Author: admin

Week 1  Genesis 6

A year ago I read the story of the sons-of-God & daughters-of-men. I didn’t know what to make of it then so just figured I’d let-it-be.
So anyway by pure luck this week I chanced on a reading that sounded like Genesis 6. It’s in The Book of Enoch. Part of it said: and it came to pass, when the sons of men had increased, that in those days there were born to them fair and beautiful daughters. And the Angels, the sons of Heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another: “Come, let us choose for ourselves wives, from the children of men, and let us beget, for ourselves, children”…And they took wives for themselves, and everyone chose for himself, one each. And, they began to go into them, and were promiscuous with them. And they taught them charms, and spells, and they showed them the cutting of roots and trees. And they became pregnant and bore large giants.
At first I really thought I was onto something. Enoch’s view that the sons-of-Heaven were bad angels is a detail that’s a bit fuzzy in Genesis 6. Maybe Enoch’s right. But what about other details? For instance Enoch names 18 bad angels. Is that actually correct?
Managing the bible’s own data is hard enough without adding unknown ingredients to the mix. I figure I’m no farther ahead than I was last year.

Note: quote from The Book of Enoch 6:1-7:6 translated by M. Knibb 1978 (http://www.bookofenoch.org/ENOCH-McCracken2020.pdf)

Week 1  Genesis 5

Enoch caught my attention because he was described a bit differently than the other men in the Adam-to-Noah list.
He also caught my attention because I was reading about him last December – about three weeks ago. The NT letter from Jude said that Enoch said: the Lord is coming with thousands of his holy ones. He will bring the people of the world to judgment. He will convict the ungodly of all the evil things they have done…and of all the insults that godless sinners have spoken against him.
I remember checking for the cross-reference to Jude’s quote and found out that Enoch actually didn’t say this back in Genesis. So I made a mental note of that and since I’m reading about Enoch I spent some time figuring out who Jude was quoting. I had to go outside-the-bible.
Turns out that Jude was quoting Enoch but he wasn’t quoting the OT.
Turns out that Enoch wrote a book called The Book of Enoch and in it he said: and behold! He comes with ten thousand Holy Ones to execute judgement upon them, and to destroy the impious, and to contend with all flesh, concerning everything that the sinners, and the impious, have done and wrought against Him.
So Jude’s version is more an idea-for-idea rendition than a word-for-word quote. Maybe he wrote it from memory.

Note: quotes from Jude 14-15 (NLT) and The Book of Enoch 1:9 translated by M. Knibb 1978 & found today at http://www.bookofenoch.org/ENOCH-McCracken2020.pdf

Week 1  Genesis 5

The chapter begins: this is the written account of Adam’s line. The list of family names takes up the whole chapter and goes from Adam to Noah.
The list covers a long period of time and (likely) skips a lot of people. Only the key players are named: Adam Seth Enosh Kenan Mahalalel Jared Enoch Methuselah Lamech Noah (it seems like the writer is moving us  along toward the big story about Noah).
Adam and Noah are the best known and most famous people on the list but the most interesting one is Enoch: Enoch lived in close fellowship with God…He enjoyed a close relationship with God throughout his life. Then suddenly he disappeared because God took him.
Enoch is interesting because the bible says he had a close relationship with God. The bible doesn’t say that Adam Seth Enosh Kenan Mahalalel Jared Methuselah or Lamech didn’t have a close relationship with God. But it doesn’t say that they did either.
Enoch is also interesting because it says that suddenly he disappeared because God took him. Which makes it seem like he didn’t die a normal death. The bible doesn’t say that about Adam Seth Enosh Kenan Mahalalel Jared Methuselah or Lamech. Just that each one of them died.
So Enoch is unique in this list and I wonder what-all else he did.

Note: quotes from Genesis 5:1 22-24 (NIV).

Week 1  Genesis 4

The sequel to the Cain & Abel story is about Cain and his family. It’s a pretty surprising follow-up. Cain had murdered his brother. He was a fugitive…on-the-lam for years. So why feature him?
But Cain is listed: two wives (Adah & Zillah). Three sons (Jabal & Jubal & Tubal-Cain). One daughter (Naamah).
Even though Cain’s family is important enough to be listed they’re not exactly important in the bible’s story. So why feature them?
What I’m gradually seeing is that Genesis features a) One Main Family (Abraham) and b) Other Secondary Families (everyone else).
I know the writer’s got this in mind because a) I know I’ll have to read a bunch of names and b) they’re not all about Abraham. The writer refers to The Cain Family but he also lists The Ham Family & The Japheth Family & The Ishmael Family & The Lot Family & The Esau Family (I did a quick spot-check).
The writer considers all the candidates. The Other Secondary Families are registered but then get set aside. Only the One Main Family is featured.
I’ve read the name lists in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 and so I know that the One Main Family list in Genesis is going to narrow down during centuries of family life until it gets to The Main Person. The Main Person is the terminal family member of the One Main Family.
It’s something to keep in mind (even if knowing it doesn’t mean I won’t be doing some monotonous reading).

Week 1  Genesis 4

There are a few cases in the bible where a guy kills his brother but the first one is Cain killing Abel.
About three weeks ago I was reading the book of Hebrews and I jotted down a verse reference since I knew I’d soon be reading about Cain & Abel. It said: it was by faith that Abel brought a more acceptable offering to God than Cain did. God accepted Abel’s offering to show that he was a righteous man. And although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us because of his faith.
It was a bit of a consolation for me because I don’t ever read about Cain & Abel without have a feeling of how unfair things turned out for Abel. But his faith is still speaking. (By contrast Cain is silent…probably because his faith is non-existent.)
So anyway about two weeks after that I was reading Revelation where the seven seals were broken one-by-one. With the fifth seal John saw: the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their witness. They called to the Lord “O Sovereign Lord…when will you avenge our blood against these people?”
It was a bit of a consolation for me because I got a reminder that no matter how long it takes Cain will eventually be called to account for what he did.

Note: quotes from Hebrews 11:4 & Revelation 6:9-10 (NLT)

Week 1  Genesis 1

A couple of years ago I realized that the bible could be divided into two pieces. There’s:
Piece #1 – the first 3 chapters of Genesis (the short piece)
Piece #2 – the other 1186 chapters of the bible (the long piece).
I know that it’s not a very helpful division for a bible-reader since the two pieces are so unbalanced it’s almost like having no division.
On the other hand it’s a useful key to have in mind since Piece #1 tells me what used to be but now isn’t. Then Piece #2 gets the lion’s share of space to explain the situation now – what is.
I read Piece #1 and wondered what’s my most important take-away. I decided it was this: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Everything expands from there. The void. The darkness. The water. Light heaven earth oceans vegetation sun-moon-stars sea-animals birds land-animals humans. All pretty interesting. All pretty secondarily important. The main things is that: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Personally I think that I’d still have The Most Important Thing in hand even if the rest of chapter 1 and all of 2 & 3 was lost.

Note: quote from Genesis 1:1 (NASB). Added note: I’m left with a bit of a dilemma: what do I do with Genesis 3? It’d really be too bad to lose it. For now I’ll rank the content of Piece #1 in this order-of-importance: 1) Most Important (Genesis 1:1) then 2) Really Important (Genesis 3) and finally 3) Important (Genesis 1:2-2:25).

Week 52  New Year’s Eve

Tomorrow is Sunday, January 1, 2023.
In one way December 31 can be an optimistically-forecastive day. But it can also be an annoyingly subversive day because even if I feel pretty good about accomplishing my reading goal for 2022 (and I do) I’m also staring into the not-necessarily-friendly face of 2023. Tomorrow I start all over again. Right back at square one.
I try reminding myself that the 365 days of 2023 don’t all happen tomorrow. Tell myself that things work on the One-Day-at-a-Time Model.
My plan is to read 100 chapters per month – about three-a-day. Just like last year I’ll add one psalm per-day to the schedule. The psalms are a nice change-up. The other good thing about tacking-on a psalm is that I’m  consistently reading four chapters a day (which means that bit-by-bit I’m getting ahead of schedule. At that rate I could be close to 150 chapters ahead of schedule by the end of June).
I know things won’t work out exactly according to plan. There’ll be a lot of shuffling adjusting adapting & modifying going on. There’ll be a lot of situations accidents unexpecteds predicaments circumstances emergencies and like that. 2023 will randomly mutate on me. No question that some days will be better than others.
So anyway I decided to read Psalm 1 today as a way to get a small jump-start on tomorrow. It’s a good psalm…one of the bible’s reminders of a stark & basic & simple contrast between everyone who’s ever been.

Week 52  Revelation 17

After John had had his baffling vision an angel came to him and said: why are you so amazed? I will tell you the mystery.
At first that sounded like good news for John…and good news for me. But by the end of the chapter I realized that the angel’s idea of an explanation wasn’t the same as mine (a partial explanation doesn’t do-the-trick when I’m wanting comprehensive disclosure).
The angel did (of course) clarify several things:
The seven heads are actually seven kings…
Five kings have already come-and-gone…
The “beast” is one of the kings…
The ten horns are ten other kings…
The “beast” & the kings will destroy Babylon…
They’ll all wage war against the Lamb.
This is all useful to know and I have to admit that I am farther ahead by the end of the chapter. But not as far as I’d like to be. The angel’s explanation left things unexplained. No one is identified. No dates are given.
In quantitative terms I wonder how much of an explanation this really was? Maybe 25%. Hard to say. But in my view a low explanation-number.
Anyway this is an interesting dilemma for a bible-reader. Do I just accept that being in-the-partial-dark is the best I can expect? Or am I free to start guessing…filling in some blanks?
For now I figure it’s better to function in dimly-lit certainty than operate in the full light of guesswork. See what develops over time.

Note: quote & paraphrases in Revelation 17:7 9 10 13 14 16

Week 52  Genesis

Yesterday I decided to try creating a Top 25 Most Important People in Genesis list.
On my first pass-through I selected these people:
Adam Eve Cain Abel Seth Noah Shem Ham Japheth Abraham Sarah Lot Melchizedek Hagar Ishmael Isaac Rebekah Laban Jacob Esau Rachel Leah Zilpah Bilhah Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Dinah Joseph. There’s 36 so…too many.
Unfortunately I’d thought all 36 were important so I wondered who to take off the list. There’s a couple of nasty guys and some bit players. Cain is a murderer. Esau’s a thug. I scratch both of them. I hesitate before subtracting Ham Japheth Lot Melchizedek Hagar Ishmael & Laban (I had to remove a couple of heavies). That leaves me with:
Adam Eve Abel Seth Noah Shem Abraham Sarah Isaac Rebekah Jacob Rachel Leah Zilpah Bilhah Reuben Simeon Levi Judah Dan Naphtali Gad Asher Issachar Zebulun Dinah Joseph. 36 – 9 = 27.
I’m in a jam now. I go through the list a couple more times and finally take out Dinah – she’s important but in Genesis not as much as her 12 brothers. I’m down to 26. Alternatively I could bounce Zilpah & Bilhah and keep Dinah. Then I’m at exactly 25 but – let’s face it – by now it’s just a flip-a-coin decision where I’m scrambling to reach the Magic Number.
In the end I decide I’ll change the exercise. My new assignment: pick the Top 27 Most Important People in Genesis.
Those 27 people are my core group.

Week 52  Genesis

I finished reading Revelation on Monday the day after Christmas. That left me with five days before I start all-over again in Genesis.
Since I had a bit of spare time I was thinking about all the names in Genesis.
If someone asked me: ‘how many names do you think are in Genesis’ I’d say: ‘about 1000’.
But that’s a guess so I decided to test my guess experimentally.
On Tuesday & Wednesday I scan-read the book of Genesis and counted names. I was looking for names only and I tried to not let the stories slow me down. I counted names chapter-by-chapter and recorded them on a sheet of green construction paper. I tried to count names only once (I might have registered a couple of unknown names twice). I was surprised to see that about a dozen chapters had no new names (no names not already mentioned before).
In the end I counted 377 names (so my estimate of 1000 was crazily inflated and might be an example of the feeling I have that things that I don’t like are bigger in my head than they are in testable actuality).
I wondered if I could create a list of Most Important to Least Important People in Genesis that included all 377 people (but I didn’t seriously wonder about it for long). I wondered if I could pick the Top 25 Most Important People in Genesis.
Hmmm. I think that’s do-able. I might try it tomorrow.