A Few Brief Notes

* This blog post started out as an introduction to Genesis Chapters 1 and 2, but considering its length, I decided to separate it out and make it its own entry.  I still plan on having the post on Genesis up tomorrow sometime, so don't panic...!

When I set out to read the Bible, I knew eventually some of my previously held notions would be challenged, but I had no idea that time would come even before I got to the first chapter of Genesis.  In trying to be as thorough as possible, I wanted to get some historical context about when the earliest books were written.  I chose, as a jumping off point, the standard reference manual for 21st Century research, Wikipedia.  Before any of you start bemoaning all the weaknesses of an online, open-source, collaborative encyclopedia, I am of the opinion that it is, for the most part, nearly as reliable as the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica, as this 2005 study in the journal Nature found.  Therefore, I have no qualms using it as one of my sources on this project.  If, as we go along, anyone has some evidence that my sources are inaccurate, please post your corrections in the comments, and I'll be more than happy to discuss them.  In my mind, this is a collaborative effort, and in the end, we'll all be a little smarter, if not more enlightened.

Continuing, I found two facts regarding Genesis that I was previously unaware.  First, that the oldest copy still in existence dates from 150 BCE and 70 CE.  I had always thought that there were copies of the Bible that had been around since near the beginning (4004 BCE, according to the Ussher chronology), but it seems that's not correct.  On reflection, that belief may sound naive, but the church I attended as a child didn't spend a lot of time covering the history of biblical manuscripts.  Even if you accept the authorship of Genesis as being sometime around 1491 BCE, that still leaves a LOT of time between the actual events and their first recording, but more on that in a moment.  The accepted process of creating a handwritten copy of the Torah would seem to lend credibility to the idea that the text has remained unchanged over the millennia.  Challenging the textual accuracy of ancient manuscripts is beyond the scope of this project, so I'll be, in a sense, taking the Bible at its word.

Second, Christians and Jews tend to believe Genesis (along with the other four books of the Pentateuch) were written by Moses.  Wh-wha-what?!  I always assumed the Bible was an oral history that had been handed down over the generations until someone finally had the sense to put quill to parchment, but I never knew who.  After all, we have no idea who wrote Beowulf, right?  It seems that, in the case of the Torah, that someone was Moses, he of the parting the waters, golden calf, and not-quite-making-it-to-the-Promised-Land fame.  I guess he's as good a candidate as anyone, considering he also reportedly received the Ten Commandments directly from God.  I just had no idea that people of faith actually believe they know the author of their holiest book, especially considering he's one of the main characters.  It would be akin to opening a Stephen King novel, only to find within a character named Stephen King, a creepy, semi-reclusive, obscenely prolific author of horror novels. But we'll get to Moses later.

I can only hope that the I will continue to find out more along these lines as this project continues.  Those of you who are still wondering why a person like me would even consider trying to read the entire Bible, these examples go a long way towards explaining it.  So many people have used the words in this book and the history behind it to guide their lives, and to affect the lives of others.  I just want to understand what's driving that motivation.

So, with all that said, my next entry will, in fact, be on Genesis Chapters 1 & 2, where all things are created, though not necessarily equal.