Did Adam And Eve Have Belly Buttons (Navels)?

Did the first man (Adam) and first woman (Eve) have a navel or belly button? Why is it important to know?

Why it’s Important to Know

I believe it’s important to know how to answer this question because people who are skeptical about God will ask such things. To know how to give an answer, you must understand where they’re coming from and why they’re asking the question. They probably aren’t going to make a decision for Christ based upon the answer you give, and they may not be sincere in asking you this question. Perhaps they only want to debate with you or try to cause you to stumble by trying to come up with an answer. I would respond by telling them it’s a question that has nothing to do with the Bible’s message. It’s like asking “Did the pilot of the first airplane ever flown have a mustache or not?” That’s not a great question to ask a flight historian about such an important event. Just remember that Jesus is the One Who this book is about. It’s not about answering questions like “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin,” but how can a person be saved and spared from the eternal wrath of God (John 3:36)? It is our desire to help someone who sincerely wants to find out the answer to this question so that they can know how to answer it. This question might allow you to show them what’s supremely important. It might open the door for the law to enter into their conscience and humble them, in the hopes that they’ll flee to the cross and trust in Christ. God may use you as a means to save someone Who God has brought to repentance and faith, with the desire that they would place their trust in Christ.

Back to the Beginning

When God created the heavens and the earth, there was perfection in all the creation, and this included Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were distinct in that God created them Himself, unlike following generations where God would use the birth process as a means to create human lives. Make no mistake about it; even though we are born through a human birthing process, God is still the Giver and Author of Life (Acts 3:15), but the point is that God created man and woman in a state of total perfection. There was no physical or mental flaw in either of them; therefore we can assume there was no need for a belly button (or navel). God did not need to use a belly button or navel to feed an, as yet, unborn person. The Bible says God “spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:9) and “Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, Unless the Lord has commanded it” (Lam 3:37)? When God creates, all He creates is good (Gen 1:3, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25), and even after creating man, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (Gen 1:31). It wasn’t only good….it was “very good,” because God is a good God and all He does is good.

The Fall

When Adam and Eve decided to choose for themselves the right to know good from evil, they were essentially saying to God, “God, we’re going to do what’s right in our own eyes,” and if you read the Book of Judges, you can see how badly this turned out in later generations. And they had to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden with an angel blocking their entrance so they couldn’t return and eat of the Tree of Life. Imagine humans having eternal life in continuous state of sinful depravity. That would be an even greater disaster than Adam and Eve’s sin. If sinful mankind had gained eternal life at that point, even the flood of Noah’s day wouldn’t have purged the evil from the face of the earth. The evil imaginations of eternal beings would grow worse and worse over time in depravity, until the wickedness would be unbearable and human society would be extremely dangerous. Now, the sins of mankind had separated humanity from God (Isaiah 59:2). There had to be reconciliation between God and man and that came in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, Who lived a sinless life to die for those who have been brought to repentance and trust in Christ. I can’t tell you what Adam and Eve looked like after they were created. It seems reasonable that they didn’t have navels or belly buttons. They had a bigger problem. They were now alienated, at least for a time, from their Creator God. They were created as “very good” but now they are “very bad”, as is all of humanity (Rom 3:10-12).

Conclusion

Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? I don’t think so because they were created directly by God and not as a result of a human birth process which requires an umbilical cord to feed the unborn child. They were perfect in every way until they sinned…and then came the curse. That curse could only be reversed by Jesus Christ, and thankfully, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Gal 3:13), which is why the good news is so good for us, because “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law” (Gal 3:10). Since none of us could ever possibly keep the Law, Jesus did it for us. And so it was “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2^nd Cor 5:21). There is nothing more important to know than that. That’s good news…no, that’s very good news.

Read the whole account of Adam and Eve here: Adam and Eve Bible Story Summary

Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^® (ESV^®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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