#Book of Genesis

[artandthebible]

Rachel

Artist: Frederick Goodall (English, 1822-1904)

Date: 1867

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

Rachel

Rachel is a major character in the early Old Testament; she was a daughter of Laban, sister of Leah, favored wife of Jacob, and mother of two of Jacob’s children.

Rachel lived in Harran, or Paddan Aram, and that’s where she met her cousin Jacob. Jacob was fleeing for his life after tricking his brother, Esau, out of his birthright (Genesis 27:1–29). At his mother’s behest, Jacob headed for his uncle Laban in Paddan Aram.

Once Jacob reached Harran, he met some shepherds watering their sheep at a well. When he inquired after Laban, the men replied, “Here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep” (Genesis 29:6). Jacob rolled the stone from the well and watered Laban’s sheep for Rachel. He introduced himself as Laban’s nephew, and Rachel ran to tell her father of Jacob’s arrival. Laban was overjoyed to see Jacob and invited him to live with his family.

[charlesoberonn]

I want to clarify that this blog is not anti-public fruit trees. It is pro-serpent.

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[lionofchaeronea]

Title: Jacob and the Angel Artist: Gustave Moreau (French, 1826-1898) Date: between 1874 and 1878 Genre: religious art Movement: Symbolism Medium: oil on canvas Location: Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

[zu-is-here]

i hope this isn't blasphemy but imagine a Genesis!Dreammare AU? With Night being the one to eat the apple (Eve) and Dream following him (Adam)— maybe Nim could be the version of god?

The Fall

[idylls-of-the-divine-romance]

"I wouldn't have eaten the forbidden fruit" yes you would have. Why? Because you do it everyday. Because every character in the bible does it (with a few exceptions) over and over and over again. The narrative uses different ways of talking about it, "taking the fruit", "getting bit by the snake", etc but the real point is that your absolute failure to read the bible as a narrative, and instead to insist on historicity as your primary way of reading scripture, is the root issue here because it causes you to be blind to the actual message of the Bible.

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Frederick Goodall RA (British, 1822-1904) Rachel and her flock, 'And behold, Rachel his daughter cometh with the sheep', ca.1874–75

[whereserpentswalk]

Tolkien personally states that his elves were supposed to be what humanity would be like without original sin. However, in basically every version of the Abrahamic creation myth, wanting to wear clothing is a direct result of eating the fruit of knowledge. Meaning that for the worldbuilding, philosophy, and theology of Tolkien to make sense the elves would have to be naked unless they specifically had a reason not to be. However none of the works in the lotr cannon have properly portrayed elves this way. However, with the power of cgi, deaging technology, and labor rights violations, in an all new extended edition coming to Amazon Prime in 2025...

[thyateira]

In the previous paragraph, I said that God was the beginning and end, Alpha and Omega. These pairs (not binaries) can unlock a beautiful vision in Genesis 1.

‘Beginning and end’ is a pairing that represents the whole scope of history and time. ‘Alpha and Omega’ stretches from the first letter of the alphabet to the last, representing the whole alphabet in one swoop by referring to its extremities. ‘From head to toe’, ‘from top to bottom’, and ‘from cradle to grave’ all denote a spectrum through the use of pairs considered to be extremities of that spectrum. Take for example Genesis 1.1: God creates the ‘heaven and earth’, i.e. everything. Or even the phrase ‘there was evening and there was morning’, signifying the passing of a whole day.

Now return to Genesis 1.27: ‘male and female [God] created them’. Male and female. I think you can all see what I’m probably getting at here. The ‘and’ is not a binary ‘and’. Male and female can disclose a spectrum of varied gender identities in the same way that ‘Alpha and Omega’ discloses the whole alphabet, or how ‘from head to toe’ means the length of the whole body.

'Queer Creation: Queering the Image of God,' Alan Hooker (2013).

[shiurkoma]

*looking at his brothers

[adam--official]

I'm so glad they invented trans gender. Back in the day the only women were my wife and the only men were me. I love my wife. I'm just glad there are options now

[artandthebible]

The Rebuke of Adam and Eve

Artist: Charles Joseph Natoire (French, 1700–1777)

Date: 1740

Medium: Oil on copper

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States

Painting Information

The history painter Natoire was trained in the studio of François Le Moyne, for whom this meticulously executed painting must have been intended as a tribute. It is a pendant to an earlier work by Le Moyne of the same size, also painted on copper, which depicts Adam receiving the forbidden fruit from Eve (private collection). Natoire shared with Le Moyne a predilection for the nude that here links biblical to more sensual subjects popular in eighteenth-century France. Note the rosy flesh of Natoire’s disappointed Eve, a tear glistening on her cheek, contrasted with Adam’s taut musculature.

Biblical Narrative

In Genesis 3:22 God says, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” Knowledge in itself is not wrong (see Luke 2:52), so what was so bad about man “knowing good and evil”?

It is vital to know the context of God’s statement. God had already told Adam not to eat from this tree. Adam was already aware that doing so was wrong, and he knew the consequences, yet he chose to join Eve in eating the fruit. When they ate, they were not simply aware of evil; they experienced evil, to the extent that they became evil - sinners by nature.

Man knew what was good: he was created in goodness and was surrounded by it (Genesis 1:31). He had been given everything God wanted him to have, including authority over all the rest of God’s creation. Adam had everything he needed for a fulfilling life. He did not need to “know” evil, especially when the only way for him to “know” it was to experience it. It should have been enough that God had warned Adam against disobedience. God did not want Adam and Eve to “know” evil in the sense of participating in it. The sin of Adam and Eve was not in attaining knowledge but in rejecting God’s will in favor of their own.

Because of their sin, Adam and Eve received dire consequences. First, Eve was told, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16).

Second, Adam was told, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17).

Third, for both Adam and Eve, “You are dust, and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19). They had been told they would “die” if they ate from the tree (Genesis 2:17). This consequence did not happen immediately, but Adam and Eve did both physically die, a pattern followed by all other humans.

Fourth, they were expelled from the Garden of Eden: “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken” (Genesis 3:23).

[medievalistsnet]

New Medieval Books: Genesis Myth in Beowulf and Old English Biblical Poetry

The Bible opens with the Book of Genesis, which recounts the creation of the world and other foundational stories of Christianity. This book explores how these tales appear in early medieval English literature, including Beowulf. Click here to read more about this book.

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

The Deluge (1806) - Anne-Louis Girodet De Rossy-Trioson

[lionofchaeronea]

Abraham and the Three Angels, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, ca. 1770