Genesis – The Creation of the World

Okay! We started this series a bit oddly, so let’s correct our path and go to the start.

Most books start with presenting to us the main characters – and even a book as badly written as the Bible follows this same pattern. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is there to introduce to us the great villain Jehovah – although we’ll learn his name in Deuteronomy – and the minor villain and Jehovah’s side-kick, Satan. So, Genesis’ main goal is to engrave in our minds the fact that Jehovah is evil by giving us a lot of proof.

“But the name ‘Jehovah’ appears in Exodus 6:3!”

Quick reminder, as I said before, there is no “The Bible”, and I translate from the ancient Greek text of the Orthodox Bible that has the seal of approval of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. King James’ Bible indeed mentions Jehovah’s name in Exodus 6:3, but in the Orthodox Bible at that same moment god refuses to reveal his name, and the name is not mentioned.

More importantly, fret not, I won’t present every example Genesis has just to repeat “hence, Jehovah is evil”. I’ll only examine what has something more to offer than just that.

Let’s start!

All Good

So, according to the Bible, Benu flew over the waters and then he cawed and light was created. And Benu separated the light from the darkness to create the day and the night. And then–

“Ehm, Yorgos… that’s not what the Bible says.”

It’s not?

Oh, fucking hell! Sorry! My mistake. That’s the Egyptian cosmogony. Genesis describes something completely different.

Indeed it was the god’s spirit that flew over the waters and it talked, it didn’t caw, because it’s not a bird. And light was created. And the god – not Benu – separated the light and the darkness and created the day and the night. And then, he saw all are good.

King James’ Bible uses “was”, but I’ll keep using “are” and “is”. In Greek the verb is missing. Therefore, and due to the expression, the implied verb is in present tense. Keep in mind, though, that the original Old Testament wasn’t written in Greek, so this can very well be a translation issue already.

Back to my topic!

Then god created the sky – all is good. King James didn’t like the sky, obviously, so unlike in the Orthodox Bible, in King James’ Bible the sky is not declared good. Just saying!

Then god created the seas and the lands – all are good. And on that same day (3^rd) he also created the plants – once again, all are good.

Please bear with the repetitions. Genesis have them, too, and it’s something worth remembering. Especially because god will forget it a few chapters later. After all, god’s memory only registers who fucks whom and whom he should hate, but not what he himself deduces or declares.

Then – yes, only ‘then’, but do remember, “swallow it without chewing it, or die” – he created the sun and the moon and the stars – all are good.

Then, he created the reptiles, the birds, the fish, and whales and dolphins – all are good. Worth noticing that in this list the Bible specifically mentions the reptiles (Gen, 1:20) which have a “living soul”. That happened on the 5^th day.

By the next day god had already forgotten he created the reptiles, and he creates them once again (Gen, 1:24), along with the rest of the animals and the beasts. I don’t know which are the beasts and which are the animals (King James assumes that the animals are the cattle), but! All are good, and with a living soul.

To be fair about Jehovah’s memory, which is undoubtedly lacking, but maybe slightly less so than it appears to be here, the way the creation of the reptiles is phrased in Greek, on the fifth day, can also mean water reptiles. Also, King James’ Bible calls all beings “living” rather than “with living soul” unlike the Greek text, and carefully translates the first reptiles as “moving” and the second as “creeping”. My Hebrew is worse than even the disciples’ so I have no idea what the truest translation is.

In any case, on that day (6^th) god also creates the humans, in his image, with the intention to make them rulers of everything on earth including the reptiles (Gen, 1:26), and when he creates the humans he tells them to rule over everything, including the reptiles (Gen, 1:28). And also, god reassures us that all beings are vegetarians (Gen, 1:29 – 1:30) and that all plants are eatable.

And guess what? God saw that all are good.

Eden

Then the god created Eden, and in the middle of Eden he put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he puts the human there (not humans – I’ll come to this) and tells him he can eat everything but from that tree.

Let me explain here the problem. This is the second chapter of Genesis. In the first chapter god creates the humans, male and female, together. Then, in the second chapter we see the story differently. He creates the human, Adam, and after he makes Eden for him, he thinks that Adam needs an assistant. So, as you can guess, god… gives him all animals as assistants. You thought I’d say Eve, right?

God hadn’t realised even then that he created Adam as a mammal and, hence, that he would need a female to multiply, but he decided – only because Adam asked for it – that he probably needed a female humanoid assistant, the woman. You thought I’d say Eve, right?

“Why do you call her assistant?”

Because that’s what the Bible calls her! (Gen, 2:20)

You see, Moses (the alleged Genesis’ author) decided that, unlike the animals, the humanoid assistant needed a name only just before god threw the both of them out of Eden – a whole chapter later. And Adam named her Life (which King James’ Bible writes as Eve, but that name in the Orthodox Bible appears in the next chapter for the first time).

So, after the assistant was created, which from then on is called woman, the wisest of all beings god created – the snake (which King James’ Bible calls “serpent”) convinces the woman to eat the forbidden fruit, by using amazing trickery that wouldn’t have convinced the naivest of people, but let’s forget that small detail. Moreover, as you probably know, the woman convinced Adam to eat the fruit, too.

And only then did they become ashamed of their nudity.

And that’s when Jehovah walks in (really – they heard his footsteps) to condemn them, curse them, and throw them out. And among the curses he gives them are suffering, dying, paining, clothing, and others. By the way, Jehovah also curses the wisest of all beings, his beloved snake.

Now! Before we recap let me ask you a quick question to test if your memory is better than Jehovah’s. So, do you remember when I specifically mentioned that the snake or serpent was Satan?

“Ehm… you didn’t.”

Correct! Because Genesis doesn’t say that either.

Summing Up

So, what did we learn from Genesis so far?

We learned that everything god created is good, including the wise reptiles. We also learned that one of these good reptiles did something a good being wouldn’t have done. So, is god’s judgment wrong – one that we shouldn’t trust more than his memory – or did the snake, in actuality, trap the humans under Jehovah’s instructions and, hence, Jehovah is evil?

Also, Jehovah creates the humans, and he creates them curious. Then Jehovah purposely makes Eden for them to rule. In the middle of Eden he purposely makes and puts a tree he doesn’t need to make and put. And then he purposely says to the curious humans they shouldn’t eat from that tree. And then, because the humans were taking their sweet time to fall in his trap, he sends the snake to speed things up, so that Jehovah will have a rightful-looking excuse to exercise his sadism.

“It was to test them!”

If god is all-knowing, he doesn’t need testing. He knows exactly how curious he made the humans, and he knows they will, without fail, eat the fruit he so purposely made sure they will want to eat.

Or maybe god is neither all-knowing nor all-mighty and he couldn’t know how curious he made the humans?

We also know that Eden, god’s garden, is not a safe place. Either that, or the snake acted according to god’s will. If not, god isn’t really omnipotent. Because if he is omnipotent we return to the realisation he is sadistically evil.

And please don’t misunderstand me, when I call him a sadist, I don’t mean the sexual fetish and practice. Because, after all, those sadists usually exercise their sadism on willing masochists, unlike god who creates unwilling victims, only to make them suffer in ways that don’t excite them, sexually or otherwise. It’s the difference between a healthy fetishist and a criminal.

We also learned that women are the cause of our damnation. And apparently, they are also the reason that salvation is practically impossible, as we’ll learn a few books (and posts) later.

Last but not least, we learned that those who pretend to believe Jehovah is divine and good, and at the same time condemn nudity as indecent and evil, they simply condemn the will of their god (nudity) as evil, and glorify the sign and proof of sin and damnation (clothing).

That’s all for now. We’ll next see how Noah created the first “it’s bigger on the inside” vessel.

Until then, have fun, stay naked and may Jehovah be nowhere around you!

Love and Kisses,

Yorgos KC