When it comes to the Bible, Don’t Trust Number

One of my Math teachers used to say, “Numbers don’t lie.” I agree but with an exception. As much as numbers don’t lie, I believe liars use numbers. Numbers are so powerful that they can intimidate the most powerful of warriors. One of the best old-time war strategies was finding out “how many they are”. Numbering the enemy gives the other side greater advantage. In old days, warriors used to tie torches on their horses at night to trick the enemy into believing that there is more to the numbers.

As much as I may be interested in numbers, I am actually more interested in the truth and meaning behind numbers. For example if you tell me “one million people died in the Rwandan genocide” I may go, “huh! What a terrible loss and brutality!” But if you tell me the entire population of Portland was wiped out in the Rwandan genocide, the numbers start to make sense.

This brings me to one of those chapters in Genesis that most people find boring. And I don’t blame them. Genesis 5 is all about numbers: And Adam lived 13o years and he had children and Adam lived 800 years and he had Seth and Adam lived 930 years and Adam died and Seth lived 105 years and Seth had children and Seth lived another 807 years and Seth had more children and Seth lived another blab blab and blah blab… Can this get any more boring than that?

You wonder why someone would waste an entire four pages of the Holy Book to tell us how long all these people lived. I mean, who cares. And was the writer’s intention to really enumerate facts on how long each of these people lived or did he have a greater meaning in mind? What do you think?

Favoritism: How Does God Play That Game?

You would think of God as someone who treats everyone equally, right? Wrong. Matter of fact you shouldn’t be thinking about how God plays his favoritism game. He is God and it is His game. With this in mind, I have never stopped wondering why God plays unfair. At least in my human mind. And there is no better place to find God playing unfair than in Genesis 4. Two good guys Cain and Abel choose different jobs. Call them a lawyer and a doctor or something like that. Cain brings something from his profession and so does Abel. God looks at Cain’s gift and decides, “Well, I don’t think I care for that”. I am curious to know what you think about God’s game of favoritism.

Just Don’t Listen to Your Wife, Okay?

I don’t know what to do with this kind of advice especially when it is coming from God himself. Adam actually got punished for it. God looks at Adam in Genesis 3:17 and says “Dude, you are in big trouble. You listened to your wife and now things are going wacky for her and for you”. “So Mr., because you listened to your wife, I am cursing the ground because of you.” “You are going to sweat it out every time you need to earn any food.” Now, that is really some hash punishment in my opinion. Adam was simply being a good husband; one who, like many of us, does not want to start fights in his home. A good husband. A fine husband who gives his wife a voice in the home. Not a female chauvinist by any means. A man of today who understands the meaning of equality between the sexes. But all he gets as an appreciation for being a decent man is a strict and hash punishment from God who created man and woman. What a reward!

How would you answer God if you were Adam?

Why a Snake of all Things?

The movie “Snakes on a Plane” is one of those movies with a big title and not much content. The movie, starring the famous Samuel L. Jackson, gained a considerable amount of attention before its release, forming large fan bases online and becoming an Internet obsession, due to the film's title and presupposition. Despite the immense Internet buzz, the film's gross revenue did not live up to expectation.

This film reminds me of the so-called serpent in Genesis 3. If you are like me then you must really hate snakes. I don’t mean pet snakes. I mean stuff like Anacondas, Cobras, Western Browns, Death Adders, Taipans, and Black Tigers. Those are some deadly venom we are talking about right there. Don’t mess around with them. Whether the snake in Genesis 3 was as poisonous as the precarious tigers mentioned above, no body knows. One thing we know from the reading is that this thing in Genesis 3 was canny, smart, and outright dangerous. But this snake had something strange about it; something most snakes I know do not have. The thing in Genesis 3 actually speaks. Surprise!! Who can explain that?

Even God Gets Tired, Doesn't He?

So here is the real deal. In Genesis 2, God is tired. Hilarious, isn’t it? No. Not in a hurry my friend.

I am 5.8” and for a man, that is really short. And considering the fact that my father (God bless his cotton socks) was 6.2”, it makes me look like a disappointment standing beside him. And no man wants to be this short except me. I travel a lot so it helps to be portable. Sometimes I can just fold my legs on an airport chair, close my eyes, and go to the other side of slumber land. It pays great dividends to be short. Especially in a bad economy like this, short people can really save money on a lot of things. But this is irrelevant to our story. May be not. Yes, now I remember. I was talking about God getting tired. If you think I am lying, read Genesis 2:2. God rested from his six days of work. I know some people want to nickel and dime on this one saying that the fact that God rested does not mean he was tired. Okay if God was not tired, then the writer of Genesis, whom we don’t know yet, has a great deficit for vocabulary. I know that some people rest when they are not tired. But all rest has at least some form of tiredness built into it. If not the present tiredness, then it’s the anticipation of it.

If you are a Bible-reading atheist, you know that the last thing God created before he took a long nap was Adam and Eve. Yes Adam and Eve. And you wonder why it is so tiresome working with people? Ask God. He’s been-there-done-that-got-the-t-shirt. It must have been exhausting working on creating man. Or may be emotional I should say. Some times emotions make us more tired than work itself. So here is a guy who has spent the whole day recreating himself. You doubt that? Read Genesis 1:27. God created man in his own image. Other translations say that God created man in his own likeness. Ever wonder what part of us is actually God’s image? I do and I have never been able to answer that one. May be you can help.

Reading on from Genesis 2 we find something really interesting. Something that helps me put evolution to test and creationism to work. “God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living thing”. Now if that doesn’t blow your mind I don’t know what does. And here is the issue I have with evolution: I want to believe that the fresh breathe of God is still alive and well in me. Oh I love that! The complexity of my brain, the intricacy of my emotions, the obscurity of my thoughts, are not only the work of art but also the power of higher being. Someone higher than life has given me a portion of himself. I am not only mortal with dusted skin (you don’t doubt my skin is dusted, do you?) but also a marvelous being with part of the divine coming in and out of me constantly. If you hold your nose and mouth and try to stop yourself from breathing you will understand what I mean. LIFE. God breathed his life into me and from that day on I became, not only alive, but also divinely alive. Now give me a creationist who can explain that and I will show you a man who does not value his own breath.

So did God really get tired after creating man? I don’t know. One thing I know is that the man deserved a rest especially after creating something as marvelous as me. Pinch my skin for me please!!!!!!!!

Did God Really Write the Bible?

Did God really write the Bible? Oh wait a second. I think several people did. Inspired by God himself. Can we call them ghostwriters then? Only difference is that they do give us their names. Except Genesis of course. No one really knows who wrote this book. Moses? Ah I hear he actually wrote the first five books of the Bible. Surprised? You should be. He actually wrote about his death in Deuteronomy 34, one of the books he supposedly wrote. Imagine the man writing about himself saying “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD (Deut. 34:5)” When was the last time someone died and wrote about the process? Strange, isn’t it? I am not planning to write about myself after I am dead. Are you?

I am not a Bible skeptic. Neither am I a Bible stomping Christian. I am a believer. Full stop. And I love the Book. And by the book I mean the Bible with a capital B. And unlike new believers, which I am always, I love to start with Genesis, not John. In Genesis things are held together. In Genesis we are able to see how God creates the world, how sin comes into the world, and how God loves mankind in spite of his sin. The God of Genesis is a cloth of many colors. He loves, he rewards, he punishes, and he hates. What a split personality kind of God! Sounds like this God actually has emotions. Is he human? Hope not, because I really don’t want to passionately devote myself to a human being. Divine is my thing for worship.

Okay I really believe God is divine. Emotional but divine. What makes him divine can be debated but Genesis tells me why. Unless you believe in evolution, in which case you shouldn’t be reading this, you know that this emotional, split personality, and sissy-kind of guy actually has some action. And that’s why you and me should tiptoe as we speak about him. I mean think about this: This guy speaks a word and things come into existence. Can you imagine? Ever wonder why God created us in his image but never gave us this kind of power? Well you know why. How many people would be dead by now if you had this kind of power? I don’t even want to count. But this God actually has power over, not only words, but also everything that has ever lived and will ever live. Listen to this verse: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep… and God said, “Let there be Light” and there was light.” Wow! God said to the darkness, “Darkness, I have four words for you. Let there be light!” Now that’s the kind of God I want to follow. Powerful yet kind. Strong yet loving. The entire first chapter of Genesis is about this powerful, divine and Supreme Being speaking everything into existence. Have you ever stopped to imagine what that means? You mean there is a supreme being out there who actually speaks things into existence? You bet. You might be surprised to know that he still does speak things into existence. And some he speaks out of existence. I know you are wondering, “If God can speak things into and out of existence why doesn’t he speak to HIV/AIDS to disappear from the face of the earth?” Well, I don’t know but I for sure want some freedoms of my own too, and I am glad God has left me with some decisions to make and consequences to bear. I guess that’s what makes me a human being created in God’s image. Don’t you think so?