How the Ancient Israelites Viewed the Universe

I found this amazing depiction of how the Ancient Israelites viewed the universe here. This is the worldview propounded in Genesis that creationists expect us to take literally. Yeah, I'll get right on that.

The artist is Michæl Paukner. Check out his flickr gallery here.

An Honest Question re: Genesis

This is an honest question about the Genesis story that has been bothering me for a long time. You hear it a lot: the reason the world has pain and suffering in it is because of Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden. That sin, the eating of the forbidden fruit, introduced pain, disease, death, predation*, every violent, sad, tragic, painful or even slightly unpleasant thing was introduced to the world by man's sin.

Well, okay, but wasn't Satan already in the Garden? I seem to remember:

¹ Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³ but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
⁴ Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they werenaked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
⁸ And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Yeah, that's odd. What was the serpent doing in the Garden of Eden if God hadn't put him there? Why was the serpent subtle if God hadn't made him subtle? If there was no sin in the Garden, why would the serpent suggest disobeying God?

Anyway, that's my question for the day.

*Apparently, every predator today, such as polar bears and tigers, were herbivores prior to Adam's and Eve's mistake. Presumably, their teeth, claws and digestive systems were entirely changed in that moment. Among other things.

Challenging God

Oh noez- an actual building resembles an artist's rendering of something that never existed- it must be Saytan!
god, yhwh, bible, genesis, babel, tree, christianity

There are two instances in the Bible in which man challenges Yhwh. I'm not surprised at the concept of man challenging god because human history is filled with stories of people fighting against impossible odds, and the odds don't get more impossible than going up against omnipotence. What does surprise me is that in both of these stories it is implied that had Yhwh not taken decisive action against man, man could have won.

The first takes place in the Garden of Eden. Yhwh, for no explained reason, puts two very dangerous trees right in the middle, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge and Yhwh freaks out. He says outright that if Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Life as well, they would be as "us", as gods, in other words*.

The second instance of man challenging Yhwh occurs when man builds the Tower of Babel. Yhwh has this to say about it:

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

Now that is an impossibly strange thing for an omnipotent being to say. There is "nothing" we humans couldn't do if only we all spoke the same language? That's . . . odd. The only thing holding us back from being a threat to the creator of well, everything, is a lack of a common language? Just how omnipotent is this Yhwh fellow, anyway?



*This isn't in every translation of the Book of Genesis. It is in the one I have at home, which is a Tanakh printed in 1905 by the Rabbinical Council of New York, translated into English for "the new modern Jew who knows only the language of his adopted country and not the language of his ancestors." I'll trust that the Rabbinical Council would know the proper translation of their most important text.

I Can Haz Epiphany?

serpizard, adam, eve, genesis, evil, god, bible, christian,

If you ask Christians why there is evil and suffering and disease in this world, the answer you will get is that we humans brought this upon ourselves. Well, not us, but the original two humans, Adam and Eve. Which is like me spending life in prison because my great-grandfather murdered someone. Eve just had to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil*, and like Pandora and her box, released death and suffering and evil and disease into our world.

Except that evil was already in that world.

I've read the Bible in at least a dozen translations. I own seven translations. There is no translation of the Bible I am aware of in which Eve simply walks up to the Tree, grabs the fruit and om nom nom. She is always talked into eating the fruit of the Tree by the serpent, which has legs, and yet is not a lizard. Yeah. Anyway:

1Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

So, if Adam and Eve brought evil into the world by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, what was up with the serpizard (lizent? I prefer serpizard personally)? He wasn't evil? Seems pretty evil to me. Why did god make the serpizard evil if he didn't want evil in the world? How did god not know exactly what the serpizard would do? Even if god had to, for reasons I can't quite imagine, make an evil serpizard, why not warn Adam and Eve not to listen to talking animals?

"Oh, yeah, before I go, if any of these animals talk to you, don't listen. They're all liars." That's all it would have taken. You know, if you absolutely must create both an evil serpizard and a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, at least warn people about both instead of just one.

So the next time someone tells you that the evil in the world was caused by Adam and Eve, ask them about the serpizard.

*I really enjoy the baroque results of translating languages that translate poorly into English.

What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden

garden, eden, adam, eve, justice, genesis, bible, ray, comfort, god, yhwh, humor
Ray Comfort's latest post brings up the standard fundamentalist explanation for death, suffering, disease and the general uncomfortableness of life: it's your fault. Oh, it's my fault, too, well, it's really Adam and Eve's fault, and, yeah, let's let Ray explain it:

When God made Adam and Eve He made them perfect. There was no disease, suffering, pain and death. When they rebelled against Him, He cursed them and the earth, and we now live in what is commonly called a "fallen creation."

See, Yhwh put a tree in the center of the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Actually, it was two trees. He also put the Tree of Life in the center of Garden of Eden. Now, being omnipotent, if he didn't want anyone to eat of the fruit of either of those Trees, he could have put them outside of the Garden of Eden, or put them on top of a mountain, or put a fence around them, but no, he just leaves the Trees right there where anyone can get at them.

Then, Yhwh puts two people, two completely innocent people, who have been alive all of one day, who have no concept of right or wrong, who have never seen or heard of death, in the Garden with the Trees. The Trees he didn't want these two people to touch. Then he told them they would die if they ate the fruit.

Did I mention Yhwh is supposed to be omniscient?

Yhwh: You can eat anything you want, but don't eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

Eve: Why not?

Yhwh: Because I'll fjwuieruthf you if you do.

Adam: What?

Yhwh: I will fjwuieruthf you if you eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

*Adam and Eve look at one another*

Eve: Ummm . . . what's fjwuieruthf?

Yhwh: You know, I'll fjwuieruthf you if you do it.

Eve (to Adam): You've been around twice as long as me, what's fjwuieruthf?

Adam (shrugs): I dunno. Maybe it's one of those furry things I haven't named yet?

Yhwh: Look, you eat that fruit and I'll fjwuieruthf you! End of discussion.

Eve: That fruit looks pretty tasty. What do you call it again?

Adam: Snorg.

Eve: Snorg? Really? Are you sure you don't like apple better?

Adam: What's wrong with snorg?

Eve: I let you have platypus.

Adam: I guess apple's okay.

Eve: Well, that apple looks pretty tasty, and we don't know that fjwuieruthf is bad. Maybe it's not bad at all.

Yhwh: I can assure you that fjwuieruthf is very bad. Very, very bad.

Adam: Yeah, but what is it?

Eve: Maybe you could fjwuieruthf something else in the Garden and then we could decide if fjwuieruthf is bad enough to make us not try the apple.

Yhwh: I can't fjwuieruthf anything! This is the Garden of Eden, nothing ever fjwuieruthfs!

Adam: So, wait, will you or won't you fjwuieruthf us? We're in the Garden. Why can we be fjwuieruthfed?

Eve: Screw this, I'm eating the apple.

There you have it, the fundamentalist version of justice.