Here We Go! Genesis Chapters 1-3

(Preface: Please keep in mind that what I am writing is coming from the mind of the non-believer. If you find what I say offensive, I understand. I am not here to promote religion. I am simply here to express my views on the content, as it is written, and try to open up discussion about the text itself.)

We all know the basics. God created everything, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth (and everything on it) in the first six days, and rested on the seventh. He created woman from man’s rib. He told them not to eat from the forbidden tree in the middle of the garden of Eden. A snake talked Eve into eating from it anyway. She, in turn, convinced Adam to eat from it as well. They realized they were naked. They were ashamed. God found out, laid down the law, and banished them from the garden of Eden.

That about sums it up, but let’s dig a little deeper. (For the record, at this point, I’m already a little intimidated with this project that I am taking on. Knowing how my mind works, and how I question so much, I know that this is going to take me a long time to complete! I’m definitely going to have to take this very small parts at a time, so that I can get all of my thoughts together! I hope you will stick with me throughout.)

My very first question arose with the following:

Gen. 1:26 “And God went on to say: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of he sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.””

Who is “us”? My first thought, being the sarcastic person that I am, is that God has multiple personalities. Perhaps he does. I’m almost certain that as I get further into the text, this will not be the last time I question God’s sanity. But I’m genuinely curious who he is talking about when he uses the plural. I thought he was supposed to be alone in this creation thing. I went looking for answers, which led me to this:

http://www.gotquestions.org/God-plural.html

I love how they immediately rule out the possibility of him speaking to other gods because that would contradict other passages in the bible. They also rule out the possibility of it being him talking to the angels because it doesn’t say anywhere in the bible that they are created in his image. (Now, I’m curious what they look like!) He MUST be talking to the two other versions of himself. (Again, I’m thinking MPD!) I guess, like the good people at gotquestions.org, we may never truly know the answer!

The next verse that raised an eyebrow for me:

Gen. 1:29 “And God went on to say: “Here I have given to you all vegetation bearing seed which is on the surface of the whole earth and every tree on which there is the fruit of a tree bearing seed. To you let it serve as food.””

I know that this is a minor point in the grand scheme of things, but it sounds to me like God intended man to be vegetarian. Maybe this will be resolved later, but at this point, he is only giving permission to eat the fruit of the trees. I genuinely hope he changes his mind on this one!

This next one just has me amazed at Adam’s advanced thinking, especially considering he was literally the first person ever!

Gen. 2:20 “So the man was calling the names of all the domestic animals and of the flying creatures of the heavens and of every wild beast of the field, but for man there was found no helper as a complement of him.”

For the moment, I’m going to ignore the fact that God was trying to match Adam up with an animal, and instead focus on the fact that Adam named every animal on the planet! WOW! How did he come up with the names? I mean, seriously, think about it! We, as humans, have a hard time coming up with the name for one single child, and some of us fail miserably at that! Big props to Adam! You did a great job! I’m impressed! I’m curious if dog was the last animal he named, and out of sheer frustration at trying to come up with a new one, he just reversed god so he could be done.

Now we move on to chapter 3. HOLY COW THERE’S A TALKING SNAKE! That one’s really just too easy, so I’m going to let it go. There were two things that stood out to me in this chapter:

1. Adam suddenly had a name! This apparently varies from one translation to the next, but in the version I am reading, his name is first mentioned in Gen. 3:17. This is after God has found them naked and ashamed. However, in the KJV, he apparently earns his name in Gen. 2:19. Neither version states that God decided this was his name. They just start calling him that. I just find it odd.

2. Adam’s a real bastard! Has anyone noticed how quickly he turned on Eve to throw her under the bus for the whole apple incident? (Still not sure why we are so certain it was an apple tree.) Basically, God asked Adam if he had eaten it, and Adam’s response was, “Yeah, but she gave it to me.” (Obviously, not what he actually said. I hope you can recognize implied sarcasm. If not, this may not be the blog for you.) Also, Eve’s pretty quick on the blame train as well. Oh, the snake talked you into it? I couldn’t be friends with Adam and Eve. They just don’t know how to take responsibility for their own actions, and apparently God had not given them backbones yet!

Okay, so that is the end of my take on Genesis chapters 1-3. There’s so much more I could write, but until this becomes a paying gig (fingers crossed!), I simply don’t have the time to break down every single detail. Let me know what you think! Join me on this journey through the bible. I would love to have some company!