Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 June 2011 07:37:17
Last week I hit the 150 day mark with the reading the bible in a year thing I'm doing. I thought it seemed like an opportune time for an update.
First off I am getting gripped again by the old testament. This is after a bit of a low patch with it where I'd gotten a bit fed up with the same stuff being said again and again or loads of numbers being thrown at me. At times the constant repetition and endless lists of boring information seemed as interesting as reading a pile of marking.
Then it all started getting interesting again somewhere within Judges. I think this was because this book contains some of the most warped stuff you'll ever read. It makes you see the OT in a whole new light and think about the way that even in these books it's not all the Jews are great everybody else is awful.
The level of apparently mindless killing and crime I know was cultural for the time, and it was what everybody was doing....but it does make you sit there thinking, just give it a rest.
I have loved getting into the story of David. It has made me see where the people who go for the David and Jonathan loved each other in a homosexual way get their arguments from, but also why they were wrong. I do not think David was bisexual. Rather David seems like a player who used women and used his power to get women. He loved Jonathan more than the women because it wasn't sexual - it was based on friendship and a bond which is greater than anything erotic. They had that similar bond you see between gang members - and in some ways David was a bit of a gang leader. His story is a case study in the issues that result when mental illness (Saul), sibling rivalry (David and his older brother), sexual oppression and power mix. In many ways David seems a kind of Ryan Giggs type figure and the kind of guy the tabloids today would have a field day with. It is the same sense we get of what was happening then.
In terms of the New Testament I am reading the gospels and now Acts with a new interest. Reading them like this is giving me a sense of the different characters and is helping me see the emotion in the bible much more. I have also grasped the community element of the disciples much more. In terms of Jesus teaching it is giving me a clearer picture of how his humanity and divinity intertwine in a way which is not always as perfect as we like to think.
Proverbs and Psalms have been disappointing. I have realised how cruel and self-centred some of them are. That said some of them are excellent laments which are up there with the work of Morrisey in terms of beautiful yet thoroughly depressing lyrics laced with ironic humour.
This started off as a challenge and some times it is - simply through trying to fit it in to the day - I have had to do several days catch up on more than one occassion. But it is actually turning into more of a joy than anything else. It's like Douglas Coupland in some ways, Mike Gayle or Nick Hornby in others and occassionally Stephen King meets who ever came up with Highlander.