Week 1 Genesis 1-24
Reading through means reading everything.
If I don’t read everything, if I don’t read the names, then I didn’t read through.
There’s a bit of a technique to reading names. I think of it like oil thinning slickly over the surface of a hot pan. I shimmer across the pages’ surface, glancing at unrecognizable names, roll fleetingly over clusters of letters and slide over the black markings on the page.
I put a credit card under the line of names and draw it down the page steadily, quickly enough to only let names register on my eyes, not sounding them out, not concerned with pronunciation. Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah slip across my line of vision, meaningless names. I try to stay in focus. I notice a narrative bit: Nimrod was a mighty hunter before God. I see tribal names: Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites. Family land holdings are geographically located with vague directions, as though the writer figured the reader ought to know where Mesha is in relation to Sephar.
Reading slickly I remember almost none of it. I’m not trying to remember; this isn’t a memorization exercise. I’m reading to read through a certain type of written material, using a reading technique I won’t use in other places.
I’ve just read Genesis 10, the family list of Noah, read it quickly, like hot oil, its surface now superficially filmed over.
Note: MHJ estimate: if Genesis 10 takes me more than 2.5 minutes to read it’s taking too long.