A BOOK THAT ENCOURAGES THE READER TO ASK QUESTIONS

Wisdom requires a questioning mind. Genesis is a book of wisdom because it encourages readers to ask important questions whose answers lead to new questions, and this dynamic leads to the discovery of its secrets and those enable us to get a better understanding of reality. Those who do not have a questioning mind often misinterpret that book because on several occasions it seems to say one thing when in reality it says something quite different. 

A good example is that second dietary law that I referred to in my previous article. People assume it says that God allowed Noah to eat other creatures, but readers with a questioning mind find it says that God no longer considered Noah and his family as human beings, but as animals, and that He allowed them to eat other creatures – “everything that lives and moves” - to recover their human soul.

Most people do not discover what Genesis really tells us, because when they read that second dietary law, and realize it refers to the first dietary law, they do not check what God exactly said on that occasion. This means that they do not process information right. They do not disover what Genesis really says because they often read what they want it to say or what they think it should say. Most people who read the Bible are omnivores. They are so pleased that God allowed Noah to eat other creatures, that they do not ask why He first prescribed a vegetarian diet and later changed His mind.

The fact that they ignore these questions, says a lot about these people. It tells us that they don’t have a questioning mind. People who accept that God can change His rules for no apparent reason understand very little of the main protagonist of the Bible. Their idea of God is still very much the idea that their pagan ancestors had of God. Pagan gods were often capricious – like whatever worldly ruler or like a father – and demanded to be obeyed without questioning.

A good example of a story that invites us to ask questions and reflect upon certain issues is that of God warning Adam and Eve that when they eat the forbidden fruit they will die, and later they eat but they do not die. This story is even more intriguing because the snake convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit – Eve later convinces Adam to do so as well – by claiming that she will not die, but that her eyes will be opened and she will be like God, knowing good and evil. Later, we learn that Adam and Eve’s eyes were indeed opened – they suddenly realized that they were naked – and that Adam only died when he was 930 years old. So what is Genesis trying to tell us by contradicting itself?

For me it is clear that Genesis encourages us to think of a way that Adam and Eve may indeed have died after eating the forbidden fruit, even though they did not die physically. After a lot of research – Albert Einstein said, “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” – and taking into consideration a lot of different ideas, I have come to the conclusion that the author suggests that before eating the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve were aware of their reincarnations. That would somehow have made them inmortal. If eating the forbidden fruit – a change in their diet – made that they were no longer aware of their past lives, they could no longer be sure of what would happen after their present life. Therefore, after eating the forbidden fruit, they must have begun to fear death and we can consider that they became mortal.

Reincarnation and karma are ideas that are closely related. The principle of karma is that whatever harm we cause to others, will be caused to us in our next lives. Reincarnation, karma and vegetarianism, are not ideas that we tend to associate with the three monoteist religions that are based on Genesis, but instead with Hinduism and Buddhism. People have ignored that several stories make sense when we consider ideas from other religions, because they do not question ideas from their own religion, but do question or even ridicule ideas from other religions.

It is not because the Bible recognizes the principles of reincarnation and karma that people indeed reincarnate. The Bible is just another book and what it says does not have to be true. But people who have a questioning mind will find that the more they reflect upon these principles, the more sense they make. Hillel, a famous Jewish religious leader of the first century BC, said that the Bible teaches us not do to others what is hateful to us. This should not surprise us. By suggesting that our ancestors lived in harmony, the Bible encourages us to restore harmony, and that really means not to do to others what is hateful to us.

The basic idea of the Ten Commandments is ‘Do not to others what is hateful to us’. It is not because God forbids to kill, to commit adultery, to steal, to give false testimony against a neighbor or to long for things that belong to a neighbor, that we should not do so, but because we hate it when others do that to us.

The ‘eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth’ law has often been misinterpreted. If the Bible encourages us to restore harmony, it makes no sense to assume that it demands us to seek revenge. Violence then creates a vicious circle. The ‘eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth’ law refers to how our karma works – is it significant that the first mention of this law is in reference to a pregnant woman – and tells us that whatever harm we do to others will be done to us in our next lives. This should not be seen as a punishment, but as the opportunity to learn something from an experience by seeing it from the position of the people that we have caused harm.

Karma does not care about what is legally forbidden – there is a lot of legal theft and a lot of legal killing – but about the bad vibrations that people feel when someone harms them. Those who think that they can get away with bad behavior will learn from ‘suffering’ the consequences. People who realize that the ‘eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ law refers to how our karma works no longer look for revenge, because they know what happen afterwards.

Religious authorities often claim that the ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ law was a big improvement of the sevenfold vengeance. God indeed said, “Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeange.” But these ‘authorities’ completely overlook that although Cain killed Abel, God did not kill Cain. He only cursed him by banning him from the ground that had received his brother’s blood. The sevenfold vengeange thus clearly refers to something different.

When we search in Genesis for references to the number seven, we find that there were seven couples of pure animals to repopulate the earth. When in our previous article we reflected  upon how these seven couples repopulated the earth, we came to the conclusion that the most practical way to avoid inbreeding or incest would have been for each of the seven male lineages (or female) to 'cross' in each new generation with each of the seven female (or male) lineages. This would mean that seven generations later each male (or female) lineage crosses again with the same female (or male) lineage.

Now that we have associated the Bible with the principles of reincarnation and karma, we can wonder whether each time when a particular male lineage crosses itself with a particular female lineage it attracts the same spirit. The fact that there are seven generations between Adam – the son of God (of that generation that still lived in harmony and therefore identified itself with God) – and Enoch makes that God and Enoch have something in common and may explain why Genesis says, "Enoch walked with God, and disappeared because God took him."

The story of Judah and Tamar tells us that Er, Judah’s firstborn, married Tamar. When Er died, Judah asked Onaan, his next son, to marry Tamar, and do his duty as her brother-in-law, to maintain his brother’s lineage. Cain was the firstborn of Adam. After killing his brother Abel, Cain asked God, “Am I perhaps my brother’s keeper?” These two stories suggest that Cain had to restore his brother’s lineage.

How did Cain killing his brother Abel alter the original plan of those male and female lineages crossing each other? Now that Abel’s male lineage no longer existed, what would happen to the seven female lineages that it was supposed to cross? Is that perhaps what that sevenfold vengeance refers to?

Let us go back to the story about Adam and Eve who lived on after eating the forbidden fruit. Not only is is it surprising that they did not die, but also that Adam lived 930 years. In the story about the sons of God who had children with the daughters of men, God indeed said, “My spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” Not only Adam, but all the Patriarchs from Adam to Abraham die when they are older than 120 years. It is only during the life of Abraham, who receives a covenant from God, that something happens that puts an end to these old ages. We can clearly notice this when we put those ages in a spreadsheet and make a graph.

Whereas in the previous article I encouraged people to try to discover what is so special about the ages of the first 20 Patriarchs – the paragraphs above hold several clues –, now I invite people to reflect upon reincarnation. Instead of simply consulting what certain religions say about this subject, I encourage readers to ask all the questions we should ask when we consider this principle. Let me help you a bit. People who believe in reincarnation often assume that when someone dies his soul can freely choose what body it will reincarnate in. But what happens if a soul follows a certain pattern to make it from one incarnation to the following? Is it possible that Genesis recognizes this pattern and therefore gives so much importance to the genealogies?