scholars have recognized that Genesis contains multiple voices, in medieval times, people believed that the book had only one author. To reconcile any discrepancies between the two creation stories, the miniaturists, better than the theologians engaged in biblical exegesis, chose to depict literally a male-female Adam, from whom Eve was later physically detaches by God.

 

Suggested Bibliography

Serge Cazelais, La Masculo feminité d'Adam, Revue Biblique (1946-), Vol. 114, No. 2 (Avril 2007), pp. 174-188 (15 pages). Published By: Peeters Publishers

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Gerald P. Boersma, Augustine's Early Theology of Image, Oxford University Press, 2016