Bible Reading Notes

I tried to read the Bible. I think it went well. Grand Funk Railroad's "Grand Funk" album was playing in the background. I like it.

I started out in Matthew, trying to find out about Jesus. I started reading, but soon found myself reading and interpreting the Bible through my "churched" eyes, a mindset that skips over phrases because I've heard them so many times (the Messiah, the Son of Abraham, etc). So I asked God, even though I don't know how that works, to let me read the Bible through an unfiltered lens (or at least not a "churched" lens). I think I might have gotten my wish, but we'll have to check back later to see.

So in 1:23 when it explains that the meaning of Emmanuel is "God with us," I had to think-if I've never read the Bible before, if this is my first time to pick up the book, I wouldn't know who God is. So I flipped to Genesis, because I know it started with a list of the things that God has done. I wonder if that's a valid way of defining an entity. Is a person defined by what they do?

Anyway, in the first chapter of Genesis, it tells that God created the heavens and the earth. Which, if you think about it, is pretty impressive. It's almost hard to believe. I mean, shit. Way to go, God. You made a lot of shit, in a good way. There are trees and dirt and whales and flowers and smells. Quite an accomplishment.

After it says the part about making Earth, the Bible tells how "...God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. What I'm concerned with is that God made something and then saw that it was good. This implies that He had to wait to see the finished project to determine if it was satisfactory or not. It's almost as if God did a trial and error type thing, kinda like when bands try to change their sound. If it works, we'll keep it--if not, we're going back to the old stuff.

My question is, what does this mean? Am I getting hung up over semantics? Am I just supposed to dwell on the fact that light itself is good?

Also, verse 6 of Chapter 2, God creates the dome over the waters so that will "separate the waters from the waters." What are the second waters God speaks of? Is it that heaven is has water like earth has water? Are heaven and earth similar?

By the way, this creation story sounds a lot like a story you hear Native Americans tell their grandchildren in movies on TV. Very mystical, very alluring, very Lion King-esque.

When God does the creating, it describes Him as speaking it into being, essentially talking to Himself, because there's no one else there. Maybe it's inherent for humans to talk to themselves. But in seriousness, why did He speak creation into existence? Is that just the only way we can understand what He was doing? If it said "and God thought it, and it was," we wouldn't know what that would be like. We would have no reference point. But most everyone speaks. Some speak with authority, such as employers. I wonder what the significance of him speaking is.

In verse 13, it says that God created trees and made land and sea, and then "there was evening and there was morning." However, in verse 14, God creates the sun and moon. He already made Day and Night in verse 5, but how can he make Day and Night, have evening and morning, but have no sun? Where was the light coming from, and also, what was its purpose?

In verse 29, God tells the humans that "I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food." And in the next verse, God includes that "to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." It doesn't say God gave humans the plant yielding seed, tree with seed in its fruit, and animals for food. Interesting.

It's almost as if 2:7 is correcting the beginning of the Bible. In chapter 1, it says that the vegetation and stuff was created, then God made man. But it says in chapter 2 that "In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up...then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." A contradiction, this early in the ballgame.

I wonder what the tree of life does. The story tells the side effects of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but it never says anything about the tree of life.

Again with the trial and error stuff: 2:18, God decides that man shouldn't be alone and that he needs a partner. So he creates all the animals and birds and has Adam name them, but to no avail--"for the man there was not found a helper as his partner." Did God think man could be fulfilled by animal companions alone, a thought that he later found false? The reason he couldn't find a suitable companion for man is because man desired a being that is "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh," essentially, someone like him.

It seems that whoever wrote Genesis was taking an existing story (the one that sounds like Native American folklore) and adding commentary where needed (chapter 2). Chapter 3 seems like it continues the story from the end of chapter 1.

I'm confused. In 3:8-21, the story is heartbreaking. It sounds like God is this optimistic father wanting to hang out with his kids, who is then shocked and unable to believe what Adam and Eve had done. Then He gets really mad at everyone (out of love, it seems) and curses everything (sidenote, everything is cursed because of Adam and Eve, not just humans--snakes and the ground too).

But then, in verse 22, God consults with himself. He's basically like "oh no! The humans know good from evil. If they eat the fruit of the tree of life, they will be just like us! We must stop this." So he sends them away and guards the garden. The story is no longer of a loving parent but of a god who is trying to hold onto his authority at any cost. Is the only thing different between us and God the ability to live forever? That's what this story makes it seem like. That is why I think this story isn't real, but fable, myth, illustration.

6:13 Man may be violent by nature, but the earth was not intended to have violence in it.

Again with the trial and error--6:5-6. God was actually sorry that he mad humanity. Yikes.

This doesn't sound like God knows everything. In 8:21, God says "I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth..." It seems like God is learning something about humanity for the first time, something that he didn't know before. It's as if he learned how to deal with humans, whereas before He just flew off the handle. Also, what does it mean for human hearts to be evil from youth? Does that mean we are inherently evil? If so, why would we be that way? Was it something that God got wrong, that he mixed too much bone marrow with soul and accidentally got the side effect of evil? Even if that question goes unsolved, we can still ask what it means to be evil from youth. What does that mean? Does it have an effect on how we live? Probably. And how is there such a being that was created in the image of God, yet is inherently evil? Or am I reading this wrong? Is "human hearts have been evil from youth" saying something different than "humans are inherently evil?" Does it mean that humans have just been acting with evil in them for a long time? Does that mean that God has evil inherently in Him as well?

So far, what have I taken from this? I've taken that it seems like God does a trial and error thing (light, humans living in a garden with the trees there too, humanity itself). And it seems like each human who has interacted with God has done a good thing, then done something stupid. Good, then bad. Hmm. A lot of questions and no answers.