Internet isn't as available out here in the land of the Afghans as much as I'd like, but I am a staying true to my word and making progress...
I just finished Genesis, and I've realized I need to start taking notes, but a few things strike me in particular about the chapter. I'm amazed that nearly all of the the classic "bible stories" that we all pic up, Christians and non-Christians alike, come from genesis. I had no idea that the stories of Adam&Eve, Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah, and Joseph were all part of the first book. Now, more than anything, I'm curious what's left in the rest of the bible (save for all the stuff about, ya know... HIM).
Key things that stick out to me...
1. Lot's daughters getting him drunk and making babies with him. Is this supposed to be significant? More importantly, as a believer is anything about this discomforting?
2. When it comes to cosmology and interpretations of genesis, I often hear the argument that the term "day" could be interpreted very differently when it comes to the creation, yet within the same book the term "day" is used quite often in what is seemingly the context one would expect. Is there any contradiction seen here? If not, please explain.
3. I noticed there is no devil, nor is the serpent in Eden ever referenced as anything but the serpent. I've heard before that Satan/the Devil isn't actually in the bible, so things like this tend to stick out to me. I'm very interested to see if this holds true.
I'll be tearing through Exodus as fast as I can, and hopefully the next post will come sooner than this one.
Good job making it through Genesis! It seems like whenever I read it I am surprised like you were by the number of familiar stories. Probably the biggest one for me is the story of Joseph, with how it explains how the Hebrews ended up in Egypt and sets up the main plot of Exodus.
ReplyDeleteHere are my thoughts on your questions:
1) The account of Lot getting his daughters pregnant while drunk is highly disturbing for me as a believer. What's amazing - and as you'll see as you make more progress - is there are a lot of places where the "good" characters are seriously flawed and sinful. Another example of this that you already read about is Jacob, who is a liar and a coward and God still blesses him. This can be really encouraging from the perspective of seeing so many clear examples of God's undeserved grace, though this runs counter to today's typically merit-based expectations. Beyond that significance, you see from the story of Lot that his daughters' children were the forefathers of the Moabites and Ammonites. These two nations were enemies of the Israelites through most of the Old Testament and it was frequently their gods that the Israelites sinned by worshiping.
2) I have also heard the argument that "day" in the creation account should be interpreted as "age" or "epoch" or something long like that. The main point is, of course, to allow for the Genesis to be literally true while still falling in line with Earth being millions of years old. I don't buy it, both for a simple word usage reason like you mention, and for reasons like the verses all reading "then there was evening and morning, the X day." Also, the order of creation has plants coming along on day three, but the sun, stars, and moon don't come along until the forth. This doesn't make sense from a photosynthesis perspective if day three is supposed to have lasted even one year, let alone hundreds or thousands of years. It's great if you're going to believe in the Genesis creation story as true, but I don't think trying to read it in such a way as to allow for anything other than literal days works at all.
3) That's a good catch about the serpent never being called the Devil or Satan or anything. I'm not sure if that omission has any particular significance or if it is an example of taking a cultural shortcut that everyone of the day would understand. Satan is definitely named explicitly in the Bible, though, like Job 1:6. Also, Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 make the specific connection between the snake in the garden and Satan.
I can't wait to hear about your thoughts on Exodus. By the way, what translation of the Bible did you end up deciding to use?
Good job finishing Genesis, but it really is the easy part. Like you said, it's the source of most of the stories you here all the time and entertaining if only of the familiarity. Next up is Exodus, which has another number of classic stories and end with a lovely genocide. Then come Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, which are all excruciatingly boring with allt their rules about sacrifice and Tabernacle-building. It'll be a while before you'll be reading anything remotely interesting again. You'll have the whole "history" of Israel to go through: Kings, Judges and Chronicles. They all go like this: "And in the year something-or-other, This Guy was the king of Israel and he did what was good/bad (whichever was applicable for This Guy) is the eyes of the Lord." and then some stories about how or why he was good/bad. There is the story of Samson and Delilah somewhere in there, but I found it rather disappointing, though it's less boring than the rest. Long (very long) story short: you have your work cut out for you.
ReplyDeleteThe argument of a "day" having a different meaning in Genesis is a weak apologetic excuse. Like you say, there's no reason to assume a day is meant to mean anything other than what you and I mean when we use the word. On a related note, there are reasons to believe that there was some confusion among the authors/translators about "years", i.e. the word year is possibly a mistranslation of what was originally a period of a few weeks, which would explain many people in Genesis living to be several centuries old. I don't have a source right now, but I can look it up if you'd like.
As for Satan or the devil appearing in the Bible: you're right about the serpent in the Garden of Eden being nothing but a (albeit talking) serpent. Satan does appear in the book of Job for example, but he is not so much the embodymet of Evil as he is just another helper of God, an Angel, sort of like God's prosecutor, testing, judging, and if need be, punishing his people. This is probably also the role in which he appears in New Testament, when Jesus goes into the desert to face Satan. He's is on trial, being tested, and comes out clean. The notion Satan being sort of the Anti-God, evil incarnate is a concept which originates much later than the Old Testament (possibly borrowed from the Zoroastrian Achriman, to which the Jews were exposed to during the Babylonian Exile) and only really came to fruition in the Middle Ages.
I'm looking forward to see what you make of Exodus, though I was hoping for a bit more of an in-depth analysis of your reading. I'm sure these points yuo mentioned weren't the only things that made you go "Whaaah!?" in Genesis.