TTB.org and Genesis So Far

In previous studies at TTB.org I was thrilled to study Genesis as a byproduct of working our way through some other books.  I just couldn't wait until we started over and started with that book itself.  I loved watching the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey and the opening to John Huston's The Bible and listening to The Message being read aloud in Genesis 1.  I especially liked realizing the obvious that had slipped right by me- which was that the whole Bible is an ever-increasing snowball or whirlwind of time.  As McGee says, the gospels spend chapters detailing a few hours but the first 11 chapters of Genesis describe at least two thousand years and probably eons.  The first verse alone; much less the space between it and the second verse- could be an eon or two.

I think what we call science is worthwhile and all, but it's really just a working out of a bunch of grownups trying to come to term with they or their grandparents' Bible stories of childhood.  It would be interesting to compare sciences that have developed away from the Bible.  I think it's sad but probably true that right now there aren't any.  Scientists are either trying to prove God out or prove God in- just like the folks in my religion classes.  They don't know it, but each one of them is either trying to make their parents proud or disprove them.  The family might not have gone to church for three generations, but back there somewhere there's a grandpappy that someone today is trying to exorcise from significance.

I think the ancient Greeks had a science as long and developed as ours and that would have not been affected by the Bible.  What's the difference between Socrates' science and Sagan's?  That's a question I'd like an answer to.

Before that, the Egyptians has a few thousand years of development, and that must have included what we would call science.  How does that compare?

Acupuncture seems to be helping me immensely and that's based on non-Biblical science.  There must have been a corresponding science for each civilization but aren't they all subsumed underneath Western science now?  That has to be an over-simplification but don't they all turn to Western Science with a capital S to verify themselves?

Spinning forward from Genesis, all the preachers' sons who liked their daddies set out to prove the Bible right and all the ones who didn't set out to prove it wrong.  But what were they doing?  They were observing, recording, testing and categorizing.  Adam named the animals and so did they.  They searched for Eden geographically and sociologically and psychologically.  They pried open corpses and divided light from the darkness wherever they probed. because they wanted to be like God.  All myths border on the real, but there is no ancient book more attached to geography than the Bible.  There was no other system of thinking that would have brought about the Renaissance/Enlightenment/Reformation in the same way.  How else did we get to the point where we know more about the latest pop star then we do about any ancient queen?  How else did we get to the point that we look at pictures of what a stranger ate for lunch rather than explore the cosmos?

We know more and more about less and less.  We actually think that the tiny pill we take with that feast will affect us more than the five plates we ate it with.

I want to go back to Genesis 1 and study the eons and the various interpretations in movies and scientific theories.  I want to dive into the details.  But the amazing thing about Genesis 1 is that there aren't any details.  We fill them in, but it is so bare-boned.  It's a backdrop for the human story and nothing else.  We're supposed to lean from the stories of men; which culminates in the life of Christ.  So many try to divine the end but I think it's about now.

It's about time.

Do You Ever?

Do you ever get the sneaking suspicion that something is really wrong?

Well, that's always true but we don't always notice it.



But do you know what that means?

That means that while you happen to be noticing that something is really wrong- something is also really right.

Genesis 22:1-18 Today on Through the Bible at TTB.org

Today Mr. Dr. J. Vernon McGee spoke on the sacrifice of Isaac.  Isaac's a funny character to me who doesn't shine as distinctly as the other patriarchs.  Mr. McGee is more of a character.  It's hard to think of him as a doctor but I do consider him very learned.  I think of him as Burl Ives sitting by a hearth somewhere just happening to tell the listener exactly what he needs to know at exactly the right time.  He doesn't say too much and he doesn't say too little.

The parallels between Isaac and Jesus at the time of their sacrifice are clear and I don't remember them from early youth.  They both carried wood to the place of sacrifice willingly.  They both asked their (D)ad questions.  They both traveled three days.  There were witnesses close by but the transaction took place only between (F)ather and (S)on.  It was a great reminder to hear again about the darkness that covered the earth while Jesus died.  God put a little nighttime there to remove the actions of men.  Men don't work during the night and by putting night there temporarily, God was taking man out of the occasion and fulfilling the requirements of the covenant unilaterally.  People may have beaten Him and mocked Him and nailed Him and put Him up naked for ridicule in immense pain, but God killed Him.  And Jesus accepted.  They did it.  We didn't do anything to fulfill that contract.

Then God decided to start a unilateral contract with Abraham and promised to bless the whole world with his seed.  Abraham didn't have a part of the contract to live up to.  And neither do we.

May 16 2016

I haven't posted recently and definitely not much.  Yesterday I had a really nice time getting to know someone a little better- and the night before, getting to know three people a little better.

It is nice to be a member of the human race rather than a spectator.  Not that I think for a minute that I'm going to give up spectating.

Every once in awhile I forget that my eyes are improving and forget about the drainage I feel mainly on my left sinus.  And then I am reminded that I'm in the middle of a great medical improvement of some kind.  Yesterday I was talking to an acupuncturist patient- who surprised me.  I didn't think who would have been someone to go for that type of thing- and she didn't have a story nearly as dramatic.  And at dinner I could mainly read the menu but for really small print I pulled the menu away from me.  That's definitely new.  And now I'm typing without glasses and although I may have some misspellings, I can almost read every letter- I think it's a little better than two weeks ago, I would guess.  I notice that I do read better in the mornings.

I've also been reading less.  Thinking about my eyes has made me want to see the world more than seeing black marks on white paper.  I doubt if there has been a day when I haven't done some reading, but I am enjoying reading less and doing other things more.

I'm reading a book about getting healthy- very little bits at a time, and he wants me to give up things and eat some broccoli and buy some flowers.  Okay buddy, thanks for the suggestions.