Genesis 7, after a long absence.

I'm not giving up on a critical reading of the bible. I've just been very busy with life. Here we go:

Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. ²Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; ³and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. ⁴For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.’ ⁵And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.

When I first heard this story I was actually 11 years old. At that age I was still an avid lover of animals. I had been since I was at least 5. I had a set of collector's cards, printed on each of these cards were the facts of some animal (things like their location and habitat on earth, what they ate, whether they were diurnal or nocturnal, etc). I had about 600 of these cards and I didn't even have the complete set. So when I was told this story my first thought was NO WAY! You can't fit all these animals on a boat, there's too many! And they wouldn't get along, most would be pray but many would be predators. They need room to survive!

I brought that up in my chatechism class (where I remember first hearing this story) and I was given two possible answers. The first was definitely NOT part of canon "Noah didn't take all the animals. he left some behind and they either survived by swimming or God re-created them later." The second answer was the answer that people who believe in the literal interpretation continue to use: "It was a miracle."

I certainly couldn't argue with that. So then came my second question: "what's an unclean animal?" I assume there must be one true answer to this question, but it seems that different religions have different answers to these questions. But what did God mean when he used this terminology? Will we ever know? Why do they get a slimmer chance to survive? Does unclean mean bad?

6 Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came on the earth. ⁷And Noah with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. ⁸Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, ⁹two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. ¹⁰And after seven days the waters of the flood came on the earth.

11 In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. ¹²The rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights. ¹³On the very same day Noah with his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons, entered the ark, ¹⁴they and every wild animal of every kind, and all domestic animals of every kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every bird of every kind—every bird, every winged creature. ¹⁵They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. ¹⁶And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in.

17 The flood continued for forty days on the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. ¹⁸The waters swelled and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters. ¹⁹The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered; ²⁰the waters swelled above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep. ²¹And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings; ²²everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. ²³He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark. ²⁴And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred and fifty days.

God could have snapped his fingers and made all evil things dissappear. God can do anything. God, decided that the horrifying method of death by drowning would be more fitting. It wasn't until I got to High School that I realized how horrifying this was. God loves all of his children, so I've been told. Tough love doesn't even begin to describe Genesis 7.

Genesis 6, in which God makes clear his plan to erase the great experiment

We learn in this chapter what we should have known in the previous chapter about longevity. It is unclear why this information comes so late.

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, ²the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.

It's unclear to me exactly what verse 2 means, what it's supposed to imply. Were only boys born for a long time and then, finally girls came around? If that's the case, then how were all those children born? In what time frame are we?

³Then the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide^* in mortals for ever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’

So the reason why people lived so long was because God's spirit was still strong in the direct descendants of Adam and Eve. But as the blood thinned out (presumably because there were lineages other than Adam and Eve's?) their longevity weakened.

⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

The Nephilim, I had been told, are either giants or very scary warriors. But they don't exist anymore. But even knowing this, it seems like this verse is very opaque. what does it mean for 'the sons of god to go in to the daughters of humans?' Are there any daughters of God? Are the Nephilim being called heroes and warriors of renown? Or are the sons of God the heroes and they defeated the Nephilim? So confusing!

5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. ⁶And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. ⁷So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ ⁸But Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord.

So God's experiment failed. He decides to kill everything (animals included, which is strange since they haven't done anything evil). It seems to me that this is a pretty extreme action on God's part. I mean, he did the creating and he gave us free will (presumably). So what makes him think that starting from scratch is going to change anything? Is he planning on taking away free will? or is he just going to not allow our minds to do bad things? But the worst part is that when he starts over again, he doesn't allow Noah to begin at the beginning, in the garden of Eden. That would seem like the fair thing to do. Maybe Noah will be wise enough to not eat of the fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Noah Pleases God

9 These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. ¹⁰And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

I don't think anyone can ever be sure what is meant by the phrase "walked with God" here. It seems to me that it means either 'believed in him' or 'did things that pleased him'. But, at this stage, God hadn't really told anyone how to behave. There were no commandments yet so (I've been told) that without God's will being expressed we were all savages without law. But for some reason Noah knew how to walk with God. Thus, he was spared a drowning death.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. ¹²And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. ¹³And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. ¹⁴Make yourself an ark of cypress^* wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. ¹⁵This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. ¹⁶Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and put the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.

Thus, God explains how to build the Arc. People have been arguing about these instructions since they've been put on paper, I assume, because to hold all of the creatures that are currently on the planet (and the food it takes to keep them alive for the duration of the flood) you would need a pretty big boat: A boat bigger than any that currently exists on this planet. And it would have taken Noah several years to build this boat.

¹⁷For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. ¹⁸But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁹And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. ²⁰Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. ²¹Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.’ ²²Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.

Noah knew what was good for him.

The thing that strikes me the most about chapter 6 is the way we all know the story of God's choice to kill EVERYTHING minus a half dozen people and a couple hundred thousand species of plant and animal and we don't blink an eye at this kind of brutality. I know that when I was a kid I didn't think about it at all, but as I grew older it always troubled me the way that God really treated human life like something worse than a play thing. We hear a lot about God's love and compassion in the new Testament, but we really have to work hard to find it in the old.

Things get even worse in later books. But we'll get to those later. My point is that the more I read the old Testament the more I realize that there is very little wisdom to be taken from it. The old Testament paints an unpleasant picture of God and of humanity and humanity's history. Yet so many Christians seem to have no problem picking passages within it and creating a moral code from them.

Genesis 5, 200th post!

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5This is the list of the descendants of Adam. When God created humankind, adam');" onmouseout="return nd();">^* he made them him');" onmouseout="return nd();">^* in the likeness of God. ²Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them ‘Humankind’ adam');" onmouseout="return nd();">^* when they were created.

A bit of review from chapters one and two.

3 When Adam had lived for one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. ⁴The days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years; and he had other sons and daughters. ⁵Thus all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.

When I was a young tyke I asked some adults why people in the old testament were able to live so long without modern medicine. They told me it was because there was much less pollution in those days.

6 When Seth had lived for one hundred and five years, he became the father of Enosh. ⁷Seth lived after the birth of Enosh for eight hundred and seven years, and had other sons and daughters. ⁸Thus all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died.

The first human beings' longevity is what, presumably, allowed them to be so good at populating the world so quickly (though by Cain's words the world seemed to be already populated not by Adam and Eve's progeny). But it's unclear whether these folks were having their first child at these late years or whether the author is just highlighting the birth of Seth, Enosh, and the rest of them.

9 When Enosh had lived for ninety years, he became the father of Kenan. ¹⁰Enosh lived after the birth of Kenan for eight hundred and fifteen years, and had other sons and daughters. ¹¹Thus all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years; and he died.

12 When Kenan had lived for seventy years, he became the father of Mahalalel. ¹³Kenan lived after the birth of Mahalalel for eight hundred and forty years, and had other sons and daughters. ¹⁴Thus all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.

15 When Mahalalel had lived for sixty-five years, he became the father of Jared. ¹⁶Mahalalel lived after the birth of Jared for eight hundred and thirty years, and had other sons and daughters. ¹⁷Thus all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred and ninety-five years; and he died.

18 When Jared had lived for one hundred and sixty-two years he became the father of Enoch. ¹⁹Jared lived after the birth of Enoch for eight hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. ²⁰Thus all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died.

More genealogy.

21 When Enoch had lived for sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. ²²Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah for three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. ²³Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. ²⁴Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.

What does "walk with God" mean in this context?

25 When Methuselah had lived for one hundred and eighty-seven years, he became the father of Lamech. ²⁶Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech for seven hundred and eighty-two years, and had other sons and daughters. ²⁷Thus all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years; and he died.

28 When Lamech had lived for one hundred and eighty-two years, he became the father of a son; ²⁹he named him Noah, saying, ‘Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands.’ ³⁰Lamech lived after the birth of Noah for five hundred and ninety-five years, and had other sons and daughters. ³¹Thus all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years; and he died.

"Out of the ground hat the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands" I suspect that by Lamech's declaration, Noah was the first farmer that didn't have a hard time farming (due to God's curse on Cain and his people). I'm not sure whether God told Lamech that he was going to break the curse, or whether God heard Lamech and made it so. Either way, it's poor writing because it cannot be interpreted accurately.

32 After Noah was five hundred years old, Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

And that's the conclusion of Genesis 5, a chapter of lineage.

Genesis 4

Enough with the video posts

4Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.’

I've always wondered why we, in modern translations of the bible, we continue to use the word "know" in place of the phrase 'copulated with' or some other modern variant. Even my old students' version used this verb. Using this common verb can confuse the casual reader.

²Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. ³In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, ⁴and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, ⁵but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.

This sure looks like a jerk move by God. I mean, I'm sure God had his reasons for hating on the fruits and loving on the succulent lamb shanks, but you'd think that the author of this chapter would maybe give us a little help deciphering God's motive here. Was he trying to test Cain? If so, why test him when you already know the outcome? I've actually heard people use Genesis 4:4 as an argument for why vegans and vegetarians are not right with God.

So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. ⁶The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? ⁷If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’

8 Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

We're only 4 chapters into the bible and already 75% of humanity is composed of jerks. Why did the ever so wise Adam and Eve not try to teach Cain that murder was wrong? Where did Cain learn that murder was an acceptable form of mediation? Even after hearing God's wisdom Cain goes out and tricks his brother into death, without skipping a beat.

⁹Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’

This is often referred to as the first murder and the first lie. But given that the next few passages suggest that there are a bunch of other human beings around, I very much doubt that this is the case.

¹⁰And the Lord said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! ¹¹And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹²When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.’ ¹³Cain said to the Lord, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear! ¹⁴Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.’

Passage 14 suggests that the world is already populated. We hear no explanation for how that came to pass. Some people make so much fuss over the fact that the bible refutes the claim that "man evolved from monkies" but nobody cares that it also fails miserably in telling us where everyone except for adam, eve, and their crazy kids came from.

¹⁵Then the Lord said to him, ‘Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.’ And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. ¹⁶Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Here we come to one of the first passages which could lead a discerning reader to some very good wisdom. THERE SHALL BE NO VENGEANCE KILLING. What a simple lesson we could learn from Genesis 4:15-16. Killing a killer only brings more misery, it doesn't bring Abel back.

17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.

Alex had a son named Bob, and everyone called him Bob and he had a bicycle he called Bob, whom Bob named after himself, Bob. Bob and Bob had many misadventures, bob bob. And so on.

¹⁸To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methushael, and Methushael the father of Lamech. ¹⁹Lamech took two wives; the name of one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. ²⁰Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. ²¹His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. ²²Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

The bible authors loved their genealogies. Unfortunately, they do serve to confuse the bible readers. I wonder if the pipe players know that it was Jubal who bore them.

23 Lamech said to his wives:
‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
a young man for striking me.
²⁴If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.’

What?

25 Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for she said, ‘God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him.’ ²⁶To Seth also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord.

What?

I've never understood the conclusion of this chapter. What does it mean, exactly, to "invoke the name of the Lord? What does Lamech mean with his killings speech?

Genesis 3

This here is a tough chapter. It's one of the chapters that were instrumental in leading me to a long stint of militant atheism (starting age 12 or so). It's the Original Sin chapter. In its standard reading, the reading I was taught, it places the blame mostly on Eve and partly on Adam and the serpent. But when I read it I thought it was impossible to blame anyone but God himself for what happened. Observe:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made.

Verse 1 of the chapter begins like this. And by this very way, it reminds me that God was to have made the snake and, by logic, must have made him crafty. Furthermore, is crafty being used as a pejorative here?

He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ ²The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; ³but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; ⁵for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

Here, the crafty serpent implies that God lied. Eve took his "you shall surely die" comment literally and the serpent explained that she will not die but that she will become more knowledgeable. This is a continuous problem, especially in the new testament: God, or Jesus, says something, people take him literally, hilarity/tragedy/misunderstanding ensues. If God and/or Jesus say something that is not intended to be taken literally, they should have had the foresight to make themselves more clear, better understood. Knowing what we know after reading Genesis 1 to 3 we must assume that God was not being literal about eating from the tree of knowledge leading to death, otherwise it would make him a liar. But EVE TOOK HIM LITERALLY! Why didn't God see this coming?

So, back to the event. Who's at fault here for the fall? The snake, maybe, for enticing Eve. But God made the snake, God knew the snake had the mental capacity to trick Eve, God was certainly watching all of this transpire. Maybe Eve is at fault, but God made Eve, God knew Eve had some obedience issues, God gave her one rule and it took her all of one conversation with a serpent to break it, God knew this would happen when he created Eve, God must have made Eve with very little will power, and God simply watched our simple Eve be swayed by the crafty serpent.

⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Again, the desire to make yourself wise is also responsible for man's fall. When I read verse 6 I cringe, I want to cry. Because there is no arguing a literalist on this point: Wisdom brings sin. As a student or academic, I perpetuate the problem (see the Amish for more illumination on this point). By extension, a critical reading of the bible is frowned upon as it will only lead to trouble. Also, Adam was hanging around watching all of this. He didn't even have the will or foresight to say anything, he just went ahead and ate. Is it his fault? It's clear to me that God made Adam even dumber than Eve.

⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Thus, knowledge made us prude.

8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

God is omnipresent. He is everywhere and he is watching. God may be walking in the garden but he already knew all that had happened and all that will happen. Why is God being coy?

⁹But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ ¹⁰He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ ¹¹He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ ¹²The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ ¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’

God continues to be coy. He pulls out a confession as would a parent with a child covered in chocolate. "what did you do?" -- "nuffin" -- "tell me the truth, did you eat the cookies?" -- and so on. Furthermore, the interaction presented here, where God asks "Who told you that you were naked?" hints to me of a very strange relationship between God and his creation.

The question always lingers: Why would God create us/anything? It's one of those unanswerable questions, but my best guess given his interactions with humans throughout the old testament is that we are his simple playthings. Whether he observes us for entertainment or as some weird experiment gone awry, the old testament, beginning with Genesis 3:11, makes me feel that he created us simply as a means to feel something: anger, dismay, joy, laughter, depression. Before we came along, God had no reason to feel anything. He created us silly creatures so that he could feel something. As the old testament progresses we'll see him experience all kinds of emotions on account of our actions.

¹⁴The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life. ¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.’ ¹⁶To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.’

Genesis 3:16 == HARSH. Especially the "he shall rule over you" bit.

¹⁷And to the man he said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you,
“You shall not eat of it”, cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken; you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.’

Let me explain in more detail my BIGGEST problem here (in case you haven't deduced this yourself). God creates man. He knows he has created a creature wich is stupid, has no will power, can't even follow a simple rule, a FLAWED creature. Even worse, in God's omniscience (he knows EVERYTHING) God was aware, even before creating him, that man would betray him. Yet he plays the game, goes through the motions, and punishes him for his sin.

This is like a baker, baking a cake, he forgets to add the eggs or the sugar. Out of the oven the cake looks or tastes horribly, so what does the baker do? He gets mad at the cake and tosses it down the stairs. Excuse me, baker, but you forgot the eggs (or, in this case, you intentionally left them out).

This is a simple deduction. I know that people have argued about this for a thousand years. This very story leads us to our 'free will' argument: The idea that God gave us free will and, with it, we can surprise him and do things he did not expect. Well, that's fine if you want to believe that God does not know our intentions, but then you have to concede that God does not know everything. If God does not know everything, then why is he God and not god or that guy, sam, who happened to put us together and hoped for the best? Anyway, this is Philosophy 101 stuff, so let me move on.

I feel that God can only be worthy of our praise if he is a super genius, if not omniscient. God's behavior in Genesis 3 is so far below super genius that it shames me. How can anyone read this chapter and assume God is a fair, nice person? I suspect that the only way to do this is to make excuses, attempt to dig through what is written and try to find an explanation that would allow God to come out of this tale looking a bit less like an overemotional, bipolar amnesiac and more like a caring, loving nurturer.

20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all who live. ²¹And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— ²³therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

So that was how we were punished by God. Some denominations believe that this original sin is a source of continued punishment. Some believe that if we are not baptized before death, regardless of how good we'd been in life, we would still go to hell because of what Adam and Eve did. As if there is some legal, techincal loophole that God won't fix forcing the continued suffering of mankind because of something our incredibly ignorant ancestors did 5000 years ago.

At 12 years old, after reading and re-reading this chapter, asking my Chatechism teacher about it and receiving no response, I lost faith in my fellow roman catholics. How can you not have a response to Genesis 3 for a 12 year old? How can you read this chapter literally and go on with your happy worshipping? How can you, after reading this, deduce that the acquisition of knowledge is a reason for punishment? How can you not blame the creator for the flaws of the creation?

And it isn't just the roman catholics:

Genesis 3 is a chapter that demands the reader to understand God. People read chapter 3 and without a thought move on to chapter 4. Why? Because, chances are, you heard the story of chapter 3 when you were 6 and it made complete sense to you.

"Of course God would be mad, that's what happens when you don't listen to rules. I know from experience! Yesterday when I ate the cookie even though mom told me to wait till after dinner I got a spanking! God is just spanking Adam and Eve..." and so on.

I want everyone who believes in the infallibility of the bible to stop and pay attention to Genesis 3. Read Genesis 3 and pay attention and don't assume that the reason you don't understand the problems is because you didn't major in theology. When human beings say horrible things like "Gays are going to hell" or "Women shouldn't have the right to vote" we are saying them because of literal interpretations of the old testament. But what happens when we follow the logical, literal interpretation of Genesis 3?

Genesis 2 (switching to the NRSV)

¹Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ²And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

I've heard people complain about the first three verses of Genesis 2 because they imply that God gets tired. The problem is that an omnipotent God wouldn't be tired. This interpretation makes a lot of sense -- even people who aren't critical bible readers seem to think that the reason God rested was because he was tired (they don't seem to have a problem with imagining a tired God). But there is another sense to the word 'rested', that is 'a pause from doing something', not necessarily taking a nap. Thus, I will assume that God rested not because he was tired but because he just wanted to take some time off to check things out. If he really wanted to he could have kept going, of course.

4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Another Account of the Creation

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; ⁶but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— ⁷then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

5-7 have always confused me because they directly contradict Genesis 1. In G1 we get plants created (then animals) then man. Here, we get man coming before plants of the field were yet in the earth. I know there's lots of ways to interpret this, such as "God had created a bunch of plants but no corn or soybeans or other 'field plants' as in 'tilled field plants'." I guess that's ok, but why be so obtuse about it?

⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I very strongly DISLIKE the name of that tree. It typically gets truncated as "the tree of knowledge" and then labeled as the tree that caused the fall of man. The illogical but unfortunately common interpretation is that knowledge (or the persuit of knowledge) is tangentially responsible for the fall of man. This interpretation may not be much of an issue in the 21st century, but I'm convinced it was at least partially responsible for the 'dark' ages. More on that later.

10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. ¹¹The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; ¹²and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

I wonder how many people in the United States realize that the Iraqi people live near the location of the garden of Eden.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

If you eat of the tree you shall die. This can mean a couple of things:

A) if you eat from the tree you will immediately fall dead.

B) if you eat from the tree you will no longer be immortal and will become able to die

C) if you eat from the tree you will be metaphorically dead (or you'll wish you were dead)

If God meant A then, given what we know happens later in the story, he was lying or wrong, neither of which is a quality we like to ascribe to God. So he meant either B or C. I'm going to assume C, however, if he really told Adam this how was Adam to know what God literally meant?

18 Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ ¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Here we have another continuity problem. God makes the birds after he already made man here but in Genesis 1 it was reversed.

²⁰The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

While it may be true that most people don't take the old testament as literal truth, here we have evidence that events from the old testament are used as a tool to corroborate falsities in our everyday lives. I personally know people (more than 2) who believe/believed that men have one fewer rib than women do. When asked why they believe this they say that it was something they learned in church was the result of Eve's creation. Even after being shown evidence that men and women really do have the same number of ribs they refuse to believe it. It took me much cajoling to get them to finally accept that men MIGHT ACTUALLY have the same number of ribs as women. They refused to let go of this fundamental belief that man's missing rib is evidence of the creation account. To set the record straight: Men and women have the same number of ribs. Do look it up.

²³Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man his one was taken.’
²⁴Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

Here we have one of my favorite lines in Genesis. I take it to mean that, in our most natural state, we are naked and unashamed. Genesis 2:25 is about as clear as the bible can get regarding how we might get closer to paradise: Get naked! I, myself, am a big fan of Genesis 2:25 :)

Genesis 1

I begin with the assumption that god is omnipotent (can do anything) and omniscient (knows everything). Also I must assume that the bible is literally true. If the bible were not literally true then it is open to various interpretation. If it is open to various interpretation then there can't be one truth since any single passage can have an infinite number of interpretations and thus would be useless as a guide onto itself. Lastly I must also assume that the translation into English of the KJV is absolutely flawless, meaning that every verse and collection of verses lost and gained nothing in translation from the original Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and/or Aramaic. This is the most problematic assumption because any good translater knows that something is always lost (or gained) through translation.

It begins like this:

[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

My first issue is with the way verse 4 is written. God saw the light, that it was good. But if God is omniscient then he knew the light would be good before he created it. This oddness of this wording appears again and again (verses 10, 12, 18 and so on), where we are told that after God sees a thing is good then he can move on, the intended assumption being that if God didn't like what he saw he would try again or maybe just stop there.

[5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
[6] And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters
[7] And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so
[8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
[9] And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
[10] And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

It was always confusing to me that water was always there before anything else. These passages above seem to imply that the earth must have been a ball of water and land appeared after the water bits were separated from the sky bits.

[11] And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
[12] And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[13] And the evening and the morning were the third day.
[14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
[16] And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

It was always difficult for me to understand what exactly is meant by two great lights. We know that the sun is a great light, but the lesser light to rule the night can't be the moon because the moon does not produce its own light, it simply reflects the light of the sun. Furthermore, the moon is actually in the daytime sky as often as it is in the night time sky. So this second light can't be the moon, it must be the light of the stars. But as we now know, starlight is actually the amalgamation of billions of lights, some actually brighter and more powerful then the sun, only more distant. Also, the stars are mentioned separately at the end of verse 16. So the stars are ruled out and the question is "what is this second great (but lesser) light?"

[17] And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
[18] And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
[19] And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
[21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
[23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
[24] And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
[25] And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

According to these passages, God made apes before he made man. This is interesting to me because apes really resemble human beings. We share so many features that it almost seems like no accident. Thus, this would lead me to believe that God was already making creatures in his image before he moved on to Adam. I'm not saying God looks like a chimpanzee, but a chimpanzee looks a little bit like a human, and a human is made in God's image so by transition a chimpanzee must look a little bit like God. So when God was creating a chimpanzee was he simply being inspired by his own image or was he practicing for the human form?

[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Why is God using the plural "us" here? Does us refer to God and the angels? Were the angels created already at this point?

[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

We're back to singular "his" rather than "their"

[28] And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

I don't understand what it means to have dominion over something. Does that mean that we have God's permission to dominate a creature once we figure out how to dominate them or once we develop the technology to dominate them? Or does this mean that, in the garden of eden or in heaven we had the power to dominate all creatures, but we lost that power after being expelled?

[29] And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
[30] And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
[31] And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

So like that, in 6 days everything came to be. Now we have plenty of evidence that new stars are being created all the time. The implication then is that after initial creation, the universe continues to create on its own.

The reason for the blog

One of my many goals in keeping this blog has always been to keep a record of my adventures reading the king james version of the bible.

When I was a high school student I would often wonder through my student's version of the bible but I always had a difficult time sticking with it, for various reasons. One of those reasons was that the passages that needed the most explanation were left completely unexplained (in the annotations of my student's version). Shortly after making my way through about 10% of the old testament and all the way through MARK in the new testament I had come to the conclusion that anyone who had read the whole bible and was not completely befuddled was simply not paying enough attention. So I gave up with the impression that the only way the average person could read the bible and not be left with millions of questions was with close guidance from a parishioner or completely uncritically.

Several years ago, after gaining a little more theological background through outside reading and a little more practice in literary criticism (and logic, and philosophy) I tried going through the King James Version (KJV) on my own once again.

I couldn't even make it through Exodus.

I spent too much time searching the internet for theological explanations regarding the problems of free will and God's omnipotence. None of the explanations I found were satisfying but i trudged on. When I eventually quit I did so with the intention that I would come back to it but with a better method of note keeping, such that I would be able to come back to my issues and discuss them in a more open forum.

So one of my goals is to slowly take notes on the blog as I slowly read and analyze each book, chapter, or verse. There are over 30,000 verses in the KJV so if I went at about 500 verses per week I could finish in a year. It's easy to read 500 verses a week but it's hard to read them AND pay attention AND critically analyze and extract meaning.

We'll see how it goes.

Also, I realize that there exists something called "bible study" which is, presumably, exactly what I need. I've tried "bible study" and I have a few problems:
A) I have not been able to find a bible study group that even attempts to check out the old testament. I've been told that the old testament is too complex, that it takes several years of background knowledge to interpret accurately. To that, I say phooey. Why would God send his message to us in a language that required years of training to decipher? More importantly still, why is it that so many people justify their political actions on chapters and verses which they don't have the skill to understand?
B) The more complex explanations provided by the bible study leader I've encountered have been oversimplified and logically flawed. The idea, I suppose, is to keep things simple and digestible. I need more detail, I can handle it.
C) As a bible study participant, you are not allowed to press issues or question the logic of the explanations. In theory, of course, you are allowed, but when the flawed logic of an argument is made evident the leader tends to move things along and you get evil eyes from the other bible study participants.
D) In the last bible study I attended, one of the other attendees commended me for bringing up good points and suggested I not return to the next session, all in one sentence. To be fair, he told me that the class was not at my level of analysis yet and I should wait for a more advanced class. But his message was pretty clear "pointdexter is messing things up for the rest of us".