Week 1 Genesis
The Noah story takes up a big chunk of the first section in Genesis. I wondered how big so I tallied Genesis 1-11 and came up with an estimate of 289-verses. Of the 289 129 were about Noah. Meaning Noah got the lion’s share of those chapters – almost 45% . That’s way more than any other story; twice as much as the creation of the whole world story.
So Noah & the Flood is long. It’s also kind of bleak; sobering; frightening.
One thing I saw right at the beginning – almost like an explanatory intro – was this: the Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
I guess lots of people read the Flood as a story of a god who’s ruthless tyrannical unfeeling destructive hateful murderous genocidal – like that. So the God-with-the-pain-filled-heart bumps up against that idea. The God-with-the-pain-filled-heart is a part of the mix. Which reminds me that while I’m reading through I need to keep all my pieces in play. I don’t know how many rules there are for reading through but that’s gotta be one of them: you don’t get to keep or discard what you want.
Which is one thing that makes reading through a bit more demanding than it already is.
Note: quote from Genesis 6:5-6 (NIV)