Genesis: Old legends and modern fantasies scrutinized

September 13, 2011 / Posted in  Ancient Egypt, Bible, Torah

For the last 1700 years various groups of Christians have considered that the Bible began its sordid tales with the writing of the Book of Genesis.  This error was generated because the word genesis, coming from the Greek γένεσις (a part of the Proto-Indo-European languages adapted to Sanskrit and Semitic languages from γέν that developed from the Sanskrit शुरू referring to a birthing from nothing but coming with force (such as a Big Bang; it does not translate as a “fashioning by hand” or “creation”), means “origin“.  The Hebrew uses the word בְּרֵאשִׁית‎, Bereʾšyt.  It translates as “In the beginning”.  

Genesis was coined by a crass conclave of courtiers in the keep of the King Josiah.  The writers group continued, and flourished later under the patronage of King Jehoiachin and the queen mother of Judah–thousands of years after various people who eventually emerged as a Semitic people (politely styled “Hebrews” in Jeremiah 29:2) with the royal family pushed from the throne by a violent god (Jeremiah 22:24; the god was the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chronicles 24:15 and 36:9-10). 

While myth makes Moses the author of the Torah, that is a pious fiction, for it is impossible for anyone to write about his or her own death.  As various scholars have noted, the authorship of Moses, is a pitifully pious fraud (De Wette, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht (1829) Lehrbuch der historisch  kritischen  ein  leitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testaments. Berlin, G. Reimes, 1817 [vol. 1], 1829 [vol. 3], etc.).  

The collection of courtiers gave a cornerstone, by penning “Genesis”, as a way to spirit away time–much as the lords and ladies meeting to fashion the Decameron.  It is on the frivolity of favorites of the sovereign that the initial Hebrew mythologies were built, initiating both the Hebrew tales of wonder as well as the canons that became a part of what the pagan emperor Constantine I wanted: a universal (or “catholic”) church.  The fact that Constantine knew of these fables can be attested in the writings of those who came after Josephus–an unscrupulous liar.  But the stories did continue–many being enhanced and expanded by Augustine of Hippo and those who followed his writings. 

We can read much of the transmogrification of writings in the various redactions of old Canaanite tales and those from Babylon and Sumeria and Samaria.  To this end we have the non-Hebrew story of Ruth, the alleged Babylonian Empress Esther, and others.  This led the great Constantine to call for his warrior bishops to put aside their differences and attempt to live in (unrealized) harmony when he forced through his novel idea in 325 CE at Nicaea.  Out of this came the “catholic” [universal] church that was anything but united.

To create a united people, the imperial house reasoned, it was essential to initialize a united religion as the various theologies of ancient Roman and Greek gods and goddesses were not only multiplying but mutating.  It was the Emperor’s hope–as mentioned by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Caesarea–that this could be done by finding common themes in all of the tales of generations and civilizations.  From this came the compilation of creation narratives, and then later literary escapes from India (Abraham, patterned after the god Brahma) to southern Ethiopia (Queen of Sheba).

In the “primeval history” of Genesis (chapters 1-11), dated somewhere around the sixth century BCE, the reader finds most of the ancient legends that have similarities to all other ancient theologies that predate it by no less than 2400 years.  This makes other less-tainted theologies not only far older but far more reliable than the fantasies of in Gan [garden] Eden in Iraq that actually, on papyrus and skins, extended from the mountains of Turkey to southern Chad. 

The landlords of Eden grew herbs (Genesis 1:11a).  The great error is that people were illiterate and fearful of natural phenomena–and this terror escalated as civilizations grew so that simple stories took on a god-appearance structure, and words like “baal” (which meant husband) became a god of terror, and elohim (a plural noun) was wrenched away from leaders to god(s)/goddess(es). After the herbs evolved from the ground (the English text reads: “Let the earth bring forth”–no god(s)/goddess(es) is/are mentioned as creating the herbs), “the  fruit tree” (singular: one, in Genesis 1:11b) appears and from its seed other fruit trees evolved (Genesis 1:12) once more without the intervention of any god(s)/goddess(es).  What is forgotten is that kings (and cesars: emperors) were frequently proclaimed gods not only after they died as was more common with the page of history being turned once Julius crossed the Rubicon, but were also hailed as gods following successful battles or while engaged in major works.  Thus Hadrian was a god in popular mentality as were the various Raj (Hindustani in origin (राज راج), was more popular after 1858, with the British Conquest of what is today known as India (civilization that can be charted more than 500,000 years ago and was established by a [the number varies] a shepherd boy with a mythology much like that of David of the Old Testament; the religion of India was polytheistic and from it came the Apiru, or early Hebrew, polytheism, with the India Vishnu (Sanskrit विष्णु Viṣṇu) who had a ‘Universal Form‘ (Vishvarupa) that is beyond the ordinary limits of human perception or imagination being similar to Elohim) and meant “ruler”, the leaders of tribes in Northern and Central Africa, and even among the ancient Britons and Picts to the North.  It will be out of India and Hinduism that the concept of a Holy Trinity, the Trimurti (translated as: ‘three forms’; in Sanskrit: त्रिमूर्ति trimūrti; cf. Zimmer, Heinrich (1972). Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Princeton, NJ USA: Princeton University Press, p. 124), was born no less than 400,000 BCE, with Brahma (prototype for Abraham) the creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver, and Shiva the destroyer or transformer.

While predatory priests and pastors from the ancient world that would ultimately take on the name of Hebrew and declare the House of Levi to be the true spokesman of the ancient Egyptian god Yah, it needed the support of teachers (rabbis) who were quick to curry favor by deleting words, adding phrases, and changing original scripts into a distorted scripture that the ignorant accepted in blind faith.   To those in early, medieval and modern Paulinity (the religion that developed out of primitive Christianity) have tried desperately to cast the destruction of the ancient world on the transgressions or sins of mortals, the opposite is far more plausible–and more documents are being made public to show that most of the Old Testament is mortal made and written numerous times to incorporate errors demanded by those in power.

The most fascinating aspect of this mythology is that the gods (or more precisely the nobility) play no role at all in the evolution of life. It is the water that “brings forth the creeping creature having life” (Genesis 1:20a), and from the water comes the fowl (Genesis 1:20b).  The development of the language has left scholars guessing for nearly 1300 years (Van Seters, John (2004). The Pentateuch: a social-science commentary. Continuum International Publishing Group, p. 114).  “Create” does not mean to “make out of nothing” but to make better that which exists. For example, an artist creates a picture, but the artist must first have the canvas or the paper on which to draw or sketch with pen or pencil or pigments.

No where in the ancient texts does it say that the god(s)/goddess(es) [hereafter I will refer to these elohim as lords, until the word becomes “gods” in the original scrolls or incised on stones or tablets) of Genesis originated life–they refined what already existed.  Throughout Genesis 1, it is “the earth [that] brings forth…life (animals, fowl,  fish, and mortals)”–not a god/goddess, for these beings were nothing more than proprietors.  While evangelical extremists and Biblical literalists argue that the world is 6000 years old, Richard Leaky and his family found the earliest humanoid bones of the skeleton of an individual Australopithecus afarensis known as Lucy (the common name of AL 288-1), that dates to more than 3.2 million years ago.  No male skeletons were found.

The antediluvian property owner of the Garden (an allegory of land from Assyria to Ethiopia, as found in Genesis 2:10-14) kept his or her workers ignorant.  This was common then as it is today, for an illiterate workforce does not seek higher wages or better working conditions. An illiterate workforce does not ask questions, and it is for that reason that the workforce was denied access to the Tree of Knowledge (an allegorical statement referring to education).

To keep the workers ignorant and thus at their appointed tasks, the helpmeets (those who were organized into groups; fundamentalists illiterate in the art of translation and interpretation misused the word and called it “helpmate”) were given tasks the gentry of the garden did not have time or interest in doing.  The primary workers, collectively known as “Adam” (who was taken from “the earth” where “the earth” is the feminine noun adamah and means both “mother” and earth” showing her superiority over man to whom she gave birth) was given the primary task of naming (not domesticating) the animals.  This “Adam,” (more of a reference to a condition: slavery, than to any individual or group of individuals) in time, was joined by (a [singular] or without an article implying plural) helpmate(s) but the original word is helpmeet(s) who were a lesser-trained group of workers), collectively known as “Eve” (“living”).  

Neither the word Adam nor the word Eve designates gender.  Adam is an undifferentiated androgyne. Gender comes with the pronouns for he (ish: אש)/ she (ishshah: נָשִׁים) and refers to sexuality (ishsheh: or אּשֶּׁה “fire”)—not to “wife”.  The male is of little importance outside of labor, for ish refers to ability: and it is found in the verb can but not to the affirmation of will.  Ancient civilizations determined generations (or lineages)  through females, not males–except

among invading vandals and nomadic people (such as the Apiru who were an unsettled mercenary people among the Hittites, and who drifted throughout the Mesopotamian region with the earliest records appearing c 1500 BCE, the names of 438 Habirusoldiers or servants of king Tunip-Tessup of Tikunani: a small city-state in Mesopotamia which thrived around the middle of the second millennium BC.  Tikunani is best-known for a cuneiform document from the reign of Tunip-Teššup containing a list of names of Habiru soldiers.  The Habiru/Apiru soldiers had no common ethnic affiliations, spoke no common

language, and led a marginal and sometimes lawless existence on the fringes of settled society.  There is a record under Thutmose III, frequently thought to be antecedent to Moses, where the Habiru/Apiru appear as wine makers at the tombs of the dead and are considered to be part of the Hittites:  apr[w]).  That was the case in the patriarchy that came in the soiled baggage of latter-day Hebrews and later Pauline Christians who had very little in common with the Christ of the New Testament.

When Genesis 1:26 records that “Let us make man to our image” it is not the body but the intelligence that is made, and the plural noun is used in each case.  It refers to the feminine intellect. This is why the early religious officials and officiates were priestesses–not priests, and why prophecy came from Oracles (female prophets) not from males.  All ancient civilizations that were settled, established, and had introduced education were feminine in nature (it is the word effeminacy (meaning “traditional female roles” that included warfare, education, government, and animal hunting, while gardening and horticulture were reserved for men: as an adjective it is θηλυπρεπής and as a noun it is γυναικωτός; cp. 1 Corinthians 6:9 which is oriented around the mental illness of sissyphobia or effeminiphobia) that has, over the centuries, been mistranslated and misinterpreted as “homosexual”, as seen in Deipnosophistae12.515e-516a) and gave time, attention and currency to schools, with religion playing a significant role in fertility rites and those seeking bounty from the elements, as with the goddess Asherah (אֲשֵׁרָה‎: Venus) of the Canaanites, who

originated with the Akkadian and Hittites.  She is  identical with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat that is the source for Jesus walking on water, as the Ugaritic goddess’ name means ‘She who treads [walks] on the sea’.  According to the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, Asherah was acclaimed as the “Queen of Heaven”: לֶכֶת הַשָּׁמַיִם‎ (Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:17–19, 25)–a title that would later be given to the Mother of Jesus: Mary in the nineteenth century by Pope Pius IX.  Early Hebrews considered Asherah to be the wife of the Hebrew agricultural god Yahweh (Judith M. Hadley (2000), The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess, Cambridge University Press pp. 122–136).

The first field workers had but minor tasks, at first glance, but one of great importance and need for reasoning ability that Gan Eden’s war leaders obviously did not have the intellectual ability nor time to do: naming “animals” (species of all kinds).  This passage was an initial form of inventory control.  Later, when their sons were conscripted to fight, they were pawns to be at the front line of battles, and considered expendable, but were named in lists to keep track of which males had sons that could fight in later battles.

The injunction in verse 28 of Genesis 1 is frequently read by fundamentalists as a precept to have children (off-spring).  That is not what the original term meant.  It would be a direct command that would make no sense in line with verse 22 where the same injunction is given to fish and birds and refers to the acceptance of additional generations if they occur.  It in no way implies nor affirms that there is a concept of family as animals seldom remember their sires.  What the scrolls show is the desire by the war leaders to have a constant supply of warriors to wage battle.

In addition to the travail or tabulating resources and wealth, the servants of the lords were instructed to tend groves of trees.  That this was their primary duty can be read in the prohibition disallowing them to “eat from the Tree of Knowledge”: to be educated like the warrior class and their children.  The mistake may have been predetermined to check on the obedience of the workers, or may have been accidental: not expecting a worker rebellion in quest of knowledge as was the goal of the German peasant leaders in 1525 CE.

The possibility that the transgression was not planned can be seen in the unique position of the mortal demons of the denizen: the employers who feared that if their workers are the forbidden fruit (gained knowledge) the workers would want more, and not accept the natural state of  nudity (Genesis 2:25b) as the warlords wore some apparel as seen in many engravings and other artifacts.  The use of clothing set aside the nobility and their courtiers, and if the workers would put on raiment it would be an elevation of their status from one that was servile to one that was equal initially.  By eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the workers would understand why they were relegated to an inferior status, and after their education would fashion aprons of leaves to give them a higher level of recognition. 

Genesis and Hindu origins are acute.  This level of recognition of being on the road to equality came when “the Serpent” began to debate Eve.  The serpent had been for thousands of years the symbol of knowledge, and the word stood for the “Great Teacher” (Medical organizations have adopted the Asclepius symbol of a staff and serpent  a theme that began with the Snake God of India)–who was battled by forces of darkness to keep people ignorant.  To this end the demigod Hercules battled the Serpent Ladon, who guarded the tree in the Garden of Hesperides.  The Serpent was known as the “Just and Good Friend” of the workers, and the Lords who walked in the Garden were the “Betrayers of Mortals to keep them enslaved in ignorance”.  The mistake made by the Lords (or gods) of the garden was the creation [actually: elevation] of Eve.  It was Eve who was more resourceful and better educated than Adam as shown in her exegetical responses to questioned posed by the Advocate or Teacher (a bad translation is ha-Satan or הַשָׂטָן that in correct interpretation means “one who opposes the lords who deny education”)  that education through discussion began in earnest.  No longer would the workers rely on a leader to tell them how to think and act.

To this end, wishing to be like god(s)/goddess(es), the workers assembled clothing, not out of shame but to prove themselves equal to the lords and ladies of the field.  Once adorned with suitable raiment, they heard their taskmaster(s) treading on the soil they had been in charge of without being granted even partial ownership. 

Realizing that the proprietor(s) would be angry the workers hid.  While Eve had mastered fine points of debate, Eve had not fully mastered the joys of mental liberation nor refined her rhetorical skills to debate as an equal with a warlord.  The workers were still under the illusion that they could excuse their actions without ill effect and relied on their childlike past as pawns by leaving their hiding place when called. 

When the workers were asked why they were wearing garments they had sewn together, Eve, the learned leaders of farm field laborers spoke out.  Eve was not afraid, but the cowardly Adam shrank back and blamed Eve for their downfall, rather than admitting that they too had tired of the sinister situation in Gan Eden.  The war lords of Eden knew that they had lost their worth and importance, for their commandments were ignored.  Adam (collectively) were those who felt tied to established regime for fear that by offending the taskmasters they would be denied food and work.

The demonic nature of the god(s)/goddess(es) of Gan Eden was unveiled when rebellion was sensed.  The Devils of Eden cursed their employees, and banished the workers from their homes and places where they labored.  They showed neither pity nor benevolence but cruelly sent their staff back to the barren lands “from whence they came”.  The wrathful draconian nature of the numen (the word is derived from nuğrğ ‘to nod’ [a god is thought to nod to indicate his will]; in Semitic theology the god is known as shekhinah or שכינה and is grammatically feminine and refers to a divine presence, as in Genesis 9:27, 14:13 and also Exodus 40:35, Psalms 37:3,  and Jeremiah 33:16) of Eden can be read in these lines, taken from the KJV: “And he [the god(s)/goddess(es) of Eden] said: “Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now, therefore, lest perhaps he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever [the issue of knowledge and its value in education of mortals is the theme of  Talmud Ketubot 85b; it has little in common with Christian apologists attempts to equate it with Greek term “Parousia”  (παρουσία a second coming or arrival) a form of ἐπιφάνεια [epiphany] that fits into the distortions of the New Apostolic Reformation and quaint preachifications of Texas Governor Rick Perry but has no scriptural foundation].  And the Lord God[(s)/goddess(es)]  sent him out of the paradise of pleasure, to till the earth from which he was taken. And he cast out Adam; and placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubims, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life”  (3:22-24).

Most readers of these verses fail or refuse to understand them. This is what Genesis really says:

(1) Only “Adam” is banned–not Eve, for she had gained knowledge and knew the deceits and evils of the lords/ladies of the Garden.  Eve accompanies Adam because of free will–it was her choice, not the order of the lords, nor request of Adam. 

(2) The god(s)/goddess(es) of Eden knew that they needed an elixir to stay alive, and worried that Adam would know “good and evil” and “take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”. Originally, the Tree of Life was a reference to the sciences (it became a metaphor for evolutionary progression) and learning and is ancient Egyptian theology in origin; later it is transmogrified into sexuality with the tree being the penis.  This is a common refrain found in all ancient civilizations, found most commonly in ancient Sumeria: where the Sumerian word Nin_gish_zi_da means “Giving life from the penis” but also “giving life from a tree”.  Nin_gish_zi_da is equal to “Du_mu_zi“, what is known

in Hebrew as Tammuz (Syriac: ܬܡܘܙ, Hebrew: תַּמּוּז and  Arabic: تمّوز ) and means “son/man who is life”.  It is also from Assyria to Egypt and Ethiopia, and is similar to the Spanish late medieval quest for the Fountain of Youth.  It shows that none of the god(s)/goddess(es) were omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent, but mere mortals who had to feed off the same tree (I will discuss this tree and its phallic symbolism later).

(3) The Garden was a “paradise of pleasure”–not the monotonous heaven where choirs would be singing praises to a deity or group of deities without end.  The original meaning for “paradise” was (גן-עדן) and is a Persian word meaning “orchard” (باغ) and a place of unlimited sexuality (تمایلات جنسی نامحدود) in an arena in which there were pedestals of gold on which marble pillars were set (it appears 33 times in Genesis), more in keeping with the paintings by Hieronymus Bosh than the sermons by contemporary clergy.  This Paradise would not only be filled with every good food, but all things that would delight the eye, tantalize the senses, and make the mind relax.  Much of it would be “dainty”, giving concern for pause and reflection by later clergy who feared that it would include the effeminate which was permissible only for women.  The first people, however, were the same, and the concept of effeminacy was not recorded.

By definition it means “luxury, dainty, delight, finery” and for that reason later Levi writers would condemn such traits as “effeminate” that was misinterpreted and mistranslated in the twentieth century as “homosexual” (a word that appears nowhere in the Bible) as seen in the renditions of the Bible by evangelical extremists.

(4) To further the fantasy of Genesis, the writers of this tract introduce “cherubim”. The word cherub: כְּרוּב  (cherubim is the Hebrew masculine plural כְּרוּבִי) is a word borrowed from the Assyrian kirubu: ܟܪܘܒܐ, from karâbu, “to be near”, and it refers to a bloodline or those close to a physical king or ruler.  It can mean near ones, but was more commonly used for familiars or friends, personal servants, bodyguards, courtiers: those who fawn seeking notice or favor by servile demeanor that can change abruptly when an opening occurs allowing the courtiers to assume the position of power equal to the pseudoepigraphic account of the War in the Heavens between the Devil and the Host. 

The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel describes cherubim as a tetrad of living creatures (Ezekiel 1:5-10, 26).  Each cherub had four faces: of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Each had the stature and hands of a man, feet of a calf, and four wings each.  Two of the wings held up the throne of god, and the other two covered their body.  Each was a monster with little that would denote holiness (that appears only in Akkadian texts where they were known as the shedu: protective deities).  And no cherub in any scripture guarded the gates to Gan Eden or Paradise (cherubim are mentioned only once in the New Testament: Hebrews 9:5). Originally the word came from the ancient Egyptian Xefer by metathesis from Xeref =K-r-bh and like most of the Old Testament is plagiarized from ancient Egyptian theology to mask antecedent Hebrew mythology.

(5) The “flaming (לַהַט) sword [associated with the numbers 777 meaning a fight between good and evil]” is ancient Babylon in origin (Job 31) and originally meant “drought”.  To re-enter Paradise would mean that farm and field hands had to pass over parched land without water and experience a drought on the tongue: a form of torture used by Akkadian kings and Hyksos military.  The concept of a flaming sword protecting a special garden for kings first appears in Assyrian literature in the tenth century BCE.

When the initial workforce left Gan Eden, they separated into two groups: farmers and animal-tenders.  Since animals wander naturally and frequently feed on crops that are not protected by fences this led to range-wars between crop growers and animal tenders that turned bloody.  This became the building block for the myth of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4).  What is unique in this inserted “chapter” is that the god(s)/goddess(es) of Genesis 1-3, who abandoned Adam and Eve, were ever watchful of their “sons”.  One of the sons was actually the product of one of the gods in a myth equaling Zeus’ seduction and rape of Europa, and in part similar to a point of Isis impregnating herself with her brother/husband Osiris’ severed penis (Genesis 4:1b).  A literal reading of the record reveals rampant incest: for “Cain knew his wife” (Genesis 4:17a).  A closer textual review shows the movement of people as a community who formed cities (Genesis 4:17b)–it is not a census of individuals. 

The theme of incest carries throughout Genesis and most of what is termed the Torah or Old Testament.  Monogamy was for the very poor, and for those whose lives were of little consequence and not considered worthy of inclusion in this apologetic.

The unique spitefullness of the deities of Genesis comes to full force with the plagiarism of the Story of Noah/Noe, with the most complete fabrications coming from the Babylonian Gilgamesh, East African Masai, and the Canadian Montagnais.  In each case god(s)/goddess(es) is/are not only angry but psychologically out of control.  The deity/deities is/are mentally demented and given to vengeance.  They are cruel task masters who slaughter indiscriminately because the workers do not sing the praises of their tyrants nor worship them in a way that the host (a word for both a heavenly group as well as a martial gathering of warriors) see(s) to be an unpardonable fault of those he/she/they demand(s) worship (Genesis 6:17). 

Elohim (אֱלהִים) a grammatically singular or plural noun for “god” or “gods” in both modern and ancient Hebrew language, and he/she/it/they  is/are insensitive, immodest, immoral, and immature [since most of the references in the Old Testament to Elohim are in the plural, for the sake of ease of reading, I will use the pronoun “they” unless a singular is called for in the original scrolls as compared with those from the Dead Sea (primarily Old Testament), and Nag

Hammadi (primarily Arian texts of New Testament Apocrypha), as the Old Testament Hebrews, collectively, were never monotheistic causing the prophets to blast their constant return to the gods of the past).  The gods prohibit mortals from enjoying a medium rare steak or any meat that is not fully cooked (Genesis 9:4) while the deity/deities is/are cannibals (Genesis 9:5).  The lords of power confirm their sentence by issuing the diktat that “Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made in the image of [the] god(s)/goddess(es)” (Genesis 9:6). 

With this inclusion the cultic phase of retribution is strengthened including “divine” approval of capital punishment on the grounds of deicide (from the medieval deicidium: which includes the killing of any god(s)/goddess(es), especially the 37 crucified saviours).  This led many who wanted to become gods to commission followers to kill them so as to attain sanctity: from prophets to priests, even in the tale of the New Testament Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of Judas. 

The Gospel of Judas was a “lost” manuscript first mentioned in a treatise c.  180 CE by a bishop, Irenaeus of Lyon, (in what is now France).  It was redacted centuries later, so its authenticity is questionable.  However it has been carbon-dated to be at least 1700 years old–but not contemporaneous with the life of the Jesus of the New Testament but is equal to the other Gospel, for the first Gospel (of John) was not written until the second century CE.

Although Noah/Noe is considered within the text inserted into the Genesis narrative to have been “blessed” by the god(s)/goddess(es) of the antediluvian and postdeluvian worlds he was not given great intelligence nor insight as one would expect from the mirror image of a deity.  Noah/Noe cursed his grandson for an act (most likely being similar to that act which caused Oedipus exceptional mental anguish when the Greek god realized that his wife was his own mother; the incestwas either that of Ham with his father or mother, or Canaan with his grandmother or grandfather: Embry, Brad. “The ‘Naked Narrative’ from Noah to Leviticus: Reassessing Voyeurism in the Account of Noah’s Nakedness in Genesis 9.22-24”, Journal for the Study of the Old TestamentJune 2011 35: 417-433, a pdf is available at a price of a subscription) that allegedly his father committed: sodomy (Genesis 9:25).   In the ancient world, tribal nations

preferred endogamous marriage – marriage to one’s relatives, and the contemporary evangelical extremist fundamentalist fanaticism over marriage being between one man and one woman was never accepted by any culture, nor even a rule until after Constantine created his Christian Church that remained divided as seen in the various banishments of Arians and Orthodox, with the emperor being succeeded by his son who was a follower of Arius.  Contrary to Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage and biblical illiterates such as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, American Family Association, the archbishops of New York City, Philadelphia, Lima (Perú), and so forth, the ideal marriage as detailed in the Old Testament was usually the joining (the word “marriage” had not yet appeared) of one cousin to another cousin, a brother to a sister, or any close relative with another.  It was often forbidden for an eldest daughter to even marry outside the family (Genesis 20:12; cf. Singer, Isidore; Adler, Cyrus; (eds.) et al. (1901–1906) “Incest,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia. Funk and Wagnalls, New York; Akerly, Ben Edward, The X-Rated Bible: An Irreverent Survey of Sex in the Scriptures (Feral House, 1998) ISBN 0-922915-55-5; pp. 1–13; Ide, Arthur Frederick (1992). Noah & the Ark: the Influence of Sex, Homophobia & Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas, TX: Monument Press). 

What is ignored is where the three sons of Noah/Noe visited their father in his tent and brought discord and aroused curses from Noah/Noe, a similar incident occurred with Abram when three messengers visited him in his tent–and one roused an unusual response in Abram’s wife who laughed when he told her that she would give birth to a son in her old age (Genesis 18:1-8, the original texts refer to the messengers as “three men” it does not read “angels”).

The gods/goddesses of Genesis were not to be trifled with.  Each tribe was to worship the deity/deities separately, and the attempt to form a single culture and language was forbidden.  When the new mortals began to build a Tower to reach into the “heavens” the “Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of Adam [earth] were building”–the omnipresence of the deities was nowhere to be found or experienced, and the deities required a physical viewing of what they could not imagine (Genesis 11).  The truth of the story is that of a landlord coming to review the elevation of a new structure–but one that the deities feared could be used against them and their tyrannical rule over the people of Babel (Genesis 11:7-8).  The deities were alarmed that the people of Babel “all have one tongue” and resented, rejected, and vilified ease of access of communication (how Latin was allowed to be a universal language in the Middle Ages, or English to become the language of business in the modern world is a mystery, unless these gods died: a common occurrence especially for leaders of nations and brokers of commerce).  There are numerous problems with this story, among them the line: Go to, let us build us a city and a tower (מגדל בבל), whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”  The problem is that may reach is not a word in Hebrew; it could read high indicating a growth pattern (Genesis 11:4:   וַיֹּאמְרוּ הָבָה נִבְנֶה־לָּנוּ עִיר וּמִגְדָּל וְרֹאשֹׁו בַשָּׁמַיִם וְנַעֲשֶׂה־לָּנוּ שֵׁם פֶּן־נָפוּץ עַל־פְּנֵי כָל־הָאָרֶץ׃); second the expressed fear that the builders had to create such a “tower” indicates a threat of a major war that would scatter the people–a war that would come when the gods/warriors attacked, with the copyists repeating the speech (Genesis 11:8-9) indicating a wish-fulfillment (cp. Deuteronomy 4:27, Jeremiah 51:53) all verses being plagiarized from Babylonian texts (textual arguments were early as in Oppert, Jules (1864). Mémoire sur les rapports d l’Égypte et de l’Assyrie dans l’antiquité, éclaircis par l’étude des textes cunéiformes. Paris, France: Impr. impériale, but they are not considered reliable; cp. Boscawen, W. St. Chad [William St. Chad] (1903). The first of empires, “Babylon of the Bible” in the light of latest research [microform] : an account of the origin, growth, and development of the empire, civilization, and history of the ancient Babylonian empire, from the earliest times to the consolidation of the empire in B.C. 2000. London [UK] ; New York, NY : Harper & Bros. a study that Roman Catholic scholars shrug off; cf. Jeremias, Alfred (1904; 2d ed.: 1906, used here). Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients, Handbuch zur biblisch-orientalischen Altertumskunde. Leipzig, Germany: J.C. Hinrichs, p. 206; and Bezold, Carl (1903). Ninive und Babylon.  Bielefeld und Leipzig, Germany: Velhagen & Klasing, p. 128.  In both cases the authors are apologists and not addressing the issue in an effort to continue a defense on a literal reading of the texts even though the dating was already being questioned by others.  Babylonian records, which are numerous, we find a Flood narrative in Berossós {c. 356 – 261 BCE} that has been pieced together as Babyloniaca of Berossus / [edited and translated] by Stanley Mayer Burstein (1978), Malibu, CA, USA: Undena Publications, 1978 (1980 printing); it however, has problems, as the original is not found or known, and the few ancient writers who cite it are not reliable, such as Josephus and Clement of Alexandria, who referenced it as Chaldaica as proof of the Flood and other issues developing in the late antiquity and the emerging congregations of chrestianos and christianos; the main problem here is that the current text was written in Greek (because of the sponsorship by Antiochus, but claims that it is recording Babylonian texts that are not in Greek but cuneiform.  What is found is that Berossós did follow the polytheism of his day and its interpretation on the beginning of the world, time and people. Ref.:  Synkellos, Geōrgios (fl. 800), Corpus scriptorum historiae byzantinae. Bonnae [Bonn, Germany], impensis E. Weberi, l828-97, being a history “from the time of the Flood”, being an apologetic for the evolution of Christianity, although he does include:

“A woman named Omoroca (Um- Uruk, the mother of Uruk) presided over this creation; in the Chaldean language she bears the name of Thavatth (Tiamat), signifying in Greek ‘the sea’, and she is also identified with the moon.

“Things being in this condition, Belos (Bel-Marduk) came upon the scene and cut the woman in half; of the lower part of her body he made the earth, and of the upper half the heavens, and all the creatures that were in her disappeared. This is a figurative way of explaining the production of the universe and of animated beings from humid matter. Belos then cut off his own head, and the other gods having kneaded the blood flowing from it with the earth, formed men, who by that means were gifted with understanding, and made participants of divine thought“).

From the apostacy of Babel, the gods of Genesis become increasingly more ruthless and pornographic:  allowing the Hindu god Abram (Brahma or Brahma) to illegally invade (Genesis 12:7) the land of Canaan (Genesis 12:5).  Abram (who would eventually be known as Abraham) was a contemptible ass-kisser and a loathsome coward. He is a terrible husband and a horrible father.  From there the conniving and artful dodger move toe Egypt where he claimed his wife was his sister (Genesis 12:13) and sold her into prostitution (Genesis 12:15-16), not once, but several times: the second time to Abimelech (Genesis 20:2-3) stating again the lie that Sara was his sister.  When the second lie is discovered, Abram attempts to cover up the lie, offering a psychotic excuse and adds, “Anyway, she really is my sister, my father’s daughter though not my mother’s, besides being my wife” (Genesis 20:12). 

Not only did Abram denude reality in keeping with the venal nature of his gods, but Abram had a life-long knack for putting people of prestige in difficult situations and then making them buy their way out, thereby enriching him as if he were the chief of an ancient costa nostra (also known as cosa nostra: our thing).  Abram and his criminal accomplice/wife, who played the role of a whore, are despicable opportunists, that in any civilized world both would have been judged guilty by lord, peerage or their peers, and ordered executed.  What the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and Maggie Gallagher forget is that in the Old Testament, marriage was never considered sacred nor was it a troth between one man and one woman in a perfect union of fidelity.

The gods of Abram is even more reprehensible, for instead of reprimanding Abram, the despicable deity denies Abram nothing. Instead, the pandering paladin of ignoble causes whois  a vindictive, revengeful mass-murderer and scourged the Egypt royal family (a dystheistic demon who would attack more vengefully with plagues at the time of the legendary “Moses”)  but did nothing to punish the deception and theft of Abram (Genesis 12:17).  This, however, is not the account in the Qur’an, which portrays Abram as a preacher as a youth, working even to convert his father to “One God” (Qur’an 6:74).

Abram’s curse would later be the fodder for his nephew, Lot (לוֹט), who would ultimately attempt to match his uncle by offering his two daughters to the people of Sodom “to do with as you wish” when the townspeople and their leaders came to the home of Lot and demanded to know who the strangers were since the city was at war and the messengers had not registered with the magistrates (cp. Qur’an 51: 24-34; 25: 51-60).  Lot was neither a righteous nor a holy man; he was a greedy, self-serving, self-pleasuring parasite preying on innocence and trust.  Like his grandfather, Terah who arranged for his large family to set a course for Canaan where they could steal land to build  a new home to the place of Sichem, the present day West Bank of Nablus (Genesis 12:5-6).  

Lot was preoccupied with immediate wealth than working with the local people:  he sat resolutely only to act as a judge for his fellow mercenaries who surrounded the Cities of the Plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, and Zoar (where he committed incest with his two daughters).  More concerned with the messengers than his family’s safety, Lot, who was a guest of the city and was suffered to live among the citizens, told the men and women of the city (the actual verse reads: “the people of the city went to the house, both young and old, all the people together” and is a reference to males and females of all ages–not a group of men intent on gang rape; Genesis 19:4), “Please, brothers, do not be wicked. Look , I have two daughters who are virgins [actually, this should be translated as “young girls”–it is the source for Judges 19:24 and implies innocence]. I am ready to send them out to you, for you to treat as you please, but do nothing to these men since they are now under the protection of my roof” (Genesis 19:8: הִנֵּה־נָא לִי שְׁתֵּי בָנֹות אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יָדְעוּ אִישׁ אֹוצִיאָה־נָּא אֶתְהֶן אֲלֵיכֶם וַעֲשׂוּ לָהֶן כַּטֹּוב בְּעֵינֵיכֶם רַק לָאֲנָשִׁים הָאֵל אַל־תַּעֲשׂוּ דָבָר כִּי־עַל־כֵּן בָּאוּ בְּצֵל קֹרָתִי׃ ) and then, when none took his daughters, would move to the mountains of Zoar (see: Ide, Arthur Frederick (1991). Zoar & her sisters : homosexuality, the Bible, and Jesus Christ; with an introduction by J. Michael Clark. Oak Cliff, TX USA: Minuteman Press), engage incestuous with both, and make both pregnant while, like Noah, being drunk on wine (Genesis 19:30-38), while his god and the devil devoted to Abram was bloody with the innocent sanguine plasma of the citizens of Sodom (Genesis 19:24-25; see: Ide, Arthur Frederick (1985). The city of Sodom & homosexuality in western religious thought to 630 CE. Dallas, TX USA: Monument).

Abram’s nephew, Lot, was worse and more criminal than his uncle who knew that the land he stole was never rightfully his own (Genesis 15:13).  Lot, in an equally evil manner plotted to steal the land of Jordan (Genesis 13:10), with the help of an equally corrupt piqueerer and bandit daemon (Genesis 13:17).  As devious as Autolycus (cf. (Homer 10.254 I), a master of thievery and more contemptible than Sisyphus (Hyginus 50-99), Lot enriched himself at the expense of others: stealing, slaying, besieging and betraying his hosts and compatriots all with the benediction of his gods  (Genesis 14). 

The gods did not care that their “chosen people” were the most disreputable and despicable of all the people in the Middle East.  Instead the gods/warlords of Genesis rejoiced in their slaughter of innocent women and children.  Identical to the Egyptians from whom it is alleged they left, the Israelites carried their Ark of the Covenant into battle so that their gods would help them fight as the deities did when Moses held his hands up in supplication, and Joshua did in his destructive attack on the City of Jericho.  There is nothing peaceful or peace-loving about the gods of the Old Testament; for example, note that in Deuteronomy 32:42, God says: I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders. In Isaiah 49:26 the devouring and blood drinking is left to the enemy: I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. These passages come from ancient Egyptian theology, far older than any book in the Old Testament.  Note, for example the Egyptian goddess Anat’s delight in battle: For Anat’s hand is victory; For knee-deep She plunges in the blood of soldiery; Up to the neck in the gore of troops. Until She is sated She smites in the house. Fights between the two tables, shedding the blood of soldiery. She also is described as gleefully stacking up the heads of the enemy.

In addition to the gods of the Israelites championing, demanding, and commissioning wars, the same deities sanctioned the rustle of cattle and sheep, the theft of land and wealth, while urging males to commit bigamy and incest (Genesis 16:6f) with the messengers of the gods (captains under the command of a general) impregnating women to pass off as the children of the local chieftains (Genesis 16:9-12; it is from this reading that Islam adopts Ishmael as its divine origin, although Ishmael “shall be a wild man: his hand will be against all men, and all men’s hands against him: and he shall pitch his tents over against all his brethren” (On Ishmael, in the Qur’an, see: 2: 132-133; the Qur’an refers to Islam as “the religion of Abraham”: 2: 135).  There was no concept of housing, brick, mortar, or other construction devices, no statement of future hydraulics or hydrostatics, air conditioning or the like, and technically none of these should ever have been invented as the gods of Genesis did not ordain, commission or command their invention: proving this old fable to be only reflective of the desert dwellers ignorance of science and the future.  In short, Genesis was never intended to be read as a guide to the present world and its activities as the New Apostolic Reformation declares and its pretender prince Rick Perry preaches.  What also is forgotten is that it was not Abram who impregnated Hagar the Egyptian, but rather a mortal  messenger of the gods–slightly less favored than Eve who was impregnated by the lords of the garden of Eden.

Not only did the gods or lords of Genesis commit rape, pillage, and plunder, but were barbaric at best and most commonly bloodthirsty assassins, who like the mythological god Moloch, demanded blood sacrifices.  These we see when the evil tyrant of the earth demanded a human sacrifice from Abram: a sacrifice common in all Semitic speaking societies.  Initially this bloodbath was to be the cutting off of the foreskin of Abram’s penis.  The warlocks of Genesis  17 were not satisfied with this hygienic surgical practice, but demanded it “of every man-child in your generations: he that is born in the house, as well as the bought servant shall be circumcised, and whosoever is not of your stock.”  This, undoubtedly, came as a shock to guests who were expecting food and drink–only to have their foreskin cut-off without their foreknowledge or consent (Genesis 17:24-27; note that even “servants and strangers were circumcised” without any record of their consent: an act of torture that was practiced by the barbarous tribes of nomads known at that time, for circumcision was a mark of slavery and a form of debasement).  This act must be condemned as theft: taking that which is not voluntarily given (“You shall not steal”), but such is not the case as it is hailed as a sign of election as Abram’s gods were a common band of thieves, exercising an ancient Egyptian tradition of circumcision that later-day Jews call brit milah (בְּרִית מִילָה) when the infant male is eight-days old (Genesis 17:10-14). 

That circumcision was an Egyptian invention (then to keep the swirling desert sands from lodging between the head of the penis and its foreskin) is clear in the account of “Joshua” (5:2-9) who noted that the Israelites who left Egypt and “born in the wilderness” were not circumcised.  Tomb artwork from the Sixth Dynasty (2345–2181 BCE) of Egypt shows men with circumcised penises,

and one relief from this period shows the rite being performed on a standing adult male in an effort to heighten and prolong sexual pleasure (no civilization ever argued that circumcision was enacted to prevent disease–this modern myth does not appear until much later, and finds its full voice in the nineteenth century). The Egyptian hieroglyph for “penis” depicts either a circumcised or an erect organ. The examination of Egyptian mummies has found some with foreskin and others who were circumcised, showing that it was neither required nor universally desired.  According to Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BCE, the Colchians, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, and Syrians also practiced circumcising males in their cultures–long before the Hebrews declared it to be a law demanded of the Hebrew gods.  In sub-equatorial Africa, circumcision was, and is still, performed on adolescent boys to symbolize their transition to warrior status or adulthood (Marck, J (1997). “Aspects of male circumcision in sub-equatorial African culture history”. Health Transit Review 7(supplement):

pp. 337–360).  As for all Hebrews seeking and rejoicing over circumcision, that is both a historical and Biblical (extra-biblical) lie, for under the Seleucids, many Jewish men attempted to hide or reverse their circumcision so they could exercise in Greek gymnasia (1 Maccabees 1:15), where nudity was the norm.  The Seleucids forbade the practice of circumcision, and punished those who performed it – as well as the infants who underwent it – with death (cf. 1 Maccabees 1:44-48, cp. 1:60-61) for it set people apart who refused to integrate into a general society, causing dissension and strife as well as combat between sectors within the cities.

Eternal ethereal evil designed by demented denizens dwelling in clouds and sitting on rainbows that were crafted in ancient Egypt by the priest On (who is the prototype for “Moses”) and his perfidious prelature does not stop with the introduction of the cruelty of circumcision.  Abram’s god is not to be satisfied with a little blood, but demanded the supreme sacrifice: the slaughter of Abram’s promised son–the son conceived by Sarah after she was visited by two messengers (who, according to the text, were the last to be “with” her before her pregnancy)–but only after Sarah tells Abraham to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael, his bastard child. 

The abandoning of his second wife and bastard son is a decision that Abram’s gods support, as the deities drones: “Do not distress yourself on the account of the boy and your slave-girl [she is not referred to as a “wife”]. Do whatever Sarah says), for Isaac is the one through whom your name will be carried on” (Genesis 21:12).  There are two secreted stories in this short record.  The first is given marginally:  Sarah was jealous seeing Ishmael play with Isaac (Genesis 21:9).  Two children playing together is natural; however, Ishmael was older and by right the heir.  The problem is, in this case, jealousy:  Sarah was as scheming and cold-hearted as her husband, and wanted the estate passed to her child, even though Isaac was younger.  The second story is argumentative–for there is no indication that the two boys playing together were anything but friends (at least) and brothers in spirit; but there was a concern among some warrior communities that male youths would not continue the propagation of future military men.  This indicates the possibility that Sarah had a barely hidden fear that Ishmael might seduce and even sodomize her son, as happened within the story of Noah/Noe who most likely was either sodomized by his son (Ham) or grandson (Canaan), the latter being the prime suspect as children act out what they hear or think can be pleasurable, while adults are more reluctant, having been reprimanded against certain acts–as was the case with the qadesh (although damned as pagan fertility priests by later prophets).

Originally the qadesh was a Semitic deity whose worship was imported into Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the word was a proper noun: her name (Qadesh). She was a goddess of nature, beauty and sexual pleasure who would be adopted by other civilizations and called by various names, such as Venus. In the earliest records of Qadesh during the New Kingdom period her husband was the god Reshep.  Reshep was a Syrian deity whose worship was introduced to Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and therefore of greater antiquity. When her worship spread to Egypt she was associated with the fertility god Min, and with her husband became an early Trinity that rivaled the ancient Trinity of Osiris, Isis and Horus that would become known as Is-Ra-El. 

Qadesh is frequently depicted as holding snakes (gods representing male genitalia and the path to good health and education seen as the conduct of inquiry where everything was to be questioned as Socrates insisted) or a papyrus plant [representing Reshep who would be accorded as the inventor of paper on which to write “books”] in her right hand and lotus flowers (representing either female genitalia or Min) in her left hand) that brought about the wrath of the gods of Noah/Noe.  A third understanding is even more clear.  In the exile of Hagar and Ishmael, the reader can see a replay of the tragedy in the Garden (Gan Eden), the woman is superior.  It is the woman’s words, Sarah’s, that are taken seriously.  It is the woman’s decision that becomes the modus operandi and ultimate command for man (Abram), who obeys and hastens his second wife and their child out of his camp with only a small amount of bread and a single bottle of water (Genesis 21:14a) so that the two nearly die of thirst and hunger (Genesis 21:16) until the dark spirit of evil sends them a magic well (Genesis 21:19, following ancient Egyptian mythologies). 

At the same time Abimelech (to whom Abram had at one time sold his wife) and the general of his army, Phicol, appeared (both were from the Land of the Palestine: Genesis 21:33, notifying the world that the land that Abram and his descendents claimed was territory originally owned by the Palestinian people), terrifying Abram that they had come to regain the property that Abram stole from them, and learned that the well that was given to Hagar had belong to Abimelech that Abram claimed was his–making his god not only one who would destroy innocence but also a thief (Genesis 21:25-26).

With Hagar and Ishmael no longer in the armed camp of Abram, god moved swiftly to claim his blood-right: to demand the execution of the boy Isaac at the hand of his father Abram (Genesis 22:2).  In the Qur’an (37: 100-111) it is Ishmael who was to be sacrificed, as Isaac is not born until after the event.  The Hebrew text reads that the gods of Abram “tempted” (Genesis 22:1) the patriarch to test the loyalty of the old man, while buried within the passage is an acknowledgement that the gods were not omniscient, omnibenevolence, or omnipotent; in short, they were not gods but senior military leaders constantly afraid that one of their junior leaders would rise up and overthrow their command and take control of the army of the nomads.

The near holocaust that the gods of Abram demanded did not materialize, nor is there much commentary on subsequent events until Sarah dies, “in the city of Arbee which is Hebron, in the land of Canaan” (Palestine) whom Abram recognized as the rightful owners by bowing before them and petitioning to bury his dead wife in Palestine (Genesis 23:6-8, repeated in verses 12-15), for which he paid a princely sum of “four hundred sicles of silver of common current money” (Genesis 23:16b).

From that time forward, incest became the rule of the tribe.  Abram (the name is changed to Abraham in Genesis 17:5; the changing of names of deities and mortals was common throughout the ancient world as a designation of the individual’s role or place in the community) had his son Isaac marry his cousin Rebecca (her father was Abram’s brother: Genesis 24:27b, the details of the story are repeated twice as the copyists were either unaware of one another’s work or tried for emphasis, but the words vary as does their impact; the difference being excused as a testimony of faith since the servant took an oath to find a family member for Isaac to marry by placing “his hand under the thigh” (Genesis 24:2) that is זית מהולתי bigzirath mehulathi, or in sectione circumcisionis meoe that was an act where the oath taker put his {women were not permitted to make oaths} hand on the part that bore the mark of circumcision, the sign of God’s covenant.  It is tantamount to our kissing or laying the hand upon the Bible/Torah and was a part of a promise before undertaking a journey; it is yarek.  

Yarek means “the touching of testicles” rather than “caressing the penis.”  It is a reference to a special closeness with the gods by touching that which began the mortal race.  It carries the weight of obedience as the hands are pinned under the thigh and thus are unable to be used and unable to do harm.  The printed text is וַיָּשֶׂם הָעֶבֶד אֶת־יָדֹו תַּחַת יֶרֶךְ אַבְרָהָם אֲדֹנָיו וַיִּשָּׁבַע לֹו עַל־הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה׃.  Cp. Genesis 32:35 where the word נאבק is reflective of חבק meaning a contract with oneself to keep an oath) of Abraham his Lord, and swore to him upon this word”).

Sarah’s death did not distract Abram for long.  He soon married again, and by Keturah, Abraham had six more sons: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.  He died before he saw the iniquities of his son Esau, his life deliberately taken by his god who had become a mercy-killer who issued a strange permission, as Abram was buried by his sons Isaac and Ishmael in the Cave of the Patriarchs (Genesis 23:19 and 25:9) even though he had not seen Ishmael for decades.

Abram/Abraham is referred to as a “Patriarch” by contemporary translators and interpreters of Genesis.  Patriarch, at the time of the work’s original composition did not have the meaning it does today: as being the senior leader of a group or family.  Instead, Patriarch in Hebrew is a title, Kal El ( קל-אל), which means “voice of God” and was a message not a messenger, similar to Marvel Comic’s Superman (Clark Kent) was known as Kal El on the planet Krypton, fathered by Jor-El (it means “I am memory” a title of ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian gods).  El (cognate to Akkadian ‘ilu and then to Hebrew עֵלִי: Eli and Arabic الله: Allah) was the husband to Asherah who was the authoress of Canaanite theology, from which most of Genesis comes and the father (sexual as well as inspirational) of all creatures: as recorded in the clay tablets of Ugarit (modern Rās Shamrā – Arabic: رأس شمرا‎, Syria) and was frequently portrayed with his son Ba’al Hadad;  both wore bull horns on their headdress symbolizing strength and virility, and both were considered supernatural forces.  In many ways the Canaanite El was similar to the mythological Adam:  he may have been a desert god at some point, and, according to myths, had two wives (Eve and Lilith) and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. Like Noah, El fathered many gods, but most important were Hadad [Japeth], Yam [Ham], and Mot [Sem].

The subsequent story of Isaac is nothing more than a retelling of the fable of Abraham.  Isaac meets with King Abimelech who forms a league with the son of Abraham (Genesis 26:3), and continued to steal from the Palestinians, who had closed the wells he had dug illegally on their land to steal their water (Genesis 26:18-19, 22).  Isaac, the reincarnation of Abraham, treacherously repeated the lies of his father, claiming that his wife was only his sister (Genesis 26:7 ff).

Treachery was common throughout the Genesis narrative, not only with Noah, Abraham, and Isaac, but also with Jacob and others.  Jacob, conspiring with his mother Rebecca who was far more devious and obscene than her son whom she counseled on the art of theft and subterfuge (Genesis 27:8-9), stole Esau’s birthright (Genesis 27:19), and earned a promise that anyone who would curse him would be cursed, as the gods of Isaac and Jacob were creatures that knew only the art of swearing and vilifying others (Genesis 27:29).  Isaac’s evil did not stop with disinheriting his first-born son, but went further and turned Esau into a slave of his brother, promising Esau that he would “live by the sword” and serve his brother–foretelling the plagiarized lines in Matthew 10:34, when the Jesus of the New Testament claimed that he came to the earth not to bring peace but the sword.

Esau, realizing that he was tricked as Abel fooled Cain, made a vow as Cain had made to kill his brother (Genesis 27:41b).  Overhearing her second born’s oath, Rebecca warned Jacob to flee, and take a wife from his kin, because “if Jacob take a wife of the stock of this land, I choose not to live” for marrying someone who was not an immediate blood relation was anathema to the ancient Hebrews (Genesis 27:46).  Esau married his niece, the daughter of Ishmael who was Abraham’s son (Genesis 28:9b).

Suddenly the forbidden Tower of Babel is reintroduced, this time as a ladder  (Hebrew: Sulam Yaakov סולם יעקב) into heaven with angels ascending and descending as did the ancient gods of Babylon (Genesis 28:12).  While the gods of Babylon had little to say to the multitude building the tower-city of Babel, the gods of Mesopotamia, following Akkadian and Hittite lore, spoke for some time to Jacob (Genesis 28:13-15), leading Jacob to rename the city known as Luz (meaning “curved”) in the Douai-Rheims edition it is Luza, but that city is found only in Russia: Луза) to Beth-el (two words: בֵּית אֵל‎‎, usually translated as “house of god” but actually should be translated as “house of the gods below the heavens”: a pantheon and is Ugaritic in origin: bt il).

Several occurrences in this fable require attention.  The gods stand at the top of the ladder.  Collectively they promise Jacob the land of Canaan, indicating that many were Mesopotamian deities, as seen when Jacob awakes and anoints the stone (baetylus) with oil and names the place Beth-el.  This fiction is repeated in another account, (Genesis 35:3, 6) repeat the covenant with the gods and repetitively renames of the place as El-Bethel.  It is here that Jacob becomes a trinitarian god and takes the Egyptian name Is[is]-Ra-El.  It is at this second city of Is-Ra-El that Jeroboam, first king of Israel, set up centres for his Golden Calf cult on the southern boundary of his kingdom and Dan on the northern boundary, and appointed non-Levites as his priests (1 Kings 12:25–33), as the Jews will never truly become a monotheistic people until the canon of the Old Testament is affirmed in the New Era (CE).  This is seen not only among the common Hebrews, but also among the chosen leaders, for Jacob’s family were idol worshippers (Genesis 35:2 f), and incest became increasingly more common (Genesis 35:22 f).  The only prohibition was against coitus interruptus, as with Onan (אוֹנָן) in Genesis 38:9: וַיֵּדַע אֹוןָן כִּי לֹּא לֹו יִהְיֶה הַזָּרַע וְהָיָה אִם־בָּא אֶל־אֵשֶׁת אָחִיו וְשִׁחֵת אַרְצָה לְבִלְתִּי נְתָן־זֶרַע לְאָחִיו, cp. 25:5-10, with the law not being formed until Deuteronomy 25:6 (reinforcing that Genesis was a redaction or later novel written to include all previous tracts and testaments, especially those accorded the pseudo-authorship of Moses.  The “sin of Onan” has been exposed as a form of literature and literary device (Dancy, Jphn (2002, c2001). The Divine Drama: the Old Testament as Literature. Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth Press, p. 92; there are some who claim the act was masturbation, but that does not follow the text that reads “he went in to his wife”).

From the renaming of a cult center to celebrate his deities, Jacob would travel to marry two first-cousins: Lia/Leah and Rachel–the result of deception by his uncle (Genesis 29).  When Rachel could have no children, and Lia/Leah stopped having children, like Sarah, both gave the reincarnated Abraham their handmaidens to wed and bed and from them receive children (Genesis 30). In each case, the sons born (daughters are not mentioned) are actually different dynasties that come together under Is-Ra-El.  It is at Genesis 30:24 that Rachel finally has a son: Joseph (יוֹסֵף or in Arabic يوسف‎ that literally means “May Yahweh add”, and on this the Qur’an considers Joseph to be a prophet: suras vi. 84, xl. 34‎), who, allegedly goes to Egypt and does so well that he ascends to great power.  The problem is that there is no ancient Egyptian record that mentions a Joseph, nor a seven-year famine, or any other parts of the tattered tale. In Exodus 1:8, it says that a “new king came to power in Egypt and did not know Joseph” indicating that the legend of Joseph was only known by the courtiers who wrote the account without having recourse to Egyptian records.  More likely, Joseph was the pharaoh Imhotep, or two of his most trusted men: Yuya (commander of the chariots) and Seph (from: Osarseph (literally “Vizier Seph”) who prohibited the worship of the Egyptian gods); cp. Genesis 41:40-45; 45:8; Isaiah 41:8, James 2:23.  Furthermore, at the time that Joseph was to have lived, the Hyksos were in charge of Egypt and were a brutal people who were unwilling to listen to soothsayers or dreamers, had little time for gentleness or reason, and found sex to be pleasant regardless with whom or the condition of the person thereby discounting Joseph’s alleged scruples about being forced into adultery.

Egyptian culture, customs, theology, names, titles, places, and people return from Genesis 37-50. The Joseph story has long been considered only a literary piece: not historical in nature (Gunkle, Hermann (1997).  Genesis / translated and interpreted by Hermann Gunkel ; translated by Mark E. Biddle ; foreword by Ernest W. Nicholson.  Macon, GA, USA: Mercer University Press, p. 387).  The majority of modern biblical scholars date the Joseph story in its current form to the 5th century Persian era at the earliest (Soggin, J. Alberto (1999) An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (original title: Introduzione alla storia d’Israele e di Giuda. Brescia, Italy: Paideia Editrice, c. 1992; 2d ed.: Valley Forge, PA, USA: Trinity Press International;  1993; 1998 trans. John Bowden, SCM Press, 1999,  p. 102-103).

A careful reading of Genesis shows that it is a work of fiction compiled from numerous, far-older, sources that span the nomadic travels of several communities of Mesopotamian shepherds and mercenaries.  It draws heavily on ancient Egyptian texts as well as takes liberally from the theologies of ancient India.  The stories in Genesis are repeated with only trifling attention to changing of names, more of the standards of elementary students rather than serious researchers and writers.  The contemporary version used today is a patchwork-quilt of bad translations and woefully ignorant interpretations, that hopefully will be corrected when schools begin to teach the foundations of these two disciplines. The great tragedy is that people like Maggie Gallagher who promises that there is “gonna [sic] be a bloody mess in New York” over same-sex marriages, Rick Perry who has presided over more executions in Texas or anywhere else in the USA than any other governor, Bradlee Dean (Smith), Rav Yisroel Belsky and 39 other Torah-challenged rabbis, and the American Family Association and other “faith-based” groups base their cries for a holocaust against human rights on the errors in Genesis and other “books” of the Old Testament: a tract of hate.