Newsgroups: uiuc.org.asm
Subject: The Annotated Book of Genesis, Chapter Two
From: tskirvin@uiuc.edu (Tim Skirvin)

The Annotated Book of Genesis
By Tim Skirvin and God

Chapter Two

> 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of
> them. 

	Last time, in the Book of Genesis: God created the heaven and the
earth, along with a myriad of beings made to take care of these places.
These beings all learned of reproduction - which made God very upset,
because He didn't really plan for it.  In revenge, He created Man in His
Image, to wreak horrible vengeance upon His other creations for their 
incredible insolence.  Unfortunately, Man was better at being vengeful
than even God...

> 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he
> rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had  done. 

	And Lo, it was the first Sunday!  Man and God alike rejoiced,
taking it as time to mow Their lawns and drink Beer while ignoring all
true responsibilities.  In commemoration of this event, God even created
the Television - though it would be many, many years until the first
Super Bowl Sunday would allow the Sacred Item to be properly utilized.

> 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God
> rested from all his work which he had done in creation. 

	Soon, though, God woke with a start from His first CatNap.  Soon
He realized what was wrong - He hadn't gotten around to making Cats yet.
With the realization, God remedied the problem - and, even for those
Atheist Images of God, it was a Holy Day, as the first MEOW! was uttered.

> 4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were
> created. 

	...the ungrateful generations that they were...

[FLASHBACK.  Commence slightly wavy screen-edges]
> In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 

	(Please note: there may be some confusion about which Day is
being referenced at which point.  A summary of the First Seven Days:

1.  Day and Night are created (Light Day)
2.  Earth and the Heavens are created (Rock Day)
3.  Land, Oceans, and Plants are created (Vegetable Day)
4.  Sun, Moon, and Stars are created (Lucky Charms Day)
5.  Chickens, Whales, and Multiplication are created (Sex Day)
6.  Cows, Centipedes, and Man are created (The Day We Fight Back)
7.  Television is created (Sunday)

	We apologize for any possible confusion the rough draft of this
novel may have caused.)

(2.)
> 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the
> field had yet sprung up -- for the LORD God had not caused it to rain
> upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 

	Of course, God had specifically said "Let's make some _dry_
land", so this is why there was a problem - dry land isn't very conducive
to remaining dry when it is rained upon.  The workers had nearly gone on
Strike for that one, since they were blamed for the faulty instructions
of their Boss - but they realized that striking against God might not be
such a hot idea.

(3.)
> 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the
> ground -- 

	This was God's first major gripe with His creation.  When you
create something, you expect it to have at least some respect for the
rest of your creations; this time, God's newly-created Mist was peeing
all over everything else He had made.  It was intolerable, and as a
result Mist lost most of its physical form for all time.  

(6.)
> 7 then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed
> into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 

	God hadn't done very well at his CPR class, so He didn't know
which hole to breathe down, but at least it worked.  Man opened his
eyes, somehow knowing he wasn't going to be seeing Pamela Anderson above
him...

[END FLASHBACK]

> 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he
> put the man whom he had formed. 

	Man, of course, praised God for His great invention of the
Parachute, and especially for not putting anything in his drop zone.  Of
course, Man would have rathered that God not just drop him into this
Garden at Eden, but sometimes you just don't argue that much...

> 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is
> pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the
> midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

	Upon hearing Man's thanks, God realized that He *had* forgotten
something, so He got around to making those trees that would have
otherwise killed Man.  When asked later, He was heard to explain
"Umm...I meant to do that."

> 10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided
> and became four rivers. 

	Upset with the poor quality of some of the names from his last
week of work, God decided to be more creative about naming his new lands
and rivers...

> 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which flows around the
> whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 
> 
> 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there.
> 
> 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which flows
> around the whole land of Cush. 
> 
> 14 And the name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of
> Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 

	Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates - the names were more than
sufficient for God's needs.  Later, God regretted not switching the
Tigris and Euphrates, when students world-wide got the trick to
remembering which was which messed up (Euphrates starts with an 'E', so
it should be on the east side, but it's on the west side really), but He
still didn't feel too bad...

> 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till
> it and keep it. 

	And lo, it was the first Homestead Act.

> 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of
> every tree of the garden; 

	God, you see, is strictly carniverous.  He would never eat a
fruit.

> 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
> for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." 

	*whir* *bang* *whistle* "If you eat of the Apple at Z'ha'Eden,
you will die..." *crash* *ding* *tweetle*  

> 18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone;
> I will make him a helper fit for him." 

	"Besides, I'm really sick of naming all these Damned
creatures..."

> 19 So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and
> every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what
> he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature,
> that was its name. 

	Man was excited.  "I get to name these things?", Man said.
"Wow!  Whoopee!  Thanks God, you rock!  I get to name the creatures..."

> 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to
> every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a
> helper fit for him. 

	The initial names for the cattle were Cow1, Cow2, Cow3, and so
forth; similarly, the names of the birds were "Fly1, Fly2", etc.  God
realized that this was going to be a problem - why couldn't His Image name
things something even slightly creative and interesting?  After all, it
had only taken God a week to figure out how to name rivers...

	God decided that there must be somebody else that can do the
naming, someone more practical about such things like that.  And so He
set to work.

> 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while
> he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 

	Now this is *not* like the urban legend in which a guy is lying
in a large tub of ice after a frat party with a note stuck to his chest
saying "Call 911 or you will die" because his kidneys have been removed.
God is much better than that; He'd never leave a note.

> 22 and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a
> woman and brought her to the man. 

	Luckily, God did not create the Ribbed Condom just yet, or Woman
may never have been created...

> 23 Then the man said, 
> "This at last is bone of my bones 
> and flesh of my flesh; 
> she shall be called Woman, 
> because she was taken out of Man." 

	Woman looked at Man for a long time.  She thought of Woman's
Lib, of how she would have to change this sexist attitude sometime in
the long future, how a little bit of fighting now might save untold
centuries of torment down the line.  She considered just killing Man
now, because he was obviously fully unworthy of her.

	Instead, she decided that it would be worth more to just control
things from behind the scenes, and let the title stand.  Man could be
the figurehead of power, for all Woman cared...she just wanted to make
sure that Man wouldn't do anything stupid again like "Cow1".

> 24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his
> wife, and they become one flesh. 

	...but everybody knows who's really in charge...

> 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. 

	However, they did want to talk to each other alone, and having
God hanging around was kindof spoiling the mood.  And so they made it
brief: "God, would you please go away for a second so we can celebrate
our honeymoon?  Thanks much."  

	God, feeling rejected, went away...

[to be continued...]
				- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@uiuc.edu)
--
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