2 Chron 1-36 - yup: one whole book...

The readings - days 130-140 - 2 Chronicles 1-36

So this post, once again, will be far too short, and more than a little meta.

I thought for sure that I was caught up, or at least very far along to road to being caught up, but Chronicles had other plans, so here we are - first post in ten days and a full book behind me.

Chronicles, part deux, was better than the first, but only slightly. It had more ups than the last one did in terms of kings actually behaving themselves, and there were a few points that, while I was reading them, did actually leap out at me as being interesting. However, since I was reading through the entire book in a matter of days, and desperately trying to catch up, they were sacrificed to the god of necessary expediency, and were lost.

Speaking of idolatry, these Israelites sure were good at it. Even kings that were mostly good at not worshipping small wooden statues didn't often go all the way and disassemble other temples, home shrines, and "the high places," like they were supposed to.

Whether it's intentional or not, the Bible sure is setting up a repetitive, cyclical rhythm of Israel screwing up and then waking up, then repeating over and over again.

And then Babylon comes, destroys the Temple, along with Jerusalem, and takes everybody into captivity.

And then Persia destroys Babylon and Cyrus says to the Israelites, "yeah - you guys should probably just go ahead and head home to rebuild your temple and your city. Sorry about Nebuchadnezzar..."

Reading the closing bits of 2 Chronicles is a little like spending an hour looking through a microscope, and then to have the room bulldozed around you. The story is so wrapped up in the goings on of these two comparatively minuscule kingdoms that when a few real local superpowers come barreling through it's a pretty harsh reminder that even at the best of times, the kingdom of Israel was in a pretty precarious spot. Shame they didn't seem to really grasp that either...

And that brings us to Ezra, which will have us caught up on posts and readings by tomorrow.

1 Chronicles 18-29 - I really can't believe how boring Chronicles is...

The readings - Days 127-130 - 1 Chronicles 18-29

This is unbelievable. I was really within a day of actually getting caught up, but Chronicles is (so far, anyway) so abjectly uninspiring that it's very, very difficult to muster the motivation to post something, since I'm essentially (as I said before) trying to find something interesting to write about a boring recap of stuff that's already happened.

*sigh*

HOWEVER, there is something that shows up in the latter half of 1 Chronicles that hinges on the fact that this is a re-run.

1 Chronicles 1-17 - yawn

The readings - Days 120-126 - 1 Chronicles 1-17

Step two in the overly long process of catching up from wayyyyy behind...

Welcome to Chronicles.

It's funny - before doing this, and having already read Chronicles (or, at least, most of it), I would have answered the question "what's the single most tedious book in the Bible?" with either Numbers or Leviticus, having never read either of them.

I would have been wrong. This book, in a nutshell, is boring.

The first nine chapters are entirely composed of genealogies.

Nine. Chapters.

Of names.

Yes, it's that boring.