Genesis Revelation

Forthcoming: The Genesis Revelation
A New Book From Lee Eric Smith

Note: The Genesis Revelation is a project that actually predates “A Message From God.” I’ve been dealing with a bit of writer’s block, so I’d like to get some feedback from you on this. I respect that parts of it fly in the face of conventional wisdom, which is to say that some people will find the ride a bit bumpy and should be prepared for that. If you’re up for a spiritual adventure, The Genesis Revelation is for you. If not, well, I respect that too, and believe in the power & wisdom of peaceful disagreement.

Below is the introduction to The Genesis Revelation. And if you’d like to pre-order your copy, click on the image at right or the link at the bottom of the page.

Peace Be With you!

Lee

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The Genesis Revelation

Introduction

I know what I’m doing.

I’m in the process of challenging everything that most of you believe about what happened to Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. I am both terrified and excited at the concept.

What terrifies me is the same thing that terrified Jesus at Gethsemane (which, interestingly enough, was also a garden). As if you need me to tell you this, I’m not Jesus. But something that struck me about his final hours was that, in essence, he begged the Lord not to have him get up on that cross. He knew what they would do to him and he said, “Not my will Father, but thy will be done.” And he stepped up.

That’s what excites me. I have been given this project and the tools with which to complete it. Everything from my life experiences down to my good grades in 10th grade typing class, I’m sure it will all come into play as I open myself up to allow this Truth to come through. I have no idea where this journey is going, but I know who’s walking with me all the way. And the fear vanishes.

So before we get into this, it’s important to lay a foundation. If you truly want to understand what really happened in the Garden of Eden, you must first unlearn what you think you already know.

The Bible is full of stories, including the Genesis story. Let’s take a closer look at what that means.

A quick lookup of the word “story” yields this: “An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious.” The key word in the definition is “account.” If you take nothing else from this teaching, get the distinction between an event and a story.

An event is an occurrence. It’s something that happened. The sunrise is an event. A baby crying is an event. A divorce is an event. A date is an event. The creation of Earth is an event. In and of themselves, events are meaningless (more on this later).

Now on the other hand, a story is something else. It’s an account of an event or series of events. It’s someone’s version of what happened. It’s an interpretation of what happened, based on someone’s perspective. And there’s an infinite array of things that can affect the storyteller’s perspective.

As a former newspaper reporter, my job was to find, report and write stories. I even remember subscribing to the mantra of “objective journalism” until I heard a senior editor at one paper I worked for say, “We may not always be able to be objective in our coverage, but we can always be fair.”

That stuck with me, and helped me realize that any story I wrote was bound to be colored by my own life experiences, opinions and biases. This was particularly true when I was assigned to cover a Ku Klux Klan rally – a particularly interesting assignment for an African-American reporter.

For the record, nothing of note happened at the rally. There was no riot, no arrests, no racial slurs aimed at me, not even a single white hood. At the end of it though, I had a job to do – to take this event and create a story about it – my story, since it would have my name on it.

So it was MY STORY – filtered through my upbringing in small town Mississippi, my inexperience as a young journalist; my studies of black history in college; my memories of a drunk frat boy yelling “Hey, Nigger!” at me; my fear of a potentially angry white mob; the people I chose to interview; why I chose them (they looked “safe” – whatever “safe” looks like); the questions I chose to ask them, how well I took notes . . . .

You get the idea. Even with the best intentions, a trained journalist still can’t help but tell a story that’s slanted in some way by his or her beliefs and values.

The tricky thing about stories, even Bible stories, is that they can very easily slip from being one person’s version of what happened to being the unquestioned TRUTH about what happened. I find both humor and truth in the words of Napoleon, the conqueror: “History is a lie agreed upon.”

There’s another quote about history and conquest that applies here: “History is written by the victor.” And make no mistake about it: there was a LOT of blood shed en route to Christianity’s march across the globe.

It is doubtful that the Bible could be read in English were it not for conquerors, soldiers and politicians. In this digital age, it’s not a stretch to say that The Bible we read is the subtitled version of the authentic Hebrew scripture.

Speaking of language, let’s remember that the original text was written in an ancient language from a far away land. Some words simply don’t translate from one language to another. There are some words in every language – Hebrew included – that don’t match up to another language.

Finally, people read differently in the Mid East. Just so you get how different it is, people in that part of the world read a completely different alphabet, from right to left. Factor in that the Scriptures were passed down by oral history (he said, she said) for hundreds of years before becoming handwritten documents (mispeld word, anyone?). Even today, there are different versions of the Bible, three of which I’ll be using in this book: American Standard Version, King James Version and New International Version.

So between the perspective and motives of the author, war, conquest, cultural differences, verbal history, potentially misspelled words, mistranslated language, completely different alphabet and different versions in the same language, am I wrong to think the Bible deserves a little scrutiny?

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the Bible is not the Word of God. As you’re about to discover, I believe everything that happened in the Garden of Eden was by Divine Design and that there are no coincidences.

To scrutinize is to examine something closely and minutely. I think that not only does God not frown on us scrutinizing scripture, God wants us to. That’s why they call it “Bible Study!”

I am keenly aware of what I’m asking you to do here. I’m asking you to let go of everything you think you already know and enter this book like a student – open minded, not quite sure of anything . . . but hungry. If there’s one thing I’m pretty sure of, you’ll need a healthy appetite to digest what you’re about to read.

Back to “The Story.” And that’s what Genesis is – an account of how this whole thing got started: God, light, water, other stuff, Eden, Adam, Adam’s rib, Eve, fruit, serpent, fig leaves, BIG trouble, banishment, humanity damned for all time. You know the story. In fact, chances are you knew the story before you ever actually read it.

That’s because many of us, even as children, are taught the Genesis story from a young age. I remember reading an oversized comic book version of it published by DC Comics, the same people responsible for Superman. There are children’s books about it, which of course, break down the “thees and thous” into more manageable words for kids.

So from a very young age, the Genesis story is taught as the ultimate story of bad kids and what kind of punishment to expect when you disobey God – you will be separated from God and His Love. Cast out. Ruined. And no matter what you do, on some level, God will always be dissatisfied with you.

These are the glasses we put on when we finally do read the Book of Genesis for ourselves. It’s no wonder that generations generally get only one message out of the Genesis story. And I’ll be bold enough to say it: That message is what drives so much of the human pain, grief and anguish we experience on Earth.

We believe we are separate from God so we must be separate from each other.

We fear ourselves and each other because we fear God.

We attack and punish ourselves and each other because we believe God attacks and punishes us.

We withhold love from ourselves and each other because we feel God withholds love from us.

We don’t share the necessities of life – food, shelter and money – because we feel like God won’t share with us.

We are unforgiving toward ourselves and each other because many of us, even deeply spiritual Christians, are not sure God will forgive us.

We judge ourselves and each other because we believe God judges us.

We continually question our worth because we believe we are born flawed.

We run for the bushes and hide Who We Are because we are ashamed.

We lie to ourselves and each other because deep down inside, on some level, we feel like God has lied to us about His/Her love, protection and support.

And perhaps most tragically, we are “created in God’s image and likeness,” but we chase away or kill anyone – even Jesus – who teaches us to live as Gods on Earth.

This is what the Genesis story – as it is commonly taught – has done to humanity. But what if that story isn’t true?

What if God actually intended for Adam and Eve to eat the fruit? What if God’s instruction not to eat the fruit wasn’t a commandment, but a simple warning of cause and effect? What if mankind was never truly separated from God?

What if the greatest sin of all time was instead just a simple mistake?

Click here to pre-order your copy of The Genesis Revelation.

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