IRJ Reflection #19

If God Can’t Make up His Mind, What Hope do I have?: Uncertainty in the Bible

I never knew much about God or the Bible, but I had always assumed that the Bible, a book devoted for the most part to God’s actions, would show him as the benign, generous, and life-giving character he was portrayed as in the limited Christian education I have received. Predictably, I was quite surprised when reading the eleventh chapter of Genesis to learn of God’s jealousy and mean spiritedness. People from all over the world had united and built a city together. God saw this, and realized that there was nothing these people, his own creations, could not accomplish. Instead of being proud of them, he swoops down to the city and “confuses” them to prevent further successes. What a behind-the-back way of getting even. In this chapter, God essentially acts like a mean and insecure teenager.

Two startling and unexpected themes that I have noticed throughout the book of Genesis thus far are doubt and manipulation. God meticulously creates humankind as a likeness of himself, gives them the whole world to have dominion over, then, as they begin to progress, His own insecurities cause him to take everything back, leaving his people scattered and confused, which he does multiple times. God’s actions and intentions are incongruent throughout the text. First he uses his power to create an entire universe full of unique beings, making sure they have all they need; then he manipulates and exploits them, upending their efforts at creating a civilization together.

IRJ Reflection #18

Crash and Burn: The Rough Transition from a Perfect World to a Harsh Reality

The third chapter of Genesis in the bible exhibits Adam and Eve living content in the Garden of Eden. They are unperturbed by their own nakedness, childlike in their lack of self-awareness. God had put his humans in a sort of heaven on earth, a place where the two can live free of rules, except for one. God prohibited the man and the woman from eating of one tree; the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, telling them they would die if they were to eat from it. Eve, literally born the day before, was easily coerced into eating the fruit of this tree by the trickiest creature that God created; the serpent. Both Adam and Eve ate from the tree, and God punished both the serpent and the humans.

My father, who was raised Irish Catholic, has on many occasions told me his reason for rejecting the religion as soon as he was able to. He said that growing up as a catholic, he was taught a constant sense of guilt and fear of sinning. Sin is a very broad term, and some are simply a natural part of being  human. I am repelled by the thought of an institution that teaches its children to fear and beg forgiveness of a higher being. This chapter of the bible is a good example of the fragility and naivety of youth. Eve’s lack of experience and common sense was not her own fault. Such things must be learned, as a child does through mistakes and experimentation in developing from their Id form to their Ego form. An understandable curiosity overtook her when the manipulative serpent told her that eating from the tree would open her eyes, and make her like God. This motif of a child who emulates their idol is not something they should be punished for.

When God comes to punish the two of them for eating the fruit, the pair hides like children afraid of being reprimanded. Then, Adam blames his wife for giving the fruit to him, an equally immature reaction, as it shows his youthful lack of intuition. Though the official punishment bestowed on the two for their transgressions was that Eve would serve her husband and endure painful childbirths, and Adam would toil in order to feed his family, their real punishment was the loss of their innocence when they were so rudely thrust into a harsher reality. At least a kid gets to grow up first.

Photo Credit: http://templecuttingedge.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/children-playing.jpg