In the Jewish tradition, there’s this idea of Torah portions — parashot plural and parashah singular — that you read each week for about a year. And it starts this week. This very one! Right now!
With a couple other family members, I’m embarking on this wee adventure, to get from front cover to back, as part of a larger series I call: “Finally reading books I was supposed to read in college and didn’t finish.”
Getting ready to dive in, I realized that this is sort of the world’s largest Meander. The Original Meander. A big text, broken into smallish weekly pieces, read by a multitude. For it turns out there is, in fact, nothing new under the sun…
Anyways, in that Meander-ish spirit, I thought I’d try to capture a few notes here each week.
If you’d like to join with your own observations for any part of the way — a parashah, or two, or twenty — all are welcome…!
This week: Bereshit (Genesis 1.1 – 6.8)
What a beautiful section. We meet the creeping animals. And the flying ones. Lots and lots of creeping animals. That seems to be important. The sky and the sea. The stars that guide us. God the decisive, God the judging, and God the just. Swift but not cruel. “Here’s some clothes.” (paraphrasing)
And we meet flawed humans a plenty.
A few thoughts that stuck:
- “They heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the Garden at the breezy time of day…” just a wonderful sense-image that’s lasted through the years.
- All credit to him for being the first Man and everything, but Adam is also kind of the first jerk. I’m pretty sure he threw both Eve and God under that bus in one move.
- Pro tip: do not get attached to Abel.
- Seth on the other hand needs a much better PR agent. It might as well have been Cain, Abel, and Steve. Or Chauncey. Have you heard of so-called Seth? I hadn’t. Turns out he’s a big deal.
Overall, my head was spinning after the first few pages, in the best way. Sweeping text. Copious plot. The serpent shows up like 2 minutes in! Drama!
Eden turns out to be Iraq, which was news to me. They basically drew a map for us with a big X on it. There’s gold there! And bdellium! (bdellium: “a fragrant resin produced by a number of trees related to myrrh, used in perfume.”) Road trip?
Also, the Nephilim were a complete curveball. Which just goes to show that I’ve fallen asleep during a few crucial episodes of Supernatural.
Speaking of curveballs, what’s up with this: “the divine beings saw how beautiful the daughters of men were and took wives from among those that pleased them”? (6.2) I mean, I can’t even.
Head: spinning. Happy to be reading. Onward!
If you’d like to join in… This is the place for comments and commentary on Bereshit (Gen 1 – 6.8).
Next up: (a man called) Noaḥ (Gen 6.9 – 11.32)
-Cecil
-Cecil
Wow does a lot happen in just a few chapters! The world is created and we promptly mess it up. This week as I read I’m struck by the relational elements of human to God in this section, in particular what it means to “walk with God.” Way back in chapter 3 we see Adam and Eve with a particular familiarity in their relationship with God – God walks with them in the garden, visiting as you would with family. But as they are separated from God we see a distance develop in the relationship and a further distance in the next generation where we start to offer to God – but it is not until we get to the birth of Seth and his first child that we start to “invoke” God (4:26), that is we are only now starting to call upon God as dependents and seeking attention. Then it takes another five generations to get to Enoch who “walked with God” (5:21-24). The contrasting language here is very interesting because it shows a purposeful choice is available in how we want to engage in our relationship with God, and it has profound consequences – Enoch is transported to God, by God – he doesn’t die in the way other individuals do, so there is something significant about being intentionally in relationship with God that transforms the nature of that connection. Finally we see this same kind of contrast referenced in 6:1-2 where we have the “sons of God” and the “people.” What to make of this distinction? Commentators and linguists note that we are not talking about two different creations though a plain reading might suggest that; we are talking about those who like Enoch, “walk with God,” are active relational participants in seeking a connectedness and “people” who have lost that sense of connection to something beyond and are instead focused on being in relationship with the elements of the earth – we start here to see the contract between “idol” worship (things that are made with the hands) and “divine” worship where the focus is external and focused on the unseen God.
And of course this is the same challenge that we faced in 3:6 that led to our initial separation from the unified divine relationship – the reaction to what is pleasing and right in front of us, rather than trusting in the unknown and unexplained.
This is wonderful — thank you Maggie! I noticed that familial intimacy in the garden, but hadn’t tracked the way it evolves from there…! -Cecil
Who can pass up a meander through the text that remains the #1 choice of reading by desert island castaways? (Among others, of course!) I promise more detailed commentary in the future, especially once the Midnight’s Children meander wraps up (praise God).
How wonderful! Great to have you aboard Computilo!
-Cecil
Gen 1:2 “The spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” It’s interesting that in only the second verse of the Book that the there’s now God and the spirit of God, two of the three persons of the Trinity (from a Catholic perspective).
Gen 1:5 “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” The notion of time with respect to God has always fascinated me. How long is one day in God’s existence? After all, we have been taught God is the Alpha and the Omega, the One who was, who is, and who is to come. If astronomer Edwin Hubble is correct in theorizing that our universe is expanding, then if we back-extrapolate, we reach a point in time where “something” was created from “nothing,” meaning that the creation story as we read in Genesis may not be too far from the truth. And that’s interesting considering most of us have been taught that the beginning of our world as presented in Genesis is a story that serves a purpose of explaining how it all began rather than being scientific, factual truth. That’s not the Big Bang theory at all. Do we have a point when and where science and faith intersect?
I love that science continually brings us closer to understanding what was at one time incomprehensible, and faith helps us trust in that which we can’t understand. So as we grow and use our tools in science to know more doesn’t that actually help us grow in faith as we see more closely the magnificence of what is incomprehensible.
A few things that stood out for me:
“1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” God has no origin story, and we get two distinct personas in the beginning- God and God’s Spirit.
Genesis 3 could be called A tale of two trees. Unlike many other stories, the tree of life was created for man to eat. Many mythologies have humans seeking the fruit from the tree if life, but the gods will not let them or prevent humans from having. The Bible story has the tree placed there specifically for humans to eat whenever they want.
I always wondered what was so different about Cain after he murdered his brother-something had so changed in him that it physically showed on his person. And God was still actually speaking with his creation, even after they were expelled from the garden. The veil between this earth and the spiritual realm was very thin at this time.
More with Noah next week