Day 6: The Flood

Genesis 6:1-22, 7:1-24, 8:1-22, NIV

Oh whoa. God actually put down a specific limit to the amount of years man could live? Has anyone ever made it past a hundred and twenty? Weird, but cool.

Having read Many Waters sorta influences my view on the Nephilim, but that seems kinda strange to me too. Fallen angels mating with humans? Ugh, that seems like a crude word to use.


If God could do so much, why did he have to wipe men off the face of the earth? Couldn't He just change things? Besides, he saw it all coming, so why was he so grieved...okay, bad question, but...okay, I'm not really going anywhere with this.

Did two and seven mean two and seven or two and seven pairs? And I guess seven was some significant number? And I guess God's limit on the mortal life span didn't yet affect Noah...I guess it would've been later generations.

Oh. Pairs. Gotcha.

Why so detailed? Seventeenth day of the second month after Noah's six hundredth birthday. Weird.

Why did fishes die in the flood? Were they brought on the ark?

One hundred and fifty days, water went down on the seventeenth day of the seventh month.

How does an olive tree grow in seven days? Or how does it survive a one-hundred-fifty-day flood?

It says nothing about creatures that move in the sea.

Ah! "The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: 'Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.'" So man is inherently evil!

Day 5: From Adam to Noah

Genesis 5:1-32, NIV

There's really not much to say for this. Except. Well. Jared was a Bible name? Sweet. Unless I should have known that before now.

Enoch! And Methuselah, and Lamech, then Noah. Mentioned in Many Waters, too. And then of course Shem, Ham, and Japheth. I still think Ham is a funny name. But then again, that's a personal opinion and I'm used to thinking of "Ham" as that preserved hunk of pig. Yup.

Day 4: Cain and Abel

Genesis 4:1-26, NIV

I guess maybe Cain wasn't giving God the best of the best...

"But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.'"

How could Cain do something like murder his own brother over something like a rejected offering? I mean, sometimes I feel like I almost hate my brother, but I could never even consider doing something like what Cain did. And hasn't Cain by now figured out that God knows everything? He lies to Him!

If Cain wasn't allowed to be killed, that was sort of like...exile, a jail sentence, isolation, without parole...right? And so no one who found him would kill him...therefore, there must be people other than just Adam and Eve?

I'm kinda shuddering to think that Cain's wife would've been a sister...would she? And that they were grown men (he had a wife) when he went and killed his brother, unless there are huge time lapses in here or something.

The names Lamech and Zillah seem familiar...probably from Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle.

Day 3: The Fall of Man

Genesis 3:1-24, NIV

In regards to a comment for Day 2: Adam and Eve, I guess the temptation must've been pretty huge. I have no clue how mature and innocent Adam and Eve were then. But the real issue was disobeying God, I guess. Still - I don't know, isn't it that when somebody tells you not to do something, you just have to do it? "Don't step over that line!" - edgeedgeedgetiptoe just to see what happens.

It doesn't say that there was much of an inner struggle with Eve when she decided to take the fruit. It seems like she just thought, "Okay, so I won't die, and I get to be smart? Okay. Let's eat." That is, at least, what it seems like to me.

...How did they know how to sew, and what with?

Okay, I digress.

Adam was...very blunt, and truthful...no evading the question when God asked. Even though when God asked about the fruit, he shifted the blame to Eve - which does make sense; she did tell him to eat it, though he should have said no.

And the serpent didn't really deceive Eve...I mean, what he said was true, sort of. Well, I guess they would die...but then they gained knowledge.

To curse the serpent so would mean that it wasn't really a creation of God when he made the animals? Was the serpent just Lucifer in an animal form?

Oh. THAT'S why women were...sort of, what's the word, kind of oppressed. Sort of. Cuz she sinned. And that was her punishment. And if God greatly increased the pain in childbirth...

And were Adam and Eve originally allowed to eat from the Tree of Life? Because in the banishment God barred the Garden's door so they couldn't eat and live forever.

Why "He drove the man out" and not man and woman or something, and why bar the east side? Was that the only entrance...? Off-topic (somewhat) questions, but...I figure it's worth asking.

Day 2: Adam and Eve

Genesis 2:4-25, NIV

So according to this, God made man before everything grew? Hm. Okay.

God had apparently planted a garden in the east, in Eden...so Eden wasn't just the garden then? And was it the only pretty place around, because in Bible stories, when Adam and Eve were cast out, I always get the visual of a dry, dusty, barren, thorny rocky place, all brown and dead and choked with weeds, compared to a green jewel of a garden.

Trees that were not only good for food but pleasing to the eye.

God said he'd make a helper suitable for the man. A helper...not a servant? And had there been a suitable one, an animal would have become his companion?

And, I've only just thought of it...men really do have one less rib, right...?

Day 1: The Beginning

Genesis 1:1-31, 2:1-3, NIV

So I'm not the type of person who will delve into little details like realizing that the Spirit of God was present at the beginning of the world like was pointed out a few church services ago, but then again, it may be because I've just read the beginning story in Genesis too much. I don't suppose that's a good thing.

I think, though, that it's weird-cool (amazing's the word, I guess) that God could separate light from darkness. That's just...I don't know. Like, how can you do that? ...Yeah. It's just...I don't know.

And the skies are supposedly water. Separating water from water.

Gathering water into one place so land appears seems pretty reasonable...

And the vegetation bit. Hey...it isn't wrong to mess around with the plants so it turns out that they no longer bear fruit of their own kind, is it? What with splicing and grafting and creating hybrids...and the same with animals, too...

Again, a few Sundays back, the pastor pointed out that it says, almost rather offhandedly, "He also made the stars." Which is, he said, the biggest understatement ever. It's like, by the way, He also made the stars. But there are - you know what? I don't know how many stars there are out there. I'm not sure I could wrap my mind around the number. And our sun is apparently not even that big a star.

Birds and fishes, and all the other animals...mooquackgobblehonkroarpeepsquawkscreechneighoink...

Yeah, I'll be serious now. Sorry.

"Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.." Is that supposed to be God talking to, well, his Son or the Trinity (which still confuses me lotsa), or the angels? I'd prefer to think the angels, but that doesn't make sense. I don't think the angels were actually made in His image like that. Where did I read that they were beings of light and fire or something? Not the Bible, I don't think.

It doesn't say in the creation that the animals were given to man for food. They had the green plants for food. Both man and animal.

And what it doesn't say in the creation story is - whatever happened to the rest of the world outside of Eden? If there was much of a world outside of Eden, that is.

And...that's it. Yeah...

got milk?

Not to take away from the ever famous quote: "Got Milk?" But, got milk? Spiritual milk?

That sounds like I'm preparing a sermon or something. Ugh.

Today in church, I was so tired I had to do something just to keep from nodding off, so I wrote out song lyrics on paper while trying to pay attention at the same time. Something from the sermon that I took note of was that the speaker told us we had to turn to the Word of God daily, or we would just fall back into temptation. "Read the Bible!" he said.

Okay, I don't remember if he said that exactly, but, that's the gist of it.

And I thought, hey, cool...because I'm having problems with not falling into temptation myself (as I'm sure a lot of people do). And I've never really gotten into regularly reading the Bible. Last year, I tried the reading-the-Bible-in-one-school-year thing, but I stopped somewhere in Joshua. Over the summer, I tried starting to read the Bible again, but I didn't even manage to finish Genesis.

I didn't even bother to try doing the reading-the-Bible-in-one-school-year this year.

It's sad, really, considering that I am such an avid reader. I read so many other books but I can't spare time for the Bible?

So I've decided to try this: reading the Bible by sections (using the headings given in the NIV version though we at school use the NLT version) and actually blogging my opinions, thoughts, etc. for each section.

And this being on the web...I want people to make sure I do it every day. If I don't, I should make it up the following day...I mean, if I skip a day.

So, yeah. There's my *laugh* brilliant plan, but I'm hoping I'll do it. I really should.

So...yeah...

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
~ 1 Peter 2:2-3