Day 12: The Semites

Genesis 10:20-32, NIV

Wait, I thought Shem was the oldest, and then Ham, and then Japheth? What?

Yeah...

Day 11: The Hamites

Genesis 10:6-20, NIV

Sons of Ham...oh, Canaan! Father of that race or whatever, I suppose.

Cush, father of Nimrod...haven't I heard of Nimrod somewhere? Wasn't he a bad guy?

Yeah, something to do with Babylon, too, right?

Assyria, Nineveh, I recognize those.

Do I really need to bother with all this genealogy stuff?

Oh, Sodom. Hey, is that where the term "sodomy" came from?

Day 10: The Japhethites

Genesis 10:2-5, NIV

Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Tiras. I recognize only one of Japheth's sons, and two other names sound familiar. Only Gomer and Javan's lines are important?

Day 9: The Table Of Nations

Genesis 10:1, NIV

Oh. Nice intro paragraph. Okay, I will go on to read about Shem, Ham, and Jay's kids.

Day 8: The Sons Of Noah

Genesis 9:18-28, NIV

So it was Noah who got drunk. Wow, there goes my opinion of him. And Ham, rotten son. Good for Japheth and Shem. From Many Waters, I'd disliked Ham, too.

This was a short section. Ham wasn't being very nice; still, it seems like an extreme punishment, but I guess it wasn't really, not for those times. I think the whole "sins of the father, sins of the son" thing is rather unfair.

Day 7: God's Covenant With Noah

Genesis 9:1-17, NIV

Finally He mentions the fish. And the Bible doesn't say anything about daughters. Only the sons. Wait...it was "sons and their families", wasn't it?

Yeah...oops..."sons' wives."

Everything that lives and moves will be food...even the poisonous stuff?

What is lifeblood? Just blood? Blood of the heart? Or a living animal or something? How do you get rid of all blood? What if it's an accident?

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...?