PopeInTheWoods

Biblical criticism, eh? I purchased a cheap NRSV and am starting to read it through cover to cover just as a work of literature. It's been quite a while since my high school English classes, so I'll just post some of the random thoughts that hit me throughout my reading sessions. I'll try to stick to points that haven't been argued to death recently. It took me a bit to struggle through Genesis and come up with these observations.

- Much of it is written in a very repetitive style, probably owing to its origins as oral history. It must have sounded beautiful and/or impressive when one of the old Hebrew speakers got on a roll while reciting it.

- The Hebrew patriarchs had a penchant for marrying barren women.

- The Lord comes across as a bit forgetful. At times he "remembers" stuff a bit later than the Israelites would probably have liked, and sets up his covenants as much as a reminder to himself as to his chosen people.

- Some of the storytelling imagery is wonderful. I really liked the Joseph story, especially the corn and cattle dreams of the Pharoah.

- The foreign leaders were unusually generous to the wandering Hebrews. Was it a normal condition for leaders to control more land than they had people to work it?

Andy

Marduk

"- Much of it is written in a very repetitive style, probably owing to its origins as oral history. It must have sounded beautiful and/or impressive when one of the old Hebrew speakers got on a roll while reciting it."

You shoud read some Sumerian/Babylonia stuff, they say almost every sentence twice, they say almost every sentence twice.
This is from the two different sources, Yawehist and Elohim

- The Hebrew patriarchs had a penchant for marrying barren women."

odd isn't it, they also seemed to like them a little past their prime, if you catch my drift.

- The Lord comes across as a bit forgetful. At times he "remembers" stuff a bit later than the Israelites would probably have liked, and sets up his covenants as much as a reminder to himself as to his chosen people."

gee wizz, the guys like 100 zillion years old, cut him a break

- Some of the storytelling imagery is wonderful. I really liked the Joseph story, especially the corn and cattle dreams of the Pharoah.

I like the stuff about the aliens banging the earth women in Gen. 6.

- The foreign leaders were unusually generous to the wandering Hebrews. Was it a normal condition for leaders to control more land than they had people to work it?

Yes, Egypt in the growing season, foreigners would often go there to 'work for food' and part of Egypt was controlled by foreigners around 1600 BCE. The Hyksos.