By Julius Nsikak
The Book of Genesis is, without doubt, one of the most fascinating and dramatic texts in the Bible. For me, it is also a collection of stories that often provoke smiles, curiosity, and sometimes deep questions. Beneath its verses lie tales that are at once symbolic, mysterious, and at times, rather strange.
We are told right from the beginning: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” A bold and sweeping declaration. But almost immediately, questions emerge. The earth, we are told, was “formless and void,” and “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Wait a minute, waters? Before creation had even properly begun, water was already there.
Who created the water, and why is its existence treated as a passing detail rather than a mystery worth explaining?
If God created the heavens and the earth, then where did this water come from?
And where, indeed, was God during creation? Hovering above? Dwelling outside the scene altogether? The text is silent. Which leads us to another uncomfortable question: does God really live in heaven, or is “heaven” itself part of the created order that He supposedly brought into being?
Then comes the famous rib story. We are told that Eve, the first woman, was created from Adam’s rib. But how can a rib produce an entire human being? To call this “biology” would be laughable. Clearly, something else is hidden in this story, something the writer either could not, or would not, tell us in plain terms. Was it a metaphor, or simply a patriarchal tale designed to cement a woman’s dependence on man? If so, then inequality was woven into humanity’s origin from the very start.
And what of the forbidden fruit? Tradition calls it an apple, but Genesis never names it. Was it really a fruit, or a symbol of something far more profound, knowledge, power, or even sexuality? The text is suspiciously vague, and yet entire moral laws have been built on this silence. Perhaps the greatest sin was not eating the fruit, but refusing to ask what it truly symbolised.
What remains undeniable is the Bible’s treatment of women. Their voices are muted, their presence sparse. A few are honoured, Sarah, Deborah, Ruth, Esther, but compared to the endless male genealogies, their absence is deafening. Does this not reveal the mindset of the early writers: that women were either secondary, silenced, or erased? And if the Bible is to serve as a timeless guide, then what sort of example does it set for gender equality?
So yes, one may chuckle at the rib story or smile at the fruit drama. But beneath the laughter is a challenge. Genesis is not merely a book of faith; it is a cultural script. And it leaves us with questions that believers rarely dare to ask: Who made the water? What was the fruit? Where was God during creation? Does God truly live in heaven? And most importantly, what would Genesis look like if Eve had written it?