Genesis, Chapter 3, Verses 13-24

God is one mean bastard.

Verses 13-24 basically cover the doling out of punishment by God as a result of Adam and Eve's apple eating fiasco.

It ain’t pretty.

The crafty serpent is condemned by God to an eternity “on thy belly,” eating dust and dirt.

Sounds bad, but compared to what is to come, he gets off easy.

For the woman (who has yet to receive a name), God greatly multiplies her sorrow, forces painful and sorrowful (yes, sorrowful) childbirth upon her, and places her under the eternal rule of her husband.

As for Adam, the Lord sentences him to a lifetime of suffering as a result of his knowledge of good and evil and ultimately condemns him to death.

At this point, in the midst of receiving news of his punishments, Adam finally decides to give his wife a name, choosing Eve “because she was the mother of all living.”

Please note that she has yet to produce a single child or even become pregnant, yet she is suddenly the mother of all living.

God then kicks their asses out of the Garden of Eden into the great, wide world, placing angels and a magical flaming sword to guard over the garden and the tree of life for eternity.

Here's the thing: This was Adam and Eve's first offense. It was the first actual sin that either one had ever committed. And it's not like they had parents to teach them right from wrong.

Hell, they didn't even have childhoods.

They were two full-grown adults, sprung up from the ground like tulips, living in a Garden that was inhabited by an ethereal father-figure and a talking snake.

Not exactly the best of circumstances.

And then, the first time that they do anything wrong...

BAM!

... they receive the smack down of all time. The punishment of all punishments. Not only does God sentence them to banishment and death, but he does the same to all of their future generations. Every single human born after Adam and Eve will continue to pay for their transgressions.

Like I said, that is one mean bastard of a father.

Genesis, Chapter 3, Verses 11-12

Who would've thought that Adam turns out to be a punk?

For years, I’ve listened to people blame women for the damnation of mankind with Eve’s submission to the temptation of the apple, but it appears from my reading that it was in fact Adam who turned out to be the weak, pathetic, sniveling weasel of a man.

First, though it’s clear that Eve initially eats the fruit, the Scripture is clear in that Adam also eats it via his own free will. Verse 6 reads:

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Please note:

No reported coercion of any kind.

So let’s please stop blaming the ladies for the downfall of mankind. Remember what we learned from chapter 2: Eve only heard about the Lord’s admonitions regarding the tree secondhand. Rather than taking the time to tell her himself, God relied on Adam to pass on the word. Who could blame her for believing a magically talking reptile? It was Adam who had received the order directly from the Big Guy, so he, more than Eve, should not have faltered when faced with temptation.

One also has to wonder what God might have done if only Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit.

Dispel Eve from the garden forever, dooming Adam and all mankind to the life of celibacy?

Remove her hands and feet as he later did to the serpent, dooming all of womankind to lives of veritable stumps?

I almost wish it had happened, just to see what God might have done.

But it's when God questions Adam about the eating of the fruit that Adam completely loses my respect. Adam explains:

The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

Did you see that? That little punk tried to blame his decision to eat the forbidden fruit on both God and Eve at the same time, and in just 19 words.

He opens by reminding God that the only reason that woman is on Earth is because “thou gavest (her) to be with me.” In other words, had God simply left well enough alone, this would never have happened.

Then instead of stepping up and accepting the consequences of his decision like a man, Adam proceeds to blames Eve, informing God (who still seems to know be all-knowing except in regards to what has just transpired) that “she gave me of the tree.”

In modern day third grader speech, Adam might have sounded something like this:

It’s all your fault, poopy-face God. You’re the one who put Miss stupid-face in the Garden in the first place, and besides, she ate the fruit first and then made me eat it. It’s all your fault!”

Even more disconcerting: this sniveling little weasel was supposedly made in God’s image.

Yikes.

Genesis, Chapter 3, Verses 1-10

Chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis opens with the serpent’s successful attempt at convincing Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. Though most sources that I have consulted indicate that the serpent was the Devil or a reptile possessed by the Devil, I am unconvinced.

Remember that first line of Genesis?

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

The first two chapters of Genesis make it abundantly clear that God created everything, and that everything God created was good.

The heaven and the earth.

Yet the Scripture fails to mention the creation of any evil, other-worldly beings, capable of infiltrating the mind and body of a leopard gecko and convincing rationale human beings to disobey the word of their immortal, all powerful creator.

So if God didn’t create the Devil, where the hell did he come from? And how did he manage to gain access God’s perfect garden without his knowledge?

Was security that lax for the Almighty? Am I really expected to believe that the Garden of Eden would have been safer with Jack Bauer on duty?

And it’s clear that the whole fruit-eating incident was beyond the Lord’s awareness, because in verses 8 and 9, God is described as literally strolling through the Garden of Eden, calling for Adam and Eve like a mother might call for her lost son at a playground.

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Am I to believe that God can create the entire universe but couldn't locate the only two human beings on the entire planet because they were hiding behind some bushes?

Even the most ardent Biblical literalist must find this a little silly.

Genesis, Chapter 2

This is the chapter in which Biblical doctrine seems to transform into inconsistent fairy tale.

Verses 1-3 of the chapter deal with God’s declaration that the seventh day is one for rest. This fits the storyline well and makes sense, if you are to believe that the Almighty requires a moment of relaxation and respite.

But I'll let that go.

The chapter then proceeds to repeat portions of the creation story from chapter 1, in an order that is inconsistent with the first chapter. It begins with plants (verse 4-6), then moves onto man (verse 7), then to the Garden in which he is assigned to live (verses 8-15), then to animals (verses 18-20, and finally to woman (verses 21-25).

What the hell happened? Animals after man? And woman after animals?

Some quick research indicates that some Biblical scholars reject the notion of an inconsistency, claiming it is simply a function of language. For example, The King James version of the Bible, which I am reading, states:

Now the LORD God formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field . . .

… thus placing animals’ creation clearly after Adam.

However, the New International Version of the Bible, which was revised as late as 1983, states:

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field . . .

… indicating with the past perfect tense that this line is simply a reminder that animals had been created at some point in the past, well before Adam’s creation.

This raises a number of questions, the most important of them being which Bible am I to believe? Nearly everything we know about God and his doctrine is found within the pages of the Bible, yet we have several versions of this text that clearly contradict one another. Was the New International Version revised to intentionally remove this inconsistency, or was it a legitimate error of translation?

The existence of multiple and differing versions of the primary source document leads me to believe that we can’t really trust any of them.

But even if the New International Version is correct, it does not explain the creation of woman after the animals. According to this chapter, animals were only created for Adam’s companionship, well before the creation of Eve:

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

God then proceeded to create “every beast of the field and every fowl of the air” for Adam, thus separating the creation of birds from fish, in another complete contradiction to chapter 1 that cannot be explained away with the changing of verb tenses.

In chapter 1, birds and fish are created on one day and animals on another. In chapter 2, this is clearly not the case.

Even more bizarre than this clear contradiction, did God really think that Adam would find companionship in “every beast in the field”? Was this even an honest attempt at solving a problem for which the Almighty acknowledged responsibility? Only after the snakes and roosters and chipmunks failed to provide Adam with adequate friendship did God decide to give women a chance, and therefore created woman after these furry, feathery creatures, once again in complete contradiction to chapter 1.

The creation of the tree of knowledge is also an odd event in chapter 2. God says:

Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Really? Doesn’t this sound a little too much like a fairy tale to you? Am I expected to believe that God decided to plant a tree in his garden, and not simply a tree containing toxic berries, but a magical tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

For what purpose would he choose to do this? Was he screwing with Adam’s mind? Tempting him like the nectar of a Venus flytrap? Why even create such a tree?

Can you imagine God making this decision?

“I shall create a perfect garden for those who I created in my own image, perfect in every way. Except for a tree. Yes… a tree. A tree of knowledge, with fruit capable of damning human beings forever. But they’ll be fine. I’ll just warn them ahead of time.”

It’s also important to note that Eve was actually created after the tree, meaning that she never received God’s admonition about the magical fruit. Women often get blamed for the damnation of mankind, but it could be argued that Adam did a lousy job convincing her of the severity of the situation. Adam, after all, got word firsthand from the Big Guy, while Eve came along much later, after all the snakes and chipmunks and dodo birds, only to hear the news secondhand. Should we be surprised that a cunning serpent eventually tricks her into eating the magical fruit?

I’ll save that for chapter 3.

Genesis Chapter 1, Verses 20-31

Like the rest of the creation story, days 5 and 6 are once again peculiar in terms of the order of events.

On day 5, God creates the fish and the fowl, which may be alliteratively appealing but is an anomalous combination, don’t you think? He might as well have said, “Let there be no red meat. Only creatures that float and fly. No feet or legs allowed. Keep off the goddamn grass for one more day.”

Fish and birds. Strange, huh?

Then day 6 comes along, the last actual day of creation, and God decides to jam every single land animal, including human beings, into this 24-hour period. Cattle, creeping things, beasts of the earth, and humans, all plopped down on at the same time. And if you are to believe the creationists, this superfluity of two and four legged creatures included the dinosaurs as well. All of these living things crammed into one single day, including the only creature made in God’s own image, yet the birds and fish get their own day.

You’d think that human beings could have at least gotten a day of their own as well.

Verse 26 is especially odd, for it seems to imply that God had assistance with day 6 of the creation. Of course, perhaps he needed the help, since he left so much to do until the last minute. The first chapter of Genesis seems to indicate that God is nothing if not a procrastinator. Verse 26 reads:

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

Us?

Our image?

Our likeness?

When did these other deities appear on the scene?

One can almost imagine God, standing once again on some high mountain peak, suddenly realizing all the work he has to do on the 6^th and final day and suddenly realizing that he might need some assistance:

“Let there be pigs, and sheep, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and dogs of every kind, including the hairless ones that will occasionally be mistaken for rodents, and the zebras and… Oh hell. Screw this. I made these days too goddamn short to get anything done. Zeus! Thor! Aphrodite, gimme a hand!”

Must’ve been an amusing moment.

This concludes chapter 1 of Genesis.

I’m hoping for more logic and inspiration in the coming chapters, but I’m not holding my breath.

Working for the weekend

Just as the Lord rested on the seventh day, I will take a break from posting on this blog over the weekend unless the Holy Spirit thus moves me.

If God can take a day of rest, I should be able to enjoy some time off as well.

Genesis Chapter 1, Verses 6-19

I find myself a bit confused about the order of creation as it’s presented in the Bible.

God creates light on the first day, but it isn’t until the fourth day that he creates the objects from which light is derived, i.e. the Moon, the Sun and the stars. If this is the case, what was the source of light on the first day, and what caused this light to wink out at night? There is no Sun as of yet, so are we to believe that God is just tossing around balls of light like confetti for the first four days?

The Biblical reference to the creation of the stars is also interesting. It’s written as almost an afterthought, or more likely the subsequent addition to an obvious oversight. Verse 16 reads:

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.

Millions of stars in the heavens, stretching out across trillions of miles, and all they garner are five simple words, tacked onto the end of a rather grandiose description of the Sun and Moon? It sounds like the awkwardly placed addendum to an embarrassing omission if you ask me.

Speaking of omissions, God also fails to mention the many other sources of light that he presumably created, like planets, comets, and asteroids. In fact, Venus is often the first and brightest light in the night sky (other than the Moon), and Mars can be quite bright dependent upon the time of year. Yet these celestial objects, unrecognized by human beings as planets until less than a thousand years ago (even the Greeks referred to the planets as “tramp stars) fail to receive mention in God’s litany of creations.

What gives? Did God really forget to mention the existence of the second brightest source of light in the night sky?

In terms of confusing of order of creation, it should also be noted that God creates plant life on the third day (verses 11-13), one full day before there is a Sun to provide the sunlight required for photosynthesis. Whatever mysterious, unnamed light source that God created on day one is apparently sufficient for these grasses, herbs, and fruit trees to survive until God gets around to creating the Sun on the next day.

One can almost picture a white-bearded God standing on a mountaintop, suddenly realizing that the plants he just created were in need of sunlight:

“Let the Earth bring forth grasses, the herb yielding seed, and the… oh crap. I forgot the damn Sun. Oh well, I’ll just keep sprinkling my lighted confetti until the end of the day and plop a ball of nuclear fission in the sky tomorrow. Now where was I? Oh yes. And the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind…”

Plausible, I guess, if you are willing to accept the existence of a temporary light source other than the Sun that allows for day and night. Temporary, of course, because this unidentified light source no longer exists as far as I can tell, yet the Bible never acknowledges its disappearance. Essentially, we are to believe that God created light on the first day from an unknown source, allowed this light to serve as the demarcation between day and night for four full days, and then replaced this light source with the Sun and Moon, making no mention of the unidentified light source’s elimination.

This is one hell of a forgetful God.

Genesis, Chapter 1, Verses 2-5

Essentially, these three verses cover the beginning of God’s creation of the earth, specifically with the emergence of day and night through his creation of light and its subsequent demarcation from darkness. But a close reading of these verses seems to indicate at least two inconsistencies.

First, verse 4 reads:

And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.

God saw the light, that it was good?

This passage implies that God created light and only then determined that it was good. If this is true, then several questions must be asked.

Why wouldn’t an all-powerful deity already know that his creation would be good?

Isn’t everything that God creates fundamentally good?

In fact, by indicating that God saw the light and only then realized that it was good, doesn’t this imply that God had no idea what light would look like until the moment of its creation?

This doesn't make any sense. Are we expect to believe that the Almighty created something that he could not accurately envision until it took earthly form and could only then make a valid judgment regarding its worth?

More importantly, God’s estimation that light was good indicates the possibility that the light might not have been good, and if so, we are back to the dodo bird and the fact that God appears to be the creator of imperfection. Even worse, it appears that he is incapable of assessing the degree of imperfection until after its creation.

God does not seem as all-knowing and all-powerful as I once thought.

Verse 5 indicates that God called the light day and the darkness night, which I find fascinating. First, it appears that God felt the need to specifically assign names to these time frames.

Why?

In fact, why would God even possess language at this point? On the first day of creation, there was no one with whom he could talk? Are we expected to believe that God existed for an infinite period of time on his own yet always possessed the ability to speak in words that human beings would understand, even though it's already clear that he was unable to accurately envision his creations ahead of time?

But even more remarkable, God created and named the day and the night at least five full days before he created human beings. So how did mankind manage to adopt the same names that God assigned to night and day considering that human beings did not exist when the naming process took place?

Did God inform Adam and Eve of his naming decisions upon their creation?

Did he leave them a post-it note on the Tree of Knowledge?

Did God have any idea about what he was doing when he began this process? Did he really have a plan?

These verses seem to indicate otherwise.

Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 1

It wasn’t long before I found the need to comment. In fact, it took just 10 words:

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

A couple important points to consider:

First, since God’s creation of heaven and earth predates his creation of man, it must be assumed that the story of creation was passed down from God to his scribes. A quick examination of Biblical research indicates that this is correct, though the author of Genesis is not certain in religious terms. The Jews believe that Moses is the author of the story of creation, inscribing the word of God for all to read. Early Christians also believed that Moses was the author, but later Biblical historians have posited the possibility of two or more authors for the Book of Genesis.

For my purposes, it’s only important that we agree that although the Book of Genesis was written by man, the story itself, if it is to be believed, must have come from God.

This leads me to my concern: Why should we trust the word of God? Since there are no eyewitnesses to the Earth’s creation, who is to say that God is a reliable source? Since God clearly wants to be worshiped as the one and only God, as evidenced by at least three of the Ten Commandments, isn’t it conceivable that he might take more credit than is deserved in order to bolster his perceived power and appeal?

God may be all powerful and all knowing, but he is also the designer of miserable failures like the dinosaurs and the dodo bird. Why wouldn’t he attempt to make the creation of the earth sound as good as possible?

He admits to being a jealous God, but why do we assume that he is an honest one? It seems like an enormous cognitive leap to me.

Not good when I start by questioning the first ten words of the text.

I hope to read more than ten words tomorrow before needing to stop and comment.

In the beginning...

Here’s the goal:

Each day, I will read a little bit of the Bible, beginning with the Book of Genesis and continuing to read in order. No predetermined page amount each day. I’ll just read until I feel the need to stop and comment.

No limitations or prerequisites.

Though I considered reading some of the historical and interpretive texts alongside my reading of the scriptures, I have decided against it. My goal is to read the Bible as a layman, without the benefit of historical or theological research. If I read a passage that prompts me to conduct further research on a subject, I will not refrain, but I will not seek secondary sources on a regular basis.

To be honest, I’m not sure where this project will take me. My background in religion is quite diverse. Born a Catholic, I was ultimately raised as a Protestant Congregationalist by choice after rejecting the Catholic Church as a child and being given the opportunity to choose my religion.

The Congregationalists’ Wonder bread, grape juice, and children’s sermon appealed to me a great deal.

After leaving home at the age of 18, I drifted away from religion, finding it a concept that was harder and harder to accept as time went by. For a year I lived with a family of Born Again Christians, attending their church out of respect and curiosity, and in college did a great deal of reading on Buddhism. Neither belief system took root.

Last year, I am married to a nice Jewish girl and am in the process of understanding Judaism better, though I have no intention of converting.

In the past, I have been an ardent critic of organized religion, but I approach this project with an open, though highly skeptical mind. I’ve recently become an avid reader and admirer of writers like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, who espouse a vehement antitheist viewpoint, but regardless of my appreciation for their work, I intend to avoid predisposition and prejudice as I proceed in this endeavor.

Today I consider myself a secular humanist who desperately wants God to exist but does not believe that he (or she) does.

Perhaps this project will lead me in a new and unexpected direction.