A while back -- much longer than I'd care to admit -- I started a Bible weblog, where the plan was that I'd basically paraphrase the entire Bible, chapter by chapter, with occasional commentary. The idea behind that crazy project was to get to know the Bible better, by going through it word by word, sentence by sentence, and thinking very intensely about what I was reading and rewriting.
While I still believe that was a terrific idea, and I wish I could still be doing that, the reality is that it was just too daunting a goal for me. As much as I'd like to be some kind of latter-day Milton, I'm no Milton. Unless Milton was as lazy as I am. Someone like me, who lets trash bags collect on his patio because he can't be bothered to schlep them a hundred feet over to the dumpster, doesn't belong anywhere near a project as ambitious as paraphrasing the entire freakin' Bible.
So, even though Plan A fell by the wayside, I still felt the desire to get closer to the word of God and do some thinking about things spiritual on some kind of regular basis. That's where Hey, Zeus! comes in. I'll still sort of recap the chapters I read, but I won't do the painstaking word-by-word thing I was doing before. Mostly I'll be thinking out loud about what I've just read.
One thing that won't change is that I'm still going to come to the Scriptures with as much naivete and stone ignorance as possible. Even though I'm putting this thing up for the world to read, I think of it as kind of a one-on-one interaction, just me and this crazy book. So, many of the things I write here might be completely wrongheaded, inaccurate, or dopey as far as real Biblical-scholar types are concerned. All I have coming into this thing is sincerity and an open mind.
🗲
Genesis 1
God turns on the lights. "Excellent," God says, then proceeds to make dry land, plants, the Sun and Moon, and all the animals, all the while thinking, "This is awesome." But then he makes human beings, and it's all pretty much downhill from there.
Back in my doubting days, before now when I will believe pretty much anything I'm told, Genesis was a real "WTF" mother lode. I mean, just look at this first chapter. The earth is formless and empty -- except for all this water. Where did the water come from? Why water? Why is God hovering over the surface of this water? And what exactly was he up to during the five billion or so years before he came up with this whole "dry land" concept? And then there's the part where God creates the Sun, Moon, and stars in order to provide light for the earth. Did he really create the entire universe merely to illuminate this one single planet? Why do I have a hard time believing this.
It's pretty brilliant, though, that whoever wrote this saw the earth being formed out of water, thousands of years before scientists found that, indeed, life did begin in water. Even now, we're all excited when we hear that some distant planet may have water on it, because something deep inside us knows instinctively that water equals life.
This first chapter is the chapter that underscores for me just how completely beyond my comprehension the mind of God is. If I were to create the earth and all the plants and animals on it, everything would have a logic and order to it. I'd probably lay out the landscape in a neat grid and make animals that looked like cylinders with legs. But look at what God makes -- dinosaurs? Fish with gigantic pointy mouths? Sea slugs? I mean, really. Can you imagine the crazy-making dimensions of a mind that would just up and make something like a sea anemone? And do I even have to bring up the platypus?
It's almost like Genesis 1 throws down a gauntlet, demanding that you choose a side. Are you gonna believe, or not? Here's God. Here's a little taste of the bizarre, seemingly random stuff God throws at you. I mean utterly baffling things. Did I mention platypus? A semi-aquatic mammalian duck is really part of God's plan? If you're going to bail on this whole God concept, this is the place to do it. That's something I like about the Bible right off the bat -- it gives you, up front, the hardest part of this whole "Christianity" concept for any reasonable person to swallow. It's nuts. It's like you're waiting to get onto this amazing carnival ride, and there's a sign at the entrance with arrows pointing in sixteen different directions that reads, "You must be at least THIS crazy to enter."
For Skattie.