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.
Showing posts with label genealogy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genealogy. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Ruth - A breath of fresh air
The readings - Day 85 - Ruth (all four chapters)
Well we're finally out of the book of Judges. Sweet.
The relationship between Judges and Ruth is interesting to me. In Judges, we got a very macro-level view of the goings-on in Israel, and for the most part, they were appalling. Covenants broken, punishments doled out left, right and centre, and generally terrible people doing terrible things. There were glimmers of hope, etc, to be sure, but few and far between. I don't think anyone would try to argue that Judges is an optimistic book.
That's why reading Ruth immediately afterwards is such a refreshing experience. After the bloodshed, idolatry, treachery and violence of the nation as a whole, we get zoomed in to an intimate series of snapshots in the life of a single family. Make no mistake, there's still tragedy here, and not all is rosy, but the story as a whole just can't help but be uplifting.
Well we're finally out of the book of Judges. Sweet.
The relationship between Judges and Ruth is interesting to me. In Judges, we got a very macro-level view of the goings-on in Israel, and for the most part, they were appalling. Covenants broken, punishments doled out left, right and centre, and generally terrible people doing terrible things. There were glimmers of hope, etc, to be sure, but few and far between. I don't think anyone would try to argue that Judges is an optimistic book.
That's why reading Ruth immediately afterwards is such a refreshing experience. After the bloodshed, idolatry, treachery and violence of the nation as a whole, we get zoomed in to an intimate series of snapshots in the life of a single family. Make no mistake, there's still tragedy here, and not all is rosy, but the story as a whole just can't help but be uplifting.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Ex. 1-3 - Zooming out
But for all the carry-over from Genesis 50 to Exodus 1, there are some fairly significant shifts that happen in these chapters that mark Exodus as an entirely different entity than Genesis.
"Zooming out" is a pun I couldn't resist, but it also just fits with what's going on at the very beginning of the book. In Genesis, one main, overarching theme could be described as God's relationship with people: Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob...
Exodus seems to be setting itself up, in a very clever way, as a story of God's relationship with a people: the people of Israel. By starting the book with a recap of the basic genealogy of Jacob, the author draws a direct line, without actually tracing direct lines, as it were, from the individual God-human relationships of Genesis to the corporate God-human relationship that will become the theme of... well, the rest of the Bible, really.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Gen. 46-47 - Life as sojourn
The readings - Day 16 - Genesis 46-47.
Figuring out how numbers work in the Bible is tricky, even when things seem like they ought to be fairly straightforward. I'm hoping that when I get to Numbers, some of them start to make more sense, but I've got a feeling that that's not the way it's going to pan out...
When I come to tallies like the one that basically kicks off chapter 46, I always feel like I'm missing some vital puzzle pieces, and that if I had a better grasp on the culture of the time that it'd all come together and make sense.
Figuring out how numbers work in the Bible is tricky, even when things seem like they ought to be fairly straightforward. I'm hoping that when I get to Numbers, some of them start to make more sense, but I've got a feeling that that's not the way it's going to pan out...
When I come to tallies like the one that basically kicks off chapter 46, I always feel like I'm missing some vital puzzle pieces, and that if I had a better grasp on the culture of the time that it'd all come together and make sense.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Day 1 and 2 (Genesis 1-3, 4-7)
So as you've no doubt noticed, I'm doubling up today, since I started reading yesterday and only started writing today. I'll mash my thoughts together for this one, but they'll roughly occur in chronological order. This'll also hopefully be the last time I include an editorial-ish opening to the post itself. Most of the time I hope to just leap right in.
Like now...
Genesis 1-3, 4-7
It's funny how hard it actually is to really read something that you're so familiar with as the opening chapters of Genesis. It's almost like you just automatically shift into 'skim' mode because your brain just assumes that you can fill in the blanks on your own, which you can - in a way.
In another more accurate way, this is a great method of getting nothing out of the experience other than what your brain provides by dipping into the murky waters of prevailing cultural interpretation of what's said, rather than what's actually there.
Like now...
Genesis 1-3, 4-7
It's funny how hard it actually is to really read something that you're so familiar with as the opening chapters of Genesis. It's almost like you just automatically shift into 'skim' mode because your brain just assumes that you can fill in the blanks on your own, which you can - in a way.
In another more accurate way, this is a great method of getting nothing out of the experience other than what your brain provides by dipping into the murky waters of prevailing cultural interpretation of what's said, rather than what's actually there.
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