Bible Club: Genesis

[MidGe]

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"There is nothing humorous about mutilated foreskins."

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My point exactly but we have been on that topic heaps already... Do a search!

[IronUnkind]

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My point exactly but we have been on that topic heaps already... Do a search!

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You may be humorless, but at least you're consistent.

[Prodigy54321]

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Just a comment on all the above; when I say something is "funny," I mean just that, and don't mean to imply that it is stupid.

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I'm glad you mentioned this. As a believer, one can take things seriously, yet still find humor in a lot of this -- selling your birthright for a bowl of soup, for instance.

One of the funniest passages to me is 2 Kings 2:23-24 where some children are making fun of Elisha's baldness. He has the last laugh, however, when he summons (disturbingly, by the power of The LORD) two she-bears from the woods, who proceed to maul 42 of them. They got punk'd!

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I think that stuff is funny as well, but only in the sense that I think that barbaric acts in fictional stories are funny...but if it is true, it doesn't seem funny to me..it seem [censored] up.

[MidGe]

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You may be humorless, but at least you're consistent.


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Don't get me wrong! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Magic_Man]

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Just a comment on all the above; when I say something is "funny," I mean just that, and don't mean to imply that it is stupid.

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I'm glad you mentioned this. As a believer, one can take things seriously, yet still find humor in a lot of this -- selling your birthright for a bowl of soup, for instance.

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Having two older brothers, I can completely see that happening in real life. In my version it was especially funny because the translation was "Let me have some of that red stuff over there."

[vhawk01]

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Yeah, if you just read it as myths from an ancient culture, it's a lot of fun. Almost all the myths have elements of these absurdities and inconsistencies, and it's just something to smile at if you take it in context. It's a bit disturbing to me that some people take this stuff as literal truth or the word of God, but other than that it's great.

Also regarding the character of God, you'll notice that he's far from the pure omni3 image presented nowadays. That's a common theme through the OT. Not only is he presented as anything but all-powerful and all-knowing, but he acts like a character in a story - he has feelings, can be convinced of things, etc. Moreover there are lots of passages that seem to imply that God isn't the only God.

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One of the interesting things to me about peoples view of God is that people generally find it impossible to really grasp what an O3 and non-anthropomorphic God would be like. We try to convince him of things, we try to win his affection or love, we talk about him acting within time, as if God could ever 'then' do something. God has already done it, he is outside of time, he cannot be convinced of everything, he doesn't act sequentially or temporally. But these concepts are nearly impossible to grasp, and far, far less easy to grasp for the writers of the Bible.

Therefore, he tends to look like a whimsical, all-too-human character in a story, who needs to 'wait' for things and can become wrathful. He is never surprised...how can he become wrathful? And how can he 'then' do something?

[KUJustin]

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The people in the stories seem incredibly stupid at times. Of course the classic example of this is Adam&Eve. They're in paradise, master of all the animals, and the all-powerful God says "take anything you want except this one little apple." Then a random serpent says "oh he's just kidding, you can eat that," and it's all downhill from there. Similarly, Cain lies outright to the all-knowing God and thinks he's going to get away with it? Come on!

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Honestly, for me, these are probably the most believable things in the whole Bible. The human condition is the same now as it was then and I can certainly identify with these folks (except for never having murdered anyone).

[vhawk01]

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The people in the stories seem incredibly stupid at times. Of course the classic example of this is Adam&Eve. They're in paradise, master of all the animals, and the all-powerful God says "take anything you want except this one little apple." Then a random serpent says "oh he's just kidding, you can eat that," and it's all downhill from there. Similarly, Cain lies outright to the all-knowing God and thinks he's going to get away with it? Come on!

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Honestly, for me, these are probably the most believable things in the whole Bible. The human condition is the same now as it was then and I can certainly identify with these folks (except for never having murdered anyone).

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Someone needs to complain to a mod or we all need to quit 'quick replying' or something, but this is like the 5th time in the last week that I've been quoted saying something that I never said.

As long as we all take time to make sure that the quoted person is who really said it, its fine I guess, but I tend to read the quote, read who was quoted, and react accordingly without reviewing the entire thread.

[Magic_Man]

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Exodus is too long. We'll do it on the 16th instead of the 9th. I'm making the cutoff 30 chapters, any book longer than that will get extra time. Isaiah and Psalms will be three and five weeks respectively.

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Has this project died?

[txag007]

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Has this project died?

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I hope not.