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Week 1 Genesis 11

Yesterday I looked at family name lists – 32 verses of names in chapter ten and 23 more in chapter eleven.
But sandwiched into the middle of those 55-verses is the story of the Tower of Babel and I notice a couple of things in chapter ten that relate to the Babel story…
Japheth’s family: became the seafaring people in various lands, each tribe with its own language.
Nimrod: built the foundation of his empire in the land of Babylonia, with the cities of Babel, Erech (etc.)…
Descendants of Ham were: identified according to their tribes, languages, territories, and nations.
During Peleg’s lifetime: the people of the world were divided into different language groups and dispersed.
Descendants of Shem were: identified according to their tribes, languages, territories, and nations.
In summary the Noah group of families was: listed nation by nation…the earth was populated with the people of these nations after the Flood.
So it looks like the Tower of Babel story of language & dispersal is out of chronological order because chapter ten talks pretty matter-of-factly about national & tribal & language differences and geographic dispersion. The Babel story in chapter eleven might legitimately fit just as well before chapter ten.
It’s another reminder to me that the writer had his goals in mind and he also had to make editorial decisions about content sequencing. So I take this as a heads-up reminder to not read Genesis like I’m a robot.

Note: quotes from Genesis 10:4, 10, 20, 25, 31, 32 (NLT)

Week 1 Genesis

A list of names is hard to read through and my typical bible-reader’s default is to tell myself the lists aren’t too important. But it’s hard to dispute the importance of two family lists in the first section of Genesis.
One is in chapter five. It starts with Adam & Seth and goes right down to Noah. That chapter ends like this: by the time Noah was 500 years old, he had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
The names stop right there while the long and riveting story of Noah & the Flood takes up the next four chapters. But once the great aquatic reset is done the family list picks up in chapter 10 right where it left off: this is the history of the families of Shem, Ham, and Japheth (if you took out the Flood story you’d sail directly from SH&J in 5:32 to SH&J in 10:1).
Japheth has four verses in chapter ten listing his family…Ham fifteen…& Shem eleven. You’d get the impression that Ham was important because he’s given more space than his brothers. But that’s not true because the writer comes back to Shem in chapter 11 and works through another seventeen-verses of names that start with Shem and end with Abraham.
It’s pretty normal for a bible reader to dismiss names. But Adam & Noah & Abraham are an impressive line-up. And you figure the writer had his reasons for adding them to the story.

Note: quotes from Genesis 5:32 & 10:1 (NLT)

Week 1 Genesis

A couple of years ago a guy asked me what I made of the story about the Sons of God (SoG) and the Daughters of Men (DoM). I told him I didn’t know.
The main mystery and big question is: who are the SoG? I’m pretty sure the DoM are regular natural biological females. If the SoG are biological males why not just call them Sons of Men? Why use a confusing figure of speech? But what if SoG doesn’t refer to natural men?
And then the reference to Nephilim doesn’t help much. Two bibles I check give the impression that these men-of-renown are contemporaries of the SoG & the DoM – but not really connected to them otherwise. But a third bible makes it sound different. First it calls Nephilim giants (physical giants I think). And then it adds: for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with human women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes mentioned in legends of old. Implying the SoG were not (purely) biological males. Q: if they weren’t human…what exactly were they?
I didn’t have an answer for the guy then and I still don’t. But I do have a kind of bible reader’s rule-of-thumb for passages like this. I tell myself that if I can’t make good sense of content I shouldn’t be satisfied with nonsense. Also…don’t guess. Be willing to walk away. There’s always next time.

Note: quote from Genesis 6:4 (NLT)

Week 1 Psalm 3

I read the third psalm today.
Over on the right-hand side of the page – separated from the text – is the word “Selah”. It’s written after verses 2 & 4 & 8.
The marginal note in my bible says “Selah” might mean: Pause, Crescendo, or Musical interlude. I look at a different bible and it has the word “Interlude” written in place of “Selah”.
Psalm 3 doesn’t say anything about music in the subtitle but I glance down and see that the next six psalms do. David wrote all six and addressed them to the choir director (except psalm seven) – he even specified instrumentation.
If some of the psalms are musical psalms – if they’re lyrics set to music – then me sitting here reading them in silence is different from a Hebrew guy listening to them performed musically. How different? I looked up the lyrics of a song I heard last week (I couldn’t figure out the words the guy was singing). I read the lyrics. How different was reading lyrics from hearing them performed to music? Very.
And what if there’s even more to it than that? What if the “Selah” is tipping me off about something structural…maybe something like verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus? Or what if it’s got a Hebrew rhyme scheme…maybe some equivalent to ABAB? Or what if there’s two-thousand year-old figures of speech?
I came away a nagging feeling that – whatever all I might be getting from my reading – with the musical psalms I’m still missing something.

Week 1  Reading the Psalms

This year I’m aiming at reading one psalm per day.
My general rule in reading-through is to start at page one and keep turning pages. But the psalms face me with two problems.
The first is qualitative. The psalms are tight & focused & concentrated writing. It’s like they ask: why use a hundred words when ten will do? The Psalms are Qualitatively Different from narrative or history. I can’t read them the same way.
I think the reading-comprehension mechanism works like this: I have a (basically predetermined) Personal Absorptive Capacity – meaning that at some point I can’t take in any more. But an added feature is that my Absorptive Capacity is not uniform across different literatures. For example I could read ten chapters in Genesis and (more or less) keep my brain on track. If I try reading ten psalms I’m derailed after the first couple. Psalms are qualitatively different.
My second (and related) concern is quantitative. In my bible the Old Testament is 1334 pages long. Out of those 1334 pages the psalms run from page-763 to page-896. Which means they take up 133 pages – about 9.97001% of my OT. If I’m doing an unmodified consecutive reading plan I might need to read ten psalms in a day. I guess I could read the words but I’d start tailing-off before I’m done. The quantity would kill me.
I can manage the quality & quantity better by reading one psalm per day. [I’m hoping to read everything else in order.]

Week 1 Genesis 2

A long time ago a guy told me Genesis was screwy because it told two different creation stories. So it left me asking which one was the “real” story? Creation Story #1 or Creation Story #2?
I figure the answer is: both. I think it works something like this…
I saw an educational video where a guy was discussing a painting. It’s a picture of four people in a 1940s American diner. The inside is brightly-lit but outside the street is pretty dark & totally empty.
The guy doing the video suddenly focused on a very small detail of a couple sitting together – the left hand of the woman and the right hand of the man. The thing the guy talked about was the distance between the hands and what that meant.
None of the viewers complained that the guy was jerking them around and showing two different pictures. There was the one big picture…and then a smaller explicit detail.
And it looks to me like Creation Story #2 in Genesis 2 is a detail of Creation Story #1 in Genesis 1.
The Genesis writer concludes Creation Story #1 by saying: this is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth.
It would have helped if he’d then said something like: now I’m going to focus your attention on a smaller detail of this big story. But he didn’t. He left me to dope that one out for myself.

Note: quote from Genesis 2:4 (NLT). The painting is Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.

Week 1 Genesis 1

The bible maps out the big ideas for a me: my personal life & value…my world…my actions…my destiny and like that.
And right here in verse one it explains where everything and everyone came from: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Revelation is the last book in the bible so that puts it as far away from Genesis as it could be. However…when I’m reading-through consecutively I finish Revelation 22 on December 31 and the next day – presto! – I’m reading Genesis. They’re about as close as you can get.
So I was reading Revelation a few days ago where John saw 24 elders worshipping the Lord and he heard them say: you are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.
If I shift the Revelation-pieces around John says that…
a) the Lord created everything
b) because of that his glory-honor-power should be recognized – and
c) therefore he should be worshipped.
Genesis only tells me about point a). But John takes it along to b) & c).
Which is a good reminder…Genesis 1:1 is a fully accurate statement but it’s not a fully developed one.
Which also reminds me that what I read today might not be the one-and-only thing said about a topic.

Note: quotes from Genesis 1:1 & Revelation 4:11 (NLT)

Week 52 Day 365

Tomorrow I’ll start reading through the bible.
My goal will be to read about 100 chapters per month (there’s 1189 chapters in the bible so…1189 divided by 12 = ~99.08 chapters/month).
The plan I used this year goes like this:
January: Genesis 1 – Leviticus 10
February: Leviticus 11 – Joshua 24
March: Judges – I Kings
April: II Kings – Ezra
May: Nehemiah – Psalm 35
June: Psalm 36 – 150
July: Proverbs – Isaiah
August: Jeremiah – Ezekiel
September: Daniel – Malachi
October: Gospels – Acts 10
November: Acts 11 – Philemon
December: Hebrews – Revelation
Even though that’s my basic plan I’ve already decided to deviate from it. I’m going to read one psalm per day (give-or-take) plus my scheduled readings – that worked  pretty well for me last year.
I remember that I made one unplanned-deviation last year – instead of reading all the histories back-to-back I took a break after 2 Kings and read Isaiah. (On April 19/21 I explained the adjustment this way: for some reason the thought of starting in on Chronicles today seemed too weighty so I’ve decided not to keep reading in bible order. (Whatever that meant.))
As far as plans and resolutions go December 31 is maybe the easiest day of the year. I get to sketch-out my hypothetical future.
Things start to get more complicated on January 1 when I try to impose my plan on 2022…and when 2022 starts imposing its plans on me.

Week 52 Revelation

Right at the very end of Revelation John slides in a final Bible-Reader’s Advisory: if anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book. And if anyone removes any of the words of this prophetic book, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city.
The tone is pretty serious & threatening but I can get past its psychic weight without much trouble. I figure John’s giving me a stripped-down statement of potential outcomes. He’s trying to help me out.
I have two Not-To-Dos:
…don’t add anything to Revelation.
…don’t subtract anything from Revelation.
And John already gave me one To-Do: blessed are those who obey the prophecy written in the scroll.
So now I have three things. Don’t add to Revelation. Don’t subtract from it. Obey it.
In two days I’ll start reading Genesis. My Big Goal is reading-through in 2022. But after reading John’s advisory I’m penciling-in a couple of sub-goals:
A) Read-through
B1) Don’t add outside ideas
B2) Don’t take anything away
B3) Obey what I read.
When I sit here looking at the list I see that I’ve just made reading-through more complicated (in the case of B1 & B2 a bit more demanding; with B3 it’s quite a bit more). And even though I know John was specifically talking about Revelation I figure I’ll generalize it to all…stay on the safe-side.

Note: quotes from Revelation 22:18-19 & 22:7 (NLT).

Week 52 Revelation

The word beast is used roughly 117 times in the bible. Out of the 117 John uses the word 36 times in Revelation (~31%).
The majority of times in the bible beast refers to generic run-of-the-mill animals…dogs cows lions and like that. But not in Revelation. John’s references are to non-regular animals.
I do a quick survey to see what I can find out about the beast in Revelation.
First thing is that there isn’t just one beast – there’s two. One comes from the sea…Beast #1. The other comes from the earth…Beast #2.
Beast #1 has 7 heads & 10 horns and is authorized by the dragon.
Beast #2 has 2 horns and he’s a mouthpiece for the dragon.
The two Beasts are in cahoots – Beast #1 validates Beast #2 and Beast #2 performs miracles & makes people worship Beast #1 & brings an inanimate image of Beast #1 to life & and pressures people to get marked with the number 666.
(It looks like Beast #2 is also called the False Prophet – the descriptions of the two are similar.)
Beast #1 seems to be the ringleader but both are linked to the dragon in a trinity of badness.
Which means that in the end the Devil (dragon) & Beast #1 & the False Prophet (Beast #2) end up in the lake-of-fire.
When I review what I’ve found I feel that I know more about the two beasts than before. But I also notice there’s quite-a-bit I still don’t know.

Notes: ideas taken from Revelation 13:1 & 11, 12-18, 16:13-14. False Prophet/Beast #2 16:13, 19:20, 20:10. [Added note: beast in Daniel also refers to non-animals.]