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A sceptical reading of the Bible – Genesis. Chapter 3-5 verse by verse.

In a previous Hub http://hubpages.com/hub/A-critical-and-sceptical-atheistic-look-at-the-Book-Of-Genesis-1-and-2 I analysed the opening two chapters of the book of Genesis from a very atheistic and sceptical perspective. Now the story continues with the temptation by the serpent in Eden, story of Cain, Abel and the generations to follow.

Chapter 3 introduces the Serpent right from verse one. It’s very existence as a sly force of temptation casts questions on God and his motives. Why create something, sly, deceptive and evil? Does its existence make God himself evil, sly and psychotic? Perhaps God didn’t notice its existence, or it was a mistake, but that makes God less than perfect. Why didn’t God know, or see the creature homing in on Adam & Eve and stop it?

Verse 3 God has actually told Eve that so much as touching the fruit of the Tree Of Knowledge will result in death. “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

The Serpent tells Eve she won’t die, and in fact, the Serpent is telling her the truth. God has either lied or contradicted his actions in later allowing Adam & Eve to live. Again, he is being fallible or plain downright dishonest.

Verse 6 -. Now the Serpent does lie, or at least gives a misleading interpretation of the evidence to Eve when it says, “your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Adam & Eve eat the fruit (never identified as an apple or anything else, just the fruit) and though they get a sense of right and wrong, they certainly don’t get God-like powers. They actually get a sense of shame in their own nudity and start making themselves clothes out of the vegetation.

Many as a metaphor for sexual awakening and shame see their consumption of the fruit, but they were invited to mate by God. The fruit actually generates free will and choice, but in choosing between God’s orders not to eat the fruit, and the Serpents temptation to eat it, Eve has already exercised her free will.

That Eve tempted Adam first has gained woman blame by religious sexists over generations as being responsible for our downfall.

Verse 8 - God’s actions then become peculiar. Adam & Eve “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden.” Walking? This isn’t am omnipresent figure, but a humanized finite being, with feet and legs.

Verse 9 – “But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" Why doesn’t God know where they are? Again, a contradiction to his all-present, all-powerful and all seeing nature. He can’t find the humans as he walks round Eden.

Verse 12 – Once caught, Adam directly blames Eve for everything. “The man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." He simply grasses her up.

Eve blames the Serpent, who God obliges to crawl on its belly and feed on dust – suggesting snakes initially had legs that God took off them for what the Serpent did in Eden.

Some commentators and artists assume the Serpent is Satan, but it seems to be a completely separate entity.

Verse 16 commences the human punishment, which is not death as threatened initially. To Eve God says - "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,” Here is an explanation of the human agony of labour pains for women, and why so many died in child-birth before the advent of modern medicine. Adam is then told that life will be harsh, involve hard work to little gain, prove to be horrible and end in painful death.

Verse 22 - God then banishes humanity or at least Adam & Eve from Eden to keep them from touching the tree of Knowledge again. A second bite of its fruit would have given us immortality. “Lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever"

CHAPTER 4

We now come to the second generation of humankind, with the story of Cain & Abel. Their conception alone is outside of wedlock, as no marriage ceremony exists as yet.

Cain, was a ground tiller, Abel was a shepherd. God seemed to like Abel better, as he sacrificed lamb to God, while Cain had less to offer. Cain kills Abel in a fit of jealousy, and again God seems to miss the incident. Verse 9 - Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" Until Abel cries out from the grave, in a strange spiritualist haunting way, and Cain confesses after his flippant cynical lie, “"I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" God does not know what has happened. Again, his omni potency lets him down badly.

Cain is banished even within the banishment imposed on humanity for events in Eden. His mark is not a curse, but a warning to others to leave Cain alone rather than imposing our own punishment on top of that inflicted on him by God.

Verse 17 – Cain goes to Enoch and finds a wife. Now hang on, what wife is this? The only other people we saw created were Adam & Eve, Either a/. Eve had daughters and Cain is committing incest or B/. God created other people who should therefore not be affected by the original sin effect of the fruit stealing committed by Adam & Eve. The existence of independent humans is never explained in the Bible. Cain and his wife found a city at Enoch, named after their own first son. He marries, has children, one of who, Lamech has two wives, (so much for monogamy)

Adam & Eve have a third son, Seth, who also has a son called Enoch.

CHAPTER 5

Adam lives to be 130, before spawning Enoch and lives on to be 930 before he dies. We now get the longevities of various other notaries, including Methuselah, the oldest man who ever lived, surviving to the ripe old age of 969. (A likely story). The chapter becomes little more than a list of names, and preposterous ages, but ends significantly, for Methusaleh’s grandson is one of the Bible’s most important personages, Noah. More on him shortly.

Full text of the scriptures cited here http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv/rsv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=1801

Arthur Chappell

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