The Story of Genesis

The first chapter of the Bible has long been believed to explain the beginning of time, existence, of the universe itself. I disagree.

There is clearly a history before the beginning of this story, because we know the universe has been around far longer than we have. I don't put a huge amount of faith in the ability of science to construct that timeline, but I feel that simple logic and intuition lend themselves to the concept that the universe existed more than seven days, seven years, seven centuries, probably even more than seven millennia before man. So, from that perspective the earth likely existed prior to the beginning of this story.

My theory is that life existed here in crude Jurassic forms, that early man may have been around at the same time as the dinosaurs, and that early man was nothing like us. At some point, another group of beings encountered us and changed the course of our evolution. I've touched on this the last few days and now I'm diving a little deeper into the subject. Everyone reads the Bible differently and will believe different things based on it. What I aim to discuss here is merely one theory that may or may not be correct. My goal is to introduce another idea to help others to expand their horizons and possibly think of their own ideas and theories, whether they agree with me or not.

It is my belief that the Bible has been misread through history due to a lack of understanding and civilization having been much less aware of the universe even a hundred years ago. I will be going over parts of Genesis today, pointing out things that clash with the traditional understanding of the story. Understand that when I read this, I keep in mind that translation and language are barriers between cultures today, and that between now and our far reaching past those barriers are even greater. What someone back then may have seen or understood to be true could have made perfect sense to them in the language they used to describe it, but today it would make far less sense to us. Also, even today when people see something that they have never seen before it is difficult to describe outside of the terms we already know. So whereas on first encounter with an object one might say it looked like a bumpy sphere with a strange grid and occasional black panels, someone in the know would call it a soccer ball.




GENESIS

1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 1:2 Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.


"God's spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters" Later we will read that waters were both above AND below the expanse (atmosphere) only AFTER God separated them, so here when it says the spirit was hovering over the waters, it likely means orbiting the planet, and this leads me to wonder if spirit is an incorrect or misunderstood translation for some type of vessel / spaceship.

It is safe to assume (within my theory) that if whatever beings were visiting had the technology for space flight, that they may also have had the technology for terra-forming and to be able to perform some of the tasks I suggest as we read on...



1:3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Could the beings have landed where it was dark and moved to an area where the sun shone? Or more interestingly, could they have started or altered the rotation of the Earth?



1:4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. 1:5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was evening and there was morning, one day.

In the context this sounds very much like the first rotation of the planet.



1:6 God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 1:7 God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. 1:8 God called the expanse “sky.” There was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Here we get to the waters being separated into water above the sky (in the outer atmosphere) and water on the Earth. Clearly at this point in time we had a very different atmosphere, weather, and temperature on this planet.



1:9 God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 1:10 God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering together of the waters he called “seas.” God saw that it was good. 1:11 God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth”; and it was so. 1:12 The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 1:13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

The only things I note here is that all the waters were gathered to once place. It doesn't say so about the dry land, so this really doesn't hint at Pangaea one way or the other.



1:14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; 1:15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 1:16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 1:17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth, 1:18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. 1:19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

Here is where it gets really interesting. From previous statements we know that the expanse of sky falls in between the earth itself and the outer atmosphere. It is clearly said here that WITHIN the atmosphere representations of the sun, moon and stars are placed. From our present knowledge that these bodies are well outside our atmosphere, this can mean one of two things. Either the outer waters beyond the expanse describe a border around the outside of our solar system, which we have clearly been unable to see thus far, or there were fake versions of the sun, moon & stars put in place within the border of our atmosphere. Either of these two possibilities is astounding in their implications. The first implies that our entire solar system (and what we THINK is the rest of the universe) is contained within a big sphere of water that we haven't been able to see. The second implies that beings who were changing the face of the earth felt it important to give us these fake symbols representing the real ones. I think that the second implication is far more likely only because in the flood story it is clearly indicated that the water in the outer atmosphere crashes down to earth.

The phrasing also says that god made the lights AND THEN set them in place in the sky. It is also important to point out that the way Genesis is written there is clearly light and night and day BEFORE the sun, moon and stars are made and set in place. If we had an outer atmosphere of water, it is possible that it did not allow us to see the actual sun moon and stars but to have their ambient light filtered through the water. So we would have had night and day, light and heat, but would not have had the actual sun/moon/stars to look at until they were created and stuck up there for us! Even more interesting is that most ancient cultures believed that there was a god WHO MOVED THE SUN ACROSS THE SKY. Stories about constellations say they are beings who were for one reason or another placed in the sky! Perhaps the being that built the fake sun, put it in the sky and controlled its movements was named Apollo.




1:20 God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky.” 1:21 God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. 1:22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 1:23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. 1:24 God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 1:25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.

A very often repeated statement here is "after their kind" Sure, it could be just a weird way of saying reproduce, but it also specifically says separately to be fruitful and multiply so why would two different ways of saying it be used? To dissect a little further, cutting out the descriptions of the creatures you wind up with this:

1:21 God created the every living creature after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.

Splicing out some of the descriptive phrasing brings about a much clearer statement - that these creatures were created in the image of the same creatures which already existed somewhere else. To me that sounds like cloning, and like these beings brought creatures to earth which had not evolved here.



1:26 God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

This is a statement which has been a curiosity to me for a very long time... GOD is heretofore assumed to be a SINGLE being, yet here God is speaking in the third person. Why? What makes the most sense to me is that GOD is the name for a race of beings NOT an individual. The word MAN can mean one person or the entire race OR even just a gender - it is entirely possible that GOD was used in the same way. Later in the bible if you encounter a statement such as "(name) is GOD" maybe it's just saying that person is part of that group of beings, differentiating him from MAN.

Secondly, this phrase alludes to the possibility that MAN already existed, and GOD was changing man to be more like GOD. This would explain the sharp differences between Paleolithic man and Neolithic man. Now, the basic assumption here would be some type of genetic alteration, splicing our DNA with theirs. And, maybe it was. But that's not the only possibility; they could have been referring to teaching us the ways of civilization as well. I personally lean towards the genetic alteration as for me it makes more sense in an overall context.



(continued) and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 1:27 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 1:28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 1:29 God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 1:30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.



Now here we encounter a very weird situation - on this day, God created both man and woman and told them to fill the earth. Remember this, because a little further down I'm going to revisit that statement.



1:31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. 2:1 The heavens and the earth were finished, and all their vast array. 2:2 On the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. 2:3 God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work which he had created and made. 2:4 This is the history of the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. 2:5 No plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth. There was not a man to till the ground, 2:6 but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground.

Sprinklers, eh? Ok enough joking around there is also the statement "there was not a man to till the ground” and then it goes on to say:



2:7 The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden eastward, in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Here it doesn't say God created a garden or commanded verbally that a garden grow there, but rather says he planted it. This is significant because in earlier parts it is clearly said that God does things by verbal action... this time it is implied that it is done by hand. Also, it is specified that Eden is eastward... east of what? Eden is not the garden itself, the garden is within Eden. It sounds as if there were settlements of GOD on the planet and the garden where man was placed was a protected area just for man. It also makes it sound like whether or not Adam was the first man to exist, he was set aside, was special, and that therefore there were others. This comes back to the earlier statement that GOD had already created man in his own image, but now it specifically describes him creating Adam at a later time.



2:9 Out of the ground the LORD God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 2:10 A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became four heads.

Again, a reference to Eden being much larger than just the garden as a river flows from Eden to the garden - some type of irrigation was built. Also, the river "was parted" could imply more direct manipulation of this water source rather than a natural flow.



2:11 The name of the first is Pishon: this is the one which flows through the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 2:12 and the gold of that land is good. There is aromatic resin and the onyx stone. 2:13 The name of the second river is Gihon: the same river that flows through the whole land of Cush. 2:14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel: this is the one which flows in front of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

Why specify the minerals native to those lands? This description has lead to much speculation over the supposed location of Eden, with people pointing to various areas and naming off Lemuria and Atlantis as well. The general assumption shared by many is that it was in an area relative to the middle east, partly because there is presently a river there named the Eurphrates.

Havilah could well be India - both gold and onyx has been found there in abundance. If that is true, then Pishon could be the Ganges river. Cush could refer to the area around Egypt once known as Kush, in which case the Gihon would be the Nile. In any case, I think that the existence of Eden predated the separation of continents, and that it is likely Eden was either on Antarctica or a landmass that lay between Antarctica and India which is no longer above sea level. As for Assyria, the Euprates and the Tigris both flow in that direction (and I have heard speculation that Hiddekel is the Tigris).




2:15 The LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 2:16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die.”

Clearly they did not die upon eating this fruit, but it did bring about a major change in man. Was it a tree and fruit as we think of them today? Or was this the closest description to what was shown that the writer had? Does the word "die" mean what we think? These are all possible errors in translation or incompatibilities in languages. A less sophisticated being with less sophisticated language attempting to describe things he had never before witnessed or heard described.



2:18 The LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 2:19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, which was its name.

Had GOD not already created these beings? He had - in the first seven days GOD created the animals, birds, etc before creating man, but here it says he is forming them after having created man and showing them to man to be named. It says "God formed" these creatures, what if this is a way of describing them being shown or displayed in pictures or on a screen?



2:20 The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field; but for man there was not found a helper suitable for him. 2:21 The LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 2:22 He made the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, into a woman, and brought her to the man. 2:23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of Man.” 2:24 Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh. 2:25 They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Man and Woman are earlier being described as having been created all at once and sent out to fill the earth, yet here man is created and it takes some time and consideration of all other creatures before it is decided that woman shall be created. The man being made to have a deep sleep and his rib removed sounds like some sort of cloning has taken place. It is interesting that God's decree about what could and could not be eaten came before woman was created. Why was the decree made only about the tree of knowledge, when the tree of life also lay within the garden and later a concern is shown about man eating it? Logically there should have been a decree that neither of the two trees could be eaten but the second tree is only an afterthought - "oh no, he ate of the first, will he now try to eat of the second?" In fact it is said of every tree you may freely eat except for the tree of knowledge, making it sound as if the tree of life was allowable for food.




3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made.

Subtle - as an adjective means:
1. not immediately obvious or comprehensible
2. difficult to detect or analyze, often through being delicate or highly refined a subtle scent
3. showing or making or capable of showing or making fine distinctions of meaning
4. marked by or requiring mental acuteness or ingenuity; discriminating
5. delicate or faint a subtle shade
6. cunning or wily a subtle rogue
7. operating or executed in secret a subtle intrigue
[from Old French soutil, from Latin subtīlis finely woven]


Notice that it is not until point 6. that cunning or wily becomes a meaning for the word - indicating that its use is most often as "not immediately obvious or comprehensible". Subtle is also used in term as description of the soul or astral body as follows:

“A subtle body is one of a series of psycho-spiritual constituents of living beings, according to various esoteric, occult, and mystical teachings. Each subtle body corresponds to a subtle plane of existence, in a hierarchy or great chain of being that culminates in the physical form.

It is known in different spiritual traditions; "the most sacred body" (wujud al-aqdas) and "supracelestial body" (jism asli haqiqi) in Sufism, "the diamond body" in Taoism and Vajrayana, "the light body" or "rainbow body" in Tibetan Buddhism, "the body of bliss" in Kriya Yoga, and "the immortal body" (soma athanaton) in Hermeticism.[1] The various attributes of the subtle body are frequently described in terms of often obscure symbolism: Tantra features references to the sun and moon as well as various Indian rivers and deities, while Taoist alchemy speaks of cauldrons and cinnabar fields.” (From Wiki)




He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’” 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, 3:3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t surely die, 3:5 for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate. 3:7 The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. 3:8 They heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

They heard the voice of the Lord God walking through the garden - and they hid. For a deity that is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, not knowing immediately that they had eaten of the fruit, walking through the garden, and calling out to find out where man was upon not having seen him are all very strange actions. This being is not GOD as we today think of GOD. This being is something else.




3:9 The LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 3:10 The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” 3:11 God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 3:12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” 3:13 The LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 3:22 The LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”

The punctuation “...” is called a ellipsis, and it is used in modern language to indicate an omission or continuance of text is not shown. What else was said that was removed or not added? The next sentence is awkward and has the phrasing to indicate that it picked up after some discussion, whose omission is shown by the ellipsis used.



3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed Cherubs at the east of the garden of Eden, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

Not a sword but the flame of a sword, a sword which "turned every way". Anything that turns every way is essentially a sphere, so some sort of flaming sphere? What are cherubs, really? Why were they only placed in the east of the Garden?

"Cherubs are mentioned in the Torah (five books of Moses), the Book of Ezekiel, and the Book of Isaiah. They are also mentioned in the books of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, and 2 Chronicles mainly in the construction of the House of God. The prophet Ezekiel describes them as a tetrad of living creatures, each having four faces: of a lion, an ox, an eagle (or griffon vulture[2]), and a man. They are said to have the stature and hands of a man, the feet of a calf, and four wings. Two of the wings extended upward, meeting above and sustaining the throne of God; while the other two stretched downward and covered the creatures themselves." (From Wiki)
(in a future post I will discuss cherubim and what they may be)



4:1 The man knew Havah his wife. She conceived, and gave birth to Cain, and said, “I have gotten a man with the LORD’s help.” 4:2 Again she gave birth, to Cain’s brother Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 4:3 As time passed, it happened that Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground. 4:4 Abel also brought some of the firstborn of his flock and of its fat. The LORD respected Abel and his offering, 4:5 but he didn’t respect Cain and his offering. Cain was very angry, and the expression on his face fell. 4:6 The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why has the expression of your face fallen? 4:7 If you do well, will it not be lifted up? If you don’t do well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it.”

This is an odd statement. If you do well, what will be lifted up? Lifted to where? Sin crouches at the door and desires Cain but he is to rule over it... To me this correlates to the coiled and sleeping kundalini energy that is discussed along with Chakra work. The reference to lifting up would tie into that as well, operating on a higher level equates to moving up the ladder of the chakras. If this is the case, God is informing Cain that it is his own actions that beget the rewards he desires, and that no one but him can put him where he wants to be.



4:8 Cain said to Abel, his brother, “Let’s go into the field.” It happened when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. 4:9 The LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” 4:10 The LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground. 4:11 Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 4:12 From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.” 4:13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 4:14 Behold, you have driven me out this day from the surface of the ground. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth. It will happen that whoever finds me will kill me.” 4:15 The LORD said to him, “Therefore whoever slays Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” the LORD appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should strike him.

Here there are many references that there are many sentient beings living on earth, not just Adam, Eve, Cain, and GOD. Animals are mere animals; it seems unlikely this reference is to them. It seems this is referring to other MAN and other GOD who are living on the earth at this time.




To summarize:

Genesis seems to describe a barren earth which is terra-formed and made habitable by visitors, who fill it with animals they create from genetic samples they have, and create man as we know him to be the primary sentient species on the planet. They also create a man and a special place for him, and later give him a woman as well, presumably because he will be more cooperative if he has a companion. They offered animals as companions but he was not satisfied with that so they gave him a counterpart. Within this garden is some types of tree or technology to further evolve beings to the level of these GOD beings, and the woman is driven - by some sort of subtle serpent (DNA?) to eat of the fruit and share it with the man. Because of this they are pushed out of the garden - but NOT unkindly, being given clothing and some guidance first. They are told of some punishments, but nothing too severe as to ruin the possibility of happy lives. Then, they have children and grandchildren; continue interacting with "God", ultimately dying at some very ripe old ages (in the 900's for Adam).


In applying modern logic and knowledge to this ancient story, we uncover a story that is very different from what has been believed through time. I am still shocked that the interpretations of these stories from unenlightened eras has persisted through today.