Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife ... that I may go in unto her. 29:21
Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife ... that I may go in unto her. 29:21
"In the beginning" 1:1-2
"And the evening and the morning were the second day." 1:8
The second day is the only day God didn't call "good."
"St. Jerome held that the reason why God did not pronounce the work of the second day "good" is to be found in the fact that there is something
essentially evil in the number two, and this was echoed centuries afterward, afar off in Britain, by Bede." A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, Chapter 1 by
A. D. White
"Let the earth bring forth grass ... living creatures." 1:11, 1:24
"Let them be for signs." 1:14
"And God made the beast of the earth." 1:25
The Christian Identity and Aryan Nations folks say that "beast of the earth" and "beast of the field" refer to all non-human animals and non-white humans. They consider all people of color to be without a soul and on the same level as animals, such as cattle, fish, and birds.
"And God said, Let us make man in our image ... male and female." 1:26-27
"God created man." 1:27
"God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." 1:27
One way of dealing with the two contradictory creation accounts is to say that the reason there are two different stories is that there were two different creations. This has been a common interpretation historically, and it is still found taday. Pre-Adamites
"I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth." 1:29
"To dress and keep it"
Some believers claim that this verse
requires them to be environmentalists. 2:15
"Now the serpent ... said unto the woman." 3:1-2
In Christian Identity theology, the serpent is a black male ("beast of the field"), possessed by the devil, who seduced Eve. Cain is the child that is born from this union, the evil son of the devil and the first Jew. All Jews are descended from Cain.
"I will put enmity ... between thy seed and her seed." 3:15
"And the LORD set a mark upon Cain." 4:15
"And Cain knew his wife." 4:17
That's nice, but where the hell did she come from?
Although the Bible doesn't say, Joseph Smith provided the answer in "The Inspired Version" of the Bible, which was his very own "translation". Here's what it says:
And it came to pass, that Cain took one of his brother's daughters to wife, and they loved Satan more than God. - Gen.5:13
So according to Joseph Smith (and he ought to know!) Cain married one of his nieces. He doesn't say, though, which of Cain's brothers was Mrs. Cain's father.
Another answer is provided by the Pre-Adamite theory.
"The sons of God" 6:2
Who were the sons of God?"But ... the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." 9:4
"And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him." 9:24
What did Ham do? Did he just look at his naked father or was there something more to it than that? Some commentators have suggested that Ham castrated his father, committed homosexual rape on him, or that he raped his mother (Noah's wife) while his father was in his drunken stupor. The last possibilty might explain why Noah cursed Canaan, whose mother was Ham's mother and Noah's wife -- and that that was why Canaan and his descendants were cursed and eternally punished with slavery.
For more on this see The Bible in Fewer Words: What did Ham do?
"Nimrod ... a mighty hunter before the Lord" 10:8-10
Who was Nimrod? The king who tried to construct the tower of Babel? The first pope? Elmer Fudd? Here are some links to help you decide.
"Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided." 10:25
Some creationists believe that this verse refers to continental drift, which, they say, began to occur during the days of Pelag (which means "division"), about 100 or so years after the flood. But many other creationists disagree.
Say, I pray thee, thouart my sister." 12:13
In the LDS Book of Abraham the same silly story is told, but it is God, not Abraham, who concocts the lie.
"And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me." 16:13
Hagar was the first person in the Bible to be visited by an angel. And maybe the first to see God.
The SBL Study Bible note for this verse says, "Hagar identifies the angel as God himself...."
There came two angels to Sodom 19:1-4
The two angels that came to Sodom were so attractive that all of the males in the city wanted to have sex with them. But do angels have sex?
"The men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young ... And they ... said ..., Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them." 19:4-5
"And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking." 21:9
What did Sarah see that disturbed her so much?
Jonathan Kirsch suggests in The Harlot by the Side of the Road that the "play" between Isaac and Ishmael may have been of a sexual nature, noting that the same word is used to describe the behaviour of Ishmael and Isaac as is used in 26:8 to describe Isaac's fondling of Rebekah.
"God gave thee ... plenty of ... wine."
Is it OK to drink alcohol?
27:28
"And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh." 32:24-30
According to the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical book of Judith, God not only approved of the violence in Genesis 34, but he gave Simeon the sword that he used to kill all the males in the city. 34:1-31
"The third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants" 40:20
