GRAPPLING WITH GOD'S REGRET
My project to read the Bible cover to cover begins, of course, with Genesis. Like a mad scientist emerging from thin air, God appears on the scene and spends five days creating the world as we know it. On the sixth he creates man and then rests on the seventh. Solid. But then we get to the next chapter, where the entire thing is reversed: here God first creates man (Adam, in Hebrew), then makes the land and beasts and stuff and finally, in the end, tears out one of Adam’s ribs and creates a woman. This chapter is far more exciting, full of conflict and as fantastical as J. R R. Tolkien’s "Lord Of The Rings".
Of course I was familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, but I had no idea Adam was such a whiny tattletale. He gives Eve up the second God senses something is amiss. “The woman You put at my side–she gave me of the tree and I ate.” Nice going Adam. No wonder men and women have trust issues.
In Genesis 4:1 - 26, Eve gives birth to Cain and Abel. This is another tale that has trickled into mainstream storytelling, so I was shocked to learn that the tussle between these two brothers takes up only two paragraphs. Cain thinks God loves Abel more, so he kills him. Easy. God banishes Cain, there’s a bunch of begetting and then, just like that, God says, “I will blot out from the earth the men whom I created–men together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them.”
It is disconcerting to know that not even God transcends regret. Having created the world, He looks around and realises he could do better. But just before he shakes his great Etch-a-Sketch of a universe clean, he decides to save Noah and his wives, sons, sons’ wives and two of every living creature (one male, one female). They all hang out on an ark together while the heavens open and rain falls down for 40 days and 40 nights. Once the flood subsides, Noah, his family and the beasts wait 150 days more for the waters to diminish. And then they floated around for ten months after that, then 40 days after that, then seven more days and then seven more. Just to make sure everything was dry and primed for a fresh start, I guess.
God tried to make a great world. He saw that it was not good, wiped it out, and tried again. Having made a covenant to never destroy the earth with another flood (despite soaking a few cities now and again), the implication is that whatever happens next is man’s fault.
Picture credit: A Journey Round my Skull (via Flickr)
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god and regret
April 9, 2009 - 02:51 — SAFARI JR, AFRICA (not verified)stoll's analysis is a sound one _and i agree with the placed point of view.
My quarell with christianity is that the bible is the most inonsistent book ever______and rightly belongs to a genre of poetry called epic.
Its a take or leave it text that one can easily place in the same category with the oddysey or the illiad (Virgil & Homer).
This is implies a deliberate suspension of disbelief, and there are many times it sounds more fictious than fiction itself.
Reading a the Bible a "project"?
April 10, 2009 - 16:41 — Micah (not verified)This is the not the first modern day "project" in Bible reading I have come across. I'm surprised that the Bible has become so foreign to Western society--and this author--that we have to send people to explore it as though reading scripture was as foreign an experience as going to outer space.
If the trend continues, perhaps our Western institutions of higher education will one day award higher education degrees or credit for reading what used to be shared family gatherings, quoted in political speeches, and used as the seed of great literature. Have we forgotten so much as to require brave explorers to read it on our behalf and regurgitate easily digestible chunks?
A&E of Genesis
April 12, 2009 - 11:40 — Pat (not verified)You sort of glossed over the fact that there are two different tales of Genesis, within the Book of Genesis, which I think is one of the most fascinating aspects of it.
The E & P versions are explained a bit here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis#Composition
Basically, the structure of the stories demonstrates that Genesis was written by two different sources (as in: definitely not written by the mouth of God). Enjoy the rest of your very long journey.
7th day
April 15, 2009 - 23:29 — Visitor (not verified)Small detail about the 7th day: on that day, in Genesis, God "ceased [shavat]from all the work of creation" (Gen. 2:2 and 2:3.
It's only when the Ten Commandments are set forth, that "resting" [yanach] of God on the 7th day is made explicit. Exo. 20:11. It's possible that the Genesis version is a more traditional view of God's omnipotence: he finished one chapter of his endeavors and moved on to a new one. The Exodus version's more anthropomorphic vision gives the Sabbath a more human grounding.
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