The Good Book

A week ago I started listening to The Bible. I have never read it all the way through, and since I now have a little extra time on my hands, why not? I’m covering about 50 chapters per day, which is a lot, but I think listening is easier than reading. I’m not doing this just to check it off the list; I would hope that there would be some insights or inspiration. Let me tell you, there is precious little in the first 400 chapters. Well, that isn’t fair, let’s just say that I didn’t find a lot of new stuff. The tales of Abraham, Joseph, Ruth, Job and others are plenty inspiring, but I’ve read these dozens of times.

But I have had one epiphany. Let me explain. During the first few days, I wished to chat with the writers and ask them what they were thinking. I mean here am I, trying to find a morsel of inspiration and they drone on for twenty minutes about how to detect malignant leprosy, going into detail about the skin color and texture, even referencing the pigment of the hair that may be in a leprous patch. Dude. Seriously? I didn’t go to medical school for a reason. Well, a lot of reasons but this stuff is gross! OK, I’ll give them doubt’s benefit that it was more important 5,000 years ago. And maybe more interesting. I mean, with no ESPN or TiVo or movies or blogs, what else were they going to do?

“Hey Akmal, wanna see my rash again?”

“Nah, I’m watching this fig dry.”

I tried to stay positive. I understand why they wrote the long genealogical chains that are just mostly just meaningless names to me, and I think I understand why the rules on everything were so precise. Humanity was in its infancy and apparently God and his prophets needed to be very specific.

Over the course of Jewish history, there is a definite pattern: when the King of Israel obeyed the Lord, he and the people were greatly blessed, from the battle field to the grain field. When the king “did not walk in the ways of his father” and disobeyed the Lord, the city was ransacked and the king met an untimely, gruesome death. Could they not see a pattern here?

Then I heard an account in Nehemiah (of all places) that while rebuilding Solomon’s temple, Ezra, a scribe, happened upon an ancient register. It contained the Law of Moses. This was a big deal to them. I suddenly realized that the populace had no access to the scriptures. Duh. The “pattern” might not have been obvious at all. Listen to how they received it (taken from Nehemiah 8)

8 So they read in the book in the law of God … and caused them to understand the reading.

9 And Nehemiah and Ezra the priest the scribe, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.

12 And all the people went their way to eat, and to drink, and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.

So while I’m playing the literary critic, they are weeping (and mirthing). Maybe I am really missing something. I guess I could start by cutting the scribes some slack. They had no idea that the stuff they were writing would make it into The Bible. Even if they would have known, what would you write to the people of the year 7008? I suppose that if future people were ever to read my blog they would be puzzled too. (What is with this guy and Olympic diving?) I think that although there is a lot of meaningless volume in the Old Testament, they got it right on the most basic level, and for that I am grateful.