Genesis 1-17

Shall we begin then? Today's review, as the title suggests, will be The Book of Genesis, chapters 1-17.

In Genesis 1, God randomly appears out of nothing and creates everything in six days. On day one, God creates light and dark, which then becomes day and night. On the second day, God uses water to create everything else. He "divide[s] the waters from the waters," (any logical person should realize that if you divide water from water, you have nothing left) to create Heaven, which I had no idea was made of water. On day three, the rest of the water that is not Heaven becomes Earth. It is said that all lands gathered in one mass, which supports the scientific idea of the continental divide. On day four, God creates the sun, moon, and stars. On day five, God creates all sea creatures "after his own kind," which, if you think about it, could support reverse evolution. Finally, on day six, God creates land creatures and man (Adam). With the seventh day of the week, God instates a day of rest, because he is lazy; therefore, the week should begin with Monday, and end with Sunday (the day of rest), instead of beginning with the day of rest, because apparently, we are lazy.

Being an English major, I am already having a hard time with the grammar of the Bible, because "created he him," is not proper pronoun use. Also, being an animal rights activist, I am certainly disgusted by the fact that animal abuse is justified in Scripture:
"...Let them [man] have dominion over the fish...and over the fowl...and over the cattle...and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (Genesis 1:26)."

I'm also having trouble with the creeping, too.

In Genesis 2, things grow on Earth, even though God does not make it rain. Remember how the earth is made of water? Yeah, well, in order to grow the Garden of Eden, it rains up from underground. WHAT. This is where things start getting screwy.

Even though chapter one says that God created Adam on the sixth day, chapter two states that Adam is "...Formed...of the dust of the ground..." after the day of rest. But most importantly, this is very similar to the classical Greek creation myth, in which Zeus molds Prometheus from clay. Hmm. After Adam is created, he is sent to "dress" the Garden of Eden, and is also giving the task of naming every living creature on the planet, because again, God is lazy. When this is finished, God drugs Adam and steals his rib to make him a wife, Eve. Then, there's some innuendo, and the act of sex becomes sacred (finally). Oh, and we learn that there a two trees in the Garden of Eden: The tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These come into play very soon.

The myth of Adam and Eve is probably the most widely known Christian story. The myth is expanded in Genesis 3. There's a random serpent in the garden, which represents temptation. The serpent convinces Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she, in turn, convinces Adam to eat as well. Then the shit hits the fan.

First of all, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, just from the tree of life, which tells me that God wants everyone to be ignorant little peons that just shut up, do his bidding, and make babies. Awesome. But because Adam and Eve listened to the serpent, they are now smart enough to realize that they are naked (how do you seriously not know that you're naked?!), so they make clothing because they are ashamed of their nakedness. I also have a problem with this. There is absolutely no need to be ashamed of the human body in it's natural state. I don't understand how being ignorant and being naked go hand in hand.

Next, God comes down to the garden all pissed, and the men blame everything on Eve, because women are subservient. Then, God gets all sexist up on Eve to punish her:
"...I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children...he [thy husband] shall rule over thee (Genesis 3:16)."
So now woman's duty is to be miserable because she's a woman, and to bear children. Hear that, ladies?

The whole of chapter three relates to yet another Greek myth: Adam and Eve's knowledge of good and evil is akin to Prometheus's fire.

In Genesis 4, Adam and Eve make babies, Cain and Abel. God plays favorites because sheep are better than grain, so Cain kills Abel. God pretty much banishes Cain from his sight, but since God sees all, Cain has nowhere to go. He ends up somewhere east of Eden that no one cares about. Before Cain leaves, God tells him, essentially, if you fail at something, it is a sin. After more bad grammar, bigamy is glorified. Eventually, Eve bears another child, Seth, to replace their dead one. Great.

In Genesis 5, a whole bunch of people live to unfathomable ages. That's pretty much the entire chapter. "'So-and-so had these kids. He lived a number of years, 'and he died.'" Well, duh.

Genesis 6 begins the story of Noah and the Ark. In the beginning of the chapter, God's children are considered giants (Titans, anyone?). I honestly can't believe all the parallelism in this book.

God allows men to choose their wives (which is fantastic, thanks God!), but then turns around and says that man is inherently evil and that he regretted making them in the first place. Thanks, guy. He complains about the violence on earth, so what does he do? He uses violence to take everyone out. What a hypocrite.

So God tells Noah to build an ark and take two of each animal on board, plus his wife, three sons, and their wives, to prepare for God's flood. Because everyone is corrupt besides Noah and his family. WHY. God tells Noah what to do about twenty times. For real.

By Genesis 7, I started noticing mass repetition of the number seven. Seven days in a week. In seven days, God's gonna flood the earth. The animals come to the ark by sevens. The flood comes on February 17. According to research, in numerology, seven is the number of perfection. So there you go.

After some more creeping, the flood finally comes.

In Genesis 8, the flood dries up. To make sure, Noah sends out a dove from the ark, which returns with an olive leaf, to signify that the water is gone and there is peace. This occurs on the first day of the first month, or New Year's. Noah builds God an alter and partakes in ritual animal sacrifice, even though he possesses the only living animals on the planet now. WHY. And then God apologizes for being a dick and killing everything. Oops. It's not their fault that they were born evil (but it should be God's).

Right off the bat in Genesis 9, God is condoning animal abuse again.
"...The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl...upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes...(Genesis 9:2)"
Noah saved all the animals from their demise, therefore he controls them. Uh, no.

Then, God justifies the whole, "an eye for an eye" philosophy. This is in a book that people live by.

Later, Noah gets drunk and naked, and one of his sons finds him. And because his son sees him naked, Noah forces him into slavery. WHAT. Then Noah dies at the age of 950. WHAT.

The division of countries takes place in Genesis 10. Oh, and there's some guy named Nimrod the Mighty Hunter.

In Genesis 11,someone builds a city out of brick and slime, but then God decides that he wants to break up his people and force them to learn different languages, seemingly so they can't communicate with each other and form a coup and overthrow him (or, that's my opinion anyway).

The city of Ur of the Chaldees is mentioned later on in the chapter. If you know your ancient history like I do, you will raise an eyebrow at that statement and vehemently deny that Ur ever had anything to do with the Chaldees. It was the Babylonians. FAIL.

The story of Abraham begins in Genesis 12. God orders Abraham, then called Abram, to leave his homeland to move to Canaan with his wife Sarai (Sarah). While crossing through Egypt, Abram is afraid that the Egyptians are going to try to mack on his wife and kill him in the process so he lies to them and says he is Sarai's brother instead. The plan backfires because the Pharaoh starts macking on Sarai anyway, until he finds out that Abram is really her husband. Even though the Pharaoh apologizes, he calls out Abram for lying (good), God sends plagues on Egypt anyway. WHAT A GUY.

In Genesis 13, Abram's nephew, Lot, goes to Jordan. That's it.

In Genesis 14, we learn that Siddim is "full of slimepits," whatever that means. Abram gets slaves, and we are introduced to Random Dan, who I assume is Abram's brother, who has been taken captive by a whole bunch of unrelated guys. Some king has a dale, which led me to the question, "What is a dale?" Well, friends, a dale is a broad valley. So there you go.

Genesis 15 explains the creation of the Hebrews. God appears to Abram in a vision and Abram complains because his wife Sarai cannot bear children. God says, in a nutshell, if you can count the stars, I'll give you a kid. And then God decides that he's only kidding, and makes a better bargain: a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon for a kid. WHY. Abram must really want a kid, so he gives God the random animals, and then God turns around and says, again in a nutshell, oh, by the way, you kid's going to be a slave. Then God makes a pact with Abram and gives him all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates (AKA Palestine). If you're wondering about the number three: in numerology, three is the number of completion. So there you go.

Genesis 16 abounds with the stuff Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" is made of. Sarai is depressed that she can't have kids, so she gives her handmaid Hagar to Abram to procreate with. Abram agrees, for some unknown reason. What's more: Abram actually marries Hagar before they get it on. After Hagar gets knocked up, she starts hating Sarai, so Sarai kicks her out. Hagar runs away and is visited by an angel who pretty much tells her to suck it up and go be Sarai's slave. When Hagar's kid, Ishmael is finally born, Abram is 86 years old. Sick.

The shit hits the fan in Genesis 17. God talks about perfection, Abram falls "on his face" twice, God changes Abram's name to Abraham and Sarai's to Sarah (to deculturalize them, of course). Then God launches into a grand speech about circumcision. Ouch. He mandates that all followers of Abraham, whether the are his family or his slaves, must have their foreskin cut off at the age of eight days to maintain a promise to God, and if any man is uncircumcised, he is a broken soul. Is this sexual oppression or what?

By a miracle, God allows Sarah to give birth (at the age of ninety) to keep God's covenant going. Then Abraham goes home and has everyone circumcised, and at the end, has his ninety-nine year old foreskin chopped off with pride. Disgusting.

So, that's it for this review. Thank God. Expect the next chunk of Genesis in a few days.