I increasingly feel like I'm writing these posts for the sake of it. I wanted to work through parts of the Bible that made me question the reliability of the text, but of course there are lots of chapters that, whilst interesting, don't pose any of these issues for me. Therefore, I've decided to limit my writing to just those times when I feel like I have something to say (you may disagree!) and in between then I'll just do a weekly round up of the chapters I've read.
This reading takes me up to the 18th January: Genesis 38-40, Genesis 41-42, Genesis 43-45, Genesis 46-47, Genesis 48-50, Exodus 1-3, Exodus 4-6.
The story of Joseph is awesome - it's got betrayal, emotion, family reunions, and the impressive example of Joseph retaining his faith in God depite being thrown in prison for a crime he didn't commit (like the A-Team). Of course, he eventually triumphs and is raised to a position of great honour.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid the musical of 'Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' was a big hit. I am not now a fan of any type of Andrew Lloyd Webber based entertainment. I would rather you removed my fingernails with tweezers. But when I was in primary school the musical of Joseph was where it was at. I had the soundtrack (on cassette, naturally, CDs and iPods still being a twinkle in techno-barons' eyes) and me and several of my precocious, some may say obnoxious, school chums had memorised the words to all the songs. To this day I am still unable to read the chapters about Joseph without singing "Jacob was the founder of a whole new nation, thanks to the number of children he had. He was also known as Israel, but most of the time, his sons and his wives used to call him dad . . . . " Brilliant lyrics, I think you'll agree. I also still picture Joseph as either Jason Donovan or Phillip Schofield with mullet hair. These chapters are therefore fun for me!
As we move into the early chapters of Exodus (Moses played by Charlton Heston, of course) I anticipate that I'll butt up against a few more problems as I try to investigate whether there's any historical evidence for the exodus from Egypt. But that's a struggle for another day.
hello, a mutual friend of ours introduced me to your blog. I'm enjoying reading it, and I know that the reading along can be a slog. some parts of chronicles get a tad boring when reading who begat whom.
ReplyDeleteI do like your take on the difficult issues. regarding the exodus, I've a big book I'll have to look through to see what it says. I think it's mostly about Jesus though.
just remember, the Egyptians were writing their history, and may have painted it favourably. I know of tomes where the bible was thought to be wrong, and then the archeological evidence was discovered for a minor king no one else knew existed, apart from the biblical reference.
the document evidence for the historicity of the bible is fantastic, from the accuracy of the prices of slaves to the minor details included that were initially scoffed at, but later proved absolutely accurate.
keep going, and please keep writing where you can.
Hi, thanks so much for the information regarding context with Egyptian writing. - I'll definitely keep that in mind. Thanks for reading.
DeleteI just finished reading Joseph, it's really hard to translate that amazing faith into the everyday. If I'm really worried about a work situation (as I was whilst reading it), I can think that everything is all for a greater plan, but it doesn't help with the next day which is just, in equivalence, another horrible day in prison for Joesph. Faith in the future doesn't help me much with now. Not to say that there aren't other areas of the bible that do help, just the story of Joseph makes me go 'Oh, ok. I'll just get on with things then.' Sorry for ramble, I'm enjoying the blog, keep going!
ReplyDeleteI agree! It's definitely hard (sometimes impossible) to keep up that level of faith when you can't see the end plan, and it just feels like another difficult day, but as you say - we just have to keep going. Thanks for the amazing comment!
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