First Blog Question: Response

I have always read Genesis like a history book, as truth concerning the past to be learned. I was raised with Christian beliefs that I still hold today, and I am certain that influence is the reason I perceive it that way. I also have held the belief that the creation story is true though not necessarily limited to the seven day span of time as we perceive it. God is outside of time, he created it, and it is very possible that seven days in the text could actually be seven million years or whatnot. This could, in some ways, mesh with the myth idea that has been discussed in class. If the creation story is explaining something beyond our understanding, it is quite possibly a greatly condensed version of what happened. It could have taken millions of years for each “day” to pass, with a more complicated process than just *poof* there’s all the creatures of the world. Perhaps it is the artist in me, but I have always seen God as an artist himself. He has no reason to hurry His creation process, no reason for it not to have layers to it, like a painting. He is outside of time, beyond our understanding. There is this realization, too, that influences my reading of the text, especially those first few chapters.

God is God. He is capable of anything. 7 days, 7 billion years. What's the difference? Nothing is beyond Him. Creation in a week is not unrealistic with God in the mix.

Beyond the creation story, I have no problem believing that people lived much longer in those early biblical days than now, and that God could have flooded the whole earth in order to cleanse it. It is in my understanding that God gave man freewill. He knows what we will do before we do it, and knows that man is capable of evil, but such is the risk when you create something with a choice to love or hate. To create something that loves you unconditionally because it has no choice would be shallow and meaningless.

I have experienced too many unexplainable or unheard of things in my own life to be convinced that God is not capable of things many people would deem impossible or myth-like. It is not hard for me to believe in the fantastic.

But I think I might be rabbit trailing some here; straying for the point of this blog entry.

I’d never really fully considered the idea of genre until this class, at least in the way it has been presented here. Narrative, poetry, proverbial literature, wisdom discourse, and treaty are the words I have been familiar with when categorizing the Bible. Myth and legend had never crossed my mind, most likely because of the very fiction feel they have coming from one’s mouth, and I have a difficult time thing of the Bible as fiction. I believe it to be truth, to at the very least point to truth. It is best thing we’ve got to help me get to know who God is within the limited ability humans are capable of.

Some of the information thrown at me in the class has done a number on my head. There is lots to absorb and process, lots to sort out and try to understand, to agree or disagree with. My opinions are being formed, still in the “processing” mode, and I imagine will be for awhile. I appreciate that my mind is being challenged, that some of my lifelong presumptions are being challenged. It will be interesting to see where this road will lead me.