Been a Bit Lazy and My Thoughts on Genesis

So I haven't particularly been participating in this whole blogging thing lately (mainly because of the fact that I lost my internet connection at home), but at the same time I have been reading much of the bible (almost through with Exodus). Hopefully I can be a little more engaged in this part of the class for the rest of the semester. I know I'm a little late to it but this post is for my thoughts on Genesis.

As far as the whole P and J thing goes I can't really tell on my own which parts are which author, the only real way for me to be sure is in the description beneath the chapters in which it gives a running commentary on the parts that are believed to be either P, J, and occasionally the E author. Without that commentary I might be lost as far as P and J, besides the fact that it is kind of noticeable how some of the parts of Genesis has much more narrative and others have more genealogies.

After reading Genesis completely through (for the first time in my life) I found some of it to be surprisingly humorous. Many of the stories have a quality that just makes me want to laugh sometimes. The most humorous of all are the Jacob stories, because he often times plays the trickster (which is seen in many of the ancient religions throughout the world). Jacob steals Esau birhthright in 25:29 and then his blessing in 27 and all because God and his mother just want him to be the right person for the inheritance and continuance of the Israelites.

Now I know that much of Genesis is not humorous at all, but for me it is quite interesting how the writers (whoever they are) were able to set up this inheritance for the people who were probably worshiping this God in a way that told a narrative story and gave lessons at the same time. While it may not be recognizable to us because we're reading it in the English language and not the Hebrew, many of the things that go on in Genesis have this teaching of a lesson quality and many times word play (only in the Hebrew) that allows for a narrative to be told and lessons given. One example of the Hebrew having more context is in 38:1-11, it immediately starts out with Judah, one of Joseph's brother, taking a Canaanite woman as a wife, and then them preceding to have two sons, Er and Onan, who were killed because they were "wicked in the sight of the Lord." This to me was absolutely apalling, and totally unjust, but then after reading the description beneath it became clear that Er was killed because his name means "wicked"(or something like it) in Hebrew and Onan was killed because he wouldn't perform his duties as a husband. While this still doesn't explain the justness in their deaths, it does explain that in Hebrew Er meant "wicked", which while reading an English translation that part would never have come through without the commentary below in our study Bibles. Er being killed was totally unexplainable until it was found out that his name meant "wicked". This whole play on words in the Hebrew language just isn't noticeable in the English language, and much of Genesis has these things which add to the story and explanation of why things happened the way they did. While these aren't necessarily the most important part to the narrative of Genesis I found it fascinating how the authors (in Hebrew) played with some of the words in order to make points or just make something more relevant.

All in all, Genesis was a fun read and I look forward to eventually getting around to reading everybody else's blogs on Genesis.