Genesis

Today I read the book of Genesis. I don't recall ever reading it through before in one sitting, but I did it today. What happened? I've just finished reading a few books that have challenged me in a big way: The Barbarian Way, Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What. All three are very good books. Anyhow, the authors (Erwin McManus and Don Miller) both seem to have some keen insights into Scripture, and one thing I noticed as I read their books was the ease with which I could reference parts or themes in their their books after the fact, like it actually stuck in my brain.

Growing up in church, I was preached at from the King James Version and was told I needed to read God's Word. However, I rarely understood it and often fell asleep or drifted into Neverland (not Michael Jackson's place - it wasn't around).

A few years ago the Canadian Bible Society published the Contemporary English Version (CEV), which I have been flirting with but have never fully converted. After reading the three other books recently and thinking about how I might get something fresh from the Bible, I thought I'd experiment - read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation, one book at a time and as much as possible, one book each sitting, each book as it was meant - a book. Today was my first day.

It all starts like we remember it: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." I heard a fellow preach once for two hours on "In the beginning God" -- I have no idea what it was about, because how do you talk about such a small topic for two hours? God was before it all. It takes longer to type than to say it. Either way, it turns out I could have read Genesis from 1 to 50 during that sermon.

It's funny. Moses..... Now, there's another thing. My sister-in-law is a seminary student so I told her I was going to read Genesis by Moses. Turns out Moses may not have written the whole thing. You'd think I would know that. Anyway, Moses starts out with this glorious story about how God systematically created the heavens and the earth, one day at a time, culminating with man and woman, and then he took a break. It's a beautiful story, and reading it from a different translation helped me appreciate it like a new book I hadn't read before.

Then Moses goes a little more in depth about God's interactions with Adam and Eve, and it all goes downhill from there. Each story Moses tells is essentially the same: Man does something stupid, somebody gets hurt, God tries again. When we get to Noah, God seems to have had enough, destroys the whole lot of it and starts over with Noah's family. Abraham lost his patience and had a child by his wife's slave, then he and Sarah had their own, Isaac. Jacob tricked Isaac into giving him the birthright entitled to his brother Esau. Joseph's brothers pretended he was dead and sold him such that he ended up with the Egyptians. Joseph ends up in charge of Egypt and saves his family, but not before toying with his brothers for what they did.

In the midst of it all, God seems to be trying to get through to these people, wanting to be in relationship with them, performing miracles for and through them. Man keeps doing stupid stuff, God keeps promising them his blessings.

Then, I got to the last verse of Genesis: "So Joseph died in Egypt at the age of one hundred ten: his body was embalmed and put in a coffin." How's that for irony? It starts with creation, it ends in death.

65 more books to go. If I didn't know the end of the story, I'd expect that God would give up on us.