Yahweh is a Petty Liar, Man is a Snitch, and Woman Claims She Was Misled
Recently — no, not just recently, but perpetually — the news is full of blame, deflection, and lack of accountability. I began thinking of an early story of this phenomena, and the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament came to mind.
Let’s go through the story, shall we?
The Fall (Genesis, New International Version)
3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Yahweh told her a lie
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
The Serpent Tells the Truth
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.
5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Being Like God Means Having Shame
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Yahweh is Not All-Knowing and Omnipresent, or is Playing Silly Mind Games
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
The First Snitch and Deflection of Blame
Adam blames Yahweh for giving him a bad woman and snitches on her:
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman plays stupid:
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Yahweh Gets Ugly, Petty and Vengeful
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
It gets worse:
16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing
very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife
and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you,
‘You must not eat from it’, Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food
until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken;
for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become
the mother of all the living.
Looks Like There is More Than One God
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam
and his wife and clothed them.
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”
God Forbid Mankind Become Immortal
“He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden the cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
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Louche Leaves
An Irregular Journal of Thoughts, Stories, Ideas and Recollections
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