After chilling with Abraham and Sarah for awhile, the visiting emissaries move on towards Sodom, but God stays behind to have a little chat with Abraham. You see, God had decided to not hide what is about to happen from the father of nations, especially because it'll end up being the bloody past of the land they'll all inherit. God will wipe clean the rampant wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. At least, God is going to check out the situation, and make sure that everything matches up to the rumors going around. (Again with that supposedly omniscient thing...?) And Abraham brings up a good point: What if there are still righteous people in the cities? Do they also get destroyed because everyone around them is bad? So they haggle for human life, with God seemingly in favor of destroying it all, but God gets talked down to 10 people. But any less than 10, and the remaining righteous people are apparently S.O.L. Wouldn't that suck? To be the one good person in a place and get wiped out anyway?
The two angels (of the three that visited Abraham...the third being God...) get to Sodom, and Lot greets them at the gates, proving his righteousness just enough to pass the test and save himself and his family (righteousness count: 6). Lot tries to tell his (future) sons-in-law about the impending doom and they just laugh at him and go about their business (down to 4). The angels intend to stay the night in Lot's house to judge just how bad Sodom is. While they are there, the men of Sodom, all the men, surround the house and demand to see those who would judge them...because somehow, magically, they know they will be judged by Lot's strange visitors. Or they just feel guilty enough about all of their wickedness and assume. So Lot goes out to tell them to go away, and offers up his virginal daughters to them to use as they see fit instead of letting them rape and destroy the angels of God. Nice move Lot. That'll surely prove your righteousness. Also... THEY'RE YOUR DAUGHTERS!! Don't they teach you that in Parenting 101? Don't offer up your children to violence and sexual abuse. That's got to be second only to the your-children-need-to-breathe-air-to-live rule. Ugh. Anyways, instead of giving up his daughters for real, the angels pull Lot back inside and blind everyone outside.
Come morning, the angels tell Lot to get the hell out of Dodge with his family, but Lot lingers. Really?? Dude. When angels tell you to go: GO! So the angels take them by the hand, and lead them out of the city where God says to them "Flee for your life; do not look back or stop..." (Gen 19:17) And Lot keeps bargaining. Instead of fleeing to the hills like he's told, he wants to go to the little city nearby because that one can't be bad... it's just a little city. God, who is sick of arguing with him, just says "Fine, Go! Just go now. I've got work to do." So Lot, Lot's wife, and Lot's two daughters go. But Lot's wife looks back, and immediately becomes a pillar of salt. I can't say I blame her. She probably spent her whole life in that city, and just happened to find the one good(ish) guy who moved in. Everything she's ever known is there. Also, her daughters might've been running behind her in the mad dash. Wouldn't you look back to make sure they're okay? The only thing my footnotes have to say about that is that there was probably a local landmark that happened to be a pillar of salt... I'm not satisfied with that. Poor Lot's wife. Then randomly Abraham shows up to check out the aftermath of the sulfur and heavenly-wrath-fire, and God kind of does a "see? I told you I'd save the righteous people," thing. Super classy, God, super classy.
Once Lot and his daughters get to Zoar, they don't stay. Lot's afraid of cities now it seems. Go figure. So they go live in the caves like God initially intended. Hmm. Okay. Lot's daughters start hatching plans. They seem to be under the impression that they have no men left in the world other than their father that might be able to give them children. None at all. Apparently the residents of Zoar are all female, or gay men. Seems unlikely. Where was I? Oh right, Lot's daughters were scheming... to get their dad so drunk that he passes out and they can rape him so they can have his children? What? Ew. This leads to Lot's failure of Parenting 102: Incest is bad, especially with your parents. Spread out that gene pool. Night one: the firstborn daughter takes her turn, and, um, succeeds? So she tells her sister that it worked, and then the next night, her sister goes for it. And they both end up pregnant... I wonder how that conversation went... The firstborn daughter's son gets named Moab (a play on "[Of] the Same Father"), and from him come the Moabites. Remember them, they're important later. The younger daughter's son gets named Ben-ammi ("Son of My Paternal Kin") who begets the Ammonites.
And on that incestuous daughters-rape-father unsettling kind of note...
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
What's in a Name? (Gen 15:1-18:15)
"Do not be afraid," are probably the best four foreshadowing words in the bible. I know that they get used at the beginning of a lot of prophecies or promises from God (or an angel of God), especially when Jesus is concerned. Just think about Christmas and Easter. It's all over the place there. At the beginning of Genesis 15, God says this to Abram, and goes on to answer to the doubts that Abram has about God's promises of land and progeny. Once it's established that Abram will indeed have an heir that issues from his loins and his descendants will be as plentiful as stars in the sky, Abram "believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness" (Gen 15:6). And that one verse is how Abram/Abraham initially got his super faithful reputation. Then they move on to the point about landownership. Instead of just being given (like the heir and the multitudes of nations), there's a catch here. The Canaanite land that has been promised will belong to Abram and all of his offspring forever...after about 400 years...
Sarai takes matters of the promised heir into her own hands. She believes that since she can't seem to have children, that Abram's child must come to him another way, though Hagar, her Egyptian slave-girl. It seems to be common practice in a slave-owning household according to my footnotes, and no one bats an eye at it... until Hagar actually conceives. When she does, she realizes that Sarai is to blame for the idea instead of Abram, and "looked with contempt on her mistress" (Gen 16:4) Wouldn't you? Her child will essentially be taken from her and raised as Sarai's. Instead of dealing with it herself, Sarai appeals to Abram to intervene. He basically tells her, "You made this mess. You clean it up." So Sarai opresses her (in the Hebrew), and Hagar runs away. At this point, the angel of the Lord catches up with her, and tells her to go back and submit because her offspring shall have multitudes of descendants (but the connotation is not as many as Abram's true heir...). Because God heard her suffering, she is to name her son Ishmael (literally God hears). Hagar then recognizes God as "El-Roi" (God who sees) because God saw her in her struggles. And then Ishmael was born.
Several years later, God comes to Abram again, to make a covenant...again. Seems very much like the same one that they've been making since Abram appeared on the scene. Only this time, Abram is given a new name as a sign of it: Abraham! (literally: ancestor of a multitude). And a new catch is introduced. All of this will only go down if all the males are circumcised. All of them. Slaves born into the house and otherwise acquired too. Within 8 days of being born or right now since they've just brokered this covenant. It's a bad day to be a man. Meanwhile Sarai gets a new name, too (Sarah), and is promised to bear a son of her very own! And Abraham laughs in God's face. She's never had children, and even if she had... she's post-menopause. It's just not possible. Then, like a good dad, makes a plea for Ishmael to be blessed instead, which God does. A little. God then rebukes Abraham for disbelieving that all things are possible for God, and that Sarah's child shall be named Isaac (literally: he laughs). After their little conversation, Abraham promptly runs off and circumcises everyone. All the males anyways...
Now it's Sarah's turn to hear the good news. God/heavenly beings appear at Abraham's tent, and Abraham plays the most gracious host providing water, meat, bread, milk, and shade in the heat of the day. At which point, they/God (it likes to switch around between pronouns) tell Abraham again that Sarah shall have a son "in due season." Sarah has been eavesdropping, and on hearing this, she laughs. She then calls out Abraham for being too old to give her pleasure (same undertones as being known). God then calls Sarah out on her doubt in the Lord, and it's like she remembers who was talking to her. She denies laughing in the first place because "she was afraid." I mean, dude. She laughed at God who not too long ago wiped the earth clean. I'd be scared too. But God is cool with it. Just says, "Oh yes, you did laugh." in a friendly, non-accusatory kind of way. After all, laughter is the very best medicine.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Monday, June 24, 2013
All Who Wander Are Not Lost (Gen12:1-14:24)
We've just hardly been introduced to Abram, who will be our next leading man, when God shows up to send him on a mission to find a specific and yet unnamed land. If and when he gets there, Abram will be blessed and the source of a great nation. At this point in his life, Abram is already seventy-five years old... but keep in mind, people are living longer then (or at least they're counting differently). Still, he's not a young man. His apparent faith in God, however, sends him forth to search for this promised land... We get another slavery sighting here. Abram and Sarai had slaves. In packing up all their belongings to venture forth, the list starts with the main players, Abram, Sarai, and Lot (Abram's nephew, if you'll remember from last time), then things, then people they've acquired. That's right: less than things. Anyways, they journey, and eventually God says, "To your offspring, I will give this land." (Gen 12:7) Never mind that the Canaanites were already living there... But Abram builds an altar to God, and moves on.
While they're doing their nomad thing, there's a massive famine in the land, but not over in Egypt. So they head over that way. Abram realizes, however, that because Sarai is wicked pretty, if those rowdy Egyptians know that she is his wife, they'll kill him, take her for their very own, and have their wicked way with her. So he hatches a plan. In order to keep them safe, they'll lie and say she's his sister. Now I'm not really sure why this would keep them any safer than being husband and wife, and while I can get behind a bit of falsehood in order to save your skins, isn't Abram the pious and holy supposed to be better than that? Either way, they get into Egypt. All of the officials see how beautiful Sarai is, and like the good little officials they are, run off and tell Pharaoh that he's got a new wife prospect. Bet you can't guess what happens next. Pharaoh takes Sarai from Abram for his own, and gives him quite the collection of livestock in return. What does Pharaoh get? Plagues. And one less wife. When he finds out that Abram and Sarai are actually married, he basically says, "What the hell, man? Why'd you tell me she was your sister? I wouldn't've touched her if I knew she was your wife! Take your stuff, and go!" So they do. I'm with you on this one Pharaoh. I don't get it either.
Anyway, now that the gang has food, they take a roundabout way to get back to where Abram built that altar. There, Abram and Lot try to live and raise their livestock in the same area, and realize pretty quickly that it is a bad idea. The herds are eating them out of house and home all crammed together like that. After much "strife," Abram tells Lot to choose where he (Lot) would rather be, and says he (Abram) will go the opposite direction. So Lot looks around and picks the best spot for himself, which just happens to be right by Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, the very same. It even mentions now how God hasn't destroyed those two cities yet, but that they are full of "wicked, great sinners against the Lord." After Lot chooses, God tells Abram again where his offspring will end up living, in the land that he has been promised.
Now while all of this is going on, we've also got war. One group of kings vs. a second group of kings that includes King Bera of Sodom and King Birsha of Gomorrah. Their names actually translate to "In Evil" and "In Wickedness" respectively, pointing towards allegory (not our last sighting of allegory, I'm sure...) And war being, well, war, people get taken prisoner. People like Lot, for example. Want to rethink where you chose to live Lot? Not yet? Okay... Abram won't stand for his family to be held captive though, so he charges in with only 318 "trained men" and saves the day along with Lot and his goods, some women, and "the people." When Abram returned from his great feats of family values and selflessness, "King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High." (Gen 14:18) Bread and wine. I wonder where we'll see that again... I'd also like to point out "God Most High" in Hebrew is "El Elyon" who was a Canaanite deity, and it just kind of mushes together with Abram's God here. Without that little footnote, it reads like just an exalted way of calling God. With it... it sounds like they understand that El Elyon and Abram's God might be the same God, just called different things, and they're cool with that. Gotta love footnotes. Anyways, after the blessing, Abram tithes, that is, he gives up a tenth of his holdings to the King of Sodom (who was there the whole time, I just didn't need to mention him again 'til now). The king then tries to give Abram spoils of war, but Abram and his mighty foresight turn it down. Now the king is indebted to him, which I'm sure will come in handy...
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
While they're doing their nomad thing, there's a massive famine in the land, but not over in Egypt. So they head over that way. Abram realizes, however, that because Sarai is wicked pretty, if those rowdy Egyptians know that she is his wife, they'll kill him, take her for their very own, and have their wicked way with her. So he hatches a plan. In order to keep them safe, they'll lie and say she's his sister. Now I'm not really sure why this would keep them any safer than being husband and wife, and while I can get behind a bit of falsehood in order to save your skins, isn't Abram the pious and holy supposed to be better than that? Either way, they get into Egypt. All of the officials see how beautiful Sarai is, and like the good little officials they are, run off and tell Pharaoh that he's got a new wife prospect. Bet you can't guess what happens next. Pharaoh takes Sarai from Abram for his own, and gives him quite the collection of livestock in return. What does Pharaoh get? Plagues. And one less wife. When he finds out that Abram and Sarai are actually married, he basically says, "What the hell, man? Why'd you tell me she was your sister? I wouldn't've touched her if I knew she was your wife! Take your stuff, and go!" So they do. I'm with you on this one Pharaoh. I don't get it either.
Anyway, now that the gang has food, they take a roundabout way to get back to where Abram built that altar. There, Abram and Lot try to live and raise their livestock in the same area, and realize pretty quickly that it is a bad idea. The herds are eating them out of house and home all crammed together like that. After much "strife," Abram tells Lot to choose where he (Lot) would rather be, and says he (Abram) will go the opposite direction. So Lot looks around and picks the best spot for himself, which just happens to be right by Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, the very same. It even mentions now how God hasn't destroyed those two cities yet, but that they are full of "wicked, great sinners against the Lord." After Lot chooses, God tells Abram again where his offspring will end up living, in the land that he has been promised.
Now while all of this is going on, we've also got war. One group of kings vs. a second group of kings that includes King Bera of Sodom and King Birsha of Gomorrah. Their names actually translate to "In Evil" and "In Wickedness" respectively, pointing towards allegory (not our last sighting of allegory, I'm sure...) And war being, well, war, people get taken prisoner. People like Lot, for example. Want to rethink where you chose to live Lot? Not yet? Okay... Abram won't stand for his family to be held captive though, so he charges in with only 318 "trained men" and saves the day along with Lot and his goods, some women, and "the people." When Abram returned from his great feats of family values and selflessness, "King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High." (Gen 14:18) Bread and wine. I wonder where we'll see that again... I'd also like to point out "God Most High" in Hebrew is "El Elyon" who was a Canaanite deity, and it just kind of mushes together with Abram's God here. Without that little footnote, it reads like just an exalted way of calling God. With it... it sounds like they understand that El Elyon and Abram's God might be the same God, just called different things, and they're cool with that. Gotta love footnotes. Anyways, after the blessing, Abram tithes, that is, he gives up a tenth of his holdings to the King of Sodom (who was there the whole time, I just didn't need to mention him again 'til now). The king then tries to give Abram spoils of war, but Abram and his mighty foresight turn it down. Now the king is indebted to him, which I'm sure will come in handy...
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Look at My Happy Families! (Gen 9:18-11:32)
For most of what happened this time, I've posted a new link! This link (Biblical Family Tree), will be updated whenever I come across another set of genealogical information. I cheated a little and didn't include the universe's... I figured we'd keep it to people. A couple notes on it:
1. If the box is blue, the person has been referred to as male.
2. Red for ladies.
3. Black for nations, or due lacking clarity as to whether the name listed was for a person, or a nation, or which gender the person was.
4. Occasional notes within the same box as a person are things that came up while reading. Age, something specifically attributed to that person/nation, name meaning/name wordplay.
Unless I forgot everything about how to draw a basic family tree, it should follow the standard, but please let me know if I'm gravely mistaken. It can be fixed! (It'll also eventually be a cleaner image. I'm workin' with a netbook and Word Starter here.)
So before I got thrown into long accounts of who fathered whom and when, there's a little anecdote about Noah post-covenant. The first thing he does is plant a vineyard, make wine, and gets plastered. Noah gets so drunk that he passes out naked. And then what happens? His son Ham walks in and sees Noah in all his drunken, naked, comatose glory, and warns his brothers. His brothers go cover up dear old drunky dad with their eyes averted. When Noah wakes up, he knows "what his youngest son had done to him." Yep, this is knows as in some sort of sexual something or other again... Actually from here on out, if you see me italicize any form of "to know," know that somethin' kinky is going on. Might make things easier. Anyways, because Ham peeped on his dad, he and all his descendants (the Canaanites) are marked as slaves to their brothers (or brothers' descendants). Dear Noah, God just wiped the earth clean because of the wickedness of man. You probably shouldn't drink until you pass out naked, accuse your youngest son of voyeurism when he was probably just trying to help, and then condemn him and all of his children to slavery. Love, your progeny.
After that little gem that no one mentions, we've got family histories and who begets which nations...until Ham's descendants in Shinar want to build a great city, with a big tower in it. You guessed it: Babel. I remember being told this story. Let me tell you, what I was told is so not what I read. I was told that the people wanted to build a tower so tall as to touch the heavens and be like gods, and when they were succeeding (but not finished), God punished them for their pride by scattering them, and causing everyone to speak in different languages. What I read went a little different. The people in Shinar started to settle there, and they made bricks together. Then, they built a city from those bricks, and a high tower in the city (yes with it's top in the heavens), and a name for themselves, lest they be scattered to the winds and not part of a larger community. They were afraid of being separated. And God saw that they built a city, just like people had before the flood. Then God decided that history was not going to repeat itself, confused their language, and scattered them. Not quite the pride story I thought it was. It read like God saying "Now don't start that again!" And you know what struck me about this? God learned. God saw what happened before, and changed tactics based on that. Are so-called omniscient beings allowed to learn and still be considered all-knowing?
After that bombshell, we get tossed back into genealogy. Shem's specifically. Which brings us to Abram and Sarai.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
1. If the box is blue, the person has been referred to as male.
2. Red for ladies.
3. Black for nations, or due lacking clarity as to whether the name listed was for a person, or a nation, or which gender the person was.
4. Occasional notes within the same box as a person are things that came up while reading. Age, something specifically attributed to that person/nation, name meaning/name wordplay.
Unless I forgot everything about how to draw a basic family tree, it should follow the standard, but please let me know if I'm gravely mistaken. It can be fixed! (It'll also eventually be a cleaner image. I'm workin' with a netbook and Word Starter here.)
So before I got thrown into long accounts of who fathered whom and when, there's a little anecdote about Noah post-covenant. The first thing he does is plant a vineyard, make wine, and gets plastered. Noah gets so drunk that he passes out naked. And then what happens? His son Ham walks in and sees Noah in all his drunken, naked, comatose glory, and warns his brothers. His brothers go cover up dear old drunky dad with their eyes averted. When Noah wakes up, he knows "what his youngest son had done to him." Yep, this is knows as in some sort of sexual something or other again... Actually from here on out, if you see me italicize any form of "to know," know that somethin' kinky is going on. Might make things easier. Anyways, because Ham peeped on his dad, he and all his descendants (the Canaanites) are marked as slaves to their brothers (or brothers' descendants). Dear Noah, God just wiped the earth clean because of the wickedness of man. You probably shouldn't drink until you pass out naked, accuse your youngest son of voyeurism when he was probably just trying to help, and then condemn him and all of his children to slavery. Love, your progeny.
After that little gem that no one mentions, we've got family histories and who begets which nations...until Ham's descendants in Shinar want to build a great city, with a big tower in it. You guessed it: Babel. I remember being told this story. Let me tell you, what I was told is so not what I read. I was told that the people wanted to build a tower so tall as to touch the heavens and be like gods, and when they were succeeding (but not finished), God punished them for their pride by scattering them, and causing everyone to speak in different languages. What I read went a little different. The people in Shinar started to settle there, and they made bricks together. Then, they built a city from those bricks, and a high tower in the city (yes with it's top in the heavens), and a name for themselves, lest they be scattered to the winds and not part of a larger community. They were afraid of being separated. And God saw that they built a city, just like people had before the flood. Then God decided that history was not going to repeat itself, confused their language, and scattered them. Not quite the pride story I thought it was. It read like God saying "Now don't start that again!" And you know what struck me about this? God learned. God saw what happened before, and changed tactics based on that. Are so-called omniscient beings allowed to learn and still be considered all-knowing?
After that bombshell, we get tossed back into genealogy. Shem's specifically. Which brings us to Abram and Sarai.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Noah Already? (Gen 4:17-9:17)
I wonder how frequently I'll be beginning or ending with genealogies...
Before the next post (because there's more family tree listings coming then, I'm sure), I'll be starting a visual representation of the biblical genealogies. I don't know about you, but it'll make them easier for me. The end of Genesis chapter 4 and all of Genesis chapter 5 are devoted to who married who, had which son, and how old they were when they died. Spoiler alert: They were freaking old. Methuselah old, literally (nine hundred sixty-nine years old! 969!). The youngest person listed is Enoch, and it's actually unclear what happened to him, at three hundred and sixty-five years old. Everyone else is listed with "and he died" at the end of their little blurb, but Enoch "walked with God" after his son Methuselah (the very same) was born. And he kept on "[walking] with God" for three hundred more years, and "then he was no more, because God took him." Okay...? Could this be like, a comatose situation? Literal walking with God? Or maybe severe depression at the wickedness of humankind that after three hundred years he could stand living no longer and took his own life? Either way, at the end of this branch of humanity's family tree, we get to Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
While those boys were up and kickin', the world was a bad place. Humans were wicked and violent. The sons of God came down and took human wives because the ladies were so pretty. It seems like God wanted to get a handle on the situation because God cut human lifespans way down to a measly 120 years. Guess we can't go for Methuselah's record now unless we change the calendar and counting system all around... Are we sure they hadn't done that in the first place? Anyways. The Nephilim also get mentioned in the wickedness, and my footnotes say that they are possibly synonymous with the sons of God. What is this nonsense you say? Well, when in doubt: the Internet. I found some pretty weird things, and a lot of photoshopped pictures, but Wikipedia seems to have an okay page about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim So with all the wickedness abounding, God saw that humans are inclined to be evil. It seems to be our nature. Evil enough that God regretted making us so much that God decided to Etch-a-Sketch the Earth clean. I don't know how I feel about God regretting humankind, even if it was before starting over. While I understand that God is supposed to be infallible, don't you think that that would mean that God is incapable of making bad things? I know that with choice, good things can go bad, and choice makes life interesting, but still. When I read Gen 6:6-7, it sounds like God is saying "My bad. This sucks. Let me clean up after myself." And after fessing up to that, God noticed Noah, like some kind of happy accident of righteousness.
Noah is described as "blameless in his generation" and walking with God (like Enoch?). Because of Noah, God decided to not kill off everything... just, you know, most things... except fish. The whole story only ever discusses fleshy things that depend on the breath of life and that walk or creep on the earth or fly in the heavens. Apparently the fish were right the first time. So God tells Noah to build an ark, which can also be translated as chest, box, and basket. Picture that. Big floating wooden box... weird, but kind of neat. In the ark, Noah is to take his whole immediate family (wife, sons, and sons' wives), and two of every land dwelling creature. Not that it's said in so many words, but mating purposes. Oh, but there should be some extra sets of the clean animals. Not for eating though, because animals aren't food yet, just for fun. And it's an itty-bitty living space for all of that. 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high (yeah, I did the math). For two of each animal, bird, and creeping thing in existence, plus Noah and family, plus food for everything/one. But Noah did it, and God made the waters come (not only rain, but from under the land as well) for forty days and nights, as promised earlier, and then leaves it sit for 150 days.
"But God remembered Noah" and caused the waters to start receding. Nothing else is said about God remembering here, but to me, that implies forgetfulness. It's not like God had a million other people to watch over. They've all just recently drowned! Isn't God also supposed to be omniscient? How does forgetfulness play into that? So far God is not being painted as the picture of divinity in this story. Let's see how they deal with that later... Anyway, Noah starts using birds to test out the waters and to find land. First a raven, an unclean animal, that finds nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Then, a dove. First try, nothing. Second try, an olive leaf! Third try? One less dove. Presumably it's off nesting somewhere, building a pretty home for its lover that it met on its Gilligan's Island style three hour tour.
Now that land is back, Noah and his family venture out. Noah being the stand-up guy that he is builds an altar and gives a burnt offering to God of those extra clean animals he was supposed to bring along. Because God so liked the smell of the offering, God resolved to do a few things:
1. Never again curse the ground (like God did when Adam and Eve ate from the special tree, or when Cain murdered Abel).
2. "Destroy every living creature as I have done," i.e. with a flood.
3. Give humans complete reign over the animals, including when to kill and eat them. Yep. As long as humans kill the animals wisely, and there's no blood left in 'em, beef is what's for dinner.
4. Requires blood for blood as far as humans go, establishing law essentially. Even animals can be held accountable (and will be apparently) to this if they kill a human.
God then seals this covenant with a rainbow. How pretty! Granted, it's a large scale symbolic representation, where "hanging up a bow signifies retirement from battle." God reiterates though that God will never again wipe the earth clean with a flood. I spy with my little eye a loophole... hm...
Until the next genealogy,
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Before the next post (because there's more family tree listings coming then, I'm sure), I'll be starting a visual representation of the biblical genealogies. I don't know about you, but it'll make them easier for me. The end of Genesis chapter 4 and all of Genesis chapter 5 are devoted to who married who, had which son, and how old they were when they died. Spoiler alert: They were freaking old. Methuselah old, literally (nine hundred sixty-nine years old! 969!). The youngest person listed is Enoch, and it's actually unclear what happened to him, at three hundred and sixty-five years old. Everyone else is listed with "and he died" at the end of their little blurb, but Enoch "walked with God" after his son Methuselah (the very same) was born. And he kept on "[walking] with God" for three hundred more years, and "then he was no more, because God took him." Okay...? Could this be like, a comatose situation? Literal walking with God? Or maybe severe depression at the wickedness of humankind that after three hundred years he could stand living no longer and took his own life? Either way, at the end of this branch of humanity's family tree, we get to Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
While those boys were up and kickin', the world was a bad place. Humans were wicked and violent. The sons of God came down and took human wives because the ladies were so pretty. It seems like God wanted to get a handle on the situation because God cut human lifespans way down to a measly 120 years. Guess we can't go for Methuselah's record now unless we change the calendar and counting system all around... Are we sure they hadn't done that in the first place? Anyways. The Nephilim also get mentioned in the wickedness, and my footnotes say that they are possibly synonymous with the sons of God. What is this nonsense you say? Well, when in doubt: the Internet. I found some pretty weird things, and a lot of photoshopped pictures, but Wikipedia seems to have an okay page about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim So with all the wickedness abounding, God saw that humans are inclined to be evil. It seems to be our nature. Evil enough that God regretted making us so much that God decided to Etch-a-Sketch the Earth clean. I don't know how I feel about God regretting humankind, even if it was before starting over. While I understand that God is supposed to be infallible, don't you think that that would mean that God is incapable of making bad things? I know that with choice, good things can go bad, and choice makes life interesting, but still. When I read Gen 6:6-7, it sounds like God is saying "My bad. This sucks. Let me clean up after myself." And after fessing up to that, God noticed Noah, like some kind of happy accident of righteousness.
Noah is described as "blameless in his generation" and walking with God (like Enoch?). Because of Noah, God decided to not kill off everything... just, you know, most things... except fish. The whole story only ever discusses fleshy things that depend on the breath of life and that walk or creep on the earth or fly in the heavens. Apparently the fish were right the first time. So God tells Noah to build an ark, which can also be translated as chest, box, and basket. Picture that. Big floating wooden box... weird, but kind of neat. In the ark, Noah is to take his whole immediate family (wife, sons, and sons' wives), and two of every land dwelling creature. Not that it's said in so many words, but mating purposes. Oh, but there should be some extra sets of the clean animals. Not for eating though, because animals aren't food yet, just for fun. And it's an itty-bitty living space for all of that. 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high (yeah, I did the math). For two of each animal, bird, and creeping thing in existence, plus Noah and family, plus food for everything/one. But Noah did it, and God made the waters come (not only rain, but from under the land as well) for forty days and nights, as promised earlier, and then leaves it sit for 150 days.
"But God remembered Noah" and caused the waters to start receding. Nothing else is said about God remembering here, but to me, that implies forgetfulness. It's not like God had a million other people to watch over. They've all just recently drowned! Isn't God also supposed to be omniscient? How does forgetfulness play into that? So far God is not being painted as the picture of divinity in this story. Let's see how they deal with that later... Anyway, Noah starts using birds to test out the waters and to find land. First a raven, an unclean animal, that finds nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Then, a dove. First try, nothing. Second try, an olive leaf! Third try? One less dove. Presumably it's off nesting somewhere, building a pretty home for its lover that it met on its Gilligan's Island style three hour tour.
Now that land is back, Noah and his family venture out. Noah being the stand-up guy that he is builds an altar and gives a burnt offering to God of those extra clean animals he was supposed to bring along. Because God so liked the smell of the offering, God resolved to do a few things:
1. Never again curse the ground (like God did when Adam and Eve ate from the special tree, or when Cain murdered Abel).
2. "Destroy every living creature as I have done," i.e. with a flood.
3. Give humans complete reign over the animals, including when to kill and eat them. Yep. As long as humans kill the animals wisely, and there's no blood left in 'em, beef is what's for dinner.
4. Requires blood for blood as far as humans go, establishing law essentially. Even animals can be held accountable (and will be apparently) to this if they kill a human.
God then seals this covenant with a rainbow. How pretty! Granted, it's a large scale symbolic representation, where "hanging up a bow signifies retirement from battle." God reiterates though that God will never again wipe the earth clean with a flood. I spy with my little eye a loophole... hm...
Until the next genealogy,
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Monday, June 17, 2013
Oldies but Goodies (Genesis 1-4:16)
"In the beginning when God created..."
Genesis begins with the familiar six day plus one creation story. God sees "the primordial chaos," and starts sorting things out. Light from darkness. Sky from waters. Land from seas, and vegetation on the land. Specific tasks for lights to dictate passage of time. Sea monsters and birds. Cattle, creeping things (yes, specifically creeping things), wild animals, and finally humankind in God's own image, male and female, and God gave the living creatures "every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food" (Gen 1:29). And once God finished this process of creating, on the seventh day the Creator rested.
It's interesting to note that most things in the progression of the creation story fall into line with how scientists have discovered the Earth to have come into being and evolved life. With that, we have our very first biblical genealogy of... the universe. The story even ends the way the familial genealogies do. "These are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created." (Gen 2:4) We also get the first, albeit indirect, mention of the divine court. In Gen 1:26, "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image...'" Now, I'd like to point out that little translation footnote that pops up at the bottom of your page, at least throughout the sections I'll be discussing today. In Hebrew, the word that means "humankind" or "man," until a woman is on the scene, is adam. My footnote (and my mom), told me that in Hebrew, species are always designated by the masculine and feminine forms of the word, except for adam. "No creature born of earth ('adamah) is yet a fitting partner." But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I was still talking about the first creation story.
What's that? There's only one? Nope. The first one is very mystical and full of warm fuzzies, with God kickin' back at the end and having a little holiday...holy day... see what I did there? Okay, I'm a little sorry for that one. Anyway, after God rests, we back-track to what seems like day number two. We've got heavens and earth, but no vegetation yet. While a stream is rising forth from the earth, as it seems wont to do, God forms an adam from the dust, and breathes life into, well, it. Now that God's got a human, what's God to do with it? Let's give it a garden to tend with plenty of food to eat, and only one rule (Don't touch that special tree). The human got lonely though, so then God made the animals with the purpose of the human finding a partner. Now, if this weren't before one of those special trees... that could have a whole other kind of terrible, spoiling of innocence type meanings, but the human didn't know about any of that yet. Still, as we know none of the animals were a suitable partner, so God created another human from the first human... and here's where physical sex differentiation comes in. The first human is in the habit of naming things, like all those animals, so he names himself Man, and his partner Woman (ish and ishshah respectively). Nakedness and innocence abounded.
Enter stage left: the serpent. Sneaky little creepy temptress. It uses doubt and curiosity (one of the best and most dangerous traits of humanity), to persuade the woman into eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and because everyone else was doing it, so did the man. In that split second, they became ashamed of their nakedness and tried to hide it. Bad call, 'cause now they've been caught red handed and won't admit it without blaming someone else. The man even blames God for it because God gave him the woman. So what happens now that everyone's guilty and shameful? Well, the serpent (and his family forever) is cursed to crawl on it's belly and be hated by the woman and her children (forever). The woman has to suffer during childbirth, and be subservient to her husband, yep, husband. And the man? Well instead of just tending a pretty garden, he and his family are cast out and made to toil for their bread. Oh yeah, there's bread now instead of just fruit to eat. Also, the ultimate punishment, now humans die. Thanks guys. Way to go... I totally wouldn't ever have done the exact same thing probably even without the serpent's tantalizing words. I never was very good at following directions.
And here we are at sin. God gave specific directions, and then backed away for a bit, allowing choice to come into play. I mean really, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil probably had seeds, and according to God's own words (see creation story numero uno) was therefore food. But God said not to eat it, and even said gave the worst of the consequences: death. They still ate it. What does that say about humans? Definitely that we're fallible. Too curious perhaps? Maybe just stupid? I mean, talked into it by a serpent? Still... we love to have that choice thing in play.
So we've got choice. We've got sin. We've got banishment and painful childbirth and toiling. How about a little murder too? By this point, the man is going by Adam, and he named his wife Eve (life-bringer). He "knew" his wife (yes, knowing her biblically, which is to say: sex, and yes this "knowledge" seems to have come from that tree), and Cain was born! By the way, so far, the bible loves punny names. Cain, in Hebrew folk etymology is "production." He was the first product of man and woman *ahem* knowing one another. He also had a brother named Abel ("emptiness, futility"), and together they had the first sibling rivalry. Cain grew crops while Abel tended sheep, and one day they both put forth an offering to God from their respective farming endeavors. God accepted Abel's, and not Cain's...for no apparent reason. I don't know about you, but I'd be pissed if that happened with my sisters and me. God calls Cain out on it, and tells him to do well in order to be accepted and not sin. So what's Cain do? Well he lures Abel to a field, kills him, and lies about it of course. Choice again, friends. What do you think would've happened if Cain just said, "Okay God, I'll try harder next time. I'll pour my heart and soul into my tomatoes just for you"? Maybe it's just me, but in reading it... it sounds a little like God is pushin' his buttons to see how far Cain'll go before he snaps. Either way, Cain chose to do a terrible thing and commit the first premeditated murder, and God punishes him by marking him, and making him wander all the days of his life.
So I know that was like, three stories all at once, but it seemed weird to break them up. They also bring up massively huge issues that are consistently struggled with, not only throughout the bible, but in theology and philosophy and art and just, life. Process. Choice. Sin. Punishment. Even on a slightly smaller scale: Women's rights, the relationship and "alienation between humans and animals" (footnote p.10), and how we figured out how to make bread.
Opinions, thoughts, comments, questions are always encouraged.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Genesis begins with the familiar six day plus one creation story. God sees "the primordial chaos," and starts sorting things out. Light from darkness. Sky from waters. Land from seas, and vegetation on the land. Specific tasks for lights to dictate passage of time. Sea monsters and birds. Cattle, creeping things (yes, specifically creeping things), wild animals, and finally humankind in God's own image, male and female, and God gave the living creatures "every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food" (Gen 1:29). And once God finished this process of creating, on the seventh day the Creator rested.
It's interesting to note that most things in the progression of the creation story fall into line with how scientists have discovered the Earth to have come into being and evolved life. With that, we have our very first biblical genealogy of... the universe. The story even ends the way the familial genealogies do. "These are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created." (Gen 2:4) We also get the first, albeit indirect, mention of the divine court. In Gen 1:26, "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image...'" Now, I'd like to point out that little translation footnote that pops up at the bottom of your page, at least throughout the sections I'll be discussing today. In Hebrew, the word that means "humankind" or "man," until a woman is on the scene, is adam. My footnote (and my mom), told me that in Hebrew, species are always designated by the masculine and feminine forms of the word, except for adam. "No creature born of earth ('adamah) is yet a fitting partner." But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I was still talking about the first creation story.
What's that? There's only one? Nope. The first one is very mystical and full of warm fuzzies, with God kickin' back at the end and having a little holiday...holy day... see what I did there? Okay, I'm a little sorry for that one. Anyway, after God rests, we back-track to what seems like day number two. We've got heavens and earth, but no vegetation yet. While a stream is rising forth from the earth, as it seems wont to do, God forms an adam from the dust, and breathes life into, well, it. Now that God's got a human, what's God to do with it? Let's give it a garden to tend with plenty of food to eat, and only one rule (Don't touch that special tree). The human got lonely though, so then God made the animals with the purpose of the human finding a partner. Now, if this weren't before one of those special trees... that could have a whole other kind of terrible, spoiling of innocence type meanings, but the human didn't know about any of that yet. Still, as we know none of the animals were a suitable partner, so God created another human from the first human... and here's where physical sex differentiation comes in. The first human is in the habit of naming things, like all those animals, so he names himself Man, and his partner Woman (ish and ishshah respectively). Nakedness and innocence abounded.
Enter stage left: the serpent. Sneaky little creepy temptress. It uses doubt and curiosity (one of the best and most dangerous traits of humanity), to persuade the woman into eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and because everyone else was doing it, so did the man. In that split second, they became ashamed of their nakedness and tried to hide it. Bad call, 'cause now they've been caught red handed and won't admit it without blaming someone else. The man even blames God for it because God gave him the woman. So what happens now that everyone's guilty and shameful? Well, the serpent (and his family forever) is cursed to crawl on it's belly and be hated by the woman and her children (forever). The woman has to suffer during childbirth, and be subservient to her husband, yep, husband. And the man? Well instead of just tending a pretty garden, he and his family are cast out and made to toil for their bread. Oh yeah, there's bread now instead of just fruit to eat. Also, the ultimate punishment, now humans die. Thanks guys. Way to go... I totally wouldn't ever have done the exact same thing probably even without the serpent's tantalizing words. I never was very good at following directions.
And here we are at sin. God gave specific directions, and then backed away for a bit, allowing choice to come into play. I mean really, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil probably had seeds, and according to God's own words (see creation story numero uno) was therefore food. But God said not to eat it, and even said gave the worst of the consequences: death. They still ate it. What does that say about humans? Definitely that we're fallible. Too curious perhaps? Maybe just stupid? I mean, talked into it by a serpent? Still... we love to have that choice thing in play.
So we've got choice. We've got sin. We've got banishment and painful childbirth and toiling. How about a little murder too? By this point, the man is going by Adam, and he named his wife Eve (life-bringer). He "knew" his wife (yes, knowing her biblically, which is to say: sex, and yes this "knowledge" seems to have come from that tree), and Cain was born! By the way, so far, the bible loves punny names. Cain, in Hebrew folk etymology is "production." He was the first product of man and woman *ahem* knowing one another. He also had a brother named Abel ("emptiness, futility"), and together they had the first sibling rivalry. Cain grew crops while Abel tended sheep, and one day they both put forth an offering to God from their respective farming endeavors. God accepted Abel's, and not Cain's...for no apparent reason. I don't know about you, but I'd be pissed if that happened with my sisters and me. God calls Cain out on it, and tells him to do well in order to be accepted and not sin. So what's Cain do? Well he lures Abel to a field, kills him, and lies about it of course. Choice again, friends. What do you think would've happened if Cain just said, "Okay God, I'll try harder next time. I'll pour my heart and soul into my tomatoes just for you"? Maybe it's just me, but in reading it... it sounds a little like God is pushin' his buttons to see how far Cain'll go before he snaps. Either way, Cain chose to do a terrible thing and commit the first premeditated murder, and God punishes him by marking him, and making him wander all the days of his life.
So I know that was like, three stories all at once, but it seemed weird to break them up. They also bring up massively huge issues that are consistently struggled with, not only throughout the bible, but in theology and philosophy and art and just, life. Process. Choice. Sin. Punishment. Even on a slightly smaller scale: Women's rights, the relationship and "alienation between humans and animals" (footnote p.10), and how we figured out how to make bread.
Opinions, thoughts, comments, questions are always encouraged.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Sunday, June 16, 2013
"In Search of the Silver Lining"
Today is Father's Day here in America. Like Mother's Day, it can be loving and full of praise and wonderment at how our parents do everything that they do. On the other hand, these two days also drag strained parent-child relationships into a harsh light, or cause us to grieve anew if we are without the celebratory parent.
The Old Testament lesson today was 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15. I'm not going to go too far into the actual story yet, as it looks like it'll be cropping up in the not too distant future, but the point was that because David killed a man to have that man's wife, and therefore scorned God, "the sword shall never depart from [David's] house," and David's son with that woman died because of it. In the sermon today ("In Search of the Silver Lining"), my Associate Pastor called for us to be able to lay down our families' swords to better find the silver lining. She discussed a genetics study that discovered how a parent's childhood and stress levels can impact that parent's DNA, which in turn gets passed to his or her children. (I found one such study here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830144630.htm) So you have an anxiety prone parent? Do you also suffer from anxiety issues? How about depression running in families? I see it. I know this argument gets into Nature v. Nurture, and I don't really want to debate that now, but how often do you realize that you are acting just like one of your parents? It happens to me all the time. Mostly like my dad, but I've got mom-moments too.
Anywho, it's up to us to continue or break the cycle, and in the case of destructive relationships... lay down the sword, and move past it. My pastor also spoke candidly about her own childhood, relationship with her father, his Bipolar Disorder, and his dementia. She's not much for celebrating the parent days, but did send him a gift this year: a letter, thanking him for giving her the gift of her experiences, friends and family from Colorado. She found the silver lining to their relationship. I cried. In my last post, I mentioned my own mother's dementia, and how I'll be using her bible for this project. While I mentioned baggage associated with that, I was hardly even scratching the surface. My mother and I had a tumultuous relationship at the best of times. The number of times I screamed at her how much I hated her, ran away because I was lit up with anger (only to come back later that night), tried to move out... I don't even know anymore. A lot has happened between then and now, a lot. But now that I'm an adult and could make peace with, and maybe even befriend my mother, I can't. She can't even speak real words most of the time anymore.
So Mom, this project seems to be my letter to you, thanking you. Even though it will still be there for me to see, and remember how sharp it is, I'm laying down the sword.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
The Old Testament lesson today was 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15. I'm not going to go too far into the actual story yet, as it looks like it'll be cropping up in the not too distant future, but the point was that because David killed a man to have that man's wife, and therefore scorned God, "the sword shall never depart from [David's] house," and David's son with that woman died because of it. In the sermon today ("In Search of the Silver Lining"), my Associate Pastor called for us to be able to lay down our families' swords to better find the silver lining. She discussed a genetics study that discovered how a parent's childhood and stress levels can impact that parent's DNA, which in turn gets passed to his or her children. (I found one such study here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830144630.htm) So you have an anxiety prone parent? Do you also suffer from anxiety issues? How about depression running in families? I see it. I know this argument gets into Nature v. Nurture, and I don't really want to debate that now, but how often do you realize that you are acting just like one of your parents? It happens to me all the time. Mostly like my dad, but I've got mom-moments too.
Anywho, it's up to us to continue or break the cycle, and in the case of destructive relationships... lay down the sword, and move past it. My pastor also spoke candidly about her own childhood, relationship with her father, his Bipolar Disorder, and his dementia. She's not much for celebrating the parent days, but did send him a gift this year: a letter, thanking him for giving her the gift of her experiences, friends and family from Colorado. She found the silver lining to their relationship. I cried. In my last post, I mentioned my own mother's dementia, and how I'll be using her bible for this project. While I mentioned baggage associated with that, I was hardly even scratching the surface. My mother and I had a tumultuous relationship at the best of times. The number of times I screamed at her how much I hated her, ran away because I was lit up with anger (only to come back later that night), tried to move out... I don't even know anymore. A lot has happened between then and now, a lot. But now that I'm an adult and could make peace with, and maybe even befriend my mother, I can't. She can't even speak real words most of the time anymore.
So Mom, this project seems to be my letter to you, thanking you. Even though it will still be there for me to see, and remember how sharp it is, I'm laying down the sword.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Saturday, June 15, 2013
The Tale of Two Bibles
The bible I ordered arrived in the mail today! I flipped through it, read the introduction, and everything is pretty much as I expected to find it. There are brightly colored maps, lists and mini-bios of important people (both biblical and non-biblical for those who get mentioned in the notes), suggestions on how best to read each book, even different techniques to reading the bible itself. It breaks it down into three different commitment levels of reading: a few category based two week stints, a six month general overview that hits every book, and a three year plan for every word... Three years? Wow. I'm not sure I knew exactly what I was getting into here, but now that I'm here I might as well keep on going. Right? Granted, I won't actually be following their suggested way of reading as it jumps around quite a bit, and will most likely be reading more than one chapter at a time. So everything is in order, except for one small thing. Other than investigating added in discussion questions, I'm going to also be primarily using a different bible.
It belonged to my mother. I use the past tense because she's in the late stages of early onset dementia, specifically Frontotemporal Dementia. I have a matched set of baggage to go along with that; believe me. Her bible came into my possession today as well. My older sister went to visit her today, knowing about this undertaking, and pawed through the bibles she used in seminary, ministry, and personal study. My sister said she wanted to bring home about six different bibles, but settled on one. The HarperCollins Study Bible (a link will be added for those interested in this version as well). She said that it was my mother's favorite. That it was her all-inclusive, if she could only ever have one book to use forever and ever this would be it, version. She had two. One with all of her own notes and thoughts and connections... and one just with her first name written inside the front cover. The latter will now become filled with all of my notes, thoughts, and connections. I think she'd like that.
So starting Monday regular posts will begin "in the beginning..." Unless, you know, tomorrow's sermon/liturgy begs further discussion.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
It belonged to my mother. I use the past tense because she's in the late stages of early onset dementia, specifically Frontotemporal Dementia. I have a matched set of baggage to go along with that; believe me. Her bible came into my possession today as well. My older sister went to visit her today, knowing about this undertaking, and pawed through the bibles she used in seminary, ministry, and personal study. My sister said she wanted to bring home about six different bibles, but settled on one. The HarperCollins Study Bible (a link will be added for those interested in this version as well). She said that it was my mother's favorite. That it was her all-inclusive, if she could only ever have one book to use forever and ever this would be it, version. She had two. One with all of her own notes and thoughts and connections... and one just with her first name written inside the front cover. The latter will now become filled with all of my notes, thoughts, and connections. I think she'd like that.
So starting Monday regular posts will begin "in the beginning..." Unless, you know, tomorrow's sermon/liturgy begs further discussion.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
Thursday, June 13, 2013
In Order to Understand Where I'm Going...
You should probably know how I got here.
I was raised in the Presbyterian Church (USA). I went to Sunday School every single Sunday unless I had some sort of childhood contagion. My mother went from Sunday School teacher, to Church Secretary, to Associate Pastor. I knew all the stories, and hymns, and traditions. Church was something that I couldn't even believe that other people didn't participate in. In middle school, I brought my friends from school to my youth group events with such frequency, the senior staff referred to me as "the evangelical," until confirmation class at least.
I went through most of my confirmation class at my mother's church... and then dropped out, inspiring a few fellow confirmands to follow suit. That Sunday, we were talking about who gets into heaven, and who goes to hell. My Youth Pastor, who was leading the discussion, put forth that if you don't believe that Jesus Christ was your Lord and Saviour, you would end up in the fiery underworld. If you did believe, however, you were saved... but only if you believed. Being the argumentative type, I said, "Well what about Gandhi?" My Youth Pastor then essentially said that because Gandhi was Hindu, one of the most peaceful and loving people ever to have walked the planet was in hell. I simply cannot fathom that. What kind of God would do that?
I started soul-searching. A lot. I still am, and probably always will be. I've learned about all kinds of traditions, religions, and spiritualities that I otherwise may have just skipped over completely. In the last ten years, the only belief that I have consistently returned to is that there must be something greater out there than ourselves. Whether it's God, or gods, or goddesses, or karma, or even the Force. I don't know, and I'm comfortable with that.
This year has seen several sizable life changes. Somehow after ten (count 'em 10) years, I'm back attending a PC(USA) regularly. Like, an in the choir, being an adult leader at youth group, part of a bible study group kind of regular attendance. It's a little weird for me, but neither the church nor I have been struck down by hellfire or holy wrath yet. Anyways, I've decided to do something that I have never in my life ever done before. Read the whole Bible. All of it from start to finish: Genesis to Revelations... and then probably the Gnostic Gospels, too, for good measure. And aren't you lucky? I'm going to write about it.
I expect that I'll be reading the Bible from an intellectual/literary criticism perspective while bearing in mind that it is a religious text, and therefore, deeply personal. I'll be using an NRSV Study Bible (which will be arriving in the mail in the next few days) in hopes that some of the finer points of the geography and important contexts will be touched on, as well as the provision of inevitable discussion questions. As I mentioned, I do plan on reading it in the paginated order it appears between the covers, about a chapter at a time, and posting about three times a week. I'll even post about Sunday's sermon/liturgy as an occasional bonus! I do not, however, want to take this journey all by myself, hence the blog. I welcome comments, questions, discussion, links to articles or sermons or even a lesson in Hebrew or Greek. That being said, hatefulness of any kind will not be tolerated. Love your neighbor folks, am I right?
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
I was raised in the Presbyterian Church (USA). I went to Sunday School every single Sunday unless I had some sort of childhood contagion. My mother went from Sunday School teacher, to Church Secretary, to Associate Pastor. I knew all the stories, and hymns, and traditions. Church was something that I couldn't even believe that other people didn't participate in. In middle school, I brought my friends from school to my youth group events with such frequency, the senior staff referred to me as "the evangelical," until confirmation class at least.
I went through most of my confirmation class at my mother's church... and then dropped out, inspiring a few fellow confirmands to follow suit. That Sunday, we were talking about who gets into heaven, and who goes to hell. My Youth Pastor, who was leading the discussion, put forth that if you don't believe that Jesus Christ was your Lord and Saviour, you would end up in the fiery underworld. If you did believe, however, you were saved... but only if you believed. Being the argumentative type, I said, "Well what about Gandhi?" My Youth Pastor then essentially said that because Gandhi was Hindu, one of the most peaceful and loving people ever to have walked the planet was in hell. I simply cannot fathom that. What kind of God would do that?
I started soul-searching. A lot. I still am, and probably always will be. I've learned about all kinds of traditions, religions, and spiritualities that I otherwise may have just skipped over completely. In the last ten years, the only belief that I have consistently returned to is that there must be something greater out there than ourselves. Whether it's God, or gods, or goddesses, or karma, or even the Force. I don't know, and I'm comfortable with that.
This year has seen several sizable life changes. Somehow after ten (count 'em 10) years, I'm back attending a PC(USA) regularly. Like, an in the choir, being an adult leader at youth group, part of a bible study group kind of regular attendance. It's a little weird for me, but neither the church nor I have been struck down by hellfire or holy wrath yet. Anyways, I've decided to do something that I have never in my life ever done before. Read the whole Bible. All of it from start to finish: Genesis to Revelations... and then probably the Gnostic Gospels, too, for good measure. And aren't you lucky? I'm going to write about it.
I expect that I'll be reading the Bible from an intellectual/literary criticism perspective while bearing in mind that it is a religious text, and therefore, deeply personal. I'll be using an NRSV Study Bible (which will be arriving in the mail in the next few days) in hopes that some of the finer points of the geography and important contexts will be touched on, as well as the provision of inevitable discussion questions. As I mentioned, I do plan on reading it in the paginated order it appears between the covers, about a chapter at a time, and posting about three times a week. I'll even post about Sunday's sermon/liturgy as an occasional bonus! I do not, however, want to take this journey all by myself, hence the blog. I welcome comments, questions, discussion, links to articles or sermons or even a lesson in Hebrew or Greek. That being said, hatefulness of any kind will not be tolerated. Love your neighbor folks, am I right?
<3 Agnostic in the Pews
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