Genesis 2:15-25 begins with God taking Adam ("the man," at this point) and putting him in the garden in order to "cultivate and keep it." God gives Adam the instruction that he can eat from any tree in the garden except from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." God says that Adam will "surely die" if ever Adam eats from this tree.
I want to insert the observation that Eve was not yet created when Adam received this instruction. I also want to insert the observation that the only command God gave, according to the Bible, was that Adam could not eat from the tree. God did not tell him not to go near it, He did not tell Adam not to touch it, He did not tell Adam not to sit under it - nothing of the sort. He only said that Adam cannot eat from the tree. And, the fact that a "Tree of the knowledge of good and evil" existed before the fall of man implies to me that evil existed before this whole fiasco with Adam and Eve that unravels in Genesis 3.
I'm reading a book called "The Orthodox Way," which discusses how evil is not a real substance within itself, but is simply the absence of good. But I'm not so sure that God creates things by "default," when He is God and could have decided not to allow evil to exist at all. And what about the fact that darkness pre-existed light? If light and darkness are true metaphors/symbols for good and evil, then the existence of darkness before light would certainly mean that evil was actually here first. So that instead of evil being the absence of good, good is the absence of evil. Perhaps we lived in a fallen world before we fell.
On the flip side, if good existed before evil, then it means that God actively and with full knowledge created evil.
After God gives Adam his instructions concerning the trees in the garden, He decides that Adam shouldn't be alone and that He needs a "helper." At this point the Bible says that God begins to form beasts out of the ground and birds for the sky, and brought them to the man "to see what he would call them." There are two things I don't understand, here. (1) Why would God declare that Adam needs a partner, and then start forming animals? Didn't God already know that animals would not be the type of partner that a human needed? (2) In Genesis 1, God created all the animals before he created man. Now, only one chapter later, the Bible has God creating all the animals after he created man. Why? Or is it that God created animals before man - but those animals were outside of the garden, and these new animals are inside of the garden? Of course, we don't really know which day humans were created, either - the Bible implies that humans were created on Day 6, but then turns around to imply that humans were created on Day 2. So, I really don't know.
After being unable to find a suitable helper among the animals, God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and took a part of Adam's rib to form another human - a woman. Adam says his famous line: "This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman (Ishshah) because she was taken out of Man (Ish)."
And the Bible goes on to narrate that it is for this reason (what reason? Because woman was taken out of man?) a man will leave his mother and father and cling to his wife. The Bible has a kind of 'circle of life' thing going here: The woman is taken out of man, and only by man re-entering woman can a new man (or woman) be made. And so the Bible says that the man and woman "shall become one flesh," which I assume refers to sex. The last verse in chapter two states that the man and woman were naked and not ashamed. I think this will be an important statement to refer to in Genesis 3.
And, I haven't forgotten about Yetzer Tov and Yetzer Hara, which I will be discussing next post!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Genesis 2:1-14
By the looks of it, it seems as though God has been doing all His creative work on a schedule that looks sort of like this:
Today, we deal with Genesis 2:1-14 (click on the link to read the passage on Bible Gateway). God is in his seventh day, He has finished creation, and He "rests" from his work and sanctifies the day. Assuming that God does not need literal rest, I have always taken the word "rest" to mean simply that God "stopped" creating. And the fact that God sanctifies the day that He stopped creating implies (to me) that this was a permanent stop. Or, in other words, the prototype or original version of everything that would ever exist was created in these first "seven days" (which may or may not be a literal seven days). If this is true, I wonder if there could be an implication here for the theory of evolution? Perhaps God created everything's origin and just allowed nature to run its course from there? Or perhaps my ideas are all wrong and God went right back to creating on "Day 8."
After pausing to talk about the Sabbath, the Bible gives a more detailed account of the creation of humanity. Geneses 2:4-7 talks about how God formed man out of dust in the day when "No shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth..." This is kind of a contradiction, since chapter one says that vegetation was created and commanded to reproduce on Day 2, and humans are not formed until Day 6. The only way for this to not be a contradiction would be if vegetation did not grow right away when God commanded it.
God creates man out of dust and breathes life into his nostrils. As a sidenote, I've read somewhere that the word for life in Hebrew is "Chai" or "Chay," but in any case looks like this:
, and that this word in the Bible is actually in the plural, "Chayim," which is to say that God breathed more than one life into Adam - His spirit and His soul. This is the reason that Jews believe in yetzer tov and yezter hara - which I will talk about later.
Something I think Christians always overlook or forget about is that "Eden" is not a garden in and of itself. Eden is a place in which there is a garden called "The Garden of Eden." Adam was created in Eden, and after Adam's creation (Gen 2:7-8) God created the 'garden' and placed Adam in it. God caused trees to grow in this garden. But what about the vegetation outside of the garden? Had it begun growing yet? Could this be a clue that the earth was "fallen" before the actual "fall"? Why would God command something to grow (on day 2) that didn't grow until at least day 6? And if things were growing as intended, why does the Bible say that no shrubs were on the earth when Adam was created - although Adam was created after the creation of shrubs? And, if things were growing as intended, why did God need to create another garden on day 6? Wouldn't there have already been one?
In the garden of Eden are two trees: (1) The Tree of Life. (2) The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I think this is another detail that Christians tend to overlook. The Bible then describes a river flowing out of Eden to water the Garden. The river breaks off into four separate rivers - Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. And the land surrounding these four rivers is described - there's Havilah, Cush, and Assyria. I wonder if anyone was living in these lands? Did God really only create Adam and Eve when He first created humans? Or did He create hundreds of humans at the same time, and the Bible only follows the story of Adam and Eve?
Day 0 - Water/Air/Emptiness
Day 1 - Sky/Light
Day 2 - Land/Sea/Vegetation
Day 3 - Sun/Moon/Starts
Day 4 - Sea Creatures/Air Creatures
Day 5 - Land Creatures
Day 6 - Humans
Today, we deal with Genesis 2:1-14 (click on the link to read the passage on Bible Gateway). God is in his seventh day, He has finished creation, and He "rests" from his work and sanctifies the day. Assuming that God does not need literal rest, I have always taken the word "rest" to mean simply that God "stopped" creating. And the fact that God sanctifies the day that He stopped creating implies (to me) that this was a permanent stop. Or, in other words, the prototype or original version of everything that would ever exist was created in these first "seven days" (which may or may not be a literal seven days). If this is true, I wonder if there could be an implication here for the theory of evolution? Perhaps God created everything's origin and just allowed nature to run its course from there? Or perhaps my ideas are all wrong and God went right back to creating on "Day 8."
After pausing to talk about the Sabbath, the Bible gives a more detailed account of the creation of humanity. Geneses 2:4-7 talks about how God formed man out of dust in the day when "No shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth..." This is kind of a contradiction, since chapter one says that vegetation was created and commanded to reproduce on Day 2, and humans are not formed until Day 6. The only way for this to not be a contradiction would be if vegetation did not grow right away when God commanded it.
God creates man out of dust and breathes life into his nostrils. As a sidenote, I've read somewhere that the word for life in Hebrew is "Chai" or "Chay," but in any case looks like this:
Something I think Christians always overlook or forget about is that "Eden" is not a garden in and of itself. Eden is a place in which there is a garden called "The Garden of Eden." Adam was created in Eden, and after Adam's creation (Gen 2:7-8) God created the 'garden' and placed Adam in it. God caused trees to grow in this garden. But what about the vegetation outside of the garden? Had it begun growing yet? Could this be a clue that the earth was "fallen" before the actual "fall"? Why would God command something to grow (on day 2) that didn't grow until at least day 6? And if things were growing as intended, why does the Bible say that no shrubs were on the earth when Adam was created - although Adam was created after the creation of shrubs? And, if things were growing as intended, why did God need to create another garden on day 6? Wouldn't there have already been one?
In the garden of Eden are two trees: (1) The Tree of Life. (2) The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I think this is another detail that Christians tend to overlook. The Bible then describes a river flowing out of Eden to water the Garden. The river breaks off into four separate rivers - Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. And the land surrounding these four rivers is described - there's Havilah, Cush, and Assyria. I wonder if anyone was living in these lands? Did God really only create Adam and Eve when He first created humans? Or did He create hundreds of humans at the same time, and the Bible only follows the story of Adam and Eve?
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Good.
I wrapped up my last post with the observation that God is continuously calling His creations 'good,' and wondering if there is something tangibly good about creation that causes Him to keep affirming the fact that everything He has made is good. This blog is primarily about Christianity, so I don't want to get off topic too frequently, but I am also studying the scriptures of about nine other religions/spiritual practices, one of which is the Zhuan Falun - the primary text of Falun Gong. And I find it so interesting that the texts of all the different religions - while they disagree about certain details - seem to support each other in many ways and make what I consider to be a kind of comprehensive whole.
One example of this comes from the teaching in Falun Gong that the universe is made up of the principles of Zhen, Shan, Ren - or Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Could these characteristics (or something similar) be what God is referring to as He consistently calls His creation 'good' and 'exceedingly good' in some translations? Practicioners of Falun Gong feel that we have fallen, somehow, from our natural state of Zhen, Shan, Ren, and into this current state of disrepair. The ultimate goal of the Falun Gong spiritual practice is to assimilate ourselves back to truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance - which are three of the fruits of the spirit (if we put truthfulness into the category of 'goodness' and compassion into the category of 'kindness'). I find that this teaching from Falun Gong really resonates with the Christian teaching that mankind was once 'good,' but has fallen.
Perhaps, through the lens of the Zhuan Falun, we can speculate about what God meant as He continuously called His creations good.
One example of this comes from the teaching in Falun Gong that the universe is made up of the principles of Zhen, Shan, Ren - or Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Could these characteristics (or something similar) be what God is referring to as He consistently calls His creation 'good' and 'exceedingly good' in some translations? Practicioners of Falun Gong feel that we have fallen, somehow, from our natural state of Zhen, Shan, Ren, and into this current state of disrepair. The ultimate goal of the Falun Gong spiritual practice is to assimilate ourselves back to truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance - which are three of the fruits of the spirit (if we put truthfulness into the category of 'goodness' and compassion into the category of 'kindness'). I find that this teaching from Falun Gong really resonates with the Christian teaching that mankind was once 'good,' but has fallen.
Perhaps, through the lens of the Zhuan Falun, we can speculate about what God meant as He continuously called His creations good.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Correction & Gen.1:10-31
Before I continue, I wanted to point out that I made an error in term-usage in my last post. I used the word 'Pseudographia' or 'Pseudographic(al)' to describe the category of religious literature that the 'Lost Books of Eden' fall into. However, the word I should have used is actually Psuedopigrapha. And it still refers to a work that is attributed falsely or uncertainly to an important historical figure or leader.
Genesis 1:10-31 (<~~ click here to read this on BibleGateway).
I left off last time on the third day at Genesis 1:10, where God gathered all the land together and all the sea together, and saw that it was 'good.' Whenever I read that verse in the Bible, I actually think of Pangea. It's interesting that God gathers all the land together in one place - instead of the land being spread out over the earth as it is today - and all of the sea together in one place, instead of being interspersed throughout the earth as it is today. This is exactly what Pangea was said to be like, and I guess the spreading out of the continents had something to do with the tectonic plates on which each continent is located.
Genesis 1:10-31 (<~~ click here to read this on BibleGateway).
I left off last time on the third day at Genesis 1:10, where God gathered all the land together and all the sea together, and saw that it was 'good.' Whenever I read that verse in the Bible, I actually think of Pangea. It's interesting that God gathers all the land together in one place - instead of the land being spread out over the earth as it is today - and all of the sea together in one place, instead of being interspersed throughout the earth as it is today. This is exactly what Pangea was said to be like, and I guess the spreading out of the continents had something to do with the tectonic plates on which each continent is located.
According to the Bible - with all the seas in one place and with all the land in one place - the idea of Pangea seems to be supported. God, in verse 11 creates vegetation. Actually, there's no mention of him literally 'creating' vegetation, but He simply calls for the earth to sprout vegetation. Here is where the third day ends (although in my last post I think I placed the end of the 'third day' at verse ten, I was wrong).
In verse fourteen, we finally get to the creation of the "lights in the expanse to separate day from night" (1:14, NASB) and I find it odd that God is just now creating these lights to separate day and night when, for three days, 'evening' and 'morning' have been clearly distinguished. Not to mention the fact that light and darkness have already been separated from one another in Genesis 1:4. So what's going on, here? Why is God separating light and darkness twice? Perhaps God was lighting another part of the universe with his other lights, and with the sun and the moon He was lighting the earth. Who knows. God spends the entire fourth day creating these lights.
The fifth day (beginning at Gen 1:20) is spent creating the animals that swim in the sea and the animals that fly in the air. God blesses the animals, saying 'Be fruitful and multiply.' I wonder what God's blessing on the animals was? Is God's blessing on the animals simply a command or an ability to procreate? Or could it have been a superior physical and spiritual nature that was lost after Adam and Eve's blunder in the garden? This passage also makes me think about the theory of evolution. Based on what I know so far about evolution, I don't see any reason why evolution and the creation story need to be mutually exclusive. It seems like God sets the process in motion, and allows things to just continue naturally as He has designed them.
On the sixth day, God made all of the animals that live on land. This is also the day in which God creates humans. God creates humans in His image and in His likeness. There are two things I want to mention about this passage. (1) Many Christians use this verse to imply that God exists eternally in three persons - also known as the doctrine of the Trinity. I can understand why they do so, after all the verse says, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26, emphasis mine). However, in languages like Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, etc, a powerful King or a God uses the plural when speaking because it is a reference to the King (or God) and His power. It is a linguistic thing that, when translated to English, really doesn't translate. So I try to avoid using this verse to prove the Trinity. The other thing (2) I wanted to mention about this verse is that God says that humans will be made in His image and in His likeness. Is this just a repetition in order to drive home a point? Or, is God referring to our being made in his spiritual image and physical likeness (or vise versa?) Does God even have a physical likeness or image? Do human being literally look like God?
Later in the Bible (1 Corinthians 11:7), we will hear that the man is the image and the glory of God, while woman is the glory of man. I often wonder how literally verses like this should be taken.
So, God gives humans dominion over all of the animals in the earth - but not over the earth itself. He blesses humans with the ability and the command to procreate and he tells us to fill the earth and subdue it. In some translations, God is reported as saying to 'replenish' the Earth. I wonder why those translations use the word replenish? Is it a linguistic error, or an implication that there was something on Earth before humanity? God, who is eternal, probably has been in the business of creation long before He created Earth and its inhabitants. And I'm sure the story of God's creation will continue long after humans are extinct. It's amazing to think about.
God gives us every 'seed-yielding' plant for food. I find it interesting that at the very beginning of human history - we are given dominion over the animals, but not the permission to eat them. This means that in our most perfected state, we may have used animals for work or companionship - but we were vegetarians.
Animals were not given permission to eat one another, either. Nowadays, we rely on certain meats for the protein and iron that is important to our heath. But here in Genesis, meat is unnecessary. I wonder if our genetic makeup changed along the way, somehow? And not just ours, but that of the animals too (since they don't seem to have been eating one another at this time).
God saw everything that He made and He says that it is good. And I wonder why God keeps calling everything 'good?' What does He mean by that? Is there something tangibly good about the makeup of the universe...?
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Part 1: Intro & Gen 1-10.
If I'm going to read chronologically through all of this (see last post), the first thing to do is to begin with the Torah. A lot of people think that the Torah is the entire Old Testament of the Bible, but actually it's not. The Torah is only the first five books of the Old Testament - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In Hebrew, these books are called Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra, Bamidbar, and Devarim, and they are also referred to as the Pentateuch.
To read the Bible chronologically, one would read Genesis chapters 1-22, and then jump to the book of Job. So that's what I'll be doing. However, I will be inserting passages from 'The Lost Books of Eden' into my reading of Genesis.
The Lost Books of Eden are pseudographical books that, for whatever reason, did not make it into the cannon of scripture. Technically, the first five books of the Old Testament could be considered pseudographia because no one really knows whether Moses wrote those books himself, or whether someone else wrote them in Moses' name (that happened a lot in ancient Israeli culture, I read). These books may or may not be completely accurate, but having read some of them last year I do find them somewhat supplemental in the sense that they give a fuller picture of what the culture, emotions, and hardships of well-known Biblical characters may have been. I also find interesting the large amounts of messianic prophesies that are in them. But we'll get there when we get there.
I don't know when the Lost Books of Eden were written, but one of the translations into English was completed in 1927. I am interspersing them with my reading of Genesis because their content is chronologically aligned with the events in the book of Genesis, not because the books themselves were written concurrently with the book of Genesis.
Needless to say my entries will be kind of lengthy, but except for today I probably won't be posting too frequently. I'll try to get into a rhythm with my posts, but since I am employed full time and a full time student - I can't make any solid promises about the frequency of my entries. So, there'll be time to digest each post, if you're following.
Genesis 1:1-10 (<~~ click to read Genesis 1 on BibleGateway).
Every time I read the creation account and the account of the fall, I have questions. The Bible honestly doesn't explain everything, and some people say that whatever is unexplained in the Bible must be unimportant. Perhaps things left unexplained in the Bible are unknowable - but I would never say that they are unimportant. Here is a list of some things that - if ever possible - I would want to have explained to me.
-Before the Bible discusses the creation of anything, it mentions that God's spirit moved over the surface of the waters (Gen. 1:2). Does this mean that water was in existence before God's creation on Earth? Could water have been uncreated? Later in the Bible (much later, in Revelations) we read about how there will be no more "sea." What does water represent that it would be something God wants to get rid of? Why doesn't the creation account ever mention the creation of water? And why is water important enough that it seems to be the very first thing that existed on earth?
-In Genesis 1:3, God says "let there be light," but he doesn't create the sun or the moon or the starts until a few days later. If this 'light' created on the first day isn't any of the heavenly bodies - what kind of light is it? Is it a metaphor for good and evil? Is it Jesus? But if the light is Jesus, and Jesus is the 'firstborn of all creation,' then why is water on the scene before this light appears? I've asked this question before and someone mentioned to me that perhaps the 'light' is God's glory. Maybe. But why did God have to create his own glory? Isn't his glory inherent to who He is, and therefore uncreated?
-Verse 4 talks about God deeming the light to be 'good,' and separating the light from the darkness. This makes me wonder if the light was just general goodness, and darkness was general evil. If this is the case, does that mean evil (darkness) always existed or pre-dated goodness (light)? If God is, by nature, good - why does goodness have to be created? And the fact that God had to separate the two implies that at some point literal light and darkness were merged together in some kind of indistinguishable mixture (that would be an interesting thing to see!), or that good and evil were once merged together in some kind of indistinguishable mixture - perhaps things are still that way, today.
-Verse 5 says, "Then there was evening, and there was morning, one day." How do we have evening and morning before the creation of the heavenly bodies (sun, moon, stars)? Especially when God's explicit purpose for the heavenly bodies was to be a measurement of time (Genesis 1:14)? Day and night apparently pre-date the sun and the moon. I want to make an interesting note here that a 'day' is always comprised of evening and then morning. The Bible is very clear about repeatedly mentioning the fact that evening comes before morning. Another implication of darkness existing before light.
Verses 6-9 discuss day two's creation of an expanse (heaven, sky) and it's separation from the waters above it and the waters below it. On day 3, God became really busy. He gathers all the waters that are below the expanse, and puts them together in one place (where were they before?) Then, he calls for dry land to 'appear' (instead of creating it in His 'let there be...' fashion?) Land is never explicitly created, and now that I'm thinking about it - neither is air. Why not? Why are these 'creations' not important enough to mention?
In Gen. 1:10, God calls the dry land 'earth,' and the gathered waters are called 'seas.' Then, he deems everything to be good and the third day comes to a close.
I don't want it to seem like my questioning of the Bible is a rebellious questioning, and I won't be questioning everything I read. But I am an inquisitive person with millions of unasked questions coming to my mind each day. Questioning is how I learn. And I'm not afraid to have my faith shaken, shattered, redirected, or strengthened - as long as in the end I can solidly back my reasons for believing what I believe.
To read the Bible chronologically, one would read Genesis chapters 1-22, and then jump to the book of Job. So that's what I'll be doing. However, I will be inserting passages from 'The Lost Books of Eden' into my reading of Genesis.
The Lost Books of Eden are pseudographical books that, for whatever reason, did not make it into the cannon of scripture. Technically, the first five books of the Old Testament could be considered pseudographia because no one really knows whether Moses wrote those books himself, or whether someone else wrote them in Moses' name (that happened a lot in ancient Israeli culture, I read). These books may or may not be completely accurate, but having read some of them last year I do find them somewhat supplemental in the sense that they give a fuller picture of what the culture, emotions, and hardships of well-known Biblical characters may have been. I also find interesting the large amounts of messianic prophesies that are in them. But we'll get there when we get there.
I don't know when the Lost Books of Eden were written, but one of the translations into English was completed in 1927. I am interspersing them with my reading of Genesis because their content is chronologically aligned with the events in the book of Genesis, not because the books themselves were written concurrently with the book of Genesis.
Needless to say my entries will be kind of lengthy, but except for today I probably won't be posting too frequently. I'll try to get into a rhythm with my posts, but since I am employed full time and a full time student - I can't make any solid promises about the frequency of my entries. So, there'll be time to digest each post, if you're following.
Genesis 1:1-10 (<~~ click to read Genesis 1 on BibleGateway).
Every time I read the creation account and the account of the fall, I have questions. The Bible honestly doesn't explain everything, and some people say that whatever is unexplained in the Bible must be unimportant. Perhaps things left unexplained in the Bible are unknowable - but I would never say that they are unimportant. Here is a list of some things that - if ever possible - I would want to have explained to me.
-Before the Bible discusses the creation of anything, it mentions that God's spirit moved over the surface of the waters (Gen. 1:2). Does this mean that water was in existence before God's creation on Earth? Could water have been uncreated? Later in the Bible (much later, in Revelations) we read about how there will be no more "sea." What does water represent that it would be something God wants to get rid of? Why doesn't the creation account ever mention the creation of water? And why is water important enough that it seems to be the very first thing that existed on earth?
-In Genesis 1:3, God says "let there be light," but he doesn't create the sun or the moon or the starts until a few days later. If this 'light' created on the first day isn't any of the heavenly bodies - what kind of light is it? Is it a metaphor for good and evil? Is it Jesus? But if the light is Jesus, and Jesus is the 'firstborn of all creation,' then why is water on the scene before this light appears? I've asked this question before and someone mentioned to me that perhaps the 'light' is God's glory. Maybe. But why did God have to create his own glory? Isn't his glory inherent to who He is, and therefore uncreated?
-Verse 4 talks about God deeming the light to be 'good,' and separating the light from the darkness. This makes me wonder if the light was just general goodness, and darkness was general evil. If this is the case, does that mean evil (darkness) always existed or pre-dated goodness (light)? If God is, by nature, good - why does goodness have to be created? And the fact that God had to separate the two implies that at some point literal light and darkness were merged together in some kind of indistinguishable mixture (that would be an interesting thing to see!), or that good and evil were once merged together in some kind of indistinguishable mixture - perhaps things are still that way, today.
-Verse 5 says, "Then there was evening, and there was morning, one day." How do we have evening and morning before the creation of the heavenly bodies (sun, moon, stars)? Especially when God's explicit purpose for the heavenly bodies was to be a measurement of time (Genesis 1:14)? Day and night apparently pre-date the sun and the moon. I want to make an interesting note here that a 'day' is always comprised of evening and then morning. The Bible is very clear about repeatedly mentioning the fact that evening comes before morning. Another implication of darkness existing before light.
Verses 6-9 discuss day two's creation of an expanse (heaven, sky) and it's separation from the waters above it and the waters below it. On day 3, God became really busy. He gathers all the waters that are below the expanse, and puts them together in one place (where were they before?) Then, he calls for dry land to 'appear' (instead of creating it in His 'let there be...' fashion?) Land is never explicitly created, and now that I'm thinking about it - neither is air. Why not? Why are these 'creations' not important enough to mention?
In Gen. 1:10, God calls the dry land 'earth,' and the gathered waters are called 'seas.' Then, he deems everything to be good and the third day comes to a close.
I don't want it to seem like my questioning of the Bible is a rebellious questioning, and I won't be questioning everything I read. But I am an inquisitive person with millions of unasked questions coming to my mind each day. Questioning is how I learn. And I'm not afraid to have my faith shaken, shattered, redirected, or strengthened - as long as in the end I can solidly back my reasons for believing what I believe.
History, Folklore, and Literature
To be honest, I'm starting this blog in order to be able to follow a friend's blog (she uses blogger), and to continue following the blogs that I used to follow on blogger a couple of years ago. But I think I'm also going to use this blog for a new personal project I started that focuses on Christian history, folklore, and literature. So, if you're interested in learning with me - stick around.
My plan is to read (chronologically) through as much Christian literature, history, scripture, and theology as possible so that I can see the 'big picture' of the development of modern Christianity around the world. I don't know how all-encompassing this will be, and I certainly expect this project to take several years. I'm kind of a history and literature geek so I'm getting excited just thinking about it. With my busy schedule, I hope I can stay committed to it.
Although I've only just begun, I feel like this project has been in the making for quite some time. I can't even begin to describe here what I've been going through in my spiritual life for the past twenty years or so (and I'm in my late twenties which means this has been quite a lengthy adventure).
Obviously, this will not be a scholarly or even 'expert' work but more the 'musings of a layman (woman?)' as I progress through Christian history.
Again, I'm really excited to do this for myself. One of my favorite things about history is looking at how historical events are manifested in our modern, collective subconscious attitudes about certain issues. I think that this will open up some interesting points of thought for me as well as some interesting dialogue, if anyone follows and is willing to discuss!
My plan is to read (chronologically) through as much Christian literature, history, scripture, and theology as possible so that I can see the 'big picture' of the development of modern Christianity around the world. I don't know how all-encompassing this will be, and I certainly expect this project to take several years. I'm kind of a history and literature geek so I'm getting excited just thinking about it. With my busy schedule, I hope I can stay committed to it.
Although I've only just begun, I feel like this project has been in the making for quite some time. I can't even begin to describe here what I've been going through in my spiritual life for the past twenty years or so (and I'm in my late twenties which means this has been quite a lengthy adventure).
Obviously, this will not be a scholarly or even 'expert' work but more the 'musings of a layman (woman?)' as I progress through Christian history.
Again, I'm really excited to do this for myself. One of my favorite things about history is looking at how historical events are manifested in our modern, collective subconscious attitudes about certain issues. I think that this will open up some interesting points of thought for me as well as some interesting dialogue, if anyone follows and is willing to discuss!
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