Genesis 1&2

• Genesis 1:26-"Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness...". So the notes suggest a hint at other deities present but not involved, as well as suggesting God's early intent/implication of a kingly ideal in humans, a form of dominion. God's earthly expression of Himself.  And humans do create and pro-create.

Therefore, my thought is that the intention and delivery of this order started out well, but human greed, curiosity, and addiction that is power, convoluted everything, as usual. This may sound just like regurgitation, but I'm saying that I hadn't really taken into account before that God's first 2 commands to humans, at the moment of Creation (multiply, have dominion), were the very 2 that later became the most destructed.
              -V.28-"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish...and birds...and every living thing that moves upon the earth."  Basically, sex and greed were present from the literal beginning, and it didn't take long at all for humans to screw it up. I knew these had been the commands, but until I thought long-term, I hadn't realised how botched humans have been since the moment we began. In reading further, I'm realising these mistakes repeat themselves time and time again, though they may manifest themselves differently depending on the story. I had previously seen Genesis as its own playing field, with catastrophically unique stories, but I now realise they are just different versions of those woven throughout the Bible. Genesis has long been on a pedestal in my mind, likely because of my education, but I now realise it's a gathering of many-told Biblical stories.

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• Gen. 2:7-I love this verse. "Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being."

                 -I love this passage. I always see it. This innocent creature lying on his back on the earth he was made from, eyes closed, and God breathes into him in this serene scene, and Adam's chest expands, he opens his mouth, breathes deeply in, and calmly opens his eyes. So simple, and so very beautiful.


"GOOD BOOK"

• Introduction-"I say the Lord's name only to take it in vain." This reminds me of working at a church carnival, and one of the guys from our church asked 2 little kids if they had heard of Jesus Christ. They replied, "Yeah. It's what people say when they're mad at each other."
  

• Dinah...defending your sister's honor. Being a women's studies minor, I think about male-female interaction on multiple levels. I'm very intrigued that the ideas of masculine leadership and protection of women came directly from our beginning, from Genesis. I guess I always knew this, but hadn't really applied it to the 'men are pigs' rule I so often run into. I guess it's NOT all men's fault! It's what they were taught from the beginning, by God. They were simply following orders, a common male, militaristic, protectorate theme. Makes a lot more sense and is much easier to digest now. And yet another reason NOT to be a fem-Nazi.
  

• Page 5- "Good Book" is unlike the Bible in one very significant way: you can, without feeling guilty, keep it in the bathroom."
  

                -Nothing is funnier than the truth! I for so long had it pounded into my head that the Bible was so sacred it couldn't so much as be dropped on the ground or you'd burn in Hell. Once we hit high school our religion teachers were a little more human, okaying and actually promoting writing in our Bibles. But I still only wrote in my school copy, and never in my personal copy (probably mainly due to the fact that I didn't read that one very often). It was as if the uplifted veil applied only within the confines of what "the brothers" approved. The Bible in the bathroom. Definitely off limits. There's guilt, then there's religious guilt, then there's Catholic guilt. The rumors are true. And those who have been to religious school could tell you without question just how much of an abomination it would be to have a Bible in the bathroom. After all, you might as well just defecate on Jesus' face.