luchitociencia
VIP Member
- Nov 10, 2019
- 1,390
- 280
- 80
Believe me or not, that joke comes to be known after I mentioned it online 25 years ago.Did Adam have a belly button?
Around that time, only the ones who have read that book and had a PC could have published the story. In those years weren't books published online, and nothing similar. Contributions were mostly made by individuals who knew something worthy to bring on the internet.
This is a rough version of mine, I can tell today of the story of Adam's belly button.
It is found in the Peruvian Traditions book (Tradiciones Peruanas) written by Ricardo Palma in the 1800's.
This writer collected several traditions from that country and with great humorist style he narrated the stories.
As far as I can remember the story is as it follows:
This was a case of a confrontation between a layman and the religious power, when that country was a colony of Spain, around 1600's.
In that era, the church enjoyed great influence on government affairs.
Pardon me please, but I can't remember with exactitude the origin of their confrontation. I read it once by pure sheer luck when traveling in an airplane and another passenger borrowed me the book, so I had something to read while on the air.
After having several disagreements between a priest and the layman, the priesthood obtained the favor and the rule. But between the process, the layman challenged the priest to answer in front of everybody if Adam had or didn't have a belly button. The rumors of the challenge run everywhere.
After the rule from the King became in favor of the religious side, the priesthood found the opportunity to declare the layman guilty of heresy, and was condemned to death sentence.
The writer Ricardo Palma wrote the final of the story with a kind of disappointment, saying that because of that ending of the events "we will never know if Adam had the belly button or not".
Last edited: