I decided to read the bible from beginning to end. As I start writing this I am about halfway through numbers (which can be excruciating at times)… and I’ve decided to write my own summary of what I am reading. For anyone who cares, here it is:
God creates the universe; including the Earth, Life, and Light. He sees that it is good. (compared to what?.. is this his second attempt?)
He also creates man in his own image (or in their image?).
He makes the man a companion from the man’s rib, and has them live in a Beautiful garden. Apparently they will live forever in innocence in this garden… unless they eat the fruit of a tree that God placed in the middle of the garden called ‘The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’ in which case they will surely die! They live like this for a little while, but Damn! That tree is tempting. One day they give in to the temptation and eat the fruit. They blame a serpent. (but how much more temptation could a serpent offer that wasn’t already placed there by God himself?)
So, now they are doomed to live only a paltry 900+ years. They have a couple of sons, who obtain wives from (god knows where)? They multiply. Many generations later, a man named Noah is born. By this time, there are many people on Earth, but they are doing a lot of things that God doesn’t like, so God tells Noah to build an Ark for him , his family, and a lot of animals. Noah does this.
God kills every other living thing on the face of the planet. (nice)
So then Noah and his family make lots of babies and repopulate the Earth.
Later, God finds favor with Abraham, and then his son Isaac, and also Isaac’s son, Jacob. He names Jacob ‘Israel’, Jacob’s people are then called the Israelites. God tells Jacob to go to Egypt, where he will become a great, prosperous nation. So the Israelites go to Egypt and they do prosper for a while. Then a new King (Pharaoh) comes to Egypt and makes all the Israelites slaves. Enter Moses.
God tells Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God promises to take them to a land of lots of milk and honey. But the Pharaoh doesn’t want to let them go, he doesn’t want to lose his slaves. So God performs some miracles to convince the Pharaoh to let his people go. But then God decides to make Pharaoh stubborn so that Pharaoh will not let the Israelites go so that God can perform a whole series of other miracles (plagues, actually) leading to:
God kills all the first-born sons of Egypt. (now we can celebrate Passover, yay!)
So, finally, the Pharaoh lets the Israelites go, and then changes his mind again and chases after them with his army. Moses (via God) parts the Red Sea to create an escape route for the Israelites, and the Egyptians follow after them.
God kills the Egyptians by letting the Red Sea come crashing down on them.
And so they arrive at Mt Sinai, where Moses receives the ten commandments (along with dozens of sub-commandments). They build the tabernacle for God, and travel on. Along their travels, they encounter many hardships and the people periodically question the wisdom of following Moses… so…
God condemns them to die in the desert.
(There goes his promise to bring them to the land of milk and honey)
Of course they are not happy about this and they group up and confront Moses, saying that they were better off in Egypt, etc. etc. So:
God unleashes a plague on his people.
Some 14,000+ people are killed before Moses and Aaron manage to calm God down.
Again the people get upset, so:
God kills a bunch of them with snakes.
As the years roll on, the people of Israel continue on their journey, overtaking towns as they go. Periodically, God gets angry with something they do and unleashes a plague that kills many of them. Finally they reach their destination. By this time, none of the original people are still alive… it is their children who finally make it to the ‘milk and honey’ land.
And that’s where I am, finished numbers… about to start Deuteronomy.
So far I find God to be:
Jealous,
Prideful,
Traitorous,
Indecisive,
Tyrannical,
Manipulative,
Manipulable,
Sadistic,
And just plain murderous.
The only really good things that I’ve read about him doing so far are:
-Creating Life, the Universe, and Everything.
-Giving us some moral standards to live by that seem mostly ethical (there are definitely some questionable exceptions)
Comments anyone?
God creates the universe; including the Earth, Life, and Light. He sees that it is good. (compared to what?.. is this his second attempt?)
He also creates man in his own image (or in their image?).
He makes the man a companion from the man’s rib, and has them live in a Beautiful garden. Apparently they will live forever in innocence in this garden… unless they eat the fruit of a tree that God placed in the middle of the garden called ‘The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil’ in which case they will surely die! They live like this for a little while, but Damn! That tree is tempting. One day they give in to the temptation and eat the fruit. They blame a serpent. (but how much more temptation could a serpent offer that wasn’t already placed there by God himself?)
So, now they are doomed to live only a paltry 900+ years. They have a couple of sons, who obtain wives from (god knows where)? They multiply. Many generations later, a man named Noah is born. By this time, there are many people on Earth, but they are doing a lot of things that God doesn’t like, so God tells Noah to build an Ark for him , his family, and a lot of animals. Noah does this.
God kills every other living thing on the face of the planet. (nice)
So then Noah and his family make lots of babies and repopulate the Earth.
Later, God finds favor with Abraham, and then his son Isaac, and also Isaac’s son, Jacob. He names Jacob ‘Israel’, Jacob’s people are then called the Israelites. God tells Jacob to go to Egypt, where he will become a great, prosperous nation. So the Israelites go to Egypt and they do prosper for a while. Then a new King (Pharaoh) comes to Egypt and makes all the Israelites slaves. Enter Moses.
God tells Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. God promises to take them to a land of lots of milk and honey. But the Pharaoh doesn’t want to let them go, he doesn’t want to lose his slaves. So God performs some miracles to convince the Pharaoh to let his people go. But then God decides to make Pharaoh stubborn so that Pharaoh will not let the Israelites go so that God can perform a whole series of other miracles (plagues, actually) leading to:
God kills all the first-born sons of Egypt. (now we can celebrate Passover, yay!)
So, finally, the Pharaoh lets the Israelites go, and then changes his mind again and chases after them with his army. Moses (via God) parts the Red Sea to create an escape route for the Israelites, and the Egyptians follow after them.
God kills the Egyptians by letting the Red Sea come crashing down on them.
And so they arrive at Mt Sinai, where Moses receives the ten commandments (along with dozens of sub-commandments). They build the tabernacle for God, and travel on. Along their travels, they encounter many hardships and the people periodically question the wisdom of following Moses… so…
God condemns them to die in the desert.
(There goes his promise to bring them to the land of milk and honey)
Of course they are not happy about this and they group up and confront Moses, saying that they were better off in Egypt, etc. etc. So:
God unleashes a plague on his people.
Some 14,000+ people are killed before Moses and Aaron manage to calm God down.
Again the people get upset, so:
God kills a bunch of them with snakes.
As the years roll on, the people of Israel continue on their journey, overtaking towns as they go. Periodically, God gets angry with something they do and unleashes a plague that kills many of them. Finally they reach their destination. By this time, none of the original people are still alive… it is their children who finally make it to the ‘milk and honey’ land.
And that’s where I am, finished numbers… about to start Deuteronomy.
So far I find God to be:
Jealous,
Prideful,
Traitorous,
Indecisive,
Tyrannical,
Manipulative,
Manipulable,
Sadistic,
And just plain murderous.
The only really good things that I’ve read about him doing so far are:
-Creating Life, the Universe, and Everything.
-Giving us some moral standards to live by that seem mostly ethical (there are definitely some questionable exceptions)
Comments anyone?
