David did that which was right (2Samuel 22)

One important thing to say about 2Samuel chapter 22 is that it's out of chronological order. It's been a while since I read 2Samuel, but I seem to recall the last few chapters are a bit of a muddle, and while I don't know about the scholarly consensus on this, I've always suspected that they were added on later. This may make sense of a few issues in the text.

So this is pretty much a psalm. There's going to be some poetic license. There's a lot of flowery speech about God's nostrils and riding on cherubs. Has there ever been a righteous person? Yes, but there is some subjectivity in the term "righteous" that muddies the water here. Sometimes we're talking about being completely righteous and innocent before God, that is, a person has not personally sinned. Sometimes the word "righteous" is used to describe something that a person seeking righteousness will do. Also, the Jewish concept of being "righteous" was largely different than the Christian concept, although there is overlap. The Christian doctrine of "original Sin" suggested that being fully righteous could only be attained through a positional righteousness with respect to Christ, nonetheless Jewish understanding of righteousness was also in part about attempting to grow closer to God. That being said, there's something about being "righteous" that is largely about trying to do right in both religious traditions, although sometimes the term is used to refer to someone who is completely blameless. See? Clear as mud! So, as for the "No" verses: As I've said before, Job is not a theologian, and he's talking from a place of great despair throughout his book. Isaiah is probably talking about the current state of the people of Israel, although many people do interpret this verse to be a universal decree, which is not necessarily a problem; compared to God, humans' acts of righteousness are comparatively "filthy rags." The verse in Isaiah chapter 41 may be similar, but it's worth noting overall that Isaiah has verses on both sides here, so it's unlikely his intentions are contradictory, especially since it appears that even just earlier in chapter 41 Isaiah is talking about "the righteous man". Romans 3:10 is Paul quoting from Psalm 14, which is translated differently in the KJV, and I believe is hyperbole, but Paul is trying to make a point about the law, and the impossibility of man fulfilling it, therefore full righteousness is only truly possible through the grace of God.

Did David sin? Of course he did, but yes, this deserves some examining. Probably the number one thing to say about David is that generally, people don't consider killing people in the course of warfare to be a sin; it's pretty clear David didn't. That's not the source of the contradiction, however. Yes, David sinned in the matter of Uriah and Bathsheba, and he at least felt that he had sinned in performing a census, although the latter is less clear. I believe that this chapter was written before Bathsheba, so while realistically, it's unlikely David was perfect, he had no significant sins at the time this was written. On the other hand, 1Kings was definitely written after David sinned, so what can be said? Something that is very important with respect to sin in God's eyes is repentance, which David was genuinely very good at in all the instances where he was called out. In the Jewish Law, when one sins, if one then repents and gives the proper sacrifice, then one is following the Law. It's really for this reason that David is often brought up as an example of righteousness; not because he was perfect, but because he sought the will of God.

The SAB marks other matters in this psalm with a number of things that are subjective, except for violence, but once again, we're talking about warfare, and scientific issues, but as I've said many times before, in poetry, there's a lot of flowery speech that isn't necessarily meant to be taken literally.

For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath (John 5:1-18)

John chapter five is another story about a miracle, and the fallout from it. It's worth noting that modern scholarship has decided that verse four and the last six words of verse three were likely not in the original manuscript, but were likely added some time later to give clarity to the story, not that the rest of the story doesn't largely imply what verse four is saying.

So there's a feast going on, and Jesus is in Jerusalem. Apparently there's this pool called Bethesda ("house of mercy" in Hebrew) where supposedly people who were sick could get cured. The catch was every once in a while the pool's water would stir up--supposedly due to the action of an angel--and only the first person in the pool got cured. So there's this guy who is probably a paraplegic who's been waiting by the pool for his turn for 38 years. It sounds weird, and a little pathetic, but the pool must have been the real deal, or why keep waiting? Jesus comes up to this guy and asks him if he wants to be healed. The guy doesn't understand what Jesus is really asking him and compains about how difficult it is to get in the pool in his condition without help. Jesus tells him to pick up his bed and leave. He does, as he's healed!

Now there is a problem here, because it's the sabbath. You can't be carrying even little things around, much less a bed. Some Jews, probably some Pharisees, see him with the bed, and tell him he's breaking sabbath law. He explains what just happened, seemingly implying that if a guy heals you and tells you to carry your bed, that's what you do. They question him and it comes out that he doesn't know who Jesus was. Later, he finds Jesus again, finds out his name, and gets an admonition from Jesus to stay away from sin.

The SAB notes that Jesus's admonition implies that, "Jesus believes people are crippled by God as a punishment for sin." There's a problem with this claim. First of all, and most simply, a lot of sins have the potential for bringing you trouble; Jesus may not be saying anything about the cause of the man's illness, but simply is warning him. Secondly, the Bible doesn't specify what exactly was wrong with the man or how he came to be that way, so it's possible that in his specific case, sin led him to be unable to walk. (You could speculate all day. Maybe he was committing adultery with another man's wife and nearly got caught, so he jumped out a window and broke his back. Maybe he stole something, and the person he stole from beat him so severely he couldn't walk. We of course don't know, but there are all sorts of possibilities.)

The man goes back to the people who were angry at him and tells them that it was Jesus who healed him. These Jews get angry at Jesus not just for telling the man to carry his bed, but apparently they even consider healing on the sabbath to be unlawful! Jesus says that God the Father works on the sabbath, and he will, too. Is it necessary to keep the sabbath? Sort of. The Ten Commandments, which include the law of the sabbath, were given to the Jews, so it's primarily a Jewish thing. That being said, there's nuance. First, to point out something about items in the "yes" column: the author of Hebrews is addressing Jews, and so was Jesus in Matthew 24:20, so the covenant of the sabbath is still definitely for Jews. Nonetheless, Jesus never denied that the sabbath was important; he simply pointed out on several occasions that the Pharisees were failing to remember that there are always exceptions, and a lot of what the Jews decided on their own to classify as "work" was a bit of an overkill. (It's actually a very interesting subject, and here's a good article on it from a Jewish source.) Isaiah 1:13 is one I think I addressed a long time ago for a different reason, but context is important. God isn't angry about the sabbath per se, but rather he's pointing out that the nation of Israel is so evil in general at this point in history that their religious observances are a mockery. I was thinking as a metaphor you could think of a man who keeps cheating on his wife but never takes off his wedding ring; he might as well take it off and throw it away if he's going to continue with that behavior, not because the ring is wrong, though. Paul is really the only writer who addresses the sabbath for Gentile Christians, and as the SAB notes, he's not really particular about it. It's good to keep the sabbath, but if you're not Jewish, the specific day doesn't really matter.

Does God work on the sabbath? This is easy. Yes, he does. The fact that God "rested" on the seventh day of creation doesn't mean he always rests on the seventh day. And I put "rested" in quotes, because I don't believe he actually rested then, either. I don't know how widely theologians would agree with me here, but what God rested from on the seventh day was active creation of the universe. In plenty of other ways, God is continually active. Many theologians believe Colossians 1:17 "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." implies that the universe as a whole is held together by God in some continual active manner. The word "consist" sounds very passive, but in other translations, it reflects a more active concept. (I think it's far more of a fringe belief, but I've heard it suggested that the strong nuclear force is actually the will of God, which is an interesting idea, truth or fantasy.)

I answered the question of whether Jesus is God in John chapter one.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin? (Luke 5)

In Luke 5, the SAB finds absurdity with the opening story of Jesus helping Simon Peter catch the huge amount of fish. Really, it is a ridiculous story; that's actually sort of the point of miracles isn't it?

As I said in commentary on the last chapter, while "they forsook all" might mean that Peter left his wife, it's not necessarily so.

The story of Jesus healing a leper is an interesting one for a number of reasons. One thing is the fact the Jesus chose to touch the leper, since lepers were "unclean"; I've actually heard it argued that the leper must have been healed before Jesus touched him, otherwise Jesus would be "unclean". Another thing that is interesting is that Jesus tells the man to go to a priest and do what the law of Moses commands a person cured of leprosy to do; it's odd that the law has such a provision, as there is no cure for leprosy.

In the story starting in verse 18, the SAB says that "Jesus cures a paralytic by forgiving his sins, thereby proving that he is God (since only God can forgive sins) and paralysis is caused by sin." I don't think that this is quite right. First of all, it appears to me that in the story, the forgiveness and the healing are two separate acts. Secondly, Jesus never says that paralysis is caused by sin.

Go, and sin no more (Mark 2)

I think everything in Mark 2 is a repeat of something from Matthew, but I suppose I can take the opportunity to broaden the commentary a bit. The SAB says that Jesus healed a paralytic by forgiving him of his sins and that paralysis is apparently caused by sinful behavior. I'm pretty sure I said before in the parallel passage in Matthew 9 that I believe the forgiveness and the healing were two separate issues. (I also argued there that Jesus was God, as that question came up there as well.) Something I think could be said to further the discussion is that while it's not always true that misfortune happens to people because of sinful behavior, the latter certainly can make one more susceptible to the former. Most sinful behaviors are dangerous in one way or another, and certainly can lead to disease or injury, which may have been the case in this man's life or not.

As for the rest of the chapter, there are only a couple questions about David, which I addressed in 1Samuel 21.

Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? (Judges 21)

Ah, doesn't this story keep getting better? No, not really. Apparently all of a sudden, the Israelites start realizing that--especially to the extent that they have butchered an entire tribe of Israel--two wrongs don't make a right. So naturally, they do what anyone would, and decide to see if maybe three wrongs will do the trick.

Since they had made a vow that they would never allow their own daughters to marry one of the Benjamites, they're in a quandary. They want to help the remnant of this tribe rebuild, but they can't do it without breaking their vows. The remaining Benjamites might have women of their own actually, but since there are such a small number of survivors of this genocidal rage we saw in the previous chapter, it seems to me that those women would probably be the daughters and sisters of the surviving men. Or it may be that they truly did destroy every city, and all inhabitants, which would have been all the women, the only survivors being a handful of fleeing Benjamite soldiers. Whatever the particulars of the situation, the Israelites show their moral fiber when they have to choose: On the one hand, they can break their rashly-made and morally-pointless vows, or they can kidnap, murder and pillage in the town of Jabeshgilead, the inhabitants of which are not bound by such a stupid vow and, apparently alone in all Israel in that day, had no blood on their hands. They of course choose the latter; you can't expect them to break their word, can you?

So they kill every man and every non-virgin woman in the city. I have no idea why this was supposedly necessary rather than simply kidnapping the virgins, but I don't understand much that these people do. (You almost imagine, what with the way they've conducted themselves in the previous chapter, that they got together and said, "But what if someone from the town complains?" Think...think...think. "I've got it! We'll just kill everyone, then they can't complain!") They bring the women back to the survivors of Benjamin, but there are only 400 virgins for what I assume is about a thousand soldiers. So, not nearly enough. What to do?

Solution? More kidnapping! (At least they didn't kill anybody else, I guess.) The people assembled, who I assume were not from the region of Shiloh, suggest that during an upcoming festival in Shiloh, the remaining unmarried Benjamites lie in wait for some young women who will come out to dance in the vineyards as part of the festival. If they simply drag these women off and marry them, then it's reasoned that their fathers will not be breaking their vows, since they didn't willingly allow their daughters to go. So they do it.

Summing up, kidnapping, lying, scheming, rape (of female virgins), arson, stealing, and mass murder are all considered to be preferable to breaking one's vow to the Israelites during this time, for "every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

Why am I summing up rather than explaining or excusing? I don't think there's much one can explain, and pretty much no excuse for this behavior. You can't blame it on God, though; you can't blame it on the Mosaic Law. These aren't people acting in the name of God; this is essentially random, bloodthirsty mass insanity.

Why is it here in the Bible? The SAB labels this passage in various places as essentially violent, unjust, misogynistic, and displaying a warped sense of family values. I'd be curious as to whether there is anyone alive today who professes belief in the Bible who disagrees with such an assessment; I certainly don't disagree. On the one hand, the simple fact is that this is supposed to be history. If this event actually happened--and indeed, who would want to make up such an event and put it into their own country's history?--then I think it would be immoral to simply sweep the whole thing under the rug. In the same fashion, Christian believers in the Bible need to deal with this story, and not pretend it doesn't matter. It's from this very nation, this very group of barbaric, bloodthirsty warriors, that the people we consider heroes of the faith arise. King David, the prophet Daniel, John the Baptist, even Jesus himself comes from these people.

The thing to realize from this, and so many other stories in the Bible, is that the Jews are God's chosen people. Not the best people in the world, and despite what you might think from this story, not the worst people either, just the chosen people. As such, they are simply people. What does the Bible tell us about people? "[T]he imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth", God says in Genesis 8. "[T]he heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live", King Solomon observes in Ecclesiastes 9. Jesus himself tells us in Mark 7 that, "For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly." And yet, it was this very same Jesus who gave up his life for the salvation of all of mankind. Why did God choose the Jews? Deuteronomy 7:7-8 says, "The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt." Why did Jesus decide to die for sinful people? Romans 5:6-8 tells us, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." It's in the stories of the very worst that humanity has to offer that we see the depth of the love of God: that despite our best efforts to be as evil and reprobate as possible, God still insists on reaching out to us in love. This horrible chapter in Israel's history is not the final chapter; it's only the beginning.

Whoring after the gods of the people of the land (Judges 2)

The second chapter opens with a rebuke of Israel from God, and an accompanying rebuke of the text by the SAB. Apparently, this rebuke is absurd, unjust and intolerant. Frankly, the only one I see is the intolerant bit, but as I have said before, absurdity and injustice are in the eye of the beholder, and I see no reason to excuse intolerant behavior on the part of God. They didn't do their job, now they suffer the consequences, and will repeatedly suffer the consequences throughout this book.

Actually, that covers pretty much all of the issues in this chapter. God is indeed intolerant, and it's a common view that it's not so much that God punishes them for turning their back on Him, but that turning their backs is its own punishment. Psalm 121 says "My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth." If you turn away from the source of your help, um, well... you'll be helpless, won't you?

And yes, the phrase "they went a whoring after other gods" is a bit harsh, but that's really part of the point. You might as well make yourself a prostitute as not follow God, or at least that's the metaphor used throughout scripture, most prominently in the book of Hosea.

Chapter 2 serves overall as something like an outline for the rest of the book; a "CliffsNotes" version of the book, if you will. The whole book is a repetition of the following process:

• God brings peace to Israel
• Israel gets complacent and turns from God to sin
• God allows them to be conquered by a foreign power
• Israel calls out to God for help and repents
• God delivers them from their situation through the use of a "Judge"
• ???
  
• Prophet!

Sorry, I couldn't resist that last bit; actually the first five essentially repeat over and over throughout the book, and probably one of the saddest things (or inspiring, as I have suggested before) is that even the people God chose to deliver Israel were far from great moral examples.

And if a man shall lie with... (Exod. 22:19 et al, sexual immorality)

I thought I had covered beastiality in my post on animal rights. I guess not. It's hard to keep track of what I was intending to do sometimes, I guess, but I'll assume I was leaving it for this post, where I will try to go over the broad topic of sexual sins in the Mosaic Law. For those wanting to keep track, I'm going to assume that the SAB has covered the topic properly and draw from its notes, which implies the subjects I'll be covering here will be from Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, Deuteronomy 22 and Deuteronomy 27, although a brief mention is made here in Exodus 22 of one of many issues. I'm aware that those are not the only passages in the Law that relate to things of a sexual nature, but tangential things like menstruation and whatnot I will leave for another time. (I give an open invitation to keep me honest on this matter, it will actually be helpful for me because sometimes I miss a topic and don't realize it.)

Sexual sin is a difficult topic to address, because for most people, it's much more of a matter of opinion than things like murder or stealing. I'm pretty sure that everyone has an imaginary line they've drawn in their head that they feel to cross that line would be doing wrong. Some people think masturbation is a sin (although the Bible addresses the matter only indirectly) while others do not. Some people think homosexuality is a sin (which the Bible does address, although not in great depth) while others do not. Most people think sexual relations with someone below a certain age is wrong, although most people differ on what age that is, and it may be flexible in their minds depending on the age and gender of the older partner (for instance, a lot of people see a big difference between a 50-year-old man having sex with a 17-year-old girl and an 18-year old woman having sex with a 17-year-old boy, although both may have the same technical legal status). I don't know that I can do much better than to simply give the facts as listed in the Bible and address the surrounding issues as best I can.

So, who should a man not have sex with? (I've always noticed that there is a possible issue with sexism in that God gives all of these rules to men, but it's quite likely He means them for both genders, simply not addressing the converse.) Leviticus 18 gives a bit of list of people whose "nakedness...shalt thou not uncover" (a euphemism), starting with "any that is near of kin". This is a bit vague, perhaps, but the chapter continues and gives specifics. Your father or mother (v. 7), your stepmother (v. 8), your sister even if she's only a half-sister (v. 9), your granddaughter (v. 10-11), your aunt or uncle (v. 12-14), your daughter-in-law (v. 15), your sister-in-law (v. 16), or any of the above relations in regard to your wife (v. 17-18). In addition to relatives, men are warned not to have sex with a menstruating woman (v. 19), another man's wife, (v. 20) another man (v. 22) or an animal (v. 23).

Now, in response to these issues, the SAB says a few specific things. I don't see that it says that it outright disagrees with these, but neither is it in full accord, of course. In the matter of incest, I'm going to assume that the SAB is in agreement, generally. While in some places it is not considered wrong to marry one's cousin (and it's also legal in many places, including here in California) I think most people would agree that the relations listed above are just a bit too close to be comfortable, not for genetic reasons, but emotional ones. The SAB does think that this list has an element of absurdity to it. While it doesn't make it perfectly clear what is absurd about the list, the note next to the first group may be intended to be a clarifier. Perhaps it's funny to talk of "uncovering the nakedness" of someone. First of all, as I said and I think is easy to pick up from larger context, this is probably a sexual euphemism. However, if it's not a sexual euphemism, I'm not sure what's absurd about it. Should you go around tearing the clothes off of your relatives? Of course not! Perhaps the ridiculousness was the thought it had to be said at all? Also, the SAB repeatedly labels this passage with the "Language" icon, which as I said elsewhere, I don't really understand. I'm not seeing foul language in this passage myself, just frank discussion of the issue at hand.

The SAB also points to the issue of incest and apparent contradictions on the matter. I have addressed this before, but I think it's useful to address it again here. When God handed down the Law to the Israelites, it was the first time He said anything about incest. The fact that incest had occurred previous to this point doesn't make it right or wrong, it just happened. Both Abraham and Jacob had marriage relationships that would have been forbidden under this Law, but they weren't under this law, so at least they were not violating a command from God. I may be wrong, but I believe Moses' parents were the last incestuous couple mentioned in the Bible that were not punished for their relationship.

Well, one of the real issues when it comes to sexual sin in the Bible is that we later find out that these are capital crimes. Well, most of them are; the punishment varies. Some involve being stoned to death, some burning, a few involve being cast out of society, and a couple seem to invoke supernatural curses of childlessness. Why kill people for doing these things? Well, I did touch on the topic of capital punishment earlier, but I probably should address these sexual sins in specific. As I said in that post, there is an issue of the nature of an ancient society with no effective centralized government or infrastructure; it's hard to punish crimes with anything much between light monetary fines and execution. Israel had no prisons, especially in their days of wandering in the desert. My post on witches talked a fair bit about why people were killed for religious transgressions, and while it was not satisfying to many skeptics I'm sure, I'm satisfied with what I wrote there. Can I address this the same?

Oddly enough, religious and sexual transgressions seem to be the two main categories of reasons for execution. God thinks highly of our intimacy with Him and with each other. The fact is, there is actually a certain amount of overlap, too. In Leviticus 20, There is some talk about the pagan god Molech. There was a practice in those days among pagans of a particular stripe to have illicit sexual encounters at a festival for Asherah. If they happened to get pregnant during this festival, the baby that was born would be given to the god Molech. Molech's idols were, if I remember this correctly, made of metal, and had outstretched arms. A fire would be set under Molech until he glowed with the heat, and then the live babies would be put into his arms to be burned. Thus it was a pagan practice of the time that involved sexual sin, idolatry, and murder, essentially the three things that would result in capital punishment in Israel. This is considered by many to be both a symbolic and literal example of what said in James 2:10: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." If you were participate in an Asherah festival, there's a good chance you're going to end up paying tribute to Molech as well. In sexual sin, you sin against yourself, against your partner, against God and in many cases against an as-yet unborn child who, though innocent, may have to suffer for your mistake. Sexual sin is indeed very serious, but sex kept within the confines of marriage is not only something that pleases God, but is something that cuts down one's chances of contracting STDs and creating unwanted pregnancies. While some scoff at the idea of "sexual sin", thinking it only a religious issue, the truth is that the way in which we express ourselves sexually has not just spiritual implications, but moral, physical and legal implications as well.

One last thing should be noted about this matter in stark contrast to many of the other aspects of the Mosaic Law. It's a common tactic among critics of Christianity these days to say, "Oh, you think X is wrong because the Bible says so? Well, why don't you (insert some oddity from the Mosaic Law like how one should supposedly kill one's neighbor for wearing mixed fabrics)?" It's true that the Law is full of items that sound strange to the ears of people living in a modern westernized world, but as I have said in numerous recent posts, the Mosaic Law applies only to Jews, and in some cases, only to Jews living in Israel. So why do Christians point to passages in the Law that denounce sexual immorality? Well, they're not wrong to do so, but don't worry critics, there's still an element or two of hypocrisy I think you can legitimately rail against.

In Acts 15, there's a story of the early Church fathers, and how they debated whether or not the Law applied to a gentile who became a Christian. If you become a Christian, must you therefore also be Jewish? They debated and finally came up with a decision. The essence is in Acts 15:29:

"That ye [non-Jewish Christians] abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well."

Thus, other than the Ten Commandments, the only thing that God expects from non-Jews is that they stay sexually pure and don't eat meat that has been (1) part of a pagan ritual, (2) killed cruelly or (3) not drained of blood. So next time a Christian tries to argue that the Bible condemns certain sexual practice, don't bring up the fact that his shirt is a poly-cotton blend (which in the end really is a non-sequitur), instead ask him if he likes to eat gravy, which is usually made from cooked fat and blood. I'll admit it: I'm guilty.

A nice bloody steak anyone?

Wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. (Gen 9:5-29)

Does God approve of capital punishment? That's actually a very good question, and one that many of us wish had a simpler answer. The fact is, God's view of capital punishment in the Bible is a question that would require the study of far more verses than the two quoted here. You'd have to look at passages like the one in which a man is killed for gathering firewood on a Saturday, or where Jesus forgives a woman caught in adultery (but never denies that adultery is a capital crime!), and many others. The short simple answer is, yes, God does approve of capital punishment; the long answer would be an extensive study on what sorts of things God considers worthy of death, and why, and when and why God prefers mercy. I don't believe I'm qualified to give an adequate response of the long sort, but I'd be willing to discuss my views on it in the comments section if anyone really is curious.

Verses 8-17 talk about the covenant that God makes that He will never destroy the world again through a flood, and He offers the rainbow as a sign of that covenant. The main beef that the SAB seems to have with this concept is a scientific one, that being that rainbows are a natural phenomenon. Personally, I don't see why this should be a problem. Just because rainbows may have existed before this covenant was made doesn't mean that God can't use them as a symbolic gesture. Take the early Christians as an example. They were of the habit of using a simple drawing of a fish as a symbol of their faith. Fishes existed before Christianity did, but they decided to use the symbol for their own purposes.

However, my own personal theory that I admittedly have little scientific basis for goes back to the water canopy theory. It seems to me that if the entire earth was covered with a layer of water acting a shield of some sort, then sunlight may not have refracted in precisely the way it does today. Furthermore, regarding this theory, you might remember that I had briefly speculated that it may never have rained before the flood. If it never rained, then there would never have been a rainbow. All of this is in the area of wilder speculation, of course, and the more important aspect of this part of the story is the symbolic aspect. The rainbow, as we now know, is not an actual bow, but is instead a circle that we only see part of from our vantage point standing on the earth. God uses the rainbow as a symbol, knowing that when we look at it, it will look like a bow, but without an arrow on the string. The symbolism is that God has fired this weapon He has, and He intends to now set it down, never to pick it up again.

The rest of the chapter is pretty much all about the drunkenness of Noah and the curse of Canaan. This is obviously a very strange story, and a lot of it that nobody really fully understands. The SAB gives a link to an excellent article on The Straight Dope, a site that I have a great deal of admiration for in many of these matters. (Even when I disagree with their conclusions, I respect the scholarship that went into them and consider them about as unbiased as it gets on the Internet.) It does seem a little odd to me that they link to an article that gives some straightforward answers to many of the questions they raise right before the link.

First of all, being drunk doesn't necessarily mean that you're not righteous, and I think it's perhaps quite understandable that after seeing the entire world destroyed, Noah might feel the need for a good drink, whether out of shock or guilt or depression. Secondly, being naked is also not a sin, especially if it's in the privacy of your own home (or tent as the case may be).

"What did [Ham] do besides look at him?" the SAB asks. First of all, looking at him alone is not entirely inoffensive; I think Noah has a right to some privacy, and Ham's violating that. On top of personally violating his father's privacy, Ham goes and tells his brothers that this is going on, as if it's their business! Granted, on the face of it, there seems to be very little reason to go so far as to put a curse on someone, and even if Noah was justified, it's not too clear why he curses Canaan rather than Ham. The Straight Dope gives the only possibility that even begins to make sense to me, that being that since Ham shamed his father, Noah shamed Ham's son. I don't know, though really, although there are a number of interesting speculations given in the article there. Actually, something that occurs to me now is that since at this time Canaan is the only offspring of Ham mentioned, he may in fact be the only one at this time, and Noah may be using Canaan's name as a generic label for all the descendants of Ham. Not that it fully justifies the curse, but it might make more sense.

Does God approve of slavery? That's a tough question that has been struggled with for a long, long time. You may have heard this sort of response before, but I do think it's the correct one. Yes, God does approve, but it depends on the definition of slavery. In Exodus 21, it's made clear that among the Israelites that slavery is never to be a permanent thing, and furthermore, slavery is essentially a voluntary position. There are some exceptions that get complicated, but the idea is that if a person sank into poverty and could no longer afford food, one could sell oneself to another person (but you couldn't sell someone else), and then they were bound to serve that person for six years, or until their price could be paid back, whichever came first. Maybe it's not ideal, but it's not the same as we think of slavery from the early 1800s, not by a long shot. (For more observations on the nature of Biblical slavery, see this post.)

But the SAB asks the excellent question "Are we punished for the sins of others?" Yes and no. Sometimes, we end up having to take responsibility for the sins of our parents and grandparents just because it's the natural result of what they did. For instance, when a pregnant woman abuses drugs, her child is often born with health problems, and that's not a curse or a punishment, it's just the way things are. Some things are more subtle, like parents dying and leaving you with their debts to settle, parents doing bad things to you that leave you emotionally scarred, and so forth. In general, it's just a fact that people tend to follow in their parents' footsteps, and if you do something that you really ought not do, your children may be cursed for it not because God's angry at you, but because they decided to follow in your footsteps. This may not account for every instance on the page linked, but I think it accounts for a lot of them, and I'll discuss other ones when I get to them. In this case, it may be the fact that Ham's immoral act performed for Canaan to witness it may have led Canaan into a sinful life which in turn led his descendants into sinful ways of their own. So think about the example you set for your children, all you parents out there.

It repenteth me (Gen 6:6-10)

Okay, I've got to tell you this is one of the more difficult things to deal with in the Bible. Jewish theology takes a very hard-line stance that God does not change, period. (It's actually for this very reason that many Jews reject Christian theology, as they view the incarnation of Christ to be a "changing" of God's essential nature, which is easy to understand.) If God doesn't change, and indeed, even Christians believe that God doesn't change His mind at least, then what does it mean here and in a number of other places that God "repents" of something?

Probably, you have to look at the nature of the word itself. Interestingly enough, in the Hebrew this is a word with the same root that Noah's name comes from, and Noah's name means "rest" or "comfort". Actually, this word is translated most often as either "comfort" or "repent", and slightly more often the former. But enough Hebrew, I need to get to the point, or at least a point. What can we say about a word that can be translated as either "repent" or "comfort"? What do these terms have in common? I think the operative idea behind both senses of the word is "This has gone on long enough, so we will put a stop to it."

On a personal note, I myself have been doing a study of the concept of repentance, both for my personal spiritual walk, and for my understanding of theology. When a person becomes a Christian, theologically it is understood that one's salvation comes from the Lord, and only from the Lord. There is nothing one can do to earn it, one merely accepts it from God. Yet somewhere in the midst of this, there is a call for the believer to repent from sin. Is repenting from sin something one does in order to become a Christian, or is it something one does as a result of becoming a Christian? In either case, even if one has been a Christian for some time, repentance is something one has to deal with over and over, since becoming a Christian does not imply immediate perfection. So what is repentance? Repentance is deciding that the bad situation in one's life has gone on long enough, and it's going to stop. That may be repenting from a life separated from God, or it may be repenting from a particular habitual sin. A person probably never made a conscious decision to have habitual sin, nor did they purposefully separate themself from God, but they decide it's time to do something about it.

Here, God is looking at the world He created, and He's saying, "Alright, this has gone on long enough. The world is now so much of an evil place that something needs to be done, and I will comfort the good men of this world by ending the existence of the bad men." And I think, but I can't say for sure without reading through the list, that that's what God means whenever He "repents": that He is going to stop something from continuing.

The SAB goes onto say that the flood as a very concept is "cruel and violent". I actually agree. This is one of the first of many times in the Bible that God does something that I find quite shocking. The real question in the end is whether such an act was warranted. I think verse 5 was trying to hint at that, that evil had reached epidemic proportions, and there was really nothing left to do.

Was Noah perfect, though? The SAB quotes the KJV as saying "Noah was a just man and perfect." However, this is somewhat of a misquote. The KJV does not have a period there, and the rest of the sentence is important in two ways. The full sentence: "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God."

What does "...perfect in his generations..." mean? Here's a thought I have heard that makes sense in light of yesterday's post: Noah had a clear genealogy going back to Adam that didn't include any Nephilim. One of the things that God may have been trying to do is rid the world of the polluted genetic material of these "giants", and Noah, as well as being a pretty good guy, was also someone whose family was 100% human. It may have simply meant that he was a good guy in comparison to everyone else in the world, too.

I think the thing that really sets Noah apart is that he "walked with God" however. It seems pretty clear from the Bible as a whole that the thing God esteems most in a person is their devotion to Him. Noah is a person who wants to do right in the eyes of the Lord, so he spends time devoted to Him. That's what really makes him the right person for the job.

Final note before I wrap this up: I don't think Shem, Ham, and Japheth are triplets, and I've heard it suggested that in fact they may not have been born in that order, either, but were listed according to the importance of their descendants, Shem being the father of the Middle Eastern people, including the Jews, Ham being the father of the Canaanites, whose land eventually becomes Israel, and Japheth, whose descendants don't play a big role in the events of the O.T.

The way of Cain (Gen 4:8-26)

Sure enough, as God warned Cain, his jealousy and selfishness eventually led to further sin. Cain murders his brother.

I think in order to stay consistent with its objections in verse 3:9 and elsewhere, the SAB really ought to mark every passage in which God asks a question. If God knows everything, why is he asking questions? Of course, if anyone did indeed have a problem with this, it should be especially clear in this passage that God is not asking questions that He doesn't know the answer to, as He proceeds to essentially immediately answer His own question in verse 10. God's looking for a confession from Cain, but all He gets is a smartass retort, "Am I my brother's keeper?" (It's an interesting parallel in the KJV that Abel was a "keeper" of sheep, and Cain's final word on his rivalry is to point out that he's not a "keeper". However, I looked, and this parallelism is not in the original Hebrew, so it's just an oddity of this particular translation.)

Anyway, for committing the second murder, Cain gets a curse. It's not clear at all to me what portion of this curse is punitive and what is just the natural consequence of his transgression. Being "a fugitive and a vagabond" seems like the sort of thing that just plain happens when you're a murderer, since you will eventually have to flee the scene of the crime, and it seems somewhat reasonable to assume that all of the people in the world at this point, however many they are (could be several, although probably not many) all live in the same general area, and are near relatives of his brother and him. So, he has to run away. As for the ground somehow being even more cursed for him than it was for his father in the previous chapter, I don't know what that's about. Perhaps since they are likely living near the garden of Eden, the ground in that area is nicer than in outlying regions. That's pretty speculative, though.

So Cain proceeds to complain about his punishment, and claims that people will try to kill him. I don't really understand why he is so certain this would be so, nor why God seems to agree that there is a risk and protects him. Actually, the whole "mark" thing is rather odd, and I wonder what sort of mark a person might have that would say to any person he met, "Hey, don't kill this guy!" but apparently, such a mark existed. (I don't buy that this has anything to do with dark-skinned people, especially since it's likely no descendants of Cain were on the ark.) Most likely, God is interested in preventing vigilante justice; Cain has already received a punishment from God, nothing more is needed.

Cain also says to God, "From thy face shall I be hid." This is not to say that God shall be unaware of the doings of Cain from this point onward, but rather that Cain is turning away from God, so to speak. God has an eye on everyone in the world, but not everyone has an eye on God. Sometimes my children, when they get angry, will turn their backs to me, effectively hiding themselves from [seeing] my face, but not becoming invisible. This is the same sense that is meant by "out from the presence of the LORD" in verse 16.

Starting in verse 17, we get a sort of life story and genealogy of Cain. Yes, Cain had a wife. No, the Bible doesn't say where she came from. Most likely, she was a sister, but as some others have pointed out, she could have been a niece (although such a niece probably would have been the offspring of two of Cain's siblings, so it hardly makes her less of a close relative genetically). They settle down somewhere far away from the rest of civilization and start a family.

They also start a city, which the SAB is right to be confused about in light of Cain's curse to be a "fugitive and a vagabond". Such people don't make cities. Some possibilities come to mind, though. Cain did remain a fugitive from the other part of society for all of his life, I think we can pretty safely assume. The curse may have simply been that he had to leave all that he had previously held dear and relatively become an outcast. Another couple of possibilities both have to do with that part of his curse being temporary. God said he'd have a hard time with planting "henceforth", but doesn't really give a timeframe for being a vagabond. Either eventually it just ran out and was no longer effective (not all natural results of sin last forever), or if it was a punitive sentence set on him by the Lord, then he simply refused to comply. In the latter case, building a city was yet another act of defiance, which may well fit with his character as we know it.

I guess I'll wrap up this post with a few comments on Lamech, Cain's great-great-great-grandson, of whom for some unknown reason quite a bit is said. Perhaps the reason is that he seems to be exceptionally evil, although he does seem to have okay kids. Lamech is the first noted polygamist in the Bible. I already mentioned my view on the Biblical subject of polygamy at the end of this post, and I think all that needs to be added is that it's hard to see (at least for me) that the Bible is setting this guy up as an example of righteousness and right living. Lamech makes a claim at the end of his story that although he is a murderer, in the manner that Cain was promised to be avenged "sevenfold", he would be avenged "seventy and sevenfold". The SAB calls this absurd and unfair, and I totally agree, but I also point out that this is Lamech talking about himself, not God saying anything about anyone at all.

Aw, heck, I'm going to consider that the end of the chapter for me. There's really nothing to say about the last two verses that hasn't already been said about the first two in yesterday's post. Have a great weekend, everyone!

To die is gain (Gen 3:20-24)

The SAB takes issue with the statement that Eve is "the mother of all living", but for an odd reason. Well, at least I think it's odd. The issue is not with the concept that all humans are descended from a common female ancestor (and actually, I think biology may teach that to be the case, someone can correct me if I'm wrong) but that there was supposedly a man named Melchizedek who had no ancestry. I'm going to save discussion of Melchizedek for chapter 14, where he shows up in person. This guy is definitely an oddball in the Bible, and there are more than a few theories concerning his nature.

God makes some fur coats for Adam and Eve, which the SAB labels as an absurdity, but doesn't explain why. This is actually a much more significant event than most people get on a surface reading, and is worth noting. Previously, Adam and Eve had covered themselves with fig leaves, and before that, they ran around naked. This indicates to me that the issue of clothing was a matter of covering up nakedness, and not a matter of protecting against the cold. Yet God feels there is a need to give them furs to cover them. A pattern throughout the Bible is the idea that sin leads to death; but not always the death of the person who sins. In this case, while Adam's death is put off for at least another 800 years, God can't let it rest without the death of some animals. This is actually the beginning of the sacrificial system, and the idea that the only thing that can cover up the sin of the guilty is the blood of the innocent. Don't ask me why, I don't understand it well myself.

After giving them the skins, God expresses concern that Adam and Eve have access to the tree of life. (Comments on God using "us" are back here.) Apparently eating the fruit from the tree of life will make one immortal. I think the SAB has a bit of a clear misreading in its notes here, however*; God isn't afraid that mankind will become like God by eating the tree of life, He's grieved that they have already become like Him by eating the forbidden fruit. Note that the tree of life was not a tree they were banned from eating, but the situation has changed. As I said before, now the world is not a pleasant place to be in, and mankind has become separated from God. In order to fix both these situations, God decides that it will be an act of mercy to let mankind die. In dying, they will have the chance to be separated from their physical sinfulness and eventually brought back into a relationship with God in Heaven. Remember, in Christian theology, death is not a bad thing in and of itself. If you desire to be with God, then you will be. If you desire to have God leave you alone, then that will happen for you.

Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden, and a guard is set to make sure that nobody goes back in and gets to the tree of life. It would be very tempting for someone to go and eat from that tree, but it would be wrong to do so, because it would make their life a living Hell.

I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis' book The Magician's Nephew, which Lewis clearly intended to be an allegory of a sort for the Genesis story. Near the end of the book, the main character, a boy named Digory discusses with Aslan (symbolic of Jesus) how he was tempted to steal a magic apple to take home to his sick mother. A witch had told him that the apple would have healed her sickness. Aslan responds to Digory:

"Understand, then, that it would have healed her; but not to your joy or hers. The day would have come when both you and she would have looked back and said it would have been better to die in that illness."

Like Digory's mother, we're all suffering from an illness known as sin, and to have eaten an apple that made us live forever would not so much cure the illness as treat one of the symptoms. We're all going to die someday, and it's something that everyone ought to know, but even Christians often forget, but dying is not a loss, it's just stepping into the next phase of our existence, and one that for many of us will be a much better one.

*SAB notes have been changed since the writing of this entry; see comments.

And so death passed upon all men (Gen 3:14-19)

I've always thought it was a little strange that God doesn't ask the serpent for his version of what happened. Maybe God was tired of hearing people pass the buck, or perhaps since the serpent is apparently Satanic, He's just not interested in hearing any lies at this point in time. Anyway, after asking questions of the man and the woman, He just goes straight to pronouncing the curse on the snake.

Now a part of this is definitely my own opinion, and I'm not sure whether more formal theologians share this viewpoint, but I don't think God has much of a choice in this matter. A lot of Christians seem to operate under the assumption that God makes up the moral law, and that apart from God creating moral law, it simply wouldn't exist. I tend to believe that there may be certain aspects of the rules of morality and spirituality that God has no control over. I know many skeptics would ask whether that means God is not omnipotent after all.

I think omnipotence, while still being omnipotence, is actually limited by logic. I believe there are certain things that are a part of the world that are that way simply because having them not be that way would be absurd. The concept of 1+1=2 is a concept so basic that I don't think even God can make it not be true, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect Him to have that sort of power. Mathematics, geometry, logic and certain aspects of physics are, I believe, beyond God's control: they simply are true. If that's the case (and I leave it without proof as such proof may be well beyond my ability) then might it not also be true that at least some aspects of moral and spiritual law are beyond God's ability to change?

God is a being that is entirely good. Interestingly enough, that creates a difficulty for God, as He is by His very nature repellant to evil. Once the fruit had been eaten, God was unable to have the same sort of relationship with mankind that He'd had before. As I said previously, Adam "died" to his relationship with God. This in itself was a curse, as having an intimate relationship with God is (so a Christian believes) the absolute best thing one can have. So part of the curse that now comes upon Adam, his wife, the serpent, and the whole world is actually not by God's choice, but simply the logical conclusion of God having to step back and let Adam live without Him. Some of it is by God's choice, either to punish, to fix the situation, or both.

The curse God gives the serpent in verse 14 seems to be clearly punitive. Essentially, as just about everyone reads this, God takes away the serpent's legs, forcing it to walk on its belly and "eat dust". I don't see any reason to take that latter concept more literally than the fact that, having its face always on the ground or mere inches from the ground, it probably does swallow a fair amount of dust on a regular basis. (Note that this serpent takes on a curse that eventually affects the roughly 3,000 modernly known species of snakes. Perhaps all those species evolved from this one and its mate?) The part of the curse in verse 15 is part natural and part, well, something else. Simply because of the role that the serpent played in all of this, and because of the form snakes took afterwards, they became despised by humanity. (In general, of course; I've owned pet snakes myself, and think they're quite nice.) But of course, many Christians have also taken this verse to be a prophecy of the crucifixion: that one day a man would come who would be injured by Satan, but would, in the injuring, cause Satan utter destruction.

God then turns to the woman, and tells her that she is to be cursed with painful childbirth and an apparently subordinate position under men. I once read an interesting analysis of this concept from an evolutionary point of view. Of all the animals, humans seem to have the most painful process of childbirth. Interestingly enough, this is due in part to the fact that the pelvis is shaped differently due to our being bipedal, and our infants having very large heads. Thus when we, as a species, were separated from other animals, it was when we walked upright and became intelligent which led to change in social structure, development of tools and language, changed sexual practice, and difficult childbirth. Whatever your views on this, I think it's true that being intelligent can be painful at times. The woman wanted to be smarter, and it cost her, whatever the reason was. The fact that she ends up in a subordinate position to men is, in my opinion, not because God wanted to push her down, but because men, in their fallen state, have a tendency to do this anyway, which doesn't make it right. Maybe I'm too much of a feminist to be a good Christian.

Then God turns to man and curses the ground. (The SAB notes that Adam is cursed for listening to his wife, but I don't this is a sexist thing; only that Adam should have listened to God rather than anyone else at all regardless of gender.) Adam now has to work to get his food, rather than having lovely fruits to eat in a beautiful garden. Whether new types of plants with thorns and such came about because of this curse, or that they simply didn't exist in the garden, and man had to deal with them when he was tossed out, I don't know. I think there was a bit of both. The garden was meant to be an ideal situation, and probably had only fruit trees, and perhaps soft grass underfoot. Outside, things were wilder, and work was needed to produce something edible for mankind. And of course, after working hard for years and years to make things comfortable for himself, in the end physical death would come.

Now, natural consequences or choice of God, why are these curses a good thing? As I said above, the assumption we work with here is that the relationship that mankind had with God before the fall is the highest good that man can enjoy, but eating the fruit has destroyed that good. If God is righteous, and by His very nature that He cannot change, demands righteousness, how can an unrighteous human being come to have a relationship with God? The answer is justice. Man must pay for his crimes against God, and the payment is death. God doesn't allow them to live forever separated from Him, but causes them to live in a world that is difficult and deadly, so that they will always remember that their aim is to make it through life to a better life with God after they pass away. The full details of this really come out in the life of Jesus, of course, but some of it will be in the rest of this chapter.

And the eyes of them both were opened (Gen 3:7-13)

I think many children go through a process like this at some point in their life: having their eyes opened, as it were. There comes a day when you realize that you have the freedom to act against your parents' will. This happens at different ages and in different ways, but whatever it is, you suddenly realize your own power as a free individual, and it changes the way you see the world around you. Oh my gosh, mommy and daddy don't know everything! Well, in this case, God is the parent, and He does know everything. But the fact that He knows everything and has the ability to control everything doesn't mean that it's something He's going to flaunt. Still, the man and woman had their outlook on God change.

The very first manifestation of this was noticing that they were naked. There's once again something literal and figurative in this. All throughout the Bible, there's a linkage between the themes of clothing and sin. In particular, I've always thought it was interesting to look at the parallel between this chapter and the story of the crucifixion. The man and the women sin against the will of God; Jesus becomes sin according to the will of God. The man and the women are separated from God's presence by guarding cherubim; the curtain of the Jewish temple which is embroidered with cherubim and separates man from God is torn open. God gives mankind clothing by killing an animal; mankind takes Jesus' clothing and kills Him on the cross. It's an interesting symbolic and literal reversal on many levels. In any case, they suddenly realize they've got something shameful to cover up.

The next thing that happens is that God "shows up". I put it in quotes because, as the SAB points out, there's some trouble you run into if you take verse 8 fully literally. Here's God in the garden, walking and talking like just some other guy, it almost seems. But we do know both from scripture and from commonly accepted doctrine that God has no body. A very likely possibility is of this passage being figurative; to some extent, it must be since God is also omnipresent. Then again, having no corporeal substance and being omnipresent at the same time is also a problem. I think it simply has to be accepted that God was literally there in the garden in some form, because even if he has no "body", He's everywhere, which includes the garden. So the sense of omnipresence is a spiritual rather than physical thing necessarily. (I hope this is making some sort of sense, I'm not feeling really well today for some reason.)

Another thing that is also often accepted, though, is that God does, at times, cause Himself to take on a physical human-like form (if not actually human). The man and woman perhaps experienced Him often in this form, visiting them in the garden. This time, when they heard Him coming, they hid. The fact that they hid from an omniscient being doesn't pose a conundrum, nor does the fact that God asks them where they are. My own children sometimes climb into my bed and pull the covers over their head to hide, completely missing the fact that the child-sized lump in the bed discloses their location. If I say, "Where are you?" I'm not admitting ignorance, but feigning it for the purpose of playing along in a little hide-and-seek. God's not playing, but throughout the Bible, God asks people questions He already knows the answer to in order to give them a chance to confess and seek forgiveness. I've heard some pastors muse that if Adam had only popped out and said, "Alright, I was hiding because I was ashamed that I ate the fruit, and now I'm afraid I'm going to die, please forgive me?" that things would have been, well not back to perfect, but better in any case.

God even gives Adam a second chance, hinting at the truth. Adam takes the chance to put the blame not only on his wife, but God Himself: "The woman (yeah, it was the woman, that's right, I was just standing here!) whom thou gavest (wait a minute, wasn't it God's idea that I had to have this trouble-maker with me? Yeah, I think this was His fault; I want my rib back!) to be with me..." The woman even tries to pass the buck as well. In the end, though, God's not buying any of it.

I think the Bible is a strong supporter of the idea that everyone is responsible for their own choices. I think it may sound odd coming in the middle of the story of original sin, and how this one act of eating a piece of fruit ended up changing the world for every human that ever lived, but it fits here. Yes, we are all stained by original sin, and have that sinful nature within us that we inherited from Adam, but at the same time, God will expect us to take responsibility for our own lives and our own destinies. In tomorrow's entry, I'll talk about the curse that came on the world, but I'll also talk a bit more about God's plan to take care of lifting the curse. God does His part, and we do ours. And it's not a meet me halfway deal, it's God coming 100% of the way, and only asking for your response.

That old serpent (Gen 3:1-6)

Although the meaning of the Bible comes through well enough in the English translations, there definitely is some advantage to reading these things in the original Hebrew. God seems to really like poetry and wordplay, and the Old Testament is full of that sort of thing. The word translated here as "subtil" ("cunning", "clever", "crafty" or "shrewd" in other translations) sounds almost identical to the word used in the previous verse for "naked". Aside from sounding interesting, there is likely to be an intention of drawing your mind to the contrast. In chapter two, everything is innocent and out in the open, while here we have a creature who has some sort of secret.

Who is this creature, "the serpent"? I know some people have suggested that we might be talking about a d r a g o n, (pardon the spaces, this post seems to be attracting spam) as the term is used in the book of Revelation and refers back to this event. This holds some appeal, as mythologically, such beasts are often thought of as very dangerous and very clever, and sometimes even talking beasts. I don't think we can quite ignore the way this chapter works out in the end, however, since the serpent is apparently cursed to go upon his belly, which seems a clear reference to snakes as we know them; I'm inclined towards the common understanding of this being partially a tale of why snakes have no legs, since it seems to make sense to read it that way.

Still, a talking snake? What's up with that? One possibility that I've heard is that before the fall, perhaps all creatures were able to freely converse with one another. That has a certain poetic appeal, I think. Another one is that since it seems this snake is possessed by the spirit of Satan, it was through Satan's power that the snake was given the ability of speech. This also has some appeal. I don't see anything in the chapter that seems at all conclusive as to what's going on here though. It's even entirely possible that the snake was communicating non-verbally, if you think about it. If you were standing by a fruit tree and wanted to offer a piece of fruit to another person standing nearby, I think you could easily do so without speaking a word. That might be a bit of a stretch, though.

(This brings up another point about my personal take on the book of Genesis. Since even those who believe that the book of Genesis was divinely inspired believe it was written hundreds of years after the events within it, and actually thousands after these specific events of creation, I don't tend to assume that any dialogue is a direct quote, so to speak. And even the Gospels show that eyewitnesses sometimes don't remember speeches word for word.)

It's interesting that although the serpent is essentially lying from the beginning, when the woman corrects it, she also gets God's command wrong. God never said not to touch the fruit. I've certainly heard it said that this subtle difference may have been part of the problem. Once she touched the fruit and found no ill effects, she may have become confused as to the truth. In any case, the serpent's lie was almost a sort of half-truth, as indeed, they did come to know good and evil. They already knew good, as it was in everything that God had given them, but once they ate the fruit, they knew evil, and it was specifically the evil they themselves had committed in rebelling against God's command.

Whatever the specifics here, however, something that definitely is very interesting is the manner in which she is tempted. She "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". This is an interesting scriptural pattern that is outlined in 1John 2:16

For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

This suggests that from the beginning throughout history, temptation has always been the same. 1) "If it feels good, do it!" 2) "If it looks good, do it!" and 3) "Look out for #1." This is the same sort of temptation that Jesus got in Luke 4 (and Matthew 4 as well), but He resisted.

So, the big question that every skeptic wants to ask, and rightly so, is why they didn't die at this point? Didn't God say "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"? The answer, which will no doubt not appease most skeptics, is to appeal to figurative speech. The two words here that are key are "day" and "die", and either one or both of them is figurative. I believe both are.

First of all, as I noted before, the term "day" can mean a number of things, not just in the Bible, but in modern usage. Sometimes it means "while the sun is out". Sometimes it means "a 24-hour period". Sometimes it means "an indefinite period of time that has a particular notable characteristic (definitions 6&7 from the above link). It's this latter meaning that is meant here I believe. It was the moment that man rebelled against God and brought sin into the world that the door was also opened for death to enter in. As is said in James 1:15 "sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." So God was really saying that once the fruit was eaten, a new era in which people die--including Adam in particular, of course--will begin. Of course, it has lasted up until now, and will continue to last until God changes it somehow.

More subtle is the word "die", however, and this may be more of a Christian viewpoint than a Jewish one, but the manner in which the human race "died" upon eating the fruit was not a physical death, but a spiritual one. We, as a race, died to our innocence; we died to our intimate relationship with God; something profound was lost. Sometimes Christian theologians refer to this as the death of our spirit, which causes us as a race to be all condemned to Hell by default. I have heard other people, Christian or not, refer to the concept that we as living beings in this world are dying a little bit every day. Supposedly that was not the case before the fruit was eaten, because there was no such thing as death.

Of course, the implications of eating the fruit don't stop there. More tomorrow...