The illustration is wonderful because this is the actual
text, he just does pictures and because of that the illustrations cry out the
inconsistencies. It is a book that
requires illustration to make us stop and ask – is this really the word of
god? In fact, in this book we find that
there were other gods and perhaps they created other beings. It is a book of incest, polygamy, slavery, deceit,
selling wives and children, the destruction of all humans, the rescue of all
the animal species, extramarital mating, slaughter of innocents for sacrifice…
and those are by the holy – god favorites.
Of course there is nakedness and sex – which will turn off some, but that’s
what the book has so take a deep breath and be ready to be surprised by some of
the contents.
Two creations – one has humans come last, the second has
them come first. Having made man and
woman in chapter 2, why does god do it over and differently in chapter 2? Why
does god walk in the garden and not know that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit – I
mean he is god. Then Adam becomes the
first snitch – who did this, she did!
Then poor Cain – god likes Abel’s gifts more than his so
jealousy arises and Cain kills Abel. Now
for strangeness – Cain is told the earth will not bear fruit for him anymore
and he is cursed – he must wander and he might be killed by anyone he
meets. But how can he meet anyone – he
is the only child of the only people. Of
course he then goes off to Nod and gets married. Wait when did god make these Nod people?
The next big myth in the book is the story of Noah and the
ark. This is a clever story and it would
be good if people believed in the lesson – even when humans are F --- up the
rest of creation deserves to be saved.
However, those who believe this is true are really amazing – the water
rose 15 feet above the mountains – I know they did not know about the Himalayas
at that time – water over 5 miles above see level! And then there is the fact that all the
animals of all the continents and all the seeds of all the plants on all the
continents had to fit on this boat – yikes, they are going to need more than
cubits to measure that boat. If all the
insects, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds of all the continents were not on
the vessel it would require some awfully quick evolution for those religious
believers to fill the earth as we know it.
Next comes the fable of Abram. God keeps popping in and out of people’s
lives, this god is obviously not ever present, but he does begin the debate
between predestination and free will as he tells Abram that his progeny will be
enslaved and oppressed for 400 years before they will be allowed to come back
in the country. So how does this god get
surprised by human actions?
The wars between the tribes is a constant, but all the
tribes came from Noah since he has now replaced Adam as the father of all the
world. This follows gods little tantrum
with the tower of Babel which offends him because it reaches up to heaven. So god gives everyone there different
languages so that they cannot communicate and work together. Nice trick god – what are you going to do to
the astronauts?
Just as Adam was the first snitch – Abram is the first
recorded pimp, telling his wife, Sarai to pretend to be his sister so no one
will harm him to take her away. He then
allows her to be taken as the Pharaoh’s wife under this deception and in the
end the pharaoh is the one that is punished by god! Of course, Sarai turns the tables and gives
Abram her hand maid who then conceives and the result it the child Ishmael
which begins the story of the Arab nation which will be in conflict with Isaac
and the Jewish world from then on. What
a story. What follows are the directions of god to circumcise the males – even
the slaves (why doesn’t this god tell them that it is not right to have
slaves?).
The hardest aspect for me to swallow is the willingness of
Abram to sacrifice Isaac. This may be
duty to god for some, but my father instincts would cause me to find a
different god and save my son.
Sodom and Gomorrah present another fable that raises lots of
questions – not only is Lot’s wife turned to stone for the horrible act of
curiosity, but god sends messengers to check out Sodom (doesn’t he know) and
they are taken in to Lot’s home. When the
towns folk, surely not the people you want to hang out with, come to the door
and want “to know” the messengers – Lot offers them his virgin daughters “do
them however you please” and just let the messengers along. Another passage that messes with this
father’s mind. But then when you think
it cannot get worse, Lot’s wife is salt, he’s living in a cave and his two
daughters decide he should not waste is seed – read sperm – so one night after
another they get their father drunk, have sex with him and bear new off spring
for this righteous man named Lot!
The stories of Isaac includes the deception of the wife to
steal the birthright for her favorite son.
Then Jacob (Isreal) has his children turn on his youngest and throw him
in a well and then sell him. Of course
this is Joseph who will rise in the Egyptian hierarchy and eventually the
family will be united, but in doing so he helps the pharaoh get all the property
of the common people and makes them slaves of the state.
The stories continue, but Genesis does not. It is a book that causes you to pause and
consider what is really written.
The following was my response to one reader:
ReplyDeleteI love it. A good book deserves a good review, a good review elicits comments and discussions - not necessarily agreement.
I prefaced the review with the warning that people who find the book to be holy might want to stop reading. I loved the book because if we are to take the every word as "gospel" then we better see what every word it. Crumb did not change the words, he just illustrated them and that made it more potent for examination, harder to skim by the passages that make us uncomfortable.
Your comment on the first passage is not something I can disagree with. Who god is and what devices went into making the world what it is does warrant scrutiny. As an agnostic I question all religious writing, but I also enjoy them. What I do not respect is when people hold a bible, koran, or other religious pamplet in front of me and use that as their justification for judgment. I have read the bible from end to end, the koran, the books of confuscious, Buddha, the Eastern Orthodox stories, I have listened to elders in the tribes. We have had a Buddhist Monk, a teacher of the Indian (country) religion, an elder of the Lakota, and a Salesian brother stay in our home and engage in wonderful dialogues.
I continue to read the greek scholars and the classic philosophers and I enjoy the invitation to think and have dialogue. I will not argue religion, that is something people choose or are born in to or are coerced to become part of.
What I need to say on behalf of Crumb is that he did not make the observations that I wrote - those were mine. What Crumb did was present every word of the book in a way that allowed me to formulate my thoughts.