[1] Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
[2] And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
[3] And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
[4] These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
[5] And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
[6] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
[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.
[8] And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
[9] And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
[10] And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
[11] The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
[12] And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
[13] And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
[14] And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
[15] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
[16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
[17] But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
[18] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
[19] And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
[20] And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
[21] And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
[22] And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
[23] And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
[24] Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
[25] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
[2] And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
[3] And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
[4] These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
[5] And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
[6] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
[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.
[8] And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
[9] And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
[10] And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
[11] The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
[12] And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
[13] And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
[14] And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
[15] And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
[16] And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
[17] But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
[18] And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
[19] And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
[20] And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
[21] And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
[22] And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
[23] And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
[24] Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
[25] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
--------------------------------------------
Here we have God resting after creation, which we know he didn't do, since the story was inconsistent with the observable evidence and the expanding universe. So why was he resting? Charlatan.
We move on into the assumption that agriculture has been around as long as man has been around: "...there was no man to till the ground." Our ancestors lived in hunter/gatherer tribes until the advent of agriculture, but there's no mention of that past here, suggesting that agriculture had been around long enough that the author of Genesis wouldn't know anything about it.
Of course, God causes it to rain--there's no water cycle forming clouds or anything. No meteorological knowledge at the time of the writing of Genesis.
Now we come to the creation of man. Not woman, as suggested in the six-day creation story, but just man. Are we talking two creation stories here, or have we gone back to the day man was created? It doesn't make much sense, since we just talked about God resting--in this chapter! Perhaps the chapter divisions aren't proper. Whatever the case, God formed man from dust, then breathed life into him. This method of creation conflicts with the fact that humans share too much DNA with other primates to not have evolved from a common ancestor. It further conflicts with the genome project, which examines mitochondrial DNA evidence to determine ancestry of species. The idea that we could share so much inactive DNA with so many species, yet all species were somehow created individually and specially is unreasonable in the face of observable, biological evidence.
The apologist may object here that we didn't observe evolution of humans and other primates from a common ancestor, but they have to explain the similarities in not only active mitochondrial DNA, but the inactive DNA as well, which is about 85% of the DNA we have. They have to explain the similar morphology, the similar behaviors, and the observable evidence from the genome project, which determines the timeline of our ancestry. Even if they dispute the dates, the genome project conclusively shows our family tree.
After the creation of man, we have the inexplicable creation of the magical tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden, where God places man. Now, we haven't gotten to the fall of man yet in this chapter, but let this sink in: God created the doom of mankind, then put man into the garden where it grew, unguarded, and told two human beings who could not know right from wrong (because they apparently didn't gain this knowledge until they ate the fruit) not to eat the fruit. This passage makes no sense at all. Why make it bear edible fruit at all? Why put it in the garden of Eden? Why not guard it with a seraphim? And it's a magical tree! Magical. Think about it. This is nothing but myth. Furthermore, why is knowledge of good and evil bad?
Next, this story gives an approximate geographical location for the garden of Eden by describing the four rivers that meet there. So...why haven't we found it?
The command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (once again, MAGICAL TREE) comes with a death threat: eat it and die, human! But remember, Adam has no reason to know what's good and what's evil, so he doesn't know that disobeying a command from God is evil. Eve doesn't even exist yet...she comes next, formed from Adam's rib while he's in a deep, God-induced sleep. Before Eve gets created, however, Adam names all of the animals in the process of finding a "help meet". I've seen several translations for this term, but why God would create male and female animals of other species, but neglect to create a female for Adam right off the bat, makes no sense to me, and why God would have Adam look for a companion among the animals also makes no sense to me. Assuming God did not expect Adam to engage in bestiality, it seems he wanted Adam to be celibate, then decided against it. Weird.
I'll skip over the notion of men leaving their parents to become "one flesh" with their wives (though I suspect "one flesh" to be a reference to sex, not some metaphorical thing, from what I can gather), and move on to the silly passage about the man and wife being naked and unashamed. Why does their lack of shame need mentioned? They were the only humans alive! Why would they be ashamed? They were man and wife. If you're ashamed to be naked with your partner, you have issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment