The Skeptics Annotated Bible (8 page)

(2.19 b)
“God … brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.”
After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while.

But animals were not created instantaneously from the ground; they evolved over millions of years. And we still don’t have names for all of them. Ten thousand new species of insects are discovered and named each year.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field;
but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

(2.20)
“But for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.”
God makes the animals and parades them before Adam to see if any would strike his fancy. But none seem to have what it takes. (Although he was tempted to go for the sheep.)
8 When were humans created?
10 When was Eve created?

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22
And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman
, and brought her unto the man.

(2.22)
“And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman.”
God fashions a woman out of one of Adam’s ribs. Because of this story, it was commonly believed (and sometimes it is still said today) that males have one less rib than females. When Vesalius showed in 1543 that the number of ribs was the same in males and females, it created a storm of controversy.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

(2.24)
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
16 Is polygamy OK?

3
Now
the serpent
was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he
said unto the woman
, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

(3.1)
“The serpent … said unto the woman”
A clever serpent talks to Eve about trees, death, and the knowledge of good and evil. He persuades her to eat the forbidden fruit. She takes the first bite and gets the full blame (3.12, 16).

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;
and he did eat.

(3.6)
“And he did eat.”
In 2.17 God said that if Adam eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then the day that he does so, he will die. But Adam eats the forbidden fruit and yet lives for another 930 years (5.5).

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

8 And
they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

(3.8)
“They heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden.”
God walks and talks (to himself?) in the garden, and plays a little hide and seek with Adam and Eve.
17 Does God have a body?
18 Does God know everything?