Who is God talking to?

"She gave me fruit, . . . so I ate it." --Gen. 3:12.
"Do I dare to eat a peach?"--T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off!"--Sir Toby Belch in William Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night," Act I, Scene 3


As I said, my NEB is at home, so I'm going to read the New American Bible version online for now, from http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/ (just because it's the first one I found). "nccbuscc"--that's a mouthful. The "National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference."

So anyway,

Old Testament

Book One:  Genesis

The Creation of the World

Chapter 1: Creation (first pass)

Chapter 2: Creation (second pass)

The Beginnings of History

Chapter 2 (cont’d):  Adam and Eve

Chapter 3: The Garden of Eden
Chapter 4: Cain and Abel

We all know this story. God creates the heavens and the earth and the vaulted sky with the waters above it for rain. (More on that during the flood.) He created vegetation, birds, animals, and finally us--in his own image. An interesting note about that in the NAB--by "in his image," the note says, it means that we have dominion over the animals the way God has dominion over us. It is not, the note says, that God looks like us.

One question occurred to me this time that had never struck me before. It's a linguistic thing. God created all this stuff, right? Before these six days, none of this stuff existed. Yet, for instance, to bring vegetation into existence, he says "Let the earth bring forth vegetation" (Gen. 1:11). But before he said that, supposedly, vegetation did not exist. What was this word "vegetation" that God used? What was the signified for the word "vegetation" before vegetation existed?

Another obvious question, one that I'm sure everyone has thought of, is, who is God talking to? Of whom is he requesting this light and vegetation? If God requests these things from someone else, who? Who is the one with the real power, if it's not God?

I'm sure any Christian would scoff at that question: he's talking to himself, or it's a poetic trope--he's not literally asking the one in charge to let there be light. I will grant that--I think the problem is much deeper. What is language before God created the world? With no one to talk to, which must have been the case--before creation by definition God was alone--where did language come from? Why is he talking to himself at all? Not only were there no signifieds, so that whatever language did exist would have been meaningless, but there is no communication--no reason for language in the first place. I think that's a much deeper question than who is God requesting the light from. The fact that God is speaking at all implies there is something deeply untrue about the story as it is told.

Language should have been the last thing God created, after humans even, in order to talk to his new friends us, it is more than unnecessary, it is logically impossible before humans. (Derrida makes a lot of the story of Babel--I might talk about that later. He places the creation of "language" at that moment, I believe--with all people understanding each other, there is no disconnect between signified and signifier--in the "paradise" pre-Babel. That's of course a highly metaphoric reading of that story.)

Well, I haven't even gotten to chapter 2 yet, when the bible retells the story it just told. Here's what I think I'm going to do. I know that the entire book is not as interesting as the first couple chapters. I will pick a topic out of each day's reading. If there's something I don't get to, I will come back to it during one of the slow days. I'll keep a list.

Future Topics:
- The obvious contradiction between chapter 1 and chapter 2. Completely different versions of "creation."
- On the seventh day God rested? (Gen. 2:2) Does that imply he's not infinite? Can be worn out? Surely if he can get tired, he can be killed? Like the final Boss in a Nintendo game? And by the way, God seems kind of lame--all he did was say "Let there be vegetation"--that wore him out?!
- The tree of life and the tree of knowledge? (Gen. 2:9). That too implies some existence before Existence. This tree of life seems to have already existed when God created the world.
- Gen. 2:17--God's first random commandment, don't eat from the tree of knowledge or you'll die. But more evidence of existence outside of God--he doesn't say "I'll kill you," he says "you'll surely die."
- Gen. 2:18--More interesting linguistic questions. God already made the birds and animals using the words for them in chapter 1, yet here he wants the man to name them--the origin of language.
- Gen 2:20--the first biblical bestiality?! God gave the man all the birds and cattle and so on, but none were suitable partners for the man. Uh, what?
- Gen 2:25--"The man and woman were both naked, and yet felt no shame." More implication. The implication here is that they should be ashamed, if only they knew. Why? What is the source of that shame? What are these rules that exist outside the creation of humans? Whence comes those rules?
- I have to talk about the story of the Garden of Eden and the serpent and the apple. This is the first hint of the insanity of God. I will write more later. As I told you I just finished my first semester of law school, so I have contracts on my brain. This is the first example of God breaching a contract he had made with man as well. Is lying conducive with an omnipotent God? Much more to talk about, especially that once again God is talking to someone else. And the implication that Adam was one bite away from Godship: the two things, apparently, that make a god are knowledge of good and evil, and everlasting life. If Adam and Eve had planned a little better, they could have made us all gods in one swell foop.
- Wow, note 3 (on Gen. 3:15) is amazing! Here is where purposeful translation presents itself. This note says that this passage (about the serpent striking at the heel) can be seen as the first hint of Jesus Christ! The notes in the NEB are much more Jewish in the old testament--about the promises and the delays, the theme that repeats itself throughout the first books. This Catholic version is hammering home Jesus right away.
- Gen. ch. 4 is Cain and Abel--the first sibling rivalry of the bible. Interestingly, also the first siblings! There are no non-rivalrous siblings so far! Also, siblings are always different--Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau.
- Gen. ch. 3 is the first blaming and avoiding responsibility for your actions in the bible, when God catches Adam and Eve eating the apple. Gen. ch. 4 is the first lying and aggressive defensiveness--"Am I my brother's keeper?"
- Another interesting question--where does "morality" come from: Did Cain know it was wrong to kill Abel? If yes, why? How? If not, then where does morality come from? The Judeo-Christian conception of man is much more cynical and pessimistic than the atheist's.
- It's impossible for me to read the bible without remembering my little droog Alex in prison with his eyes rolling up into his head as he read about all the sex. In this one chapter we've had two sex scenes plus a menage a trois!
- The other obvious observation is the genetics one: if all humanity were descended from one male and female, there would be serious problems with our gene pool.


Textual Notes:
- Gen 2:4 n.1--Story of Adam much older than 1:1-2:4. What does that mean? Almost verse by verse from the very beginning this book could not really be what it purports to be. Two stories thrown together from different (pre-Hebrew) folk traditions.
- Gen 2:7 n.2--God portrayed as a potter. "Adam" is a play on words in Hebrew--meaning "man" and "ground."
- Gen. 2:7--This time God made man out of clay, like the original 1933 version of King Kong.
- Gen. 2:14--Wow, the Tigris and Euphrates goes out of the Garden of Eden--we're in Iraq!
- Gen. 2:24--First great random folk explanation of something that needs no explanation: the reason man leaves mom and dad and clings to wife is that she was made of his rib.
- Gen. 2:24 n.6--Says that the writer emphasizes the fact that God willed them to have sex.
- Gen. 4:1--the first sex in the bible.
- Gen. 4:15--Another of the obvious problems with the story--"others" will kill Cain? Who the hell are they?!
- Gen. 4:15--the first holy tattoo.
- Gen. 4:17--Cain's wife?! Huh? (Second sex of the bible--two sex scenes in one chapter!)
- Gen. 4:19--The first biblical menage a trois: Lamech takes two wives.
- Gen. 4:20--Something else weird--quaint--about the bible. How families pick a custom and stick to it--Jabal's family are the ones who live in tents. That's who they are, that's what they do: live in tents.

Quotables:
"The man and his wife were both naked." Gen. 2:25.
"He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel." Gen. 3:15.
"You are dirt, and to dirt you shall return." Gen. 3:19.
"Am I my brother's keeper?" Gen. 4:9.

Four chapters down, 1185 to go!

Next time: Giants! And Noah?

--bibletoenail