Nimrod and His Incestuous Family, Genesis 7- 12

I've always wondered about the incest that occurs in the Bible. I only just started reading the thing and already the earth seems to have been populated twice by incestuous families.

Adam and Eve I wasn't really sure about. Was "Adam" a metaphor for man and "Eve" a metaphor for woman? This seemed likely since Cain feared the retribution of others after killing Able. Where did those other people come from?

Noah and his family are different. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their three wives were the only people on the Ark. They then went out and populated the earth. I know the definition of incest is different for different cultures. I suppose that Noah's family could have been careful to never "lie" with anyone closer than a cousin but that is still considered incest in most cultures.

I did go look this up, Google and I are buddies. Most people explain this incest away by simply saying that at the time of Adam and Eve and Noah's family, incest was allowed. My understanding is that I will learn more about this later when I get to Mosaic Law when incest will be official forbidden.

I don't know how I feel about all that. There seems to be a lot of mind changing when it comes to right and wrong early on in the Bible.

The other explanation is simply that the first four books of the Bible are a metaphor. Really? A metaphor means it is up to anyone's interpretation. The interpretation of the Bible to serve those in control is another issue I have with religion.

One of my favorite parts of chapters 7-12 was that Noah's great grandson's name was Nimrod. Is this where Nimrod as in "dumb-ass" comes from? My Bible has a little note at the bottom that says:

Nimrod's activities centered first in Shinar (Babylonia) and included building the tower of Babel, described in 11:1-9; then he went to Assyria (cf. Mic. 5:6)

From the sounds of it, building the Tower of Babel was a "dumb-ass" idea. God wasn't all that pleased with man's progress and pride. He decided to end the forward momentum of man, "let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech"(Gen. 11:7).

The whole thing seems odd to me but the strangest part is that God was so upset about man settling in one place and having pride that he decided he had to do something about it. "Behold they are one people and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them" (Gen. 11:6).

I always thought they were trying to build a tower to Heaven. Maybe they were, that isn't really what I read into the words. My Bible doesn't have any notes about that either just that the Tower was built as a "rallying point and a symbol of their fame" instead of for "the purpose of worshiping a deity". Donald Trump must be in some serious trouble for his "symbols of fame".

Is this the first case of materialism? I don't think "confusing our language" was very effective against materialism. Look around us, we are surrounded by Towers of Babels and Nimrods.

Definitions of Nimrod-

1. Nimrod - (Old Testament) a famous hunter
2. Informal A person regarded as silly, foolish, or stupid.

I was hoping to find something really fun on Urban Dictionary but I didn't. The only interesting thing was that the guy who wrote the definition obviously doesn't have the same bible notes I do because he is sure Nimrod did not build the Tower of Babel.

Nimrod was the Biblical founder of Babylon, also considered a mighty hunter. Contrary to the uneducated twits on here, Nimrod did NOT build the tower of Babel (at least the Bible does not claim this, only that the "men of Babylon" tried to build it), and the Bible does NOT claim he tried to kill God. 

Another interesting finding was the possible origin of nimrod as in dumb-ass from Dictionary.com

Nimrod  "great hunter," 1712, in ref. to the biblical son of Cush, referred to (Gen. x.8-9) as "a mighty hunter before the Lord." It came to mean "geek, klutz" by 1983 in teenager slang, for unknown reasons. (Amateur theories include its occasional use in "Bugs Bunny" cartoon episodes featuring rabbit-hunting Elmer Fudd as a foil; its possible ironic use, among hunters, for a clumsy member of their fraternity; or a stereotype of deer hunters by the non-hunting population in the U.S.

No Offense Intended

You can't go on a journey without knowing where you are starting from. This pretty much sums up a lot of my feelings. It is a broad statement that does not apply to everyone. 

A Case of Bad Parenting, Genesis 1-6

Misbehaving children and fornicating angels? 

I'm not a bible scholar and at this point even if I did call my self a Christian I would have to admit to feeling like an unfaithful one for having and sharing these thoughts.

The whole of Genesis just seems like out of control children with no real guidance from their parent figure. Do what ever you want just don't eat from the tree of knowledge? Really? Anyone with kids knows that isn't going to work. 

God has set these innocent and assumably naive beings, Adam and Eve, loose in the Garden of Eden. Did he spend any time with them teaching them the difference between right and wrong? Did he explain to them at all why they were forbidden to eat the fruits from the Tree of Knowledge or did he just tell them no and expect them to obey? 

It didn't seem to take the serpent any time or much persuasion at all to get Eve to take a bite. All kids want to be like their parents. Is that wrong? We look up to our parents, they are our teachers and our guardians. I got in trouble for putting on (ruining) mom's lipstick when I was a kid but I didn't get banished from the house for doing it. I just wanted to be like my mom, I loved her and I thought she was amazing. I wanted to be like that too. 

God did show some mercy. He didn't kill Adam and Eve for eating the fruit. No he punished his children with pain, shame and banishment. In our society when a parent punishes their children in such a harsh way we call it abuse. The man who treats his children in such a way is probably a sinner and going to hell.

It seems like this might have been a mistake on God's part. Adam and Eve went on to have kids who also seemed not to have much guidance or control over their emotions. I mean Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. God liked Abel's gift better. Any parent knows that it is important to praise both their children for doing well not just the one who did better. You definitely can't just ignore the other child. Then God went and rubbed salt in Cain's wounds by calling him a baby. 

Don't get me wrong, Cain totally over reacted. Killing your brother is not OK. But, he does seem to be a misguided child. I think today's courts would have taken pity on him too. A bit dangerous since he seemed to show no resentment for what he had done. His only concern was for his own welfare and the fear that others would cause him harm for what he had done. Sociopath? 

Cain doesn't appear to have had any additional outbursts of rage. You'd hope he was a little mature being that he was most likely in his 100's by this time. I'm guessing he wasn't totally upstanding though because it appears that his offspring all turned out to be horrible sinners. I'm not sure what they did but it must have been bad since God decided to just wipe everyone out with one fail swoop. 

Didn't God feel any responsibility for what had become of his creation? He gave man free rein on the earth, Genesis 1:28 "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth". 

It looks like things were really going crazy. Not only was man totally out of control but it appears that God's angels were fornicating with the man's woman. Genesis 6:2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose." I didn't make that up, there is a little note in my bible that says the sons of God were likely a group of fallen angels. 

Seriously God seems to have been losing control over his house around this time. How did it get so out of control that God had to create a flood to rid the world of the "wickedness" of man? Were the animals evil too? Seems a bit harsh that they all had to die along with man. 

Again he took pity and didn't wipe out everyone. He saved Noah and his family. We'll see how that goes. 

Questions and Thoughts Genesis 1-12

1:16 The Bible says God created 2 lights, one to rule the day and the other to rule the night. The moon is not a light.

2:9 Where did evil come from? Did it already exist? Why did God include it in his creation?

2:18 Were there already male and female animals? Why didn't God automatically create a male and female version of human beings?

3:1 Is the serpent a test or the Devil? Where did Satan come from? I thought God created everything. A little background before the creation probably would have been helpful.

3:9 Seriously? Does God really not know where Adam and Eve are or that they ate from the tree? Isn't he the All Knowing God?

4:3-14 Cain sounds like a spoiled brat or a sociopath.

4:14 Where did these other people come from?

5:5 930 years old?

6:1-4 Sons of God with daughters of man? Gods angels are getting dirty with human girls? Come on God, keep those angels in check.

6:5 Everyone turned evil?

6:7 Sounds like God just took back the whole subdue the earth deal.

7 This is one massive boat! The designers of the Titanic probably could have used a few tips from Noah.

7:2 Seven pairs of each animal? I though it was one male and one female, the whole 2 by 2 thing. This is really going to ruin the mind boggler about blue black frogs I use to kill time teaching kids.

7:13 Noah is 600 years old when he gets on the boat with his family and there are no grandkids?

7:24 This is all much longer than 40 days and 40 nights. 377 days total on the Ark!

8:13 What is 600th and 1st year referring to?

8:21 Is man still evil? If so, what was accomplished?

9:6 Did God just sanction Capitol Punishment?

9:22 Noah is a drunk? What did his son Ham exactly do to deserve his son being cursed?

What happened to limiting the number of years man would live (6:3)? These people are still living to be 900.