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Bible Reading 1

Filed under: Christian

Oh dude I’m on day 2 of the bible reading challenge on biblegateway. Its 90 days of 1 hour readings (ish) and you complete the whole bible.

Today’s reading was Genesis 17 to 27. It was pretty awesome! starting with circumcision and ending with Jacobs dream of the stairway to heaven.

I am a Christian. I believe strongly in the bible being the word of God, though saying that I don’t know if I could say I have read it all. So that is one of the reasons i started this challenge. And so far its been gripping, Its been challenging and its been interesting.

Some things i’ve been interested by are the fact that right in the begining with the trees in the garden God comands:

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” - Gen 2:15-17(NIV)

He gives complete free will to eat of any tree. But then he warns about the tree. He’s not being a mean tyrant, he’s being a loving caring father! Right at the beginning! That’s dawned on me this time. Its like a father saying to his son: “you can play anywhere in the house, but if you play with the fireplace you will hurt yourself” (of course this isn’t perfect analogy).

Something that challenged me was the fact that Noah knew what unclean and clean animals were.

Of every clean beast you shall receive and take with you seven pairs, the male and his mate, and of beasts that are not clean a pair of each kind, the male and his mate -Gen 7:2 (AMP)

This is confusing because it is not until Leviticus 11 that the distinction between clean and unclean animals is made. Therefore we have a two* reasonable possibilities:

1. Genesis was written after Leviticus **
2. God told the laws of clean and unclean animals before Leviticus

I believe that the clean and unclean animals referred to here are not necessarily the same as those in Leviticus. I reason this because if you look at the passage in leviticus it says:

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat - Lev 11:1-2(NIV)

So the clean animals the Israelites may eat are mentioned in lev 11. Its important to notice that people were not allowed to eat animals until after the flood (Gen 9:1).

So what did it mean by clean and unclean. Well if we look at what Noah did after the ark lands safely it all becomes clear:

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. - Gen 8:20(NIV)

So “clean” in Genesis 7 refers to an animal suitable for sacrificing opposed to the Leviticus 11 meaning of “suitable for eating”. It is very possible that God taught what the clean animals for sacrifice were.

Well that is all for today.
I would strongly encourage all Christians to read their bible. In this “challenge” I am reading 1 hour a day during the course of the day that’s 1/12 of my day to get to know God better. It’s well worth it.

-Aidan

Footnotes
*Of course there are probably more reasons but these two sum up my thoughts on the topic
**It is possible for this to be true as both are suspected to be written by Moses. But really it doesn’t matter they were all written under the holy spirit’s guidance.

Tags: Bible in 90 days, Bible study, Genesis, God the father