Genesis Chapter 4

Genesis chapter 4

In this chapter:  Adam has sons, one son is a murderer, God’s punishment, incest, capital punishment created, and our first begat list.

It’s a boy!  The chapter starts with Eve giving birth to a son, Cain, and giving God credit for him. (Gen 4:1)  Then Eve gives birth to Cain’s brother, Abel, and we learn that Abel  took care of the sheep, and Cain was a farmer. (Gen 4:2)

Time goes by and Cain brings an offering to God from his fields, while his little brother brings lambs and fat.  God, an obvious carnivore and lover of fat, likes Abel‘s offering (Gen 4:3-4) but, doesn’t like the veggies which upsets Cain. (Gen 4:5)

My father always told me that God rejected Cain’s offering because it was somehow flawed, as if Cain kept all the good brussel sprouts and took the old nasty ones to God.  However, there is absolutely nothing to back this up except for God’s attitude, so unless my father, or any other literalist, had or has some kind of psychic connection with the author then there is no proof of this idea.

So God gets a little snooty with Cain and says:  “what’s your problem?“ Then tells him that if he does a good job he’ll be rewarded, but if he doesn’t do a good job, that sin will get him. (Gen 4:6-7)  Obviously, God doesn’t like farmers even though he created them when he cursed Cain’s father to be a farmer.  The whole, farmers-vs-ranchers thing is a common sub-plot in American western novels and movies.  I had always assumed that the farmers were the good guys or victims in these stories; this story shows just how wrong I was.

As any set of brothers will do in such a situation, Adam’s boys get into an argument.  Then Cain kills his little brother. (Gen 4:8)

God notices that Abel is missing and asks Cain where he is.  Cain, returning the snooty attitude that God had thrown at him says “I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:9)  Why Adam and Eve didn’t do a better job raising their kids is unclear.

In a Poe-like moment God hears Abel’s blood crying out from the grave and knows what Cain has done. (Gen 4:10) So he curses Cain to be a bum and fugitive who can’t grow anything.  (Gen 4:11-12)

Cain, without showing remorse for what he’s done, says that the punishment is too harsh, because someone will kill him. (Gen 4:13-14)  Obviously either bum killing was a big thing then, or Cain’s sisters (the only possible people on the planet besides his parents) were really upset about Abel.

So God proclaims that anyone caught killing Cain will be killed seven times, and marks Cain so no one will kill him. (Gen 4:15)  Thus we have the start of capital punishment, but only for killing someone who has been convicted of murder.

Some of the more enlightened Christians have used Cain’s unspecified mark as an excuse for slavery, bigotry, and other seemingly Christian attributes.  Why God had to mark Cain in the first place is a little unclear since the only people on the planet were his parents, and some sisters, and God being all-powerful and such had already told everyone to leave Cain alone.

I have heard it said, many times, that Cain’s mark was meant to be a visual cue to his being evil, and that all of Cain’s descendants also had the mark so that people would know that these people were descended from evil and therefore evil themselves.   If this is true, then why, when the mark was so obviously important, didn’t the author fill us in as to what exactly this mark looks like?  It seems that such information would be rather useful.  Could it be that the Iron Age author of the story was using this story and a visual cue of some kind as a way to justify his own bigotry and hatred against a people whose name was a lot like ‘Cain’ (i.e. Caananites) and assumed that his contemporaries would know what he meant?  The answer to this is unknown, but we do have a modern-day precedent for such a thing with the way some Christians and politicians have used hyperbole, inaccurate and made up statements about teachings; as well as head scarves and other pieces of clothing as excuses to discriminate against and kill people of a certain religion that they don’t like.

Anyway, back to the story.

Feeling a little safer, Cain heads east to the land of Nod (Gen 4:16)  Nod is not on any maps but if it’s east of Eden then it would have been in modern-day Turkey or Maybe Iran.

One of Cain’s sisters (the only women on the planet other than his mom) joins him in Nod, they get married and start having babies.  Their first son/nephew was Enoch.  Cain was so happy with having a son that he built the world’s first city and called it ‘Enoch’. (Gen 4:17)  Probably not a very big city since there were only three people there, but a city none the less.

Most of the rest of the chapter is a ‘begat’ list of Cain’s family line. (Gen 4:18-24)  The only notable people are Cain’s great-great-great-great grandson Jabel who was the first nomad and rancher (Gen 4:20); Jabel’s brother Jubal who was the first musician (Gen 4:21); and Jabel and Jubal’s father Lamech who, like his ancestor Cain, was also a killer. (Gen 4:23-24)  Note that Lamech will have to be killed 77 times.

Following along with the oft’ proposed theory that all of Cain’s descendants are evil, this means that all nomads, cattle ranchers, and musicians are evil.  So, now we have another reason to hate Justin Bieber.

The chapter ends with Eve giving birth to another son, Seth, and again giving God the credit. (Gen 4:25)  Poor Adam just gets no respect from his wife.

Seth eventually has a son/nephew (remember, the only women around were Eve, and Adam and Eve’s daughters) whom he names Enos. (Gen 4:26)  Legend has it that Enos became a sheriff’s deputy in Georgia and spent his days trying to catch the Duke boys, and lusting after a woman in skimpy shorts named ‘Daisy’, but this is only a legend.

Next up in our exploration of Genesis is the start of date keeping, the family line to Noah, horny angels, and a dire forecast.  I’ll give you a hint:  It involves a lot of rain and tens of millions of animals. See you next time.

Genesis Chapter 3

Genesis Chapter 3

This post will cover the infamous Fall of Man, God’s punishments, and God’s first lie  as portrayed in Genesis Chapter 3.

The story starts by telling us that a serpent was the sneakiest of all the creatures that God had created. (Gen 3:1)  Why the snake is so sneaky and bad we are not told, but since God is perfect we can be assured that it was on purpose.

This sneaky snake can also talk, and asks Woman if God had said that she and Adam could eat from every tree in their little garden. (Gen 3:1)  It seems that species of talking snake has gone extinct, because we have no recorded evidence of any snake, any where, talking since then; unless you count the snake in Disney’s A Jungle Book.  The talking snake thing in Harry Potter doesn’t count because Harry is the only one who can understand it.

Woman, who is obviously accustomed to talking snakes (definitely from Slitherin House), tells Sneaky Snake that God said they could eat from all the trees but one, and that not only could they not eat from it, but couldn’t even touch it or they would die.  (Gen 3:2-3)  As far as we were told, God never mentioned the not touching the tree part, so I’m assuming that Adam embellished the rule when he later told Woman about it.

Sneaky Snake tells Woman that God was lying when he said that rubbish about dying the day  they eat from the tree.  According to Ole’ Sneaky, God was just scared that when they ate from the tree that they would become like gods in that they would know about good and evil. (Gen 3:4-5)

So, what does Woman do?  She looks at the tree thinks it’s pretty, that the fruit looks tasty, and thinks that it might be good to not be stupid, so she eats some of the fruit and gives some to Adam who had been standing there, but saying nothing, and he, like any good husband, did as he was told and ate it. (Gen 3:6)

As soon as they ate the fruit they noticed that they were naked, and quickly fashioned aprons out of leaves to hide their bodies. (Gen 3:7)  Nowhere does it explain why God had let them be evil by being naked in the first place, or why not covering your butt was ok.

After making their crude clothing they heard God wandering around the garden enjoying a little relief from the heat, so they went and hid in the trees (Gen 3:8)

Obviously, they hid themselves pretty well because God couldn’t find them, and had to call out for Adam. (Gen 3:9)

Adam called back from the trees (it never says he came out of hiding) and tells God that he had heard him coming and hid because he was naked. (Gen 3:10)

Then the following conversation ensues: (Gen 3:11-13)

God- Who told you that you were naked?  Did you eat from the tree that I had told you to leave alone?

Adam- It wasn’t my fault. The woman YOU gave me told me to do it.

God- Woman! Why did you do this?

Woman- It wasn’t my fault.  The talking snake told me to do it.

So, God looks at Sneaky Snake and tells him that he will from then on be the least liked of all the animals in the World.  He then takes away his legs (It seems that talking snakes once had legs) and tells him that he will have to eat dirt from then on, and that he will cause humans to hate snakes and go around stomping on their heads. (Gen 3:14-15)  The dirt eating combined with head stomping would go a long way toward explaining why this species of once-legged snakes went extinct.

God then turned on Woman and cursed her to have increased sadness and more babies which she will be sad about having.  He then says that from then on men will be in charge.  Thus God created PMS, and postpartum depression as well as misogyny. (Gen 3:16)

And God wasn’t finished with his punishments.  He turned to Adam and told him that since he listened to Woman and ate from the tree after being told not to, that the ground would from then on not do as well growing plants, and that Adam would have to be a farmer and baker if he wanted to eat.  He then tells him that he will be cut off from the Tree of Life and will eventually die. (Gen 3:17-19) The same thing, snake and all, had happened to Gilgamesh back before the Biblical story was written.

Let’s pause for a moment to look over something that I mentioned above.  Remember back in chapter 2 when God told Adam that the day he ate from the tree of knowledge that he would die?  And, remember earlier in 3:4 when Sneaky told Woman that the whole dying the moment you eat was hooey?  Well, as you can see above it was Sneaky who was telling the truth and God who was lying, because Adam would go on to live for 930 years.  So, in effect, God was angry at Adam and Woman for calling his bluff, and at Sneaky for telling his secret.  Truly a wrathful god.

To continue.  After God’s hissy fit, Adam arbitrarily changes Woman’s name to Eve (Gen 3:20) and God makes the couple some clothes out of animal skins. (Gen 3:21)

Then God goes back to his female companion, or some other god and says “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil (more proof that Sneaky was telling the truth): and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:” (Gen 3:22)  Obviously God is worried about Adam living forever and taking over, so God throws the couple out of the garden and makes them farmers. (Gen 3:23)

To keep the miscreants from sneaking back in, he puts guards on the eastern side of the garden, and puts a flying flaming sword by the tree of life just in case they figure out that the entrances to the west, north, and south are unguarded. (Gen 3:24)

So ends chapter three.  We’ve had lying, betrayal, trickery, and hissy fits, and God has given us pain, death, PMS, and postpartum depression.  Truly a loving and kindly god.

In the next chapter we are introduced to the beginnings of sacrifices, animal husbandry, music, metal working, the spread of civilization, incest, and murder.  Stay tuned.