For a long time, there’s been a meme floating around Facebook, with this message:
“To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll of the bottom and click, I agree.”
These days we are swamped with so many forms of entertainment, e.g., movies, TV, sports and hobbies, travel and vacations. In this situation, it’s a rare devout person who decides to read the Bible from cover-to-cover—maybe on the chapter-a-day plan. After all, a magnificent copy of the Bible is on display on the church altar. It must be worth reading, right? That adoration might continue if the devout reader embarks on this endeavor without critical thinking skills fully engaged.
I have often pointed out with respect to the gospels: how can any event or episode be verified? Please show us the reliable, verifiable, objective evidence that justifies believing in any Jesus-script or event described in the gospels. It is the painful truth that the gospel stories are not based on contemporary documentation (such as diaries and letters written at the time of the events).
The very same realities apply to the stories we find in Genesis.
We read in Genesis 1:3, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” But since he had not yet created anyone who could witness this event, how can we verify it? There can be no doubt whatever that this claim is based on ancient theological imagination, speculation, guess work—while the inventors assure their readers that it is based on ‘divine inspiration’. But this has been the claim of so many diverse religious leaders. “Let there be light” should be treated with considerable skepticism—this is God’s achievement on Day One—since the author of this text points out that the sun and moon were not created until Day Four. Things don’t add up. It is hardly a surprise that the theologian who wrote this text had no clue whatever about the nature of the cosmos, i.e., that the earth is a planet in a complex solar system, which is itself part of a vastly mote complex galaxy. If this text is divinely inspired, why is such crucial information missing?
Genesis 2 presents another version of the creation story, but here God is referred to as the LORD God—which is a disguise for the name of this deity, Yahweh. The translators suspected that printing Yahweh could be confusing, so whenever readers see LORD, they don’t realize that this god’s name is being hidden. In Genesis 2 we read that the LORD God
“… caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORDGod had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man…” (vv. 21-22)
Here is the beginning of the monogeny that plagues the Bible: the woman was created using a rib from the man’s body. She owes her existence to him.
In Genesis 3 we find the famous story of Eve being coaxed by a serpent to eat from the tree of knowledge; this is a fragment of goofy folklore. Eve then persuades Adam to do the same thing. And thus they incur the wrath of the god who made them. In fact, this god seems to have the temperament of a furious toddler. He scolds the serpent, but then is especially brutal in the punishment he has in mind for the woman:
“I will make your pangs in childbirth exceedingly great; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (3:16)
Adam also is promised humiliating suffering:
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (3:17)
God expels them from the Garden of Eden, which is now carefully guarded to prevent them from getting back in to eat from the Tree of Life. It has taken a lot of wishful thinking for theologians to reimagine this deity as a caring, infinitely loving god.
But God’s fury was elevated further; we find this text near the opening of chapter 6:
“The LORD saw that the wickedness of humans was great in the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made humans on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out from the earth the humans I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air—for I am sorry that I have made them.” (6:5-7)
This is strange behavior from a deity who is commonly credited these days as an Intelligent Designer. How can he have made people whose “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually” ? What kind of mistakes did he make when he was creating humans? How can this god have made such horrible errors?
In Genesis 7 and 8 we find the story of this deity’s massive genocide. All humans, except Noah and his family, and all animals, except those brought into the ark, are wiped out in the great flood.
How can devout readers fail to see just how hideous this story is?
How can they claim to worship a good and merciful god? And what a shock it is that evangelical Christians—mainly concerned to rake in millions of dollars—set up a theme park for their devout followers to have a fun day touring the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. Hey guys, you’re turning a genocide into an entertainment event at an amusement park. That too is an example of Bad Theology.
I’ll have more to say about major defects in Genesis in upcoming articles. But what I’ve mentioned so far should provide major clues as to why Bible reading has not become a popular pastime.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
• Guessing About God (2023)
• Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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