Genesis 3: What is the man doing? or Adam discovers the scientific method.

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Genesis 3:6)

After a series of close-ups involving the serpent and the woman, the camera pans back and reveals that her husband has been present all along. So, what was he doing? Why did he not intervene? Why did he not answer the serpent or better send it scurrying for speaking inappropriately to his wife, the queen of Eden? Continue reading “Genesis 3: What is the man doing? or Adam discovers the scientific method.”

Have Sex and Eat: The First Two Commands in Scripture

If I were to ask you to tell me the first commandment God gives in the Bible, I suspect many, if not most, of you would think of “Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” We tend to think of the LORD’s commandments as a list of “Do nots” but the “don’t”s are always given in the context of the “do”s. In a sense, by focusing on the “do not”s, we have already accepted the premise of the Serpent’s question. Implicitly, the Serpent suggests, “Isn’t the LORD rather stingy and withholding?”. Continue reading “Have Sex and Eat: The First Two Commands in Scripture”

Why Seven Days? Heavenly Bodies, Ancient Gods, and 24 Hour Tangents

The number 7 plays a significant structural role in both the writings and practices of ancient Israel. Is there something ontologically significant about the number? Is the number 7 something like the c in e=mc2? Maybe, I don’t know. Ask a physicist.

(I am sure somebody somewhere has written a book with the spurious claim that the number 7 is the key to unlocking the universe and used the Jewish and Christian Scripture to “prove” it.)

Why is the number 7 significant? Why do we have a 7 day week? Continue reading “Why Seven Days? Heavenly Bodies, Ancient Gods, and 24 Hour Tangents”