Genesis 3

Skipping Over Noah...
(To Lot Getting Raped by His Daughters)***

                                 "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; 
                              even as the green herb have I given you all things."

Sorry, vegans & vegetarians, but hooray stoners!
   Woody Harrelson is all confused.

                           "& the whole earth was of one language, & of one speech...
                                & the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, & they have all one 
                                language & now nothing will be restrained from them, which 
                                they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down...to confound 
                                their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.

                               
                                So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face 

                                of all the earth...

                               
                                ...Therefore is the name of it Babel; because the LORD did 

                                there confound the language of all the earth: 
                                & from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad 
                                upon the face of all the earth."

                           "& the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not 
                           circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; 
                           he hath broken my covenant."

Lot (of Sodom & Gomorrah fame), gets "raped" by his daughters after his wife is turned into a pillar of salt.
   Their motivation: The girls have not been getting (m)any male callers; they wish to preserve Lot's lineage.

   God approves & the girls are successful in their efforts. 



***Message to Christians: The author of this blog is not anti-Christian, nor is he anti-Christianity. In fact, he is quite a fan of Jesus Christ & what he was about. In fact, he tries to live his life like Jesus said to live. However, the author of this blog has a most serious objection to the way in which organized followers of Jesus Christ have behaved over the centuries. 

For one example of a book better than the Bible at explaining how to live like Jesus, see The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.


                           

Genesis 2

Cain Kills Abel
(Or, Why So Much Incest?)***

   "It's a hard life and no one's to blame
   When God's not on the morning train
   If Cain don't kill Abel, Abel kills Cain
   And tears now shed are shed in vain
   For Kennedy and Jesse James
   And Joan of Arc and Kurt Cobain"
         - Dan Bern.

                           "Cain rose up against Abel his brother, & slew him."

So yeah, but I read it over & it's really not worth reading. 
   Just, like, if you're ever on Jeopardy! remember: Cain killed Abel, not the other way around.
I've always had trouble remembering.
   Also if you're on Jeopardy! I guess you have to remember that Cain says afterward:

                           "Am I my brother's keeper?"

So that's where we got that phrase from.
   Skip, skip, skip...Until we get to another Scooby Doo moment: 

                           "Cain knew his wife; & she conceived..."

Although we shouldn't get too shocked by the implication of incest just yet. 
   From what I remember, later on in this book, the incest will be more explicit.

                            "Adam lived nine hundred & thirty years."

Sure, sure.
   Cool, cool, cool.
But that's nothing:

                           "All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty 
                            & nine years."

Skip, skip, skip, to chapter six.
   Which might be a good place to end today's lesson. 
I'm beginning to think the book of Genesis should be renamed simply: "WTF?!"

                           "& it came to pass, when men began to multiply 
                            on the face of the earth, & daughters were born unto them,
                            that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair;
                            & they took them wives of all which they chose."

Also: 

                           "There were giants in the earth in those days;
                            & also after that, when the sons of God came in unto
                            the daughters of men, & they bare children to them,
                            the same became mighty men which were of old, 
                            men of renown."



***Message to Christians: The author of this blog is not anti-Christian, nor is he anti-Christianity. In fact, he is quite a fan of Jesus Christ & what he was about. In fact, he tries to live his life like Jesus said to live. However, the author of this blog has a most serious objection to the way in which organized followers of Jesus Christ have behaved over the centuries. 

For one example of a book better than the Bible at explaining how to live like Jesus, see Be Here Now, by Ram Dass.



  

Genesis 1

 THE GOOD PARTS OF THE BIBLE***


   Were we allowed to read the Bible as we do all other books, 
   we would admire its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts,
   & account for all its absurd, grotesque & cruel things, 
   by saying that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. 
       Writes Robert Ingersoll.

& Kurt Vonnegut writes:

      Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. 
      The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively
      fourteen-year-old: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and earth.'

                          ...In the beginning...

We all know this part.
   I consider it to be one of the good parts of the Bible, despite its being straightforward.

   We can't fault the author for starting so simply;
he or she just gets right down to it;
it might not be a hook,
it might not be the jaw-dropping introduction so standard today,
but it's a classic & because of this most famous of beginings,
writers today are aware enough not to start their own modern stories in such a similarly cliched fashion...except for maybe George Lucas.

 
           ...God created the heaven & the earth...

I'd say the Good Book is good simply for the cajones it takes to make such a claim...& they're only getting started.
   The author goes on to elaborate the mechanism whereby the Main Character, called "God," does all this creating.
   It's not a complex process: God wants there to be some light...so there's some light.

                             ...And God said, 
                 Let us make man in our image, 
           after our likeness...

                                                 "Oroo????"

Who's this "us?"
    Our image?
       Our likeness?

I like this book more & more. 
   I can't believe the good folks at The Skeptic's Annotated Bible say there's nothing good in the book of Genesis. 

Spoiler Alert: The Good Book never goes on to explain who exactly God's friends are, or who the "us" refers to. 
   You'll have to listen to late night radio or read hippy trippy woo woo stuff to (maybe) get to the bottom of all that.

   Maybe there are a bunch of psychokinetic characters like God going around thinking they want light & animals & firmaments to exist -- & they just say it & it happens.
   Maybe it's us from the future, creating ourselves, ouroboros style.

The Bible gets my hopes up, with such an audacious opening chapter. 
   It might could have won some Hugo or Nebula Awards if it had just stayed consistent throughout the rest of the books.

Skip some boring parts...
   & then there's these three new characters & two of them (Adam & Eve) do something "bad" because the 3rd new character (a talking snake!) tells them to do that bad thing, & the LORD God is all...

   ...[Hey Talking Snake character, you jerk],    
        because thou hast done this, 
        thou art cursed above all cattle, 
        & above every beast of the field; 
        upon thy belly shalt thou go...

This part is worth reading cuz it's fun to think of what the serpent was like before he was forced [by God] to slither along on his belly.
   I like to think the serpent had just floated & glided thru the air & such, before he messed with God's plans. 

Skip some boring stuff...skip, skip...skip...


***Message to Christians: The author of this blog is not anti-Christian, nor is he anti-Christianity. In fact, he is quite a fan of Jesus Christ & what he was about. In fact, he tries to live his life like Jesus said to live. However, the author of this blog has a most serious objection to the way in which organized followers of Jesus Christ have behaved over the centuries. 

For one example of a book better than the Bible at explaining how to live like Jesus, see Christianity & Evolution, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.