Genesis 2 and a Few Notes on Textual Transmission

The Bible, as we know it, was not originally constructed in the way that it appears in many editions today--books divided into chapters, which in turn are divided into verses. For example, the book we are studying now--Genesis--was originally written down in scroll form and passed down as one complete text, without divisions at all. (No chapters--and yes, no verses.)

Chapters and verses were inserted into both the Old and New Testaments during the Dark and Middle Ages in Europe, as scribes who were invested with the task of copying the Bible used a number system in order to track the sentences they were writing. Eventually, as the system worked well for clergymen who were given the task of interpreting the Bible for illiterate European towns and villages, chapters and verses became the norm.

You may wonder how the ancient Israelis were able to keep track of textual information whenever they needed to copy and recopy it, if the original texts of the Hebrew Bible did not include chapters and verses. The answer is as simple as it is shocking to 21st century ears: They knew the stories through oral transmission, so they knew when one ended and another began.

For example, Genesis 1 ends on the sixth stanza of what the ancient Hebrews would have remembered as a seven-stanza litany of God's creation and order, as well as God's relationship with humankind. In the Bibles published today, however, the seventh stanza appears, not at the end of Genesis 1, but at the beginning of Genesis 2:

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

I believe that this song, in its entirity, must have been recited by schoolchildren, as it evidences a rhythm and verb phrasing that could be easily memorized. Moreover, Genesis 1:1-2:3 serves as an excellent introduction to children of not only the existence and lordship of God but of the seven day week, the Sabbath, and the relationship between God and adam or human beings. An agricultural society in which writing was generally restricted to the priestly class (and in which writing may have been severely limited within the priestly class itself) would have passed on its knowledge, its traditions, and its beliefs from father to son, and mother to daughter, through the use of songs and stories.

Even in the 21st century, almost every schoolchild knows the significance of the words "Once upon a time . . . " even when those words are not followed by an actual story--and most of us know the structural significance of "And they lived happily ever after" in children's stories, that those words always appear at the end. Is it not conceivable that a generation of people who grew up memorizing songs like "row row row your boat" and "happy birthday to you" could imagine a culture in which knowledge was passed down from parent to child in rhyme and verse?

If not, then perhaps it would be instructive for me to provide an example of the kind of song I think Genesis 1:1-2:3 bears closest resemblance to (structurally) today:

On the first day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


A Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the second day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the third day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the fourth day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the fifth day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the sixth day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


6 Geese a Laying


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the seventh day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


7 Swans a Swimming


6 Geese a Laying


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the eighth day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


8 Maids a Milking


7 Swans a Swimming


6 Geese a Laying


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the ninth day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


9 Ladies Dancing


8 Maids a Milking


7 Swans a Swimming


6 Geese a Laying


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the tenth day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


10 Lords a Leaping


9 Ladies Dancing


8 Maids a Milking


7 Swans a Swimming


6 Geese a Laying


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the eleventh day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


11 Pipers Piping


10 Lords a Leaping


9 Ladies Dancing


8 Maids a Milking


7 Swans a Swimming


6 Geese a Laying


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree




On the first day of Christmas


my true love sent to me:


12 Drummers Drumming


11 Pipers Piping


10 Lords a Leaping


9 Ladies Dancing


8 Maids a Milking


7 Swans a Swimming


6 Geese a Laying


5 Golden Rings


4 Calling Birds


3 French Hens


2 Turtle Doves


and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Yes--I'm saying that Genesis 1:1-2:3 is the structural equivalent of "The 12 Days of Christmas." (I hope I haven't been responsible for someone's heart attack as they read the above lyrics and realized, to their horror, the analogy I was making.)

The Bible is a remarkable collection of texts . . . but even more remarkable is the time period and civilization in which they were produced. As we will see, the ancient Hebrews were, according to the Torah, intended to be a society not only vastly different from the postmodern cultural matrix we inhabit today but also a nation far different than any of the kingdoms--such as Assyria, Persia, Babylon, or Egypt--that we have come to associate with the Middle East as it was (or must have been) 4000 years ago. To understand fully the depth and complexity of Israel's relationship with the God that Western societies adopted as their own for two millennia, it is important for us to fully appreciate the blueprint, core values, and structure of Israeli civilization--both as it was, and as the Torah indicates it should be.

Genesis 1 (continued)

The society in which the book of Genesis was composed did not (and does not) bear any resemblance to that of the United States or to Western European nations--indeed, the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, is thorougly Middle Eastern in character, tone, and temperament . . . a point which seems to have become lost on seminarians, church leaders, and the grass roots elements of what has been ubiquitously termed "America's religious right."

The culture in which the Bible was first produced was a culture without mass literacy, without individualism, and without the concepts of economics that we would normally classify under "capitalism." The Torah, in particular, is written in such a way as to suggest that, rather than a composite of two groups of authors, it must have originated first as a series of oral compositions passed down from generation to generation in story or song form. Hence, the books that compose the Torah, particularly the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, are themselves collections of materials that were originally recited from memory by the ancient Israeli priests.

I would recommend that anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of the nature and character of the texts which we collectively call the Old Testament (or the Hebrew Bible) read Eric A. Havelock's Preface to Plato. His thesis is that the Iliad and the Odyssey, while traditionally attributed to the genius of an anonymous poet referred to in later Greek literature as "Homer," was in fact the equivalent of a modern encyclopedia--a repository of cultural information that was originally recited by the Greek high priests in song and rhythmic utterance. Using the frequency of particular words and phrases in the text, which are often repeated, Havelock argues that both the Iliad and Odyssey must have been great songs that were recited, in part or in their entirity, during religious festivals or community events, then written down when it became expedient for priests to have something more permanent than human memory to use as a base for their recitations.

Havelock's argument is convincing, particularly as it covers the development of a society that, at the time in which these two epics were composed, was largely illiterate--and I think the same logic also applies to the Hebrew Bible, particularly since many verses in the Torah, the Wisdom literature, and the books of the Prophets urge the listener to "keep the word of God" on his "mouth." Indeed, the bulk of the Old Testament is not written for readers but for listeners, as is clear in verses from Isaiah such as "They will hear but not understand," and even verses from the New Testament such as the injunction from James to be "doers of the word" rather than "hearers."

Reading silently--the mode which we normally associate with the act of reading--was uncommon before the advent of mass publication via the printing press. In ancient times, when the New Testament was read at all, it was read aloud--to an audience without the benefit of microphones, labor saving devices, or modes of transportation more effecient than the horse or the human foot. We must also keep in mind that the community of people to whom these texts would have been read would have been Middle Eastern, not European, with values more similar to the precepts of traditional Arabian societies than to anything we would notice as "Western" or even "American." We often, in our zeal to preserve some vestige of spiritual ferment in a postmodern matrix that is rapidly decaying, fail to consider this basic point, and in order to have even a minimal appreciation of what God was attempting to accomplish in the creation of Israel, it is important for us to move beyond concepts of culture mired in a 21st century industrial/information complex which the writers of the Bible would at the very least have found alien, if not utterly antithetical, to their core values.

With that in mind, Genesis 1 becomes, not a record or an account, but a repository of cultural information and priorities in song--and at its core, Genesis 1 is a relentless eulogy of order. Its stanzas, its metrics, and its word choice are intended to convey the impression of a God who exacts a degree of unparalleled stability and peace out of darkest chaos. Its structure, moreover, firmly places God in the position of preeminence, preexistence, and pretemporality.

Verse 1 inaugurates the story of God's interaction with the human race in bold terms:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

This, in the text, is the equivalent of an overture--the preamble of everything not only contained in this chapter but in the entire Torah. The next 4 verses serve as the first of 6 stanzas in a song that encapsulates every aspect of Israelis' understandings of God and his purposes in this world:

The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good--and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning, one day.

God's establishment of highly defined borders--"light" and "dark"--pervades every subsequent stanza in this narrative:

Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse--and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called seas--and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them," and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind--and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years--and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth," and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night. He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness--and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

The rhythmic pattern begun in stanza 3/day 3 continues in the following stanza:

Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind--and God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day

And at the beginning of stanza 6/day 6 as well:

Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind," and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind--and God saw that it was good.

Here, however, the song takes a completely different direction:

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him--male and female He created them.

These last 2 verses, verses 26 and 27, do not correspond to the rhythmic formulas of either the previous stanzas or of this one--they are, in character, more like the first verse of Genesis 1, which serves as a declaration or "stop." The point of this song, after all, is God's relationship with humankind, not merely God's creation of the Earth, and those who recited and memorized these verses must have been keenly aware of this fact as they spoke these words. It is not enough that human beings are given dominion over every living thing on the Earth that God has created, but in the rhythm of the statement "God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him--male and female He created them," the act of stamping the "image" of God onto the first man and woman is celebrated in both lyric and cadence--echoing the very first verse of the Bible:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

These two "stops" or breaks in the rhythmic utterance of the Earth's creation represent an important link--doubtless obvious in the minds of its original hearers, even if on an unconscious level--between God's dominion and humankind's subject position to God. In the image of God we are created--in other words, we have core attributes that are evocative of the attributes of God--but we are not God ourselves.

This is a concept that would have been far more acceptable to a culture such as those that existed in the Middle East 4000 years ago than it is to postmodern American or Western Europeans today. People without electricity, without running water, without the ability to contact family and friends long distance except through the undertaking of arduous, often dangerous, journeys . . . these people would have had a far more concrete understanding of the relationship between human beings and their God, a God on whom they depended for rain, for good harvests, and for protection from their enemies. This understanding, unfortunately, is virtually impossible for a person mired in the multimedia, materialism, and mechanical smoothness of the 21st century "first world" to imagine, let alone adopt, without severe changes in the way he or she approaches technology, ideas, and other people. It is for this reason that scholarship on the Bible, and on the verses I have here focused my attention in this blog entry, increasingly misses the point.

For example

God blessed them--and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed--it shall be food for you--and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food," and it was so.

was not understood to represent a carte blanche from God for human beings to commit rampant acts of destruction upon the Earth in the name of "development" or "domestication." It was, instead, understood by ancient Israelis to signify a relationship of harmony between human beings and the rest of God's creation--Israelis, after all, were well aware that eating meat was not healthy, either for their own bodies or for the survival of the animals on which they depended for clothing, sacrifices, and milk.

Genesis 1 ends with the following verse, which also ends stanza 6/day 6:

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Note that day 6/stanza 6 represents an interruption in the rhythm of the song--it is a suggestion in the minds of the listeners that humanity's introduction to the creation constituted an interruption in the order of God. Nothing in Genesis 1 states explicitly that human sin brought disease, pain, and chaos to the world God intended to be a paradise, but Hebrew children who memorized this chapter at home would certainly have been aware of something un-utopian in its structure. Human beings, having been given characteristics evocative of God, are placed in direct subjection to God--having authority over all the plants and animals of the Earth but not final authority.

It is perhaps at this point in their recitation that ancient Israeli priests understood, more keenly than a human heart can express in words, the tragedy of the story that is recounted in Genesis 2 and 3 . . .

Genesis 1

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the waters. The God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

These words have caused more animosity within the United States over the past several decades than any other words from the Bible. To advocates of atheism, or advocates of the vigorous separation of church and state in public school curricula, Genesis 1:1-3 serves as the anthem of everything inimical to their freedom. To conservative Christian groups, and their grass roots supporters, these verses serve as a reminder of what the United States has lost in its relentless 150 year drive toward secularism. Even within Christianity itself, there is a bitter division between those who read these verses (and the rest of Genesis 1) literally, and proponents of liberation, feminist, and other theologies that advocate, at the very least, a metaphorical reading, if not absolute dismissal.

Personally, I think these arguments miss the point. After all, anyone with even minimal intelligence can see that this world, so intricately interwoven in all its raw elements, did not accidentally take the shape or form in which it exists today--and neither did we. Moreover, even the most ardent student of evolution must admit, even if only to himself, that the process of species change is, to our knowledge, severely limited to the development of particular animals and plants. (It is impossible, for example, that an amoeba can evolve into anything other than an amoeba, even it it becomes a better amoeba.)

Perhaps it would behoove us to ask ourselves another question as we consider Genesis 1: Why is it so easy for us to believe in a God who assumes human form, dies on a cross, and rises from the dead . . . but not a God who can create the world and the rest of the universe we can see in 6 days? If modern (and postmodern) skepticism and logical empiricism have not proven the existence of God, after all, they have not disproven his existence, either--and I believe that a society whose best answer to the question of God's existence is "I don't know" has no business attempting to prove or disprove the veracity of a 6 day creation.

Ultimately, it is a matter of faith--either I trust that the God of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is capable of creating the world in 6 days, or I don't. If Jesus was capable of raising the dead, healing the blind, and delivering people of demon possession in a matter of seconds, then surely the same Jesus, through whom John tells us that the world came into being, was capable of bringing every atom of our world and sky together in a matter of days.

Listen to John 1:1-3 . . .

In the beginning was the Word [Jesus Christ], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Or Colossians 1:15-16 . . .

He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities--all things have been created through him and for him.

And lest we think that the writers of John and Colossians were smoking weed . . .

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God--in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day--therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

Exodus 20-8-11, #4 of the 10 Commandments

And this is what Jesus himself said of the above words (and others like them) from the Torah:

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets [the Old Testament]--I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Matthew 5:17-18

We will cover these verses, and the rest of Genesis 1, in detail during the next post, but I want all of you to remember one thing: This book that rests in so many of our houses unread is the account of a God who asks one thing of each one of us--to take what he says at face value, in faith. It was a requirement, not only for the ancient Israelites and their forefathers but for men like Paul, Peter, John, Mark, Luke, Matthew, Apollos, Stephen, and hundreds, thousands, perhaps ten thousands of believers who gladly and wholeheartedly took on the name of Christ during the church's inception and over the last 2000 years of its existence. If you, or I, or anyone, cannot take this collection of writings at face value, on faith . . . then our Christianity is in serious doubt.

An Apology to Readers

Yesterday evening, as my wife and I were returning home from an outing at Uno's, a local Italian restaurant in Fort Worth's downtown area, we stopped at the bus station so that she could use the bathroom. While I was waiting for her, an African American man (who had clearly not eaten for a while) walked up to me and asked if I could spare some change so he could get something to eat. I gave him a dollar, which was all I had (though I did have some spare quarters which I didn't even think about giving him)--then he asked if I could spare whatever was in the "to go" box I was carrying from Uno's (two slices of pizza left over from our dinner).

I said no.

My wife came out immediately afterward, and as we walked to the bus station, she asked me what was wrong (my wife always knows when I'm upset about something). I told her what happened, and the more I revealed, the worse I felt, until I decided that she and I would search the building for the man so I could give him our pizza.

We didn't find him.

I know some of you have finished reading this story thinking, "What's the problem?" After all, the institutional church tells us, we live in an age of grace, and God isn't going to get upset over a little box of pizza, is he? Besides, the man was probably scamming for whatever he could get from me, right?

If that's your point of view, you may find the following passage--words quoted directly from Jesus himself--somewhat disconcerting:

But when the Son of Man [Jesus himself] comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed of my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me." Then the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you, or thirsty, and give you something to drink? And when did we see you a stranger, and invite you in, or naked, and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to you?" The king will answer and say to them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of mine, even to the least of them, you did it to me."

The he will also say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels--for I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite me in; naked, and you did not clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit me." Then they themselves also will answer, "Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of you?" Then he will answer them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

--Matthew 25:31-46

I know--and have heard--a lot of preachers loudly proclaiming the stakes of not being right with God, that eternal life in hell awaits those who do not fall before the feet of Christ and allow their souls to be surrendered to him, but hellfire is not simply for those who fail to recite a 60 second loyalty oath to Jesus Christ in a church. It is for those who, turning a blind eye to the suffering and needy, prefer to cater to their own selfish desires rather than risk life and possessions for others. In this respect, then, people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini represent the cream of the crop in terms of hell-worthiness, but the rest of us, particularly those of us who live in and actively pursue the cultural priorities of the United States, may not be far behind.



Jesus came to me yesterday, and asked for the equivalent of a loaf of bread . . . and I turned him away.

A Note on What Happened in Virginia a Few Days Ago

I have said before that in a nation where inspiration and soul-health are regarded as less important than buying a nicer car, having the "right" friends, and pursuing as many forms of entertainment as possible, acts of violence will become increasingly bizarre, desperate, and animalistic in their brutality.

What disturbs me about this crime is not the university's apparent lack of foresight in attempting to inform students of potential danger but the fact that, even in the face of a mass slaying that repeated--spiritually, emotionally, and physically--the brutality of Columbine, no one seems to care about the social and spiritual dimensions of a culture that produces random acts of violence. I remember that in the days and weeks after the Columbine shootings, students of the school talked at great length about the social caste system that existed there, a system in which certain people were targeted for cruelty because they were not part of an established group. Eight years later, in the wake of a similar (but deadlier) incident, it seems that none of the dialogue that occurred in high schools and colleges as a result of the events at Columbine carries any weight--either for students, or for our society as a whole:

Once, in English class at Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., when the teacher had the students read aloud, Cho looked down when it was his turn, said Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior and high school classmate. After the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said.

"The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said.

To me, the brutality of a society in which an Asian student can be stereotyped, harassed, and mistreated at will by both teachers and students is alarming, but what is even more alarming is the following sentence, taken from the same Yahoo article in which I found the above incident described:

Another expert who has worked with mentally disturbed young criminals suggested that Cho's actions probably had genetic causes.

"This is very different" from someone who was bullied to the breaking point — Cho was clearly psychotic and delusional, said Dr. Louis Kraus, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

In my spare time, I have been reading The Holocaust Chronicle, a compendium of articles and photographs which leads the reader through a year-by-year account of the events that occurred in Germany and the rest of Europe in the 1930s and '40s, and one of the more disturbing aspects of the Nazi state was the extent to which genetics became an all-determining factor. Children's hair, eyes, and teeth were examined for specific racial characteristics, either to grant them status as full citizens or to identify them as targets for future isolation and liquidation. One photograph in particular displayed a child whose chin was raised by a medical doctor who, given the amiability of everyone in the frame, was in the process of certifying the child as "fit" for school and citizenship.

This photograph was taken in 1935 . . . and it seems that 72 years later, we are poised to begin making the same mistakes all over again. The doctrine of "survival of the fittest" assumed a place of first importance in a society that would see 6 million people killed in gas chambers, firing squads, and death camps--and it seems that this doctrine has more than adequate support in the United States, a country which routinely murders at least 2 million babies a year in the service of personal convenience.

I shudder at the prospect of the nightmares this nation can bring to the world if we, as a people, cannot find it within our hearts to abandon the culture of self-indulgence we have created.

Some Notes on the Book of Genesis

In the last year I attended my parents' church, I sat in on a Sunday School class in which one of the students proclaimed her antipathy for the first 5 books of the Old Testament, and for the Old Testament in general. The disregard for human life, in particular, was a source of consternation for her, as it is for me . . . but I suspect that part of the reason she didn't like these books of the Bible lay in all of the rules and regulations for the ancient Israelites.

It is a common complaint within the American churches these days that the Old Testament is, at its core, obsolete. After all, so the argument goes, we are under grace now, not law, and it is not necessary for us to adhere to all of those "ridiculous" statutes in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Torah (as those books are called) is for ancient and modern Jews, not Christians, and certainly has no application to a world with eletric generators, nuclear physicists, and the World Wide Web--a world, it is presumed, which has outgrown such barbarities as animal sacrifice.

As I read the Torah years ago, and as I have been re-reading it in recent months, I have come to realize that what so many of us find objectionable in its pages has nothing to do with animal sacrifices . . . instead, our opposition arises from the simple prejudice of a heart that is unwilling to see its desires challenged. From sexuality to diet, even to the way we dress and conduct ourselves toward strangers, the Torah is a surgical instrument cutting away at the fat that keeps our spiritual blood from pumping. The God of the Torah is not the nice God of the 21st century American church--death, while a stiff punishment for adultery or idol worship, serves to illustrate the point that every sin has a price.

Today, American culture is an endless scream of wants--voices crying out words like "freedom" and "liberty" in the name of self-gratification. It is inconceivable to generations born less than 40 years ago that we can do without things such as VCR's, televisions, and cell phones, and yet for centuries, human beings not only existed without such conveniences but thrived in their absence. Having an ability to split the atom or conduct genetic research does not indicate that a culture is enlightened--and we should not make the mistake our Greco-Roman forbears made in confusing technology and ingenuity with lasting wisdom.

What the Bible teaches us--what the first 5 books in particular teach us--is that a nation's viability lies not within its clever tricks and devices, but within its people's surrender to a consistent pattern of obedience to a God who demands nothing less than self-sacrifice in the service of others. Where Israel went wrong was not in its lack of interest in committing bloodshed--the Old Testament, after all, is replete with stories of genocide and atavistic violence in the name of God--but in its lack of interest in allowing God to divest its people of their petty conveniences: mental, physical, and spiritual.

The book of Genesis, in this context, is not merely the origin story of an obscure people who happened to be remembered because of one of their descendants (Jesus Christ)--it is, instead, a series of promises, reminders of what Israel could have been . . . and wasn't. The first four chapters of Genesis parallel the rest of the Old Testament, telling the story of a dream created by God that became darkest nightmare through the actions of men and women. The fall of Adam and Eve parallels the slower, later fall of Israel in the pages of Kings and Chronicles, as soul-potential is wasted again and again . . . and in the distance, I believe we can hear the laughter of the very same serpent who tore paradise apart.

I hope that, as we read Genesis together, you see not only what the Lord was saying to the ancient Israelites who preserved its contents over three millennia but what the Lord is saying to you, me, and every one of us. The same judgment that fell on the ancient kingdom of Israel is one that looms over every nation that does not set as a priority the well-being of its people . . . and it looms over the heart of every man, woman, and child who takes the name of God but fails to heed the cries of strangers in pain.

April 20, 2007

We live in a society in which the Bible rests comfortably on bookshelves or coffee tables, and is never actually read. As a result, the Bible becomes a tool for debate, an intellectual puzzle, or repository of pagan-style chants rather than what it actually is . . . and as I read (and am now re-reading) the Bible, I see that it is neither a love letter nor a set of instructions, as evangelical and/or charismatic Christians around me always claimed.

Instead, the Bible is a sad story.

In its pages is the account of a God who works tirelessly to prevent a world from rushing headlong into a chasm of darkness and self-destruction, only to fail. The garden of Eden, meant to be an idyllic paradise without suffering, became one of the human race's most bitter memories; the nation of Israel, meant to be a pure exemplar of God's character and power to a world divided against itself, instead became a source of tears and ridicule; and the church, having begun in a display of clear manifestations of God through Jesus Christ and the baptism of the Holy Spirit . . . decayed. The end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, which describes in detail Christ's return to the Earth, was a source of hope for Christians languishing under persecution, but it is also a testimony of deep sorrow. In the end, God is left with a second coming that will constitute, not a redemption for the entire human race, but the gathering of a few scattered people here and there whose interests lay in the well-being of others.

The Bible, at its core, is not designed to make its readers comfortable--hence, I suspect, people feel more drawn to Christian self-help books, videotapes, and CD's which offer promises of self-actualization and fulfillment without due soul-searching and personal reflection. Instead, at its core, the Bible is a window of truth into the dark heart of the human race, unrelenting in its honesty.

We live in a society without inspiration, without ideals--a soecity that, no matter how many toys it generates, is utterly lifeless. This absence of spiritual vitality is nowhere more evident than in the events that occurred at Virginia Tech 3 days ago--in a society in which soul-health has become less important than the prospect of buying a car, having the "right" friends, and engaging in as many selfish modes of entertainment as possible, it is inevitable that acts of violence will become all the more bizarre, desperate, and animalistic in their brutality. The greater our efforts to ignore the spiritual deficit which is so plainly obvious in every facet of our society, the higher the price we will eventually pay when we can no longer avoid the consequences of our actions.

It is with the hope of averting a catastrophe beyond humanity's worst nightmares that I write this blog. I hope that as you read it, you will be confronted not only with the words of the Bible but with the spirit of the Bible as well, a spirit that yearns for the reconciliation of every lost and wandering soul in this world with its creator. Christ, as John so eloquently states in his gospel, is every word of God revealed in the pages of the Bible personified--love, judgment, and mercy, as well as unrelenting truth.

May you come to know him through its pages, and may you encounter his spirit through the reflections contained in this blog.

April 19, 2007

Hi, and welcome to my blog. I am sure you are probably wondering what the II in Sabbath Breakers II stands for--I haven't posted in my original blog for some time now, essentially because I have spent the past 3 or 4 months getting engaged, married, and reoriented to all of the changes in a man's life that having a woman brings. I also felt that it was time to move from a purely self-reflective chronicle of my spiritual wanderings and issues into an online journal that was centered on the Bible.

With that in mind, I think I should share some of my personal history with the Bible and with the Christian faith. I began reading the Bible in 1996, partially as a result of a spiritual quest sparked in a class at Eastern Mennonite University called Faith and the Old Testament. The class was fairly unremarkable in terms of spiritual depth, but it was the first time I had ever attended a university-level course (or a course of any kind) in which the Bible was a textbook. I had tried to read the Bible several times before on my own, but to me, it was gibberish--it didn't make any sense.

With the historical understanding I had gained from Faith and the Old Testament, I began reading the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis in 1996 . . . and resumed reading 3 years later, midway through the book of Exodus. By early 2000, I had finished reading the Bible all the way through, and as a result, I had become a different person. I knew that the God of the Bible was real and that the Bible itself, due to the complexity of its origin and the fact that through all of the books collected in its canon one voice carried over all others, was divinely inspired.

I received Christ as my personal Lord and Savior in October 1999, and I wish I could say that my spiritual questions and dilemmas ended then (for more information on that, please see my original Sabbath Breakers blog). Sadly, it seems that the institutional churches of the United States are poor instructors of what it means to be a Christian. As a result, whenever I write online regarding anything spiritual, particularly anything Christian, I write as if I were corresponding with another soul who, like me, has encountered hurtful behavior from people whose faith should scream "peace."

In my blog, I will focus on the Bible . . . meaning that I will take it as my text. This blog will not be a commentary per se--God knows we have enough of those, and frankly, too many of them aren't collecting dust in a library somewhere, as far as I'm concerned. It will also not be a devotional--I find devotionals to be almost as interesting as the paper they're written on most of the time, with the possible exception of those little booklets from RBC ministries, and I am quite tired of the multimillion dollar cottage industry that has sprung up around the concept of the 365 day devotional.

Instead, this blog is . . . what I just called it--a blog that focuses on the Bible.

One warning, however: In this blog, I will not, repeat NOT, offer platitudes, easy to remember sayings, or half-baked spiritual home remedies. If you are here looking for some sort of quick fix to the issues that plague your soul, you've come to the wrong place. I can't heal your soul any more than I can make an alarm clock spin around with my mind, but I can point you in the direction of someone who not only has the ability to cure you of every spiritual disease, but who has been desperately waiting for you to give him a chance.

I'm speaking, of course, of Jesus Christ. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Note that it doesn't say that if you mumble a few words along with a preacher during an altar call or recite all the right answers you remembered from summer Bible school, you will be saved. Confession here is the same as confession anywhere else--it is the act of admitting something you already accepted.

Receiving Christ as your personal Lord and Savior is a matter of the heart--and if I may ask, where is your heart as you read this blog entry?