My goal this year is to read through the Bible as if I’ve never read it before. So I need to deal with Genesis 7:2. You know, the famous “Take-seven-pair-of-clean-animals-into-the-ark-passage.” Not so famous? Agreed. I passed over the problem with Cain and Abel because of the shear tragedy of their story… but here God tells Noah to gather animals that have already been split into clean and not-so-clean. When did this go down? We missed the whole “sheep-good-pigs-bad” conversation. There is no record of God telling the patriarchs this nugget of info. Just like there is never a mention that fruit wouldn’t work as a sacrifice. Why? Just a little important!?!
The Bible-college-me knows that Moses wrote Genesis. So is Moses pulling a scroll saving move here? Summarizing creation for people that would already be familiar with what was and wasn’t clean? Because, hey, we’ll cover that in Moses’ great page-turner, Leviticus. He can list begats and “lived tills” but not crucial information about what pleases God? Is he thinking that’s one less animal to kill for a writing surface? Was Moses being Green?
I’m a little confused.
Robert Roberts, the guy who came up with this reading plan I’m following, probably thought he was funny paring the Flood story with Psalm 9. Take a look at that. Verse 1b of Psalm 9? “I will recount all your wonderful deeds.” The Flood!?! Genesis is freaking depressing. Look past the cute flannel graph story of animals following a bearded old man onto a boat. The whole world was destroyed. Entire cities full of people were wiped out. Women and children… innocent children. Killed. Drowned. The entire world destroyed. How do we deal with that part of God?
There were ten generations from Adam to Noah. From “walked with God” to “I have determined to make an end to all flesh.”
How is this wonderful?
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