Genesis 9 - 10

Today's reading covers Noah and his descendants. Once

again, the bible is really into its linages, which I have to admit is hard for me to understand. A little bit of research indicates that it was important to the people of that time to add to the writings credibility and validity. This makes sense, but also leads to me to my next point. I've always seen the bible as a piece of writing mean for a different people and a different time. While its interesting to me in its historical context, I don't find anything particularly "divine" about this work.

A short story was included about Noah passing out drunk & naked, and his kids covering him up. Not really sure of the relevance of this, but OK. And that incident leads him to cursing the name of his grandson, which is not nice. All this got me to thinking was, this was the guy that God liked so much above all the other people he killed off? Interesting. Pretty much nothing else is said about Noah or his life, other than that he lived 950 years. The bible is also very curiously into listing people's abnormally long lifespans.

From there we go into all the kids that Noah's kinds had, more descendants, yada yada. I guess this is gives historical context and sets something up to know about the tribes of people and where they came from. Probably made more sense to the ancient people, I'm thinking.

Now, about here we come upon the famous story of the Tower of Babel. I have to admit, the story kind of got a lot more sensationalized from the text that was actually dedicated it it. I found it pretty unsatisfying to be honest and it just raises more questions than answers. For one, God saw people building a city and a tower and just thought to himself, "You know what would be funny? Wonder if I just messed all that up for them. Haha, yeah, that's a good one." God is basically a Troll Dad, that's what I took from that. He was like, people can achieve anything they put their minds to, which is literally what all of us tell our children. But hw as like, Nah, I don't like that and I'm gonna mess it up for them. Very narcissistic. Clearly, God does not want you to do anything you put your mind to. He wants man to be subservient to him. This has all the set up to be a pretty abusive relationship, if you ask me.

That is why I've never particularly liked the bible or Christianity. I see it as a very dark religion, based on fear instead of love. It gives me none of the warm, pleasant feelings of peace that other belief systems do. It does not make me feel Enlightened. Maybe there is still something I'm missing, and maybe if I get past Genesis it will bring more clarity. I have a feeling the first part of the bible is more so for setting up a historical context.