The Underground Onus

For the past 18 days I’ve been reading Genesis as a part of a 40 day project to read a chapter of the Bible per day.  I’m starting with Genesis because…. well, thats where the Bible starts…. “In the Begining….”etc etc.  

I would like to share with you, the blog reading public (mostly Miguel, Sandy, Nick, Bepa and various other family and friends), my thoughts as I’ve tackled these age-old stories.  So here we go…

1. Did you know that Jesus’ linage can be traced back to Adam?  Everyone knows that it can be traced to Abraham that much is obvious from the first book of the New Testament because its written.  But Abraham can be traced directly to Noah (Genesis 10 and Genesis 11: 10-26).  And Noah can be traced directly to Adam (Genesis 5).  So there you go.  You can find father, son, father, father son, all the way from Adam to Jesus.  So if Jesus was around the time of year 0 on our calender, tack on a few thousand years after that and then you have the age of the human race, according to the Bible.   I didn’t actually know this until I read Genesis myself.   I figured there were large gaps in genealogies between Adam and Noah and Noah and Abraham.  Not so.

2.  Its sad to me that Lot was saved from Sodom only to have his wife turned into salt and his daugters con him into sleeping with them.  He might have been better off had he just gotten burned up in Sodom.  The ironic part is that God’s opinion on this matter isn’t clearly stated.  In fact, God’s judgement is mostly left up to the reader to decide because after he sleeps with his daughters we don’t hear very much from Lot after that.  We don’t know what becomes of him.  I think the account of Lot’s life in the Quran paints a much rosier picture.  At least thats the impression I get from the sundry Islamic sources I’ve herd on TV, Movies, Documentaries etc. 

3.  Obvious question, how did Noah fit all the animals (two each) in the Ark.  The boat wasn’t big enough according to the specs given.  How large would a boat have to be to fit all the different types of animals in the world?  I actually had a dream about this after I read the story.  I dreamt that God shrank all the animals in order to fit them on the ark.  He is God, so he is all powerful, this wouldn’t be beyond the scope of his powers.  What other explanation is there?

4.  Its deeply troubling to me that God lamented ever having created the human race Genesis 6:5-8.  The impression I get from this verse is that if it hadn’t been for Noah, he would have completely destroyed his creation.  And before this point we don’t receive qualifications for righteousness.  Noah was different.  He behaved righteously, but before this point the differentiation between righteous and unrighteous the abstention of Rape and Murder.  The evil people mentioned are mostly murders and rapists.  How could a All-Powerful creator of the universe not foresee such occurrences?    Was he surprised that human beings acted the way they did?   How do you surprise omniscient, all powerful, all knowledgable, God?

Imagine for a second that you have a science project with ants.  You place a bunch of ants in a fish tank and they wind up eating each other.  And then you say to yourself, it would have been better for the ants if I had never put them in this tank to begin with.  Whose fault would it have been for the ants for eating each other?  You for for creating the conditions inside the tank? Or the ants for succumbing to their hunger?  

Also, would God be showing the world mercy by killing the human race?  Or would he be exercising wrath?

5. Why did he chose Abraham?  What did Abraham do to deserve favor from God?  And another thing, who would want God’s favor when he asks you to do things like murder your son? And live hundreds of years with a wife that can’t give birth (apparently these Ancient Jews really cared about having kids, it was super important).  Abraham was favored, but he didn’t receive any of the benefits of that favor in his lifetime.  He didn’t receive the inheritance of billions of children and the promised land.  I guess he’ll have to watch his children obtain it from heaven.  

6.  All the men seem to have multiple wives, yet such behavior would be condemned by Jews and Christians today.  Men considered to be in good standing before God had children with as many as 4 (if not more) women (see Jacob, Genesis 35:22-26)

Thats all for now.  

Here is  YouTube clip produced by Jonathan Goldstein entitled “BibleTap.” I got a laugh out of it. Enjoy.

Heres another… “Bible In a Minute”  by Barats and Bereta