Ho, Hum

Old Testament
Book Two: Exodus
Israel at Mount Sinai (cont'd)
Chapter 37: They continue building the Holy Stuff
Chapter 38: They continue to continue to build the Holy Stuff
Chapter 39: Yet more continuing of building the Holy Stuff
Chapter 40: They finish building the Holy Stuff


The authors of the Old Testament really know how to end a story with a bang. Nothing whatsoever happens in the last four chapters of Exodus. And not only that, it is word-for-word a repetition of the instructions from earlier. Chs. 25-32 were instructions on how to make the tabernacle and so on. Guess what happens in 37-40. They make what they were instructed to do. The only thing worth noting about these four chapters is that they managed to do what they were told. It's almost unheard of, to this point in the story, for one chapter to be consistent with the same thing told a few pages ago.

Well, there's really nothing to say. I finished Exodus! Leviticus has 27 chapters. If I continue, I will finish it before the end of the year, and that will officially be the furthest I have ever gotten in the bible. It's all unknown from that point forward.

I went to the library yesterday and got the Freud article on the Moses of Michelangelo. I will try to read it today. It's very interesting. I don't know what yet, but something about it is so controversial that when Freud published it, he did so anonymously! Intriguing, huh!

Charmingly, the public library here still uses the Dewey Decimal System instead of the retarded Library of Congress numbering system. I'm a 2L now, which is journal-year, which means we all have to do a lot of research in the library hunting down sources for journal articles. I have a friend who is infuriated by the Library of Congress system, and says it takes hours to find something that should be simple. He came up with a new library numbering system that is simple, workable, and I think hysterical. If I ever have a library, I will implement it. The system is, you number the books consecutively using natural numbers. When you acquire a new book, give it the next number and put it at the end of the stacks. That way when you are looking up a book, the computer will tell you "that is book number 4352." You just go to that spot in the library and there is book number 4352. I love it. Unfortunately when I asked him if you would at least separate the books by topic, he realized maybe there is a logic to having at least some organization to the books in a library, and he started modifying his new system. But I am encouraging him to stick to the purity and simplicity of the original plan.

The name "Leviticus" refers to Levi. The entire book is Levite law--the law of the time of the Aaronite priests. I do not think there is a single moment of story in the entire book, which is why I've never been able to get through it. But now, perhaps, I'm used to reading boring laws and I will be able to plow through. Just be prepared for some unbearable boredom for the next few days. Hopefully it will pick up in Deuteronomy, but I don't know, because I've never been that far!

Oh, one last thing about Leviticus, and we'll have plenty of time to talk about it, is that "Leviticus," as you may have noticed, is a Latin word. We're moving far up into "modern" times, with Greek and Latin influences replacing the ancient Hebrew.

Well, that's really all. Exodus was very, very lame compared to Genesis. I really hope the bible picks up again soon.


--bibletoenail