Ok, that's not totally true. Joseph and his super fabulous gay technicolor dreamcoat is a pretty good story. It's actually written somewhat well. I guess that's why it got a Broadway musical and Lot having sex with his daughters didn't.
But I digress. Here's what I think about Genesis other than that it should be prescribed in place of Ambien.
(For clarification's sake, I'm reading the ESV Bible. The links for the verses are to biblegateway.com.)
I'm going to ignore most of the obvious inconsistencies (like God creating everything and then creating man in chapter 1 only to turn around and make man BEFORE making the plants and animals in chapter 2) and just focus on the things that bothered me that I had never really heard before.
GE 1:26 God creates man and he says, "Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness." (emphasis mine) Who is he talking to!? The angels? They haven't been introduced yet. Either that's the lamest use of foreshadowing or there's something we're not being told. My theory? This was written at a time when people were henotheistic.
GE 2:16-17 God tells Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but, as we all know, he eats from it anyway. If God is all-knowing, he would know Adam would disobey him. So why did God give Adam a command he knew he wouldn't follow? (I've actually heard this complaint before. Here's a video of a pastor or something responding to this very question. It's hilarious!)
GE 3:6 I've always understood that the blame for eating the fruit lay with Eve. Now I understand she did eat it first but, according to this verse, Adam was there with her the whole time. He should have heard the snake tell Eve to eat the fruit. He could have stopped her. So it looks like they share the blame. Take that, misogynists!
GE 3:9, 3:11, 3:13, 4:6-7, 4:9-10, 18:13 For an all-knowing God, he sure does ask a lot of questions.
GE 6:19-20, 7:2-3 God tells Noah to take two of every kind onto the ark. Ok. So far so good. But then he tells him to take seven of the clean animals, "a pair of" the unclean animals, and seven pairs of the birds. Er....what? I read somewhere (coincidently after reading this for the first time) that the second group of animals is supposed to be for an offering after the flood. But no where does it say that! Unless I missed it. That's possible. I was falling asleep.
GE 10:5 "From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, and their nations." (emphasis mine) But then!! GE 11:1 "Now the whole earth had one language and the same words." Stop messing with my head, God!!!
GE 18:23-33 If God can see fit to consider sparing Sodom if even 10 righteous people live there, then people need to stop blaming natural disasters on wickedness. Unless 10 is actually some type of quota. If your city has only 9 righteous people, GET THE F*CK OUT NOW!!!!!!
GE 21:33 God is called "the Everlasting God" here. This could just be an adjective, I admit, but it seems odd to me to qualify God with a word like that unless you wish to set him apart from other gods.
GE 26:6-9 Apparently it was uncommon for people to laugh with their sisters. If you laugh with a woman, that is a dead giveaway that she's not your sister! Do not take your sister to a comedy club. Everyone will think you're married. Gross!
GE 26:23 I just want to say that Beersheba sounds like an AWESOME place.
GE 27:22-23 Seriously? I'm supposed to believe that Esau is as hairy as a goat? Or at least his hands are. And presumably his neck. Isaac never checks Jacob (disguised as Esau) there but Rebekah makes sure to put goat skin on his neck just in case. This can only mean one of three things; A) Esau is slightly hairier than Robin Williams, B) Isaac is a moron, C) This book is folklore!! (hint: C)
GE 28:2 Isaac tells Jacob to marry his cousin. Oooook. Maybe B was correct.
GE 29:16-25 How is it possible to sleep with someone and not know it's a different woman than the woman you've deeply loved for seven years until the next morning? That's not beer goggles, that's beer blindfolds and beer mittens and beer fifty-five condoms!!!
GE 30:22 "Then God remembered Rachel..." Then God remembered Rachel? What part of all-knowing doesn't God understand?
GE 31:19 Just more evidence, IMO, of henotheism going on. I understand in some versions "household gods" is actually "teraphims" but later in GE 31:30 they are clearly called gods. Now, I suppose it could be argued that these were false idols, but going with the earlier examples I give, I think it's more likely this is a sign of the beliefs people had back then.
GE 32:22-32 Jacob wrestles with a man that is apparently God and this man tells Jacob his new name is Israel. So of course, in the next chapter, he's still called Jacob.
But wait! GE 35:9-10 God comes back and tells Jacob again, "Dude! Your name is Israel!! Get it right!" And Jacob is all, "You got it, Chief!"
GE 35:14 "And Jacob set up a pillar..." AARRRGGGHHH!!! From here on out he is called Jacob or Israel interchangeably and without notice. What's up with that? No. Seriously. What's up with that!?
GE 49:7 "...I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel." See!!?!?! That doesn't even make sense.
Those are pretty much all the main points that struck me as odd or interesting. Overall, while reading Genesis, I was struck by just how false all of it felt. I can't fathom how anyone could take this as literal. The descriptions and dialogue and situations all feel more like folklore than history. The stories of the interactions of all these people and the cities they build and the lineages they create remind me of Romulus and Remus or Gilgamesh. It reads like a way for people to have an origin story that makes them feel special. So, I wouldn't be surprised if aspects of Genesis are true (mainly the names of cities and peoples) but outside of that I just see a boring, confusing, and unbelievable mash-up of myths.
Granted, a lot of Christians do consider it to be metaphorical or allegorical, but then how do they not take the logical step of applying that to the rest of the book? I guess I'll understand more as I read the rest of the Bible. Or not. We'll see.
-Nikko
**LATE EDITION** (Added 2/27 at 2:36 PM CT) For an interesting interpretation of the Adam and Eve story I highly recommend reading "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. It's pretty fascinating.
