Reference links:
- Overview of the Book of Genesis
- Overview of the Gospel of Matthew
- Overview of the Psalms
- Overview of the book of Proverbs
Old Testament
SAB count: 11 absurdities, 8 contradictions, 2 science and history, 1 family values, 3 women, 3 injustice, 5 interpretation, 3 sex, 1 cruelty and violence, 1 prophecy
Talking serpents! I wonder if all the animals could talk. Why did God put a tree that Adam and Eve could not eat from there in the first place? Can we really say that Adam and Eve were “good” before eating the fruit because they were just doing what they were told and did not know good and evil? Apparently, God didn’t know that they had eaten from the tree (or at least pretended not to). Sexist patriarchy, pain of childbirth, having to struggle to grow food, and death for all humanity just because of two people. Harsh.
Apparently, being kicked out of the garden was not a punishment as much as it was God being afraid that the humans would eat from the tree of life. Why did he make it in the first place? Also strange, God says that Adam and Eve have become “like us, knowing both good and evil”. Where did this “us” come from all of a sudden, and who else is part of it?
We all know the Cain and Abel story and how God gives no reason for preferring the lamb over the fruits of the land (although many excuses have been made for it). However, what I wonder, and will continue to wonder throughout, is why does God wants physical meat and veggies in the first place?
Interesting: Cain says that God has “banished me from the land and from your presence”. More indications that God in these chapters is a physical being, not the omnipresent being suggested by modern Christians.
Whoah! Where did Cain get a wife from? And what was someone condemned to be a homeless wanderer doing founding a city?
Weird little interlude about how Lamech, after killing some dude, declares that anyone who kills him will be punished 77 times. And by what authority does he say that? Is this implying that Lamech’s curse is just as good as God’s? Not surprising in what was certainly a superstitious society, but rather dulls the impact of God’s earlier declaration.
New Testament
SAB count: 3 contradictions, 1 science and history, 3 prophecy
We have yet another reference to something that can only be called a fulfilled prophecy by the generous. The author of Matthew quotes Hosea, “I called my Son out of Egypt”, but in the context of Hosea 11, this was pretty obviously part of a recounting of the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt.
Here, we also see Herod the Great killing all of the children under two years old in and around Bethlehem. According to Wikipedia, there is no historical notice of this outside the Bible and is not widely believed to have never occurred.
Psalms and Proverbs
SAB count:
- Psalms: 2 injustice, 2 cruelty and violence, 2 intolerance
- Provbers: 2 contradictions, 1 good stuff
Nothing much here, except that we have a Psalm showing God to be a rather violent God.