Month: June 2020

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Genesis Annotated: Chapter 6

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 5

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 7

Chapter 6 overview

God decides that men are evil and decides that he’s going to wipe them off the planet. Except for that Noah fellow who is apparently pretty cool.

Additional thoughts

This ark thing is an impossibility. See the notes below for my math on why. If you need more evidence, then check out this Youtube playlist (Backup copy served from my site) from someone who covers it WAY more comprehensively than I do here.

God has not passed down any laws on what wicked behaviour is… so how are people being considered wicked at this point? Isn’t this the equivalent of a parent placing a toddler in a candy store, and then killing the kid when the kid grabs some candy without paying? If the kid was never told what was right and wrong, then is the kid really at fault? Wouldn’t that be the parents who are at fault?

Let’s also look at God’s “plan” for dealing with this undefined “wickedness”. It’s a terrible plan.

First, if he’s going to destroy the world, why not just destroy everything and start from scratch? It only took him a week last time, maybe he can spend a month or two getting it right this time? Spending just a week on anything is usually good for a shoddy prototype, not a finished product.

Second, if he REALLY wants to save Noah, why bother with this whole animals onto an ark rigmarole when he could literally recreate animals from scratch again. It’d be far less work for everyone in the end.

Third, if he REALLY wants to save Noah, why not just yoink Noah like he did Enoch and destroy everything else? No planet saving necessary at that point.

Fourth, why not just destroy everything while keeping Noah save with godly intervention? Is separating water from the earth too hard to do now?

I could go on in coming up with additional plans that could have been used, but it does paint a pretty unflattering image of god’s creativity. A perfect being who built literally everything doesn’t have enough imagination to come up with a better plan than a boat and a flood when he gets miffed a few years after he made everything? Utter bollocks.

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

  1. Giants don’t exist and never have in the way the bible says they have (Genesis 6:4)
  2. God never defined what wickedness is (Genesis 6:5)
  3. God, commonly held to be omniscient, didn’t know he’d regret this (Genesis 6:6)
  4. A good god prepares to commit a heinous atrocity: Genocide (Genesis 6:7)
  5. Why Noah found grace is never explained (Genesis 6:8)
  6. Noah clearly isn’t perfect (Genesis 6:9, Genesis 9:21)
  7. Timescale for flood isn’t that pressing: Noah has 3 sons (Genesis 6:10)
  8. The description of the earth sounds the same before and after flood (Genesis 6:11)
  9. Why can’t God just make an ark?(Genesis 6:13)
  10. No one knows what gopher wood is (Genesis 6:14)
  11. God neglects to mention that this ark needs metal bracings (Genesis 6:15)
  12. This ark needs FAR more ventilation (Genesis 6:16)
  13. God clearly has no clue just how much life there is on the planet (Genesis 6:19)
  14. Noah will need a LOT more storage space (Genesis 6:21)

Chapter 6: The First Genocide is Planned
AKA: I Hate Violence so I’ll use Violence to end the Violence!

  1. And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
  2. That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
  3. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
  4. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
  5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
  6. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
  7. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
  8. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
  9. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
  10. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
  11. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
  12. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
  13. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
  14. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
  15. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.
  16. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.
  17. And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
  18. But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee.
  19. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.
  20. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.
  21. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.
  22. Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.
  1. But have they learned to divide yet?


  2. Polygamy again… sure is popular! Who are “The sons of god” vs. “the daughters of men”. Isn’t Jesus god’s only “son”?
  3. This appears to be locking in solar years rather than lunar months now. Genesis 11:10 would like a word about this age limit too. Short lives unless plot demands long.
  4. Doubtful. While macro-fauna was pretty common before humans were around (think dinosaurs), no giant humans have been found in the fossil record. In fact, the rise of humans correlates with a sharp decrease in macro-fauna due to hunting.
  5. So… the perfect creation is no longer perfect? On what grounds? No rules of “wickedness” or laws have been passed down yet.
  6. Shouldn’t an omniscient god have seen this coming? Shouldn’t a perfect being not regret making his perfect creation?
  7. Welcome to genocide: Act 1, in which god prepares to commit his first genocidal atrocity. But, of course, it’s all good because god is good and people are evil, right?
  8. Told ya he was important back in chapter 5. Why did he find grace though?
  9. Is he still perfect in Genesis 9:21 when he’s passed out naked and drunk in front of his kids?
  10. Begat, begat, begat.

  11. So… exactly like the earth will be a few dozen years after the godly genocide?
  12. Including that Noah guy from earlier? All is a pretty blanket statement.

  13. Except for Noah. Noah is still flesh, and he’ll be around after. Time to get some guy-in-the-sky genocide plans laid out in a way that won’t kill everyone.
  14. AKA: Do make this thing watertight. You don’t want it to leak. Gopher wood is possibly cypress? No one is sure.
  15. This also would require metal bracings, which are never mentioned. For an all powerful god, he sure wastes a lot of time having Noah build this.
  16. That can’t be enough ventilation, can it? This probably needs some sort of modern ventilation system to not kill everything inside due to CO2 when everything is onboard and breathing.
  17. Godly Genocide. Requiring the capital G because it’s Good and Great. Right? Don’t forget that all life includes some of Disney’s favorite creatures: Birds, mice, puppies, and kittens.
  18. Look, it’s alright. You will have kids, and they will have children. Seems like god should have known they would go back to sinning if he’s all knowing.
  19. That’s a lot of things. Seriously, the ark shouldn’t be able to fit everything. Also, note “sort” here, not kind. Sounds like 2 of EVERY animal to me.
  20. What is this “kind” of which they speak? I suspect it’s the author being lazy and saying “Just grab all the birds you can find, any cattle you find, etc”
  21. Some provisions are made for food, but where would this be stored? We’re already out of space due to animals.
  22. This guy just accomplished a literally impossible task. #NoahIsGod

Ark calculations. AKA: Why this whole thing couldn’t work.

Because I’m lazy, I stole some calculations for the Ark from arkcounter.com. This thing IS huge, but big enough to carry 2 of every animal? No. Let’s do some math.

Arkcounter says a cubit, according to Hebrew, is 44.45 cm (17.5 inches). This gives the ark a total volume of (44.45 * 300) * (44.45 * 50) * (44.45 * 30) = 39520989506.25cm, or about 400,000,000 cubic meters (rounding up to be generous here). This IS a large amount of volume, yes, but remember that we don’t want to pack animals on top of each other, we want them to be right next to each other.

To figure out how much room our animals have to stand, let’s find the area of the floor. Each floor will have (44.45 * 300) * (44.45 * 50) = 29637037.5 square centimeters, or about 300,000 square meters per floor (rounding up) available for the animals. 900,000 total meters to account for all 3 floors.

Let’s start examining animal sizes that exist today.

The largest land animal today is the African bush elephant. Wikipedia gives an average height of 3.20 meters. Additional searching isn’t finding any length or width measurements, so we’ll estimate the length and width using pixel measurements from images.

An image of an elephant I grabbed showed the height to be 182 pixels, and a width of 77 pixels. To find the height of a single pixel, divide 3.20m by 182 pixels, which is about 0.0175m/pixel. That gives us 77 * .0175m = 1.35m in width. I did a similar calculation for length which shows a length of about 4.0m.

This gives us a total area required by an elephant equal to 4m * 1.35m = 5.4 square meters, or 10.8 square meters for 2 elephants in very cramped conditions.

One of the smallest animals (an insect really, a beetle) has a length of .01m. Due to it’s size, I’m going to assume it takes up .01 * .01 = .0001 square meters. This means that it takes .0002 square meters to house 2 of these in cramped conditions.

To use a highly unscientific method to find the average area, let’s add the smallest and the largest areas together and find the mean. (10.4 + .0002) / 2 = 5.4001 square meters. To date, scientists have classified 1.2 million species, but estimate that the total in existence is closer to 8.7 million. We’ll use the lower limit of 1.2 million species here in the calculation. The astute will have already noticed that on average, we’d need an average area of less than .3m minimum to make this all fit onto the boat, and even that’s a bit high.

Let’s divide this up into 4 parts: animals from 0.0002 up to 2.7 square meters, 2.7 to 5.4 square meters, 5.4 to 8.1 square meters, and 8.1 to 10.8 square meters. This gives us 4 blocks of 300,000 animals each. Assuming that Noah somehow managed to get all these animals in one place, note that the amount of space to house the last group of 300,000 animals would be larger than the entire surface area of the boat (900,000 square meters) even if they were the smallest they could be at 8.1 square meters. In fact, it’s only the animals, such as insects and really small mammals, that could have fit on the ark some room to spare. Barely. And that’s not even accounting for food to feed all these animals yet.

But, if you’re still not convinced, let’s give the ark even more benefit of the doubt. Let’s pretend that only half of the 1.2 million animals existed at the time and that our biggest category only contains 10 animals. We’ll skew the remainder of the animals to be most concentrated in the smallest category (0.0002 – 2.7 square meters) and use only the smallest square area for each category when calculating size.

Let’s say 400,000 of the animals are in the smallest category (400000 * .0002 = 80m2), 100000 are in the next category (100,000 * 2.7 = 270000 m2), 99,990 in the next largest category (99,990 * 5.4 = 539,946m2), and 10 in the final category (10 * 8.1 = 81m2). This gives us a total size used of 810,107m2 for animals in REALLY cramped conditions.

You’ll note that this amount of biomass could technically all fit on the ark, but now how do you feed them? How do you prevent them from suffocating? How do you prevent the predators from eating the prey? How do you prevent the animals from overheating? how do you handle waste disposal? How do you handle animal health and hygiene? What do you do to prevent viruses from spreading? How do you store all the food for them? You’ll need more than 90,000m2 of food for that long of a voyage.

As the math shows, this ark tale is literally impossible and nothing more than a myth. Getting all these animals of the world onto an ark this size is not possible. Even with a greatly reduced amount of animals where it may be technically possible to fit them onto an ark of that size, you still run into logistical issues that render the ark an impossibility.

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Genesis Annotated: Chapter 5

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 4

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 6

Chapter Overview

This chapter is mostly not worth reading. The only things of note in this chapter are

  1. Cain and Abel apparently don’t exist now
  2. How Noah came to be

Noah is only important because only he and his family are supposed to survive the flood myth coming up next. You can now skip to the next chapter, you’re free!

Additional Thoughts

This chapter is a mess when it comes to ages. Many Christians literally believe that people used to live that long and that some sort of accumulated “fallen-ness” has caused our ages to decrease. On the contrary, all evidence points to us living longer and healthier lives than our ancestors on average.

I think it’s most likely that the ages represented here are most likely in lunar months. Lunar months are slightly different than our 12 months used today, but it’s close enough that I’ve estimated the ages with (total_months / 12) in order to get an estimate for when they died. The ages of death are actually quite reasonable. The ages for when they started to have kids, however…. no. Except for Lamech and Noah. They waited to have kids.

Additionally, rather than being base 10, these could all be in a different numbering system, base 4 for example, and ALSO calculated in lunar months. Meaning a single “year” would be 4 lunar months, which would really screw with the age calculations. Given that we really don’t know what numbering system the authors used, I’m sticking to 12 months = 1 year to keep calculations simple.

Also note how the second verse says “And called their name Adam”. In this case, this is a reference to humanity as a whole, rather than a single person (remember that “Adam” literally translates to “man”). This means that this chapter, which ignores chapter 4 completely,

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

  1. What happened to Cain and Abel? (Genesis 4, Genesis 5:3)

Chapter 5: People do each other. A lot.
AKA: Honey, everyone is bored. Let’s ALL have kids

  1. This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

  2. Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
  3. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
  4. And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
  5. And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
  6. And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:
  7. And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:
  8. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.
  9. And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan:
  10. And Enos lived after he begat Cainan eight hundred and fifteen years, and begat sons and daughters:
  11. And all the days of Enos were nine hundred and five years: and he died.
  12. And Cainan lived seventy years and begat Mahalaleel:
  13. And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel eight hundred and forty years, and begat sons and daughters:
  14. And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years: and he died.
  15. And Mahalaleel lived sixty and five years, and begat Jared:
  16. And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared eight hundred and thirty years, and begat sons and daughters:
  17. And all the days of Mahalaleel were eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.
  18. And Jared lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch:
  19. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch eight hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
  20. And all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and two years: and he died.
  21. And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah:
  22. And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:
  23. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:
  24. And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
  25. And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years, and begat Lamech.
  26. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters
  27. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died.
  28. And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son:
  29. And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.
  30. And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:
  31. And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.
  32. And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

  1. Again… the continual ability for his children to find other women only makes sense if chapter 1 is followed. Which doesn’t have Adam.
  2. This sounds exactly like the chapter 1 mythology of man being created.

  3. ORLY? What about Cain and Abel? Are they not his sons? Or did they never exist? Or, more likely, this is a collection of made folk tales.
  4. This whole “years” thing seems like a translation error. Could it be lunar months? That would make this reasonable.
  5. In lunar months mistranslated as years: 930 / 12 = 77.5 years old. Reasonable.
  6. Poor, poor, fabricated Cain and Abel. They don’t exist now.
  7. Begatting and begatting. Taking that Genesis 1:28 seriously again.

  8. AKA: 76 years old if this was mistranslated from lunar months.
  9. That seems young to be a father though. 7.5 years old if lunar months.
  10. begat begat begat. I’m getting tired of geneologies, and we’ve only just begun.

  11. 905 / 12 = 75.41 years

  12. REALLY young to be a father.

  13. Begatting


  14. AKA: 75.83 years

  15. They just keep having kids earlier

  16. More Begatting


  17. AKA: 74.5 years

  18. A little more reasonable child age if lunar months. Also, a second guy named Enoch.
  19. Apparently these other sons and daughters aren’t important though.

  20. AKA: 80.16 years

  21. Really young for begatting if lunar months. They get it on young in the old days.
  22. So… lived for another 25 years and was yoinked out of life by god?

  23. AKA: 30.41 years.

  24. So he never died, therefore, he is the oldest human in the bible.
  25. Fairly reasonable age to have kids at in older times if lunar months.
  26. Why don’t these other children matter?


  27. AKA: 80.75 years

  28. begatting

  29. Why would the name Noah be comforting? It’s possible that it shares a root word with “rest” in the original language. AKA: I got a kid, he can do work for me now! Resting!
  30. Stop with all the begatting already!


  31. Good, we’re nearly done. Also, 64.16 years


  32. Oldest we’ve seen someone have kids yet. 41.66 years if lunar months.

Additional Notes

Wasn’t Adam supposed to have, ya know, died after eating the fruit? Living a long and healthy life doesn’t sound like he died due to the fruit. Some people claim that he was immortal while he was in the garden… but why have a “Tree of Eternal Life” (Genesis 2:9) in the garden that you use as an excuse to kick Adam out of the garden then?

Fun fact: IF Christianity is to be believed, all these people who die now just end up languishing in hell. For thousands of years at minimum.

Check Wikipedia for some information on lifespans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

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Genesis Annotated: Chapter 4

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 3

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 5

Chapter Overview

Adam and Eve, needing to spice things up in their relationship, do each other and have a few children. If the bible were at all factually true, this would mark the first time anyone thought things would get better by having a child. It would also mark the first time that it went horribly wrong.

The kids decide to give stuff to God, God shows blatant favoritism to the one presenting dead animals, and Cain gets mad and kills him. Rather than any actual retribution, God just banishes Cain who goes off to start a city and a family of his own somewhere.

Additional thoughts

This chapter seems to pick and choose elements from the previous chapters and decides to try make a coherent story out of them. For example, if chapter 1 is to be believed, then there would be people on the earth other than Adam, Eve, and Cain when Cain is banished. If chapter 2 is to be believed, then why is Cain worried about others seeking revenge. Wouldn’t that only be his parents? And just WHO does he end up taking for a wife? If chapter 2 is to be believed, there’s no one else on the planet.

Once again, we’re left with a tale that can, in no way, be factual. This must be an allegorical tale.

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

Genesis 1 does not have Adam and Eve. Genesis 2 does not have other humans besides Adam and Eve. This chapter has other humans, so this chapter cannot follow chapter 2. This chapter ALSO has Adam and Eve, so it cannot follow chapter 1. You could almost say that this is a 3rd creation myth.

  1. Cain and Abel aren’t in genealogies later. (Genesis 4, Genesis 5)
  2. No reason for disrespecting Cain’s offering is given (Genesis 4:5)
  3. God hasn’t really explained what sin is yet (Genesis 4:7)
    • This is a sign that this section was written by a later author
  4. Author conflates both creation myths (Genesis 1, Genesis 2, Genesis 4)

Chapter 4: Cain and Abel
AKA: Honey, I’m bored. Let’s have kids!

  1. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.
  2. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
  3. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
  4. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
  5. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
  6. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
  7. If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
  8. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
  9. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?
  10. And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
  11. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

  12. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
  13. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
  14. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.
  15. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
  16. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
  17. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.
  18. And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.
  19. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.
  20. And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.
  21. And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.
  22. And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.
  23. And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.
  24. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
  25. And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
  26. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

  1. Sounds like they learned how to fool around with each other pretty quickly.

  2. Keep an eye out for chapter 5 when Cain and Abel are completely ignored in the genealogies.
  3. Alternate verse text: “I worked hard on this. Notice me senpai!”

  4. Odd that sheep get such a special treatment here. Almost like the story was told by shepherds to show just how awesome being a shepherd is….
  5. Got it: killing animals good, fruits and veggies bad. Maybe god is a picky eater?

  6. An omniscient god really shouldn’t have to ask this. The reason is pretty apparent
  7. Cain did do well though. Well enough that he was able to bring stuff from his farm as an offering to god. This sin thing also hasn’t been explained yet.
  8. Seems a bit excessive. If only there was some being who is supposed to be omniscient that could have seen this coming…
  9. Again… not omniscient. I’m getting the feeling that omniscience was added by later Christians. Also… no smiting for lying?
  10. Note that there is no mention of heaven here. Abel is simply dead. No such thing as heaven or hell.
  11. Shouldn’t an omniscient god have known that rejecting Cain’s offering would cause him to get angry and murder? Sounds like a setup to me.
  12. God really seems to like handing out curses. So far we’re 4 chapters in with 4 curses made. The first 3 curses could be considered multiple curses too.
  13. AKA: I can’t farm anymore?

  14. This part seems to imply that the chapter follows the creation myth outlined in chapter 1. Chapter 2 only has 2 humans created. That would cause quite a bit of genetic damage to the human species, and we don’t see that.
  15. Curse number 5. What the heck does it mean to set a mark on Cain anyways? Dot on the forehead? give him a purple pecker? Beat his buttocks until it’s black on one side, blue on the other?
  16. Eden is now mentioned here. So… does the author follow myth 1, or myth 2? Seems to be picking and choosing from both.
  17. Given that there should only be 3 humans on the planet right now… who is this wife? Did Cain have a sister that we weren’t told about?
  18. Sounds like they’re exercising their Genesis 1:28 rights by beginning the begatting. With what women though?
  19. Polygamy! Also… where do these women keep coming from? I thought adam and eve were the only people other then Cain?
  20. This is sounds like Cain was responsible for some global diversity

  21. Not really sure why any of this is relevant though.

  22. Naamah the first woman who has a birth specified in the bible. See the additional notes for information on the iron mentioned here.
  23. Suddenly someone was killed. We have no reference to who, when, why, or anything. Given that Cain killed someone in god’s favor, and this guy probably didn’t, should there even be any worry here?
  24. Why? Abel gave an offering god apparently respected. What did this dead guy have?
  25. Rejoice! God knew my son would kill my other son, so he gave a son so I could praise him while crying about my son.

  26. Why would they only start to call the name now? Again, who did Seth find for a wife? These woman are crawling out everywhere.

Additional Notes on Chapter 4

It’s weird that the author explicitly goes out of his way to mention the “founders” of all these different trades. Almost like the author wants to provide some sort of prominence and importance to them.

Iron working is hard. Not until around 1500-1200BC was the technology in place to really work iron. Given that this book was likely compiled around 600-500BC, the author possibly would have assumed that iron working was always a thing an just tossed it in there. Even taking the oldest iron artifacts, cold-worked meteorite fragments, that gives us an upper bound of about 4000BC. Given that this tale would have been within a few generations of Adam and Eve, the iron working is off by several millennia.

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Genesis Annotated: Chapter 3

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 2

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 4

Overview of chapter

This chapter contains the tale of the tempting of Eve and the fall into temptation. This chapter continues the story from chapter 2 and ignores the creation story from chapter 1.

Examined literally, as I am doing here due to claims of this being literally true, causes things to fall apart. Like the chapters before this, this chapter has references to outdated ideas about how the world works. See the additional notes for further details. This further reinforces the idea that this was not written with any divine insights and is more likely a myth.

Additional thoughts

I thought I disliked the first 2 chapters, but chapter 3 is quickly becoming my most disliked because it sets up a justification to blame, dominate, and discriminate against women. Oh, and serpents. Serpents have feelings too!

Does the Serpent really represent Satan?

Despite the common interpretation that the serpent represents Satan in this myth, there is no indication that the serpent is anything other than a serpent. Some make the case that the serpent represents a female figure (Satan is traditionally male). For example, many early artist renditions of the garden scene show a snake with a female head. These artists’s weren’t small, unknown artists either. Michelangelo’s paintings on the Sistine chapel, the relevant part which is shown below, shows a female serpent lady (also known as a Naga) handing the fruit to Eve.

Given that Satan is male throughout the bible, the presence of female serpent figures is curious and raises some questions to today’s audience. If the serpent doesn’t represent Satan, then who does it represent?

If it’s the case that the the serpent DOES represent Satan, God’s punishment of the snake is overblown and completely misses the actual perpetrator. This is like having someone hand you a bag of money and having the police tackle and beat you a few moments later for robbing a bank while you watch the criminal walk down the street away from you.

Also, if the serpent represents Satan, then why, in all places of the bible, is he not moving around on his belly and eating dirt? God was very explicit in how long the curse would last: all the days of it’s life. Clearly all the days of Satan’s life haven’t happened yet (if Christians are to be believed), so why, in the book of Job, is Satan not on his belly? Why is there no instance of Satan eating dirt?

Finally, if the serpent here IS Satan, and Satan can’t tempt someone without god’s consent (see the book of Job), this was a huge setup for our first man and woman. What was the thought process? As the literal creator of humanity, does God not understand human nature and curiosity? Did God not realize that setting 2 humans loose in his garden who have the critical thinking skills of a toddler would end any differently?

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

  1. Serpents don’t talk[citation NOT needed] (Genesis 3:1)
  2. Fruit does not confer knowledge (Genesis 3:7)
  3. Eating the fruit did not kill them like God said (Genesis 3:7)
  4. God, commonly held to be omniscient, isn’t (Genesis 3:8-9, 3:11)
  5. Cruel and unusual punishment (God’s favorite kind) (Genesis 3:14-24)
  6. Incorrect ideas about pregnancy (Genesis 3:15)
  7. Anachronism: Swords weren’t a thing yet (Genesis 3:24)
  8. Magic (Genesis 3:1-24)

Chapter 3: Biblical Justification for Sexism.
AKA: It’s All Woman’s Fault
AKA: Cruel and Unusual Punishments

  1. Now 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?
  2. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of 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 hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
  4. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
  5. For 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.
  6. And 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.
  7. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
  8. And they heard the voice 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 amongst the trees of the garden.
  9. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
  10. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
  11. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
  12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
  13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
  14. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
  15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
  16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
  17. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
  18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
  19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.


  20. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
  21. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
  22. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
  23. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
  24. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
  1. Weren’t all animals created equally and perfect by god? Why would a serpent by more anything? I suspect the original author just hated snakes for some reason. This is speciests!
  2. aka: Yes….
    I like how she doesn’t care that a snake is talking. #DisneyPrincessConfirmed.
  3. But actually no. Also, she has literally no concept of what death is. She can’t make an informed choice here! She has no knowledge to draw on.
  4. How is this considered tempting? Eve has no critical thinking skills.
  5. Sounds like this would be a good thing in the end. Teach some critical thinking and reasoning skills to Eve so she can make informed choices.
  6. And this starts the moment of “It’s all woman’s fault”. You’d think an omniscient god would have known all this would happen and thus not made the woman or the serpent. Or put the tree or serpent in the garden.
  7. Because nudity is bad? Seriously… why is this writer so ashamed of nudity? This sounds like someone projection: “I’m not ashamed, you’re ashamed!”
  8. Mr. Omniscient should know where they are anyways, right?



  9. Apparently not. Maybe he didn’t want to give away the fact that he’s omniscient?
  10. Afraid, sure, but why because of nudity specifically? Nudity is no big deal NOR anything to be ashamed of.
  11. Not acting very omniscient if you ask me.



  12. AKA: “It’s not me, it’s your fault for giving me someone so wonderful that she wanted to feed me.”
  13. AKA: “It’s not my fault either! It’s really the serpent that you created! It’s smarter than I am because you didn’t give us any critical thinking skills!”
  14. Yeah… this author really doesn’t like snakes. They are well adapted to their lifestyle. Their ancestors had legs as evidenced by fossil records. Their lack of legs makes them a more effective predator in undergrowth. Also: They don’t eat dust.
  15. Everyone is supposed to hate snakes. This seed concept references an outdated idea of how impregnation works. See the notes below.
  16. This god fellow really isn’t very nice. He already “punished” the snake, now he’s causing untold pain and suffering unto billions of women. Probably accounts for deaths during childbirth too.
  17. It really doesn’t seem like the punishments are fitting the crime here. An omniscient and omnipotent god should be able to find a better way to punish everything here without causing suffering to untold billions of creatures.

  18. Cruel and Unusual Punishments, part 5. If you believe this verse, it appears that humans are supposed to be vegan.
  19. References the second creation story in the bible… does this mean the first is inconsequential or wrong? Also… did god create human death as a punishment here? Why do other animals still die if they never sinned?
  20. Weird name, but sure. Might make sense in the original language.
  21. AKA: God kills animals to make clothes


  22. Again, see rationalwiki for an explanation on the “us” mentioned here. God apparently doesn’t want people living forever and thinks death is the way to go. Good job causing even more suffering.
  23. So we are all supposed to be farmers now? Also note: No mentions of afterlife or punishments/rewards after death
  24. Is this “flaming sword” somehow sentient? Also, man and woman would have no idea what a sword is. Further reinforcing the idea that this is a myth intended for people of the time, not an actual account of what happened.

Additional Notes on Chapter 3

The “seed” referenced in verse 15 references an outdated concept of how women become pregnant. The idea is more akin to how plants are grown than humans. Men have seed that they carry around, and they drop that seed into a woman. The woman is viewed as having a field in which the seeds are planted and children begin growing.

For information on fossils showing shakes with legs: https://web.archive.org/web/20200618154613/http://www.reptilesmagazine.com/Snakes/Wild-Snakes/Snake-Leg-Origins-Legless/

It seems weird that god would also put a tree of life in the garden. Why was it there if everything was immortal already? Was he just looking for an excuse to toss them out of the garden?

As always, check out the rationalwiki’s annotated version of Genesis for more points. These are just the points I feel are important to point out when I read through this.

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Genesis Annotated: Chapter 2

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 1

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 3

Overview of Chapter

This starts by closing off the first creation myth and immediately starts another one. For some reason, every Christian I have talked to doesn’t realize this. The second creation myth involves a far more convoluted idea on how women came to be. Why didn’t god just create both male and female like in chapter 1? Why was this chapter even included in genesis when it’s directly contradictory to chapter 1?

Additional Thoughts

Why there is a second creation mythos immediately after the first finishes is unclear to me. While the first account has man created pretty much like anything else, this one goes out of it’s way to ensure that special treatment is given. Why? I assume because the author viewed humans as inherently special and different from other animals. This is reinforced by the author having man created before “Every beast of the field” and being told by god to name everything.

Additionally, if we’re to ascribe omnipotence and omniscience to god here, then why has god created man alone only to realize after the fact that he should have created a female counterpart for man as well? Shouldn’t a god that is omniscient know the outcome of everything that is going to happen before the action is taken? Shouldn’t a god that is omniscient know immediately what kind of “helper” man needs rather than faffing about and creating every other animal on the planet for man to have a trial run with? While many other questions could be raised, this is another indication that shows how god was not always ascribed the omni- traits that Christians assign to god today.

Due to rule number 3 that I’m holding the bible to (that the bible is wonderfully consistent throughout), I must point out that we’re only 2 chapters in on the first book and already have a bunch of inconsistencies. To name two, we have Light/dark being separated twice in chapter 1 and two creation stories with conflicting series of events. Was man made and then the beasts of the earth, or the beasts first and man second?

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

  1. Closes the first creation myth and starts a second (Genesis 2:3-4)
  2. Order of creation for second myth contradicts the first
  3. Some plants can use mist for water, most cannot. (Genesis 2:5-6)
  4. Only 2 humans created, not many like in chapter 1 (Genesis 2:7)
  5. Trees aren’t considered plants in this account (Genesis 2:9)
  6. Trees don’t confer knowledge[Citation NOT needed] (Genesis 2:9)
  7. An omnipotent god should know placing the tree here and saying “don’t eat it” isn’t going to work (Genesis 2:16-17)
  8. Why would Adam or Eve have a concept of mother, father, husband, or wife? (Genesis 2:24)
  9. There is nothing wrong with nudity no matter what this (and later chapters) claim (Genesis 2:25)

Chapter 2: A second account of creation
AKA: God Does Stuff Again

  1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
  2. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
  3. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
  4. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,


  5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
  6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.






  7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
  8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
  9. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
  10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
  11. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
  12. And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
  13. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
  14. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
  15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
  16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
  17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
  18. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
  19. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
  20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
  21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
  22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
  23. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
  24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
  25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

  1. Everything is completed? This chapter soon contradicts itself by redoing it.
  2. Alternative text for the verse: God ran out of steam after a week of work and decided it was time for a nap.

  3. Nap day is special. This account is similar to the Sumerian Enuma Elish, the oldest known creation myth and reworked to emphasize one powerful being.
  4. This starts a recap of the creation tale. Remember, chapter 1 said heaven/earth -> light -> darkness -> day/night -> firmament -> dry land -> plants -> “lights in the firmament” -> sea/air creatures -> land creatures -> man
  5. Plants are made, herbs specifically called out. Without rain, how would these survive? Were these ALL plants that live near a large body of water? Was the ocean not salty at this point?
  6. Some plants can use fog/mist as a water source, but others can’t. Where did any that can’t come from if everything was misty for a long time? Plants that use fog as a water source usually have specialized method to collect it and drop it to the ground. Why don’t we see more of these today?
  7. Man created from dust. Humans are a wizard’s clay golem in this account. I fail to see how that makes humanity special in any way.
  8. So now a special garden is made. When was this made exactly? Day 3? 4? 5? 6? Do days even matter now?
  9. So… Trees aren’t plants now? I thought all plants were already made? Also… what exactly is this tree of good or evil? Can I have one? I’d like to grow know-fruit and sell it to some idiots I know.
  10. 1 river splits off into 4. Why is this even here? It’s not important.

  11. 1 river called Pison. Why is this even here? It’s not important

  12. Why is this verse even in here? Wasn’t this a tale of creation?
  13. 1 river called Gihon. There is a LOT of debate as to where this river is/was

  14. 1 river called Hiddekel, one called Euphrates. Why are these even mentioned?
  15. Man is in the garden. BTW: Adam literally means Man. So any references to Adam are actually “man” or “the man”.
  16. Eat anything in the garden!


  17. Oh wait, don’t touch that super special knowledge tree. It has murder fruit growing on it.

  18. God decides that man shouldn’t be alone. Is this admission that he’s already made a mistake?
  19. So he promptly makes “every beast of the field”. Bestiality much? Apparently this Adam guy was quite the categorizer, because he names everything. Not sure what else he might have done with the animals too since they were made for him.
  20. Names names names, but Adam doesn’t like any of these beasts. Guess god didn’t know what he wanted off the bat? What happened to “all knowing”?
  21. He rufies Adam, grabs a bone from his body, and sealed the flesh up. Nothing about fixing the bone? How is Adam not in pain after this?
  22. Men are clay golems while women are flesh golems. It’s in the bible kids, the wizard is real!
  23. I assume that the original language has a word for “from man”. English does not


  24. Men and woman are meant for each other! Also, why would these 2 have any concept of father/mother?
  25. Why does this matter? There are literally places for people to go to in order to get naked nowadays, and the only reason they’re forced to go there is because society, not the people themselves, are ashamed.

Additional notes on chapter 2

This chapter implies that humans have always practiced agriculture. This is false. Humans started as hunter-gatherers and moved to agriculture around 9500BCE

For information on the Enuma Elish, check out the following links
https://www.ancient.eu/article/225/enuma-elish—the-babylonian-epic-of-creation—fu/

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Genesis Annotated: Chapter 1

Why Annotation?

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 2

Overview of chapter

Genesis 1 is an attempt to explain how the world came to be. God starts existing in an infinite plane of water, nips down to where he wants the earth to be, and then gets creating. This chapter contains the traditional creation myth that creationists and Christian fundamentalists believe to be true.

Additional Thoughts

This chapter alone contains many old and dis-proven ideas about how the world is structured. Coming from a bible that is supposed to be 100% accurate, this is a blow. For example, there are multiple references to outdated models of how the earth is structured (glass dome/firmament with stars/moon on it), complete ignorance of other planets, ignorance of the sun being a star, ignorance on what stars actually are, ignorance of the earth as a spheroid, and many many more.

Also damaging is the explanation of animals all being created at once, even if the “days” here are longer than a single day as apologists like to claim. The fossil record shown a slow and gradual speciation from a common ancestor to be a good explanation for how species came to be. If creation were true as creationists would like it to be, the fossil record would be a horrible mess.

Additionally, the order in which the planets and stars are created is directly counter to what science has shown to have happened. Stars came first, then planets. Not planets then stars.

The Scientific/logic/sequence mistakes in this chapter

  1. Is the universe empty, or made out of water? (Genesis 1:1)
  2. Light without a light source (Genesis 1:3)
  3. Darkness considered it’s own form of “matter” (Genesis 1:4)
  4. Just because it’s light doesn’t mean it’s day (Genesis 1:5)
  5. The sun does not exist yet. What constitutes a day? (Genesis 1:5)
  6. Iron age view of a flat world (table/glass dome/firmament model) (Genesis 1:6-9)
  7. Firmament created 2 times (Genesis 1:6, Genesis 1:7)
  8. That water requires somewhere to go (Genesis 1:9)
  9. Plants require sunlight to survive. There is no sun. (Genesis 1:11)
  10. Unscientific classification system (Genesis 1:12, 1:21)
  11. Endorses disproven Pseudoscience (Astrology) (Genesis 1:14)
  12. Contradicts later books (Genesis 1:14, Deuteronomy 18:10-14)
  13. Claims stars are merely small points of light on a dome (Genesis 1:14)
  14. Expressly geocentric (Genesis 1:15)
  15. The sun is not created with all the other stars (Genesis 1:16)
  16. Sometimes god creates with words, other times cannot
    • No explanation for why is ever provided
  17. Humans are animals and should already be created in 1:21 (Genesis 1:26)
  18. Anthropocentric bias (Genesis 1:26-28)
  19. Claims ALL animals are vegans (Genesis 1:30)
  20. Order of animal creation does not match fossil record
  21. Magic/Mythology (Genesis 1:1-31)

For bonus confusion, try read chapter 2 and then tell me whether man was made before or after the beasts were.

Explanations of selected mistakes

A consistency error: Genesis 11:14 expressly endorses astrology. Interpreting the signs which these lights are supposed to give is forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:10-14. So which should we follow?

Chapter 1: God does stuff

  1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
  2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
  3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
  4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
  5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
  6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
  7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
  8. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
  9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
  10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
  11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
  12. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
  13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
  14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
  15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
  16. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
  17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
  18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
  19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
  20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
  21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
  22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
  23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
  24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
  25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
  26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
  27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
  28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
  29. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
  30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
  31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
  1. Takes a God as a given… always begs the question “Where did god come from?”
  2. The writers of this myth think that everything not earth is an infinite plane of water. Where did this water (that doesn’t exist) come from?
  3. Light requires a source. The sun/stars weren’t made until day 4
  4. Darkness is the absence of light, not it’s own thing that can be moved around like this.
  5. If I have a lamp on, is it day? If I hide in a closet with the door closed, is it night? Also, saying this is a “day” here is ridiculous.
  6. Where did this water come from? This firmament model is an ancient, glass dome, flat earth model.
  7. So, this firmament thing…. that wasn’t created last verse when god said “let there be a firmament”? The light was created immediately, why make this twice?
  8. Christians used to think the Firmament was a glass dome covering a flat earth. Look it up!
  9. How? If I have a bottle that’s full of water and put a little divider in it, how would I get less water in the bottom to make “land” appear?
  10. If we believe this, then there’s some magical way to make less water in an infinite plane of water.
  11. Plants require sunlight to survive. Light may have been “made” first, but light still requires a source. The sun isn’t made till later. These plants should be dead pretty soon.
  12. The ancient authors have no clue how to classify things. These “kinds” are not categories. According to this, blueberries and apples are the same “kinds”, which is nonsense.
  13. This better be a literal day, those plants need sun!
  14. The stars are literally nothing but little points of light placed on the firmament?These “lights on the firmament” are also for signs which implies astrology is real.
  15. So the ONLY purpose everything in the sky has is to give light to the earth. Really? Other galaxies would like a word.
  16. I thought stars were made in 1:14. At least the poor plants have sunlight to keep them from dying.
  17. Just repeats the information from 11:15, although a little clearer.
  18. Despite god having already divided light and dark (1:4), he brings in a sun and a moon to do it again.
  19. Day 4 completed, time for a bathroom break!
  20. Why are the birds created from the water? Are they sea creatures? Does this also imply that birds can literally fly into heaven (above the firmament)?
  21. The authors again show that they do not know how to classify the immense diversity of life on this planet. A “Kind” is not a valid classification. Christians need to stop pretending that it is.
  22. In short: Animals should have sex and have it often so you can have lots of little babies. Does this apply to humans?
  23. Day 5 completed. Apparently a pretty short workday.
  24. Birds and sea creatures: Made of water. Land animals: Made of land. Again, even though it’s in the bible, a “kind” is not a valid classification of an animal.
  25. God seems to create things by speaking about them at the beginning. Here it seems like he actually has to make them. Why? What makes animals so immensely complex?
  26. I thought all land based animals were already made? Also, see rationalwiki’s annotated bible for a great explanation of the “us” in this verse. Briefly, there was some polytheistic leaning in the early phase of Judaism.
  27. Ah, so humans are special. Both male AND female were created, no bone stealing required. Implies many humans too.
  28. Humans having sex a lot are just fulfilling genesis 1:28. Given how many people are on the planet, I think it’s time religious fundamentalists stop trying to follow this one. Also, claims we’re better than everything else
  29. Not entirely sure why a tree would be yielding meat from a fruit. Sounds kinda disgusting. I know, it really means the meat of the fruit, but a literal reading required pointing that out.
  30. Animals only eat green herbs? What about predators who require the flesh of other animals in order to survive? Humans can’t get enough vitamin B12 on a vegan diet either.
  31. End of day 6. Apparently everything is good. Did god not know that he’d regret making the world in just a few chapters from now?

Additional notes on chapter 1

Everything in this seems to be as accurate as someone making wild guesses about what things are really like would be. For a “divinely inspired” work, I’d expect some actual truths about what things are like. For example, why not mention a heliocentric solar system model that would have predated any current knowledge of how the solar system works? That would be enough to add some authenticity to this. Alternatively, why not explicitly mention that life arose through a process that took millions and millions of years? Why not have amphibians, reptiles, and land mammals created before birds in order to match the fossil record?

There are many points that show this is limited to old understandings about how the universe works. Here are a few of them.

  1. The firmament, from Latin “Firmamentum” meaning “something which strengthens or supports”, references an outdated astronomical model. The firmament is a solid structure on which all the stars, the sun, and the moon are placed. For more information, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament
  2. The writers of genesis did not think the sun was a star. Otherwise, the sun would have been made right along side the stars with everything else.
  3. Thanks to the fossil record, we know that amphibians, reptiles, and land mammals predate birds and marine mammals. In this account, everything is brought in at once.
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Deconstructing the bible

Genesis Annotated: Chapter 1

My parents are religious, specifically, Christian. I am not. This has my parents confusion on how to act towards me and what it is that I believe. When talking to my parents, a lot of time I’m referred to the bible when they wish to make a point. Whether it’s about the fairy tales of creationism, Noah’s ark, Adam and Eve, or anything else, the bible keeps popping up in our conversations.

Because the bible is such a strong, central tenant that my parents cling to, I want to analyze the bible from an outsider’s point of view and show precisely why the bible is distrusted as a source by non-Christians. This outsider’s point of view is going to take the tenants that my parents follow to heart and show if there are any problems with them. These tenants are

  1. The bible is divinely inspired
  2. The information in the bible is true
  3. The bible is wonderfully self-consistent
  4. The bible contains true prophecies

Obviously, I disagree with all of these points. I believe the bible is more of a mythological document and extended analogy, but I’d like to go through and show why. I’ll be starting with Genesis. While a nice walk through the bible in the order it’s laid out would be nice, I suspect I will jump around from time to time.

I will use the King James Version (KJV) of the bible here. This is NOT because the KJV is the most accurate or easiest to read. This is because most people I know read/use the KJV almost exclusively.

Additionally, to prevent the common claim that I’m misrepresenting them (or anyone else) by using a literal interpretation of the bible, what other kind of reading meets those points? If even the first point is to be taken as true, the bible must be literally true. That would mandate a literal reading from the start. I will, however, do my best to show that the bible in nonsensical even without a literal reading.

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