An Examination of Genesis

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 Having just perused Genesis, I'd like to point out some narrative inconsistencies and plot holes that I have never seen answered or addressed.

So, let's start with the story of creation. For one thing, the god character didn't create water; it was already there. Then he separates the water in half lengthwise, putting half the water above the gap and the rest under the gap. As the story moves forward, that upper water is never mentioned again. According to this, though, the planet is not only covered with water, but surrounded by it, as well. Which makes space exploration kind of awkward. The god character also says "let there be light" twice. One interesting thing I noticed was that man was created twice, once during the creation sequence and once afterward. It is in this second story that man was created from dirt and woman crafted from a rib. In the first one, both man and woman were created at the same time and told to go forth and multiply, but were not given a paradise in which to do it. (It is also during the first story that god says "we" and "our" like he's talking to some unknown partner or partners.). Another observation is that days seemed to exist before he invented them, which happened later on when he created the sun and the moon. Also, at one point the story states that all plant life originated shortly after the sea receded, then later it says that no greenery could be found because god hadn't invented rain yet. 

After creating the world, god may or may not have crafted this special garden for Adam and Eve to live and placed them in it to "work the land and keep it." Do you know how hard it would be to plow a field in the nude? Fascinating that so many depictions of the two show them living in Eden and just hanging out naked, without a care in the world. God lied to Adam and Eve about what would happen if they ate the fruit, and the snake told the truth, but somehow the serpent is the bad guy. One other question: Why would god need an angel to guard the way to the tree of life? Why not just put it out of reach? (For that matter, why would an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient god need angels at all?)

There are a few places in the creation story where god has to ask humans what's going on, like he doesn't already know everything. He asks Cain where Abel is for some stupid reason, because he immediately claims to be able to hear Abel's blood crying out from the ground. So what was the point of the question? For an omniscient being, god is pretty dumb. 

Now, to answer the question of where Cain found a mate, the bible states he went to the Land of Nod. Where the hell did the population of Nod come from? Were Adam and Eve just prototypes and god started churning out people while they hung out in Eden? Why is this not mentioned anywhere? 

Further research into the story of Noah and the ark reveals some disturbing details. Not only does it state that every human being in the world was evil, but somehow all the animals were, too. So he decides to wipe out the whole planet. Now, if everyone but Noah was evil, and all the animals were evil, why let the animals start the whole cycle over? Animals have not become any less violent than they ever have been. Then there is the fact that killing literally everything on earth for some vague evil that is never explained in any way is just one huge temper tantrum. After the flood ends, god tells Noah four separate times that a rainbow will "remind" god of the covenant that he'll never do it again. Which sounds like one more tactic of an abusive spouse.

After the flood fabrication, we come across the Tower of Babel and the aspirations of the people there. Because he wanted to clip the wings of humanity and hinder their ability to cooperate, god cursed them with different languages. So god didn't want humans to realize their full potential. God is the original segregationist.

Further along, we find the stories of Abraham and Lot. Let's start with Abraham, previously referred to as Abram. He and his wife Sarai enter Egypt, but to prevent her from being dragged away to the Pharoah, he declares that she is his sister, which has exactly the opposite effect than was intended. So she gets brought to the Pharoah and he does what kings usually do. Then the Pharoah and his house was cursed with a plague because the Pharoah broke a rule completely by accident. This actually happens twice in two different places. Then Isaac pulls the same trick on the Philistines. Anyway, Abraham reveals that he is also married to his half-sister, which is kind of icky, and they go on their merry way. Later in his story, god tells him to slaughter his own kid and he totally agrees, leading to the worst "gotcha" moment in any given mythology. (There is a little joke about this alleged incident in my post Just a Thought about how awkward that walk home must have been.)

Now we come to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The so-called sins of these cities is never actually revealed. The closest we can infer is that they are hostile towards outsiders, pounding on Lot's door and demanding that he bring out the angels he was harboring so they could see who they were. Instead, Lot, this pile of human scum described as a righteous man, offered to throw out his two virgin daughters to do with as they will if they would leave him alone. Now, why didn't the angels reveal themselves? The mob couldn't have harmed them if they tried. In what kind of just universe is the innocence of two girls less important than some angels introducing themselves to a crowd? If they looked anything like biblical descriptions, the denizens of Sodom would have run away screaming, anyway.

God is also more responsive to prayers in the bible than he is in real life. He closed the wombs of an entire city until Abraham asked him to take it back. Pretty much every prayer in the bible is granted, with a few obvious exceptions, while praying in reality leaves you with the same odds as when you started. (See Matthew 6:9-13 if you want to know what the jesus character has to say about praying.)

So that's Genesis, as seen by an atheist. For more, see my posts on biblical literalism, the jesus mythos, the impossibility of the ark story, a takedown of the god character, and the preposterous nature of the “debate” between those who understand evolution and those who refuse to:

https://reverendcarlinministry.blogspot.com/2022/09/zoom-meeting-sermon-september-25-2022.html

https://reverendcarlinministry.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-jesus-mythos.html

https://reverendcarlinministry.blogspot.com/2025/08/physical-impossibilities-in-christian.html

https://reverendcarlinministry.blogspot.com/2024/05/in-which-pastor-takes-down-god.html

https://reverendcarlinministry.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-preposterous-debate-between.html

 






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