Genesis, the Original Soap Opera

So many men, so few last names. . . .

That's not my take on my college years so much as it is my general feeling about the Bible.

I guess I've never been big on the classics. And nothing says "classic" quite like the Old Testament.

(Did I ever mention that I'm not much of a librarian? Not in that classic sense, anyway.)

Growing up, my exposure to scripture was limited to whatever passages the church had okayed for the priests to share with us that week. I can't recall a Bible in our home, though I'm sure we had one. Probably tucked in near the set of World Book Encyclopedias, part of that dusty "just in case" section of our family's library.

I dabbled a bit in the New Testament when I was a Young Life leader. In fact, the Bible I used through most of those years actually has pencil scratchings and dog-eared pages, signifying my moments of near understanding.

My ignorance, though, is my problem, not the Bible's. And it's not one I've spent much time solving, either.

That's what made Sunday's sermon so interesting. That morning, our minister kicked off his "Seven Great Books of the Bible" Lenten series. Oh, great. And so, he began in the beginning--Genesis. It took a few minutes for my mind to clear, what with Phil Collins' songs filling my head, but, eventually, I grudgingly gave myself over to a lesson in the classics.

Ho hum. Yawn. Twiddle, twiddle, twiddle.

But it turned out to be not so ho hum. Genesis, after all, has a pretty good plot line, what with the formation of the universe and the creation of humans and all. Hard to go wrong with that kind of building action. What I'd forgotten, though, was what a bunch of scalawags we are introduced to in this book. For much of it, no one can seem to do anything right.

And I find that to be oddly comforting.

You've got your nudist colony of two--Adam and Eve--who can't keep their hands off the apples. Their sons weren't much better, one killing the other over some silly matter or other. There is forgery and fornication, prejudice and impropriety. In terms of breeding, this was not much of a family line with which to start a species.

But God hung in there, which is really pretty amazing. And I work with teens every day, so I know what it means to hang in there.

Thirty-nine books later, when God was out with the Old and in with the New, our ancestors were still driving Him cuckoo. But, by then, God had softened a bit, maybe even having grown fond of this troupe of troublemakers. And so, He replaced pestilence and war with forgiveness and patience.

I suppose I should miss all the breast-beating, cheating and general violence of the Old Testament, but I rather like the new and improved story, still replete with plenty of colorful characters.

And hats off to a God who could've forced them to act in a certain way but didn't. That is a classic storyline you don't read every day.