Skeptic Bible Commentary

Resuming the Journey

2012-01-11T23:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm gonna try to pick this back up after an avalanche of day job. A couple things that I'll need to change, and let me know if this diminishes the effect:

First, I need to switch to NIV from KJV for reasons I'll explain in a moment.
Second, I've read a few books in the intervening time which will obviously effect my interpretation of the Bible, but which I'll also try and mention whenever this is the case.
Third, for reasons that I alluded to in the last exegetical post, I'll be combining the "Textual Criticism" and "Lessons and Morals" sections into one big section. The summary section will stay the same. Sometime I hope it will provide a way for me to read an chapter-by-chapter summary of the entire Bible in less than an hour.

In regards to the translation change, I realized after the last post that I need a way to more quickly read through this monumental text in an understandable format. The KJV is written in archaic English, which makes it difficult to really digest deeply unless you have a lot of time to reread passages a couple times per chapter (in my case at least), although if you have some leisure time to read poetic prose it is amazing akin to Shakespear. The NIV seems to be a relatively faithful in meaning to the KJV and it's far easier to understand on the first reading. Additionally, it seems that the newer translations are based on a much richer cache of ancient manuscripts that the KJV, which was completed in 1611 (I've been reading Friedman [Who Wrote the Bible?)] and Ehrman as well as various online sources that have informed me to the manuscript tradition of the Old and New Testaments). For these reasons it seems that a switch to the NIV won't severely alter the transmission of God's message, so to speak. If anyone has any compelling reasons with remaining with KJV, I'd like to know.

Ok, onto Genesis 26-30!

Haven't given up

2009-09-01T23:20:00.000-07:00

[Sidenote: Work has been intruding on life and I haven't been able to write much lately. However, I have not given up and soon will take some time off work to devote to writing. Returning soon...]

Genesis Chapters 21-25

2009-07-06T00:13:00.000-07:00

Summary:

Ch21. In chapter 21 Sarah gives birth to Isaac, Abraham throws Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert, and then Abraham makes a covenant with Abimelech and his descendants to share a well and not bicker over the area around Beer-sheba.

Ch22. In this chapter, Abraham follows Gods command to sacrifice his son Isaac, but an angel appears and stays his hand at the last moment and provides a ram instead and God is pleased with Abraham’s obedience.

Ch23. Chapter 23 tells how Sarah dies and Abrahams buys some land in Hebron and buries her in a cave.

Ch24. This chapter is a very long drawn out tale of how Abraham’s servant journeys back to Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac. He returns with Rebekah, who Isaac takes as his wife.

Ch25. Chapter 25 contains the genealogies of Abraham and Isaac interspersed with Abraham’s death at 175 and the birth of Rebehak’s twin Esau and Jacob, who God calls the two nations of Rebekah’s womb.

Textual Criticism:

These five chapters suffer from the same disjointed story-telling of the previous twenty chapters. For instance, the story of the covenant with Abimelech that appears in the last 12 verses of chapter 21. Then again at the end of chapter 22 there is a short bit of genealogy at the end that does flow at all with the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.

Also, there is the contradiction in chapter 25 of Abraham dying at 175 when God had previously limited the lifespan of humans to 120 years (Genesis 6:3).

[Note: Since I don’t read Hebrew, and my knowledge regarding textual criticism is limited, this section may be very short or completely absent from further entries. Much of the general criticism of the text is already covered in previous posts, but I will try to bring up anything that seems new and will also attempt to backfill posts with more details as I study more of the extra-biblical reference material.]

Lessons and Morals:

The moral dilemmas continue in this section, at least when judged by any recent standard. As soon as Isaac is born in, Abraham not only abandons his son Ishmael, but he throws him and his mother Hagar out into the desert with only a bottle of water and some bread (Genesis 21:14). Then in the very next chapter Abraham agrees to sacrifice his one remaining son to God, without even asking why. Only after Isaac has been bound, placed on a pile of wood, and has his father standing over him with a knife does a voice from the sky intervene (the text says it’s an angel of the Lord from heaven, Genesis 22:1-11). Isaac’s feelings or response are never considered. He isn’t even mentioned again for 2 more chapters after the angel intervenes, and in the end it even seems like Abraham leaves Isaac tied up on the mountain (Genesis 22:19). These seem to be frightening examples of bad parenting, which today would result in social and legal actions against Abraham.

It’s nice that Abraham goes through so much trouble to bury his wife properly, and this is probably a behavior finally worthy of emulating. But it is a brief moral respite before Abraham sends his servant away to buy a wife for Isaac (he is sent with riches, which he imparts upon the bride and her family, Genesis 24:53). Then at the very end of chapter 25, Esau is on the verge of death from exhaustion and his own brother Jacob forces him to swear his birthright over to Jacob before he’ll even give him something to eat and drink (Genesis 25:29-34). This one-sided sibling rivalry continues, as we shall see in the next post.

So, from these few chapters we are to learn that if a voice from the heavens tells us to do anything drastic like murder our own children, we should obey without question. And if someone is vulnerable and desperate (even your own kin), cheat them out of everything you can before offering help.

Genesis chapters 16 - 20

2009-06-28T00:32:00.000-07:00

Summary:

Ch16. In Genesis chapter 16, Abram’s wife Sarai fails to bear children, so he sires a child with Sarai’s servant Hagar who gives birth to a son, Ishmael.

Ch17. In this chapter, God repeats his promise to Abram to multiply his seed and give him all the land of Canaan. God renames Abram and Sarai, Abraham and Sarah. God then order Abraham to circumcise himself and all the males of his tribe, which Abraham does.

Ch18. In chapter 18, God appears to Abraham in the form of three men, who tell him that Sarah will have another child and that they are going to go down to Sodom to see if the people are behaving.

Ch19. In this chapter two angels appear at Lot’s house in Sodom and tell him to run, Lot and his family flee the destruction of Sodom, and then Lot’s daughters devise a plan to impregnate themselves.

Ch20. In chapter 20, Abraham and Sarah visit king Abimelech and lie to him again saying Sarah is Abraham’s sister. The king has a nightmare from God and gives Sarah back along with livestock and servants.

Textual Criticism:

The story of Abraham in chapters 16 though 20 flows well, and has no glaring textual contradictions. There are also fewer disjointed transitions in the text, so there is little to criticize here from the layman’s perspective. The one thing that can be said is that the covenant between God and Abraham has been repeated so many times now, one wonders if God, or Abraham or the author(s) of the text aren’t forgetful somehow. Also, the story of Abraham lying about his wife being his sister is almost an exact copy of the story from earlier in chapter 12. Is this some sort of repetitive, story-telling norm in ancient Israel?

[An aside: Another textual problem I’ve been running into throughout the text is the liberal use of pronouns. Sometimes there are so many pronouns in a string of verses that it becomes extremely difficult to understand who is being referred to. I’m not sure if this is a fault of the King James translation or how the original Hebrew was actually written, but it becomes tedious and annoying at times, especially when one is actually attempting a careful reading.]

Lessons and Morals:

Chapter 16 is basically a lesson of what not to do; Abram’s and Sarai’s adulterous behavior and the chastising and driving out of the maidservant, Hagar. The odd thing is there is no context or spiritual analysis from God and no punishment for anyone except the maidservant who is sent out into the desert, pregnant and alone. Hagar is Sarai’s servant when she gives her over to Abram, who then impregnates her, so Hagar didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Furthermore, God seems to curse her fetus by setting every man’s hand against him before he’s even born (Genesis 16:12). Unlike the elegant fables of Aesop, it would be difficult for a child (much less most adults) to discern a positive moral lesson here.

Chapter 17 contains another repetition of God’s promise to Abram (who from then on becomes Abraham). The redundant covenant, and the redundant nature of the stories in general makes me wonder why this couldn’t have all been compressed into a much shorter telling. God seems to ramble on and on, and repeat himself over and over again. Then the commandment to circumcise all the males is just scary. The only reason that God gives for this is that there must be a sign of the covenant between man and God…so I guess that sign must be mutilated genitals? And then Abraham just runs off and starts chopping up all the penises in the tribe that same day. If someone did something even remotely similar today (or even back then in the city plaza of Ur), and then told the local authorities that it was because a deity had appeared and told him to do this, I can’t imagine he would be celebrated and revered as a universal father figure.

Chapter 18 is funny because God appears to Abraham as three men outside his tent, who seem to talk amongst themselves about things. They tell Abraham about the future…Sarah will give birth to a son. This comedy continues at this point when Sarah, who is like 90 years old, starts cracking up inside the tent. The men outside seem a little offended and make a snarky remark to her (“is any thing too hard for the Lord?”), in turn causing her to be afraid (Genesis 18:14-15). The men then tell Abraham they need to visit Sodom to see how well they’re behaving and hint at its destruction. The last ten verses of the chapter are a disturbing bidding war between Abraham and God about how many righteous people need to be inside Sodom in order to preserve it. They seem to settle on 10 and Abraham is quieted. So, if there are only 9 righteous people (whatever “righteous” means) then it’s cool to nuke the whole place.

By chapter 19, I’m beginning to think the Bible is totally twisted. Even if it is an interesting read, it does not seem at all a good book for teaching morals and healthy worldviews. First Lot offers his two daughters to be raped by the townspeople, then God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the sky, then God kills Lot’s wife just for looking at the fireworks, and finally Lot’s daughters get him dead drunk in a cave and then rape him and both get pregnant. (The resulting children are supposedly the fathers of all of the Moabites and Ammonites, whoever they are.) Then chapter 20 forgets about all that and starts in immediately with Abraham and Sarah lying and pulling the “she’s my sister” trick again on Abimelech (king of Gerar), and again getting rewarded with a heap of livestock and servants. It’s strange how Abraham had refused proper payment a few chapters back when he smote the enemies of the king of Sodom (Genesis 14:23). But when the payment is derived from lying and giving up his wife to other men, he’s glad to take the spoils and run (twice!).

[Side Note] Noah's Warning?

2009-06-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

After some digging I was finally able to find the Bible verse that supposedly portrays Noah as an evangelist, warning the world of the flood. In Hebrews chapter 11 it says:

Hebrews 11:7, “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”

The phrase "by which he condemned the world" seems to summarize the entirety of Noah's evangelical career and warning of the flood in the Bible. Some extra-biblical Jewish sources say that there was a lot of drunken reveling and that Noah actually spoke against it and was mocked, but still don't record any actual words of Noah. So from just the Bible, we're to understand that at some point, everyone in the entire world had a chance to see the Ark as it was being built and understand that somehow it was related to their debauchery? If Noah really was warning people about the flood, it would seem that would be one of the crucial elements of the story and it would be spelled out clearly in the Bible (after all, Genesis lists the mundane details about the dimensions of the ark in cubits, so why not this rather important detail?).

All this seems to directly contradict Jesus's own understanding of the flood in Matthew:

“As the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:36–39, NKJV).

This is supposedly directly from the mouth of Jesus who clearly states "they" were eating and drinking and marrying, "and did not know until the flood came". Certainly if Noah was out there condemning all the debauchery they would have known BEFORE the flood came. Oddly, the Answers in Genesis website (where I found this info) uses this verse to introduce an article that talks about Noah being an evangelist, which makes the article contradictory from the very start. It gives only 3 lame reasons why the world was suppose to be warned and fully aware of their fate, which I pasted verbatim below:

1. the fact that Noah was building an Ark.
2. from the warning of God’s Spirit (Genesis 6:3 says, “And the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’”
3. quite likely, from the words of Noah himself.

The article then goes on to explain how this means that God was offering salvation through the Ark.

The first point is just silly and only has Biblical basis in the passing phrase from Hebrews 11. Did everyone in the whole world see the Ark as it was being built from a distance? If they did, were they all immediately able to comprehend God's will, their own sinfulness, the inevitability of the flood as a consequence of said sin, and the fact that they even had the option to repent and get on board? Did God really think this was fair warning?

The second point is a verse that comes before Noah's story even begins and doesn't even imply that God was directly speaking to all the pre-flood humans as a warning. Even if this was the case, it makes God the bearer of a vague warning, not Noah. Anyway, this 120 year life span limit is quickly contradicted a few chapters after the flood when Abraham dies at 175 years of age.

The third point is a purely made up interpretation of the text, and seems to be the real origin of the myth of Noah's warning. It seems to me that religious minded people just decided to make up the warning and attach it to the story to resolve the theological dilemma that the flood creates when no warning is present.

Genesis chapters 11 - 15

2009-06-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

Summary:

Ch11. Chapter 11 begins with the story of the Tower of Babel for the first 9 verses, and then switches to the genealogy of Shem down to Abram. It ends with a couple verses where Abram’s father Terah journeys from Ur to Haran and then dies.

Ch12. Chapter 12 is a short summary of Abram’s journey from Haran to Egypt. At the end he lies to Pharaoh, telling him Sarai is his sister instead of wife. They are found out and driven out of Egypt.

Ch13. In this chapter Abram and his family journey from Egypt back into Canaan. Abram and his grandson Lot start to bicker over grazing resources and decide to go their ways, Lot went to Sodom and Abram stayed in Canaan. At the end of the chapter God promises Abram and all his descendants all the land he can see in every direction.

Ch14. In chapter 14 a war breaks out in which Lot is captured from Sodom and taken toward Dan. Abram finds out and takes an entourage to rescue Lot and kill the captors. The king if Sodom is so pleased he blesses Abram and tries to pay him, which Abram refuses.

Ch15. In chapter 15 Abram has a vision where he talks to God about be childless, God promises him that his seed will number as many as the stars in the sky, there’s an elaborate sacrifice ritual, and then God promises Abram the land of Canaan again.

Textual criticism:

The story of the tower of Babel at the beginning of chapter 11 is strange for two reasons.

First, it’s jarringly out of place in the flow of the genealogies of Noah’s three sons, which began back in chapter 10. Chapter 10 starts with the first two sons of Noah, Japheth and Ham, and at the very end begins talking about Shem. The chapter 11 (Genesis 11:1-9) breaks in with the Tower of Babel story. It says “they” journeyed to a place called Shinar and settled there. It doesn’t say who “they” is, or identify anyone specific throughout the story. Then immediately in verse 10 the genealogy of Noah’s three sons picks back up with Shem and continues to the end of the chapter. Maybe the people that gathered at Shinar (Babel) where all the descendents of Ham and Japheth, but the author doesn’t bother to say so. In the middle of the story (Genesis 11:5) the people at Babel have the vague description “the children of men”. Lastly, there are redundancies in the genealogies at the end of chapter 10 and where it picks back up again in chapter 11, lending to the patched together feeling of the book of Genesis.

The second oddity is a simple contradiction, which also adds to the disorganized feeling of the text. At the end of the chapter 10 it says that the genealogy just relayed was “after their tongues, in their lands, in their nations” (Genesis 10:31). Then two verses later, chapter 11 begins with “the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech” (Genesis 11:1) and then has someone journeying from the east to Shinar (Babel) (Genesis 11:2). I immediately wondered why all the descendents of Noah would forget theirs “tongues” in the space of two verses and all start speaking one language. Also, since chapter 10 had just said Noah’s descendents had all their own lands and nations, I thought it unreasonable to conclude that the people at Babel were descendents of the sons of Noah. They seem to be a mystery people from the east.

The end of the chapter 11 also has one verse (Genesis 11:31) where Abram, his father, and Haran’s son Lot go from Ur to a place called Haran (which is also Lot’s father although they left him behind? did they name a new city after Lot’s father? or was the city called Haran before they got there?). And how are the descendents of Noah’s son Shem all of the sudden in Ur at the end of this chapter? Verse 28 is the first mention of Ur, which is described at the land of Terah’s nativity. It doesn’t say how Noah’s descendents got from the Mt. Ararat area down to Ur. The lands and nations of Noah’s sons in chapter 10 are never given location in the story.

Once the story of Abram begins in chapter 12, the story flows without as much disruption through chapter 15. There are only the odd repetitions of the promise of land from God in variant forms (one as far as the eye can see, one between specific rivers, etc.).

Lessons and Morals:

The tower of Babel story seems to indicate that God doesn’t like human’s cooperating too much. They all had a common language and could work well together. When God sees their innovative tower he seems to become apprehensive of the human’s power to overtake him: “and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.” (Genesis 11:6) Instead of celebrating the ingenuity of his creation, he stifles them be destroying their common language and their ability to work together. They are even scattered abroad across the face of the earth. God again seems to want to keep humans as dumb playthings with the denial of life and knowledge at Eden and now the denial of common language at Babel.

The lessons and morals that already seem confusing become completely backward as soon as the story of Abram begins. The story starts in chapter 12, and there are three glaring moral problems in this chapter, at least from today’s standpoint. First, God promises someone else’s land to Abram and all his seed (Genesis 12:7). God recapitulates this promise again in Genesis 13:15 and again through chapter 15 (where God even tells Abram all the races of people that are going to lose their land in the process). This is hardly fair to the Canaanites who were already there (Genesis 12:6). Next, we have Abram’s wonderful example of how to lie about your wife being your sister so you can sell her to the Pharaoh for a load of livestock and servants (Genesis 12:11-16). (I didn’t make that up.) Then, instead of reprimanding Abram for deceiving the Pharaoh, God plagues the Pharaoh for something he didn’t even realize was happening. Then Abram get away without any consequences along with his wife, and get’s to keep all the loot (Genesis 12:17-20).

In chapter 14 we get our first taste of Biblical war. A few of the local city-kings have joined forces and are attacking another group of city-kings, among them the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot and his family, who are staying in or near Sodom, are captured and marched off toward a city called Dan. So, Abram seems relatively justified in chasing them down and rescuing his relatives. God doesn’t seem involved in this war in any way, as he’s not mentioned. Abram brings all the goods back to Sodom and the king is pleased. Abram does another impressive thing by denying the payment that the kind offers him (although the ulterior motive seems to be that he just doesn’t wanted to be indebted to him in any way in Genesis 14:23). It was already hinted in the previous chapter that Sodom was exceedingly wicked and sinful in the eyes of God (Genesis 13:13). But in chapter 14 Abram seems to be really helping them out be returning all their people and goods (only to have it all firebombed by God a few chapters later).

I remember many of the later war stories from Sunday school (Joshua at Jericho in particular), and these 5 chapters from Genesis really seem to set the stage for the holy war that God orders on Canaan. Not only that they are filled with questionable moral details. In relating the history of Abram, why is it necessary to include those 6 or 7 verses where he trades his wife for livestock? My Christian acquaintances often tell me that I have to read this in the context of the society back then when women were just considered property and not really full people. This is the same excuse offered for the slavery in the Bible. My stomach turns whenever I hear this blithe dismissal of human rights and ignoring of certain verses and ideas in the Bible…especially when many verses from the Bible were, and still are used, in the oppression of woman, justification for racism, and discrimination against gays and lesbians, to name a few. Without explaining these chapters away as simply a product of their times, is their some explanation for why these words should be considered the words of God and something to live by?

Genesis chapters 6 - 10

2009-06-16T15:46:00.000-07:00

Summary:

Ch6. Chapter 6 is the beginning of the famous story of Noah and the Ark. In this chapter God commands Moses to build the Ark, gives the dimensions, and orders 2 of each kind of animal on board.

Ch7. In chapter 7 God floods the entire earth, destroying everything that is not in the Ark.

Ch8. In this chapter the waters recede and Noah brings all the living things out of the Ark, builds an alter, and make a sacrifice to God.

Ch9. In this chapter God gives every living thing to Moses and his descendants, demands blood sacrifice, announces his covenant with Moses, and winds down with a short story about Noah getting drunk and falling asleep naked with his sons attempting to cover him with limited success.

Ch10. Chapter 10 is another list of names and ages, which give the genealogy of Noah and his sons.

Textual criticism:

Chapter 6 begins with 4 confused verses where humans multiply on the face of the earth and then have daughters, who are apparently so good looking that the “sons of God”, which seem to be referring to angels or some other non-human beings, took many of them as wives. Verse 4 reports that there were giants on earth ‘in those days’ and that some of those angelic trysts occasionally resulted in more of these giants or some mighty men who were renowned. In the middle of all this, God limits the age of men to 120 years from some unknown reason (other than saying ‘my spirit will not always strive with man’).

Verse 5 of chapter 6 is where Noah’s story actually begins. It continues as a complete story all the way through to the end of chapter 9. The curious thing about the story is that if you read carefully you’ll notice a handful of mixed up details. For instance, the text can’t seem to decide exactly how many of each animal Noah took on board. At first it’s two of every sort (Genesis 6:19), five verse later it changes to seven pairs of every clean beast and one pair each of all the unclean beasts (Genesis 7:2) because Noah is suppose to wait seven days in the Ark before it starts raining, but finally when Noah actually enters the Ark we get one pair each of every clean and unclean beast (Genesis 7:8-9). Noah’s story is filled with similar repetitions that differ slightly in the details and writing style, giving the impression that the story was compiled from an earlier collection of texts. I haven’t taken the time to pick them apart or catalogue the repetitions, but it would be interesting to condense the story be eliminating and resolving the repetitions.

It’s also interesting to note that at the very end of Chapter 9 (in also in Chapter 11 later), Noah and his sons live for hundreds of years beyond the previously imposed 120 year limit. While the text isn’t specific, perhaps this limit only applied to humans born post-flood? However, this is contradicted again later when Abraham dies at 175 years of age in Genesis 25:7-8. There is probably some theological explanation for these discrepancies somewhere, although to the lay reader they appear just as they are…contradictions in the text.

Lessons or morals:

It’s hard to know what to make of the flood story in terms of lessons learned. God seems to be regretting his creation in Genesis 6:7, which seems strange for an omniscient and omnipotent god in the first place. The reason given for this regret is that mankind has become utterly wicked and all his imagination is filled only with wicked thoughts, and that the earth was filled with violence. For some reason all the plants and animals must also be wiped out. Noah and his immediate family are the only humans in all the earth that don’t seem plagued with evil thoughts and perpetual violence, so God decides to spare them. As part of this plan, God needs Noah to take animals with him to supposedly preserve the species of earth (Genesis 7:3 – “…to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.”). This again seems strange for a god that supposedly created all those plants and animals in just a couple days in the first place. Why not just create all new animals and plants? Also, I wonder about all the small children that would inevitably be killed in worldwide deluge. Were even the infants so wicked and violent that they had to be drowned?

In the end of the story the answers are quite a letdown. God realizes that it’s no use, that man’s heart is evil from ‘youth’ (meaning either from birth or since the original sin?), and that he won’t flood the earth again because mankind will just end up in the same sorry state again. Alas, there was no great plan with the flood…it seems it was just a horrible and impulsive tantrum-experiment on the part of God, who should have had the power to foresee this conclusion before the needless destruction of the entire world! He then goes on to demand blood sacrifices (Genesis 9:4-5), actually he seems to be most interested in receiving the blood itself. This is pretty morbid and I can’t understand what moral or ethical purpose this detail would ever serve.

The final tidbit we get is a story shortly before the report of Noah’s death. He’s grown some grapes, which he turned into wine, which he drank profusely of and passed out naked in his tent. (It doesn’t say why he was drinking alone and naked in his tent.) Anyway, his son Ham (also referred to as the father of Canaan, and sometimes just Canaan) comes along and finds his father naked in the tent. He goes to tell his brothers, Shem and Japheth, who get a blanket and cover their father, being very careful not to view his nakedness in the process (Genesis 9:23 says they accomplished this by walking backwards with the blanket on their shoulders). After Noah awakens, he realizes what has happened and curses Canaan (his son Ham); presumably for walking in on him naked and drunk, although it’s not entirely clear why Noah was so mad. He praises the other two sons and let’s Ham know that he will be a servant to the other two brothers (presumably throughout their descendants as well). Perhaps this has to do with some ancient taboo about naked fathers in Hebrew culture, but I cannot fathom what lesson is provides today…maybe to avoid drinking, naked and alone? Why do Shem and Japheth get praised for covering up their father, while Ham gets cursed simply for being the first to happen into the tent? The moral couldn’t be less clear.

Chapter 10 is again a long list of the genealogy of Noah and his three sons, which contains no particular moral or lesson

The point of these chapters (Genesis 6-10) seems to be to reinforce the wrath of and power of God in his ability to utterly destroy everything on earth. It doesn’t seem that anyone learned anything from the flood, except God himself, who realizes that mankind is just plain wicked and killing everyone won’t solve anything (and who it seems did not have the power to realize this beforehand). At this point, God is beginning to look completely inept as a deity and instead more of an expert in childhood tantrums.

Skeptic Bible Commentary added to Atheist Blogroll

2009-06-15T12:37:00.001-07:00

Skeptic Bible Commentary has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.

Genesis chapters 1 - 5

2009-06-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Summary:
Genesis is called the First Book of Moses in my Bible, and the authorship is traditionally attributed to Moses himself. The first five chapters can be summarized as follows:

Ch1. "In the beginning..." This is the famous creation story from Genesis in which God creates the heavens and earth, the land and water, plants, animals, and man.

Ch2. This chapter starts with a shorter recapitulation of the creation story in which God creates man again but adds the details of the creation of the Garden at Eden, the forbidding of the Tree of Knowledge, and the rib taken out of Man to create Woman.

Ch3. In this chapter, the serpent tempts the woman , she eats from the Tree of Knowledge, gives some to Adam, they get in trouble, Adam gives the woman her name Eve, and they are both cursed for eating the forbidden fruit. Finally they are driven from the garden and God seals the garden with Cherubim.

Ch4. This chapter starts with Adam “knowing” his wife who gives birth first to Cain, then Abel. Cain and Abel make sacrifices but God likes Abel’s better so Cain kills Abel. God asks Cain what happened (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”) then curses Cain who heads off to Nod to beget a son who in turns begets an entire city full of people called Enoch. It ends with a couple verses that quickly summarize the birth of Seth who gives birth to Enos.

Ch5. This chapter is just a long list of Adam’s genealogy with each person's age.

Textual criticism:
The first 2 chapters are curious because they seem to tell the same creation story twice with different details and a different sequence of events. Chapter 1 is very detailed in what God does on each of the first six days of creation, even reinforcing the idea that they are real days by stating so after each day passes. God creates first light (day 1), then heaven (day 2), then land and plants (day 3), then the sun and moon (day 4), then fish and birds (day 5), then animals and man/woman (day 6). Day 7 actually happens in the first 3 verses of Chapter 2 and this is where God blesses the seventh day. Chapter 2 verse 4 starts the second version of the creation story without the daily details. In this version the sequence is different and somewhat confusing but goes earth and heaven, plants (seeds only at this point it seems), water (called mist from the earth), man (from the dust), then the Garden at Eden with full grown plants and the forbidden tree, then animals (beasts and cattle), then lastly woman (from the rib).

This curious recapitulation is something that becomes a theme throughout the chapters in Genesis that I’ve read so far (and through the first 4 books of the Bible from what I’ve read elsewhere…more on this later). This led some scholars to hypothesize that Genesis was actually stitched together from other sources and not written by Moses himself. This is the first time I’ve really been able to distinguish the differences that this hypothesis suggests, and the Bible actually does make a great deal more sense when I read it in distinct section like this. Instead of being confused by the constant repetition of names and places, I can see the separate, but similar, traditions that are weaved together. After doing this for a few chapters, I’ve started to become familiar with the style and flow of at least two or three different writers or sources.

Chapter 3 tells the story of the temptation and the eating of the forbidden fruit. From a textual standpoint, the most interesting thing about this chapter is that it is much more prose like and actual tells a coherent continuous story. Also, Eve finally gets her name as part of the curse for eating the fruit and this verse is interesting because of what happens in the next chapter (my emphasis in italics):

Genesis 3:20 – And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

Chapter 4 tells another encapsulated, continuous story (with the exception of the last 2 verses, which I’ll come to in a moment). It’s the story of Cain and Abel, in which Cain slays Abel. God is angry and sends Cain away to a place called Nod somewhere east of Eden (I couldn’t find Nod or Eden on the map in my Bible). This is where the most confusing thing of the first 5 chapters begins. Although Eve is the mother of all living (as we saw above), and so far Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel are the only people on earth, somehow Cain suddenly has a wife and begets a son named Enoch. It doesn’t say who his wife is or where she came from. Then it gets even more confusing as we move through the end of chapter 4 into chapter 5. Chapter 4 verse 18 begins 2 long and broken genealogies of first Cain and then Adam that seem stitched together in between by 2 verses at the very end of chapter 4 (Genesis 4:25-26).

The genealogy of Adam in chapter 5 begins curiously with an echo of God creating Adam and then he immediately has a son Seth, then the genealogy continues with no mention of Cain or Abel. Only in the 2 out-of-place verses at the end of chapter 4 are Cain, Abel and Seth mentioned all together. It gets more confusing because the much longer genealogy of Adam seems to also contain some of the descendents of Cain who begat Enoch, but in Adam’s genealogy someone named Jared begets Enoch. Also someone named Lamech is in both family trees. Perhaps these were just very common Hebrew names, but it definitely makes it more difficult to unravel who begat whom. In the end it seems not to matter since the integrity of the genealogies is immediately suspect when Cain finds his mystery wife.

Lessons and morals:
I’m not sure if the creation stories of chapter one and two have much in the way of moral lessons, except to establish God as the creator and ruler of everything. The same can be said of chapter 5, which is just a list of names and ages.

The Garden at Eden story is mostly confusing because it seems as if God is the one that really tempted Adam in the first place by creating 2 awesome trees (Knowledge and Life) and then forbidding him from eating the fruit. Why bother to put the trees there in the first place if you were going to get so angry when the inevitable happens? (Especially since God is suppose to already have known what was going to happen…although so far the Bible hasn’t described exactly what the properties of God are, just a bunch of stuff he’s done. He does seem extremely powerful…but I digress.) The serpent just facilitates something that would have already been a very tempting situation. The story of the fall into sin seems almost like a theological bait-and-switch to absolve God of the existence of human suffering and introduce the notion of free will (they had the choice not to eat the apple, didn’t they?). But in the end it only serves as a thin veil for God’s culpability or inability to prevent the situation in the first place. Either he wanted to set things up this way and he really is guilty of creating suffering and we have no free will, or he just wasn’t powerful enough to know what was going to happen with his free will experiment. Adam and Eve are punished severely for their disobedience and the entire future human race suffers as well. This notion of punishing uninvolved parties for someone else’s sins is also a strange concept for a God that is supposed to love his creations. Finally, the most unsavory verse is where God curses Eve with excruciating childbirth and subjects her to the rule of her husband (Genesis 3:16).

The story of Cain and Abel is strange because at this point the only commandment that God has given mankind is not to eat from the awesome trees in the Garden. But he gets really angry when Cain kills Abel out of jealousy. If morals are given by God, and God hasn’t told anyone the rules about killing and coveting and lying yet (that comes in Exodus with Moses and the Ten Commandments) then it doesn’t make sense for God to be too mad about what Cain does. Cain was only jealous because God snubbed his offering of fruit, instead preferring Abel’s sweet meat. There were likewise no laws or requests about what types of things were good to sacrifice. This was apparently left up to trial and error.

So the moral of the first 5 chapters seems to be that God is vague in his desires for humanity, fickle, and quick to anger. On top of all this, God’s punishments are unimaginably severe, perhaps in proportion to his unimaginable powers. Although I’m obviously not left with a very good moral impression of God or the Bible so far, I am enjoying reading it more than I expected.

A caveat before I begin...

2009-06-13T22:07:00.000-07:00

[A caveat before I begin: I don’t have any formal education in theology or any other subject for that matter. I never completed a college degree but received the standard high school education at a public school. I’m merely a layman reading the Bible to try to understand everything an average American can from a holy book revered by a good portion of the world’s population (and certainly a huge portion of the population where I live). I am skeptical about what morals or lessons I’ll find in the Bible, since what I already know about it doesn’t encourage me to think it’s a very moral or holy text. However, if this book is truly God’s message to humanity then an average person should be able to receive the message from the text without struggling to attain the correct mindset or seeking help from another equally fallible human.]

Introduction - Why a skeptic Bible blog?

2009-06-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

I've finally decided to read the entire Bible from beginning to end before finally dismissing it as just another interesting piece of literature, and I thought I'd document the experience in this blog.

People are always telling me I need to read the Bible. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Christian household, so there was literally someone telling me this weekly from birth. But even while I grew up, left home, went to school, went to work, and got married, there's always been someone along the way hammering the point home. Distant family members, church acquaintances, coworkers, classmates, girlfriends, and even perfect strangers all entreating me to read the Bible and understand salvation...

[minor digression] (Growing up in a Christian home guaranteed that I have at least a general understanding of the New Testament. Admittedly I avoided reading the Bible at all costs because it's long, dry, and hard to follow. But nevertheless I still ingested my fill of Bible stories, and can still recite John 3:16 like any good Christian (but not much else) and I understand the basic Christian doctrine. I had been unwittingly born again and baptized at the age of six. I knew enough to understand that my parents and Sunday School teacher would look favorably on me for this public religious display. Of course, at six years old, a child's understanding of the world is much too simple to comprehend the philosophical or theological implications of being "Born Again". Everyone seemed to fall for it though, and certainly no one tried to talk me out of it or suggest I wait and study more. They reacted exactly as my six year old brain imagined they would...with glowing praise and adulation. It was good for a while, however I was completely disenchanted with Christianity by the time I was fourteen. Puberty had changed my attitude toward chastity, I wanted to listen to Industrial and Death Metal music, and my favorite classes were science and math where I was learning the Bible didn't match up with reality. Besides, most of the people in my church didn't behave any better than anyone else. By 8th grade I was a secret agnostic and by 10th grade I told my family I didn't believe any of it anymore and I was an atheist (gasp!). I still love my family and consider myself a good person, but ever since then I've been distant from my family and a lot of the people around me, partly because we have so little in common, but also because of the myriad ideological conflicts of being an atheist living in a very religious family in a very religious country.) [end digression]

Well after years of studying just about everything else, I will accept all past invitations to read the entire Bible, and I'll give my own rational appraisal all along the way. I'm sure a lot of Christians will say I'm not reading with an open heart, or the right frame of mind, etc etc. But if the Holy Bible, a message from God, can't withstand rational criticism and must be read only in a special state of mind, then how can this really be the clear and infallible Word of God. I certainly don't need to read a textbook, or a recipe book, or the newspaper with a special state of mind to understand them...shouldn't God's message be equally clear to anyone who can read it? (Especially considering what's at stake...)

I intend to comment on a few chapters at a time as I read them, summarizing (as briefly as possible) what those chapters contain then commenting on specific verses or passages that stand out to me as odd or unusual to be in a holy book that is suppose to apply to all people for all time. And I'll also point out the parts that I think are especially good and should be in a book that we're suppose to take our morals and life lessons from. I'll also post reviews and summaries of other books that I read in relation to attempting to understand everything I can about the Bible before finally dismissing it as anything other than an interesting piece of literature. And hopefully I won't give up along the way as I'll be using a King James Version I bought at a garage sale for a dollar :)