Combing through verse by verse brings up a lot of questions and interpretive decisions, and I've realized this is a years-long journey, not a quick project. However, I think I can make it useful faster if I implement the same method I use for my personal Bible study: reading fast and slow. I daily read through the Bible quickly with audio, and I get through it in a little under a year--I get some amazing insight here and there because I'm getting the repetition and connections that I would normally miss if it's been months between the scrolls. But I also do deep dive studies slowly and meticulously. In the context of the Bible connections project, I think I can do something similar: I can go through and grab all the family-based connections quickly, and also slowly work through the more nuanced connections on another track.

Reading Fast

That said, I do get some interesting insights from the fast read through. For example, Noah had at least four siblings. His father, Lamech, had "other sons and daughters" after Noah--both plural. So at a minimum, Noah had two brothers and two sisters, but probably more. If they lived as long as Noah, this means that the flood wiped out at least four of Noah's own siblings. This adds a layer of tragedy to the flood narrative that I hadn't fully appreciated before--he was unable to convince even his own brothers and sisters to turn to Yahweh and join him in the ark.

Also, it's interesting that there are two Enoch's and two Lamech's. The first Enoch is the son of Cain, and Cain named a city after him. The second Enoch is the son of Jared (the righteous line of Seth), and he walked with God and "was not, for God took him." The first Lamech is the son of Methushael, a descendant of Cain (the second recorded murderer), and the second Lamech is the son of Methuselah (very similar but not the same as Methushael), a descendant of Seth (the righteous line). This parallelism raises questions about the significance of these names and their respective lineages.

Eber is another interesting figure. He was the great-grandson of Shem. His name is the same name used for "Hebrew" in much of the rest of scripture. Eber, like Isaac, had 2 sons--and the younger son had 13 sons, just like Jacob/Israel had 12 tribes plus Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, making a total of 13 tribes. Jesus also had 12 disciples, minus 1 (Judas), plus 2 (Matthias and Paul) landing at 13 again. It doesn't say, "Eber was the father of the Hebrews and he had 13 sons," but you can count them yourself in Genesis 10:25-29.

Shechem doesn't have a lot of narrative focus, but I remember the story as he "saw and took" Dina. However, it's more nuanced than that. Shechem saw Dinah, he took her, he lay with her, and he raped (most often translated "afflicted" or oppressed) her. Then his entire embodied existence clung to her, he loved her and spoke "to her heart." This is a rollercoaster of emotions and actions in a very short passage. The responses of the family are just as complex: Jacob is silent, the brothers are furious and murderous (not just to Shechem, but to the entire city), but Dinah's own voice is never recorded. No grand insights here, just a lot of complexity to chew on.

Jacob commanded his household to "get rid of the foreign gods that are in your midst" (Genesis 35:2), which implies there were foreign gods present among his family. This raises questions about the spiritual environment in which these patriarchs lived and the challenges they faced in maintaining their covenantal relationship with Yahweh. The idols continued to come into the family line--even David had foreign idols in his household (1 Samuel 19:13).

In the lineage of Esau, there is a weird discrepancy in the names of Eliphaz's sons (Esau's grandchildren). In Genesis 36:11, "The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz" (with Amalek added as a son of a concubine in v12). However, the leaders of the tribes of Esau/Edom through Eliphaz are listed Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, Korah, Gatam, and Amalek in v15-16. Korah appears in the second list but not the first, and Gatam and Kenaz switch places. Is this Korah the same Korah listed as the son of Esau and Oholibamah? Or are there two Korahs--one a son of Esau and one a grandson through Eliphaz? There is a situation where the answer could be "both"--if Eliphaz slept with Oholibamah resulting in Korah being both a son and grandson of Esau. None of my commentaries address this discrepancy, so it's left as an open question for now. I'll leave them as separate individuals in the connections for now until I can find a better answer.

That brings me through Genesis 36. Next up: finishing Genesis 37-50 with Joseph and his brothers.

Reading Slow

In Gen 1, there is a startling parallel between the darkness "on the face" of the watery abyss (tehom) and the spirit of God hovering/fluttering "on the face" of the waters. In most English translations the words are different for variety, but in Hebrew, "al panim" is used for both--paralleling the darkness with the spirit of God and the watery abyss (tehom) with the waters (mayim). It reminds me of Psalm 18:11 where Yahweh makes himself a covering from the "darkness of waters" for Himself.

What do I call "the deep"? After a few dictionaries and lexicons, I settled on "watery abyss" for tehom, to distinguish it from the "waters" (mayim) that are also present in the creation account. The watery abyss is a chaotic, primordial state, while the waters are part of the created order.

When God called light "good", was it a blessing or an observation? The more I chew (hagah: meditate) on it, the more I'm personally convinced that it was a blessing, not just an observation. The Hebrew word "tov" (good) often carries a connotation of something being pleasing or beneficial, which aligns with the idea of God blessing the light. However, that's an interpretive leap that not everyone will agree with.

Should I keep the dual translation of shamayim as "heavens/sky" or pick one? Heaven has a lot of emotional, theological, and cultural baggage that goes with it. I'll stick with "heavens" for now, but I'm going to have to write a full blog post on the topic to sort out my own thinking.

Do I need to split up the "yabashah" (dry land or to dry up or withered) and "erets" (land/earth) nodes? Probably. I know earth/land is a theme that keeps giving, but I can't recall if the yabashah has any prominent themes associated with it again after Gen 1. I'll have to check. Woah. I'm going to have to do a deep dive on "yabashah". It's used throughout the HB, and there's even a tribe--Jabesh-Gilead--named after it. "And El named the wither, land." What a beautiful and alien sentence.

God called the hammered dome "heavens" or "sky" but it's the only day where He does not call it "good". Why? Is it because it is the boundary to something already good (and therefore not needing his blessing)? Or is it a poetic necessity so that He can have 7 days and 7 blessings but still have room for a double blessing on the 6th day? Or is this an allusion to the later statement that "it is not good that man is alone" indicating that the heavens are not good until they are occupied? Or had there already been a rebellion in of the heavenly beings at this point?

The two images of reproduction and progeny show up in 1:11 as "seed" and "fruit" and both show up throughout the Bible. Is there a meaningful difference between them or are they used interchangeably?

The luminaries created on day 4 were considered by ancient peoples to be spiritual beings or gods, but their power and influence here are limited to delegates marking times and seasons. This is a significant theological statement about the nature of these celestial bodies. However, to avoid confusion, I'm going to call them "lights" instead of "luminaries" in the connections.

If the sun and moon are luminary delegates for ruling, and the chief spiritual being rebelled against Yahweh, does that mean that the opposer (the satan) is associated with the sun god Ra? Would that also imply that the moon is associated with Michael the archangel? Or maybe another rebellious spiritual being?

There's a distinction between the the lights in the sky and the stars--I never noticed that before. First God made the lights in the expanse, then the greater and lesser light, "as well as the stars". It could be that the first line is a summary, but the stars are not called lights like the sun and moon are.

There are only 2 blessings in the creation account: the sea and sky creatures (dragons, swimmers, and fliers) and humans. I would have expected them all to be blessed or perhaps just humans (due to their image-bearing nature).

I'll likely pause the slow reading here and pick it up again after I finish the fast read through of Genesis. There are a lot of questions to chew on here, and I want to make sure I give them the attention they deserve. I also have a few other projects in flight.