An Atheist Reads the Bible: In the Beginning

The Project

I know this concept is nothing new. I will not be the first atheist to read the Bible cover-to-cover. However, after spending the last five years or so listening to others talk about the Bible and offer their perspectives on its writings from an outsider's point of view, I feel it's time to add my own. It is my hope that, over the next two years, I can work through the Old and New Testaments.

The timing feels appropriate. The LDS study curriculum for Sunday School this year is the Old Testament. I don't think it unreasonable to expect the New Testament will be covered next year. So while many of my believing family and friends are discussing their perspectives with their peers at church every other week, I can offer my own points of view alongside theirs.

I took a brief look at the Come, Follow Me outline for the year and noticed that the readings skip around considerably and omit entire sections of the Old Testament. My hope is to be more comprehensive and sequential — starting with Genesis and working my way through in order.

I'll be reading the English Standard Version. Up until recently, the King James Version was the officially endorsed translation used in LDS services, but I'm interested in a more accessible rendering of the text.

What follows are field notes: observations, questions, and the occasional raised eyebrow as I work through the chapters. I'm not attempting a verse-by-verse breakdown — that would take a lifetime — but I'm trying to read carefully and note what's actually there. The schedule I generated puts me at roughly three chapters a day, starting February 17th. An accomplishable target, if I stay consistent.

Sitting down and reading these chapters after almost a decade of hardly picking up the scriptures feels like returning to a home that's no longer yours. You remember what it was like to grow up there, but other people have made memories there and things just aren't the same.

Genesis 1–3

If there's any part of the Bible most people have read, it's the opening chapters of Genesis. Any adherent to an Abrahamic faith likely knows these stories almost by heart, if not literally so.

Something I don't think I'd ever mentally noted before: the very first verses describe evening and morning as the first day, with evening listed first. This aligns with what I understand to be Jewish tradition — the evening marked the beginning of a new day. That part isn't new information, but reading it this time I found myself thinking about how the creation account is already following the customs of the people who wrote it. Which led me to a question I couldn't quite shake: Did god create the world, or did the world create god?

One of the main questions that arises from the Genesis account is what it means to be made in the image of God. My old programming says it means we were made to look like him. In Mormon theology, God is an exalted man with a body of flesh and bone — so we were made similarly, just imperfect and mortal. But most of Christendom holds to a very different God: invisible, spaceless, timeless, immaterial. If that's the case, then what does it actually mean to be made in his image?

Another interesting note: when men are made, the text doesn't initially differentiate between man and woman. They are simply told to be fruitful and multiply. So it seems that, from the beginning, man and woman both exist and are capable of procreation.

The creation of Adam from the dust of the earth reads like a nice bit of sorcery. There's a mist, a man is shaped, and then God breathes into his nostrils. Again, this implies a God who is more human-like than some Christians might want to admit.

God says that man should not be alone and decides to make him a helper. So what does God do? He brings all the animals to Adam, who proceeds to name every one of them. A pretty monumental task, if you ask me. It seems like naming all the animals alone would take a good couple thousand years. After seeing that the animals are insufficient, God makes Adam fall asleep and performs a little surgery to produce the woman. Which raises a small but persistent question: why wasn't she also made from the dust of the earth?

Note that the serpent introduced in Chapter 3 is also one of God's own creations. Why would God create a serpent knowing what role it would play, unless he intended it to play that role? He gave Adam a command not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil — and then built the very creature that would undermine it into his own creation. It feels like the setup for failure was deliberate.

And here's the thing: the serpent didn't say anything untrue. He told the woman she wouldn't die, that her eyes would be opened, and that she would become like God, knowing good and evil. All of that turned out to be accurate. The sin that Eve committed was, first and foremost, the desire for wisdom. Why would an all-benevolent God want to keep his creation ignorant? Is it because ignorant people are easier to control? Even if it was just a test of obedience, it seems a minor offense to seek knowledge — and yet the consequence was a curse on all of humanity, extending through every generation after. God created the rules, it created the consequences, and then it condemns its creation for being exactly what it was created to be — something inherently fallible.

It also shouldn't be ignored how quickly Adam threw Eve under the bus. God asks who told them they were naked and Adam's response is, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." Not only did he throw Eve under the bus, but he also put part of the blame on God. He didn't take ownership of his own choice. He could have said, "I partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is what told me I was naked." Instead, Adam sets women up as the scapegoat and this undoubtedly leads to many of the patriarchal views that come later on. Or maybe it was a reflection of the patriarchal views that already existed in the culture writing the story.

Genesis 4–6

The story of Cain and Abel is an odd one. Cain was a keeper of the ground; Abel a keeper of sheep — a gardener and a shepherd. For a reason that is never explained, God rejects Cain's offering but accepts Abel's. For a just God, this seems unjust. Both men brought the work of their hands. And yet God shows favoritism from almost the very beginning.

Later verses mention Cain knowing his wife — where did she come from? Nothing is said about her origins. Are we just to assume she was one of Eve's daughters? Then Cain's son Enoch builds a city. Within a single generation, how many people are there? Enough to build cities?

I'll also note the mention of Lamech taking two wives. This is a fun detail for those who like to say that marriage should only be between one man and one woman. The text doesn't treat it as a scandal.

Chapter 5 opens the first genealogy, and here we encounter people living for hundreds of years. This is a tough pill to swallow. Prior to 1800, average human life expectancy was around 40 years. Modern medicine has pushed that to the mid-70s, and even the oldest people today rarely exceed 120. I'm aware of the argument that Adam and Eve's blood allowed for greater longevity and that it was only after the flood that mankind began living more normal lengths of time. Still, there's no evidence I'm aware of that humans have ever actually lived for centuries.

Chapter 6 introduces the sons of God. Who are they? Why did God create beings capable of finding the daughters of men attractive? Surely he could have done otherwise.

It also seems strange for a god who supposedly knows everything to regret his creation when they turn wicked. The text doesn't specify what wickedness was being committed, unless it has to do with the sons of God sleeping with human women. And then there's a detail that struck me: God also regrets making the animals, the creeping things, the birds of the heavens. What did the animals do? Why should God's disfavor fall on them?

Violence, we're told, is the crime of mankind. Which invites one more question before we get to Noah: why would God make a people disposed to violence in the first place?

First Impressions

Reading these chapters with an atheistic lens certainly adds a different dimension to the text. What was once sacred and even profound now feels flat like bread that hasn't been given enough yeast — something I can identify with having had an abysmal first attempt with my new sourdough starter.

I notice that my reading reflects what might be more like someone reading the Bible for the very first time. The preconceived notions have been disposed of. There is no assumption that the words are divine. And when read this way, the stories feel like little more than an ancient people trying to make sense of the world. A tradition that has been carried on throughout all of human history. It's one of the main things that makes us who we are.

God follows Jewish timekeeping. God has regrets. God creates things that seem contrary to what a perfect god should produce.

Maybe the divine will be found later. After all, I'm only 6 chapters in. Only 623 to go.