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 2, part 2

Remember that Bishop Ussher assigned creation a date of 4004 B.C.E.? Well, secular history records the 5th millenium B.C.E. as the Chalcolithic Age. This was a time of Mesopotamian and other civilizations. The world human population is estimated to have been between 5-7 million people! Domestication of plants is estimated to have begun around 11,000 B.C.E., possibly beginning with rye. The domestication of  animals also began millennia earlier than the supposed date of creation, beginning with dogs, sheep and pigs. There are also human art and artifacts dating from at least 20 to 40 Thousand years ago. Ice core data goes back about 800,000 years, and the White Cliffs  of Dover formed under the sea approximately 66 million years ago. These examples haven't even scraped the surface of time.

*A note about Asshur mentioned in v. 14. This is the name of a capital city that did not exist at the time of the creation, or even in 4,004 B.C.E.  and is therefore an anachronism. Genesis 10:22 identifies an  Asshur as a descendant of Shem, a son of Noah.

Edited for historical corrections.

Genesis chapter 2, part 1

After reading chapter 2, some things to consider:

*Verses1-3 appear to be the end of the creation story of chapter 1.

*Why would an all powerful, eternal, spirit being need to rest? (v. 3) Rest is a need for physical life.

*Notice that there is a second, different, account of creation that begins at verse 4.

*In this second creation story, there are no days assigned to specific events. Here God creates man before plants, unlike chapter 1. Here, man is not made in God's image, he is made of dust and animated by God's breath. He is deposited in the ready made garden like a doll.

*How does a non-physical being (God )breathe? How does a non-physical being DO anything?

*Also unlike chapter 1, here male and female are created separately. Woman appears to be an afterthought, only created after animals would not do. Surely we all realize that woman could not have originated from a rib? How would we explain the females of all other forms of life? A commenter on the Friendly Atheist site mentioned that Adam's rib would have had X and Y chromosomes in its cells.  Adam's rib would have produced a genetic male, identical  to himself, not a woman with two X chromosomes.

* Paradisiacal gardens and trees of life were common mythological symbols in many ancient cultures, even before Moses would have written the bible in the 1400's B.C.E. Certainly, these stories existed long before the supposedly more accurate historical date of the writings in Genesis, the 7th century B.C.E.  They typically were associated with  gods and immortality. The physical form of the trees of life varied according to the geography. There were Apple trees, figs, and  palms, to name a few.
Creation stories are found in almost every culture.

Edited 9/11/15