Today I reached the end of Abram's story, and likewise the end of Part 7 of Genesis. I read Abram's story in three days and it's a great way to read it in my opinion. I really got a sense of growing intimacy in God and Abram/Abraham's relationship. Overall I think the story is very beautiful.

Synopsis

Sarah finally bears Abraham a son, Isaac, which is amazing and is an important part of God's promise to Abraham. Eventually Sarah wants to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael, and God tells Abraham that's ok, because he'll make Ishmael a great nation as well, but the important promises will come through Isaac. (God subsequently does take care of Hagar and Ishmael).

After a short story about the owner of the land Abraham is living on, God "tests" Abraham and asks him to sacrifice his son, whom he loves. Oddly enough, Abraham doesn't seem to hesitate too much and is ready to slay his son when God provides a ram instead and reinforces his promises to Abraham more strongly than ever because Abraham would hold nothing back from God.

Abraham hears about some extended family, including a great niece named Rebekah. After that, Sarah dies, and Abraham weeps over her. As he buys a burial place, the people he is living among in Canaan show great respect for him.

Once Abraham is near death, he sends a servant to find a wife for Isaac from Abraham's family. The servant prays a lot for success in this quest and praises God when he does find Rebekah, who is willing to go with him to marry Isaac. As they leave her family wishes her the same blessings that have been promised to Abraham's family. They get married and Isaac loves her.

Abraham has some more kids but sends them away from Canaan since it is through Isaac that God's promises will arrive. Abraham dies at 175 (a "good old age") and is buried by Ishmael and Isaac with Sarah. Abraham's story is over.

Part 8 of Genesis is very short: It's a list of Ishmael's descendants, showing that Ishmael's family becomes a great nation just as God told Hagar and Abraham.

A Response to Abraham's Story

What, overall, should I be coming away with as I finish the story about Abraham? There are lots and lots of details, lots of little action points to get caught up in. But throughout them all, there is a sense of important flow and feel, and some things that seep out as the clear message of Abraham's life:

The very beginning of Abraham's story starts with God initiating a relationship with Abram by promising him the land of Canaan, a great nation (despite his wife being barren), a great reputation, and blessings. God gives Abraham these promises over and over throughout the story, so they're apparently important.

There are a ton of stories in Abraham's life but I think that most of them are just stories about what a sweet deal Abraham gets by being God's friend. The more important thing is the evolution of God and Abraham's relationship, and the corresponding scenes. There are, then, outside of the firepot and name-changing scene, three critical plot points I see: Having a child by Hagar, having Isaac by Sarah, and willingness to sacrifice Isaac.

Why are these the three most important events? They map out Abraham's growing trust and faith in what God promises him. Despite what God says, because Sarah is barren and old, he ends up trying to fulfill God's promises through another woman. God doesn't punish anyone for this but tells Abraham it WILL be through Sarah. So then, having Isaac is the ultimate proof that what God told Abraham is true. Finally, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac shows insane trust that God will still fulfill his promises no matter what the circumstances look like.

It's easy to see what kind of interest this peaks in me: What promises does this trustworthy God have for me? If Abraham's God is real, this story would compel me to worship him, as he cares for Abraham and acts because he himself is good, not because of how great Abraham has been. Not only that, but he makes good on his promises.

Abraham in context with Genesis?

Before Abraham's entrance, Genesis' flow was pretty simple: God makes earth and man good, man ruins everything by several means, God starts over and tells man to populate earth again, man does but still has lots of problems.

So then this long narrative pops up all the sudden. What the heck does it mean? Does Abraham's story fit into what preceded it? God promises Abraham that all nations will be blessed through him, and that promise has no been fulfilled yet. What exactly did the author of Genesis have in mind?

Friendship. At this stage of their relationship, I'd say it's clear Abram and God are good friends. That's saying a lot, as it's not a relationship-type that had been mentioned specifically earlier in Genesis, but it is clearly there.

Yesterday, God spent about six pages telling Abram over and over and over again what an enormous nation he would make from him.

Then right off the bat today, Abram gets worried about his wife not having a kid; she gives him her servant, Hagar, to have a kid by, and that causes problems between everybody (as one might expect). Then, Hagar gets a messenger of the Lord to tell her to go back, indicating that her son Ishmail will be a great ruler as well.

This is followed by an intense, intimate scene between God and Abraham, in which he changes Abram and Sarai's names into Abraham and Sarah. This time it's a serious covenant and Abraham is officially involved through circumcision. God tells Abraham his descendants, through Sarah, will be as numerous as the stars... Abraham circumcises everyone in his household.

Abraham's adventures coninue in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed. Abraham's intimate relationship with God is demonstrated once again with the way, although he admits to being a weak-minded human, that he negotiates down the number of righteous people present to defend it. God even cares about Abraham's opinion.

There is a short substory about Lot and his daughters, which seems to be taking a quick shot at a couple other nations.

Finally, Abraham once again lies about his wife and as a result eventually becomes eve more wealthy. A note about it, though is that Abraham is referred to as a prophet; one who speaks for God. He prays to God and God answers his prayer. (This is the first time this happens in Genesis.)

Edit: When I first typed this last night I was literally falling asleep and a lot of it was nonsense. Now it's fixed. Overall, my response to this story is a little bit of shock, even as a Christian, that this early, way back in Genesis, God was more or less best friends with a human being. Abraham makes great decisions and not-so-great decisions but he and God have a commitment to each other. And the weirdest part is, it was all initiated by God. There are lots of iinteresting stories about Abraham's adventures but the more dramatic part of his story is that after each adventure God reiterates his promise, and even strengthens its voice.

Genesis' perspective here is definately that God is working with this man and building something with him because of who God is, not even just who Abraham is. This is set against a backdrop of a God who cannot stand murder or corruption of his creation (humans). Of course, the elephant in the room is that he has already annihilated humanity and a couple cities. I'm still processing that one.

This morning I jumped into what seems like the whole next section of Genesis: Part 7. This is a very long part, the story of Abram, and it's going to take me a few days to get through.

We left off of with a nice descendant list ending with Terah and his three kids (one of them Abram). A literary shift seems to take place as we are introduced to a whole new cast.

Synopsis

The main characters here are Terah, his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (who, it is mentioned, is barren), and his grandson Lot (nephew of the latter two). Although Terah quickly dies so we're left with the "misadventures" of the other three. God shows up and tells Abram to head to Canaan, and the fun starts there.

The events of this part of Genesis are many: They do a lot of traveling to and from Canaan, they head to Egypt during a famine and lie to the Pharaoh, , Abram and Lot go their separate ways, Abram saves Lot from some warring kings, and Abram refuses to take stuff from a king he helped.

And surprisingly, my sense is that all those things are rather peripheral, lacking a need for analysis, compared to the other thing going on in this section: over and over again, we see God making promises to Abram, and also we see Abram calling on God's name and building alters to Him.

Right near the beginning, God talks to Abram and promises to bless him, to make a nation out of him, to make his name great, and to bless all peoples through him. This starts off a relationship, initiated and carried forward by God, that is restated several times throughout a few stories about Abram's life. It continues to build until it reaches a powerful passage as Abram and God discuss the promise:

God says HE is Abram's shield and great reward, but Abram questions how God can fufill these promises since Abram has no kids (remember, Sarai is barren). God says he'll take care of it, and Adam believes him, which God appreciates. Abram asks how he will take the land, and God tells him to put out some sacrifices. Abram is told that his offspring will be slaves for a while and then return to Canaan, and then some smoking firepot thing moves through the sacrifices to seal the deal. It's a powerful passage.

Analysis

This whole section has a whole different feel to it, some sort of literary shift. For one thing,
instead of God simply talking back in forth with people, the mode of God's conversation is always revealed, through "appearing" to people, or coming in a dream, or through a vision, or even using someone else to speak for him. Also, all the explanations of things like why there are rainbows and why snakes don't have legs disappear. Instead we are invited into the life of this man, whose main distinctive trait is that God seems to like him. The overall message, I think, of this section has been, "God's gonna do something special with this guy."

Response

What stands out to me about this whole section is God's pursuit of Abram. Sure we hear lots of interesting stories, but I don't think there's much to learn from them in particular. I think what we learn is that whatever situation this guy is in, God is faithful to him and directing his steps. Abram in turn often calls on God's name and worships him.

God's character is revealed as he goes out of his way for the first time since hanging with Eve and Adam to intimately be involved with a particular human being. His passion for Abram can be felt in this narrative, in my opinion. The last story that I read, in which the firepot passes through the sacrifices, is especially expressive of how intentional and involved God is.

If most of Genesis so far has reminded me how I buy into man being totally corrupt and this world full of problems, these stories of Abram touch something inside me that hopes that our creator wants to act in response and to know people amidst the chaos.

Neat.

Well, I've finished parts 5 and 6 of Genesis. For the most part, they describe family lines, which as far as I can figure represents, in part, the passage of time. In this case, it may or may not represent time coming up to a point in time that the author would find historically recent relevant.

Summary

As part 5 begins, God had just told Noah and his family to increase, and increase they do, filling the earth, covering a lot of ground and having lots of descendants speaking many language.

Just as all this is going down, a story is thrown in in which all of man is together moving eastward with one language. They decide to contradict God in two direct ways: by staying in one city (not filling the earth) and making a name for themselves, which seems to parallel Adam and Eve's desire to "become like God, knowing good and evil." Their plan for this is to build a really big tower. God ain't having it, and before you know it they're all over the world speaking tons of languages.

Part 6 follows. It's a simple family tree from Noah down to Terah and his sons Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Not much else there. We are about to get to the patriarch of the Judaism, Abram/Abraham, so I wonder if the author's mindset is about to switch from pseudo-historical to full-on-historical.

Analysis

The "Tower of Babel" story builds on man working against God. It emphasizes something that's easy to lose after all the murder and shanagins so far: that the principal reason for our problems is denying God authority in our lives and instead making our own way. This is why Adam and Eve ate from that tree, and that's why these people build a tower: to make a name for themselves. Either way, God works to put a stop to it.

The story describes how we came to have different languages. Clearly, this is not historically accurate. Here's a list of... things... Genesis has explained so far: how we got animal names, why we have sex, why snakes are hated and lack legs, why birthing kids hurts, why marriage is oppressive for women, why farming is hard, why we die, why we wear clothes, why there are nomads, whom various skilled peoples descended from, why our lives are short, where Nephelim came from, how people got all over the earth, why there are rainbows, why Canaan is cursed, the origin of big certain big cities, and why there are different languages.

Whew! That's a lot of freakin stuff!! At the same time, there is no way the explanations of all these things are historically accurate. No way no how. However, I will say this about the worldview it purports: it places dying and oppression of women as hard realities that should be obvious to everyone (hence the legend of "why") and that are not what God created (because they're explained by the fall).

Respsonse

So I have finished 6 out of 12 parts of Genesis. The only problem is I'm only about 20% through the actual text of Genesis, so I would guess the next several parts are much longer. But this is the plot so far: God, a powerful yet emotional being, created a beautiful world and man was privileged to be in it, but we were unable to accept our place in it (under God's authority) and since then things of got screwed up--violence, pride, death, etc. Through it all, God is working slowly to do something about it, once just plain starting over.

I guess I could write some lies about how it makes me think about how God is working in me despite my flaws but it doesn't really, nor do I think it's aiming to. It is, however, a much more exciting and interesting and deep plot than I ever realized before.

The last couple parts of Genesis I read were about the descent of mankind into corruption and violence. One explained that despite the sweet deal God set up for man and woman, they chose the Knowledge of Good and Evil over following God and have since faced all kinds of painful consequences, most notably death and murder. The other showed that while God created man in His image, throughout the generations man eventually spiraled down into absolute evil. God is deeply troubled that he made man and decides to get a fresh start on earth, destroying mankind. However, "Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord."

Synopsis

So what is there to say about the story of Noah? One thing to note is that it's not like Evan Almighty or that movie with Tony Danza; there's no doubt about what God is saying; God is still talking to humans like any other human would, out loud, and there is no question about that.

Noah is righteous, while the rest of earth is corrupt. So God explains his plan to Noah and tells him to build his ark and take his family and a ton of animals inside while God floods earth, killing everything. Noah obeys, and it all goes down just like God says, with ark dimensions and time periods being very specific.

Noah comes out and offers a burnt offering to God. God smells the aroma (!) and decides he will never destroy the earth like this again by speaking in verse. The existence of rainbows is explained as a sign of this promise. God then has a few things to say:

Once again, increase on the earth. Seriously, fill up earth with humans. Keep being in charge of the animals, even eating them. Remember, you're made in my image, so STOP MURDERING EACH OTHER.

Then there is a story explaining why Canaan would be cursed (?) and eventually Noah dies.

Analysis

I think it is notable to say, as most people know, that there is an absolute ton of global flood stories out there. I say this not to vouch for the historical accuracy of this account, but to note that this story is different from the others in a lot of ways. For one thing, mankind is destroyed to eradicate evil, not on a whim or something. Second, mankind is saved because of God's provision for Noah and his family, not against God's will or without God's knowledge. Third, Noah is kept safe and eventually put back on land because of God's care for him, not because God is starving and needs a sacrifice to eat. And fourth, Noah makes an alter to God out of praise and thankfulness instead of being afraid.

So, as opposed to some message about the grand canyon or fossil records, here is the message I'm getting from this story:

Mankind was totally evil and the earth was better off without humans.
God cannot bring himself to totally destroy humans and saves a good one.
God uses great care to protect animals and Noah's family and sparks off a new creation at the end of the story, warning them about murder creeping back in.
God is still as much in control as he's ever been, despite the evil of humans.

Overall, the story is a success. Mankind is saved, and corruption is cut off. However, the original problem is not solved. Man is still cut off from the tree of life and is at odds with God on some level, not ruling earth the intended way. This should be interesting.

Response

So what kind of personal response can I offer at this point? I think the main challenge at the beginning of Genesis is two-fold: What is my perspective on my own nature, and what is my view of God's character?

My own nature, according to the Bible, is in the image of God and a ruler on earth in God's kingdom. Yet my nature is also at odds with God and causing every major problem on earth. It's a compelling tragedy, with no easy solution in sight, even with God on the case. I think anyone confronting true faith in God must wrestle with this idea for a long time.

A lot of my culture would like to deny this idea and argue that mankind is beautiful right now and exactly what it's supposed to be. Genesis does sense an original intent for goodness and beauty in our species but then again we are totally filled with corruption. I think when I am most keenly aware of the true world around me, I agree with Genesis.

As far as who God is, he is all-powerful, he is all-knowing, and he cannot stand evil. Even so, he talks personally with humans, he walks, hears, and smells, and he demonstrates care for humans despite responding to their evil as well. This is hard to grasp because living in a somewhat Christian-oriented culture, we think we're all on the same page with God, but in a lot of ways God responding to my own evil by making provisions for me is radical.

I'll blog about part 5 and 6 of Genesis later today, which features man building a tower and Noah's family line.

Last post, after reading Genesis' first creation story, I commented that it seemed too idealistic. God creates everything and it's all just great. Of course most of us know that it's not going to stay that way very long in Genesis, and will quickly spiral down into a broken world we're more familiar with. That's where I found myself as I read part two of Genesis.

I say part two because it each begins with "This is the account of..." which according to the introduction to Genesis in my Bible, marks a new section. Thematically it seems reasonable, because the second creation story is a lot different from the first. Here's a table I made comparing the two:

Feature	First Story	Second Story
creator	God	The Lord God
time frame	6 days	unimportant
order	Light, sky, plants, sun, birds, animals & humans	unimportant
man's purpose	made in God's image, rule earth, multiply	work the garden, live forever, name the animals
human creation order	unimportant	man, then woman
scope	details of physical earth creation, purpose of man, goodness of what God made	explanations of parts of life, creation and fall of humans, before the fall vs. after the fall

Note that a big part of the scope of the second story that is absent from the first story is comparing before the fall vs. after the fall. I'll get to that in a second.

Also interesting are all the every-day-life explanations this story has: how animals got their names, why snakes don't have legs and are hated by women, why we have sex, why childbirth hurts, why marriage is hard, why farming is hard, why we have clothes, etc.

These are a fun part of the story and of course are not all... historically accurate... to say the least. But one particular explanation is the far more important and the central theme of this creation story. It is the explanation of why we die.

Here's the synopsis of Genesis part 2: God needed somebody to work the garden, so he breathes life into a man. The guy gets a pretty good deal living in the garden and hanging out, walking around with God. In fact, after naming the animals, God makes a woman for the man out of his own body, which he is so happy about that he breaks into poetry and bam, we have an explanation for sex. However they will die if they eats from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Why don't I hear about the name of that tree more? It is not the Tree of Evil that's off-limits but the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. All I can say is that the humans must not have had a clue about the difference between good and evil, and perhaps they weren't created to have such knowledge. The serpent and God seem to confirm this in their speech.

As in all stories like this, a crafty animal (in this case the snake) fools them into eating from that tree. Immediately they recognize and are ashamed of their nakedness. They also hide from God. Besides those two things, check out all the problems this causes: childbearing is painful, marriage is oppressive, the ground is hard to farm, people will not live forever, they are separated for good from the Tree of Life, and to top it all off, one of their sons kills his brother. Four generations later, a descendant who is married to two women proclaims that he has killed two men and is proud of it.

The contrast is stark; instead of working and living and walking alongside God and each other in harmony forever, humans move away from God, hide from him, kill each other and eventually all die.

Part 3 starts after that, and I might as well summarize it because it's similar and short. This part reemphasizes that God made humans in his likeness and blessed them. It then lists Adam and tons of his descendants, so that by the time a very very long time passes and a man named Noah is born, the humans are 100% corrupt and evil. They are so evil compared to how God created them that God is sad that he ever created humans and decides he will wipe them out; however, there is one little hitch in his plan, and that's that Noah found favor in God's eyes.

So part one of Genesis was about the beautiful perfect harmony and beauty of earth and man that God created. Part two demonstrates that by choosing to figure out good and evil for themselves, humans screwed everything up and went into a downward spiral. And part 3 is basically the same, except demonstrated through the passing of time rather than one single act.

So, what have we learned so far? What is the Bible about so far? God has been the main character, and he is a very personal, real, character who walks, talks, feels, etc. He is portrayed as totally good and unbelievable powerful, as everything he creates is perfect and he even helps humans when they fail, by protecting Cain and making skin garments for Adam and Eve.

Meanwhile, man, who was supposed to be a ruler under God, made in his image, rejected God's way in order to choose his own. This has lots of bad instant results and even worse ones down the road.

Now this is a story I can get into. This is the world I see around me. Humans have serious problems. According to the Bible, the problems exist because we turned from God and are cut off from the tree of life. It's an intriguing idea and one that our rights-oriented, I'm-the-victim culture would not appreciate. Anyway, the foreshadowing at the end of part three indicates that God is planning on wiping out humans in the next part. Sounds like a plan; the whole exercise was a disaster, really.

Poetry.

This is the word that comes to my mind after reading and reflecting on the beginning of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Everywhere from the beginning to of the book to God resting on the seventh day constitutes a single cohesive creation story, one that likely predates the composition of Genesis by hundreds of years. And the story is pure poetry.

Here's the rundown: God creates the heavens and earth. From over top dark waters, God creates one feature per day, all by the power of his voice alone. The first three days he makes day and night, the sky over the seas, and the land, plants and trees. The next three days he fills up what he made in the first three days: He makes the sun moon and stars, the sea creatures and birds, and finally the land creatures and the humans.

The humans (both male and female) he creates extra special by making them like God ("in the image of God") and he assigns them to fill the earth and to rule earth. Finally his creation is complete, and it's all very good, so he takes a day off. The end.

I get the sense this story stood by itself before it was part of Genesis, but I'm guessing the rest of Genesis will also fit it in with it quite nicely.

Like I said, this passage is pure poetry, some of the most compelling poetry I've ever read. It speaks to my heart in a poetic way, even though it's not a native English story. How? Because the beauty is in the way the author uses the events of a creation story to explain things about God and man and the earth. This story says that God is in total control. It says we're here to be like God and rule the earth. It says God created a really good earth that is full of harmony and order.

Good times.

And the story does it all through this beautiful foreign medium of a creation story. God's power is demonstrated through his SPEAKING causing the earth to appear. He creates with order and harmony: light, sky and ground followed by sun, birds, and wild beasts. Beautiful. The story literally breaks out into verse about how humanity is made in God's image.

Another note: God is a character who talks, both to himself and to humans. Interesting. All in all, it's a story that stands in stark contrast to other ancient creation stories, where humanity is an accident or is the product of a god's masturbation.

The idea that someone could take this first part of Genesis as the literal scientific truth is downright silly, I have to say. After all, in this story, the earth is created first, then later plants, and then yet later the sun moon and stars. This order and timespan is literary rather than scientific.

There is harmony; there is a powerful, intentional God who talks; there are humans ruling over the earth like God wants. God is taking a holiday. It's a good deal.

I think there are many that would love to read the first story of the Bible and leave it there, that humanity is doing just fine, thank you, and if there is a God, he put the answers inside us. But looking at the world it is obvious things didn't play out the same way they started (started according to Genesis). Even in this first reading, I can't help but think of unjust wars being fought these days, over a billion people without good water, and oppressive governments.

Even now in my own life, I just got off the phone with my beautiful fiancee. She had some reasonable emotional needs, and I had some reasonable needs for sleep and getting over a headache. We didn't communicate all that well and I don't think either of us were satisfied. I got off the phone and just punched my bed because I'm so frustrated and angry that she could be sad and yet I am too weak or selfish to do anything about it.

What happened to "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good"?

(note: This was a lot of reflection on not much of Genesis. I expect, after the first few days, to read 4-5x as much at a time. However, the beginning of this book is so rich that it's hard to read more than what I did today.)

Welcome to Honest Synopsis. It's about reading the Bible straight up, and responding. This introductory post will put forth the purpose of this blog, give background info on me and why I'm interested in finding out what's in the Bible, detail exactly what I'll be doing, list my materials, and ask four things from you the reader.

Purpose

1. This project is for Christians like me who have come to the conclusion that the typical interpretation, application, and explanation of the Bible is more or less backwards and nonsensical, and that in order to understand what the Bible is actually about, we need to read it with fresh, keen, perceptive eyes.

2. This project is for outsiders to Christianity who are genuinely confused or outraged by Christianity and the Bible, and those who think that the God of the Bible and of Christians is an idiot or weak or just cruel, but who are also willing to listen to someone else's alternative thoughts.

The Person

I am a 22-year-old American male in Columbus, Ohio. I am a campus minster intern with a major religious organization. I majored in English and religion at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. I've been a part of mainline denominations, quasi-charismatic churches, home churches, and your basic non-denominational evangelical Christianity-factory.

My professor of Biblical studies and my English literature major have helped lead me to scratch my head regarding how Christians tend to read the Bible. We read it in very short bursts, with no rhyme or reason to where we start or stop. We take parts as literal that should be taken as metaphors, and we take parts as metaphors that should be taken literally. We attach our beliefs to what we read instead of the other way around. We ignore parts we don't like. We have no sense of thread, rhythm, motif, or purpose. We base our Bible-reading experience on our emotional response instead of on what the Bible is about. We treat the Bible like an endless collection of magical self-help fortune cookies.

Why not read the Bible for what it is: dozens of pieces of foreign literature of varying genres, requiring the same basic reading principles as Winesburg, Ohio or Hamlet? Sure, as a Christian, I expect that it's divine and relevant, but if so, it can probably defend itself on those counts. My job is more less to understand what it's saying.

The Task

Over the next year or so, I will read the whole Bible. I will take detailed notes and make lots of outlines and charts and lists of characters and plot threads. I will write summaries. I will look for themes and underlying messages. And I will post what I'm discovering on this blog every day or two. I will also post the responses that the book is drawing from me, and my response to the world view it is inviting me into..

This blog is not an educational tool on Hebrew culture or an exposition on prophetic writing. I am not an expert, nor do I have the time to explain all that. You'll be hearing very short summaries of what I read, what I think it's saying, and how it connects to everything else I've read. I won't skip any parts. And perhaps most importantly I'll discuss what kind of effect it's having on my life.

In the end, I'll hopefully fill several 5-subject notebooks and this blog with what the Bible is actually about. If you're a Christian, hopefully it'll inspire you to do the same. If you're not, hopefully it will answer some questions about Christianity and inform you about what's (actually) in the Bible, and how what is inside it can influence someone's life.

The Materials

I'll be reading The Books of the Bible: A Presentation of Today's New International Version, largely because it doesn't have any chapters or verse numbers, so that I can read the books without being tempted to segment them. It also changes the order of the books a bit.

Supplementing my reading will be Introducing the Old Testament: Completely Revised and Updated by John Drane and Introducing the New Testament: Its Literature and Theology by Paul J. Achtermeier and others. These will mostly be used as a guide for when I'm just confused about what's being referred to, or for when I need some historical or genre-related context.

The Requirements

Christian or not, to be a good blog reader, you'll have to agree to a few things:

• This is a blog detailing what I find the Bible to be saying, on its own terms, from its own perspective. Any opinion or response will be clearly marked. It is not a cynical attack or an attempt to poke holes in these books. I will tell about passages I'm struggling with or what confuses me, but if you'd rather be entertained by people whose goal is to paint God as a mean bully picking on humans or that demons are ridiculous, check out another blog... I am not here to evaluate the plausibility of God's love or demons but to treat them as a major theme and minor characters, respectively, in a piece of literature, the Bible. At the end of my journey I will reflect more on how it all matches my world view.
• 
  
• The Bible is not the center of Christianity - Jesus Christ as our only chance at knowing God is. The Bible is simply our most trustworthy source about who Jesus is.
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• I will not be referring to the New Testament much as I read the Old (First) Testament. The authors of the First Testament were not yet aware of the New Testament.
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• Please leave comments.

Ok, this should be fun. I am excited. I hope this humble blog is exciting to you if you give it a chance.