Not another Bible-blog!

The Test

2009-02-15T15:40:00.002Z

Then comes an intense episode that leaves no-one cold: God asks Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice!

It seems it was a vision, in a dream, for it happens at night. The following morning, Abraham takes his son, Isaac, along with two servants with him to travel to the place indicated in the vision. During the three days it takes to reach the mountain, what is going through Abraham's mind?

Isaac was Abraham's favorite son! Isaac was the son through which God had promised Abraham his line would continue! Isaac was the son he and Sarah had waited for so long! God had promised a son and he eventually had given them a son! But now the same God was asking Abraham to sacrifice that son? Did it ever occur to Abraham to stop and ponder whether this command really was from God? Couldn't it be from another source? Could not it be a dream caused by his own fears of losing his beloved son?

Scholars and theologians have different opinions on the matter. Some point out that Abraham should have realized this was not a command from his God. Some argue that this command was from God but that Abraham should have said "No!" to this command and failed to do so.

Others see in this episode the most sublime faith and love a man can show his God! Abraham completely surrendered to his God's will because he trusts in him and in his Grace.

A part of me wants to believe God would never test anyone this way. Another part of me is deeply touched by such a faith, for I would never be able to have a faith so great I would be able to get rid of, even less harm, someone I love as much as Abraham must have loved his son...

Whatever the reason, Abraham is said to have kept walking towards the mountain and when they go there, he asked his two servants to wait, that he would be back soon. He took Isaac with him. He had left his wives and the rest of his household behind, now the servants were left behind. It was just him and his son and Isaac aptly asked: "It's just you and me, Father, what are we going to sacrifice?"

"The Lord will see to it!" replied Abraham.

What went through Isaac's head when his father tied him up on a rock and branded a knife to cut out his throat? What went through Abraham's mind as he was approaching the blade to his son's neck?

Then God reveals to Abraham that he is not to sacrifice Isaac. It was a test. The text tells us Abraham is blessed for not holding anything back from his God. He is blessed with a promise of a large posterity that will bless the entire world.

A ram is near them. Abraham sacrifices it to the Lord his God on this mountain. This will be the site of the Jerusalem Temple Solomon would much later build...

What happens next? How does Abraham feel when walking back home with his son? What did Sarah think? Did she ever know?

Will we ever comprehend such a test? Such a faith? Such a God even?

Life Again

2008-10-23T18:44:00.002+01:00

Life follows destruction again in Genesis 19 as it did in Genesis 9.

Lot and his two daughters have escaped the destruction of the plain. How will Lot have descendants now? Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him to become pregnant. From them come the people of Moab and the people of Ammon. Ridiculing these people's birth was a way to despise these enemies of Israel. This episode also shows that Abraham is the chosen one while Lot seeks to survive.

Abraham faces a problem he faced before: A king wants his wife. Once again Abraham claims the woman is his sister. Once again, God rescues Abraham's wife. The King has a dream and in the dream God is a judge that tells him who Sarah is. He is exonerated of blame but not of consequences... King Abimelech fears the God of Abraham and has a conversation with Abraham who intercedes with God for the King's forgiveness. Abimelech fears and trusts God and Abraham mistrusts his God but Abraham is the Prophet and his intercession is successful.

Then life is created: God gives a son to Abraham and Sarah...

Beautiful Child

2008-10-22T18:43:00.005+01:00

Humans had been commanded to procreate and fill the world -and they did comply- but Abraham and Sarah are childless, unable to fulfill that sacred command of their God.

God had promised them a large posterity but the couple remains childless and growing old. Sarah had let Abraham have a second wife, to allow him to have a child. Ishmael was born of that union. We sometimes try another way to fulfill our destinies, even when God impresses on us the exact path we should follow. Here God had promised Abraham he would have a son with Sarah...

Then it happened... Sarah got pregnant and gave birth to a son! The text uses a style that shows traces of an oral tradition. It also stresses the fulfillment of the divine promise in every verse. This is not just a story, this is the turning point in the story!

The child is named Isaac -meaning: "May God laugh in delight, smile upon" [Like the couple had laughed when told they would have a son and told to name it Isaac at the birth was revealed to them].

Abraham circumcises his son when he's 8 days' old, as commanded by God previously as a covenant between him and Abraham's descendants.

Sarah feels rescued from the shame of being barren in that culture but Hagar, the second wife, needs to be rescued soon too...

When Isaac is three, the age when an infant was deemed to survive, Sarah gets worried. Isaac and Hagar's son, Ishmael, are together one day and Sarah sees Ishmael teasing his younger brother. She wonders about her own son's inheritance and worries about her inheritance too. She's determined: "That slave woman and her son" must go!

As harsh as Sarah appears to our modern minds, we have to recall she was a woman fighting for her life and her child's.

The ultimatum troubles and saddens Abraham. How can he send his firstborn child and the child's mother away? God reveals to him that he should do as Sarah said... Ishmael will be the father of a great posterity but Isaac is the one from which Abraham's line will continue.

Hagar and Ishmael are alone in the desert... Hagar cries and her son bears his soul to God. And God hears him.

An angel tells Hagar the boy will survive, whether that is an angel or whether "angel" means, as often in the Old Testament, a means by which God manifests himself. She knows the boy will survive and have a great posterity. He will thrive in the desert!

Those Promises

2008-10-21T18:42:00.004+01:00

Now that Abraham has a posterity through Sarah, like God had promised, the promise of a land is coming true as well.

King Abimelech makes an oath with the now powerful and wealthy man, Abraham. The writer probably wanted to show dealings with kings to stress that power. As for the oaths, they indicate that the parties concerned made an oral agreement, witnessed by their god or gods that such and such would happen to them if they didn't keep the oath. Both parties here have learned to trust each other already.

Abraham obtains the well of Beer-Sheba. There will be an incident involving the King's men but Abraham owns the well as his dealings with the King -offerings- in that episode demonstrates.

He plants a tree and there he will worship God in the land of the Philistines. He will later obtain the land...

Three Men...

2007-08-25T12:11:00.001+01:00

One afternoon, we are told that three men come to Abraham, who's dozing under an oak tree at Mamre, near Hebron. Called angels, that is to say: messengers of God, the text in Genesis 18 claims that it was God himself that appeared there.

Was it God with other members of the Council of Heaven? Was it the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost? Was other messengers from above? No-one knows.

The narrative however fosters differences between Abraham and these "men". Indeed, Abraham is sleeping when the men are approaching. Then Abraham runs around to be a good host and offer a good meal to these travellers who are now still and silent.

The meal gets served. The men eat under the oak tree, Abraham waiting on them. Then one of the three men asks about Sarah. "She's in the tent". The man then reveals that he will be back and find Sarah with a son. Sarah overhears that and laughs to herself in her tent. An old woman with a baby? The messenger asks Abraham how come his wife laughed. Why is she doubting? Sarah comes out of the tent. A bit afraid, she pretends she did not laugh.

The Lord has all these people laughing, but he reiterates his promise: She will have a son.

...Heading For Sodom

2007-08-25T09:18:00.001+01:00

Abraham accompanies the celestial men from Mamre, near Hebron, to a place where all look down over the South end of the Dead Sea - presumed to be the site of Sodom, Gomorrah and Zoah.

Lot, Abraham's impetuous nephew who had parted from his uncle, lives there. That place has a reputation for being corrupt, so corrupt in fact that God has decided to investigate and punish it.

God remains at that place overlooking the South end of the Dead Sea with Abraham, while the two messengers proceed to Sodom to investigate the situation there.

Lot had chosen the lush Jordan area when he had parted from his uncle Abraham. He was young too. Abraham had agreed to settle in the barren land of Canaan. He was old. But God had chosen Abraham to be his blessed servant.

While the two messengers walk through the arid desert that afternoon, God soliloquizes: Should he tell Abraham about his plan to strike Sodom? In the ancient Near East, a servant of the god or king was also a friend, privy to his master's plan.

Besides, Abraham will be the father of a multitude of nations, so God decides to show him he's a righteous god, so that Abraham's descendants will remember this trait of his character.

- What about the innocent in Sodom? If 50 innocent people live in the city, will you destroy it? Surely you wouldn't do such a thing, destroying the innocent with the guilty, asks Abraham.

Some commentators believe Abraham is there interceding to save Sodom. I believe, as I have read in some books, that Abraham just wants to know if the Lord, which he calls: "the judge of the whole world" is a just god.

And Abraham's god replies: "If I find 50 innocent people in Sodom, I will spare the entire city for their sake."

Abraham, though conscious of the distance between himself and the Lord, dares to bargain with him.

- What if there are only 40 innocent there?

The Lord will spare the city if 40 innocent souls are found there.

Abraham bargains again, to the point that he knows only 10 innocent people will suffice to avert the destruction of the city. Obviously, Abraham realizes that if there was less than 10 innocent people in Sodom, the Lord would find ways to save them from the city before destroying it.

God has been revealed as just in the dialogue and he then leaves Abraham there. Sodom is going to be judged...

Brimstone and Fire

2007-08-25T01:30:00.002+01:00

Two messengers from God get to Sodom. Lot, Abraham's nephew who resides there, is not granted with a promise of a son and is not granted the visit of God like Abraham was... He's told to flee the destruction of Sodom...

This well-known passage has been used to condemn homosexuals for centuries, with disastrous and hateful effects. But what does the text tell us? Was the place that gave the term "sodomites" was a hotbed of the so-called "crime against nature"?

On one side Christian publications claim that Sodom was wiped off because men had sex with other men there. So, God sent brimstone and fire and homosexuals will burn in hell like Sodom. On the other hand, progressive authors insist that there is no mention of sex acts in the text, that the usual interpretation is erroneous.

The Biblical account is that the messengers were sitting at the entrance of Sodom. Lot came to them and asked them to spend the night at his house. Being hospitable was much more than an act of kindness, it was assistance to people in danger. Traveling between cities was dangerous at night and so was not being under a roof at nighttime.

At Lot's house, the messengers washed their feet, ate their fill but then things got bad...

A mob surrounded the house. The menacing men - the whole town it seems - shouted out that the messengers had to come out of the house! The men wanted "to know" them...

Whatever the mob had in mind, their threats became serious enough for Lot to offer his two daughters to the men. It is hard for our modern minds to understand such a decision. Guests came first in those times and in order to protect his guests, a righteous man would sacrifice what belonged to him and daughters belonged to a father. Lot's offer got rejected. Now the men in the mob were not going to be told what do by a man who's not even a native of Sodom! They threatened Lot, telling him that his fate would be much worse than the messengers'.

Things had gone too far! The messengers "reached out, pulled Lot into the house, and bolted the door". Lot had failed to calm the mob down, the messengers took matters into their hands and somehow blinded the mob that became unable to find the door.

The messengers had to act now to remove Lot from the destruction that was coming... "For we are about to destroy this city completely. The outcry against this place is so great it has reached the Lord, and he has sent us to destroy it". Lot is told to get his relatives out the Sodom. His two sons-in-law wouldn't leave: Lot must be joking. He was not that keen on leaving either...

The morning breaks and Lot is still there, hesitating. The messengers become insistent and take Lot's hand, his wife's and two daughters' hands to lead them out of Sodom. When commanded to flee to the mountains, Lot's still reluctant and asks the messengers if he can go to some village instead. The messengers agree but he needs to leave now or he and his wife and daughters will disappear with the whole place. Sodom must be wiped off now and nothing will remain.

Lot is leaving. It is dawn. The sun is rising when he reaches Zoar. And then it all starts coming down. As the sun is rising over the horizon, sufurous fire rains over Sodom, the neighbouring town Gomorrah and the entire plain... Lot's wife, following behind him, turns around to see the utter destruction of the plain under fire and raining sulfur. The text claims she turned into a pillar of salt, with no explanation to this...

Abraham got up early and went back to the place where he had looked over the plain with God. "He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah and watched as columns of smoke rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace. But God had listened to Abraham's request and kept Lot safe..."

Just what happened is unknown to us. The lunar landscape of the place still inspires people to believe a terrible act of God occured there. The pillars of salt sometime slook like humans. Some have said an earthquake may have caused gases to erupt from the ground and they became ablaze, raining sulfur on the cities and the plain.

Did Abraham reflect of the plain's fate? What did these cities do that caused God's wrath? Yes, it has been said over the centuries that homosexuals were the cause of God's anger and of his destruction of the place. Yet the Law that forbade homosexual sex had not been given yet. It is true that homosexual sex would have been a degrading thing for these men who believed in owning women and procreating, notthing to do with our modern notions of romantic love between a man and a woman. Anal sex was also a pagan ritual, not to mention that it was -and still is in some parts of the world- an act perpetrated on enemies one wishes to humiliate.

So, perhaps homosexual sex was the issue in this passage. The men wanted "to know" the messengers and the verb "to know" is often a biblical euphemism for sex. Yet, it has been pointed out that the verb "to know" that connotes sex was not the verb used in this passage. I think it was not about sex but about violence. There is a world between a mob surrounding a house and looking to gang rape people and consensual adults, especially adults in committed and loving relationships.

At last, Sodom gets mentioned several times in the Bible, over 40 times in fact, all the way down to the New Testament. Yet, it never is question of "sex". The sin of Sodom is always "wickedness" and "inhospitality".

Those Christians who oppose gay rights and gay marriages should maybe pause and reflect on that...

Father Abraham

2007-04-01T17:07:00.000+01:00

There was a man called Thera, who, although commanded to go west, settled en route in Mesopotamia. God then spoke to Thera's son, Abraham, familiar to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, telling him to leave his kin and his land, to go some place God had decided to give him and his descendants.

The well-known stories of Abraham and his wife Sarah are said to come from different traditions sewn together and edited in episodes taking a few chapters of Genesis.

Other people got scattered across the Earth, and God allowed them to become nations, but God himself chose a land for this man and the future nation of Israel, a nation apart from the rest.

The first episode found in our Bibles is the one in which Abraham is called to journey to Canaan with his wife, his nephew Lot and their servants. God tells Abraham that all people on Earth will be blessed through him. The route these people follow corresponds to the one that will be followed when their descendants invade the same land under the leadership of Joshua, after the death of Moses and a long long time erring in the desert.

Speaking of the desert, there is an episode in which Abraham and Sarah go dwell in Egypt because of a famine in Canaan. Pharao wants to make Sarah his wife but God won't allow it and sends some plagues. So, Pharao gives treasures to Abraham, summing him to depart at once.

One can't but see the shadow of the time Abraham's descendants will be slaves in Egypt. Then too will God send plagues against Pharao, and make his people start their long Exodus to the Promised Land through the leadership of Moses.

Genesis indicates that Abraham was a powerful man: Back to Canaan, there's an episode in which Abraham and friends defeat neighbouring cities' leaders. This time he doesn't count on a man's treasures, like he did in Egypt. He got the lesson. This time, Abraham puts his trust in his God. In return, he is blessed by the King Priest of [Jeru]Salem. Another symbol, since King David will also be a Priest in Jerusalem.

Later, Abraham and his nephew Lot part because their herdsmen can't settle disputes. Abraham lets his nephew choose the part of the land he wants. Abraham was entitled to choose first, but he lets his nephew select the green and fertile land and leave the desertified part to his uncle.

Abraham takes a look at all the land around him... He follows God's direction and walks and walks... Deep in his heart, Abraham knows the Most High is working to give him this land. He knows God is taking care of things for him. God speaks with him in his dreams. The Creator tells him that all the land, as far as he can see, will belong to his descendants.

And Abraham trusts the Lord, although he's getting old and has no child...

Runaway Bride

2007-04-01T11:19:00.000+01:00

Because Abraham trusted God, he found favour in him. The Lord promised Abraham's descendants would receive the land. There was an oath, or a covenant, that had taken place between the two of them, through a ritual involving cutting some animals in two: An agreement to what would become of Abraham if he did not keep his part of the covenant.

A decade later, Abraham is still childless... Sarah, his wife, takes the initiative. She becomes the main character in this episode in which Abraham gets but one sentence. Sarah offers her servant, Hagar, as a second wife to Abraham.

This practise was regular in the ancient world: If a woman cannot bear a child to her husband, he is to take a servant as an additional wife, so she can bear him a son.

Still, in a culture in which moterhood is so prized, Sarah can't help but feel down once Hagar is pregnant with Abraham's child.

Because her self-esteem is stained, Sarah demands justice from Abraham and he lets her do as she pleases, until the mistreated pregnant servant-wife runs away into the desert...

This is where an angels appears to Hagar. Angels, like we have seen before, are "regular", if otherworldly beings, who act as courtiers for God. This one comes to Hagar, probably on the road leading back to her native Egypt, to deliver this message:

She is to go back to her mistress; she is to name her son Ishmael, meaning: "May God hear", who will be quarrelsome, yet dwelling at the edge of the land promised to Abraham's and Sarah's child.

This visitation leaves a very deep impression in Hagar's heart and she calls God: "The One who sees me", the one who saw and rescued her.

Promises

2007-04-01T10:06:00.000+01:00

Ishmael is now 13. Abraham believes he's the son God had promised. But God appears to Abraham to make another covenant with him and inform him that the blessings he had promised are not related to Ishmael but to another son that will be born of him and Sarah. Although Abraham is face down on the dust, as a mark of utter respect and reverence for the Lord, he laughs. How could he, an old man, and his old wife have a child now? But God tells him to name the unborn child Isaac, which means "He laughs".

As for the covenant, it is the circumcision. This part of the text is deemed to be a later extension of the story, probably written when the Israelites were deported. With no land and no temple, the circumcision was the sole mark of their identity. The practise was widespread in the ancient Near-East but not in all nations there. Scholars think that this ritual, as well as the feast of Passover were inserted into the Patriarchs' lives in order to reinforce the link between Israel and their forefathers.

In the text, God informs Abraham that Ishmael wil be greatly blessed with his offspring, but he, Abraham, will be father of many great nations, and kings will be among his descendants. God changes his and his wife's name: Abram and Sarai, as they were known until then, will now be called: Abraham, "Father of a multitude" and Sarah, "Princess".

After 23 years since God first promised Abraham land and offspring, a miracle is about to happen... I think that God's timing is sometimes puzzling, but his unconditional love and any of his promises are never to be doubted...

After the Flood

2006-12-10T20:00:00.000Z

Noah built an altar to offer a sacrifice to God. God liked the smell of it and swore he would never destroy humans again, despite their strange evil dispositions, and the rainbow became as a sign of this covenant.

"Replenish the land and multiply", God commanded. It was the same commandment as the one given to the first inhabitants of this world.

Humans still had dominion over the animal world, but one concession was made: It was now OK to kill beasts for food. God decided to bear with men's violence.

However, humans were not allowed to taste the blood: "The blood is the life". As God has dominion over existence, the blood belongs to him.

Murder is not tolerated. If anyone kills another human, that person must die. As humans are in the image of God, humans should not be killed.

There is then an episode when Noah gets drunk. The first cultivator of the vine wouldn't have known the effect of alcohol, or so we are told. The point of this story is to blame the descendants of Noah's son, Ham. He saw his father naked in his tent and told his two brothers, who instead of lacking respect for their father, a serious offense for semitic people, cover him. Ham will be cursed, and that would explain why the land of Canaan was inhabitated by "bad" people...

The Prideful City

2006-12-10T18:01:00.000Z

Noah's descendants increased and spreaded over the land. There is the idea that people have a place God assigned for them. It is then their duty to "subdue" that place that is their home, and find out where "home" is.

The author of this part of Genesis then gives a geographical and ethnical report of his knowledge of the world. He then goes on explaining that some people got together to settle in a large city instead of scattering across the land like God wanted them to.

These men decided to build a tower so high that it would reach the heavens. The men wanted to "make a name for themselves" instead of being the humans God intented them to be. Ancient temples descriptions in lower Babylonia mention that their tops "reached the heavens". High towers on a vast plain would give this illusion.

It is said that God "came down to see" what was going on and with the Council of Heavens, or whatver we want to call it, God then descended to strike the tower and punish the humans' pride. God confounded their language and scattered them across the earth.

This episode was regarded in the Talmudic literature as a rebellion against God. It is not self-confident ambitious men that God couldn't tolerate, but men who decided he was so unimportant that they could become higher than him. It reminds me of Satan, that beautiful angel that rebelled against God out of pride.

I think the lesson I learn from the Babel story is that we can be whatever we want, we can -and should- have dreams and be ambitious, but we must never forget that God is the Master. He's above us, no matter what!

The Calm Before The Flood

2006-09-17T15:57:00.000+01:00

It's been raining non-stop for hours now, which makes it the perfect time to write about the Flood. Yet, I find the task daunting.

Legends and stories about a global flood are found on all continents, among all people.

Geologists tend to agree that there were catastrophic local floods in different parts of the world that left traces. Hardline Christians believe that the fossils were some of the creatures that disappeared during the Flood. Progressive Christians often think that the Flood is a legend. Scholars claim that the Israelites borrowed this legend from the Mesopotamians and reshaped it several times.

The Bible says that all life in the world disappeared because God couldn't stand the living anymore.

It is possible that not all parts of the world got affected. Those who drafted Genesis were not aware of the world like we are now. An area was the whole world to them.

Still, all over the world there are legends about a global flood. Some legends and paintings in South America show a dragon in the sky bringing torrents of water. It has been said that a comet my have plunged into the ocean. This would have generated tsunamis and catastrophic rains on a large area of the planet. The force such an event would have created is incredible. Besides, Black Sea explorers confirmed that the sea did not use to contain any salt. There must have been a raising of the level of the sea, that in turn poured into the once fresh-water Black Sea.

The poetic and exaggerated words of Genesis might not be accurate: I am not sure about the water covering all the mountaintops or about a gigantic chest holding a pair of all living creatures and their respective food for over 10 months! Yet I do believe that something worse than we can imagine occurred during the lifetime of a man the tradition calls Noah...

Noah was the only righteous man of his time. The word the Bible uses means "intact, without blemish", like the animals pure enough to be sacrificed to God. It has been said that Noah's bloodline was the one bloodline that hadn't got mingled with the one of the Sons of God who had married mortal women. -See post: The Sex of Angels-

God realized that humans and animals had gone "wild". The antropomorphic God of the Old Testament became so upset that he decreed he would kill all living things, but Noah, his family and a pair of every animal.

Noah's Ark

2006-09-17T14:38:00.000+01:00

God saw the lawlessness of the world and decided to "destroy" the living, who had been "destroying" the world. The same verb is used, as if God carried on the destruction humans started. It often happens that people blame God for the disasters we brough upon ourselves, from the great wars to global warming.

So, God decided to save Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives. God's act of destruction is not the final word. While doing it, God also preserves.

God ordered Noah to build a 450 x 75 x 45 feet "chest", rendered as "ark", and Noah did as he was told, no question asked. The material for the ark was gopher wood -whatever that is. The ark was completely enclosed, except for one door and a window.

There have been speculations as to where the ark rests. See for instance MSNBC's "Explorers plan quest in search of Noah's Ark".

The first covenant between mankind and God takes place: God swears he will keep Noah and co. safe in the ark. A covenant is an agreement between two parties. Here, God is king, but he respects the free-will of people. God then orders Noah to take with him two of every animal "according to its kind" and enter the ark with his household.

Another tradition that found its way into the text seems to indicate that the animals, two by two, came to the ark without Noah's intervention. An editor of the text also wrote that there were seven pairs of each animal OK for food and sacrifice and one pair of each of the others. The account is rather opaque.

Most scholars agree that this episode in Genesis is an amalgam of different traditions. These traditions follow the same pattern but differ in their details: Hence the verse about a pair of every animal getting in the ark and the other verse about 7 pairs of animals.

But once every required person and animal was in the ark, God shut the door on them. They were all going to stay in for over 10 months.

It Rained - And Then It Rained -

2006-09-17T14:02:00.000+01:00

One week after God shut the Ark's door, "the underground waters burst forth on the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky. 40 days and 40 nights of rain", as God had told Noah.

The ark rose above the water. The hilltops were all covered and after the rain stopped, the earth was covered with water for another 150 days.

Then "God remembered Noah", as he would later remember other Patriarchs after their ordeals, and the water started to recede.

5 months after the beginning of the flood, the ark rested on a mountain top in the Ararat range, to the Biblical writer the highest peak in the world.

2 months and a half after, other hilltops appeared. "Another 40 days, Noah opened the window he had made in the ark and released a raven that flew back and forth until the earth was dry". He then sent a dove that found the land dry after 3 weeks of going back and forth. The Roman author Pliny, in the 1st century CE, tells of Indian sailors who release birds, so as to follow them as they turn toward land in "Natural History 6.83".

Noah later looked out the window: The land around the ark was dry indeed. It was the first day of the first month. The land was like it was on the day of creation.

Another 2 months went by and finally, after over 10 months spent with the animals in the ark, in almost total darkness, God ordered Noah to leave the Ark. The animals came out, and so did Noah and his family...

The Sex Of Angels

2006-09-03T15:13:00.000+01:00

Just before the Flood takes place, we are told that the Sons of God saw how the women of Earth were beautiful, they lusted after them, married them and begat children. These children were called "Nephilim". So much has been said to explain and interpret that passage found in Genesis 6:1-10.

Most Christians will tell you that the Sons of God referred in this passage were the descendants of righteous Seth, godly men who married with the infidels, the women of Cain's descendants. But this would not explain why their offspring would be powerful giants, called Nephilim, or why God repented from creating humans and decided to "wipe them out" from the face of the Earth! That sounds like a drastic measure for inter-marriage! I think this is something far more serious than that that occured...

The "Sons of God" is an expression that means "divine being". These were lesser-gods, or "angels" and "demons". These creatures are not from the Earth, like animals and humans. So these divine beings saw the women on the Earth and they wanted them for themselves. Those lesser-gods came down to the Earth, leaving behind their higher dwelling and God, to intermingle with the women.

This is hard for people to comprehend when they think that God or the angels have no bodies. The demons of the New Testament are just spirits, but they could have a spiritual body. However, for the Pentateuch - the first five books of the Bible - divine beings do have bodies. Thus, the "angels" or literaly, the "messengers" that come and visit Abraham, do have a body. They can talk; they look like other humans; they can be seen; they can be fed. Surely they can also have sex. The sexless cherubs with wings and a halo are sweet but they are a fantasy, not a scriptural reality.

Jesus is said to have claimed that angels do not marry. This does not mean they cannot marry. Jesus is reported to have added that after the resurrection, humans won't marry but will be like the angels. Jesus is believed to be resurrected, but he remains a man. So will humans. The Bible says we will retain our gender, although, apparently, we won't being able or willing to get married. Humans need to procreate to perpetuate the race, but angels do not need to, as they are immortal.

So the angels in Genesis 6, or divine beings, called the Sons of God, married women. This was not God's plan. This perverted God's plan. God got angry, and decided to get rid of the human race. After the creation was complete, God was well pleased at what he had created: It was good, and humans were the kings and queens of that world, in direct communion with God. But men, because of their god-given free agency, chose to forsake their master for strange gods, worshiping the creature instead of the Creator, losing sight of what they were put on Earth for. And when the Sons of God intermingleded with humans, changing the plan, God's wrath was unkindled!

Unlike what is said in churches, God is a changing God, like humans he has emotions, and like humans he needs to cope and deal with situations he did not plan. Because humans and angels have their own free agency, God is not playing with us like with puppets. We live our lives the way we intend, we fight the wars we intent to fight, and we are hurt or killed by those who decide to do so.

Of course, I believe that God is watching and that all works out for his own glory. He can decide to destroy this world and has the power to do what pleases him, but we are much more reponsible and free than we dare to think.

For more details about the Sons of God concept and other biblical passages on the topic, here are two interesting articles: "Sons of God, Daughters of Men", and "The Sons of God".

See also the clear and short explanation in JewishEncyclopedia.com.

Adam's Family

2006-08-27T12:34:00.000+01:00

Cain took a wife. Now, who could she be? We have the parents, Adam and Eve, plus their two sons, Cain and Seth. The text focuses on these fours characters, but does not claim that the first couple did not have many other sons and daugthers in their long life. They were told to "multiply and replenish the earth". Cain must have then found a sister-wife in the neighbouring towns founded by some of his known or unknown brothers and sisters.

Humans had been created perfect and it is said that the lifespan, back at the beginning of the race, was much longer for that reason. Our bodies have gradually become degenerated. If that's the case, then it is possible that there would be no in-bred effect like there would be now. Some Fundamentalist Christian websites do claim that and I guess I agree with these claims.

As for Cain marrying his sister, that sounds weird to us, but God hadn't given the Law yet. It was not a sin to marry in the family back in those times.

Cain's descendants created culture and civilisation, becoming musicians, like "Jubal, the invetnor of the harp and flute", or blacksmiths, like "Tubal-cain, the first to work with metal", etc. One of them, Lamech, became the first polygamist, as "Lamech married two women: Adah and Zillah". Cain's descendants also became inscreasingly evil, boasting of their crimes and murders, as if wickedness was hereditary. This escalation of violence and wickedness would be swiped away by the Flood a few generations later...

As for Seth's line, they instaured the best act of culture and civilisation, according to Genesis: Authentic worship.

The genealogy that follows, from Seth to Noah, does not have to be taken literally. Ancient genealogies were not about historicity but about determining domestical, legal or religious matters. Many Mesopotamian myths also refer to similar genealogies, in which men had a lifespan of more than 900 years up to the Flood.

Some insteresting aspects in the Adam genealogy:

Adam's first-born son (and consequently Seth who replaced Abel) was begotten "in his own image" (we now would say he was the spitting image of his father) like Adam had been created in the very "image of God".

Enoch did not die, but after walking with God (that is to say, being a reighteous worshipper) apparently was taken by God. Despite the few Apocrypha books that tell the detailed (and most likely fantasy) story of Enoch, the Bible tries to be very discreet about what actually happened! We are just told that he was "taken up".

We are not told about the other sons' or daughters' names in that genealogy of Adam through Seth: The text focuses on the first-borns until Noah comes to the scene with his 3 sons (Shem, the ancestor of the Semitic people, being the first-born).

Past The Mission

2006-08-27T03:11:00.000+01:00

I have finished reading a book called "The Authentic Gospel of Jesus", by Geza Vermas, the first professor of Jewish studies at Oxford. Probably the foremost world authority on the Dead Sea scrolls, he has also written at great length about the historical Jesus.

Everyone's got their own idea of who Jesus was or is. My idea always was that Jesus was not God, that he was the Son of God, send by God to be Preacher to the world, to die as the ultimate sacrificial lamb of the Law of Moses, to bring humans back to the communion they should enjoy with God. Now, my whole conception of Jesus has shifted, partly because, or thanks to, this book.

It seems that Jesus was one of these prophets of Galilee, an rigourous observer of the Torah, calling his fellow Jews, and not the Gentiles, to get right with God, and observe the Torah in a heartfelt manner, instead of just seeing the legal or technical aspect of it. According to Prof. Vermas, it seems that Jesus was unaware that he'd end up dying on a cross, that his message was to get ready for the coming of Kingdom of God, the end of times or whatever this concept meant to him.

Prof. Vermas uses the knowledge he has of the time in which Jesus lived and he examines each of the words Jesus is reported to have uttered and analyses them, judging them genuine, probably genuine, probably invented by the Gospel authors, and surely invented by the authors.

No doubt that hardline Christians will find this serious book insulting. Honest researchers of the Truth will be disturbed and challenged like I was. But it is sometimes necessary to get shocked sane.

The God I worship wants me to gain knowledge and not have a blind faith that blurs my vision but makes me feel safe! The Jesus I admire and try to follow is not the wimp worshipped with his asexual mother by the Catholics!

The Jesus I admire and try to follow was an ancient Jewish prophet, healer and miracle-worker. I believe he didn't think he would die and that his words would be shared with the non-Jews. However, I personally believe that God used him as a sacrifice and as the opening door for all of us who are not Jews but have come to know the God of Israel.

Read a review of the book, published in the UK newspaper The Guardian.

Adam Raised A Cain...

2006-07-30T14:13:00.000+01:00

Life outside the Garden, to me, means our life "down here", cut off from the presence of God... for now. The curse was that humans would strive with difficulties. God never cursed the first couple with their becoming mortal. Other writings in the Old and in the New Testament read that we are mortal because of the original sin, but Genesis has nothing to claim about this idea.

I think that life outside the Garden meant that humans were cut off from the presence of God: Some sort of spiritual death. I always thought that Adam and Eve could never see God after this, but I am not so sure now. Did God come visit them? He sure spoke with Cain, their son.

God had blessed the couple, back in the Garden, and had given them the commandment to pro-create. So they did. Eve exulted after she gave birth to her first-born son: Cain. God had given her the power of pro-creation. And she had eaten of the fruit of Knowledge, so it looks like she knew what she was on Earth for. We sometimes don't.

Eve gave birth to Abel. Cain means: "to create, to beget" and Abel means: "breath". He was not going to last... Yep, the first murder was about to take place...

We are not told how old the two brothers were when they gave their offering to God. The text just says that Cain the farmer gave "a gift of his farm products"; Abel the shepherd gave "several choice lambs from the best of his flock". God accepted Abel's offering; He did not accept Cain's.

It's been told that Cain did not give the choice part. In Hebrews 11:4, we read that the faith of Abel was stronger than Cain's, so God accepted Abel's offering. Genesis gives no reason.

Something else that is not explained: Who -God? Adam and Eve?- told Abel and Cain to give offerings, and what and how to offer. This might be because this episode comes from different traditions, put together in the Book of Genesis.

The passage tells us that Cain started to hate his brother. God knew the feelings of Cain's heart and told him to beware: If Cain let sin build a nest in his thoughts, it would get stronger and stronger and will end up having power over him. "Watch out" said God. "Sin is at the door. Its intent is directed toward you, but you are to master it".

Yes, Satan is at our door, willing to get in. He wants to pervert our souls and claim them for himself. This is what this passage tells me. Genesis just reads: "sin", not "Satan". What God meant is not so clear to us, but I think this is the idea behind it.

We can overcome Satan. What we can't do, is use the excuse of Satan to explain our failings, our gross errors and our own wickedness. We are sometimes cruel, we sometimes hurt and some of us rob or kill. We cannot blame God for what happens to us. We cannot blame Satan for what we do to others. We are our own person. God gave us free agency, with the privilege and the responsibility this gift brings. We have the knowledge, we have our free-will, we have God with us. And Satan only has the power we let him have!

Genesis reads that Cain was "angry" -although the translation should have read: "distressed"- and premedited murder. He asked his brother Abel to come with him to a quiet place - the unfrequented country rendered as "the fields". There Cain attacked his brother. And he killed him.

Yes, bad things happen to good people, and God lets bad people have their way. This is nothing new, this is in the first book of the Bible! Those who claim that if there was a God nothing bad would ever happen, should crack up a Bible before babbling such non-sense! We should know that God does avenge the righteous, in his own time...

"Where's your brother?" asked God. Because the Earth had "drunk" Abel's blood, God let it curse Cain: The murderer would never harvest again. He was to become a wanderer on the Earth all his life. Cain thought the punishment to be too severe: He would get killed! God then put a mark on him: If anyone killed Cain, he would be avenged. Some in the past have said that this mark was "red hair" or a "dark skin". How vile it is to make people with a different hair or skin colour the sons of perdition through Cain! Genesis does not reveal what the mark is! Just that blood vengeance has never been tolerated and that God punishes and avenges, but his mercy really never fails!

As for the first man and his wife, we are not told about their reaction or their grief. The first person who was ever born on this planet became a murderer! I wonder if they felt some guilt about their fallen nature begetting sinful children... The Book just reads that Eve gave birth to another male, Seth, which means: "granted", since God granted "another son in place of Abel". Because despite ordeals and personal tragedies, life goes on... This is what life is all about...

What Is God Doing?

2006-07-30T13:16:00.000+01:00

Liberal Jesus is a blog that I often read. Its last entry to date is beautifully thought and written. There are times when you read something regarding God and it just clicks! It's like after fumbling towards the light switch in the dark for a while, someone turns on the light for you and you thnak them with a big grin on your face. That's what I did when I read this post. Read it here or find below the condensed version I want to discuss:

"[...] It seems that the only thing to say is that God does not act. That if God is present, God simply allows the world to continue ticking away, and doesn't interfere.

"But there's a problem with this conclusion: faith traditions all over the world contradict it. The Bible paints a picture of a God who is intimately involved with the world, and who frequently acts on it. The good guys get rescued from fiery funaces and lion's dens ... the bad guys get zapped with plagues or swallowed up by the earth.

"So how do we reconcile the Biblical narrative with our own experience? [...]

"In fact, the entire Bible was written by people, and for people, who had no recourse but to explain natural phenomena using supernatural language. Consequently, the lens that we use to read "God makes the rain fall on the righteous and the unrighteous" is the same lens we should use to read about God killing Aninias and Sapphira. The lens that we use to read "the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well" is the same lens we should use to read "the wind blows where it pleases".

"Does this mean that we have to dismiss all the miracle stories in the Bible as fables written for a premodern audience? Not necessarily. Premodern people would be perfectly justified in using supernatural language to describe supernatural events, and any good empiricist will admit that it's notoriously hard to prove that something never happens.

"But it does mean that we should be reluctant to accept at face value passages that attribute action to God. Although they may be theologically helpful for a premodern reader, they may be theologically destructive for a modern reader. Some of us are simply incapable of believing in a God who heals the illnesses of middle-class Americans, but fails to prevent earthquakes that slaughter thousands of Kashmiris [...]"

It is true that the Bible says that God watches over us, and I think we should put these expressions back into their context, like Liberal Jesus invites us to.

I see God as watching over us from the distance. Like a parent on the other inside of the room keeps an eye on you, but who won't stop you from playing with the matches you hid, or just trip over something.

Despite all the contemplative poetry-scripture, we read about a God who did not, or could not, prevent the first man born on this earth to murder his own brother! What let this happen?

Maybe God wants us to rule ourselves, and be as independent and autonomous as we can, so we may develop our faith, gain knowledge and wisdom, get to understand our purpose on earth and the plan of our Creator. Yes, people start wars, rob and kill. Tsunamis and earthquakes ravage the earth. This is how it goes, because of our free agency and because the earth is not perfect - anymore?

I think we can say God is responsible for all this, if we imagine him being overlooking all that from the distance, not willing to prevent anything, for it would break the rules.

On the other hand, people may have a faith so strong that they can get through it all. When Jesus gave vision to the blind and performed all his miracles, he never said: "I healed you", or "God healed you". He asked: "Have you got enough faith?" And if they did, he would perform a quick ritual and tell them it was their own faith that healed them. It was not God intervening through Jesus, it was the person's own ability to touch the divine.

Growing up in total independence and autonomy is what we're here for I believe.

The Comic Book

2006-07-30T10:55:00.000+01:00

A friend sent me a link thinking I'd be interested in The Religious Affiliation of Comic Book Characters. It's a well-done site full of information. It's incredible all that is available on the net! If you are not into comics, just take a look at their essentials page here.

Man And Woman?

2006-07-16T14:42:00.000+01:00

Before going onwards with life outside of the Garden of Eden, two more points about the life back in the Garden:

I've been thinking of the nature of Man and the nature of God in the light of the "Let us make man in our image" and "male and female he created them". These expressions make me wonder about a plurality of gods or one God with no gender:

If there was a plurality of gods --as the ancients believed for a while-- composed of God and his Shekinah, or God and some helpers --such as the pre-incarnated Jesus of the opening of John's Gospel, then God could be the male model and the Shekinah --or another helper-- the female model for the first couple.

Yet, the book tells us there was just one human. Does that mean that the first [hu]man had both male and female features?

Or was he just human, neither man or woman?

In Genesis, the differentiation of the sexes does not come before the creation of the woman. The first human was more of an "earth creature": The name Adam, ha'adam, comes from the word "ha'adama", which means: the earth. This could lead us to think that that "earth creature", the one we call Adam, had no precise gender before the woman was "taken out of him".

In that case, the "let us create a man in our own image" might mean that God, referring to himself in the plural form (like monarchs do) might not have a specific gender.

This kind of speculation may seem blasphemous, but I don't intend it to be. Our conceptions of God evolve with time. The ancients thought God was like an immortal man. They also saw the female aspect of God, and represented this aspect with female features (breasts). The Israelites then thought of God as a warlord, a tribal leader to be feared and to respect, a warrior who would destroy their enemies. Later on, God became a king living in an overworld. Later still, God became a loving father. Today, Catholics and Protestant denominations see God as a Spirit with no forms, or as Jesus; Evangelicals see God as the Holy Ghost; Mormons see God as a parent who has a wife, our "Heavenly Mother". In short, we all see God according to the time and place we belong to, and with our own understanding and dispositions.

I personally don't venture picturing God, although I can't escape imagining his nature. I see him as a man, not a woman. Having said that, I believe he may have a female consort, or at least that there is a female side to him. The account of the creation of mankind does not give us any information, but at least it stimulates our minds to reconsider and challenge the conceptions of God that were transmitted to us.

God will always be beyond our understanding. That's a lesson that passage inspires me too.

Tree of Knowledge

2006-07-16T14:12:00.000+01:00

The Tree of Knowledge is the other point I wanted to address:

I used to think the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil meant that those eating of it knew what's right and what's wrong. In fact, I read it was a figure of speech that uses opposites to create the idea of a totality. The tree was therefore: "The tree of (total) knowledge"

Knowledge is the only way we can emulate God. The Serpent knew that Knowledge would make humans become like "divine beings", which was translated as: "like the gods" or "like God."

Without knowledge, we remain in a state of ignorance and innocence in which learning, understanding and progressing is impossible. Such a state is devoid of sorrow and joy, failures and achievements. In short, it is not much of a life.

Had our first parents not eaten of the fruit, this is the so-called life the sons and daughters of Man would have had. The eating of the fruit made our kind aware, and it made Mankind realize that there is much more to life than mere survival. It was wrong to eat the fruit, because God had forbidden it. However, God also gave us our free agency. We were free to choose. Sometimes a parent knows we need to get hurt so we may learn and grow up.

We are divine beings in the making. I kind of see this Earth as a school for our divine spirits united to our material bodies.

No Animal

2006-07-16T09:15:00.000+01:00

Like I wrote above, the "earth creature" became a man once the woman was "taken out of him". To go from "creature" to "man", it took another agent.

I remember a Philosophy class: "Man is not like the animals because he has a conscience". This conscience is the knowledge that he exists. Existing means to see oneself from the outside, being able to see what one does, who one is and where one wants to go.

That teacher also said that we see ourselves and have an opinion of ourselves, only because there are other people around us who gives us some input that limits or pushes us forward. If we were to live with no other human, we would become animals.

That teacher was an Atheist, but the creation account is such a perfect illustration of her teachings! Once again, I am so amazed at the riches of the Book that many people hold to be worthless old tales!

Animals have drives and instincts, but no conscience. Their actions and reactions are caused by some stimulus. The present is where their mind is focused on. Man make choices. Man is able to dream and to decide what road to follow in order to achieve goals in the distant future.

A manifestation of our conscience is our ability to create. Yes, birds build nests, and spider webs or bees' and ants' dwellings are amazing. But, as in mountains and flowers, I see in these God's artistic hand, not a deliberate act from the creature. As we are in the image of God, unlike animals, we can emulate God and create for our own pleasure. Our novels, songs, dramas, our reaching out our communities, our building friendships are human, if not divine, prerogatives.

Humans can do what pleases them. In short, Man is the only creature to be free!

Unlike animals, humans have a special destiny. This is why God gave us a soul. The soul manifests itself in our having a conscience, being creative and being free. Like Patience, one of this blog's readers, pointed out, "I think the difference is truly that Man is not like the animals because he has a soul!"

God gave life to the animals, but only into humans did he breathe the spirit of life, that soul which gives us free-will. Because only humans have free agency, only they can sin. Because animals cannot sin, they cannot be rewarded in the world to come. Because they have no free-will, they could not fall. If they did not fall, they don't need a redeemer. If they don't need God's grace, there is no plan for them.

I go back to the idea that the Fall might have been the necessary stumbling stone that woke us up. The Fall seems to be the only way we could learn and understand our noble destiny. Our soul is that divine spark inside and the eternal element we need to cherish and keep intact, if not improve.

One last thing... Is it not strange how humans, unlike animals, can not get by on their own? They need to be clothed, they need to be taught. Unlike animals, humans need to rely on someone, or something else...

Some questions remain... I wonder just how can animals have emotions, as I think they do. Don't they have a spirit? And if so, where does that spirit go when they die?

The Fall of Man

2006-06-25T15:41:00.000+01:00

The Fall as explained in Genesis has been used and misued over the centuries to control men and women and to explain all the evils in the world. The Bible however does not make such claims and we actually know very little about the Fall.

The Bible does not hold women responsible for Evil like some had it! Reliefs on European medieval churches even went as far as representing the serpent with women features! The Bible certainly does not say that sex was the original sin, since God commanded the man and the woman to have sex and replenish the land! Yet that theme is often used in today's songs or ads.

The Bible does not even say that the man and the woman would have never died hadn't they taken of the tree.

Speaking of the tree, its fruit may have been any fruit and not necessarily an apple!

These ideas all came later for some reason or another, namely erroneous translations and the cons of man. Furthermore, the Bible does not say that the serpent was in fact Satan. This is what Christians believe the New Testament texts clarified regarding the matter.

Genesis tells us that God had given the man and the woman a garden to dwell in and to cultivate and live from. Now, there were two trees in the garden that were not supposed to be eaten from: The tree of Life and the tree of Knowledge.

The Bible says that the Serpent was a mischievous creature, who led the woman to desire the fruit God had said would make them die. The verb translated as "to die", for the ancients may have just meant to be "cut off from the presence of God", what Christians call: The spiritual death, and this is what happened... They got banished from the presence of God.

So, the woman ate of the forbidden fruit and she then had the knowledge, she knew... In the Bible, "to know" is not only intellectual, it also means: "to experience, to master". With her eyes now open, she could have done anything. The man ate of the fruit too, as the woman invited him to. The fate of Mankind was sealed. One single rule existed at that time. Mankind broke it and strained their entire world.

The evening came, God walked in the garden, Mankind and God living in the same place, Mankind being in the presence of God. Later, no-one would be able to be in God's presence, for his glory would kill them. At the time, the humans were still "little less than the gods".

It is interesting to see that God is not some shapeless spirit, but an actual, if glorified, being: He walks, and he talks to the couple who also heard him walking in the garden, not to forget that God created Mankind in his own resemblance. What's more, Jesus will say that whoever sees him, also sees what his God is like.

God punished the serpent, the man and the woman:

The serpent would crawl from now on. It was interesting to see some article in the newspaper last month: Scientists had "discovered" that snakes used to have legs. I thought to myself that "I always knew that, thank you very much for this discovery anyway". God also said that the woman's descendants will be the Serpent's enemies: "You will bite his heel and he will bruise your head". Christian texts would then recognize the woman's descendant(s) to be Jesus, who bruised the Serpent's head -Satan's kingdom-, after it bit men's heels -causing death to come to their bodies and the world.

The woman would suffer when giving birth, meaning that the easiness of life was now lost. The woman did not open some Pandora's box, the couple just paid the price for this specific mistake, nothing more. Same thing for the man, the easiness of life was now lost for him too, he would need to "till the land that will bring forth weeds and thistles". Curiously enough, the man was not directly punished: It was the Earth that became cursed instead!

God proceeded to banish mankind from his presence, so they won't "eat of the tree of Life and live forever to become like the gods". God shows that he still cares when he gives them clothing. The couple had covered their nudity with some leaves after eating of the fruit but God supplied them with something more appropriate. God still cared when mankind parted from God's presence and ventured into unknown territory...

Reflections on the Fall...

2006-06-25T10:51:00.000+01:00

I often think of the Fall, if we could have progressed hadn't it happened? If it was really what God had in mind for mankind as I tend to believe?

Did it hit the woman right after she tasted the flesh of the fruit that there was one single rule God had given, and that she had just broken it and was bringing a curse to herself, her descendants and the Earth itself?

It is kind of sad that the Man cannot even keep one single commandment and not mess up his entire world.

I wonder what kind of knowledge the man and the woman suddenly had and also what life was like before the Fall.

I will always wonder why God put these forbidden trees in the garden in the first place! I mean, if you don't want people to use something you have, you are not going to bring it to their house, are you? So maybe, like some believe, God knew exactly what was going to happen, and it was necessary to make the humans fall and go through the school of life.

I think God wanted them to fall. Creation was perfect, and all the animals were blameless. So it must have been Satan who entered the serpent. And when God cast Satan away, he knew what he could end up doing. God could have destroyed Satan, but he did not. There was a role for Satan to play, and he's playing it. It all ultimately is for God's glory.

To me, the humans -souls held in a tabernacle- were like children who just could not remain in their innocent state: they had to grow up, they had to learn how to walk, and they had to fall to learn how to get back up and become grown-ups. This is my idea, but the text does not say anything about that...

The couple were still vegetarians, so when God gave them garments, was it the first violence on animals, skinned to give their fur?

I also invite people who wonder why God allows sufferings, sickness, and death, wars, famine and all sorts of evils to consider how it all began. The answers are in the text. Mankind brought a curse upon itself and the Earth, and our actions generate problems, and problems can turn into pain and disasters. Think about that next time you hear people say: "If there was a God, my grand-father would not have died", or "If there was a God there would not be children starving in Africa", or "Where was God when that tsunami or that earthquake hit?" If your father lovingly tells you not to do drugs, but you do drugs anyway, one cannot blame your father for your becoming an addict. The people affected, friends, family, or the people whose house you broke into to steal to get your dope, cannot possibly blame your father for the bad things happening to them. Besides, all that misery does not mean your father stopped existing...

Because many people reject the origin of your world and the reason for mankind to be, they lose sight of the divine spark in them, they become the beasts they believe they descend from. What's more, because they reject Genesis, they fail to understand why they are here for, and why the God they hear say is good and loving lets so much misery have its way.

...

2006-06-25T09:14:00.000+01:00

The Creation...

2006-06-11T15:26:00.000+01:00

Genesis is a tricky book, because the account of the Creation is so polemical. And I do not wish to enter into that polemic. Passions are so strong on either side that this is never a constructive discussion but a battlefield with no winner. Surely this is not a way to progress, but to leave the gap between science and religion wide open.

The Bible and Science needn't fight. There is a trend among scientists to accept Creationism and use the Bible along with Science to study the formation of our universe. The Bible and Science can be complimentary, two accounts, that put together can help us further our knowledge of where we come from.

I have a problem when Science denies the Bible and wants to work on its own instead of using the Bible's help. When so-called "findings" are so remote from what God has revealed, I reject these findings. The painter's explanation has more value to me than the art critic explaining the same work. I also have a problem with hard-line Christians who oppose any scientific finds and interpret the Creation account literally.

It is important to remember that the ancients were more liberal with the Creation account than some Christians today. I believe in what the Bible says, but those words have a meaning we might not understand and they were given at a certain time, to certain people and for a specific reason.

Having said that, I also believe that the Word of God does not change, and that the texts are still relevant, and always will be. You just need to interpret it for yourself, but also go back to its original meaning.

If we take the first words of the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning", we may tend to believe that there was nothing before God "created" the Earth, but scholars explain that the expression should have been rendered as "When God created the Earth..." Therefore we do not know if matter was present and if some life existed before the "darkness and chaos" of the text.

The creation account shares many similarities with ancient Mesopotamian texts, but also has its own flavour. In those myths, man was a slave to the gods, whereas in Genesis, mankind is "in the image of God", meaning that men and women represent God on Earth, and are kings and queens. And while Science explains the formation of the universe focusing on the universe, Genesis explains the said formation focusing on man, the pinnacle of the Creation.

Light, in the text, is the first thing God created. In the chaos covered in water and darkness, was a wind of God, expressing that he had mastery over the chaos. God commanded and then made. Or he makes with helpers, as there is the idea of an assembly of gods, although Yahweh takes the decisions. See for example: "let us make man in our likeness".

The phases of the creation account are similar to the "findings" of Science.

First, the darkness is dispelled, and light appears. Then the water recedes and the dry land appears. God calls light "day" and the land he calls "earth", as the redactor wants to express that God is the master of his creation.

From a theological point of view, it is interesting to see that the chaotic darkness is not destroyed but shares the stage with the light. Night and Day, like the Ying and the Yang, the opposites that complete each other. This balance is important to God too. God also repeats in the text that each stage of the creation is "good". The world is a beautiful place and God's masterpiece.

After creating, or organizing, the light and the dry land, vegetation sprouts... life begins.

Later come the fish in the sea and the birds. Later still come the animals on the land. The last stage, or last phase or "day", is the creation of Mankind. Man is organic, or "taken from the earth" to use the biblical language. God gives the Man life, the spark, and I think this is consciousness, because animals were given life without this idea of breathing life into them. So there is something divine that got inside the human being.

... Of Mankind

2006-06-11T14:06:00.000+01:00

The creation of mankind is hard to understand and we are not supplied with much more information regarding this. What about the theory of Evolution?

Well, maybe there was some evolution, and when conscience entered the creature, it became the "first" man? I have no idea!

And maybe this is not for us to speculate on this. If God had intended to make it clearer, I believe he would have done so. He probably deems we know enough as it is, and the miracle of life is still not understood by anyone honest enough to admit it. The theory of Evolution is being questioned by scientists all around the world.

To me the saddest thing about this theory is that as he believes he comes from the beast, the Man lost sight that he holds a spark of the Divine inside. He then turns into a beast again, as he is persuaded he's nothing more than an animal that came into existence by chance, and not a creation of God, not an eternal soul in a tabernacle. We are so much more than what we think. Mankind is precious to God.

What I know from the Bible and from Science is that human beings appeared at the end of that fantastic formation of our world. The Bible expresses that we are kings, that we are in "God's likeness". We physically look like God and Earth was formed for mankind. Humans were meant to rule, but respect, the world and its creatures. Indeed, in the text, the first man gives names to the animals and God validates these names. He has dominion over them and the rest of the Creation, but there was no bloodshed: The man was commanded to be vegetarian and eat of the fruits and cereals the land produced.

Flora carries its own seed in the text, but the Man does not, hence the differentiation of the sexes: God created the humans (created in his likeness) male and female. It tells me that male fatures need to be completed by female ones, and vice versa, in order to be "whole" and closer to God.

Mankind cannot be on its own, people need a counterpart, to relate to others.

God commanded the man and the woman to have children to replenish the land and to be the masters of the place, the garden, he had given them. They were meant to raise a family and rule the world, reporting only to God.

The woman is a part of the man, in the image of God as much as her male counterpart. In the text, they were equal. The idea that the woman is ruled by her husband is not what God had intended, it only came after the Fall. How sad it is that the Fathers of the Church used Genesis to undermine women and made up that the Fall was because the man and the woman had sex!

God "saw that the creation was good", not just its components, but as a all, and he rested, making the first Sabbath.

The Gnostics' account of the Creation differs in the sense that it is a lesser god who created the Earth and that the woman came to the man in order to open up his eyes, hence making them eating of the fruit a necessity. Once again, the ancients accepted variations in the telling of the creation of our world and of the human race, and I don't think we should close our eyes to other accounts from other faiths or from Science, as long as we don't make these accounts weight any more than Genesis.

...

2006-06-11T13:21:00.000+01:00

In the Beginning

2006-05-27T18:35:00.000+01:00

This blog is about reflections of an open-minded student of the Bible. I do not belong to any denomination and was not raised in a Christian home. But I believe in God and the Bible fascinates me. I never tire of reading it. I don't see it as an outdated book. I see it like an old song that makes me feel special, that speaks of its time and of its people. Over the months the meaning of songs change for us, but they remain special. So, if you are into the Bible or just curious about it, and want to share thoughts and opinions, feel welcome!