reading the Bible

It was London in the1950s. Teddy Boys were the height of fashion. A Vespa was my wingèd chariot. And my bedtime reading was the King James Version of the Bible.

I read it from cover to cover. From the first words of Genesis to the final full stop of Revelation. Yes, all those columns of endless begats. All those bits so familiar to me from my Elementary Schooldays onwards. All the bits which were new and puzzling. All the ekstatic bits beyond my ken. A vast collection of myriad thoughts. Many times and many places. Many divers writers. Yet having a unity of cadence and expression inevitable as the committee of translators did their work.

Sixty years later I take up the collection once again. This time my chosen version is the 1966 Jerusalem Bible. Because it is so very readable. And because it has abundant footnotes and explanations.

I’m still with the first three chapters of Genesis. (That’s a Greek word. How come?) The foundation myth. Myths, more likely. The Tigris and the Euphrates flowing out of Paradise. The days of the Babylonian Captivity showing their hand. Puzzles. Puzzles. Puzzles. Questions. Questions sans answers. Yahweh God has a strong presence. The Elohim are there in footnotes. And Elohim is a plural form. Even, as I have read elsewhere, combining the masculine with the feminine. A thought which makes sense in terms of the descent from Kether where the One achieves a duality capable of procreation.

Then there’s the business with the serpent. But that remains for another time.