There were times when Noah and his sons got quite hysterical. That doesn't tally with your account of things? You've always been led to believe that Noah was sage, righteous and God-fearing, and I've already described him as a hysterical rogue with a drink problem? The two views aren't entirely incompatible. Put it this way: Noah was pretty bad, but you should have seen the others. It came as little surprise to us that God decided to wipe the slate clean; the only puzzle was that he chose to preserve anything at all of this species whose creation did not reflect particularly well on its creator.

—Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

Barnes's stowaway's (a termite who was forced to hide on the Ark because Noah decided he wasn't interested in saving that species) description of Noah—and his contemporaries—reminded me of Amy-Jill Levine's opinion of him.

That same night I washed myself and went into my courtyard and slept by the wall of the courtyard; and my face was uncovered because of the heat. I did not know that there were sparrows on the wall; their fresh droppings fell into my eyes and produced white films. I went to physicians to be healed, but the more they treated me with ointments the more my vision was obscured by the white films, until I became completely blind. For four years I remained unable to see.
—Tobit 2:9-10 (NRSV)

This is possibly the weirdest cause of blindness I've ever seen.

Another of the disciples said to Him, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "(D)Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead."
Matthew 8:21-22 (NASB)

R.T. France points out an interpretation of these verses which I hadn't seen suggested before. "To bury one's father" could be read as an idiom meaning "fulfilling one's filial responsibilities for the remainder of the father's lifetime, with no prospect of his imminent death." This would indicate that the disciple quoted above was seeking an "indefinite postponement of discipleship, likely to be for years rather than days."

In the third month they began to lay the foundation of the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month.
2 Chronicles 31:7 (KJV)

For the thoughtful reader, I recommend Dave Walker's profound exegesis of this, the most underrated verse in the Bible (now the 30642nd most popular, according to Top Verses).

Andrew provides another take on heaps and Top Verses.

Roll of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham:

Abraham fathered Isaac, Isaac fathered Jacob, Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers, Judah fathered Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez fathered Hezron, Hezron fathered Ram, Ram fathered Amminadab, Amminadab fathered Nahshon, Nahshon fathered Salmon, Salmon fathered Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz fathered Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed fathered Jesse; and Jesse fathered King David.

David fathered Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, Solomon fathered Rehoboam, Rehoboam fathered Abijah, Abijah fathered Asa, Asa fathered Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat fathered Joram, Joram fathered Uzziah, Uzziah fathered Jotham, Jotham fathered Ahaz, Ahaz fathered Hezekiah, Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered Amon, Amon fathered Josiah; and Josiah fathered Jechoniah and his brothers. Then the deportation to Babylon took place.

After the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah fathered Shealtiel, Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel fathered Abiud, Abiud fathered Eliakim, Eliakim fathered Azor, Azor fathered Zadok, Zadok fathered Achim, Achim fathered Eliud, Eliud fathered Eleazar, Eleazar fathered Matthan, Matthan fathered Jacob; and Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary; of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.

The sum of generations is therefore: fourteen from Abraham to David; fourteen from David to the Babylonian deportation; and fourteen from the Babylonian deportation to Christ.

Matthew 1:1-17 (New Jerusalem Bible)

Normally, I couldn't be bothered reading the genealogies (I just finished half-skimming, half-skipping-over the first half of I Chronicles). But in this case, R. T. France points out something interesting not-too-deeply hidden in this passage. The four women mentioned here, as asides to this patrilineal genealogy, "certainly make a strikingly unconventional group to find within the pedigree of the Messiah of Israel, in that probably all four of them were non-Israelite (Tamar and Rahab were Canaanites, Ruth a Moabite, and Bathsheba the wife of a Hittite)." [The Gospel of Matthew, 36-37] Their inclusion can be seen as an intentional effor to advance Matthew's theology of the universality of the Messiah, preparing "the reader for the coming of non-Israelites to follow Israel's Messiah which will be foreshadowed in the homage of the magi in 2:1-12 and will be a recurrent and increasing theme throughout the gospel until it reaches its climax in the mission to all nations in 28:19."

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Matthew 5:38-42 (ESV)

I've been reading R. T. France's volume on Matthew for the New International Commentary on the New Testament for guidance through the first Gospel. His commentary on the Sermon on the Mount—which he terms "The Discourse on Discipleship"—has been interesting, but I found Jesus' teaching on retribution in the verses above especially enlightening:

"Those who have understood the true thrust of Jesus' teaching here have often declared it to be not only extreme and unwelcome, but also practically unworkable in the real world. You cannot live like this. It would be to encourage the unscrupulous and the feckless and so to undermine the proper ordering of society....But instead of therefore dismissing Jesus teaching as starry-eyed utopianism, a proper response to this challenging section is to ask in what practical ways Jesus' radical principles can be set to work in our very different world. Our answers will vary, but if they are true to Jesus' teaching they will represent an essentially non-self-centered approach to ethics which puts the interests of the other before personal rights or convenience (pp. 217-218).

The Benjaminites heard that the Israelites had gone up to Mizpah. The Israelites then said, 'Tell us how this crime was committed.'

The Levite, husband of the murdered woman, spoke in reply and said, 'The men of Gibeah ganged up against me and, during the night, surrounded the house where I was lodging. They intended to murder me. They raped my concubine to death. I then took my concubine, cut her up and sent her throughout the entire territory of the heritage of Israel, since these men had committed a shameful act, an infamy, in Israel. Now, all you Israelites, discuss the matter and give your decision here and now.' The whole people stood up as one man and said, 'None of us will go home, none of us will go back to his house! And this is what we are now going to do to Gibeah. We shall draw lots and, throughout the tribes of Israel, select ten men out of a hundred, a hundred out of a thousand and a thousand out of ten thousand to collect food for the people, so that, on their arrival, the latter may treat Gibeah in Benjamin as this infamy perpetrated in Israel deserves.'

Thus, as one man, all the men of Israel mustered against the town.

Judges 20:3-11 (New Jerusalem Bible)

Here's another story you might not remember from Sunday School. I suspect very little of Judges comes up there, and in fact, the book is poorly represented in the Revised Common Lectionary, presumably due to the need to keep church child-safe.

It's a story obviously meant to echo that of Sodom: A visitor comes to the Benjaminite city of Gibeah and is offered a place to stay with, apparently, the only God-fearing man in town. Even many of the details are the same: For example, the Levite's host in Gibeah offers his own young daughter to the mob in place of his guest, but is refused, "so the Levite took hold of his concubine and brought her out to them. They had intercourse with her and ill-treated her all night until morning; when dawn was breaking they let her go. (19:25). The Levite's callousness in the next several verses is even more shocking:

At daybreak the girl came and fell on the threshold of her husband's host, and she stayed there until it was light. In the morning her husband got up and, opening the door of the house, was going out to continue his journey when he saw the woman, his concubine, lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. 'Get up,' he said, 'we must leave!' There was no answer. He then loaded her on his donkey and began the journey home. Having reached his house, he took his knife, took hold of his concubine and cut her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces; he then sent her throughout the territory of Israel. He gave instructions to his messengers, 'This is what you are to say to all the Israelites, 'Has anything like this been done since the day when the Israelites came out of Egypt until today? Take this to heart, discuss it; then give your verdict.' ' And all who saw it declared, 'Never has such a thing been done or been seen since the Israelites came out of Egypt until today.' (19:26-30)

Note that in the first passage I quoted, the unnamed Levite neglects to mention that he offered his concubine to the mob in Gibeah, and that the Israelites agree to destroy Gibeah on the strength of a single witness. The result is a civil war where eleven tribes of Israel unite and destroy Benjamin, killing everything in that tribe's area except 600 men who manage to escape.

There's another, final, bizarre turn to this story, which I'll cover in a later post.

Today I came across my favorite reminder not to take "chapters" in the Bible seriously as anything except communication tools: They're there to make it easier for us to point out specific passages to each other, not to show us the division between stories or ideas.

This is 1 Samuel 3:21-4:1, a single sentence lying across a chapter break.

We have Stephen Langton to thank (or blame) for these. He was the thirteenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury partly responsible for forcing King John to sign Magna Carta; he also divided the Bibles into the chapters we use today. Sometimes his divisions make sense; as often as not, they don't. Sometimes, like here, it's hard to figure out what he was thinking.

"Something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read."

I thought of Mark Twain's definition of a classic while looking back on my experience in reading The Bible in 90 Days last year and comparing it with the first almost-ninety days of this year. I feel now that The Bible in 90 Days is perfect for someone who wants to have read the Bible. Reading the Bible, in its entirety, and actually appreciating what you read, demands more time. I've definitely enjoyed reading—and having time to think about—the Bible more this year than last (though, admittedly, I haven't been great about translating my thoughts into blog posts).

As an example, yesterday I read the book of Ruth. It's read on day 19 of the 90-day plan, between the last six chapters of Judges and the first three of 1 Samuel. This year, I read it on its own, and was actually able to enjoy this charming short story.

What we have of Mark's original Gospel ends at 16:8, immediately after the women who have come to anoint Jesus' body leave the tomb:

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Mark 16:1-8 (NRSV)

An annotation in the New Jerusalem Bible mentions that, "Originally Mk probably ended abruptly on this note of awe and wonder." This seems to be the predominant scholarly opinion, and is shared by Roger Ferlo, who, in Opening the Bible, explains, "I actually find the inconclusiveness of Mark's ending attractive. Like many of Mark's parables, Mark's ending does not tell us 'what happened afterward.' Instead we find ourselves challenged to come to terms with our own presuppositions..." That this ending was not satisfactory even to early readers, however, is attested to by the existence of at least two endings tacked on to early manuscripts, mostly cobbled together from other New Testament sources. The New Oxford Annotated Bible includes three potential endings, none of them consistent with Mark's style.

James McGrath (as a follow-up to a couple of earlier posts) presents a plausible and satisfactory ending to Mark, which may actually be accurate, although this is another one of those mysteries we're never going to solve.