GENESIS: A Recap

The book of Genesis may in fact be one of the most crucial and hotly debated books in the entire bible. The entire "creationist" and "intelligent design" movements hinge on the events portrayed here as the core of their thinking. To them, not only are the first two chapters of God's actual creation of prime importance, but so are the ridiculously long life spans of the characters in the book, as well as the Noah's Ark story in Chapter 6 through Chapter 9.

In their views the events in the book of Genesis took place only 6,000 years ago (making that the age of the earth) while clinging to ridiculous theories, such as mankind and dinosaurs living side by side (as in "The Flintstones"). They come up with absurd theories that the levels of solar radiation were so vastly different 6,000 years ago, which accounts for human beings living well into the 800 to 900 year old life spans.

The danger in these modes of thinking is that these people believe that the book of Genesis is infallibly true and contradicts natural science including the Big Bang Theory and the Theory of Evolution; hence the attempt at hijacking our education system to teach their religious doctrine. Now regardless of where you stand on religious belief, the bible is *not* by any means a science book, and "creationism" and/or "intelligent design" is *not* a scientific theory and therefore does not belong in our public school systems - which are not meant for the promotion of religion.

Science is based on the study of the world around us and the gathering of information that supports claims that can be demonstrated and tested to produce results. While it is certainly true that science can sometimes be wrong, and has been wrong in the past, scientific theories have been disproved and overwritten by better research and investigation not dogmatic interpretations that refuse to budge from one group's interpretation of the bible's creation myth.

The difference is clear compared to the attitudes of religious theorists of the past, such as those in the 17th century who finally had to admit that the Earth was not the center of our universe, and that the sun does not revolve around our planet. They realized that they were not having to admit that the bible was wrong, only that the human interpretation of it was flawed.

Regardless of your personal views on religion, it has no place in our classrooms. If it is your choice to teach and supplement your children's education with and about religion, then there are plenty of options for you with Sunday Schools and Private Religious schooling.

As we have read together over the fifty chapters of the book of Genesis, here is my summary and interpretation of this book of the Old Testament:

• God creates the earth, in the darkness, out of a shapeless mass in the sky. God creates:
  • Light, before the creation of the sun, hereby necessitating some other source of light that he worked by. For the sake of simplicity and modern understanding, I had dubbed this "God's Flashlight". He also defines "daytime" and "nighttime" without yet creating the sun which provides us with the amounts of these times, from the span of time it takes the Earth to revolve and face towards or away from the light of the sun.
  • God separates the water vapors to create the skies and the waters, hereby requiring "God's Flashlight" (or perhaps some other source?) to also provide enough heat for the waters to remain in liquid form and not to be a massive ice block.
  • God makes land masses emerge from the seas, and creates a bunch of plant life, once again necessitating "God's Flashlight" to provide similar qualities of the sun, needed to sustain this form of life.
  • Now God finally creates the sun - as well as the moon - and defines them as big lights in the sky. The stars, which are obviously much bigger than the moon, and some even larger than the sun are created almost as an after thought.
  • God creates the fish and the birds and lets them procreate.
  • God creates the rest of the animals, and finally man (and later woman).
• God creates a garden for man to tend and places a magical tree with magical fruit in the center. Telling Adam (the first man) and his wife Eve, not to eat the magical fruit, telling them that they will die if they do so.
• A talking snake tells Eve that God is pulling their leg about the whole bit about dying from eating the magical fruit, and explains that eating the fruit will make her and her husband more "Godlike", allowing them to discern right from wrong. Eve eats the magical fruit and then gives a bite to Adam, and they immediately become shameful of their nudity, trying to cover themselves with fig leaves.
• God finds out about them eating the fruit and being tricked by the talking snake and kicks them out of the garden. He curses the woman most severely bestowing upon her the curse of menstruation and painful child birth, curses the snake to crawl around on his belly and become the enemy of all human females, and finally curses the man to have to struggle to grow food from the land. However, due to the fact that they are now allowed to feel shame for their nudity, God throws them a couple animal skins as a parting gift, and puts some angels on duty to guard the entrance to the garden with a big flaming sword.
• Adam and Eve's children Cain and Abel grow up to become a farmer and a shepherd, respectively. When the boys share their spoils with God, God shows favoritism towards Abel's lamb chops, which makes Cain envious. In retaliation, Cain murders his brother.
• God makes Cain an outcast, but puts a mark upon him to ensure that nobody tries to kill him in retaliation. Eve has another "good son" that she names Seth.
• Cain and Seth live to ripe old ages of over 900 years old and spawn a slew of children and descendants.
• God deems Seth's great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson Noah at the age of 500 to be the only righteous human being on the planet. He sees everyone else as evil and wicked and decides to see if anything will change over the next 120 years.
• When nothing changes, he tells Noah of his great plan to kill everyone and everything with a mass genocidal flood, and tells him to get started on building a giant boat.
• When Noah finishes building his boat, God tells him to scour the Earth and grab a pair of every animal on the planet - along with a few more to use in animal sacrifices - and load them all up in the boat with him. He lets him take his wife, his sons, and his daughter-in-laws on the boat ride with him.
• God gives Noah a seven day heads up before the genocidal flood to make his final preparations. When they all board the boat with a pair of every animal in the world, he makes it rain for 40 days straight, lets the water cover the Earth for roughly five months and effectively kills every animal, plant, child, infant, and adult human save for Noah and his crew and the animals aboard.
• After 9 and a half months aboard the boat, God tells Noah and his crew to let the animals loose, leave the boat, and start populating the world again. Noah's first act when he hits dry land is animal sacrifice.
• Noah, gets hammered one night passing out naked in his tent and gets mad at his son Ham for seeing him naked. He curses Ham's son Canaan, hoping that the kid will serve the rest of his life as slaves to his uncles - thus identifying the Canaanites as terrible evil people.
• A while later a bunch of people who settled near Babylon started getting pretty smart and crafty and start building a giant tower reaching to the heavens. God gets ticked off about this and gives all of these people a slew of different languages so that they won't be able to communicate with each other and stop doing things like building silly towers to heaven and progressing their knowledge.
• Noah's son Shem spawns a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson named Abram, whom God now tells that he's been selected as his chosen one.
• Abram marries his half-sister, but isn't able to have children with her, so she allows him to sleep with her slave.
• The slave girl gets pregnant and becomes arrogant, so Abram's wife Sarai beats the hell out of her. God tells the slave girl to go back home and behave, apparently condoning the beating she received. She gives birth to a son named Ismael.
• Meanwhile, Abram's nephew Lot is across town is living in Sin-City in a city called Sodom. God sends a bunch of angels down there to check out the town. Lot invites them to stay with him for the night, but when the townspeople find out they surround Lot's house, demanding that they bring out his house guests as they were in the mood for raping them. When Lot tries to offer up his nice young virgin daughters for them to rape instead, the towns people refuse and start busting down the doors to get at the guests inside. The angels help Lot, his wife, and two daughters escape, but tells them to run and not look back at the destruction. When Lot's wife does just that, God turns her into a pillar of salt.
• Meanwhile Lot's daughters decide that if their dad won't let them get married, that they'll get him drunk and force him to have sex with them instead. They both manage to somehow get pregnant with their father's kids after two nights of boozing their dad up.
• God renames Abram to Abraham in his old age, and tells him that him and his half-sister Sarah (also renamed from Sarai) will finally have a child together at their ages of 100 and 90 respectively
• Sarah catches Ishmael teasing her son Isaac and tells Abraham to throw both Ishmael and his mother out on the street. Although reluctant, Abraham does so when God tells him that his wife is right.
• God decides to try a little test out on Abraham, and asks him to instead of performing an animal sacrifice, to try doing a human sacrifice with Abraham's son Isaac. When Abraham goes through with it, God tells him that he was only kidding and just wanted to see how loyal Abraham was to him.
• When Sarah dies, Abraham buys a family plot in the land of Canaan, complete with a cave, to be used as a cemetery for all of his descendants.
• Abraham now hooks up his son Isaac with Isaac's cousin Rebekah, sending one of his slaves to travel out to Iraq to go pick her up and bring her back to Canaan.
• Isaac has twin sons named Esau (the older one) and Jacob (the younger). Esau grows up to be a hunter, and Jacob is more of a homebody.
• While coming home from an unsuccessful hunt, Esau, feeling starved trades away his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup.
• With Isaac on his death bed, Jacob and his mom come up with a scheme to trick Isaac into giving his death bed blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. Somehow it works, and Esau swears revenge. Jacob's mother sends him away via the guise of finding a wife back in her hometown.
• Jacob goes to stay with his Uncle Laban and falls in love with his cousin Rachel. He works out a deal with his Uncle Laban to work for seven years on his farm in order to pay the dowry for her hand in marriage. However on the wedding night Uncle Laban swaps out Rachel for his older daughter Leah. Jacob sleeps with her and gets stuck with being her husband. He works for another seven years in another attempt to get to marry Rachel, which works this time.
• A rivalry and baby-making competition arises between the sisters Leah and Rachel, which also involves throwing their slaves in the mix for Jacob to sleep with as well.
• When one of Jacob's daughters gets raped, her brothers decide that the best way to deal with it is to slaughter the entire town, taking the women and children as slaves.
• The youngest son, Joseph is a tattle-tale and becomes hated by his brothers. He has a penchant for interpreting dreams and his brothers hate him for that too. They hatch a plot to kill Joseph, but instead sell him into slavery where he winds up in Egypt.
• Jacob manages to have another child with Rachel, but she dies during child birth and he buries her on the side of the road leading to Bethlehem.
• Joseph meanwhile manages to win the good favor of the Egyptian Pharaoh by interpreting his dreams and predicts a seven year famine ahead. When he comes up with a plan to survive the famine, the Pharaoh makes him the governor of Egypt and a wealthy celebrity in town.
• Affected by the famine, Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy some food. They are unaware that it is their brother Joseph who's selling the food there - as he is dressed as an Egyptian and speaks the language, but Joseph recognizes his brothers. He messes with their heads, insisting that they are spies, and demands to meet their youngest brother - who didn't travel with them to buy the food.
• When Joseph finally sees the brothers return with his youngest brother Benjamin, he reveals who he is and insists that his family all moves to Egypt to live.
• When the family moves to Egypt, Jacob dies not long after, but angers Joseph by giving his better blessings to Joseph's younger son instead of the older son.
• When Jacob dies, his family brings his body back to Canaan to bury him in the cave that Abraham bought long ago for the family.
• Before Joseph dies he makes his brothers promise that their descendants are to take his body with them when they leave Egypt and return to Canaan. His body is put into a coffin in Egypt in the meantime

GENESIS: Chapters 8 & 9

Chapter 8
Summary:	After 150 days of flooding God sends a wind to blow across the waters and floods began to disappear. The boat comes to rest upon the mountains of Ararat, and as three more months went by other mountain tops emerged from beneath the waters. After another forty days Noah sent out a raven that basically flew around eating the carcasses of the dead animals floating on the water. He also sent out a dove to see if it could find dry ground, but the dove unable to find a place to perch returned to the boat. A week later he released the dove again and this time the dove returned with an olive leaf in its beak. After yet another week he released the dove and it didn't return. 8:21 "And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth ; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done." Another month later Noah opened the door to the boat's top deck to have a look around and saw that the water was gone, yet he holed back up for another two months until God told him he could leave the boat*. He and his family got off the boat and released all the animals - except for a select lucky few that he picked out for ritualistic animal sacrifices. Noah builds an altar and sacrifices the birds and animals he picked out for the occasion, and this pleases God. God now claims that he will never again commit mass genocide.
Notes:	1.) For those keeping score, Noah, his family, and the animals were aboard the Ark for about 9 1/2 months.
Thoughts:	It's hard to really expand upon what I've already commented upon in the previous chapter about the absurdity of the whole Noah's Ark story, but one thing I did forget to mention was factoring in the effect of the flood on plant life, how long it would take to repopulate the earth with the plants that many of these herbivores need to survive on after they're set free from the ark. The mathematics can be staggering if we try to determine the overall weights of the boat, the animals, and the feed that would be needed to sustain them all for nine months as to whether such weight could possibly even float. Also worth questioning would be how all of these animals were kept, whether in pens or in cages, separated individually or by kinds, or perhaps some were free roaming like the insects and such. A more thorough look at these sorts of problems can be found at the Skeptic's Dictionary webpage devoted to Noah's Ark at: http://skepdic.com/noahsark.html.
Chapter 9
Summary:	God blessed Noah and his sons* and told them to repopulate the earth again. He tells Noah that all wild animals, birds, and fish will now be afraid of man* and further expands upon this by reaffirming man's dominion over the animals by telling Noah that they are all there to be used as food - with the stipulation that the animal's blood must be drained first. However, he also tells Noah that any animal or man that kills a man must itself be killed* affirming that murder is to be punished by death. God promises Noah, his sons, and even the animals that Noah rescued that he will never again commit mass genocide by way of a massive flood. He goes on to say that he is sealing this promise with the rainbow* he put in the clouds, and when God sees the rainbow in the future he will remember his promise to not kill everybody again with a massive global flood. It is then stated that the descendants of Noah's three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth went on to form all the nations of the earth. 9:21 "And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent." Noah went on in life to become a farmer and planted a vineyard. One night after Noah got pretty drunk and crazy, he stripped down naked and went to sleep it off inside his tent. His son Ham found him in the tent and was aghast to see his dad passed out naked* and went out to tell his brothers. Shem and Japheth grabbed a robe and walked into their dad's tent backwards so that they could cover their father up without having to look at his nakedness. When Noah eventually woke up, and learned what had happened and that Ham was responsible for snitching on him to his brothers, he curses the descendants of Ham's son Canaan (the Canaanites). He curses the Canaanites to become the lowliest form of slaves, and blesses both Shem and Japtheth asking God to ensure that Canaan serves as a slave to them both. Noah lives on for another 350 years after the flood dying at the ripe old age of 950.
Notes:	1.) Yet another example of sexism with the omission of Noah and his son's wives in the blessing. 2.) One would think the animals would be a bit more fearful of God after that whole flood business. 3.) Spoken from a deity that just finished committing mass genocide. 4.) A rainbow is not a physical object, but an optical effect. 5.) Nudity is once again treated as shameful.
Thoughts:	In my opinion, one of the biggest problems with the bible is that it promotes exclusionary outlooks (i.e. women are inferior to men, this group of people are "God's people", this group of people - men, women, and children - needs to be destroyed) and the same is applied towards the outlook on animals as well. Animals are basically pawns, not well respected, and God loves to have them sacrificed to him without regard to their suffering. Once again, God encourages Noah and his family the green light to kill animals how they see fit and not just purely out of need or necessity. I realize that this is a personal gripe in regards to animals which some may night agree with me on, but I do think it bears mentioning as it's interesting to draw parallels to what God's views are on people he views inferior to his chosen ones. God seems to harbor either a jealousy over his exclusive right to murder senselessly or simply doesn't realize that he sets a bad example towards the people he wants to follow him, his tendency to dish out excessive punishment seems to rub off on Noah, who after a bit of excessive drinking punishes his son Ham for what appears to be simply catching a glimpse of his father naked. Actually, I'm not quite sure that I understand what specifically Noah is condemning Ham for (my guess is that it's a no-no to see your father naked) but reacting by basically selling Ham's son Canaan into slavery seems a bit excessive (not to mention ridiculous to make Canaan pay for his father's mistake). Finally, like his ancestors before him, Noah's death (and his adventure on the Ark at age 600) conveniently ends on a nice and even number with his final age of 950.

GENESIS: Chapters 6 & 7

Chapter 6
Summary:	The beginning of the chapter starts off somewhat ambiguously. The King James version of the bible is written as such: 1: And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2: That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3: And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. Most biblical scholars interpret these verses to mean that "the sons of God" are referring to the lineage of Seth, while the "daughters of men"* are referring to the "corrupt" lineage of Cain. God is apparently stating that his chosen folk (Seth's "good lineage") will always be attracted to evil (Cain's "evil lineage") and stray from God. Out of frustration, he is now giving them 120 years to change their ways before he gets tired of them and kills them all*. The chapter goes on to imply that the perversion of Seth's lineage mixing with Cain's caused freaks of nature (specifically mentions giants) 6:4 "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." , sexual depravity, and that mankind had basically become wholly wicked and evil. God begins to regret having made humans and it "broke his heart", so he decides the best way to resolve the problem is by killing everyone and everything - animals, reptiles, and birds - on the planet, except for one person - Noah. Noah apparently was the only person on the planet who tried to conduct his affairs according to God's will, so God decides to reveal his intentions to Noah about destroying mankind and instructs him to build a very large boat. By modern measurements, the boat he instructs Noah to build is about 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high with three decks inside of it. God tells Noah that he's going to cover the earth with a flood that will kill every living thing on the planet, but promises to keep Noah safe on the boat along with* his wife, his sons (Shem, Ham, and Japheth) and their wives. He then asks Noah to round up a pair - male and female - of every kind of animal, bird, and reptile along with food for Noah's family and for the animals.
Notes:	1.) Again, referring to the "sons of God "as righteous and the "daughters of men" the bible is reinforcing sexism by aligning the evil with the women. Why can it not also be possible for the "sons of man" to infect the "daughters of God" with their wickedness? 2.) It is not mentioned or noted as to whether God makes his 120 year probation period known to the people or not. 3.) If we are to take God's word literally, that Noah was the only person who was not wicked, then is God not risking his plan to purge the planet of evil by sparing the lives of Noah's wife, his sons, and his son's wives - who going by God's declaration are most likely tainted with wickedness?
Thoughts:	We begin this chapter with a nice helping of sexism by pitting the "sons of God" against the "daughters of man" implying and reinforcing male superiority once again. While God realizes that his chosen boys will always be attracted to the hot evil chicks across town, he goes ahead and puts his chosen boys on a 120 year probation - where if they can manage to stop breeding with the evil babes, stop producing giants(!) and freaks, and partaking in depravity, he'll reconsider his plan to kill them all. I mentioned in one of my footnotes above that it isn't clear as to whether God let his 120 year probation scheme be known to the people or not, however upon further reflection, what exactly was the point of waiting 120 years? Was this for the people's benefit, or perhaps did God need 120 years to think things over before committing to mass genocide? It's a little difficult to discern why and what the wait is for. I've always had major problems with the method of God's mass extermination as described here when God clearly has other means and methods to exterminate people without also destroying the animals and the children and infants that must have existed at the time depicted. God has used disease and plagues throughout the bible to decimate certain factions of people he doesn't like (such as the Egyptians) while sparing those who followed his rules. To me the story seems very senseless and not at all on par with the common attributes given to God as merciful, just, and loving. The gathering of pairs of "every kind" of animal, bird, and reptile is also pretty absurd to think about in the context of the limited modes of transportation of the day, unless God somehow helped out in some way. Many animals are indigenous to certain areas of the world that would have proved difficult if not impossible for Noah to reach, much less keep the animals alive throughout the journey back to the Ark. It's hard to fathom how Noah managed to gather polar bears, koalas, penguins, amongst others unless we make exceptions to the story. Among the exceptions I've heard from religious apologists are that: the flood was only a regional flood, and not a global flood; that God could have guided or brought these animals to Noah; and/or that these animals did not exist yet (not a popular choice amongst apologists as they would have to either concede that these animals evolved from other species, or that God made them at a later time - which there isn't any support for in biblical accounts).
Chapter 7
Summary:	So the day comes when God's 120 year probation comes to an end. He tells Noah to get into the boat with his family, making it clear to Noah that he (Noah) alone is the only righteous person on the planet. He tells him to bring in all the pairs of animals too* and adds another provision - that Noah has to bring in seven pairs of animals of those God has deemed worthy for food and animal sacrifices, and seven pairs of every kind of bird. 7:4 "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth." He gives Noah one week to complete this task, as he will make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights at this time. Noah at the spry age of 600* years boards the boat with his family and the animals as the torrents of rain fell upon the earth. The waters rose higher and higher, lifting the boat high above the earth and finally over twenty feet above the highest mountain peaks. Meanwhile every form of life on the planet that breathed air and lived on dry land* was eradicated, and water covered the earth for 150 days, almost five months.
Notes:	1.) This begs the question as to whether these animals Noah had to gather were just lounging around Noah's property, or whether he somehow had to manage to gather them up in the seven day time span before the flood. 2.) Specifically, Noah's age is listed as 600 years, two months, and 17 days old. 3.) While marine life is apparently spared, no explanation is given to how both salt water and fresh water marine life managed to survive in a mixed water system.
Thoughts:	Once again we're left with so many questions to this improbable event, it's necessity, and meaning. Over five months on a boat, manned by eight people, to care for and feed thousands of animals (not to mention to clean up after their waste products) and prevent the predators from eating the crew or their natural prey. Even if God was dead-set on destroying all life except for Noah and his family, I really can't fathom how or why an omnipotent god would choose such an inefficient method of mass genocide, and why innocent creatures along with children, babies, and infants that must have existed were exterminated along with a bunch of people that God didn't like. To me, it appears that this story was created more in regards to being powerful, riveting, and on a grand scale to wow the people ages ago rather than to be based in any sort of plausible historical event. Quite truthfully, it saddens me that there are still people who can believe this story has any sort of plausible actuality to it.