The First Book of Moses: Genesis, Chapters 5-11

These chapters tell the tales of Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel.

Noah's Ark tells the story of how God grew angry at the corruption of mankind, and decided to flood the whole Earth, killing everyone but Noah and his family (whom he found to be good people), and asked them to bring one female and one male animal from every specie, and put them all on an ark so that they could survive the flood.

One thing that I found interesting about this story is the way Noah tried to figure out if the Earth was drying. He sent out a dove several times, and when it came back with an olive branch he knew he could land. It was just like "Gilgamesh," when the gods drowned the earth but decided to spare...Well, I still can't pronounce his name, but that's what happened. The two tales are remarkably similar in that the two men both found favor with a god, and a divine force decided to drown the world except these two and their family. Even the way they figured out if it was safe to land is similar!

I wonder if Noah's Ark was based on "Gilgamesh." Gilgamesh is a lot older, but they both come from the same place and maybe whoever wrote the Bible had read "Gilgamesh."

Another thing I found interesting about this story is that the dove came back with an olive branch. Now, I hate people who make up deeper meanings than actually exist, or pretend that something that means nothing at all and was written merely because the author was bored has some deep philosophical meaning. It just annoys me and I find it pretentious. But I've heard that "extending the olive branch" could mean offering peace, asking for a truce. Maybe the olive branch was God's way of saying, "Enough is enough, I'm going to stop destroying your home and allow you to live in peace." But I'm probably reading too much into this.

Then the Babel story was about how humans had wanted to do too much, and God made it unable for them to communicate by giving them different languages.

I find this a good way of way of explaining the languages, but I wonder if God thought that if there was only harmony, humans could do anything. Of course, it's impossible to be all harmonious, because people have such different perspectives on things, but maybe if we had all stayed one big country, with one central culture, and not all divided, we could have had the same point of view on everything, because we would have the same teachings and values and education, except for a few oddballs.

Now that I think of it, it's ridiculous. Civil wars occur because the same culture disagrees on something. And there are political parties, racism, and prejudice and discord in any country. So much for that.

The First Book of Moses: Genesis, Chapters 1-5

A comment irrelevant to this blog entry, but that has something to do with a previous one. I was thinking about the tale of that one guy in a myth whose name I can't remember completely, but that goes something like Erinischent. Anyone, he is cursed be starvation, and from then one he eats everything and eventually destroys himself and his fortune. Maybe his hunger was a metaphor for greed. Whoever wrote the myth might have been thinking of someone so greedy he always wants more, even if he's already had a lot, and how in the end he ditches his family (or at least daughter), than loses his fortune, and eventually himself, by his cupidity...Just a random thought.

Anywho, moving on...

I wasn't sure how much we were supposed to do, and what 1-5 meant, so I gesstimated it meant Chapters 1-5.

These chapters basically talk about how God created Earth, the story of Adam & Eve, and the first humans.

I feel a bit uncomfortable examining and giving my opinion on the Bible, since it's been around for thousands of years, and the version we're reading was written by some of the most brilliant scholars in Jacobean England, and I'm just a fourteen-year-old girl who's never done anything particularly impressive, so I feel sort of unworthy. But I'll try. Anything for a good grade.

I think I agree with Nicolson when he talked about how rich and resonant the King James Bible is. I've just read five pages of it, of course, but it's off to an auspicious start. He also mentioned that many words were in italics, and no one knows why, which is true too. At first I thought that it was to emphasis the text, but then it crept up in really strange places, such as in "that"s or "art"s or "said"s.

I don't understand why God tried to protect Adam and Eve from knowledge. Is he just like a parent trying to keep his children innocent? I guess that's why they would call him Father. But at the same time, a parent is supposed to let go of their children at some point, not become all offended because they realized that being naked wasn't good. And whatever happened to turning the other cheek?

They tell us the story of Cain, who murdered his own brother out of jealousy, and whom God forgave and protected when Cain repented. This is a good example of God's all-forgiving...ness.

Then the whole genealogy of Adam and Eve is given, and what I thought was really strange was how long they lived, an average of nine hundred years. I guess that was to allow all the men to have many children.

The last person born was Noah, and I think I can see where this is going. All the other children are going to start squabbling amongst themselves, and the whole Noah's Ark will happen.

That reminded me of the movie "Evan Almighty." It was pretty funny, but "Bruce Almighty" was funnier.

The Pygmies

The pygmies were a very short people that lived near the Nile river. They were known to appear just before a bloody war, and once they tried attacking Hercules, but he just laughed and carried them off.

I wonder if the pygmies were just supposed to be a representation of children. Short, cute, and amusing little creatures that liked to play war and could never be taken seriously. Maybe that's how the Greeks represented childhood, and I suppose they wouldn't be too far off since that's basically what children are (I'm allowed to say that now that I'm a teenager).

The Wedding Feast

Perseus and his new wife were at their wedding when some old suitor of hers bursts in and says that she's supposed to be his wife. Perseus refuses, and they begin to fight. Yet Phineus and his friends outnumber Perseus and his friends, so Perseus takes out the Gorgon's head and many, both friend and foe, turned to stone. Phineus pleads for justice, but Perseus turns him to stone as well.

I wish I was able to come up with all the metaphorical meanings for all the myths we've been reading, but I just can't. Apart from the usual staying in your place and not claiming what's not yours moral, and I have no idea what this myth means. Maybe that there's no such thing as "happily ever after" and nothing can be perfect...But that sounds sappy and clicheed.

The Trojan War

There was a beauty contest among the goddesses, and Paris was called to make the judgement. He chose Venus, who promised to get him a beautiful wife.

She gave him Helen, fairest of her sex, and a war was waged between her husband and his allies and Troy. The husband won, Hector was slayed by Achilles, who died by his heel, the Trojan horse was built, and Helen went back to her husband.

This is more history than myth, but they do allude to the contest between the goddesses so I guess that it's pretty even. I've always thought that the Trojan War seemed pretty interesting, but apart from seeing the movies (and reading the book) "Troy," I haven't bothered to look it up so I liked learning what the Greeks thought about it. It's funny how all ill seems to stem from the gods. They're always the ones causing trouble and messing everyone up and acting in a generably disagreeable manner, but I suppose you could say real life is the same. Though we have a wider cast of gods, all of the problems on earth seem to stem from the fact that Bush did something stupid today, or there was a catfight between Jen and Angelina, or some crazy Arab called Osam Bin Laden decided it seemed fun to bomb NYC today.

Thamyrus

Another extremely short myth. Thamyrus challenged the muses in a trial of skill, lost, and was deprived of his site as a punishment.

Hmmm...Not much to say about this myth. Obviously, you need to think before you challenge any god. I wonder if these myths were just meant to teach people to be humble, sort of something Mommy would tell Bobby when she got sick of hearing him bragging. Are all these myths just moral lessons? All th one I can think of right now seem to be telling you to be kind, good, hard-working, basically like Bible stories, except that they seem to stress being humble more than anything. Did the Greeks consider that to be extremely important? If you think about it, everyone considers humbleness to be very important, and knowing one's place even more so. Was this just a way to control people? To make them fear challenging the established order of things because no good could come out of it?

Linus

Well, I've decided to get all the super short myths out of the way, since I'm expected to finish the whole book, and I'll start with Linus.

Linus is a very short myth. In fact, this blog entry is longer than it. Basically, he was Hercules' teacher and one day he beat him mup. Hercules killed him.

I would love to be able to find some deep and philosophical meaning in this myth, but all I can come upe with is: Don't mess with people bigger/stronger than you, or something bad will happen. Also, don't disrespect people better and worthier than you.