Meditation 297
Adam and Eve and the Talking Snake
by Russell Odell © 1986
(Russell Odell is a retired physicist who just celebrated his 96th birthday. He recently joined our group and has graciously given permission to republish several of his articles. Look for more from Russell Odelll here in coming months.)
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Wolfgang F. Pauli (1900-1958) Austrian physicist, (Nobel Prize 1945), wrote in his book, The World of Life,
Speculations on the origin of the universe are probably as old as man. Primitive mythologies are full of naive accounts of giants and gods creating worlds and stars, but such accounts are no longer satisfying, for they are not based upon observable facts. Although it appears that man must never expect a final answer, since each answer inevitably carries in it the seed of new questions, yet he still seeks and finds satisfaction in each partial answer. Today men are impelled to explain all matters in a ’natural’ way and inclined to consider the word ’supernatural’ as synonymous with ’ignorant’. The ’science’ of the savage who explains the airplane by saying that it is endowed with the spirit of flight is not acceptable. But we must be on guard against a similar error, that by naming a phenomenon we believe we have explained it. Names are useful labels, but they are not explanations.
A case in point is the two first chapters of Genesis of the bible, explaining Creation. Some scholars say Moses wrote it. Others say Moses only compiled the story from hand-me-down-stories he collected, or, Moses gathered his information from old records. Many scholars say the creation story is the result of many authors.
Dr. Henrietta C. Mears, founder of the Gospel Light Publications, Christian Education Director of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, CA., wrote in her book, What the bible is All About,
Who wrote the creation story used by Moses? No doubt it was written a long tome ago, maybe by Abraham, or Noah, or Enoch. Who knows? Writing was in common use before the days of Abraham. In UR, as in every important city in Babylon, there were libraries with thousands of books, dictionaries, grammars, reference works, encyclopedias, works on mathematics, astronomy, geography, religion and politics. No doubt Abraham received traditions or records from Shem about the story of creation and fall of man, and the flood.
It is most evident from the aforementioned references, that the authorship of the biblical creation story is unfounded. It is highly questionable. No one knows who wrote it or where the information came from. This is why it is out of sync with the scientific thinking of today. However, we must be knowledgeable that the Big Bang theory is also full of holes. You need a lot of science-faith to believe it in its entirety. But its sequence of creation happening and formations of the universe are in a more logical succession.
Reading of the first two chapters of Genesis will show, within their own words, they were written by different authors. Chapter One tells that the animals were created before man. Chapter Two tells that the man was created before the animals. This is a biblical contradiction. Chapter One is a biblical, day by day account of creation. Chapter Two, I believe was written—let us say by Moses—with the express purpose of making woman submissive to man. It is not a creation story but it twists the creation account to show the supremacy of the male. It has no other message. Man was made in the image of God. The woman wasn’t. The reason given, God is a male, not a female. But no one has ever seen God, so what is God’s image? That God is a three dimensional body is only a conjecture and no one can prove otherwise. Christ says, "No man hath seen God at any time" (John 1: 18). So why all the religious hoopla?
If one is to believe in a super intelligent God that created the Universe and all there is, it must have been most gratifying to the chauvinistic Moses’ self esteem to be created in the image of this God. Moses wanted man to be important and he glorified man by claiming man to be created in God’s image.
When we read the first two chapters of Genesis we find, in a King James version of the bible, Chapter I, the Creation story is told in less than 800 words. This makes it very evident God didn’t tell Moses much about creation. We must be cognizant of the religious fact that Moses never mentioned his source of information. Moses wants you to except, cart blanch, what he says and don’t question it. When I went to Sunday school I was told that God spoke to Moses and Moses wrote it down. My Sunday school teacher told me a little white lie. Nowhere in the bible is it mentioned Moses got this story from God. Where he got it from is pure speculation. Do not to ask the ministers because they don’t know either. Don’t embarrass them. It isn’t polite.
This creation was executed by his loving and understanding God who so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him, would not die but have everlasting life. As we read further into Moses’ story, we shall see, according to Moses’, God was very biased with his love and understanding. God discriminated against woman!
In the early verses of Chapter One, verses 1 through 25, Moses tells of God creating the earth, sky and the stars; the sun, moon, birds, animals and fishes, the creation of everything that had life and, God told them to be fruitful and multiply. We humans have done this, we are multiplying ourselves out of food and space on the planet with over population.
The 26th verse reads, "And God said, let us make man in our own image." It has always bothered me to know who God was saying this to. Who, or what, was this "us" to whom God was talking? Were there other Gods? Some churches say He was talking to Jesus. Others say He was talking to His angels, this is pure conjecture. The bible does not tell us. The 26th verse is very explicit in informing us, man is created in the image of God. However, there is not one reference in the bible telling in whose image woman was created. The only reference we have according to Moses is Adam’s rib.
The 17th verse reads, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created he them." Here again, Moses stresses the point man was created in the image of God. It does say, "Male and female created He them." But notice the emphasis is placed on the man, not on the women, or is this meant to imply, that they were both created in the image of God? Many interpret the bible by various implications, it is an easy way to explain the unexplainable.
Who was Moses? Moses was a Hebrew, supposedly born about 1520 BC. We are told in the bible, he was found , as a baby, floating in a basket amongst the bulrushes by one of the pharaoh’s daughters. How lucky for Moses the Nile crocodiles did not get him before the pharaoh’s daughter did. The Hebrews would never have gotten out of Egypt and their Torah would never have been written. He was taken by her and raised as a privileged Hebrew slave.
For his first 40 years of life he was cared for and educated by the Egyptians. The Egyptians believed in the supremacy of the male. This was imbedded into the mind of Moses as he grew from babyhood, to childhood, to manhood. That the male was supreme over the female was drummed into his head every day of his life. This is where Moses learned to become a male chauvinist. He did not learn that from the God he worshipped. It was learned from the pagan Egyptians,. It is a pagan belief. Evidence of this Egyptian chauvinistic trait can be found, carved in stone, 13 centuries before the birth of Christ.
On the banks of the Nile River at Abu Simbel, is the Temple of Ramesses, 4th king of the 19th dynasty who ruled Egypt from 1292 to 1225 BC. This would place the building of this temple at about 1240 BC. The sitting figure of Ramesses is cut in stone in the side of a mountain. From the sole of his feet to the top of his head measures 65 feet. This is as tall as a six story building. A figure of his wife is also carved with him. She is standing, not sitting as her husband is, and her full height reaches from the soles of his feet to not quite his knee. She is not important enough to be carved 65 feet high, she was only a woman, the favorite of all his wives. From this culture you can understand where Moses got the idea of the supremacy of the male. He got it from the Egyptians who taught it to him and, Moses put this culture into his writing that eventually became the bible, the Word of God (?).
Today, our modern churches still preach this pagan nonsense as gospel truth, handed down from God. It may be of interest to know that a time in history, God was a woman. It is an interesting history to pursue. It is documented in the book, When God Was a Woman, by Merlin Stone; the Harvest HBJ Book Publishers, San Diego, 265 pages, $7.95. On page nine you can read,
Even more astonishing was the archaeological evidence which proved that Her religion had existed and flourished on the Near and Middle East for thousands of years before the arrival of the patriarchal Abraham, first prophet of the male deity Yahweh.
I regard Moses as a religious PR man. He develops the male supremacy gradually. He wrote in Gen. 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." Note that no mention is made about woman. Woman was not supposed to be around yet. However, in Gen. 1:27, Moses did write "Male and female created He them." Was she too, created from the dust of the ground ? Did God breathe into her nostrils the breath of life that she became a living soul?. Gen.1:27 may or may not mean that. Again we have to resort to implication. How else can religion justify woman was given a soul? The verse does say, "Male and female created He them." Moses does not want woman to have a soul . He manipulates the story to make man supreme as his Egyptian teachers taught him. Churches try to cover up his blatant omission by trying to interpret other bible verses to show that woman does have a soul. For instance, Paul writes in Galatians 3:28,
There is neither Hewbrew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male or female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
From this we can assume we all have souls. But this is only an implication. Another point the Churches make is that when a mixed group are baptized, they all, man or woman, must have a soul. But baptism doesn’t give you a soul. It cleanses the soul of sin. Nowhere in the 775,693 words of my King James Version is there "one" word that says God gave woman a soul like he did man. Thus, we overlook the egotistical statement of Moses and know that even though the bible does not say so, woman too, has a soul. [But this is only an assuption.]
Moses had to adjust his story to put woman down. He had just written the story of creation. He develops another fantastic story about a beautiful Garden called, The Garden of Eden.
In the 15th verse, Adam, the so-called first man on earth, became the world’s first gardener. God wanted Adam to remain stupid. He did not want Adam to have any knowledge to know the difference between good and evil. God was very explicit about this and, verses 16 and 17 makes it very clear;
And the Lord God commanded man, saying, of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Thus you can see, according to the Holy Scriptures, God did not want Adam to have any knowledge. He did not want Adam to know the difference between right and wrong or between good and evil. Adam was content to wander in the garden not knowing what he was doing. He had no knowledge and God told him he was not to have any. That is Holy Scripture. Open your bible and read it for yourself.
Moses grew up in the culture of his Egyptian masters. He saw that the Egyptian women were all subservient to their husbands. This Egyptian philosophy becomes very prevalent in the next bible verse, Gen. 2:18, "And the Lord said, it is not good that man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet." Who is God saying this to? Are their other Gods present? What was Adam to have? A helper? A helpmeet? A servant?
How did this "Helpmeet" come into existence? Moses was quite a story teller. He writes in Gen. 2:21-25 that God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam. During this deep sleep, God took a rib from Adam and, from this rib created Eve, the woman, the help meet, the servant. Go back to verse seven in the same chapter and you can read, when God created Adam, "He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul." That did not happen to the woman, did it? Woman became just a help meet, not a living soul! Thus, biblically, man was given a soul, woman was not! I do not buy this kind of religious shenanigans. Egyptian chauvinism put into the Holy bible by Moses. Moses wrote quite a story to make man supreme over woman.
Now the plot thickens. In chapter three, Moses comes up with a new twist to show how woman, not man, created the first sin that caused the downfall of all humanity. You have probably read it, but I will give you my version of what actually happened in the Garden of Eden many years ago.
One day Eve was strolling through the garden when she was met by a talking snake.
"Good afternoon Eve," said the snake. "How are you this beautiful afternoon?"
"I am fine, Mr. Snake," replied the startled Eve. "How are you doing?"
"Well," said the snake. "I have been doing some thinking."
"How interesting. What are you thinking about?" Inquired Eve.
"I have been watching you and Adam wandering around the garden aimlessly like you are lost. You two don’t know too much. Neither of you have any knowledge."
"My goodness!" exclaimed Eve! "God told Adam and Adam instructed me we were not to have any knowledge. That is why we are not to eat from that tree over there. By the way, Mr. Snake, What is knowledge?"
"Knowledge, my dear lady, is a lot of things. You would know right from wrong; you would know good from evil; you would think for yourself. You would enjoy life more because you would know what life is about."
"Sounds very interesting Mr. Snake. How do I get this knowledge?"
"Oh my," exclaimed the snake, "That is easy, real easy. To get knowledge you have to seek it. Knowledge doesn’t come to you. That tree over there is where you begin to learn."
"That tree!" shrieked Eve in a fearful voice. "Adam told me that is a no-no tree. Gracious me, Adam told me if I even touch it I will die."
"Adam," laughed the snake. "That poor dummy doesn’t know anything. Who is he to tell you what to do? Is he your God? Is he your master? Are you his servant? My oh my, I feel so sorry for you having to spend your time with a clod like Adam. Let me see how can I explain this to you. Well, you see that jackass standing over there by the lake? See him? He is standing right under the apple tree. Do you know that Adam doesn’t have any more knowledge than that jackass?"
Eve looked over toward the lake. "I never looked at it quite like that, now that you mentioned it, Adam is quite dull."
"Dull," repeated the snake. "Dull isn’t the word for it. I ate some fruit from that tree last week and look how smart I am already."
"Are you smart?" questioned Eve.
"Am I smart! Good heavens Eve, last week I couldn’t say your name. Look at me now. I can talk as good as you or Adam. Besides, I have knowledge. You ask me if I am smart? Eve my dear, you are a dumb bunny. But you are cute."
"Cute?" queried Eve. "What is cute? Adam never said I was cute."
"That shows how stupid Adam is. You are exquisite; You’re luscious and beautiful."
"Luscious, Exquisite, Beautiful?" Questioned Eve. "What does all that mean?"
" That means if you do not know what those words mean, you should eat of the Tree of Knowledge and get some smarts. Don’t spend the rest of you life in ignorance."
"But Adam said…"
"Adam said, Adam said," cut in the snake. "Can’t you say anything except Adam said? Adam doesn’t know enough to say anything, however, what did the big lunk head say?"
Eve continued. "Like I told you before, Adam told me if I as much as touch that tree, I will die."
"Die did you say?" Chuckled the snake. "I not only touched it, I ate some of its fruit. Am I dead? Come on, Eve, don’t be stupid. Watch me. I will not only touch it, I will climb into the tree and eat more of its fruit."
The snake crawled into the tree and began eating of its fruit. "Am I dead?" chided the snake. "Come on, Eve, join me. Have some fruit."
Cautiously Eve touched the Tree of Knowledge. She waited to see if she would die. She didn’t!
"See?" said the snake. "I told you that you wouldn’t die. Now have some fruit and get some knowledge."
Gingerly Eve plucked some of the fruit and took a bite. It was delicious, and she didn’t die. Knowledge was in every bite. She looked at her reflection in the pool, she stood there staring at it. The snake was right. She was beautiful, luscious and cute. Then Eve took more of the fruit to share with Adam. Maybe he would open his eyes to the real beauty around him and learn words like beautiful, luscious and cute. Eve thought it would be worth a try.
Eve rushed to tell Adam of the remarkable conversation she had with a talking snake.
"A talking what?" asked the bewildered Adam.
"A talking snake," assured Eve.
"Come on Eve, Snakes don’t talk."
"Believe it or not, Adam. This snake talked as good as we can. I know snakes are not supposed to be able to talk, but this one did. This snake was smart, it had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge."
"From the Tree of Knowledge!" panicked Adam in a fearful voice. "And the snake didn’t die?"
"That’s right. The snake didn’t die. But it gained the knowledge of how to talk."
Adam was absolutely dumbfounded, this was unbelievable. The real shocker came when Eve told him she too, had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and she did not die.
"Eve, that is impossible," said Adam. "You know what God told me about that tree, if I as much as touch it, I would die!"
With a smile on her face Eve said, "God never told me that. God never talks to me because I am only a woman, a help meet. Perhaps that is what he told you but he never told that to me. By the way, Adam, that fruit I just gave you that you are holding in your hands, came from the no-no tree. You have touched it and you didn’t die."
Adam looked at the fruit in his hands. "It is?" he exclaimed in shock.
"It is," said Eve.
Adam sat in a daze staring at the fruit he was holding. Finally, he took a bite, it was sweet to the taste. Then, something happened to him, with every bite his knowledge increased. He looked around. He began to get a feeling of understanding. It was a strange feeling, strange indeed. Then he looked at Eve. "Eve, you are beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Why didn’t I ever notice this before?"
Eve smiled at him with a smile that said more than words could say. Suddenly, like a crack of lightning, they had their first kiss. Then followed what comes naturally. Love was born. Because of God? No. Because of a talking snake!
This is Moses’ talking snake story with a little dialogue added. Of course, I was not there to witness all this, but, neither was Moses. My story is as authentic as his. If Moses can invent the story, I can invent the dialogue.
A few days later, God came to visit Adam in the garden and could not find him. Finally, God called several times to his gardener. "Adam, where are you?" When there was no answer to the first few callings God waited a moment and then Adam said, "I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked: and I hid myself." (Gen. 3:10).
That let the cat out of the bag. God got the drift of what happened, Adam had eaten of the Tree of Knowledge and knew it was indecent to be naked in the sight of God. Isn’t it amazing that God did not think it indecent for the two of them to be running around in the garden as naked as the other animals? Adam and Eve did. In modesty and respect for God, they covered their nakedness with leaves. However, God was mad because now both of them had the knowledge and respect for each other.
I notice that all the Christians agree with Adam and Eve in this respect. No Christian goes to church naked. Like Adam and Eve, they cover themselves. Modesty. Eve learned by talking to a snake. Good thing she did, wouldn’t you be embarrassed going to church without wearing a stitch? Why not try it this Sunday and see what happens. I think you had better agree with Adam and Eve and wear something.
A quick summary of what happened in the Garden of Eden so far: Adam and Eve were there, neither of them having any knowledge because God forbid them to eat of the tree that would give them knowledge. For Biblical proof, see Gen. 2:7.
The man was content to take orders from God and live in blessed ignorance. Woman on the other hand, receiving no instructions from God, began to think for herself. Man did not think. In her conversation with the snake, she applied logic to the situation. She saw what it did for the snake and took the chance to see what it could do for her. Her logic was, test it. ("Test everything. Hold on to the good." 1 Thessalonians 5:21.) That is the scientific method to this day, test it. Eve tested it and found it worked. Knowledge was superior to blind ignorance. It was a well conducted test, and, look at the chance she took, it could have killed her! Woman’s reasoning was superior to man’s; her grit, was superior to man’s; her determination to learn the truth, was superior to man’s. If it wasn’t for Eve’s logical thinking, we men would be running around naked and ignorant in the gardens of the world. Thanks to the woman, man now has some intelligence. Let’s be man enough to admit it. Let us stop wagging the tongues of the religious do-gooders that Eve committed the first sin. She was the first to give us knowledge, not sin. Whether we men like it or not, the woman was first of the sexes to gain knowledge. That simple fact is duly recorded in the bible. Adam had to be coaxed, tricked and prodded to accept knowledge.
Because Moses was ashamed of man’s stupidity, he twisted the truth to make it look like a sin. I have noticed that man has been reveling in the sin of knowledge ever since. Man immediately set up a monopoly to keep all further knowledge from woman. This monopoly is supported by the churches today. We men do our best to prevent women from getting too much of this sin stuff called knowledge. Woman got the smarts, man gets the credit!
Going back to the Garden of Eden, we learn how Adam is taking God’s angry reprimand. Adam should be protective of his wife, and stand up like a man. We are told he was a perfect man, made in the image of God. He was very important and far superior to woman, Eve was just a nobody; A help mate; a servant in the Garden of Eden. Adam turned out to be a cringing, spineless, sniveling heap of a creature that was out to do one thing, save his own skin and put the blame on his lowly help meet. Quickly, very quickly, he pointed the finger of blame at Eve and cried, "Don’t blame me God. It wasn’t my fault. That inferior help meet you gave me tricked me into it. Don’t blame me God. Blame her."
The bible records this in Gen. 3:12. "And the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Ah! the superior male creature! He passed the buck and vindicated himself. God didn’t know that Adam ate that fruit by his own free will. Or. Did He? Neither Eve nor the snake tied him down and forced him to eat of it. Believe it or not, this great understanding God blamed Eve!
Now the story gets a bit mean and nasty. God, also a male chauvinist(only according to the Scriptures written by man) turned His temper on Eve and, thundered in a loud voice that shook the fruit from the trees, caused the birds to scatter and the animals to run and hide, shouted, as recorded in the 13th verse, "What is this that thou hast done?" This is the first time the bible records God speaking to a woman. What a terrible way for a loving God to begin. Where are the words of love;? Where is the compassion;? The understanding;? Remember, we are talking of a God that so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son to die for us.
Eve laid it straight on the line. She said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat" (Gen. 3:13). She faced God head on and admitted that she did it!
Then God chastised the snake and cursed it saying, from now on it would crawl on its belly and would eat the dust of the ground. However, snakes do not eat the dust of the ground, evidently the curse did not have the power to be executed.
God turned to the woman, still angry, and said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." You can read this in Gen. 3:16. Moses was doing his best to make woman obedient to man. Notice the words, "and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." The pagan Egyptians had taught him well. No loving and compassionate God would teach this arogance.
Are these the words of a loving and understanding God? Is this the kind of treatment women can expect of God? Male chauvinistic words delivered in anger? Come on, ladies, don’t let anyone rule over you. You are the one who had the guts to bring knowledge to the world. Without you ladies, we men would still be stupid Adams wandering around naked amongst the flowers and weeds—NAKED.
When Moses got to verse 21 (Gen. 2), I think He wrote himself a problem, "And unto Adam and also to his wife Eve did the Lord God make coats of skin, and clothed them." Moses story finds two naked people that he must get clothed. Materials with which Moses and the people of his era clothed themselves had not yet been invented. Moses knew some tribes of people made loincloths of animal skins. It was the only material he could think of. But this kind of clothing present a problem in the particular instant taking place in his story. An animal had to be slaughtered and skinned. At this point in Moses story there where only three individuals present, God, Adam and Eve. Which of these three was the butcher? Who was the tailor? Doesn’t this Garden of Eden story sound a little bizarre?
The plot thickens. (Moses invents another mysterious tree.) "And the Lord God said, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil, and now, lest he put forth his hand and take from the tree of Life, and eat, and live forever." Who is God talking to this time when He says, "Behold, the man is become as one of us"? One of whom? That statement implies there is more than one God. (Gen. 3:22)
In Gen. 2:17 when God forbid Adam to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, why didn’t he caution Adam about the Tree of Life? He never did! If you had a son and a daughter approximately the same age as Adam and Eve, and you had to make them aware of something that would kill them, wouldn’t you instruct both of them? Or, would you only tell your son and not your daughter? Moses would have us believe this is what God did. God never spoke to Eve. Why not? Moses wants to make the point that God had no direct concern for the women. This isn’t the God I believe in. I cannot believe in a God of justice with such biased and discriminatory characteristics. Can you? What would have happened, biblically, if Eve would have eaten of the Tree of Life before she ate from the Tree of Knowledge? Would she still be around? Perhaps, next door to me? According to Moses, because Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, all humanity must die. Death to all, because Eve met a talking snake? The sad part of this is that millions believe this.
As Eve was the more intelligent and aggressive of the two, God wanted her out of this special Garden of mysterious trees. God didn’t worry too much about Adam. Adam was a dullard compared to Eve. If Eve was allowed to stay, she would, most likely, continue to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. To Eve, that tree was an encyclopedia. The more you ate the smarter you became. If Eve ever got to the Tree of Life too, wow! chauvinistic heaven would never be the same. Heaven is chauvinistic. God has no female counterpart as far as we know and, all the angels have masculine names. Even when Jesus was on earth as a human, he never married or even had a girl friend. There seems to be this male syndrome hang-up that no religion can clarify, and they become very annoyed if you press the question and, I do press that question. Women do not seem to be important except as some kind of a slave, a helpmeet, a concubine or a church worker. Can you imagine what would happen to the Catholic Church if all the Sisters quit? The Pope would have more than ring around the collar. The Sisters are the real backbone of the church. It is they who hold the Church together, not the Pope.
Going back to the Garden one more time to see how God settles this terrible turmoil that Eve initiated. In Gen. 3:23-24 we are told that God drove Adam out of the Garden. There is no recorded mention that Eve was driven out. You have to assume she was. [The bible records that ONLY Adam was driven out.] God would not leave Eve in that Garden by herself. She was too inquisitive. She would get to those two trees and really have a ball. No doubt, there were other mysterious trees that Moses overlooked.
After the Garden was vacated, the bible tells us God called some cherubim’s—all males of course—and they had "a flaming sword which turned every way" to keep any future inquisitive females from picking fruit from those two special trees.
Many years later, on Adam’s 500th birthday, Eve reminded him, "Did not God tell you on the day you ate from the Tree of Knowledge you would die?"
Adam thought for a moment. "Yes. He did."
Then eve asked, "How many years ago was that?"
Adam had a sheepish grin on his face. He knew Eve was always right.
I have always wondered where Moses got his information. I found Marvin L. Lubenow of big help in finding an answer to this question. Lubenow is a Professor of bible and apologetic studies at the Heritage College, El Cajon, California. He writes, on page 213 of his book, Bones of Contention, which is a Creationist assessment of human fossils,
However, nowhere does Scripture say that Moses actually wrote the narratives or the genealogies of Genesis. There is no statement on Genesis referring to Moses as its author as there clearly is in the other books of the Pentateuch. Not even Christ or the apostles say that Moses actually wrote or spoke the words they quote from Genesis. While accepting the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, conservative scholars have not detailed the means by which Moses received his information.
To sum up this story, I find it amazing how much knowledge has increased since Eve first found it in the Garden of Eden. We have put man on the moon; explored the ocean’s depths; formed many nations; built great cities and many universities of learning. The beginning of all this knowledge happened many years ago when Eve, strolling through the garden of Eden, was met by a talking snake. But, I save my sanity by knowing this is only a Moses story, written, not to explain the God I believe in, but merely a story to exploit what the Egyptians taught him during the first forty years of his life that woman is absolutely subservient to man. Go to these same bible lands today, in the towns, villages, cities or countries, and Moses’ Egyptian (not God’s) teaching is still practiced. Women are less than second class citizens, thanks to the ignorance of a chauvinistic Moses!
God, on the other hand, holds woman in such high esteem that it was through woman, with absolutely no help from man whatsoever, Jesus Christ came into this world. Where would all the Christians in the world today, be, with out the Virgin Mary? They wouldn’t have a religion, nor would they have a Savior. No doubt Moses was a great man and did much good for the Hebrews. But, he was a human like you and I. And once in a while even the smartest of us makes a complete dunce out of ourselves. I believe this is what the over zealous male chauvinist Moses did. This definitely was not writing "inspired by a God of love and compassion." It was inspired by man to satisfy a chauvinistic ego.
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