Adam and Eve have sex, I say it that way because, well dammit, that's how chapter 4 begins . . . they have sons (of course) and their sons have sons and their sons have more sons . . . of course! The women are there somewhere, just not mentioned too much. They do say from time to time that so-and-so gave birth to sons and daughters, but we never hear their names . . . just the sons. But I digress . . . and we move on . . . all these sons are walking the earth, for many, many years . . . and I mean many years! And not just that . . . they were fathering more sons and daughters well into their hundreds!!!
So far chapter 5 has given me the most laughs and the most frustration. We leave behind the drama with Cain and Abel (I promise I will talk about them very soon, just not in this post). This is the laughter part: We get the run down of the Adam and Eve family tree . . . and let me tell you that is one OLD tree. The theme here is that Adam's descendants "lived" to be hundreds of years old. Here's what made me laugh; in each paragraph it stated who was who on the Adam tree and at the end of each paragraph the line would say, for example: Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years; then he died. Seth lived for nine hundred and eleven years; then he died. Enosh (the first man to invoke the name Yahweh—guess he didn't get the memo about the new translation) lived for nine hundred and five years; then he died . . . Chapter 5 ends with Noah, also living a long life . . .
The frustration with this chapter is that it is so inconceivable that anyone would live hundreds of years. So I have to try to swallow this with a spoonful of sugar and understand that the bible isn't always literal. I understand that it is interpretive and perhaps metaphorical. But this creates a problem for the side of me that wants it to be cut and dried . . . I don't always have the strength to ride on my faith. I get that, when the bible says we are all descendants of Adam it is more in the spiritual sense, not the literal.
But . . . still hard to swallow.
Next post: Noah! I need a rest before that flood!
The frustration with this chapter is that it is so inconceivable that anyone would live hundreds of years. So I have to try to swallow this with a spoonful of sugar and understand that the bible isn't always literal. I understand that it is interpretive and perhaps metaphorical. But this creates a problem for the side of me that wants it to be cut and dried . . . I don't always have the strength to ride on my faith. I get that, when the bible says we are all descendants of Adam it is more in the spiritual sense, not the literal.
But . . . still hard to swallow.
Next post: Noah! I need a rest before that flood!
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