One large and glaring question presents itself about the creation story of Genesis. The first question I would ask is, why did an all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipotent God need 6 "days" to create the universe and the earth? Also, if the sun was not present for half of the week it took to create everything how did the "day" get measured? Finally, why exactly does the all-powerful god need to rest? Did he get all tuckered out from all the running about *making things backwards? Honestly, the story reads as if it were written after the 7 day calendar was already in place and the writers of the story of Genesis needed a reason to justify the calendar and the day of rest, which was likely already in practice at the time this was written.
Gen 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
- Dust, nostrils, breath of life, soul. Sounds really, really familiar... The words and the story of Adams creation share most, if not all, of its themes with stories dating back to Samaria and Babylon. I suspect that the "land of Eden" was actually a reference to the highly fertile lands between the two rivers that bordered Sumer. In this sense, even far-fetched stories of creation have a small foundation of truth; the first recorded history thanks to writing was done in cuneiform which was developed in Sumer.
- Why eastward? Was there some reason god need to go to a place on earth and then proceed eastward to build something? This sentence is very revealing in that it is written from the point of view of a human being, not a god. A god needs no compass if he/she is everywhere.
- What, he can't eat from vines? No potatoes, corn, cabbage, or wheat? Oh, its metaphor... But...
- Ok, so let me get this right. The tree of "good" and "evil". So god didn't want Adam to know good or evil. I can understand not wanting Adam to know about "evil", but not wanting him to know about "good"? What's that about? I thought god would want everyone to have been good. There is another meaning here though. Some believe, as I do, the original meaning of good and evil was similar to "searched high and low" as if to simply mean "Tree of knowledge of ALL." The tree contains knowledge, or more precisely its fruit. Without saying it directly, this story puts forth the idea that knowledge is bad, and god doesn't want us to have it. So in effect, the bible says you shouldn't seek knowledge. Many believe that by eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of all, Adam and Eve sought to be like god, and that was the sin. There is merit to the idea that religions do not want people to seek knowledge. Knowledge is often the first step to losing religion. Knowledge often leads one down a path of learning toward critical thinking and logic. These skills often provide the foundation for an individual to seek more than the "because I told you so" or the "because it says it in the bible" kind of answers. But let's not linger too long here, I could write a book on this subject alone.
- Adam named every creature. That not only must have taken a really, really, really long time, but someone should tell god, he missed a few... million. Species are still being discovered today, new species, in places that we didn't even think life could exist. This is another gloriously narcissistic nod to human superiority over all things.
- So he can make the universe from nothing, light from nowhere, Adam and all the animals from nothing but dust, but he needs a rib from Adam to make a woman? Oh, metaphor again? Ok, so let's see, Eve is from Adam's flesh. According to custom that makes her his sister or daughter. Just keeping score here folks. So yea, moving on.
- So here he says he makes her from the rib. Apparently he did this away from Adam, cause he had to bring her to him. Maybe he was afraid Adam would get sick and throw up or something.
- Hold on, I'm sorry but I see a problem here. Father? Mother? We haven't gotten that far yet! Somebody please tell the writer of this story to wait till Adam has sex with his sister before anyone gets to be a father or mother! Oh, and I giggled a bit when I read "cleave unto his wife", cause it was funny.
- And so they were, naked and created as they were. Brother and sister, or father and daughter. I'm not quite sure how family ties work on cloning. Being unashamed as they were because they knew not evil, or good. But even not knowing good or evil Adam had been able to name all, I mean a very few, of the animals on the newly created earth.
Summary
Chapter 2 ends with a kind of cinematic feel, Adam and Even hand in hand as the newly created sun sets on the newly created horizon and all the newly created animals bed down to sleep for the first actual night for all the animals of the earth. The story sounds kind of pretty if you think about it that way. It is unfortunate that we have access to things like the fossil record and carbon dating. We can see, quite plainly that the earth is much older than humans, and that human beings obviously evolved through a long, slow, natural process. It was a nice thought though.
Aside from the "we know the earth didn't come about this way" claptrap, I would like to shed some light on a few things you've noticed. You've mentioned frequently that this was written from a point of view about concepts that had not yet been introduced. Remember that this section of the story is a part of the Law that was given to the Israelites by Moses. Therefore, there is a reader-writer relationship that is at work. That's why "eastward" and "father and mother" are terms that are present because it was geared to be told as a part of the Mosaic law.
ReplyDeletePer the evolution comments, I'd say that it requires more faith to believe in some magic "deep time" that somehow (without direction) brought about all the order of life and the universe. Chaos never begets order. Order implies an Orderer.
As for the Bible, some of my comments are intended to be somewhat humorous. My pointing out that it was written by a human being is further evidence of the lack of supernatural origin and influence that is present in the book.
ReplyDeleteYou demonstrate, through your comment, a lack of understanding of the world you live in, and a lack of understanding of the concept of evolution. I do not have the space in a comment to teach these subjects, however. Entropy is a well tested and confirmed component of the Laws of Thermodynamics that stipulates that in any system the natural behavior of atoms and molecules will continually move toward more and more complex organization. Heat moves to cold areas.This is something that happens in a glass of tap water, it's not magic, or supernatural. This is how sugar dissolves in water. So yes, over billions of years a mixture of base elements and atoms will form more complex molecules and then chains of molecules and eventually RNA. Once RNA has developed from basic amino acids it is a simple and demonstrable path to complex life forms as they compete for resources and survival. Yes it all happens without direction, the same as the earth rotates around the sun without direction, because its simply obeying the law of gravity and conforming to a system that is formed from basic rules and laws of nature which are derived, at their core, from the behavior of atoms and electrons.
Well.
ReplyDeleteGenesis has two creation stories and this is the second. Many scholars assume that two different people (or many) wrote the creation stories. I mean come on..God already made the beasts of the land in the first chapter. He or she (God) has to make them again!? *giggle*
I wonder how many times these creation myths were messed with. I mean Lilith is absent and she is in the kabbalah creation myth.