I have been unhappy with my writing here lately. I don’t know why, whether it is the content or construction: a result of writing here over an extended period of time and having my style change (look in the archives at my first posts, if you don’t know what I mean), or if it’s an inconsistent level of interesting things about which I've had to write since I left Manhattan.
Luckily, I’m in good company. Last night, I went with my friend Viki to a class called “A Quaker Response to Christian Fundamentalism,” and one of the exercises we did was to look at the first three chapters of Genesis, the first book in the bible and the torah. Notably, the first two chapters contain two completely different Creation myths, as if two different bloggers had decided to cover the event. The first version has a god creating man and woman (as equals) at the same time on the sixth day, at the same time he created every other creature. The second has a god creating man first in the Garden of Eden, and then woman from the man’s rib. In this, the woman is subservient to the man. (I say “a god,” by the way, because there seem to be other gods or divine beings in the mix here, if you read it carefully.)
There you have it: separated by only one page in this book certain people claim is infallible are two wildly conflicting stories. Surely my own writing is more consistent, if nothing else, although I do admire the conversational storytelling style that this Genesis person has managed. He or she might want to spend less time on who begat whom, but there certainly are riveting bits of action.
Incidentally, which of these Creation myths is accepted, or how they are reconciled, reveals a lot about any sect of Christianity, but it takes some philosophical, rhetorical, and historical analysis. Meanwhile, I don’t think anyone who has been following my humble web log would find many areas of divergence. So if anyone’s been looking for a new body of text to base his or her life upon, I feel this one is quite competitive. The writing here isn’t always perfect, but at least there are no entries entitled Leviticus.
Enough said.
Update: D'oh!
