This may sound surprising to anyone who knows me, but Genesis kinda reminds me of the big bang. No no, not that horrible "joke" that Christians use, "God said 'Let there be light,' then BAM it happened." Ugh, no. Let me explain, see the big bang was a cataclysmic event, a huge explosion of ... well, everything. Complete chaos for centuries before everything started cooling down. Stars, planets, and all sorts of nebula begin to form, and slowly, so slowly, life begins on our little blue planet. Likewise, Genesis begins with complete chaos: talking legged snakes, giant floods, flaming sulfur rain, and psychopaths bombing about in the wilderness. The beginning of God's line is an extremely tumultuous one, but slowly it begins to calm down. We slowly go from complete batshit chaos to a long story about the rivalry between Jacob and Esau, in which crazy shit still goes down, but it's finally relatable. Then slowly, in the next generation we come to Joseph and his brothers. More sibling rivalry, more family drama, still more crazy shit, but compared to the first part of Genesis, this is a goddamned stand still. And here, in this relative stand still, the planets now formed and slowly spinning, we finally start to see glimpses of moral behavior, glimpses of the kind of life God supposedly appreciates (and requires).
This also brings up what Genesis is actually about to me: sibling rivalry and fucked up families. Consider the first siblings in God's line, Cain and Able. This rivalry is so messed up that Cain actually kills his own brother, and over something completely stupid. Things aren't much better for Abraham and his children, I didn't go into much detail with Ishmael and Isaac, I kind of wish I had now though. Regardless, Abraham tried to kill his own son, which obviously fucked the kid up, who went on to be a fucked up parent himself. Does the story of Abe and Isaac represent the usual power struggle between father and son? I don't know, but it's certainly something to think about. As you can see by looking back through Genesis, most of it has to do with conflict between brothers or between fathers and sons. Family conflict, this isn't new apparently, no family is immune it seems, even for God's chosen people. It's also reassuring I think, no matter how fucked up my family is or how rocky any relationships within it are, I never sold my brother into slavery (though I might've considered it once or twice), and my dad never tried to stab me in the face (though I'm sure I gave him plenty of reasons to throughout my childhood). If my family is less dysfunctional than these "holy" families then that's something I can certainly smile about.
I might be way out in left field here, and maybe I'm trying to make sense out of senselessness, but this is how I see it. And if I'm really reaching here, well can you blame me? This is the introduction of our "holy" book, and up until the end I saw almost no redeeming activity. God's chosen bomb around the wilderness doing horrible shit and get fucking rewarded for it. Even God's behavior is sketchy at best, what did you think would happen if you stuck a magic tree in the middle of a enchanted garden and told your kids not to touch it? Why kill off the entire world for being wicked? Aren't these your children? When your kids are bad you don't just kill them, unless I'm completely misinformed. And sure, Abraham might've tried to kill his miracle child, but God fucking told him too. So as you can probably tell, I was really disappointed with the Bible when it came to the morals department (I wasn't with the stories themselves, that's for damn sure). That is, until Joseph (and to a lesser extent the conclusion of Jacob and Esau), Joseph took the horrible shake he got and turned into something good, he looks like what a man of God is supposed to look like. So maybe, just maybe, we'll start to see some goodness, and in Exodus God finally hands down some laws. So for now I can forgive the lawless batshit behavior. You can't beat your kids for smearing toothpaste all over the bathroom wall if you haven't first told them that it's not allowed. And yes, that was one of my childhood antics, and for the record I wasn't punished, just told not to do it again, which is sort of my point.
Something else before I go, there's something that really bothers me about this so far. I know we don't have any laws yet or what have you, but this introduction to the Bible has really confused me when it comes to the church. There is so much sex in the Bible, and not just what you'd expect, "And so holy man married what's her name and had awesome married sex with her and only her." No, so far the Bible is filled with crazy batshit sex stories. Every time I sit down to read it I find at least one weird sex story. How did the church (or hell this whole society) get so prudish? Your holy text is filled (so far) with some of the weirdest sex stories I've read, you could at least act like sex exists. Now I know later when the laws come we get tons of restrictions on sex, thankfully one of them is "Do not have sex with your father," that's made just for you Lot's daughters. But still, with so much sex in the holy book you'd think that the church would be a bit more open about the subject. Talking openly about sex is not the same as having lots of casual sex you know? Oh, and speaking of casual sex, these "holy" men, so far, had tons of it. Abraham had concubines, he even gave them gifts before he died (Gen 25:6). So yeah, the father of all the Jews was having tons of casual sex (at least in an organized kind of way). So could we stop pretending it doesn't exist, I don't think it's healthy.
Looking through my notes for this entry I see something awesome I totally missed. I mentioned that Lot gets kidnapped right? Well it turns out he got kidnapped in the middle of a war. There was this war, as the Bible puts it "Four kings against five kings." Basically a bunch of kings got in some sort of argument, all I know is that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were allied on one side. Anyway, they battled it out on a field full of fucking tar pits! Isn't that so badass? Nine armies clashing together in the tar pits, soldiers falling in, screaming in agony as they get tared to death. The Sodom side loses, which is how Lot gets kidnapped. So Abraham doesn't just save Lot, he gathers his own army and pulls some "Taken" shit against the assholes that did it. The Bible fucking rocks, I recommend you read it too if you haven't. At the very least read Genesis, there's so much I left out, and it's full of crazy fun stories that are as epic as anything "LOTR" or "Beowulf" can throw our way.
I also recommend you check out The Brick Testament, it's where I got the picture above. I learned about this site many years ago through the Wittenburg Door (a Christian satire magazine which I also highly recommend). Anyway, this guy named the Rev. Smith (not a real Reverend) recreates Bible stories with legos, it's fucking awesome. I wanted to use his pictures for everything, but I had to resist, I didn't want to step on his toes. Go check it out, it's great. I also recommend checking out "The Book of Genesis" illustrated by R. Crumb.
Crumb is a very important and influential comic artist from way back. He was the first artist working on American Splendor and was known for his psychedelic animal comics. Last year he published his take on Genesis, and it's awesome, I especially like his serpent, and his God, and well everything. If you want to read Genesis but don't own a Bible, or just want to see Crumb's badass take on it I recommend you pick it up.
Okay, so the Bible nailed the beginning with Genesis, but can it keep it up? We'll see when we move on to the second book, Exodus, be on the lookout for part one soon.
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