Yeah! Second day into the readings and we did it. Seriously, minor celebration is warranted here.
Andy did the readings, and it was really special to just sit and *listen* to him read. I was most aware of the pauses he gave while reading…I could tell that this meant it was something interesting, or something new, or something that caught his attention when he read.
Our thoughts on the readings:
1. Gen 4:3-5. At first we didn’t understand why God was angry with Cain for bringing his offering based on his specialty (farming) just as Abel did, but then we reread and realized it was because Cain brought THE FRUIT OF THE GROUND. This made it more clear – he wasn’t offering or putting forth his best. Great lesson for the day, actually – always do and be your best!
2. Gen 4:15. God thinks tattoos were cool. He even gave Cain one. Sweet.
3. Gen 4:16-26. Again, here we saw all the references that appear to work to establish a place and time in history. Keeping this in mind when reading this really helps us focus on and read through this section.
4. Gen 5:4-32. The ages of everyone was interesting. Our take on it was that they were probably measuring time differently than we do today – after all, the Gregorian calendar that we use today wasn’t introduced until 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII.
5. Gen 5:24. Interesting that Enoch isn’t spoken of as having died like the rest of his relatives…instead, he is reported to have “walked with God”. Is this like the assumption? Worth looking up in more detail.
6. Gen 6:2. Wondering what they mean by the “sons of God”. The way it reads, it sounds like the “sons” they’re referring to aren’t actually human sons but sons of a different sort. I went to the expert Wikipedia, and it says that the sons of God are descendants from Seth whereas the “daughters” are descendants from Cain. Since they both came from Adam, I’m not sure why this is relevant.
7. Gen 6 & 7. The story of Noah. I love that a story can be true without being factual…as is the case here. I also love watching our little man play with his new Noah’s Ark set 🙂 Something about having the Old Testament on our coffee table is just awesome. Unpaid plug here – but Fischer Price, if you want to kick down an extra Ark, I have a bunch of friends I can give it to.
8. Gen 6:14. Gopher wood. Of course, my contractor husband zero’d in on this and we couldn’t figure out what *kind* of wood gopher wood is. We figured it must be something lightweight and rot resistant 🙂
9. Gen 7: What makes an animal or bird clean vs. unclean? We had to look this up. I think I’m now most intrigued on why the tradition of not eating unclean animals (i.e.: being kosher) went away for us. Anyone know why?
10. One thing we didn’t see in here was mention of the bird with the olive branch. I mean hey, even my son’s Noah playset has Noah holding a dove with an olive branch in its mouth. Maybe we’ll read about this tonight…