Genesis 4 - the other stuff

Synopsis:

After Cain went away in banishment he had sons named Enoch. Enoch's great-great grandson was Lamech. Lamech seems to have been boastful in claiming that even though God had said Cain's murder would be avenged 7 times the one who would harm Lamech would be avenged 77 times. 

At about then Eve had another son named Seth. Seth's son was named Enosh. In the time of Enosh people began to worship God.

Questions:

What does the story of Lamech have to do with anything? It seems very unclear.

Where did Cain find a wife? If Adam and Eve were the only people then where did Cain's wife come from? Does this give credence to what I mentioned in the last post that God possibly chose Adam out of a bunch of already existing people to be special And to fulfill his will? 

The story of Cain and Abel had to deal with sacrifices and yet it was only in the time of Enosh that people began to worship. What then is the difference between sacrifice and worship?

Genesis 4 - Cain & Abel

Synopsis:

Eve gives recognition to God with the statement: with God's help I have brought forth a man.

Abel gave a sacrifice with the best portions, Cain did not. God looked on Abel with favor but on Cain he did not. This made Cain angry. Cain then killed Abel.

As punishment God placed Cain under a curse and drove him from the land. In doing so God drove Cain from his livelihood (a farmer) and made him be a wanderer.

Cain's response is telling. He states that it is too much for him to bear. He is concerned for three reasons. First, he is concerned because he is being driven from the land. Second, he is being driven away from the presence of God. Third, he is concerned that someone will kill him because he has been made to be a wanderer. To assuage this fear God placed a mark on Cain and a curse on anyone who killed him.

Questions:

Why did Cain and Abel bring sacrifices? There is no mention of God commanding it? Did God command it and the writer(s) of Genesis simply neglect that part? It seems that it would be a big thing to neglect if they did. Was sacrifice such an ingrained part of this culture that the notion of not performing one would be as strange to them as performing one would be to the modern mind? Or is it possible that the act of performing a sacrifice to God is actually part of the human experience that early man was compelled to do so.

Is Cain showing where his sin comes from in his three concerns. His top concern is that his livelihood is being taken from him. The second concern is that he is being driven from God. Is it possible that this is Cain's sin that he has displaced God with his own work?

When Cain is made to be a wanderer he is going to be killed by people when they find him. What people? If Adam & Eve are the first people and Cain and Abel their only children, Cain has eliminated one of the three possible people that will kill Cain. Who is he worried about? Where are the other people coming from? This makes the notion that Adam & Eve are the only people on earth hard to believe. Is it possible that like with Abraham or the Hebrews later in the Old Testament, that God chose a specific set of people to show personal favor to in the beginning to bring about His will? Is it that God placed Adam in the garden by choosing him special from an already existent population of people and made him special this way? Or is Cain simply anticipating that their are other people out there that he is unaware of that will kill him when in fact there are only three people on the face of the planet?

Cain's fear of being separated from God by banishment is an interesting one to consider given the early conception of gods being tied to the land. By being banished Cain is afraid that he will have to wander where God is not. There is no conception of omnipresence in Cain's understanding of God. Is God's marking of Cain an assurance to Cain that where ever Cain will go so there will be God as well? Is this an early understanding in the Hebrews that God is not tied to a specific plot of land, but omnipresent and in God's correction of Cain He is also instilling hope in Cain that he cannot be taken completely out of God's presence?

I don't know the answers to these questions, nor do I know if I can truly find them. But I will venture on in pursuit and see what else comes up in the process.

-Spicer Proud

Voltaire's take on Adam

I must admit, Voltaire's take on Adam does not feel sincere. I don't know why but I can sense a hint of sarcasm coming through the pen of this old philosopher. Maybe I'm just reading it wrong. But, he does have a bit to say on the topic of Adam & Eve, specifically Adam and since we are pursuing some intellectual avenues concerning such things it seems fair to include it in my research. Unfortunately, I feel as though more questions and alleyways will be pursued because of this - so much the better though.

Voltaire opens with some remarks about pious madame de Bourignon who was convinced Adam was a hermaphrodite. Voltaire neither agrees nor disagrees with her because he has not had the same revelation from God on this matter. This might be meant as sarcasm...

Cutting away from this little jab at some historical figure that I'm not quite intrigued enough to wikipedia search, Voltaire brings up an interesting point in his next haymaker. This time his object of scorn are the Jewish scholars who have read much on the subject of Adam. In his snide little remarks though he makes an interesting cross-religious comparison. In the ancient Vedas the first man was called Adimo, meaning the begetter. From there he does some rather hasty philological hop skips and jumps while tossing barbs at Judaism in general to bring up the point that maybe the ancient Hebrew Scriptures somehow borrowed from the more ancient Veda Scriptures of the Brahmins of India. Aside from his jokes, it does pose an interesting question about the similarities between religions. Why are the religions so similar on certain topics? Why are origin stories similar in nature? Is it because by the very fact that they are origin stories that they will inherently be similar? Or is it that word of mouth stories passed from east to west and west to east over generations to create slightly different variations of one old myth? Or is it that over generations one old story has been corrupted and twisted into different contexts that are yet similar enough to have the same feel? I don't know, but it is something striking to consider.

Of course, Voltaire's sardonic writings tend to blend the ridiculous and preposterous with a cutting point of truth and his mocking doesn't always lend itself to straightforward knowledge. However, he is a great philosopher and a personal favorite of mine so he will be referenced as much as possible on the subjects that I research throughout the run of this blog.

Genesis 3

We left the man and the woman in the Garden of Eden yesterday, naked but unashamed. They were happy and blissful yet in chapter 3 we see a new individual brought into the picture - the serpent. The Serpent opens by questioning what God says and goes on to contradict God, stating that God wants the woman and the man to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stating that they wouldn't die as God had said, but would instead become like God. This in fact turns out to be true, because in verse 22 God states, "the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil". Unfortunately though, The Serpent was not wholly truthful because death entered the world as a result of the man and the woman's eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God doles out consequences for all three parties involved. God curses the Serpent by stating that it and its offspring will live in enmity between the woman and her offspring. God then says to the woman that her punishment will be to have painful childbearing in the future. The man's punishment is that he will now have to toil and work very hard for the food he must get out of the ground. It is interesting to note that only the Serpent is cursed, not the man or the woman. There is still some fondness between God and the man & woman enough so that the ground is cursed, but not the man or woman. In the end the man and the woman are banished from Eden so they cannot eat of the Tree of Life and thus live forever.

There are a couple of interesting points in this chapter to consider.

1. First, once again God refers to himself as "us". Does this again suggest a polytheistic existence in multiple gods or is it again a foreshadowing of the Trinitarian doctrine of Christianity? Or is it something like the royal we? 
2. God carries out his warning even though it seems as if God is merciful. He cursed the Serpent, but did not curse the man or the woman. This is the merciful side of God. Yet, God did say to the man He would die if he were to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. In verse 19 God confirms that it is true when he states, "...until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." This is the just side of God. This is the holy side of God. 

Genesis 1 - 2

Because the notion of a tabula rasa for a sentient being of roughly 30 years is nigh impossible, no matter how many times that sentient being has partitioned himself into other bits, pseudonyms, nom de plume, sobriquets and nom de guerre or two this partitioning and compartmentalizing cannot in fact create a completely blank slate. Ok, maybe that was a bit dramatic and I don't really have one, let alone two of those nom de guerre thingamajigs, but the point of that fractious and a bit haughty long-winded sentence is that no matter how hard I try, I can't completely erase the memories that have molded me into the person I am so well that the person I create in the blogosphere is innocent of my experience. There is no tabula rasa for Spicer Proud - but I shall try to imagine that he is as such. So, for the pseudo-intellectual mind of Spicer Proud the only possible place to start an adventure of the mind is at the origins. So here are my, as in Spicer Proud's first thoughts on Genesis 1-2.

The order of Creation in Chapter 1 seems to go: day 1 - light, day 2 - Sky, day 3 - Land & Sea + vegetation, day 4 - Sun & Moon (and stars), day 5 - the fish and the birds, day 6 - the land animals and mankind. On Day 7 he rested. For some odd reason the people who split the Bible into chapters put the end of chapter 1 as the beginning of chapter 2, but these seems unimportant to me, just an oddity. On the seventh day God rested, blessed it and made it holy. The order of Creation in Chapter 2 appears to be different though. There was an earth in the beginning of Chapter 2 but there was no vegetation or land because there wasn't rain yet or man to work the earth. So God then made man out of the ground and breathed life into him. From there God put the man in the garden in the east, Eden which seems to be an overall lovely place. In the garden were two trees that the text mentions by name, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God put the man in the garden to work the garden. Then God brought the animals made out of the ground to be named but the man. This was going well enough but no suitable helper was found for the man so God made the man's companion out of the man's own rib.

The first thing that needs further exploring is why are these two chapters out of order in comparison with one another? Are there two stories being told here? Is chapter two a summary of chapter one made to be a little more focused on man's role? Is there a newer story and an older story placed side by side in an anthology that eventually became the book we now know as Genesis? I don't know, but this is something worth looking into.

Another thing to be explored is whether these stories are to be taken as literal, allegorical, mythological or a combination thereof. Given the scientific theory of evolution it would seem hard to see this as completely as historical-literal, but there are millions of intelligent people that believe that Genesis (and the entire Scriptures) serves as history textbook.

However, less confusing are a couple of things in this origin story meant to be emphasized by the author or authors.

1. First, God sees his creation as good at the end of each day, except for when he created the sky. When all of creation was complete God saw that it was very good. 
2. Second, the first day in Genesis chapter 1 emphasizes the act of separating light from darkness. In either an allegorical or even a literal reading of the text the separation of light and darkness has religious significance. The separation of light from darkness is mentioned both in verse 4 & verse 18. 
3. Third, in continuing with this religious significance is a little blurb about the Sun and the Moon. In addition to being that which governs the day and night and marks the seasons and the years, the Sun & Moon are to "serve as signs to mark sacred times". This shows that the sun and moon while not being the object of worship themselves, are to be pointers as to when to mark sacred times of the year. In the act of creation God is making religion important.
4. There are a number of blessings that God gives, first to the birds and the fish - multiply & fill the earth, then to man - multiply, fill the earth & subdue it. In each of these blessings God also gives a task. The third and final blessing God gives is to the seventh day in which he makes it holy.
5. When God does create man in the first chapter He does so by creating man in "our image" and "our likeness". Man is thus created to be like God.

But, there are still things that need consideration in the reading.

1. When God creates the man in the first chapter he does so in "our image" and "our likeness". Does this 'our' mean a multitude of gods or is it as Christianity presents the Trinitarian view of the Godhead?
2. Second, when God creates man in 'our image' and 'our likeness' is the author stating that 'our image' is different than 'our likeness' or is he merely using a literary tool?
3. The word to call God who he is different in Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. In Chapter 1 God is simply referred to as God. But, in Chapter 2 God is referred to as the LORD God. Why this difference? Is it significant?

There are probably many more questions that can be considered and intellectual avenues to saunter and meander down in these chapters, but I feel as though we've established enough questions to move forward on for now. Thank you for your time.

Spicer

Welcome

Well hello there. I see you've stumbled upon The Mind of Spicer Proud. Let me inform you what you have happened upon. My name is Spicer Proud, the literary, philosophical, intellectual and spiritual portion of some otherwise anonymous living entity. In other words, I am a pseudonym. In this blog you will simply find the musings of an otherwise pseudo-separate being. While this sounds oh so clever and important it isn't much more than a tool for me to keep a journal that is itemized so that I can easily pull up my thoughts in a collected matter if I were ever to decide to form an opinion or publish something in the future. This way I can have my notes easily accessible to me. The topics will be disparate and varied throughout the existence of this online journal because frankly, my thoughts are disparate and varied. Plus, this is an opportunity for me to continue to stretch my mind in a challenging way.

What I am going to try and accomplish is to separate and distinct Spicer from the other me and start sort of tabula rasa entity that isn't untainted and uninformed by previous existences. Since this is not actually possible the other precursors to Spicer Proud will inevitably come out in his character and essence. However, this is an intriguing intellectual challenge for me and I hope that you can garner something from it. If I cannot create a kind of atmosphere where you gain something from a knowledge, educational or otherwise productive standpoint then maybe I will be able to create something that stimulates on an entertaining level.

Thank you for your time.

Spicer