Why is Genesis so contradictory?

Salutations!

1) Adam and Eve did know right from wrong. The thing with the tree is that they wanted the right for themselves to determine what is right and wrong (the same plague that mankind suffers with today). The things you mentioned weren't "punishments," but the consequence that resulted from their actions. Also, Adam wasn't in trouble for not "controlling his wife," but because he listened to her rather than God. You are finding many "contradictions," but you're also reading a ton into the text that isn't there. Assumptions aren't contradictions.

2) Incest wasn't regulated against until the Mosaic Law. It was a law for the nation of Israel only, and not something that was binding before that. So we find that Abraham married his half sister. Incest isn't a sin per se, it's just that genetic defects have slowly crept into the human genome, and incest now can have adverse effects. There would have been no issues when the human genome was young and pristine. The congenital defects you mentioned only come from individuals when their parents are already carrying the defects in their genes.

3) Cain and Abel didn't "compete for their mother" (more reading into the text something that isn't there). The Bible clearly says that Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters.

Yours,

Abernathy the Dull

okay, first question: "Garden of Eden punishments"

first off, they didn't "not know right from wrong". they understood God's words and that He didn't want them to do something, and they fell to temptation (by the snake, which was actually the devil in a snake, at least that is how it seems).

what's more, Adam was not punished for "listening to his wife instead of controlling her", he was punished for the same reason she was: for disobeying God. i mean, come on. if you were face to face with the person who created you, and you knew he could UNcreate you just as easily, wouldn't you abide by the only rule he gave you? doesn't seem too bright. what i don't get (and never got, really), is why He gave them free will in the FIRST place, if He expected them to do as He told. have to ask Him personally, i guess, if i ever get the chance...

question #2: "Incest as a sin"

it did not ORIGINATE as a sin. in fact, it was really the only way to populate the Earth. and in the beginning, it was no problem. i didn't do too well in Science class, but i remember the part about genetics, and species breeding. essentially, a species can have sex with family members so much before the genetic makeup just won't take it anymore, and genetic mutations arise. again, it was not an issue at the beginning of the genetic line, but the more and more they inbred, the closer their genetic time was running out, and since God knew it was coming ("Science" was not even a concept yet), He enacted a Law that stated that they should no longer do so. not because it was "immoral", so much as it was "dangerous to the species". if people had kept inbreeding (which had been fine up to then), eventually, they would no longer produce viable offspring, and the human race would end! God kept that from happening, even when they had no idea of it.

there is NO misogyny coming from God nor Jesus in the Bible. the majority of what people perceive as such is just them reading into the things that are said. i haven't the space to type it all here, but if you email examples to me, i will be happy to clear each and every one up for you :)

If you re-read it, you will find that Cain finds a wife once he leaves the garden. There were several families, and Genesis is just a reaction to Babylonian creation that was discovered during the Diaspora into Babylon. Actually, much of Genesis is borrowed from other local areas, such as the flood, and the Tower of Babel. It is not meant to be read as a literal story in the 21st century sense, but it is rather a really, really old type of literature that recorded oral history concerning the origins of the world. Every culture has one. So really Genesis is just misunderstood by a large portion of the population, mainly because they are not the audience that it was intended for.

Just as Genesis mentions,today man does work hard to make a living, women have pain at birth, and snakes still crawl on their belly. These are consequences of the fall of man. Man had only one rule to follow, and they knew very well what is was, yet it was broken. The plan changed. There was no incest, as no incest law was given at the time. Adam and Eve had many sons and many daughters, Eve was not the only female.

I want you to really consider taking the time to look into my answer, because I think about Genesis a lot. I think about the nature of God even more often. If you really want an answer, and you didn't find complete satisfaction in mine, I invite you to find my email address at the link below. Ask me more.

I think this is the most important part of your question:

"I want to understand it, I want to like it..."

We find evidence to support the things we want to be true. The fact that you found reasons to doubt it shows that there are even deeper wants behind your doubts. I want you to think about what those may be. What would make you want to say that God is "misogynistic"? If I can see the same evidence as you do and not see God that way, what is the difference between us? I am very logical (a programmer), as are you. Which of our variables have different values?

I'll give you a couple hints. One is that I'm not asking IF God exists anymore. I've convinced myself with accounts like that of Ian McCormack and Don Piper. I have read the histories of the ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian historians as well as the Jews. They all point to a common set of ancestors a couple thousand years back, many of whom were incestuous. I have personally seen miracles. I have felt God's presence. I have been extremely skeptical about Christianity and the claims of its followers. I have seen the counter arguments against Genesis, and the counters to the counters. (Search 10 best evidences from AIG and the RATE project of ICR.) The question is no longer IF, but it has lately become who. It's finding out how we know who God is, his character, our relationship with Him. But this goes a little off topic.

But only a little...

You are asking how God could be so unethical. I'm answering the question from the perspective that God does exist. What you think is unethical or unfair is based in what? It's your gut feelings, right? You're not using God's own standard to judge Him, right? Because God does have special privileges where it comes to discipline. He sets the rules. I'm a dad, and I set the rules of my house too. I also set the punishments. Tonight, my daughter was emotionally assaulting my other daughter. I told her to apologize or a consequence. She said she's sorry through gritted teeth. We went back and forth a few times, and I implemented the consequence. I told her that if she apologized in sincerity, I'd revoke the consequence. My wife talked to her, and she requested to talk to me again. I told her that I wasn't trying to hurt her, but protect her sister. She finally understood. Before she knew my motivation, she thought I was simply a terrible person. Once she knew, she sincerely felt sorry. No matter how stupid you think God is, once you know His motivation, you may end up feeling pretty sorry for your assault on His character.

And we may not ever know aspects of His character. However, we do know that He made it clear that it was not right to eat from that tree. There's no question they knew it was wrong. They went from innocence and one rule to a conscience and a ton of rules, including covering up.

As to thinking vs. faith - a real life parallel is marriage. The prophets run with this analogy. If your wife says she thinks X, and instead of trusting her, you decided that her "assertion" didn't make sense and that you can think for yourself, you're just being mean. Assume the best, man. That's what faith is. It's not ignoring an affair that you walked in on. It's assuming there was no affair when she said there wasn't and the evidence could go either way.

Incest was common before Moses. It happened in mythology as well as Genesis. Abraham married his sister. It only became wrong when God decreed it. In the same way, remarriage was deemed wrong by Jesus, and polygamy was deemed less right than monogamy by Paul. God doesn't change his mind, but the details of the situation will change, so his judgments will too. Keep in mind that God can do anything, and he can keep genes pure, or he can provide new curses for disobedience. It's not like God stopped working after Genesis.

God didn't create us evil. He created us with choice. We chose evil. Evil can be defined as disobedience. Are you upset that God gave us the ability to disobey? LOL! That would be evil. We might as well be a rock or a plant in that case.

As I said before, please find my email address if you still have questions. I want to vindicate God, and if you do too, we can find ways to make that happen. But test your motives, too, because you also seem to be impugning God where I wouldn't.

The design of Eve was just like in animal kingdom, that is, they go on heat when ready to become pregnant. The command of Eloihim is simple, don't play with that sensuous tree in your private part. The serpent was actually Satan who was on earth as a prisoner of war after his defeat in the war with Michael and Gabriel. Adam was Satan's prison guard. After Eve's first orgasm, her eyes were opened and she ended up giving her tree to Adam and discovered oral sex. Eve missed her ovulation and their spirit died on that day they sinned. The monthly heat was removed from Eve and the task of sexually arousing her was given to Adam. Instead of laying egg and incubating it like snakes, Eve ended up delivering a painful labor on her deliveries. Imagine delivering about 500 babies in her lifetime.

many of the things in the Old Testament were highly symbolic and not meant to be taken literally. There are biblical scholars that devote their entire lives to studying the bible and even then no two of them would agree on everything. Your best bet is to read the New Testament. it much easier to read and understand. It also gives a more clear idea as to what Christianity stands for in terms of values, morals, etc...

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Why is Genesis so contradictory?

It is only YOUR unbelief that makes it appear to be contradictory -

The only person who can stop YOU resenting Christianity by clearing up this demented book in the Bible, is YOU, and only then if you fully submit to the Holy Spirit of YHWH God.

And If you persist in in your ridiculous ideas you will suffer the Second Death in the Lake of Fire.

. . .

First, God did tell Adam and Eve to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, and He told them what would happen if they did. Not being able to eat from the tree did not prevent them from knowing they should not eat from the tree, because God told them.

Secondly, Adam was not punished for not controlling his wife, he was punished for eating from the tree. The difference is that Eve ate from the tree because she allowed herself to be tricked by Satan (Satan was that serpent--Revelation 12:9), whereas Adam knew it was wrong when he ate it but he so badly wanted to keep his wife that he ate from it, too, so that he could be with her.

Thirdly, Eve's punishment of being dominated by her husband was not because God wanted her or any other woman to be dominated, as shown by how God told husbands to treat their wives in Ephesians chapter 5 (to love and care for their wives as they do their own bodies, and to be ready to sacrifice themselves for their wives and children just as Jesus sacrificed himself for the congregation). God was just noting what would eventually happen because men are imperfect...sometimes they are going to be jerks to their wives. If men were not imperfect (i.e. Adam and Eve had not eaten from the tree), they would not be jerks and women would not be dominated by men on a regular basis.

As far as incest, do remember that it was not marked as evil until the Mosaic Law. Before it was marked as wrong in the Mosaic Law, humans were still close enough to perfection to where incest would not be a problem. The whole point behind avoiding incest is because the genetic makeup of two family members is so close that it greatly increases the odds of genetic illnesses showing up in their children. But if the two individuals are very close to perfection and have no genetic illnesses, there is no problem here. They cannot pass on what they do not have. As their genetic structures began to break down from losing perfection in each successive generation, the command to avoid incest became much more necessary.

In other words, it was not a problem for Adam and Eve to be together. It was not a problem for Cain or Abel or any of their brothers to be with their sisters or neices or whatever else (Adam and Eve had hundreds of children; only three are named, but they had plenty of children--Genesis 5:4). Cain and Abel were mentioned because what occurred between them contains lessons for us today; and Seth was named because he was part of the geneological line that would eventually lead to Jesus. But Adam and Eve had plenty of other children, and so Cain and Abel were not fighting over getting with Eve.

Moses put it together from various scrolls he found in the Egyptian temples. They were varied in what religions they came from, and most were polytheistic. When editing the stories to be monotheistic, some things got overlooked.