Well I haven’t either!!

I was in the National Gallery there recently, and despite the fact that I’ve visited hundreds of times before, this was the first occasion I actually noticed that in each and every painting where Adam was featured, the ubiquitous fig-leaf or foliage was in full bloom.

Well this made me very curious, indeed!

What had Adam got, that the rest of us haven’t?

I knew that you’d be absolutely dying to know, as well.

And so, at enormous expense, I have undertaken a huge amount of research and homework on your behalf.

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In other words, the question of Adam’s navel, or lack of one, raises other thorny issues.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Or, even more perplexing – which came first, the tin or the tin-opener?

Well, as you all know, the battle between the Evolutionists and the Evangelists has waged for centuries.

You probably know that Dr. William Reville writes a science column in the Times every Monday and even he, a man of great knowledge and understanding had to admit that when it comes to evolution – he’s flummoxed!!

And if Bill Reville is bamboozled, what hope is there for the rest of us?

All of the scientific evidence indicates an evolutionary process which took millions and millions of years for us to arrive on the scene,

- the first wiggley things started to squirm about 4.6 billion years ago, while the Old Testament clearly indicates only a few thousand years since the creation.

The best compromise reached, so far, by both sides in the argument is to say that God undertook the business of creation in two phases. With, perhaps, millions of years between those two phases.

That is to say that He created the World, allowed the evolutionary process to begin, and at the stage where man had matured to the state of becoming - forgive me - a Homo Erectus, He infused a soul into a man and called him Adam.

And again, while this allows both sides off the hook, to some extent, it does indicate that Adam MUST have had a navel!

And yet, if he was created by God, why would he need one???

George Wald (the American Biologist, and Nobel prize winner) said, and I’m inclined to agree with him –

"We are the products of editing – rather than authorship"

While, Sir Thomas Browne, as a metaphor for original sin said "the man without a navel yet lives in me"

And, James Joyce in Ulysses writes "Heve, naked Eve, She had no navel"

D’ya see what I mean? Evolutionists and Evangelists.

I’ve had countless sleepless nights trying, on your behalf, to get to the bottom of this mystery.

And I’ve had to give up. I’ve had to throw in the towel, so to speak.

In other words, despite all my best efforts, I don’t have an answer.