Karin’s bible reading
“Genesis offers many interesting tidbits,” says Karin.
She has begun a new reading cycle, using a one-year bible (New Living Translation, 1996).
She reads to me:
“The valley was filled with tar pits. And as the army of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some slipped into the tar pits, while the rest escaped into the mountains” (Genesis 14:10).
You could place your finger onto the text at random and, more often than not, end up with some such tidbit.
Why tar pits?
Their precise spiritual significance is not clear to us. We can only speculate what this passage meant to early readers.
Or, maybe, there is no spiritual significance: the tar pits are mere literary props, included for the sake of drawing the reader into the story, in the way that certain Swedish mystery novelists mention their detectives’ every cup of coffee.
Or, maybe, the tar pits really existed at that location, some people’s slipping into them was a plain fact, and Genesis records it for that reason alone.
Karin then reads a psalm. She comments: “You know, Sweetie, King David was kind of a weird dude, weeping almost every night.”
Not so weird, I think.
She has begun a new reading cycle, using a one-year bible (New Living Translation, 1996).
She reads to me:
“The valley was filled with tar pits. And as the army of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some slipped into the tar pits, while the rest escaped into the mountains” (Genesis 14:10).
You could place your finger onto the text at random and, more often than not, end up with some such tidbit.
Why tar pits?
Their precise spiritual significance is not clear to us. We can only speculate what this passage meant to early readers.
Or, maybe, there is no spiritual significance: the tar pits are mere literary props, included for the sake of drawing the reader into the story, in the way that certain Swedish mystery novelists mention their detectives’ every cup of coffee.
Or, maybe, the tar pits really existed at that location, some people’s slipping into them was a plain fact, and Genesis records it for that reason alone.
Karin then reads a psalm. She comments: “You know, Sweetie, King David was kind of a weird dude, weeping almost every night.”
Not so weird, I think.