Genesis Chapters 16-19

Chapter 16
Sarai gives her servant girl Hagar to Abram, so that he can have a child. When Hagar conceives, Sarai throws her out of the house (b/c Hagar had begun to look upon Sarai with contempt). While wandering, Hara meets an angel who conveinces her to return & submit to Sarai. Of her son, though, the angel says " He shall be a wild ass of a man, which his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him... " This sound more like a curse to me than a blessing. Hagar gives birth to Abram's son, Ishmael
Chapter 17
Abram becomes Abraham and Sarai becomes Sarah. The L-rd promises Abraham that Sara will give birth to a son. At the L-rd's bidding, Abraham circumcises all of the males. Ow!
Chapter 18
Men stop by Abraham's tent. He feeds them & they tell him that he and Sarah will have a child by next year. Sarah thinks this is funny b/c she is past child bearing years. Then G-d wants to destroy Sodom & Gomorrah. He tells Abraham about it & Abraham challenges him. Can you believe the nerve of him? I certainly don't think I'd have the nerve to challenge G-d.
Chapter 19
Two angels come to visit Sodom & Lot insists that they take refuge in his house. The town of Sodom however comes to Lot's house and demands them. He refuses and instead OFFERS UP HIS 2 VIRGIN DAUGHTERS TO DO WITH AS THEY PLEASE to the crowd. I guess Lot must have been pretty sure that they were angels, b/c I'm not sure I would offer up virgin daughters to protect strangers passing by. But instead of anything bad hapening to his daughters, the angels decide to protect him by using their super powers.
The angels tell Lot that they are going to destroy the city and that he should flee. Lot tries to get his son-in-laws and daughters to flee with him, but they will not. Then comes more bargaining with G-d. The angels ask Lot to flee the plains all together. Instead, Lot flees to Zoar, which is not quite as far away. While they are fleeing Lot's wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt. I get the whole being destroyed for looking back, but don't quite get the being turned into a pillar of salt thing.
The last little bit of Chapter 19 is just twisted. Lot fled Sodom with his two virgin daughters & he takes them to live in the hills. The daughters decide they don't have a chance with men, so they get Lot drunk and sleep with him. The eldest daughter has a son named Moab (who begets the Moabites) and the younger had a sone named Benammi (who begets the Ammonites). That's just an f'ed up end to the story of Lot.
Chapter 20 goes back to following Abraham, so I think that's then end of Lot (at least for now.)

Genesis 10-15

Genesis 10 & 11 follow the descendants from Noah to Abram (Abraham). For some reason Noah's first two sons (Ham & Japheth) are covered first. Then, at the beginning of Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel is told. Then, we go back to Noah's descendents, this time following Shem's line down 10 generations to Abram.
Abram is called to go out to the land in Chapter 12 and (something I hadn't remembered) actually spends some time in Egypt during a famine. He is driven from Egypt by Pharaoh after the L-rd G-d being plagues upon Pharaoh b/c Pharaoh had taken Sarai as his wife. Sound familiar?
When they return out of Egypt (Chapter 13), Abram and his nephew Lot split up. Lot is caught up in a war (Chapter 14) and captured by enemites, but Abram mounts a brave rescue. Then, Abram is blessed by Melchizedek through a ceremony that involves bread and wine. Sound familiar?
I had never realized how much foreshadowing (foreshadowing can't be the right word, b/c this isn't fiction per se) there is in the Bible.
In Chapter 15, the L-rd G-d promises Abram that his descendents will be as numerous as the sky and then after a sacrifice, while Abram is asleep G-d tells Abram that his descendents will have to go through 400 years of slavery in Egypt before they receive the land he has promised Abram.

Genesis Chapters 1-9

Genesis Chapters 1-9 cover the stories of creation, Adam & Eve, and Noah. These are common stories and, to be honest, I didn't expect to gain much from reading Genesis, but re-reading these chapters brought up some old questions I've never quite answered before and some new questions:

• The order of creation in Chapters 1 & 2 is not the same. This has always bothered me a little bit, even though I know these chapters are not intended to be read literally.
• When G-d gives us dominion over all living things at reaction, he tells us that he has given us every plant to eat. He doesn't say anything about eating animals Noah.
  Genesis 1:28-29"...Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing... See, I have given you every plant yielding seed ... and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."
  Genesis 2:16 "And the Lord G-d commanded the man, "You may eat freely of every tree of the garden."
  Genesis 9:3-4 "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for youl and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood."
• When Cain is punished for killing his brother in Genesis 4:10-16, he is concerned that "anyone who meets me may kill me". If there were no other people besides Adam, Even, Cain & Abel, who is he concerned about killing him? For that matter, who are they marrying?
• Man, people lived a long time in the old testament. Nearly everyone in the geneology from Adam to Noah lived over 700 years. Then it looks like in Genesis 6:3 G-d limits life span to 120 years. Will this limitation stick? Am I mis-reading this chapter?
• In the list of descendents from Adam to Noah, nearly every paragraph reads the same: When A had lived X years, he became father of B. A lived afer the birth of B Y years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of A were (X+Y) years; and he died.
• From Adam to Noah is just 926 years, so Adam (who lived 930 years)would have just passed away when Noah was born. That just doesn't seem right.
• Enoch is the exception to this formula: Genesis 5:21-24: "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with G-d after the birth of Methusela three hundred years, and had other sons and duaghters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. Enoch walked with G-d; then he was no more, because G-d took him." Enoch must be someone very special to get an exception to the formula like this; I'd like to know more about him.
• The beginning of Chapter 6 is just confusing, "When people began to multiply on the face of the ground.. the sons of G-d saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose.... The Nephilim were on the earth in those days ... when the sons of G-d whent in to the daughters of hunans, who bore children to them. These were heroes that were of old, warriors of renown."
• The time that Noah spent in the ark is very exact: In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of that month.
• They spent a REALLY LONG time in the ark: a year and 10 days to be exact.
• G-d left a big loophole in his covenant by Noah; the only thing he promises is that he will never again to be flood to destroy the earth. I imagine there are quite a few other ways to destroy us if G-d so chooses.
• Lastly: I have never understood the story of Noah getting drunk. Noah gets drunk and passes out naked. His son Ham stumbles upon him & tells his brothers, so Ham's brothers cover Noah up. Then Noah awakes from the whine and when he "knew what his youngest son had done to him..." he curses the first-born of Ham. What is that Ham did that was wrong? stumble upon him or tell his brothers? What is the point or moral of this story? Obviously drunkeness like that of Noah's is bad, but Noah isn't the one who is punished.

Hello World

Hello World,

My name is Julia, and I've decided to start this blog as a personal project. I'll post here about books that I'm currently reading. As a full-time working mother of an increasingly special needs son with a husband who frequently works 60 hours/week & a recent alcohol restriction, I decided I needed a personal project to blow off some steam and this is it... I've decided to start with the best-selling book of all time -- the Bible.