Chapter three talks about when Eve is talked into eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge by the snake, the ‘most subtil [of] any beast of the field’. Both her and Adam eat of the tree and so they can know the difference between good and evil, and they can also realize they are naked, a factor which they take care of by sewing ‘fig leaves together, and [making] themselves aprons’. Then Lord God finds out and punishes the snake for taking them to their ‘evil sides’ (by making them eat the fruit), punishes the woman by making her suffer when giving birth and gave her husband power over her, and kicks man and woman out of the Garden of Eden.
In this chapter I see god represented in a very humane way, he strolls through the garden, gets angry at Adam and Eve for disobeying him, and gets, dare I say it?, jealous of them becoming his equal, or having the knowledge to do so, therefore he does what he can to keep them from the tree of life and to keep them from becoming immortal and gods. I think most of us have an image of God as always good and peaceful, always in control and almighty, so I think that once you analyze these chapters you realize that he is not at all portrayed like that. This might be yet another false interpretation the Church has engraved in our heads, and it can be quite faith-shattering for some.
Another thing I noticed of this chapter is the ridiculous amount of sexism expressed in it. What is this all about how being punished by God was the woman’s fault, and how women made the first sin? I won’t deny it: yes, Eve ate of the tree that God had forbidden, but I didn’t see Adam very reluctant to try it, or contradicting her judgment. Eve was merely seduced by the snake’s promises of knowledge and it also in part Lord God’s fault, he deceived them by telling them ‘Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’ Just to keep them inferior to Himself.
We again see God’s human side in chapter four, when he gets angry and curses Cain for killing his brother, Abel. He is cursed ‘sevenfold’, which I think means for seven of his generations since the chapter also talks about the sons and sons of and sons of several generations following Cain. It is explained how of every son, a new kind of people, you could say, was born. There are nomads, musicians, farmers, engineers, and finally men who believed and followed LORD God, Christians and Jews among them. In this chapter we also see male chauvinism occur, it only says ‘then began men to call upon the name of the Lord’, never including women.
There is some kind of fascination with family trees, and with ages of grandfathers, because there are a lot of parts where that is all we hear about. However, I find it peculiar how some men mentioned live up to nine hundred years, such as Adam, and some lived as few as seventy years, like Cainan. I wonder if this has any story behind it, and you could say I was hooked.
Chapter six, seven, and eight are the story we all know about Noah’s Ark, god sends flood upon the earth but first tells Noah to save himself and his family, and two animals of every species, upon a giant ark. But here we see something that, I at least, had never seen before: why God decided to destroy the world. What I understood is that Lord God saw that people were evil and he thought ‘Oh, I screwed up. Let’s kill everybody!’ This to me shows another very human characteristic of Him, redundantly a bad characteristic. It shows that God saw something He didn’t like, a mistake He had made, and without even attempting to solve it just decided to destroy it. It is like what a lot of people do, wipe a clean slate, turn over a new leaf, but in most cases people at least try to solve it. I don’t like the way God is being portrayed; it makes Him seem inferior to humans morally. But then again, we never know! I would have liked if it was explained why God chose Noah, why ‘found grace in the eyes of the Lord’.
In chapter nine this story is continued, telling how God did basically the same thing he did to Adam to Noah and his sons, gave them power over the earth and every living creature in it, as he had done a long time ago. It is exactly a new start for the world, the same story but different characters in it.
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