Genesis - The first book of the Bible

Genesis

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...

• Genesis: 2: 7 "...Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being..."

• Genesis 2:19 “...Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky..."

• Genesis 2:22 “...Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man..."

I thought that it was interesting that God made Adam from dirt, the same as every other creation, which came from the ground, but not woman. Woman was created uniquely through a different process. You would think that this would make woman important in the eyes of man, especially 3000 years ago. It says that God wanted a companion for man and could not find one in all of what He had already created. Why would God create a male and female of every other creature, and applicable plant species immediately, but not humans?

Why did woman have to come from out of man? Why did God not just create her from the dirt like everything else? The Bible also says that when man is joined to his wife, that they become one flesh. How it is that woman would ever be inferior to man if we complete each other. Up to this point in history, there were some matriarchal religions, and many more religions where women held an equal footing with men. It’s hard to believe that women have been suppressed for thousands of years when you consider her unique creation. This idea is important to remember later on in the New Testament as well.

Side note: Man must have began domesticating animals at some point early on. God only created wild animals.

• Genesis 2:16,17 "...And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die...”

• Genesis 3:4, 5 "...You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil...”

I choose to give you these two verses but it is important to read through the whole story. First, God is speaking to Adam, and not Eve, when he says “...you must not eat...” Eve had not been created yet. Second, I don't understand how anyone can read this story without being confused by the truth of the situation that takes place.

God creates man and after that He places him in the Garden of Eden. God then explains the boundaries of the garden and that man will not eat of the tree of knowledge because if he does he will surely die. This is important to me because, if you don't already know, you will find out a little bit later, man and woman do not die when they eat the apple. I only see two options here. Either God is deceiving man on purpose, or God didn't know that man wouldn't die.

Beyond this the serpent told man and woman the truth. How does that play into the traditional evil serpent role? This story is often told as the deception of Eve and evil entering the world. But Eve wasn't deceived by the snake; only by God. Also, why would God deny us any knowledge? Wouldn't he, being an all loving God, want Adam and Eve to be prepared for evil to approach and be able to recognize it. This would mean that it was Gods fault, not Eves, for what happened.

Both of these ideas trouble me. I can't have faith in an all loving God, as many Christians profess He is, that is going to deceive me on purpose. On the flip side how can an omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God not know what would happen to his creation. Beyond the literal interpretation of what would be God's words, the bigger problem with this story is that there is a role reversal between good and evil. Is it wrong for the serpent to tell woman the truth? Is it ok for God to deceive mankind?

In a debate that I have recently watched, a theist said that it doesn't matter what we perceive as moral inaccuracies within the bible, because God is always good and whatever God does is good because He did it. I remember thinking – what does that even mean? Obviously, if you read the Old Testament, God does or allows many things that would be against the ten commandments He laid down for us to follow. I would hate to think that God was hypocritical.

Next, when God is forcing man and woman to leave the Garden of Eden - "...the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” (Genesis 3:22) There are three interesting points to make early on in Genesis. The first is that God was worried about man eating of the tree of life too. But he told man that only the tree of knowledge was off limits. What would have happened if man had eaten of the life before the knowledge? Also, why did God place these trees in the garden if He was worried about us eating of them? (side-note: why would an omniscient God worry about these things anyway)

Another idea I want to bring forward is that beginning here in Genesis and continuing throughout the Old Testament, God never claims to be the only god. When He speaks about Himself here in Genesis, He always uses the plural. Also later on He speaks of other gods, and I will try to point them out when we come to them. This isn’t a new notion, just one that I had never heard from religious people before. It is everywhere today that the Judah-Christian god is the only god, but you don’t find that kind of talk in the Old Testament.

Moving on…

• Genesis 4:9-10 “...And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And He said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground...”

Aside from being the worlds first murder, we are to believe that somewhere between verse 3 and 7, Cain had sinned. What was the sin? Did God tell them what sin was or what was against His law yet? Does God take responsibility for the murder of Abel, because it was caused by His rejection of Cains offering. Furthermore, why would God ask Cain where his brother was? Wouldn't God know? So many confusing or conflicting ideas of who God is said to be and who God is in this written word.

• Genesis 4:17 “…And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he built a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch…”

Wait a second… I might have skipped over a couple of important verses. A couple of verses back Adam knew Eve (they had sex – shh). Eve gave birth to Cain, Abel, and Seth, respectively. Now notice that I didn’t mention any daughters. Not that it would be ok for Cain to marry his sister, we’ll get into allowed sexual activate later, which might surprise you, but we are only four chapters into the creation story and ignoring the entire creation story up to this point, I don’t know where this wife came from. Now I mention this interesting verse, and many others to come, because it didn’t take me very long to decide that the Bible should not be taken literally. In fact, I may have started out with this hypothesis, but you will find many confusing and less then explainable “facts” in the Old Testament.

Chapter five is a bit boring on the surface, unless you like numbers. Let me start with this list.

Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born and lived 930 years

Seth was 105 years old when Enos was born and lived 912 years

Enos was 90 years old when Cainan was born and lived 905 years

Cainan was 70 years old when Mahalaleel was born and lived 910 years

Mahalaleel was 65 years old when Jared was born and lived 895 years

Jared was 162 years old when Enoch was born and lived 962 years

Enoch was 65 years old when Methuselah was born and lived 365 years                           (Shortened because he walked with God)

Now, Methuselah was 187 years old when Lamech was born and lived 969 years

Lamech was 182 years old when Noah was born and lived 777 years

And Noah was 500 years old, and begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth

Again, we will not focus on the extraordinary longevity of these people and simply take it on faith, because if God does exist then he determines when people die. I don't think I'm wrong in this assumption considering that most religious people today would say that God decides this today as well.

Considering this, Noah was born 1051 years after the creation of Adam. The flood of chapter 7 happened when Noah was 600 years old or 1651 years after creation. Interestingly, that is the same year that Noah's grandfather, Methuselah, died, out living his son by four years. Killed in the flood?

I did skip over chapter six, and that is when many bad things start to happen, which in turn leads to God's flood. The sons of God, aka: Angels, begin having children with the daughters of men. As such things happen, God becomes angry with his creation, but only with mankind, except Noah, it seems. The angels aren't to blame at all, just mans evil heart. Again, we have a problem that God wouldn't have known this was going to happen. Why wouldn't He have created a better man? Isn't He a prefect being/creator? Why not just start off with Noah, instead of destroying all of His creation?

• Side-note: Something to remember for the New Testament. Angels are called the sons of God, while sons/daughters of man refers to mankind.

• Genesis 9:8-10 “...Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying:“And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth...”

            I have never heard that God setup His covenant with every living creature, not just Noah's descendants. I would think that if every living creature has a religious covenant with God then how can He serve them up as being under the control of mankind. Is it a lesser covenant? If so, where does that leave us? Maybe there is another creation that has a higher covenant then we do. Makes me take a harder look at the vegetarian or vegan lifestyle also.

• Side-note: Genesis 9:4 - “...But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood...” How does this play in with the New Testament communion. Jesus says eat of my flesh, drink of my blood. Even in a symbolic sense, God doesn't seem to play around with symbolic re-imaginings of his laws.

Chapter 10 deals with the descendants of Noah and how the nations of the world became divided between them. But what of the America's, certainly an all powerful God would have sent some of His people to the America's or Australia. I know that the Mormon's have solved this little problem in their revealed text, but I have a dilemma with the idea that the native Americans are descendant from utterly evil people from the near east. Call me crazy, but they seemed to have a pretty good life before the colonist's showed up.

Chapter 11 is the story of Babel. Here might be an explanation of how humans were spread over all the earth, but chapter 10 also said that the nations were over all of the earth, so maybe, maybe not. Here again, He refers to Himself in the plural, and They also seem to be afraid of what mankind is capable of accomplishing. Even though God destroyed our ability to communicate at this point, it does give me hope that we will reach that level of cooperation again in the future. But why would God bother? Why would God not want us to achieve great things, and why is He, again, holding us back? As a parent, would you tear down or disparage your child for their great works, or destroy their work to keep them below your own greatness?

Skipping ahead a bit, Chapter 17, this is where God makes His covenant with Abraham. The endorsement, or at least acceptable acknowledgment, of slavery is not to surprising, considering God treats mankind pretty bad up to this point also. But why would Abraham be surprised that he would have a son at the age of 100. That is relatively young compared to other fathers in the Bible.

Chapter 19 begins with Lot bowing to angels and calling himself a servant to their will. This falls into place in the context of 3000 years ago, with angels thought of as Gods messengers, or even lesser gods in a sense. But, isn't mankind Gods greatest creation, shouldn't they be bowing to Lot? (Maybe this is where Paul in the New Testament gets the belief that we will judge Angels) Also, it's interesting that the men of Sodom wanted to know the angels carnally... And to think that Lot would offer up his two virgin daughters as an alternative is a bit appalling when the angels could surely have defended themselves against the mob, and the daughters could not have done so. Plus, he must have been lying to the mob because in verse 8 they had never known a man, but by verse 14 they were married. Interesting...

Well if you get through the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah then your in for a real twist of an ending in this chapter. Verses 30-38 deal with the apparent need for Lot to retain his family name. Not retain or repopulate the species, just his family name. So his daughters decide to get him drunk and sleep with him, carnally. So, I guess incest is ok... REALLY... This is what people believe! It's not like God wiped out the whole earth again, like the flood story, or was starting from scratch with another Adam and Eve. Those two stories only implied incest of some sort to allow mankind to survive. I'm a little surprised that this would be ok, even 3000 years ago.

Moving on...

Let me ask you a quick question. If God came to you, and said, I want you to kill your son/daughter as an offering or sacrifice to Me, would you do it? Please, Stop here and think about it. I'm sure you know this story, but would you do it, kill your child in the name of God? Abraham would in chapter 22, and so did Deanna Laney on Mother's Day 2003. While God was good enough to stop Abraham from killing his only remaining son, Deanna wasn't as lucky, she killed two of her kids and seriously injured the third. Now which one was doing God's will and which one was acquitted by a jury who considered her insane at the time of her actions... Why do we hold up Abraham as a man of God, and condemn Deanna as a nut? (Article is from CNN.com: written 2004) Both believed, even if wrongly, that God had spoken to them.

Chapter 27 seems to say to me that if you can get away with deceit then do it, to better your own self. Jacob tricks his blind father into giving him the blessing of the lord that is his older brothers birth right. It is more his mothers idea, but it is still Jacobs betrayal. So the moral lesson here is, cheat, or steal and don't get caught until it is to late to get in trouble for it.

I guess Jacob gets a bit of his comeuppance in chapter 29, kind of. Here, he has set out to find a bride. He finds Rachel and decides he wants to marry her. He speaks to her father and they agree that after seven years of service that Jacob can have Rachel as his bride. Other then the slight sense of Rachel being like property this doesn't seem to bad, in the context of 2500 years ago. Now, a common custom in those times was to marry the daughters off from oldest to youngest in order, so after seven years, when the father offers Jacob, Rachel’s older sister Leah, I was not surprised by it. I was surprised to read on and see that Jacob would stay on another seven years to also marry Rachel. So, now I know where the polygamy argument begins and perhaps the phrase sister/wife’s too.

Continuing on, I wonder why God made Leah fertile and Rachel barren. I feel very confused up to and including this story, in trying to understand what God wants, or what his will is, which is not something your suppose to understand, I know; but there should, at the very least, be some sort of code to follow or consistence between stories. He seems to let man do what he wants, then throws a monkey wrench in the gears when we are close to what we want.

Maybe that is the answer. Whatever it is that you want most is what God will keep you from getting, unless of course you use deceit to get it. And what about Rachel allowing Jacob to have children with her hand maiden? Isn't adultery against the ten commandments? Or is it only wrong if your wife doesn't know about it? I guess the ten commandments hadn't been laid in stone yet, and there hasn't been any talk of what a sin is, so it must be ok to live a morally reprehensible life until it is revealed to humanity.

• Side-note: Chapter 35:10 – God changes Jacobs name to Israel. And his descendants become known as the people of Israel. I had always thought that when they referred to the people of Israel, that it was the land of Israel. Come to find out, it's not their land, its the land of Canaan. So they conquered another people, and lay claim to the land, because of the Bible. So, if the Bible isn't literal, and just human stories, then where do we stand on the issue of Israel as a Jewish state? Because they argue that it is the land promised them by God.

             It is important to read through the remaining chapters of Genesis, because they are the prelude to the next book, Exodus. The critical chapter is 47. This is where the people of Israel sale themselves into slavery. Yes, you read that right. Joseph, son of Jacob who was blessed by the lord and renamed Israel, processed the payment of his people and their lands to the Pharaoh for seeds to grow crops. Wait a second, there was suppose to be a famine and drought going on. How is selling a group of people seeds for their very freedom and lands going to stop the drought? Why would Joseph even consider selling his family and his people into slavery, especially when he know that the drought was coming to an end. Other then the fact that his family sold him when he was little. Why would the Egyptians be an evil people if the people of Israel sold themselves and their land? Why wouldn't they just cultivate their own lands instead of selling it to the Pharaoh? Do they take any personal responsibility for their actions, or simply vilify the Egyptians for it? I guess it was Gods' will that his chosen people become slaves, right... After all, it wouldn't be much of a book, if it stopped here, would it...