Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Entry 5 - reading day 3

Genesis 19 & 20

Dear Reader,

Today was a poor reading day, only two verses and one was a repeat. I reread verse 19 in order get some perspective on the whole incest question. Perhaps it was a misguided sense of "honoring your father" by Lot's daughters. Of course, no knowing father would find such action honorable. Still, it makes sense, in a very twisted way.

I read verse 20 and was struck by the repeated action that keeps occurring in the work. That is men who claim their wives are their sisters, and get into issues due to it. You'd think they'd learn... Sarah actually almost committed bigamy with Abimelech, the king and Abraham were guests of. Can you imagine? Lucky it all worked out and there was no war like over Helen of Troy!

As I am reading the Bible, I must admit to readers that I've committed my first Bible related sin. As you know, this whole reading idea is due to my atheist friend and was more than a little ticked that she told me that Lot's daughters were raped, when, in fact, they were not and no person even touched them inappropriately that I read.

When said athiest friend wrote of my post yesterday "In the theoretical case that the story as reported happened". Does my friend think I would lie, willingly, about God? Then she is no friend. But I myself didn't act like a friend, either. En route to tax preparation, I stopped at the Newman Center to make 2 copies of the verse in question. Therefore, I was late to tax preparation and delayed in my evenings invents, as a result.
Note to self: One must not commit the sin of pride in terms of reading the Good Book. Even when one is tempted to gloat at being right, as I sadly was.

What am I doing in this blog? My other agnostic assistant seems to be of the opinion that the Bible must be rejected as a work or accepted wholly with all it's flaws. In her mind, there seems to no way to reinterpret the book. I'm lucky that I go to the UCC (United Church of Christ) and we see the book as living document, malleable as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King says, as "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." I, myself, view the book as a tool for that. It's, in my opinion, a big tool for liberation.

I think that if more people were exposed to the UCC model of biblical critique, there would be fewer atheist. It's what we do. We reinterpret, discuss, argue nicely (most times), and try to walk with God. I am going to try to fulfill that role. Wish me luck.

2 comments:

  1. It's a big tool for enslavement. It tells you how much slaves are worth and where you can get them.

    I think the authors of the bible were not in any way reporting real things the way they happened. Sodom and Gomorrah may have been hit by a volcano, which would explain all the fire and brimstone, but it doesn't mean god threw a hissy fit, sent messengers, and saved some people from it before he burned it down (No innocent infants anywhere in 2 cities? Doubtful)

    So yes, as reported isn't on you, it's on the originators of the tale, the people who handed it down orally, the people who wrote it down, and all the folks who've edited the bible over the years.

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  2. I think that you have the UCC idea down just right, Martina. We do see the book as a living organism that is responding in new ways to new times.
    We keep growing, nudging, learning in the freedom that our faith allows us.
    I look forward to future blogs.
    aloha,
    todd

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