Reflections on Bible Readings 3Chapter 3 of the 'Primeval History' (The New American Bible copyright 1987)The aptly named section 'the fall of man' delivers on its title; man indeed loses quite a bit in this chapter. The chapter begins with an introduction of sorts, telling us about one of god's other creations, the serpent, who is said to be the most cunning of all the animals. An interesting notion, which I suspect may be to highlight the fact that at that point humanity was still 'innocent,' without any knowledge of good or evil, and thus had no need for cunning. However, was this innocence not shared with the rest of creation? I honestly have no idea.The reason I w
Reflections on Bible Readings 2Chapter 2 of the 'Primeval History' (The New American Bible copyright 1987)It's funny that the beginning of chapter two contains the ending for chapter one. Why was it written that way? I don't know. Is it significant? I don't know that either so let's just move on to the second creation story.Perhaps it is my own modern world that has colored my viewing of this creation story, but while reading I couldn't help but think that this story sounded more like humanity was a tangential experiment of God's, rather than the climax of an excellent creation spree. In fact, God apparently creates man on a desolate and lifeless planet