Genesis to 6.8

I always find the beginning of the bible to be particularly interesting. I highly enjoy creation myths and so the likenesses to other creation myths is quite fun. First I suppose I should start with God creating the world in 7 days. The most interesting part to me was the idea that he created a dome to hold the sky seperate from the water, because while this was obviously written a very long time ago, this shows that the writers had the idea that the sky at least was round, and were probably well aware that the earth itself was round as well (but the myth of it being flat perpetrated because sea navigation was not advanced enough for ships to travel far from the coasts without being lost...maybe, i'm no historian)
I think I prefer the first story of the creation. It's interesting to look at it and try to trace early human conciousness of their own surroundings and how they interpretted the earth. the second story, with adam and eve bothers me at certain points when taken literally, but also has interesting points.
First I find it fascinating how many creation myths begin with the idea of human beings being created from the earth be it dust, dirt, or clay. It is like that with the romans, some african mythology, and the dust in particular is an interesting likeness to mesopotamian mythology where men start from dust, and after their death return to dust (this is not a happy endevour, the afterlife is not a very nice place to be in mesopotamia) It's very interesting the likenesses those myths have, and makes me wish i had a chance to just trace oral traditions through history, but alas I am only an undergrad, let's move on to my more sophmoric review of the second story.
The tale of Adam and Eve has always bothered me, and perhaps i am viewing it in a biases way (no, i probably am, but i don't much mind) first, while i don't mind the idea that woman was created from man so much, it's a curious change over from the 7 day story where both were created together. It makes me think that perhaps this story came from a different set of oral traditions as societies began to become patriarchal instead of family groups where the mother and father would rule together. It seems many mythologies have this patriarchal shift, for instance you can see it in the greek creation myth with the fall of the titans. Zeus becomes the patriarchal figure, in control, and civilization starts, but back to the bible (sorry i am so scatterbrained today)
I really hate the apple story. First of all, God hasn't really been said to be all knowing yet, but i assume that he is a very intelligent being, at least smarter than humans, in the way that parents are smarter than their children. He tells the two that they can have anything they want, except this one fruit from this one tree. really? He thought that would work? sure there was the added bonus of, this fruit will kill you, but still, it's like telling a child not to touch the cookies on the table then leaving them on a plate, in the open. That is quite the safeguard >.>. So the snake comes along and tells the little children that no the cookies aren't going to kill them. so obviously they take them. Yep that was a brilliant plan there. So God is walking in the garden, does he have a human form? can adam and eve gaze upon him without being hurt by his presense? is he wearing clothing, since he does know of good and evil and his own nakedness? well he grows angry and the two are kicked out of eden. Still seems to be a bit harsh, but i wonder if it is a point to mark when we as humans no longer hunted and gathered but began to farm for our food. The part that bugs me is the great pains during childbirth, honestly is it a proper punishment to make it so that they'll nearly die? and add on that they won't be able to resist having children and nearly dying? again, a tad harsh.
I wonder though, Does the knowledge of good and evil also equate to the knowledge of right and wrong? good=right, evil=wrong. sure the right thing to do, like helping an old lady across the street is a small bit of good, but it is still good, just as lying is a small bit of evil, but it's still evil. Well the point of my question is this. If they were unaware of good and evil, how could adam and eve be expected to know that disobeying god was bad? They were given free will and a choice to make, but they didn't have the tools to make the right choice. so they were punished for something they couldn't really help, and with the idea of original sin, all the babies ever born will be punished because god asked adam and eve to choose between right and wrong, before they knew what it was.
Next comes Cain and Abel. Obviously the human race is farming at this point. It was around this time that human beings were beginning to stop killing (and sometimes eating) other tribes and start taking slaves. the value of human life became...valueable and I believe this story marks when murder and canabalism became unacceptable to people. Taking it literally again, both Cain and Abel are devote and bring offerings, but Cain's is snubbed for some reason? God couldn't muster up any sort of "good job" for an offering to him? I'd be mad too if i didn't even get a thank you. God's curse is another point the story makes for how human life is valueable and killing is no longer acceptable.
That was mostly the interesting part to Cain. I do wonder where his wife came from, did god try again in Eden and they failed again? Did he just make more people in the world? How is it the terrible Cain became the patron for a ciilization, or a few of them really? It makes me wonder if it was more oral traditions pulled together, then at some point reflavored with name changes so now it's about Cain. The tidbit with his decendant is interesting where the curse is 72 fold for killing him. I wonder what it means. It ended so ubruptly. perhaps the first decendants of gods first children are special, or maybe it's against injuring anyone, or maybe just goes to show people are getting more nasty and violent and the violence begets more violence it only becomes worse.
The decendants of seth is an interesting bit (i know i'm odd for finding it interesting. it's just a long line of fathering really) but it was interesting at two parts. The first was that humans were apparently near divine, they were alive for 900 years and such, but this era had to end and the human being would only manage 120 years. How could our ancestors have come to that number? at the time the life span wasn't anywhere near that! it still hasn't quite managed that now, except a few outliers, but studies in DNA show that after 120 years the structure of our DNA begins to weaken. This is why clones have problems with aging. if you clone yourself after 60 years, the clone has about 60 years left to live. neat isn't it? i always found that little part of the bible to just be...fascinating. Anyway the other interesting part is, it resembles the greek mythology with its ages. the divine humans are much like the men of the golden age. what does that mean? maybe we like to think we were at least once great, maybe we know that once our ancsestors were far more physically superior to ourselves. they were the wolves to our being dogs. or maybe there really was a part of human history where god was with us and we were awesome.
The Nephilim children are like the greek heroes, all touched by the gods in some way, normally through their bloodline. The human idea of superior blood is interesting, and has some creedane. when a family starts with very nice genes, royal families for instance, and continue to have children with people like themselves (normally through imbreeding) they manage to have a very fine family...pole. the problem comes from marrying outside of the family. See imbreeding doesn't create bad genes, it just brings out any bad genes. If you carefully selectfully breed, it's not a problem until new genes are in the mix, then everyone ends up with hemophilia.
Well i shall call it a night on this part. I didn't mean to get so ranty but i do really like to analyze this sort of thing. I'll be better later on, though i'm not sure who will really be reading this anyway? Are we supposed to comment on everyone elses blog?