The Sin of Sodom

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is one of those terrible myths of mass destruction that conservative religious folk like to whip out as a cautionary tale, waving it grotesquely around in the faces of us dirty liberals until we finally agree with them just so they'll tuck it away.  Why, with all of our sick, heretical ideas like religious tolerance, gay rights, legal abortions, racial equality and separation of church and state, we're practically asking God to take a big, fiery crap on us.  In fact, according to some (crazy) people, we've already unleashed the floodgates of diarrhea hellfire and it's only a matter of time before God gets serious.

But just what exactly did Sodom do that was so terrible, so mind-numbingly awful that God felt the need to personally obliterate them?  "It's sodomy, you clueless pinko!" you cry, leaping from your hummer with a Bible in one hand and a half-dead illegal immigrant in the other.  "Homosexuals were taking over!  Don't you know that?  It's got the sin right in the name!"

Actually, it's the sin that's named after the city, hypothetical right-wing extremist, but ... you know what?  Never mind.  Indeed, the knee-jerk reaction is to look at the name and decide that Sodom must have been filled with men having loving, consensual relations with one another all the goddamn time, and that God was just playing favourites when he smote Sodom over, say, Egypt or China or India or Sparta.  He's just kind of a jerk like that.

But no.  That's not the case at all.  The real story, if anyone religious could be bothered  to read it, is so terrible that when I first read it, I poked my eyes out and renounced society to live as a hermit in the wilderness.  (I got better.  Then I realized there are no Skittles in the wilderness, so I came back.)  The real sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is so awful that, were I a celestial being, I'd probably smite the holy bejeezus out of them too.  They'd be lucky that fire and brimstone was all they got off with.  "Enough with the suspense!" you cry.  "Tell us what it is!"  Well, hypothetical reader, the sin of Sodom was ...

Angel gang-rape.

Not "angel" like David Boreanaz, or "angel" like a baseball player from LA.  Angels.  Harps and halos and feathery wings.  The kinds of things that grandmas collect ceramics of.  A group of people wanted to rape those in the butt.  Let the sheer awfulness of that sink in for a minute.

I suppose I should offer some backstory.  To be fair, God has already decided that Sodom is going down in flames when the angels arrive in the city.  (We can only imagine what their previous sins were.)  They're there to escort the only good man in all of Sodom, Lot, out of the city before shit starts going down.  The angels are prepared to spend all night on the streets, but Lot insists they come inside and kick up their holy feet:

"And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face turned toward the ground; And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early; and go on your ways." - Genesis 19:1-2

There's a bit of back-and-forth about not wanting to inconvenience Lot (maybe they were molting) and Lot insisting that they stay (he could use the feathers to make history's softest down pillow, or something), but eventually the angels agree to come inside.  Then ... this happens:

"But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young and old, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night?  bring them out unto us, that we may know them." - Genesis 19:4-5

"Knowing" is the Bible's adorably quaint way of referring to sex.  So basically, this group of people show up at Lot's house in the middle of the night and ask him to bring his newly arrived house guests out into the street so that they can take turns raping them out in the open air.  Now, discerning readers may have noticed that this is a rather large group of people.  In fact, angel rape is such an event in Sodom that "all the people from every quarter" turned out to get in on the action.

Math time!  Let's assume that Sodom is a relatively modest city population-wise (so the numbers don't get too horrifying).  In the ancient Middle East, that's probably about 2000 people.  For a working number, we'll assume that 25% of that 2000 people are children under 15, which is close to what it is now (27%).  That leaves 1500 adults.  Now, only the men of the city are going to be raping, and assuming that the population of men and women are more-or-less equal, that means these angels are about to be raped 750 times each.  And that's a low estimate.  You may poke out your eyes and commence screaming.

For those of you not blind and insane, let's continue.  Oh, you thought that was the end?  Hardly.  So every man in the city shows up at Lot's house demanding forced angelic buttsex.  What the hell do you do in this situation?  Hand them over?  Beg the angry mob to leave?  Point out that what they're trying to do is more cartoonishly evil than burning down a puppy orphanage?  Well, Lot is the only good man in Sodom, so surely he has some wise words to disperse the crowd:

"And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.  Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes; only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." - Genesis 19:6-8

Oh, of course.  Lot offers up his two young daughters to the crowd, asking that they rape them instead of his house guests.  ... Wait ...

Yep, this city is fucked up.

Anyway, if any of you haven't yet left this post to mutilate yourselves and/or retire to live in the woods, the mob refuses Lot's offer and the angels have to step in and strike them all blind.  A lovely end to a lovely story.

So the moral of today's tale is this: don't believe everything you hear from right-wing conservative nutjobs about the Bible, and if you see an angel and your first thought is to rape it, you totally deserve to go down in a horrible apocalypse of fire and brimstone.

Lies, Smiting and Pawning Off Wives

Believe it or not, hiding in Genesis between the instances of mass murder and questionable sexual exploits is the plot to a somewhat twisted romantic comedy.  It involves a young Abraham, his wife, the Egyptian Pharaoh, and a series of hilarious misunderstandings that dramatically escalate until they are happily resolved.  It's actually a pretty funny story that actually teaches a decent lesson about lying, which is presumably why Genesis feels the need to repeat it three times with various names changed.  What, did you think "rom-com hilarity" was weird enough to make it into this blog?  Nonsense!  We have room only for the biggest examples of what-the-fuckery the Bible has to offer!

Back when Abraham was an energetic young man of 75 (yeah, really), he had yet to earn the extra syllable in his name and was simply known as Abram.  He lived in Canaan with his wife, Sarai, until one day famine struck and they were forced to pack up and move to Egypt.  As the couple entered the land of the Pyramids, Abram turned to Sarai and said:

"Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, "This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.  Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee." - Genesis 12:11-13

Concerned that those crazy, heathen Egyptians would find Sarai so damn fine that they'd actually kill Abram to get a piece of her, Abram asks his wife to pose as his sister.  Because that can't go wrong at all.  Upon arriving in Egypt, the Egyptians take about 2 seconds to grab the Hebrew hottie and bring her to Pharaoh to be his ... pet sexy Hebrew chick.  Good call there, Abram.  Clearly telling everyone that your smokin' wife is really your sister works splendidly.

Pharaoh heaps gifts on Abram, who apparently accepts them without saying anything.  Wait a minute!  I see what you did there, Abram.  You're tired of your old lady, always nagging you to patch up the tent and repair the camel (it's been making funny sounds for weeks!), so you pass her off onto some guy who will give you mountains of stuff for her!  Then you can spend every day of the week at the driving range and nobody can criticize you!  You sly devil, you!  Unfortunately for Abram, though, God (feeling omnipresent that day, apparently) notices what's going on:

"And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.  And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me?  why did thou not tell me that she was thy wife?  Why saidst thou, She is my sister?  so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way." - Genesis 12:17-19

Somehow, from a few of his family members dropping dead from plague, Pharaoh clues in to the fact that Sarai is Abram's wife, not sister.  He ships her back to her husband, asking him why the hell he would do such a thing in the first place.  Meanwhile, Abram's dreams of becoming a new bachelor are thoroughly squashed.  So really, it's a bit of a strange story, but it's not a bad story.  It's kind of funny, actually, with Abram's lie about Sarai being his sister getting him into all sorts of trouble.  In fact, it almost teaches us a good lesson: one little white lie can grow into an unmanageable mess quicker than you might think.  But Genesis is so proud of the fact that it almost told a good, entertaining story with a decent moral that it repeats it two more times.  The second time this story shows up, it's with our lucky couple ... Abram and Sarai?  Someone's either a little slow on the uptake here or he really does want to get rid of his old lady.

By this point, Abram has earned his "ham" and Sarai has had her name changed to Sarah.  Again, he does it because he's afraid people will kill him to have the hot piece of 65-year-old ass that is his wife.  (No, really, this man is obviously desperate to escape this evil harpy woman's clutches.)

"And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah." - Genesis 20:2

This time, God's up on Abraham's wife-ditching ways.  He's been watching, and clearly it's time to sit Abraham down and have a good, long talk about how lying is wrong and trying to dump your wife on other men is even more wrong.

Nah!  He just threatens the dude who took her with death.  And you thought for a second that there was a point to this!

"But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou has taken; for she is a man's wife." - Genesis 20:3

So Abimelech and God have a good chat about how Abimelech won't be smote as long as he returns Sarah to her actual husband.  He does so, and then asks Abraham the same question Pharaoh and the rest of us have all been wondering: why the hell would he do such a thing, especially knowing that he'd be bringing the wrath of God down on whoever unknowingly married another man's wife?  Well, Abraham?

"And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake.  And yet, she is indeed my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." - Genesis 20:11-12.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up!  So he wasn't lying because Sarah actually is his half-sister?  That's more than a little twisted, Bible.  I mean, I know a lot of old stories involve siblings getting married, but this is the guy that three major religions - two of them accounting for half the world's spiritual beliefs (Christianity and Islam) - are based on.  And he married his sister.  I'm beginning to see why religion inspires so much insanity.

Anyway, Abimelech gives Sarah back to poor, desperate Abraham and they go on their way.  By the time this happens a third time, we all have wonder if someone shouldn't just invent divorce so these guys don't have to keep pawning their wives off on random kings.  This time, the couple are Isaac, Abraham's son, and Rebekah.  The king is ... Abimelech.  Oh, really God?  You're gonna do this to this poor guy again?

So by this point you know the drill.  There's a famine, so Isaac and Rebekah move to a place with food (Gerar, in this case).  He's afraid that the Godless heathens of Gerar will kill him to get Rebekah, so he calls her his sister.  This time, however, there's a twist: Abimelech isn't falling for it again.  He spots Rebekah from his window and just knows that this is a woman who's obviously posing as her husband's sister.  He calls to Isaac and asks him:

"What is this thou hast done unto us?  one of the people might lightly have lain with thy wife, and thou shouldest have brought guiltiness upon us." - Genesis 26:10

Instead of waiting for a response (possibly because he's afraid of getting one as creepy as the reason Abraham gave), he lays down a law that says anyone who so much as touches Rebekah will be put to death, because he'll be damned if God's gonna threaten him with death and destruction again for something he has absolutely no control over.  Normally, I would assume that these are all simply different versions of the same story, with various retellings changing the details of who was involved and where it happened, but there are no contradictions in the Bible, so I guess we're just going to have to accept that God loves watching people misinterpret relationships and get caught up in their own poorly spun webs of lies.  In other words, God's a romantic comedy fan after all.  Who knew?

The Curse of Canaan

I feel for Sunday school teachers.  I really do.

I mean, you have to be a special kind of person to take a book that's essentially a thousand pages of torture, rape, murder, incest and general what-the-fuckery in between lists of largely irrelevant and contradictory rules and make it kid-friendly.  You can barely crack this sucker open without landing on a page where someone is killed or molested, which is why, I suppose, those spiritual molders of young minds have to cling to the least traumatizing stories they can find.  Ironically, one of their favourite kiddie stories is also the one where God kills fucking everyone.

Yes, I'm talking about Noah.  This story is so well known that even I, as a wee godless heathen child, knew the Noah's Ark story.  They make play-sets and picture books about this guy, and why not?  There's animals!  Kids love animals!  And Noah, why, look at him!  With that big long beard, he's practically a non-heretical version of Santa Claus!  What's that?  God mercilessly slaughters millions of helpless people in this story?  Hush, you!  God-approved Santa is tending to the fluffy animals!

Surprisingly, my Holy Beef is not with the Noah's Ark story.  The Great Deluge myth is found all over the world.  My Holy Beef is with Noah himself.  What, did you think a guy who was literally 600 years old at the time of the Flood didn't have any dirty laundry to air?  I know your nasty little secret, Noah, and I'm sharing.

See, after the destruction of all mankind, Noah settled down to become a raging alcoholic vinter.  One night, he got totally shitfaced drunk enjoyed the fruits of his labour a little too much and ... well, he passed out naked.  There's not really any eloquent way of putting that.

"And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent." - Genesis 9:20-21

Thanks, Bible.  You put the story of an old man turning to alcoholism to escape his post-traumatic stress disorder so bluntly it's almost poetic.

Now, Noah has three grown sons with children of their own at this point: Shem, Ham and Japheth.  Ham, presumably checking on the poor old drunk, suffers the soul-shattering horror of seeing the droopy, wrinkly old man ass of his literally ancient father.  Understandably traumatized, he runs off to tell his brothers to do something about it.

"And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers without." - Genesis 9:22.

Shem and Japheth, forewarned by their brother of His Royal Wrinkliness' personal bits flapping around in the open, averted their eyes as they entered the tent and threw a blanket over poor old Noah.  Noah slept it off, and when he came to he somehow knew what had gone down.  Now, the only positive to getting blackout drunk is that when you wake up, you're spared the memory of all the embarrassing shit you did.  Noah wasn't.  I think it's understandable at this point for Noah to be a little embarrassed and angry with himself.  After all, he wasn't just POD in front of anyone, but in front of his own kids.  That's got to be all sorts of humiliati--

"And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.  And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." - Genesis 9:24-25.

Whoa, back up there, Noah.  You're cursing who?  Your grandson, Canaan, who had absolutely nothing to do with anything?  Because your son saw you naked after you passed out naked in your tent?  It's not like he left you there; he told his brothers and they covered you up.  You know, to preserve your dignity.  You're a dick, Noah.  See if anyone helps you next time you get shitfaced.

No, really.  Noah curses his poor, innocent grandson to essentially be a slave in a world where literally everyone except this family has been murdered by God.  And why?  Because Canaan's dad accidentally saw Noah naked while he was hooched up.  That is a mind-blowingly dickwad move, Noah.  Frankly, I'm surprised anyone managed to survive so long on the ark with you without throwing themselves overboard, you old fart.

Try to attach a moral to this story.  Just try.  The only thing this story teaches us is that it's okay to curse family members into slavery when you're embarrassed about what you did while drunk, which is probably the worst lesson ever taught anywhere, and it's in the Bible.  This story is so terrible that some people actually use it to justify racism, saying that Ham's descendants are black and therefore have to serve Shem's white descendents for the rest of eternity.  (I never said they were smart people.)  And it's all because Noah, the Old Testament's most kid-friendly hero, said so.

Just ... just what the hell, Bible?

Mythic Insanity #1: The Death of Baldur

Don't think for a second that the modern religions are the only ones off their rockers.  Our beliefs have been crazy since the first man assigned a name to the sun.  That's why, periodically, I'll post a myth or legend that's just as crazy as the stories I find in the Bible and shares some sort of thematic similarity to a story I've covered recently. 

The only difference between us and our ancestors when it comes to religion is that our special brand of lunacy has managed to last a bit longer.


Baldur had it made.  Vikings pillaging and raping all over Europe hailed him as the god of light and good.  His daddy was Odin, the god of war and king of the Viking Mount Olympus, Asgard, and he was the baby brother of everybody's favourite god, Thor.  He had a super-hot, devoted wife named Nanna, and a son, Forseti, who surpassed every father's dream of seeing their child become a successful lawyer and became the god of freaking justice.  Life was good.

Then, one day, Baldur began suffering from terrible nightmares where he was dragged away by Hel, the goddess of the underworld.  Like any mighty Viking god worth his weight in plundered loot, Baldur complained about his nightmares to his mom, Frigga.  She knew just what to do: take the concept of overprotectiveness and beat the ever-living crap out of it.  Gathering up literally everything in the world, from fire and water to metal, diseases, stone and animals, she had it all swear never to do harm to Baldur.  Everything was happy to do so except the mistletoe plant, who refused.  Frigga, figuring that Baldur could probably handle himself against a puff of leaves and berries, decided that was good enough.

Flinging stuff at Baldur now became a favourite pass-time of the gods.  They'd gather around and toss spears, axes, swords, rocks, flaming wolverines, whatever they could think of at the god who couldn't be hurt.  Baldur took it in stride, considering it an honor to have all his friends and family attempting to good-naturedly murder him.  The only one who didn't get in on the fun was Hodur, Baldur's twin brother.  Hodur was the god of darkness and, proving Vikings had a cruel sense of humour (who knew?!), he was blind.

Enter Loki.  Loki was the god of trickery, mischief, fire, chaos and all-around douchebaggery.  Disguised as an old woman, Loki learned Baldur's weakness from Frigga and decided to grab some mistletoe and see what it did.  (If you're wondering why, there's no particular reason.  He's just a jerk like that.)  The next time the gods got together, Loki sidled up to Hodur and asked him why he wasn't getting in on the hilarious fun that was throwing shit at Baldur.

"I'm blind," Hodur told him, presumably while smacking him upside the head.

Loki took his hand and placed the mistletoe bough in it.  Assuring Hodur that this was just something he had to try ('cause seriously, flinging stuff at a god is even funnier when you can't see it!), Loki guided Hodur in aiming and throwing the mistletoe bough at the unsuspecting Baldur.

He straight up died.

After what was presumably the longest and most awkward silence in Viking history (with poor Hodur laughing and asking, "Did I get him?!"), another son of Odin, Hermod, agreed to ride down to Hel and bargain for Baldur's release.  He rode nine nights to the gates of Hel, whereupon he asked the goddess for Baldur's release.  She agreed, but only if all things, alive or dead, animate or not, wept for him.  If this seems a little demanding to you, clearly you aren't a Viking god.  Hermod agreed and returned to Frigga with the news.

Frigga was ready.  Sending out her messengers, the Elves, she organized the biggest day of mourning in the history of anything.  Everything, from men and animals to rocks and trees and presumably even that murderous bastard mistletoe cried their eyes out for the lost god of light.  There was one god, however, who refused to cry: Loki.

And so poor Baldur had to remain dead.

The gods were righteously pissed, and they set out to find Loki, eventually capturing him while he tried to escape disguised as a salmon (yeah).  Dragging him down to Hel, they lashed him to a rock and tied a poisonous snake over his head, who continually dripped acidic venom onto his face.  Loki's wife, Sigyn, faithfully stayed at his side, holding a bowl up to catch the venom before it could land on him and cause him inconceivable amounts of pain.  But every so often she had to leave to empty the bowl.  At those times, the venom caused Loki such unbearable pain that his writhing was felt all over the world.  So he will remain until Ragnarok, the end of the world.

And that, kids, is why there are earthquakes!  Sleep tight.

Oh, and Hodur?  Odin had another son, Vali, who was born and grew up in one day with the sole purpose of killing him.  If this strikes you as unfair, I have just one word for you: Vikings.

"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"

Romulus slew Remus.

Set slew Osiris.

Hodur slew Baldur.

And (spoiler alert!) Cain slew Abel.

Fratricide is just one of those things that happen when you're mythological.  In this particular example, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve.  Cain was a farmer, and Abel a shepherd.  Both brothers gave an offering to God, who (proving himself to once again be a bit of a jerk) accepted Abel's offering of meat and rejected Cain's offering of vegetables, likely on account of him not also offering holy ranch dip.  This drove Cain into a jealous rage, causing him to murder the shit out of his unsuspecting brother.  Abel gets to become the Bible's first martyr, whilst Cain gets a big, juicy curse.

I don't have a problem with this story, aside from the nagging idea that God must have made Cain out to be a homicidal prick in order for this to happen in the first place.  (Consequently the same problem I have with Judas, but we'll get to that later.)  The problem I have with this story is what comes after Cain is cursed and banished from the land:

"And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.  And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch." - Genesis 4:16-17

I'll give you one minute to read that over and figure out what's off.

...

Okay, so ... Cain has a wife?  Anybody wondering where she came from?

Basically we have two options here.  One: there's now inexplicably a bunch of people unrelated to Adam and Eve, even though Adam was the first man in Genesis 2:5-7.  This brings us back around to the bizarre contradiction in creation stories found in Genesis 1 and 2.  Or two: Cain is boinking his sister.

Well, as weird and disturbing as it is, it must be option number two.  Genesis 2 says Adam was the first man, made out of dust, and that Eve his rib-wife was created to keep him company.  Setting aside that little stumble in Genesis 1:27 (covered in my second post), we've gone strong with the idea that there's only one family up until this poi-

"And Cain said unto the LORD, my punishment is greater than I can bear.  Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face I shall be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me."

Oh, goddamnit.

Who are you worried about, Cain?  Your dad?  'Cause he's the only other dude around now, remember?  No, you don't, do you?  That's okay.  We'll all just smile and nod because there are no contradictions in the Bible, right?

And just to prove that I'm not the only one baffled by this (and for laughs, totally for laughs), here's an actual, certified priest trying to answer the same question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FcUzVKmLlk

Going to have to call the Pope, indeed.





As a little bonus story, Jewish Midrashic tradition (that is, a kind of set of Biblical footnotes that fill in some gaps in the text) says that Cain and Abel did each have sisters whom they were supposed to marry.  Cain had a twin sister, and Abel was one of a set of triplets with two sisters.  They each married their sisters, but Cain was jealous that Abel had an extra sister when he was the eldest (and therefore entitled to more incest, I guess.)  Cain's jealousy over this extra sister was another reason behind his murdering Abel.  I'm not sure if murdering your brother because you want to bone two of your sisters instead of just one is a better excuse for fratricide than because God rejected your veggie platter, but I'll leave that for you to decide.

And as another little aside, what I like to refer to as the extended fanfiction universe of the Bible (that is, all the traditions that have sprung up over the centuries that aren't in the actual book) tells a version of this story where Cain was actually the son of the snake from Genesis 3 - presumably from when Eve got really, really bored.  As I'm sure you're already aware, in the same extended fanfiction universe the snake is Satan in disguise.  So I suppose you could accept "He's the son of Satan" as an answer to the question, "Why did God make Cain a homicidal prick?" if you feel so inclined.  Just make sure to overlook the fact that, of the two of them, God has Satan outdone in the homicide department by a freaking landslide.  But that's a story for another day.

Vanishing Omnipresence

God's a busy guy.  I can only imagine how much crap this guy must put up with on a daily basis, what with being in charge of the entire universe.  Humans have a hard enough time taking care of one measly little planet, and there's six billion of us.  There's only one God.  I guess that's why, once in a while, God temporarily forgets that he's omnipresent.  Hey, it happens, right?

Genesis 3 is the first example the Bible gives us of God's vanishing cosmic power.  Eve, the rib-wife of the first man, is told by a snake to go munch fruit from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Eve's hesitant, but eventually the snake convinces her to do it (not by deceiving her, as is commonly believed, but by telling the truth: God doesn't want Adam and Eve to smarten up.)  So Adam and Eve do the most infamous lunch in history, God gets righteously pissed off, and the first couple get booted out of paradise, leaving all of us to wonder why the hell God put the forbidden tree in the middle of human territory in the first place if he didn't want anyone to touch it.

But tucked away in all that excitement is this:

The omnipresent God comes strolling through Eden, presumably whistling Stairway to Heaven or whatever songs divine beings listen to.  Adam hears him coming and, knowing that he's in deep shit, takes his wife and hides in a tree.

They hide from the Almighty ... in a tree.

Adam and Eve hide in a tree.  From the omnipotent, omnipresent God.

They hide in a TREE to escape GOD.

That's like being the target of a nation-wide FBI manhunt, and you hide in the White House.  By standing in the Oval Office with a lampshade on your head.

THEY HIDE IN A TREE TO ESCAPE GOD.

...

...

...

Okay.  Continuing on with the story:

"And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" - Genesis 3:9

...

...

...

WHAT?!

Not only did Adam hide his stupid ass in a tree to escape the almighty, all-seeing LORD with a capital L-O-R-D, but it actually WORKED?!

No way.  No WAY.  Clearly I just overlooked some little detail, like the part where God points at Adam, laughs hysterically and yells, "Just kidding, I'm fucking omnipresent, bitch!  Seriously, get out of that tree and stop acting like an idiot."  I just need an actual church-goer to explain this to me, then it will all make sense:

"It's like if you have a kid who writes on the wall and you ask them, 'Did you write on the wall?' It might seem like a stupid question if you only have one kid. But you're just trying to get the kid to be honest with you. Of course you know the kid wrote on the wall.You're just trying to test their honesty." (By user M.Y. of Yahoo Answers)

Oh.  Okay.  Well, that would make sense if the question was this:

"... Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" - Genesis 3:11.

But it's not.  Not yet.  God WALKS into Eden and asks Adam where he is.  He's omnipresent.  He's all-seeing and all-knowing, and he has to call out to Adam to find him.  That's what the words say.  You can't spin it any other way without stretching.

To be fair, it's a better explanation than what the professionals offer:

"The context of this verse is immediately after Adam had sinned.  ... Does this mean that God didn't know something?  Not at all.  Someone can easily ask a question to which they know the answer.  Usually, the reason to do that is to point something out or teach something.  Obviously, Adam and Eve had sinned.  God asked, "Adam, where are you?" Where was Adam?  He was hiding from God.  Adam's sin had destroyed his fellowship with the Lord.  God knew this and He was pointing it out to Adam.  It is a question we need to ask of ourselves.  Where am I?  Am I in fellowship with God or in rebellion against Him?" (from the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry)

Uh, right.  You shouldn't stretch so hard there, guys.  You might tear something.