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The Heretic's Bible - Genesis 8: The earth gets dry

by Genghis 6/7/2009 - 6:39 pm   |

After forty days, God, sealed the wellsprings of the deep and the floodgates of heaven. Then he created a wind that caused the floodwaters to gradually subside.

Commentary: Where did the floodwaters subside to?

After seven months, the boat ran aground on a mountain. After ten months, the mountain peaks became visible.

Commentary: What exactly did the lions eat for ten months? Just wondering…

Forty days later, Noah sent out a raven. It flew off and kept flying until the water had subsided. So then Noah sent out a dove. The dove couldn’t find any place to land and returned to the boat.

Commentary: What, was the dove nearsighted? It couldn’t see the visible mountain peaks?

Seven days later, Noah sent out the dove again. This time it returned with an olive leaf, proving that the water had subsided from the earth.

Commentary: The olive tree lived under water for eleven months? Or was it was a brand new olive tree? But according to Grecopedia,1 it takes at least 10 weeks for an olive seed to germinate and sprout leaves, and they need dry soil. Of course, God doesn’t give a shit about Grecopedia.

Seven days later, Noah sent out the dove again, and this time it didn’t return. One month later, the land was completely dry. Then God told Noah to leave the boat with his family and all the animals and start multiplying again, which they were quite happy to do.

But not all of them had the opportunity. Noah built an altar and sacrificed some of the clean livestock and birds to God. God smelled the fragrance of burning animals, and said to himself,

“Never again will I curse the soil because of man, for the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. I will never again strike down all life as I have just done.”

Commentary: Now we see why Noah needed all the extra clean animals. Maybe God should have commanded Noah to give him a sacrificial mercy injection before the flood. That way, the whole destruction of the earth thing could have been avoided.

1We have limited information about Grecopedia, but we know from Roman records, that it consisted in a number of articles collectively written by a group of self-anointed experts from Macedonia. The collection was highly decentralized, with pages scattered across the empire and shared by means of a network of runners. As the Macedonian empire was expansive and the unpaid runners were rather slow and prone to distraction, it could take months or years to receive a requested article, by which time it would likely have been completely rewritten at the opposite end of the empire by some other expert who believed the original author to be a complete dolt. The system collapsed of its own logistical weight in the late first century, and none of the work survived antiquity.


The Heretic's Bible is a translation of a recently discovered commentary by a notorious first century heretic, Joseph the Latriner. The commentary is presented in italics with footnotes by the translator.

Previous: Genesis 7 - The earth gets wet
Next: Genesis 9 - Noah gets naked

This is to recommend you to the site whare you can ask the veracity of the book of Genesis... Surprised

 

By:  sword44.blogspot.com

by Anonymous (not verified) 6/8/2009 - 3:18 am

Thank very much for the link. You had me converted for 1.5 seconds, but then I watched this, and I was an atheist again.

by Genghis 6/8/2009 - 9:18 am (re: Anonymous)

Given the poor quality and staleness of the blog-site, I suspect the commenter's goal was to bring traffic to his site more than to convert anyone.

As for conversion, I've noticed something in my own life that I wonder if other atheists have noticed: back when I was a wavering Christian, trying hard to believe, it seemed like I often had evangelists asking me if I "had accepted Jesus as my Lord and savior", and I'd always give a mumbling "yes" answer, etc. Now that I'm quite willing to give a confident "no", the question never comes up anymore. It probably says something unsavory about my character that I'm wanting the question to come up, but has anyone else had a similar set of experiences, is it possibly just that there are fewer evangelists around now, or what?

by Nebton 6/8/2009 - 9:58 am (re: Genghis)

I'm a firm agnostic and anti-proseletyzing on both sides of the issue - The anti-God brigade and the pro-(their) God brigade.  But atheists (for the most part) don't feel the need to convert believers to non-believers.  I take the ferry every morning commuting to work and we have roving preachers who attempt to convert ferry heathens.  At 7am in the morning, people tend to not be so receptive to their message and NYers can be pretty brutally direct in telling them to STFU.  Do they realize their tactics further drive people away from their message?

by dijamo 6/8/2009 - 11:06 am (re: Nebton)

I'm not anti-God, but I do enjoy a good scrap from time-to-time. So, if people are respectful to me and my beliefs, I feel the need to be respectful to them and their beliefs. Being respectful is an action, and not necessarily indicative of my feelings. I.e., I can "be respectful" even to those I think are bonkers. However, I truly do respect those who believe in Christ, Allah, etc., and act accordingly. I hold my nose with the hypocrites, however, and if they get in my face about it, I get to enjoy a good scrap.

by Nebton 6/8/2009 - 11:13 am (re: dijamo)

The Flood has often been regarded as a mere legend. Especially those people who believe in the theory of evolution do not believe that the Flood has ever taken place. It is impossible for them to think that it has ever occurred on Earth.

However, we should ask ourselves whether the Flood really took place. If we make practical observations based on what has been found in the ground, the fossils and traditional folklore, they quite often refer to the Flood. These indicate that a large mass destruction took place in the immediate past. The following paragraphs will deal with these different sources of information, referring to the Flood.

 

http://koti.phnet.fi/elohim/theflood.html

by Anonymous (not verified) 6/11/2009 - 4:09 am (re: Genghis)

See Orlando, this one thinks that the dinosaurs were wiped out in the Flood.

I love how my heretic posts are bringing out the religious nutsoes. But where are the Jews? All we're getting are the Christians.

by Genghis 6/11/2009 - 9:44 am (re: Anonymous)

Dinosaurs were killed in the flood, along with all other animals and humans that weren't on the ark. But according to my sources at the Creation Museum, when God said take 2 of every animal (or 7 pair--whatev), he didn't say, "Screw dino, though."

The reason that we didn't hear about dinosaurs after the flood is because they weren't called dinosaurs. The were called dragons (duh). And they're extinct now because people killed them off, either because they were scared of them or because they were showing off.

I. Am. Not. Making. This. Up.

There's a movie at the museum that explains it all.

by Orlando 6/11/2009 - 9:59 am (re: Genghis)

I'm aware of Christian Creationists and Muslim Creationists, but I don't think I've heard of Jewish Creationists. Why is that? Do they need to work on their PR some, or is it just part of the "we're the chosen people, you're not, so why bother converting you?" logic?

by Nebton 6/11/2009 - 10:41 am (re: Genghis)

Someone asked the same question on Yahoo answers.

Here was the best answer:

well, there is a long tradition of sages claiming genesis is not a literal account of the creation of the world. this does not mean that all jews believe in evolution, etc. there are definitely many who believe in the creation story as being literal. but since judaism is action-based rather than faith-based, it doesn't matter if you believe it's literal or not - to put it simply nobody cares. i've talked to orthodox rabbis who even believed in creationism before and just said, "look, i think noah's ark and the tower of babel is all a bunch of hogwash." and their reaction is invariably, "that's fine, that's not important, it's good to question what you read. now tell me - what mitzvahs do you keep? do you keep the sabbath?" they brush off what you believe and focus immediately on what you do.

by Genghis 6/11/2009 - 10:52 am (re: Nebton)

In the Bible, sexual differentiation is presented as a creation by God and not part of the inherent nature of divinity itself. So, in your question, you were asking how God created without a consort, however, God created gender apart from himself. The Christian God, Yahweh, unlike other pagan gods in literature, did not procreate with goddesses, He simply created mankind (male and female) from the dust of the ground.

God is, of course, spirit, so God does not possess gender, per se.

However, Jesus Christ, took on humanity (specifically, becoming male,) but the Father and Spirit do not possess gender.

by Paul (not verified) 6/8/2009 - 10:37 am

Pagan gods in literature?

Wanna know what finally pushed me over the edge into the atheist camp? There are a lot of things to choose from, but I was still clinging to agnosticism, not wanting to give up on the thought that there was something out there, bigger than each individual. I've seen evidence of it, or so I wanted to think.

But the notion that pagan gods are mythic but the Bible is not, of all of the hypocriscy and inconsistency of Christianity, was the final straw. The certainty that those morons in Rome and Greece were silly to believe that Zeus lived on a magic invisible mountain but Christianity is so righteous in its belief that God lives in a magic invisible paradise and if you're good enough you'll get to join him there someday? Puh-leeze.

by Orlando 6/8/2009 - 10:52 am (re: Paul)

I think that you're on the wrong chapter, Paul. The conversion took place in Ch. 6:

6:2 The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were good, and they took themselves wives from whomever they chose.

6:4 The titans were on the earth in those days and also later. The sons of God had come to the daughters of man and had fathered them. [The titans] were the mightiest ones who ever existed, men of renown.

I dunno sounds pretty sexual to me. Pagan even.

by Genghis 6/8/2009 - 11:24 am (re: Paul)

Actually, I assume that he's suggesting that these "sons" weren't literally "sons" (presumably this means he doesn't support a literal translation of the Bible), but that they were merely "creations", or "sons" in the metaphorical sense. "God's children" have sex all the time, but God does not. Of course, someone got Mary pregnant, but that's many chapters from now.

by Nebton 6/8/2009 - 11:33 am (re: Genghis)

The "sons of god" are pretty clearly contrasted with the "daughters of man," which suggests that whatever their origins, they are not human. Furthermore, the offspring of these interspecial couplings are referred to as nephilim, often translated as titans or giants.

Some interpret the "sons of god" to mean fallen angels. Others translate "sons of god" as "sons of nobles" and interpret it as a reference to the sons of Seth, in contrast to the sons of Cain.

But I think Joe the Heretic says it better than me: The Torah does not say, “fallen angels.” It says, “sons of God,” and surely God meant everything he said in the Torah. As crazedandconfused noted in a recent post, if you're a literalist, then reinterpreting the "word of God" in such a way as to make it more palatable is not an option. For if "sons of God" is metaphorical, then why not "6 days" and "flood" and "virgin" and all the rest?

by Genghis 6/8/2009 - 1:04 pm (re: Nebton)

For if "sons of God" is metaphorical, then why not "6 days" and "flood" and "virgin" and all the rest?

For some reason, this made me think of Chris Farley's "motiviational speaker" skit on SNL.

by Nebton 6/8/2009 - 1:53 pm (re: Genghis)

Hard to believe you've become more ignorant, so-called Genghis. First off, there's loads of evidence about the nephilim. Scroll down for cool fossil pictures. 47" femurs baby.

http://bibleprobe.com/nephilim.htm

And secondly, you're going to Hell.

Plus Nebton.

'Nuff said.

 

by quinn esq 6/8/2009 - 7:07 pm (re: Genghis)

It's so uncool to play the Nebton card.

by Genghis 6/9/2009 - 12:02 am (re: quinn the eskimo)

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