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Interpreting Genesis

By David Young - posted Monday, 16 February 2009


Before I start there is a disclaimer. This is a commentary article. It is how I read parts of Genesis that gives an alternative interpretation to the conventional Christian stance. I do not claim it to be true or false. Genesis could be no more than a writer explaining a principle using a story telling technique. Of all the possibilities this is the one that appeals to me the most, and I provide this commentary on that premise.

Genesis is usually seen as a Christian text. It is not. It is a stand alone writing that the Christians have adopted to include in their Bible, but they do not have copyright. Genesis belongs to everyone, and if alternative readings are put forward for debate by anyone Christianity can only legitimately debate on equal terms.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created he them. Genesis 127 KJV

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This was long before Adam and the woman, so Adam was not the first “man”. Christian dogma is that it is commonly accepted as an error and that Adam was the first man. I choose to reject the “error” claim and accept it as written.

What was the purpose of man (male and Female)? To have “dominion” over the earth and everything that lived on it. Basically man was God's caretaker. It is interesting that according the Genesis that at this stage man and all the animals where vegetarian.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Genesis 128-29 KJV

With man as his caretaker and everything ticking over nicely God had a rest.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. Genesis 22 KJV

For some reason God decided to continue with the work. Who knows why? Maybe gods just get bored when they have nothing to do.

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And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into hid nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 27 KJV

If man (male and female) already existed then this verse is nonsense. I don't like the Christian version that somehow a mistake had been made and “man” did not exist before this. If that were true the whole story becomes incoherent. The possible explanation is that God took man and gave man a living soul exactly as stated. We had been promoted from caretaker to a caretaker with a soul.

The next section of Genesis, from chapter 2 verses 8 to 14, describes how God created the Garden of Eden. Surprisingly from such a detailed description there is no place on earth that has the physical features of the Garden of Eden. But there is one place that fits. That place is the human brain. The circular river flowing out into four lands is a match for the Circle of Willis, the blood supply to the human brain.

Man suddenly becomes Adam. No reason given or suggestion before this that man had a name. Not surprising since man was the generic name covering both male and female.

It is Adam who is placed in the centre of the Garden of Eden.

It could be that Adam is the name given to the newly created soul, and that the soul was placed in the centre of the human brain. This would be about the position of the “third eye” of Eastern religions.

All I can say is that it makes as much sense as the Christian version.

There is progression here. We start with a humanoid whose purpose is to look after the planet for God. We then progress to humanoid with a soul placed at the centre of a developed brain. We are not yet at the human stage as we know it.

The next step comes with the naming of the animals.

And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to all the fowl of the air, and of every beast in the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. Genesis 220 KJV

The Book of J version is much clearer than the Christian Old Testament at this point.

“It is not good for man to be alone”, said Yahweh. “I will make a partner to stand beside him” So Yahweh shaped out of the soil all the creatures of the field and birds of the air to see how he would call them. Whatever the man called became the creature's name. Soon all wild animals had names the man gave them, all birds of the air, and creatures of the field, but the man did not his partner amongst them. Part of Chapter 4, Book of J translated by David Rosenberg, Vintage, New York, 1990

Man was no longer one of the animals and he was lonely. But “man” is the generic name. There where others, male and female, so loneliness should not have been a problem. This must have been a special loneliness.

This section is my hypothesis that joins the bits based on the general feeling of the text.

If it was Adam that was lonely then it is the soul that was lonely. The soul needed a partner. Why would the soul need a partner?

My hypotheses is that with a single soul man’s consciousness would have been external. Man’s only source of reference was the animals and birds but this was not enough. The soul needed an internal source of reference so that it could know itself. End of hypothesis

So woman was created from Adam's life (an alternative translation to rib). Woman would have been an exact clone of Adam. Man now had an internal mirror. The soul called Adam would now know itself because it could see the woman. The soul called woman would know itself because it could see Adam. Man was now conscious from within because the soul now had a partner to act as a mirror.

There is no mention of Eve in the whole story. Eve only appears later as a wife who became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.

So now man was now internally conscious. Man now knew the meaning of the word “I”.

Therefore shall a man a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be as one flesh. Genesis 224 KJV

Man has now moved on and left its heritage behind. Man is now unique on this planet in that it is a fully internally conscious species. The single soul “man” has been left behind.

In the centre of the Garden (the human brain) are two trees, the Tree of Life (the connection to all life), and the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil (judgment). The only thing we must not do is judge good and evil.

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Genesis 31 KJV

The serpent is an interesting character because God did not create it. It was more subtle (subtil) than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. This is a real enigma because God created everything.

One possible explanation is that the writer of Genesis needed the serpent in order to explain the sequence of events. If Genesis is a story to explain a principle that snake is a legitimate tactic. There are other explanations including that God was not alone. This last possibility is given weight by the way Genesis slips in and out of the plural (example; Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil). This possibility I will leave to the end of the article.

The twin soul system of internal consciousness is very elegant. It is an almost perfect system with only one weakness. If the souls start judging each other the system self destructs. As the souls start judging each other the perfect mirror is lost. They no longer see themselves as they are (a mirror of each other) but as they judge the other to be.

There is still an internal mirror but it is a cracked mirror of conflict and the twin souls degenerate into what we know as the soul and the ego at war with each other.

And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Genesis 310-13 KJV

Adam says it wasn't me, it was the woman. The woman says it wasn't me, it was snake. This is a brilliant description of judgment.

The final move is for God to move the souls out of the centre of the brain to the right hemisphere so that they do not interfere with the tree of life.

So why did the souls start to judge? My guess is that there was one thing missing. We did not have an innate sense of self. We know we existed as a separate entity but had no idea who that entity was.

This gave rise to three questions that we cannot answer. Who am I? How did I get here? Why am I here?

Given these three unanswerable questions it was inevitable that we should judge who we are and invent religion, philosophy, race, creed, color, nationality, sexism et al in an effort to give ourselves some form of identity and make sense of it all.

But what about the multiple entities in Genesis? There is a possible explanation. Genesis is largely the Book of Enoch with the bits the Christians don't like left out. The story is the same and they have many common passages

Enoch begins with a spaceship in Earth orbit. The crew of the spaceship have the rank of Angels. The line officers have the rank of Arch-Angels and the captain has the rank of God. Above all there is the Lord of the Spirits. God uses guided evolution to create the earth.

1. Observe ye everything that takes place in the heaven, how they do not change their orbits, [and] the luminaries which are in the heaven, how they all rise and set in order each in its season, and transgress not against their appointed order. Enoch 2

Is this a spaceship in Earth Orbit? I think so (as a commentary of the text). The plural parts of Genesis makes sense when compared with Enoch.

I would recommend reading Enoch. The bit about how 200 angels are left to look after the human race while God and the spaceship go off on another mission is very exciting. The angels left behind fornicate with human women and produce giants that run amok. One warning. If you are a Christian you will probably burn in hell forever if you read it.

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About the Author

David Young has been a writer for 20 years. At other times he has been an architect and a flying instructor. Details of his books and writings can be found at his website davidyoungauthor.com

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