Genesis 1-3 NBT (Non-Believer Translation)
An invisible something called 'God' who existed forever and always as a penis-less Father, a mother-less Son of the Father and a sheetless Ghost rolled into one, yet remaining distinctly three, without shape or substance, decided to make a universe. This God performed ‘his’ first miracle by making light but no light source. More miracles followed when he made mornings and nights without sunrises and sunsets and molded a man out of dirt, shaping each eyelash, each organ (vestigial ones included), and each neuron and synapse with his bigger than life invisible God hands. Perhaps even more miraculous than the dirt-man becoming flesh and blood is that he came to life speaking a language.
After failing miserably at his attempt to find a suitable mate for the man amongst a parade of animals, (not a terribly astute all-knowing being) the invisible God put the man to sleep, knifed his way into his chest and broke off a rib—Ouch! He rubbed his bigger than life invisible God hands on the bloody broken bone and magically transformed it into a woman. Bad move. Should have stuck with an aardvark or sheep as a partner for the man as all hell broke lose when the woman brought death into the world by disobeying the disembodied voice of the invisible God. Soon after, the invisible sculptor/surgeon put on the hat of invisible hunter as he killed some animals (perhaps with a big invisible bow and arrow or maybe he just beat their heads against a rock) and after somehow gutting and skinning them, (maybe Jesus had a holy hunting knife on hand) he replaced his camouflage hat with a tailor cap and used his big invisible bloodstained hands to fashion clothes for his naked Ken and Barbie (needle and thread provided by helpful angels who procured them from a sewing shop just above the clouds no doubt).
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7 comments:
Wow. There are so many mistakes in this "translation" of the creation story, but I'll just address one to start. It would not have mattered if God had created Eve, Jane, Mary Beth, or an aardvark for Adam's partner. It wouldn't even have mattered if he had left Adam alone, to his own devices. Sooner or later, Eve, Jane, Mary Beth, or Adam would have eaten the forbidden fruit and brought sin into the world.
And it was not as though it wasn't Adam's fault too. From reading the chapter in Genesis that talks about the Fall, you can surmise that Adam was standing right there as she took it. He wasn't trying to stop her or anything. Both of them sinned.
Hi Kelsie, Nice to hear from you! Hope you are enjoying the summer.
The New Testament writers lay the guilt on Eve (symbol of all women) for the corruption of the world and those passages allowed for Jews, Christians and Muslims (who just stole from the bible)to continue their oppression of women for 2 thousand years by claiming divine justification. Another example of the way the bible has poisoned the world.
John . .
Greetings for Oxford!
Where in the NT is guilt placed upon Eve?
I am not sure if I know the book, chapter and verse you are referring to.
Romans 5 strongly places guilt upon Adam.
Hey Soonerboy! Nice to hear from you....and from Oxford! Cool! Hope that is going well, would like to hear about the experience over a drink sometime.
To answer your question about the condemnation of Eve in the NT...
"A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don't permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner" (I Timothy 2:11-14).
some more:
By: Sherif Abdel Azim, Ph.D.- Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
PART 2 - EVE'S LEGACY
“The image of Eve as temptress in the Bible has resulted in an extremely negative impact on women throughout the Judaeo-Christian tradition. All women were believed to have inherited from their mother, the Biblical Eve, both her guilt and her guile. Consequently, they were all untrustworthy, morally inferior, and wicked. Menstruation, pregnancy, and childbearing were considered the just punishment for the eternal guilt of the cursed female sex. In order to appreciate how negative the impact of the Biblical Eve was on all her female descendants we have to look at the writings of some of the most important Jews and Christians of all time. Let us start with the Old Testament and look at excerpts from what is called the Wisdom Literature in which we find: "I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare....while I was still searching but not finding, I found one upright man among a thousand but not one upright woman among them all";(Ecclesiastes 7:26-28).
“In another part of the Hebrew literature which is found in the Catholic Bible we read: "No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman.....Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die"; (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).
“Jewish Rabbis listed nine curses inflicted on women as a result of the Fall: "To the woman He gave nine curses and death: the burden of the blood of menstruation and the blood of virginity; the burden of pregnancy; the burden of childbirth; the burden of bringing up the children; her head is covered as one in mourning; she pierces her ear like a permanent slave or slave girl who serves her master; she is not to be believed as a witness; and after everything--death." 2
“To the present day, orthodox Jewish men in their daily morning prayer recite "Blessed be God King of the universe that Thou has not made me a woman."; The women, on the other hand, thank God every morning for "making me according to Thy will."; 3 Another prayer found in many Jewish prayer books: "Praised be God that he has not created me a gentile. Praised be God that he has not created me a woman. Praised be God that he has not created me an ignoramus."; 4
continued...
“The Biblical Eve has played a far bigger role in Christianity than in Judaism. Her sin has been pivotal to the whole Christian faith because the Christian conception of the reason for the mission of Jesus Christ on Earth stems from Eve's disobedience to God. She had sinned and then seduced Adam to follow her suit. Consequently, God expelled both of them from Heaven to Earth, which had been cursed because of them. They bequeathed their sin, which had not been forgiven by God, to all their descendants and, thus, all humans are born in sin. In order to purify human beings from their 'original sin', God had to sacrifice Jesus, who is considered to be the Son of God, on the cross. Therefore, Eve is responsible for her own mistake, her husband's sin, the original sin of all humanity, and the death of the Son of God. In other words, one woman acting on her own caused the fall of humanity. 5 What about her daughters? They are sinners like her and have to be treated as such.
St. Tertullian was even more blunt than St. Paul, while he was talking to his 'best beloved sisters' in the faith, he said: 6 "Do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil's gateway: You are the unsealer of the forbidden tree: You are the first deserter of the divine law: You are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert even the Son of God had to die."
St. Augustine was faithful to the legacy of his predecessors, he wrote to a friend: "What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman......I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children."
Centuries later, St. Thomas Aquinas still considered women as defective: "As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence."
Finally, the renowned reformer Martin Luther could not see any benefit from a woman but bringing into the world as many children as possible regardless of any side effects: "If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there"
Again and again all women are denigrated because of the image of Eve the temptress, thanks to the Genesis account. To sum up, the Judaeo-Christian conception of women has been poisoned by the belief in the sinful nature of Eve and her female offspring.
Thanks for the responses. I still find a lack of support for anything in the NT shifting blame on Eve for the fall of man.
I think the meaning of the passage you quote from 1 Timothy begins with the order of creation and then moves to Eve's deception. There is some disagreement among biblical scholars as to how to handle this passage.
Read the following commentary from a popular commentary:
For introduces the biblical basis for the prohibition of v. 12. Paul indicates that the prohibition is based on two grounds, the first being the order of creation (Adam was formed first), and the second being the deception of Eve (v. 14). “Formed” (Gk. plassō) is the same term that the Septuagint uses in Gen. 2:7, 8, which evidently refers to creation (cf. 1 Cor. 11:8–9). Paul's argument indicates that gender roles in the church are not simply the result of the fall but are rooted in creation and therefore apply to all cultures at all times. The meaning of this passage, however, is widely contested today. Some interpreters argue that the prohibition of 1 Tim. 2:12 does not apply today because: (1) the reason for Paul's command was that women were teaching false doctrine in Ephesus; or (2) Paul said this because women in that culture were not educated enough to teach; or (3) this was a temporary command for that culture only. But Paul's appeal to the creation of Adam and Eve argues against those explanations. In addition, the only false teachers named in connection with Ephesus are men (1:19–20; 2 Tim. 2:17–18; cf. Acts 20:30), and no historical evidence exists of women teaching false doctrine in first-century Ephesus. Moreover, ancient inscriptions and literature speak of a number of well-educated women in that area of Asia Minor at that time (cf. also Luke 8:1–3; 10:38–41; John 11:21–27; Acts 18:2–3, 11, 18–19, 26; 2 Tim. 4:19). Finally, some have claimed that this passage only prohibits a “wife” from teaching or exercising authority over her “husband,” since the Greek words gynē and anēr (translated “woman” and “man” in 1 Tim. 2:12) can also mean “wife” and “husband” in certain contexts. Given the immediate context of vv. 8–9, however, the most likely meaning of the Greek words gynē and anēr here in vv. 11–14 would seem to be “woman” and “man” (rather than “wife” and “husband”).
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