Believe it or not:: The Old Testament. I started to read it for the poetry of Genesis. My earliest recall of how I loved words and sounds comes in Third Grade Hebrew School at Temple Sholem. Beresheit baracha adonai elohanu. In the beginning. Then, the waters and the seas--mayim, shamayim. The rhythm. I was swept away by the charm of the words, the rhythm in the fluids.
Genesis is a story about G-d's inability to manage anger. From the minute he creates Adam, things go awry and he (G-d) can't deal with the fact that G-d is imperfect. So, instead of looking inward, he blames his creations. And punishes them. Kind of like Cuomo and Deblasio now. Kind of like the Frankenstein story. Victor Frankenstein creates and then, ill, goes to bed, leaving his creature helpless, hungry, cold, scared. And Frankenstein then repudiates what he made and tries to destroy him. Spoiler alert: The creature wins.
G-d decides to create a mate for Adam, who, I suppose, is from the start, a disappointment. He's just not a mate to G-d. So, second try--take what you learned and make it better. Hence, Eve. Eve is also disappointed with Adam. He's no mate to her. The serpent--so charming. So skilled with words. So reassuring. So suave and debonair. LIke your first love. LIke your first best friend. Like someone who you believe understands you, gets you. There is a lure to that first love, not necessarily a sexual one. You see the lover as a role model to emulate. Whatever they do seems like the cat's meow. Even if you think in the back of your mind that maybe it isn't such a good thing, still, when the other does it, it is charming and not so bad. And, as Clarice said to Hannibal, "We like to believe if you understand us, you like us." But that does not ensue--not in "Silence of the Lambs," And not in Genesis. And not in life. Such a love results in heartbreak. And a life lesson. SO: Eve eats. Adam eats. Just like G-d blames him for his insufficiencies, he blames both G-d and Eve. G-d punishes them both and exiles them. So ends Eve's first love affair. Heartbreak and exile. And, as Carl Sagan points out in "Dragons of Eden," G-d protects the Garden with Cherubim with Flaming Sword. Cherubim is plural. Flaming sword is singular. Presumably, the right munitions were in short supply, even in Biblical times.
Despite his anger, despite his disappointment, G-d doesn't stop talking to them.
Cain also has anger management issues. Cain kills Abel. Then blames everything and anything, but himself. He's learned from Adam, who learned it from G-d. Still, G-d talks to him. Even though he gets mad at all for not living up to his nonverbalized standards, he keeps the dialogue going.
Genesis is not well written. It skips around. It ignores things entirely, then comes back. For example, we are told several times, "Enoch walked with G-d." Were they work-out buddies? G-d only walked, but didn't talk to Enoch? Even in the Bible, there are friends and there are friends. Enoch's grandson was Noah. And we all know that G-d both walked and commanded him (talking implies a conversation among equals. G-d didn't discuss the Flood--he just commanded him how to cope and how to navigate. Only Abraham had conversations with G-d. And negotiations.
The main thing in Genesis--G-d talks to men directly. Sometimes he even negotiates with men. Ordinary men--not important men. Who is Cain, after all? Who is Noah?
Of course, after Eve, there are no women. And, with Eve's exile, the voices of women are silenced. The Biblical equivalent of "Rebecca take off your dress, you are no longer a bride." Do she and Adam patch it up? Does she make the best of the situation? How does she mother children, with no role models save those provided by the animals?
Cain sires children--interesting. Asexually? Cain has two daughters'in-law--Adah and Zillah. His daughters' in law ranged from A to Z; from Alpha to Omega. But where do they come from? Are they granddaughters of Eve? When Adam and Eve were exiled, was it to inhabited places--were they refugees? Does G-d not talk to them as well after exile? Or are they only instruments of begetting--pretty much. Soon I will get to Lech Lechem--the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. Of Rebeccah. Of Leah and Rachel--that may be the last time women have any dialogue besides general agreeableness.
After Eve, there is no dialogue between G-d and females. G-d doesn't talk to Adah, Zillah, Sarah, Rachel, Leah, Rebecca. Women are just plot devices in Genesis.
There's a lot of Jewish accounting. The days of creation. The ages of man (500, 600, 900years). The 40 days/nights of the ark. How long it took for the waters to subside and for Noah to alight. Who knows one? I know one.