The wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger (Ruth 3)

So here's Naomi's plan: Ruth is to go down to the threshing floor that night and meet up with Boaz. She will appeal to his better nature (and his probable sexual desire for a beautiful young woman) in order to ask him to perform his sacred duty as a "kinsman".

The nature of the duty of a "kinsman" is outlined in various spots in the Mosaic Law. There are different words for a relative, but the Hebrew word goel means something deeper. One aspect that is not applied in this story, but is highly important, is that of an avenger of a slain relative. When someone was killed, it fell to the goel to track down the killer and bring him to justice. In this case, the dead relative died of natural causes, so this service is not needed, but the goel served two other purposes, both of which are needed under the Law.

Leviticus 25 talks about how real estate works among the Israelites, and in particular, verses 23-28 outline the fact that when land is sold, it must always be made available to the original family that sold it to buy it back. This was one of the duties of a goel: to buy back land for his family if he was able. But what good would it do Ruth and Naomi to have land in a culture where women didn't generally do business? This is where the third and most foreign-sounding custom of the goel comes into play: the so-called "Levirate marriage". In Deuteronomy 25:5-10, it is explained how a family is to deal with a widow who has no children. In Israelite culture, it was considered very important to have a son to carry on the family line, and if a man died with no son, his wife was to marry the deceased husband's nearest relative and bear a son that would be the heir. There are some especially odd elements to this law that we will revisit in the next chapter.

So, back to our story; Ruth and Naomi are thinking that Boaz can be not just a generous giver of charity, but potentially he could be the solution to all their problems, buying back Elimelech's land and giving Ruth a son. Boaz wakes up in the middle of the night and is startled to find Ruth at his feet. Ruth implies (although once again, I'd like to point out nothing explicitly happens) that Boaz should do his duty and "spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman." This is a bit of a double-entendre, implying both "give me protection" and "let's get it on, Boaz."

Boaz is flattered, but initially says no, because it turns out he's not Elimelech's nearest living male relative, and he has to give the other guy first chance to carry out the duty of goel. He lets her sleep there until morning, and sends her away with more food, assuring her that he'll resolve the matter.

Where does all of this business of a goel's duties come into our allegory? It's actually central. The nation of Israel awaits their Messiah, knowing that he will come and redeem them, returning them to their land and restoring their inheritance. It's interesting that the rules about the redemption of the land in Leviticus 25 should be side-by-side with rules about the sabbatical year. The Israelites were told that they should only plant in their fields for six years, and let them lie untended and unharvested in the seventh. God actually told them that if they failed to do this, He would take those years back from them (Leviticus 26:33-35). God gave Israel the land of Canaan, but they lost it and went into exile; twice, actually.

Both the nation of Israel and some members of the gentile nations recognize their need for a redeemer, but can we be sure that this redeemer is Christ? What if there is another way? Does Christ have to yield to "a kinsman nearer"? Can a goel redeem even a foreign woman?

And now is not Boaz of our kindred, with whose maidens thou wast? (Ruth 2)

As chapter 2 opens, we are introduced to arguably the hero of this story, a man by the name of Boaz ("strength"). Boaz is apparently a wealthy in-law of Naomi, which will be very important to the story.

In the land of Israel, it was a custom that people who could not fend for themselves, namely orphans and widows, were allowed to walk in the fields during harvest time and "glean". Essentially, if the harvesters were gathering in the grain and they let some fall on the ground, they were not allowed to go back and pick it up, but they had to leave it for the poor (Leviticus 19:9,10). Ruth goes out to glean and as luck (fate? providence?) would have it, she ends up in Boaz's field.

That very day, Boaz drops by to check on the harvest, and sees this young foreign woman in his field. He asks who she is, and is delighted to find out that it's Naomi's daughter-in-law, as he's heard the story and apparently thinks highly of this young woman. Boaz goes to talk to Ruth and tells her to stay in his field during the harvest, because he's personally vouched for her safety there (apparently, gleaning was not always a safe activity). He also offers her a chance to eat and drink with the workers. Lastly, out of her earshot, he tells the workers that if they catch Ruth picking in a place where she wouldn't normally be allowed, they should let her, and if they see her gleaning near them, they should be sloppy and let more grain fall for her.

At the end of the day, she goes home to Naomi with a huge pile of grain, much more than should be expected. Naomi questions Ruth, and finds out that Boaz is behind this. Naomi praises God for their good fortune, and no doubt begins to hatch a plot that we'll see carried out in the coming verses.

So, on to the allegorical aspects of the story: Who is Boaz? Well, literally, he is actually in the royal line of Israel, being the descendant of Judah ("The sceptre shall not depart from Judah"-Genesis 49:10) and the ancestor of David. Boaz represents, in the allegory, God; particularly the person of Christ, who was a powerful man of Israel in the royal line who gave grace to the gentile nations.

Gleaning is an interesting concept, because while the land is given by the decree of God to Israel, the gentile nations have an opportunity to get a little bit of the blessing that comes through Israel from their land and general position in the world. Often throughout history the Israelites have been rather reluctant to share the blessings of God with outsiders, despite the fact that God ordained them to be a blessing to all nations. Isaac Asimov, who wrote extensively on the Bible, felt that the book of Ruth was supposed to be completely an allegory; a tale of tolerance for outsiders, as a woman of Moab (with which Israel had a bad history) is loved by a great man of Israel, and then becomes the ancestor of the Kings of Judah. I disagree with his view, but I think the sentiment is nonetheless there. Just as Boaz was kind to a foreign-born woman whom he knew to have a heart that yearned for righteousness, so Jesus ordered his disciples to give the Word of God to all nations.

Fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel (Gen 47-49)

I'm looking forward to finishing Genesis, which ought to be very soon, since there are only a few chapters, and not a lot of SAB comments. As I think I have commented before, I'm not sure where to go after finishing the book, since going straight through makes some sense, but it can also be tedious in some parts. Exodus is good, but there's no denying that the majority of the other three books of Moses don't have a whole lot going for them. I think what I'm going to do is, after finishing a longer book like this, I'll skip ahead somewhere and take a detour through a shorter and more "action-packed" book as a sort of palate cleanser if you will. So before hitting Exodus, I think I'll either do Ruth or Jonah, two of my personal favorites. (Or perhaps I might do Luke chapter 2, as a sort of Christmas special. [Edit to add links to parts 1, 2, and 3.] I'm hoping to put some Christmas stuff in my other blog today anyway.) Any opinions (or comments at all) are welcome.

Chapter 47 is pretty straightforward, both the content and the SAB objections are largely a repetition of stuff in previous chapters. As instructed, Joseph's family stands before Pharaoh and tells him that they are shepherds, and what they really need is some good pasture land, preferably Goshen. In verse 11, Goshen is referred to as "the land of Rameses", which some have suggested to be an anachronism, and it technically is, "Rameses" being a name not used until hundreds of years after this time in history. Most likely, this is a reference that was common in the time this story was committed to paper rather than the time it actually happened similar to the references to Philistines and possibly Amalekites and others. Since the SAB doesn't claim an issue with verse 11, it may not have one, but it does bring up an interesting point anyway. I've heard many skeptics insist that if God really "wrote" the Bible, He would be aware of scientific facts that were discovered long after the stories were written as well as future historical events, and the writing ought to reflect that. That is probably true to some extent, no doubt, but note that another objection that is often raised to the Bible is to point out anachronisms! Maybe somebody can explain to me what the Bible could do in this area (as well as others that I won't go into here) so that it could please everybody. But enough of that...

Jacob is asked by Pharaoh how old he is, and Jacob tells him that he's 130, but that he's just a youngster compared to many of his forefathers. You may recall that Jacob's father lived to be 180, his grandfather 175 and great-grandfather 205. The SAB finds the thought of Jacob living to 147 to be absurd, but I'd be curious as to what the threshold for absurdity in lifespans is, since no note is made about Sarah.

Much of the rest of the chapter is concerned with the playing out of the remainder of the famine, and Joseph using the stored food to squeeze every last bit of capital out of the citizens of Egypt, making Pharaoh more wealthy and powerful than ever.

Just before Jacob dies, one noteworthy thing he does is make Joseph swear to bury him back in the Promised Land. The fact that Jacob does die is, in my opinion, not an issue with respect to the promise made by God in the last chapter, as I explained in my last post. The custom of swearing in the manner described here is indeed odd, but apparently it was a cultural thing of the time. As I explained in response to a similar exchange between Abraham and his servant, there is nothing wrong with swearing an oath per se. While I went over it in an older post, the short version is this: the two New Testament verses linked to in the SAB note are taken out of context, both of them saying not merely "...swear not," but "swear not, neither by heaven..." The point is not that making promises or swearing is wrong, but that swearing by something because your word alone isn't good enough is a bad thing.

Chapters 48 and 49 are essentially a long list of blessings that Jacob gives to his family before he passes away. (Despite the note by the SAB concerning Jacob seeing God, it seems very unlikely that Jacob is referring to something new, but rather is more likely referring to what happened way back the first time he saw God.) It's notable that like previous generations, the greatest blessings don't necessarily go to the eldest. In fact, it seems that the biggest blessing is going to the youngest child of the second-youngest son.

Although they are not really called "tribes" yet (oh, wait, I guess they are in verse 28), the SAB takes this moment to note the inconsistency in the naming of the tribes of Israel. It seems like a reasonable enough moment, but a little disappointing, since most educated Christians know that the inconsistency goes farther than what is quoted here, and various lists throughout the Bible will list them differently. I was going to leave it at that, but apparently I can't seem to help assisting Steve Wells in his research, so a quick guess as to where I would find a third list was fruitful: Numbers 1:4. In this list, we see the tribes listed as Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Gad and Naphtali, which one can see does not fit with the other lists given. If you go down further in that chapter, there's a bit of explanation, but I can't remember where the full explanation is, it may be spread throughout the law in various places. The short of it is that the tribe of Levi is chosen to be set aside as a priestly tribe, and they don't get an inheritance in the Promised Land in the same manner as the other tribes. However, the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, each form a tribe at that point. So the tribes of Levi and Joseph are special, and it can cause some confusion at times. As for the passage in Revelation that is referred to, there are some theories among scholars as to why Dan is not on the list. Of course, it's not considered to be an error, but rather something of hidden significance.

The last thing to be settled in this chapter is the strange prophecy given in verse 10. Honestly, I don't understand this well (nor much of the rest of this chapter, which uses some strange poetic stuff), but I do know that it is considered by many to be telling of the idea that the Messiah should come from the tribe of Judah. While "Shiloh" is a place, many scholars have favored a different translation here in which the phrase becomes "until he comes to whom it belongs". Whether it refers to King David, Jesus, or someone or something else, I'm not sure how to respond to the note here, because I don't really know what it means. Nonetheless, a lot of issues regarding the validity of Saul's kingship will come up once I get to 1Samuel, so I'll save the discussion for that time.

Almost done!

The flood decayeth and drieth up (Gen 8)

I added one more paragraph to the previous post, as I started some commentary here that I realized belonged with that material.

Now, I already talked about the overall length of the flood in the previous post, so I won't go over that again, but there are a few notes in the SAB about time frames specifically for this chapter that ought to be addressed. (This chapter is much more coherent in general than the previous.) The first new thing noted is that there seems to be an inconsistency between verses four and five, which is strange, since I've never heard anyone elsewhere having a problem with these verses. The fact is that I think the answer is so simple I'd never thought there was a problem. Boats run aground onto things that are submerged under the waters all the time. While the tops of the mountains were not visible until the tenth month, that doesn't mean that the ark was not sitting low enough in the water to rest on them earlier. One might even interpret it as providence that the ark, which was not exactly built for navigational purposes, managed to find landing even before a landing was obviously available. If the ark had ended up bobbing about in the ocean, Noah, his family and all the animals would have been screwed.

The other timeline note is on verses 13-14, asking when exactly did the earth dry. I think the King James is lacking a bit in its translation here, as the meaning is not made clear as it could be, but actually when looking at the Hebrew words, I'm not sure I agree with any translation, but then, I'm hardly a Hebrew scholar. Note that even in the KJV, different phrases are used in the two verses. In verse 13, "the waters were dried up from off the earth" while in verse 14, "was the earth dried." The idea here is that at first, Noah sees that there's no more standing water, but everything is pretty much mud. Later, he sees actual dry land. Many other translations say "dry" and then "completely dried". The original Hebrew uses the words "charab" and "yabesh" which of course have different meanings that can include "dry". The thing I find interesting is that "charab" is also often translated as "desolate", which seems like it could be fairly appropriate in this context; one certainly could imagine that the ground must be rather desolate. However, one of the copies of the book of Genesis I own notes that these two Hebrew words appear together in Job 14:11 and Isa 19:5, suggesting a natural temporal sequence of drying.

The SAB notes that it's rather strange that a Dove could find a living olive tree. It does indeed seem unlikely that any tree would survive such a massive flood, and if indeed there were any olive seeds that had a chance to germinate after the flood, could they have produced leaves so quickly afterwards? I really don't know. I'm thinking this is likely to be another miracle to pile on the ones of the previous chapter, but if anyone knows how long it takes for an olive seed to germinate and produce leaves, let us know if it's anywhere in the neighborhood of 50 days.

While it is a good question to wonder what the animals leaving the ark had to eat, I wonder why the SAB waits until now to ask that question. As I mentioned earlier, I think it's much harder to imagine what they ate while on the ark. If there are olive trees, there may be many other kinds of plants. I don't know what the carnivores may have eaten, but really, it's the same problem we had on the ark. Oh, I still don't have any better, more scientific answer than I had then, in case you were holding out for one.

Noah then proceeds to give a sacrifice to the Lord, which is not a logistical problem if he had more than two of each of the animals suitable for sacrifice, and of course, he had seven of each of those. God does require animal sacrifice, yes, and I covered that somewhere way back...um...here.

God promises that He will not curse the earth again, but the SAB points to a verse in Malachi that seems to be God threatening to do so. What's up with that? Well, I'm going to stick with my first interpretation of this, especially after looking at the Hebrew behind it. At the end of a previous post, I implied that what I think God is saying here is that there is an intrinsic property of the ground in general that God placed upon it to make agriculture particularly difficult for Adam, and He's reversing that decision ("not again" thus taking the connotation of "not any more"). The thing that's interesting in the Hebrew is that the words for "curse" and "ground"/"earth" are different in both cases. I think the Genesis verse is saying, as it is put "curse the ground", but the Malachi passage is carrying a meaning more like "I will destroy (or maybe take away?) their territory."

So long as I'm leaving the flood behind, I'd like to point out something I didn't point out yet, nor did I see it in the article I linked to in the last post. Fish. I don't think anyone ever assumes that Noah took marine life into the ark with him, but it would present problems whether he did or not. If he took fish and the like onto the ark, where did he store them? If the entire world was one big body of water, was it salt or fresh water? I think we'll have to lean on another miracle here as well, but it may be that a miraculous saving of marine life is a possible answer to the dilemma of what carnivores ate after the flood. Many modern carnivores do eat fish, and as a source of meat, it may have been quite plentiful at this time. It's something for people on both sides to think about, in any case.

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!

But if ye had known what this meaneth (Gen 4:1-7)

Genesis 4:1 marks the first instance of the SAB's use of the sex icon. I'd like to say to the SAB's credit that having such a category is actually a good idea, and would like to point the casual reader of the SAB to the FAQ page where its usage is explained, since it can be confusing as to why the category exists. After all, is there something wrong with sex per se? Even most Christians don't think so, although as is pointed out, we often believe there is an excess of it in our culture, and we ought to not forget that the Bible has some rather disturbing sexual content in several of its books.

That being said, I'm not 100% sure I agree that the usage of the icon is warranted here. If the point of the icon is to show that there is nasty sexual content going on in the Bible, this is not one of those places. A man simply having sex with his wife is not only acceptable, it's a positive thing, even if you are among those people who believe sex is for procreation only, as Adam and Eve end up having a child.

Now it's important to note something about what the text does not say, and make some inferred guesses regarding it in order to make sense of a lot of what comes. The Bible does not say that Cain is the first offspring of Adam and Eve, nor that Abel is the second and Seth is the third. Chalk it partly up to sexism, and partly up to a method of fairly condensed storytelling, but daughters and less significant sons are pretty much left unmentioned through much of the Old Testament. (An interesting thing to note is that while these genealogies almost always give the ages of the men, there is only one woman in the entire O.T. whose age is ever mentioned.) There may have been many other children before the story of Abel's murder unfolds, but for the purpose of telling the story, only these two men are important enough to mention. Since the people in the pre-flood days lived so long and seemed to have children well into their old age, some have assumed that Adam and Eve may have had several hundred children and probably lived to see millions of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. (Assuming most people are living hundreds of years, start having children at age 30 and produce offspring at a rate of one every other year, by the time Adam is 250 years old, the world population is already over 2 million, and the world's present population could have easily been reached by the time Adam was 400! Of course, this sort of growth would eventually have to top out, or the population would be in the sextillions by the time of the flood, a stretch of any imagination.). In fact, if we take the numbers in Genesis 5 at face value, Adam nearly lived to see the birth of Noah, his great⁷-grandson.

All of that said, the names of Cain and Abel do suggest that they may be the first two offspring for thematic reasons. She gives this first child the name "Cain", which is similar in sound to the Hebrew words for "gotten" or "made". Regarding the prophecy in Genesis 3:15, Eve may have thought literally that her very first offspring would be the one to defeat the serpent, seeing as she's so excited about him. Whether or not, she seems exceedingly excited to have made a baby, and as such I think it is fairly safe to assume Cain was the first child. She seems far less impressed with the birth of Abel, whose name means something like "meaningless" or "temporary". Most Bibles note that this may be a foreshadowing of the fact that his life isn't destined to be very long.

Now comes the point of tension: Cain and Abel each offer up sacrifices to the Lord, but He doesn't like Cain's offering of vegetables, and has higher respect for Abel's offering of animals. Cain gets jealous. The SAB brings up two good points about this lead-in, both of which come under the categories of "injustice" and "contradiction". I'll discuss each one, but my response to both is similar.

First of all, the point that is being made in this passage is apparently that animal sacrifices are necessary in worshipping God. This is true. Aside from the point I already made about Adam and Eve's fur coats, we see animal sacrifices in this story, in the story of Noah, in the story of Abraham, in the Exodus, and so on, up until the final ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. The theme persists that sin must be covered by blood, discussed in Hebrews 9 and beyond. Yet the SAB gives numerous verses in which God says He doesn't want animal sacrifices. Actually, there are many more than are listed on that page, but the theme of those verses, if taken in context, are usually quite clear. When a person sins, there is a necessity of offering up a sacrifice to cover the sin. The idea, however, is that offering up all these sacrifices is going to make you aware of the evil of sin, and stop sinning. Using my parent-child metaphor, imagine a home that has one of those little "swear jars"; I've never had one, but perhaps some of you have, and for those not familiar, the idea is that every time someone says a bad word, they have to put money in the jar to pay a sort of fine. (The concept was used rather humorously in the sci-fi movie "Demolition Man".) Anyway, imagine a child who is required to put a nickel in the jar for each swear word. One day, the child goes up to the jar in front of their parent, puts in a dollar and says, "Just covering myself for the rest of the day. I'm feeling @*$&# feisty today!" It's not going to float. The parent (if they're smart and serious about the issue) is going to stop the child and explain to them that they don't need the money nearly so much as they need their child to understand that swearing is unacceptable. The best, most succinct statement of this concept is in 1Samuel 15:22, where the prophet says to King Saul;

Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

In any case, the issue here is that Cain is doing his sacrifices wrong. This parallels modern do-it-yourself religion, in which a person may claim to be a follower of a particular religion, but don't really follow its tenets. For a period of time before I consider myself to have truly become a Christian, I used to claim to be a "Christian", but I lived my life no different from any atheist. I never even went to church, even once! And it's not just Christianity where this happens; I had a girlfriend for a while who claimed to be a Buddhist, but she ate meat. It is my understanding that vegetarianism is an important part of "The Noble Eightfold Path". (Buddhism is one of the non-Christian religions I hold in high regard; there's a lot of wisdom in it.)

The second issue is concerning whether God "respects" anyone. Well, yes and no. I think the real point of the verses in question that say, "God is no respecter of persons," is to say that God is not prejudiced. Most people in the world (in fact, I suspect just about everyone) will accept a person they have just met for the first time based on preconceived notions about their race, gender, and physical appearance. It's not necessarily a wrong thing, it's just the way our brains work: we tend to guess on the details that we don't know about, and base it on past experiences or things we have been taught by our schooling and culture. God is in a special position, however, in that He knows what a person is really like deep in their heart and mind, and doesn't have to depend on surface impressions. Once again, there is a particular verse that best shows this concept, and in fact, it's on the page I linked to on the SAB at the top of this paragraph. 1Peter 1:17

And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:

Taking this apart, Peter is saying that He doesn't judge people for who they are, but for what they do, and the choices they make in life, so choose carefully. In the case of our passage here, Cain is making some poor choices, and we'll see throughout this chapter that He continues to make bad choices, as God warns him is likely to happen.

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.

God formed man (Gen 2:4-14)

A lot of the objections that are raised in the SAB in chapter two are repeats of the ones raised in chapter one, this is because they're largely concerning the supposed discrepancies between the two accounts of the creation of mankind. My progress has been slow enough already; I trust that nobody bothering to read this will mind if I don't bother with a second response, but rather move on to new material.

So, from 2:5 until the end of the chapter, the story is about the creation of mankind. I don't know which part 2:4 goes with; it could be the epilogue of the previous account, or the introduction of this account. I think it doesn't really matter. One thing that should be noted however is that 2:4 says, "in the day". This phrase is one of a handful that's poetic/figurative/whatever that I hope people won't misconstrue, and I'm glad to see that the SAB doesn't make that mistake here, at least. (Oops, it did, it's just in chapter one for some reason!) Often, "day" refers not to a specific 24 hour period, but a general timeframe, like when someone says, "You'll rue the day you crossed me!" They're not saying that there's a specific date on the calendar that you'll mark down and say, "Wow, that was a bad one!" but rather you'll remember the time that you did whatever you did, whether it be a single moment, or even a series of events that stretched across several years. Other words that have a common figurative meaning are "name" which often means character or reputation, and "world" which can mean humanity as a whole, the social system you are a part of, or even perhaps an era of time. Context will often tell you, but I won't pretend it isn't confusing at times.

In verse five, it says there is no "plant of the field" because there is rain and (essentially) agriculture missing from the picture. Aside from the thoughts I gave on this before, it might be noteworthy to think about the implications of there needing to be "a man to till the ground" and that this is referring to plants "of the field". Perhaps what this is saying is that there are specifically no plants like wheat and barley and other grains growing in a useful fashion. I don't know, but it seems like a possibility.

Note also in verse six that it still doesn't "rain", but instead a "mist from the earth" waters the ground. That's interesting. If you remember my goofiness about water canopy theory, I think it's interesting to ponder that perhaps it never had rained before Noah's day. That's pure speculation on my part, I admit however. That might make no sense in other ways I'm not even thinking of.

God makes the first man out of the dust. I've heard it pointed out by some theologians that everything that makes up a human body can be found in dirt. Interesting, but not really conclusive from a creation/evolution standpoint, since one would expect a creature evolving naturally by chance from its environment to take on characteristics that were consistent with its environment, if you follow me. In other words, if the earth were completely free from silicon, you'd hardly expect creatures made largely from silicon to have evolved, would you? That's another tangent, though.

After creating man, God breathes into him, making him a "living soul". I think there's meant to be a special implication here, that more than breathing air, we're somehow figuratively breathing the spirit of God. It's interesting that in Hebrew, Greek and English, the words for these concepts are closely related. ("spirit" vs. "respiration")

Then God plants a garden with everything the man needs to physically survive, including two special trees: "the tree of life" and "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." We don't hear much about either of these trees, although the "tree of life" pops up again in the Book of Revelation, chapter 22, where it grows on both sides of a river in New Jerusalem. This is interesting to me, because it shows once again the problem with taking things too literal. I once read a Christian commentary on the book of Revelation that mused, "What sort of strange tree will this be? Will it have a trunk that splits in two so it's on both sides of the river at once?" It seems obvious to me that in that passage, the "tree of life" is not a singular tree, but a kind of tree, and there will be several of that kind of tree along both banks. Does that mean that the "tree of life" in this chapter is not a specific tree, but a species, which may have had several instances in the garden? I don't know, but it's entirely a possibility.

Of course the tree we're really interested in so often is the other special tree (trees?), the one that causes all the trouble in the next chapter. Why would God put such a dangerous tree right next to his special beloved children and let them eat from it if it was so dangerous? It's a very good question, perhaps one of the best. I'm going to give it an entire post tomorrow.

The only thing left to comment on here is all the geographical information in verses 10-14. Strangely, this is a mix of places and names that are known today and not known today. What are we supposed to make of them? I think most likely, these geographical names are of very little consequence to us today. I suspect strongly that whatever they referred to no longer exists. The fact that some of the names are still used today is simply either a holdover from those times (Noah and his family named some places after the places that used to be there before the flood), or modern people labeling places with names they got out of the Bible. Either way, it doesn't matter much.