Gen. 18 shows us Abraham sitting at the entrance to his tent near a small tree called a terebinth at Mamre.  It is just getting to the hot part of the day, when three strangers appear.  Abraham runs over to them and begs them to accept hospitality from him.  He enlists Sarah’s help and arranges for meat and cheese to be offered.  While they are eating, they ask where his wife is and one of them says “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a…

I'm feeling the need to slow it down a little even though there were few comments posted on the last entry. And I really didn't get to chapter 15 in the last post, so I am starting with it and going through chapter 17 only. I have also done a lot of reorganizing of some of my own blogs. I created another blog page called "The Narrative of Scripture" [http://scripturenarrative.blogspot.com/] where I can do posts similar to the ones I do…

Chapters 12 through 25 of Genesis present the story of Abraham, who will become the/or perhaps a “founding father” of the world’s three largest faith “communities” – Jews, Christians and Muslims. In my mind – seeing the array of biblical “stories,” legends, historical accounts and meditations – as a “narrative” put together by God in “His” very mysterious way through those who put “Him” first in their lives and consciousness - the story represents God’s new plan or approach to redeeming His…

The next seven chapters of Genesis set forth the early history of "fallen" man as they saw it. The descendants of Adam and Eve are told of and some early legends and myths set in the narrative build a sense of God's frustration with how his creation has turned out. Man's heart "fashioned nothing but wickedness all day long" (5). So God decides to basically start over again, to wipe everything out, saving only Noah and his family to start the "human being project" over again. Noah's name…