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By admin, October 12, 2011 12:42 pm

Genesis 11

This starts out with the a story of man spreading out, but having one language, which makes sense since they are all directly descended from 6 people! These industrious people decided to build a city.  Ok, that sounds good.

Then they decided to build a tower.  And not just ANY tower, but one that reaches to the heavens. Their reasoning was apparently to “make a name for themselves” and to all stay together.  God seems to think this a bad idea.  He doesn’t want them to actually accomplish what they plan.  So he says to someone else in heaven Gen 11:7 that they should make it impossible to achieve their goals.  He does this by making them all speak different languages and scattered them.

Now, we could assume that He did this by clan, since in Gen 10 it states that each clan had it’s own language. Gen 10:5, Gen 10:20, Gen 10:31.  It doesn’t say so, but it makes sense, despite the narrative being bass-ackward.

This just seems like a little ad-hocary to explain why people have so many different languages.  Not the first, and I doubt the last.

But, wait, there’s more: lineage! *cheering!*

Really, more lineage.  The only significant difference is the mention of both sons AND daughters.  You’ve come a long way, baby!

Shem has Arphaxad who has *snore….

8 generation later we get a little story about Terah.  One of his 3 sons dies, Haran, but had a son.  He takes that grandson, one of his boys, Abram, and Abram’s barren wife to Canaan, but never get there.  Instead they just stopped in Canaan and plopped down there.

Oh, and these people are still living hundreds of years.

Note: These people apparently ran out of names for things a lot, because they are naming cites and kids after each other with alarming regularity.  It gets confusing.

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By admin, October 12, 2011 12:14 pm

Genesis 10

Lineage blah blah lineage blah blah.

A couple things of note though:

• Not a single daughter is mentioned
• Canaan’s clans

I mention the first because, well, the earth is empty.  How are all these sons (a LOT of them) going to multiply on  the earth without some cousins to screw?

The other thing doesn’t mention Canaan’s curse, but mentions his sons and their clans, which scatter. A bit of a plot hole, if you ask me.

Other than that, this chapter is a snoozefest.  Let’s move on.

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By admin, October 12, 2011 12:04 pm

Genesis 9

Now that everyone and everything is dead, God wants Noah and his boys (oh, and wives, but whatever) to fill the earth again.  He promises to be nicer next time, but still has some rules.  These are mostly about blood.

Oh, but look, a rainbow!  God says that this minor trick of light refracting off water droplets is REALLY his promise to NOT KILL EVERYONE AGAIN!  What a guy! The implication is that water refraction didn’t work before that moment.  Either that or he simply co-opted a common natural phenomenon.

Now, in the next bit of the narrative we get an intriguing story of a drunken Noah and a sadistic bit of punishment.  Apparently, the great and holiest of men that God could find gets so drunk he passes out naked.  His son, Ham sees him as such (no other narrative about this, mind you).  When Noah finds out, he freaks out.  No explination as to WHY Noah finds this bad, but he curses Ham’s son, Canaan, to be a slave.

Yes folks, he decides that because Ham was “wrong” that Ham’s son, his own grandson and all his descendants since up to now that is how curses work, should be punished.  The children pay for the sins of the father.

Noah declares Canaan a slave of Shem and Jepheth and has God extend Jepheth’s lands, presumibly to take over Canaan’s.

And Noah lived to be 950.

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By admin, September 5, 2011 9:19 am

Genesis 8

So after a good part of a year of ensuring that all the people of the earth are good and drowned God apparently remembers Noah and lets the waters recede.  The receding waters put the ark on Mount Ararat as they continue to recede.  It’s another 40 days before Noah sends out birds to find land.  The narrative is a bit confusing here.  It seems to be using different events to mark when the earth was dry.

Noah sent out a raven, and flew around until the “water had dried up” Gen 8:7 but then sent out a dove to figure out the same.  The raven isn’t mentioned again, but the dove is sent out 2 more times until it doesn’t return.  This is about 14 days.  Then it says that between the 1st day of the 1st month and the 27th day of the 2nd month is was completely dry.  This may not be contradictory, but it is confusing.

In the end, Noah sacrifices a few of the ONLY ANIMALS ON EARTH to God, who finds the aroma of burning flesh and only then promises to not kill us all again, despite how evil we are and deserve it (even from childhood).

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By admin, March 30, 2011 3:01 pm

Genesis 7

Now that Noah has his marching orders. we get to re-read them a few more times.  We get it, Noah, sons, wives, animals, flood.

In this chapter the animal count is 7 of the clean and 2 of the unclean.  Again, we the reader have no clue which is which, but it seems to be enough that Noah does.  And all this when Noah was 600 years old!

This chapter is particularly hard to parse.  Lots of repetition or re-wording.  It seems say the same thing, but in enough of a different way as to seem confusing.  Maybe knowing the original language would be better, but just on the face of it the reading is almost opaque.  One of the problems is sequence.  When did it start raining and when did Noah and his sons (and wives) go into the ark?  After 7 days, after 40?  Did it start raining before they went into the ark, or did they sit in there for 7 days before the rain came?

Either way, they entered the ark and it rained for 40 days (after the 7, or 33 more?) and the ark floated and all the mountains were covered for a depth of more then 20 feet. Gen 7:20 That is an absolutely STAGGERING volume of water.  We should STILL be cleaning out basements from that kind of flood.  OH, well, God must have magicked it away.

So, from Gen 7:21-23 it brags about how much life God kills (excepting Noah and the floating super-zoo).

One hundred and fifty days.  That was the extend of God’s water massacre.  Hitler took years to kill millions, God did in a few months.

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By admin, March 21, 2011 5:07 pm

Genesis 6

This is apparently the first time God starts giving a damn about daughters.  It’s also when he decides to wipe out almost all of mankind.  It’s hard to think this is just a coincidence.

The opening of the chapter has a lot of oddities that need mentioning.  The narrative seems to be making a distinction between “sons of God” and “men”.  We are again seeing that not all people are accounted for as part of Gods creation.  Daughters of men were beautiful and the sons of God married any of them that they chose.  Apparently this bears mentioning because God doesn’t like this.  It’s all a rather confusing jumble of non-sequitur.  Next is some seemingly random line about “Nephilim” and how their sons were heroes.  Who the hell are the Nephilim? (I’m assuming some kind of angel, but it’s not mentioned in the story so far)

Either way, we quickly get to the meat of the chapter: God is unhappy.  Read in the light of when I just mentioned, God is apparently unhappy that the daughters of “man” have corrupted his “sons” and made them wicked.  Again, it’s confusing about if he made all the men who exist, or just the line of Adam, but either way, he’s decided to wipe them ALL out.

God has decided that all men must die, and is throwing in all the animals for good measure.  W. T. F?

Yet, of all the men on earth, one is OK.  Noah finds favor is God’s eyes.  He was righteous and blameless.  We don’t know how or when he did differently, but God thinks that he should be saved and all other should die.  The exception is Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives.  Apparently this corrupt world was able to produce 3 women outside of Noah’s family worthy of rescue.  How fortunate!  Not an infant, not a girl, not even a puppy is worth saving of the whole earth.

Noah gets instructions about building an ark and bringing 2 of every kind of animal, male and female (presumably to breed more later).

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By admin, February 22, 2011 1:54 pm

Genesis 5

There really isn’t much to talk about in this chapter.  It’s just a listing of the male lineage from Adam to Noah’s 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

There really are only 3 things notable about this narrative:

1. There is no mention of Cain or Able.  I understand not mentioning Able, since he didn’t have children.  Cain did get a big mention in the last chapter, so I guess he’s covered, but it’s all so inconsistent.
2. Only sons seem deserve mentioning.  And only the first born.  ”other sons and daughters” is repeated for most in the lineage, but the only names named are sons.
3. The people lived very long lives.  I’m very curious where this longevity claim originates.  I highly doubt anyone actually lived 900+ years, so why would they be attributed that way.  A couple simple conjectures come to mind, such as glorifying of venerated figures or wanting to show how much better people must have been so close to creation.

In any event, this is a boring chapter.  The only thing that might be good to take away is the number of generations and maybe the supposed time that has passed.  The age of the universe since creation is often quoted as 6,000-10,000 years.  That number comes, in part, from the ages of the people mention in this chapter.  I calculate that at the end of this chapter the universe is 1557 years old over 12 generation.  Adam would have been alive to see Methuseluh born, his Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great grandson.  I think I got that right.

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By admin, February 9, 2011 1:22 pm

Genesis 4

This is the iconic story of Cain and Abel.

We need to be clear at the outset.  What Cain did was wrong.  At all times, from all perspectives, Cain was just wrong.  It was murder.  It doesn’t matter his reasons or what he felt, it was wrong to decide for himself that his brother should be killed.  Full stop.

With that out of the way, lets pick apart the story.

At no point does God indicate his preference for fat portions.  At this point in the narrative, God has not declared what type of sacrifice is better.  Both Cain and Abel provide from what they can: Cain from the field, Abel from the flock.  The first question is why would God prefer dead animal fat to harvest.  This is completely arbitrary.  Cain and Abel chose their professions, one would assume, out of necessity.  On the face of it, meat and vegetable,  being both necessary for life, make keeping flocks and working the soil appear as equally valid pursuits.

Yet in Gen 4:4-5 God appears to randomly show favor on Abel’s work and in Gen 4:6-7 appears to bitch him out for having a reaction to it.  The literal creator of the universe decides you offering is crap and you aren’t supposed to be upset?  The same question keeps coming back: If God created these people, how is he so inept at predicting their actions?

Well, Cain goes and kill his brother.  God punishes him by making it harder to work the ground (which seems kinda pointless, considering God clearly didn’t want him doing it in the first place).  He send him out into the wild world with a mark (so no one would harm him) and found himself a wife.  Wait, wha?

There are a boatload of continuity issues up to now, but this one takes the cake!  Up to now, according to the narrative, there are exactly 3 people on the earth.  In the whole of the universe, in fact.

Since we are given no context of these events in time, we don’t know how these events fit with other events.  Adam and Eve go on to have another son, Seth, to replace Abel.  Seth, in this chapter had a son named Enosh.  Gen 4:26 mentions other men, who being calling on the name of the Lord.  Who are these men and where did they come from?

In the next chapter we hear about other sons and daughters, and the ages of the important ones, but we are left to wonder if these entirely unconnected lines of narrative do in-fact converge.

We hear about the lineage of Cain and the apparent exploit of his descendant, Lamech, in Gen 4:23-24 who tells his wives about killing someone for wounding him.  We get some odd “curse math” about Lamech’s vengence being 77 times.  Cain’s was 7 times.  How does 4 generations get you 77-fold?

I don’t even thing they’re trying to be coherent.  Yet, if you view it in the light of creation folk-lore, it’s no weirder than all the other ones.

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By tduvally, March 23, 2010 2:00 pm

Genesis 3

This is the story of “The Fall”.  The explanation of how man lives the hard life he lives if there really is a God to protect us.

The answer is that it’s his own fault.

Even as a child I never bought this and reading it now I think it makes even less sense.  Even if we allow the idea of a talking serpent, it makes no sense.

My biggest issue is the treatment of Adam and Eve.  You see, before they eat of “The Tree” they are entirely ignorant of what is good and evil, right?  Logically they don’t understand if it’s good or not to do as God commands.  Of course, we know that what we consider as “good” or “evil” is an accumulation of our experiences throughout life.  We learn what causes ourselves suffering, and through empathy and experience, how that suffering effects others.  ”Good” and “evil” isn’t just a unit of knowledge we inherit, but a complex interplay of memory, rational, and emotion.

There is just so much wrong with Gen 3 that we’re forced to clearify the assumption it implies.

The assumption is that man is required to obey God.  Why?  Is there any reason for this other than “because the bigger guy says so”?  Of what real value is this to man?  To suggest that our obedience was to be rewarded with an eternity of bliss in the Garden is to see man as merely a pet.  Another creation to amuse another god.  We are being who think and do and ask and explore.  Eve did as a human should do: she tested.  If God did not understand this, then he is not a god but merely a tinkerer.

So, God did not understand his creation.  Gen 3:1 “the serpent was more craft…” Apparently it was more crafty than even God, for it stole his secret and gave it to woman.  And the serpent didn’t lie. It said you will not die, as God had said in Gen 2:17 (“when you eat of it you will surely die” implies immediacy).

And what did Adam and Eve learn?  They learned that they were naked and they should cover themselves.  Apparently, this was an evil that God had been allowing in Eden the whole time.  The Tree taught them it was evil, and not God.  Also, Adam didn’t learn that it’s good to take responsibility.  Gen 3:6 states that Adam was there the whole time and did not stop her, yet tried to blame her.  God’s Tree is turning out to be a dud!

Alas, God starts handing out the punishments to all involved.  Ricky Gervais does a good job discussing the punishment the snake gets.

Here is, I think, the best part of Genesis 3, maybe even the entire book of Genesis.  Gen 3:22.  God says that man is like “one of us” (plural) and that he mustn’t eat of the tree of life and live forever.  Wow!  God placed the means for man to become his equal in every way in the Garden and when man started to, God makes sure to shut him down.  Sounds like cheesy sci-fi to me.

Taking the story at face value, we have a creature God made, that is apparently designed in a way God didn’t understand, that told God’s secret (how to become a god) to another creature God created, who disobeys based on that secret (without real understanding of it’s actions) and therefor punished the billions of lives who came after.

The beginning.

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By tduvally, February 24, 2010 1:01 pm

Gen 2 seems a bit of a mish-mash, discussing all sorts of various things and jumping from subject to subject without regard for explanation.

So, God rests and blessing the 7th day.  How is this useful or important?  Is it simply a rule (sabbath) or does it have concrete meaning, like, less bad things happen on the Sabbath?  Either way, God apparently needs to get to the next subject, so don’t spend too much time thinking about it…

Why didn’t it rain? Gen 2:6. I find it interesting, but I suppose not very important.  Being God he can make it come from anywhere, but why UP form the ground, rather than DOWN from the sky?

One question popped into my head at Gen 2:8.  The garden of Eden was planted east of where?  God formed earth, and there is just water and land without label or reference.  What exactly is Eden east of that is of great importance?  Either way, he plops man into it, and then needs to discuss trees…

Specifically 2 special trees: the tree of Life, the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Middle if the garden.  Next subject!

I don’t want to catalog all the little things going on here, so I hope you get my point.  It’s a jumpy and disconcerting narrative.  It skips ahead, then goes back and fills in, then skips ahead again.  It’s a really crappy way to communicate a series of events.  Unless you’re Quentin Tarantino and happen to know what the hell you’re doing.

Last jump here: So God makes animals for Adam (oh, is that his name, thanks for the introductions) to give him a helper and stave off loneliness.  Why didn’t God make Adam without loneliness, or know in advance what he needed?  Hmmm, must be one of those ineffable things.  Either way, “woman” is made of “man”, from “man”, a gift for “man”, but clearly not whole or important in her own right.  Otherwise she wouldn’t have been an afterthought and an “fix” for something else that was wrong.