Genesis chapter 5

After reading chapter 5:

* Notice the wording in verses 1-4. God created man in his likeness. Adam had a son in his likeness, in his own image. Adam is kind of like God. Poor Eve.

*The ages of the men in this chapter are beyond ridiculous. There is absolutely no evidence that any person has ever lived to much more than 120. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence that ancient man's life was nasty, brutish and short.

*Apparently  these men are not only long lived, but they are extraordinarily virile as well. Their poor wives aren't even mentioned.

* If you follow the biblical chronology, you will find out that Methuselah died in the year of flood. He must have been wicked, something they don't tell you in Sunday school.

*In verse 30 we encounter the name Lamech again, and he is said to have lived 777 years. A coincidence? Of course not.

*Notice that every one dies, except Enoch who is mysteriously taken by God, and Noah who is coming next.

Genesis chapter 3, part 2

In my Bible, this chapter is entitled "the fall of man." The fall is considered essential to the understanding of why God became the man Jesus and died on the cross, which was supposedly to reverse the effects of this so called fall. It is worth noting that this idea is not present in the book of Genesis, or in the entire Old Testament.

In verse 22, God says,"the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." Beside question of who the "us" is, notice he admits that the man is now like him,  which is what he wanted to avoid. In order to keep the man from living forever, like him, he is banished from the garden. How is becoming like a god, a fall? Notice also that Eve is not said to have become like God.

Why should Adam and Eve have been punished? How would they have known that disobeying God was wrong, being as innocent as children. After all, they did not know good from evil till after they ate. Did not God have the power to keep them in that innocent state? Did he not plant the trees himself knowing what would happen? Well so far, Genesis has not claimed that God is omnicient or omnipotent. There are no real explanations available for God's actions here, only extra-biblical ones people have developed over time.

This story, and the ones that follow, appear to be etiological. In other words, they are myths developed  to explain the natural world, why things and people are the way they are, and how civilization got to the point that the storytellers were at. Most civilizations around the world developed their own myths to explain their own existence.

None of that really matters, though. There was no historical Adam and Eve. The human race evolved gradually over time from ancient primates. Modern humans invented the concepts of good and evil, just like they invented gods. There was no fall. There is no need for a God to sacrifice himself to reverse its effects. We are responsible for the good and evil that exists in the world today and can not blame Adam, Eve, or the devil.

Edited.

Genesis chapter 3, part 1

After a plain reading of chapter 3:

*Need I say it? Snakes don't talk.

* Notice that nowhere in this chapter is the snake associated with Satan. In fact, Satan is not mentioned anywhere in Genesis, in any way. Ancient legends say that the serpent was the first wife  of Adam named Lilith. She was supposedly deposed because she refused to submit to Adam in proper womanly fashion. Then she decided to exact revenge.  These stories persisted into the Middle Ages, check it out for yourself.

* The snake did not tell an outright lie. Adam and Eve didn't die, right away. A plain reading of its punishment is clearly talking of how snakes and people actually treat each other. This was not turned into a prophecy of Jesus until Christianity came on the scene.

* One wonders how a spiritual being (God) talks without vocal chords, not to mention walks without feet or legs, and hears without ears. He also apparently does not posses the ability to see people who are hiding.

*Woman's pain in childbearing is the result of an evolutionary shift in human physiology to an upright stance. These shifts in the positions of the spine, hips, and legs, made child birth more difficult. Plus human brains and skulls are larger than thier primate ancestor's, taking more effort to push a baby through the birth canal.

*Adam's curse of working the ground  was actually a boon for humanity. The development of agriculture improved health and longevity, gave people more leisure than hunting and gathering did, and contributed to population growth and the development of civilizations.

*Verse 16 is the real curse, the introduction of patriarchy as God ordained and sanctioned.

* Notice that there is no mention of any kind of afterlife, a heaven or hell. In fact, they are conspicuously absent in the book of Genesis.

*So, Adam and Eve were banished from the garden,  and  cherubim plus a flaming sword were placed on the east side to keep anyone from getting back in. Cherubim are Sphinx like creatures. They have animal-like bodies and wings. Usually they come in pairs, one placed on either side of what they are guarding. No live ones have been spotted, yet, but multiple examples have been found carved in stone. We've searched the world over and still haven't found the garden of Eden. Maybe it's been transported to another dimension.