The readings - Day 52 - Numbers 23-25
In the early days of this particular scriptural adventure, one of the things that kept leaping out at me was the difficulties I saw in attempting to fit the Bible into a box that seems to be particularly favoured by the more fundamentalist gatherings of Christians.
I know I'm not making them up, because I grew up with some of them. I knew people growing up who steadfastly refused to believe that dinosaurs existed because they weren't specifically mentioned in the Bible.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Num. 18-22 - On keeping clean, fetching water and talking to donkeys
The readings - Days 50-51 - Numbers 18-22
Well, I'm only just reaching the two-thirds mark of Numbers, and I have to say, it's not so bad. Don't get me wrong, it started off with an almost unbelievable lack of pace, but this has been several sustained chapters of actual story - something I wasn't expecting at all.
It also turns out that I did know some stories from Numbers, I just didn't know they were from Numbers. Huh.
That said, however, there are still some dry bits, but even those tend to not be so bad. 18 starts off with, shades of Leviticus, instructions for priests as far as their duties, roles and dinner portions following sacrifices, but what struck me about this was not any of the particulars, but rather the downright casual approach to the concept of "unclean" demonstrated throughout.
Well, I'm only just reaching the two-thirds mark of Numbers, and I have to say, it's not so bad. Don't get me wrong, it started off with an almost unbelievable lack of pace, but this has been several sustained chapters of actual story - something I wasn't expecting at all.
It also turns out that I did know some stories from Numbers, I just didn't know they were from Numbers. Huh.
That said, however, there are still some dry bits, but even those tend to not be so bad. 18 starts off with, shades of Leviticus, instructions for priests as far as their duties, roles and dinner portions following sacrifices, but what struck me about this was not any of the particulars, but rather the downright casual approach to the concept of "unclean" demonstrated throughout.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Num 14-17 - "I don't want to go -- YOU CAN'T STOP ME!!!"
The readings - Days 48 & 49 - Numbers 14-17
When we last left the Israelites, they had sent a team of spies into the Promised Land. They saw an awesome spot in general, but one that was occupied by people who clearly appreciated what an awesome spot they had and had built up some pretty solid defenses, etc.
Which, and I believe I'm quoting the original Hebrew here, sucked.
When we last left the Israelites, they had sent a team of spies into the Promised Land. They saw an awesome spot in general, but one that was occupied by people who clearly appreciated what an awesome spot they had and had built up some pretty solid defenses, etc.
Which, and I believe I'm quoting the original Hebrew here, sucked.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Num. 11-13 - On oases and annoyances
The readings - Day 47 - Numbers 11-13
Well, it's been a long road, but it's finally happened. Ladies and gentlemen, we have narrative!! (Insert Price is Right or Wheel of Fortune winning music here now...)
And almost immediately we get a sort of sense as to maybe why the day-to-day episodes of Israel were less important than precisely where they set up their tents in camp.
Long story short: they're still incredibly annoying, collectively.
Well, it's been a long road, but it's finally happened. Ladies and gentlemen, we have narrative!! (Insert Price is Right or Wheel of Fortune winning music here now...)
And almost immediately we get a sort of sense as to maybe why the day-to-day episodes of Israel were less important than precisely where they set up their tents in camp.
Long story short: they're still incredibly annoying, collectively.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Num. 1-10 - On meeting expectations...
The readings - Days 42-46 - Numbers 1-10
I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that despite being 10 chapters into Numbers now, I'm still sticking with this reading-a-day plan, and it's looking good for me to actually follow through on something for once.
The bad news is that Numbers is exactly as excruciatingly boring as I had originally thought it would be.
I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that despite being 10 chapters into Numbers now, I'm still sticking with this reading-a-day plan, and it's looking good for me to actually follow through on something for once.
The bad news is that Numbers is exactly as excruciatingly boring as I had originally thought it would be.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Lev. 22-27 - on jubilation, priests and prophets
The readings - Days 39-41 - Leviticus 22-27
Yes, I'm behind. No, I'm not catching up today. Yes, I'm over it.
The final chapters of Leviticus, by and large, fall into the same category of the rest of the book - rules and laws, particularly concerning the spiritual/religious matters for the new and burgeoning nation of Israel. So far, the book has been, not to put too fine a point on it, dry.
There were two things that leapt off the page at me, however, in these final passages. The first is the fact that Moses is even part of this book at all, and the second is the concept of the Jubilee.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Lev 18-21 - Good, bad and ugly
The readings - Day 38 - Leviticus (18) 19-21
So, you rightly ask, what's with the (18) up there?
Well, it turns out that when I was doing yesterday's post I completely forgot about chapter 18. Not one for the easily blushed, that one. It's also quite socially problematic, because here's where we get the first explicit proscription against homosexuality. Well, specifically, homosexual sex. That sounds redundant... Is "homosex" a word? Is it offensive? It's easier to say, but that tends not to matter in cases like this...
Anyway, the problem here (as I see it) is that not only is it explicit, but we as a society generally accept just about every other sex statute (sextute?) listed here - don't sleep with your parents, your cousins, your sisters/brothers, don't marry a woman and her sister/mother, don't have sex with animals, whether you're a man or a woman. These are all things that we as a society - secular or religious - more or less agree on.
So, you rightly ask, what's with the (18) up there?
Well, it turns out that when I was doing yesterday's post I completely forgot about chapter 18. Not one for the easily blushed, that one. It's also quite socially problematic, because here's where we get the first explicit proscription against homosexuality. Well, specifically, homosexual sex. That sounds redundant... Is "homosex" a word? Is it offensive? It's easier to say, but that tends not to matter in cases like this...
Anyway, the problem here (as I see it) is that not only is it explicit, but we as a society generally accept just about every other sex statute (sextute?) listed here - don't sleep with your parents, your cousins, your sisters/brothers, don't marry a woman and her sister/mother, don't have sex with animals, whether you're a man or a woman. These are all things that we as a society - secular or religious - more or less agree on.
Lev. 11-17 - of scapegoats and crappy old laws...
The readings - Days 35-37 - Leviticus 11-17
It figures that the time I would fall three days behind in postings (not the readings, though - I've managed to do those each day...) would be the time when I come across some actually interesting stuff in Leviticus.
By way of quick recap before we dive in, here are some of the topics covered by these seven chapters:
It figures that the time I would fall three days behind in postings (not the readings, though - I've managed to do those each day...) would be the time when I come across some actually interesting stuff in Leviticus.
By way of quick recap before we dive in, here are some of the topics covered by these seven chapters:
- what to (and not to) eat
- childbirth
- loads on leprosy
- a bit more on health in general
- making up for stuff (atonement)
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Lev. 5-10 - all dressed up and nowhere to go but the slaughterhouse
The readings - Days 33-34 - Leviticus 5-7, 8-10
Leviticus is hard enough to read, but five months (and counting) of moderate-to-severe sleep deprivation makes it impossible some nights. Last night was one of those, so here we are with two days in one post again.
Chapter five starts us off with a discussion about guilt offerings, in fairly significant detail. There's a lot of clean/unclean talk, as tends to be expected and presented as typical in the Old Testament discussions of law and order.
What's less typical, and I don't quite know why, is the fact that despite attempts by people who don't know any better (as well as by some people who ought to ) to portray the Old Testament as ruthlessly legalistic in every way, and to counterpoint the "everyone dies no matter what" picture with the "merciful-God-of-the-New-Testament" idea, this whole chunk of text begins with the depiction of a sliding scale of justice that flies in the face of the typically presented Old Testament view.
Leviticus is hard enough to read, but five months (and counting) of moderate-to-severe sleep deprivation makes it impossible some nights. Last night was one of those, so here we are with two days in one post again.
Chapter five starts us off with a discussion about guilt offerings, in fairly significant detail. There's a lot of clean/unclean talk, as tends to be expected and presented as typical in the Old Testament discussions of law and order.
What's less typical, and I don't quite know why, is the fact that despite attempts by people who don't know any better (as well as by some people who ought to ) to portray the Old Testament as ruthlessly legalistic in every way, and to counterpoint the "everyone dies no matter what" picture with the "merciful-God-of-the-New-Testament" idea, this whole chunk of text begins with the depiction of a sliding scale of justice that flies in the face of the typically presented Old Testament view.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Lev. 1-4 - Well, that explains that...
The readings - day 32 - Leviticus 1-4
Remember yesterday? When I said something about Exodus really not having much of an ending?
I'm not so sure it actually ended... Based on the "beginning" of Leviticus (how many books really begin with the word "Then" anyway?) I've actually got several questions about how these book divisions really came about. I know that the chapter/verse splits were arbitrary and done much later, and I know that the way the text was actually recorded was very different (ALTHOUGHWITHNOREALEVIDENCETHATANYOFTHETEXTSTHATCAMEDOWNTOUSTODAYWEREACTUALAUTOGRAPHEDMANUSCRIPTSITSHARDTOSAYWHETHERTHEALLCAPSANDNOPUNCTUATIONPHENOMENONWASHOWTHEORIGINALTEXTWASLAIDOUTEITHERITCOULDJUSTASEASILYHAVEBEENALATERINNOVATIONLIKETHECHAPTERANDVERSEDIVISIONSALTHOUGHTHATRAISESAQUESTIONOFWHYANYONEWOULDTAKEAPASSAGEWITHSPACESANDPUNCTUATIONANDTURNITINTOAJUMBLEDMESSOFLETTERSTHATAREREALLYHARDTOREADBUTIDIGRESS)
Remember yesterday? When I said something about Exodus really not having much of an ending?
I'm not so sure it actually ended... Based on the "beginning" of Leviticus (how many books really begin with the word "Then" anyway?) I've actually got several questions about how these book divisions really came about. I know that the chapter/verse splits were arbitrary and done much later, and I know that the way the text was actually recorded was very different (ALTHOUGHWITHNOREALEVIDENCETHATANYOFTHETEXTSTHATCAMEDOWNTOUSTODAYWEREACTUALAUTOGRAPHEDMANUSCRIPTSITSHARDTOSAYWHETHERTHEALLCAPSANDNOPUNCTUATIONPHENOMENONWASHOWTHEORIGINALTEXTWASLAIDOUTEITHERITCOULDJUSTASEASILYHAVEBEENALATERINNOVATIONLIKETHECHAPTERANDVERSEDIVISIONSALTHOUGHTHATRAISESAQUESTIONOFWHYANYONEWOULDTAKEAPASSAGEWITHSPACESANDPUNCTUATIONANDTURNITINTOAJUMBLEDMESSOFLETTERSTHATAREREALLYHARDTOREADBUTIDIGRESS)
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Ex. 39-40 - So that's that...
The readings - Day 31 - Exodus 39-40
Well would you look at that - the end of Exodus already...
And I've got to say, it seems to go out with a whimper rather than a bang, as these last two chapters are, with only a minor exception at the very, very end, more of the same schematic-recapping of the preceding three.
To be perfectly honest, there's not all that much here - the robes are done, and the rest of the priests' garments, and the tabernacle has all of its component parts finally put into place. Sort of.
Well would you look at that - the end of Exodus already...
And I've got to say, it seems to go out with a whimper rather than a bang, as these last two chapters are, with only a minor exception at the very, very end, more of the same schematic-recapping of the preceding three.
To be perfectly honest, there's not all that much here - the robes are done, and the rest of the priests' garments, and the tabernacle has all of its component parts finally put into place. Sort of.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Ex. 36-38 - "It's okay, you've given more than enough to the church. You can stop now..."
The readings - Day 29 - Exodus 36-38
Going into this project, I knew that there would be some pretty seriously mundane sections as I plodded through the doldrums of the Old Testament (I can practically hear the shudders that might've emerged from the shocked faces of some of my more fundamentalist friends back in the day - if it weren't for the fact that a goodly portion of modern fundamentalists are also somehow convinced that the Old Testament is largely ignorable, that is...) but I hadn't pondered the possibility that there would be pretty seriously mundane sections that were basically word-for-word repeats of previous seriously mundane sections.
With that in mind, this post is probably going to be A) somewhat shorter and B) somewhat more meta than previous entries, since Ex. 36-38 is just that: a repeat and sort of summary of the stuff in and around Ex. 25 where God's issuing his specifications for the tabernacle and other religious accoutrements.
Going into this project, I knew that there would be some pretty seriously mundane sections as I plodded through the doldrums of the Old Testament (I can practically hear the shudders that might've emerged from the shocked faces of some of my more fundamentalist friends back in the day - if it weren't for the fact that a goodly portion of modern fundamentalists are also somehow convinced that the Old Testament is largely ignorable, that is...) but I hadn't pondered the possibility that there would be pretty seriously mundane sections that were basically word-for-word repeats of previous seriously mundane sections.
With that in mind, this post is probably going to be A) somewhat shorter and B) somewhat more meta than previous entries, since Ex. 36-38 is just that: a repeat and sort of summary of the stuff in and around Ex. 25 where God's issuing his specifications for the tabernacle and other religious accoutrements.
Ex. 33-35 - making up
The readings - Day 29 - Exodus 33-35
I had a fair number of expectations going in to this project, but needing to set aside the reading for a while until I stopped laughing was, if I'm honest, not on my list.
Then I started Exodus, chapter 33. Specifically, I arrived at verse 3.
That is how annoying the Israelites are. God doesn't trust Himself not to just destroy them all out of sheer frustration before He's carried out His own plan for them.
Amazing.
Turns out, the Israelites didn't find it all that funny, which I suppose is to their credit - they knew, sort of, what they'd done by this point, and seem to have had the glimmer of understanding regarding just how they'd manage to survive in the desert without a constant supply of food materializing in front of them every morning.
Luckily, here's another example of the sort of unique relationship featured in the Old Testament. Moses is in such a close relationship with God that the two regularly speak "as friends" according to the text.
From this relationship we get Moses directly interceding and changing God's mind, convincing Him to continue to be a physical presence with the Israelites,
I recently was involved in a discussion on Facebook about God, the existence of God, the ridiculousness of some attempts at disproving that existence and other things, when someone piped up with a series of random, unrelated and blatantly wrong points he felt it necessary to make, starting with the notion that the relational aspect of the Christian faith was a later innovation and wasn't actually part of the Bible.
As this passage, and the vast majority of the rest of scripture as well, proves, this is mercifully not the case.
I had a fair number of expectations going in to this project, but needing to set aside the reading for a while until I stopped laughing was, if I'm honest, not on my list.
Then I started Exodus, chapter 33. Specifically, I arrived at verse 3.
1 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, "Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, 'To your descendants I will give it.' 2 "I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. 3 "Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, because you are an obstinate people, and I might destroy you on the way."
That is how annoying the Israelites are. God doesn't trust Himself not to just destroy them all out of sheer frustration before He's carried out His own plan for them.
Amazing.
Turns out, the Israelites didn't find it all that funny, which I suppose is to their credit - they knew, sort of, what they'd done by this point, and seem to have had the glimmer of understanding regarding just how they'd manage to survive in the desert without a constant supply of food materializing in front of them every morning.
Luckily, here's another example of the sort of unique relationship featured in the Old Testament. Moses is in such a close relationship with God that the two regularly speak "as friends" according to the text.
From this relationship we get Moses directly interceding and changing God's mind, convincing Him to continue to be a physical presence with the Israelites,
I recently was involved in a discussion on Facebook about God, the existence of God, the ridiculousness of some attempts at disproving that existence and other things, when someone piped up with a series of random, unrelated and blatantly wrong points he felt it necessary to make, starting with the notion that the relational aspect of the Christian faith was a later innovation and wasn't actually part of the Bible.
As this passage, and the vast majority of the rest of scripture as well, proves, this is mercifully not the case.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Ex. 25-32 - settling
The readings - Days 25-28 - Exodus 25-32
As it turns out, this wasn't a half-bad section to fall a bit behind on, post-wise. I'm glad that I managed to keep up with the readings every day, though, because slogging through these eight chapters in one go could bog a fella down.
Taken all together, and viewed from a bit of a more distanced perspective, this is a cool chunk of text.
As it turns out, this wasn't a half-bad section to fall a bit behind on, post-wise. I'm glad that I managed to keep up with the readings every day, though, because slogging through these eight chapters in one go could bog a fella down.
Taken all together, and viewed from a bit of a more distanced perspective, this is a cool chunk of text.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Ex. 22-24 - someones vs. somethings.
The readings - Day 25 - Exodus 22-24
This will be a comparatively short post tonight, because A) it's late, B) I'm not likely to get much sleep anyway and C) lists of laws are, for the most part, pretty dry stuff.
A few of them did stand out, however.
First off, despite what Christopher Hitchens would have had you believe, many (most, in fact) of these laws make perfect sense, and are both equitable and benevolent, despite being from The Bible.
This will be a comparatively short post tonight, because A) it's late, B) I'm not likely to get much sleep anyway and C) lists of laws are, for the most part, pretty dry stuff.
A few of them did stand out, however.
First off, despite what Christopher Hitchens would have had you believe, many (most, in fact) of these laws make perfect sense, and are both equitable and benevolent, despite being from The Bible.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Ex. 19-21 - woman, mountain... it's all the... same?
The readings - Day 24 - Exodus 19-21
Well, it had to happen. I'm not sure that I realized it started this early, but I guess we are halfway through Exodus now, so the law had to come in at some point.
We were all having such a nice time, too, what with our adultery, idol-collecting, mass murder, etc, etc...
Oddly enough (or maybe not even remotely oddly...) before we actually get codified law, we get an example of very bizarre interpretation of law by a judge (Moses, in this case).
Well, it had to happen. I'm not sure that I realized it started this early, but I guess we are halfway through Exodus now, so the law had to come in at some point.
We were all having such a nice time, too, what with our adultery, idol-collecting, mass murder, etc, etc...
Oddly enough (or maybe not even remotely oddly...) before we actually get codified law, we get an example of very bizarre interpretation of law by a judge (Moses, in this case).
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