IN THE BEGINNING

Do you have a pet peeve? Some odd little thing that gets under your skin? Something which rolls right off the back of most people, but drives you into temporary insanity?

Someone popping bubble gum? The misuse of a particular word? (Like saying “I could care less” when you really mean “I couldn’t care less”.) Cracking of knuckles? Chewing with the mouth open?

For me, it is being late to a movie. I want to be early. I want to see every single trailer for coming attractions. If I miss even the first two minutes of a movie, I would rather turn around and go home.

I remember walking in late to the first Lord of the Rings movie. The theater was dark, there was a battle raging on screen, and a narrator already well into a lengthy explanation of the background story.

And we had missed it! I did not even know how much I had missed – just that I had missed some key information. I was here to hear a story about delivering some sort of ring somewhere – a story that would stretch out over 3 movies totaling 9 hours - and I had missed the significance of the ring itself! 

When the DVD came out, I couldn’t wait to see what I had missed.

Why do I bring this up?

It’s because I see the Bible – Old Testament and New together – as being a single, coherent, epic story. 

Now it’s not quite the same as my experience with Lord of the Rings in that EVERYONE has seen the opening of the Bible: “In the beginning the Lord created the heavens and the earth.” And then the 6 days of creation are explained.

But we’ve been misdirected, somehow. Almost like instead of missing the opening of the Bible's story entirely, we have accidentally watched the opening to some other movie. 

In the case of Genesis, the substituted opening so many modern Christians experience is more fitting for a "science" documentary filmed by the likes of Ken Hamm.: “The earth is only 6,000 years old because the 6 days of creation must be read as literal days. Genesis 1 and following genealogies explain the timeline for the age of the earth.”

And it should have raised our suspicions early on because it is not at all the way you would expect an epic to begin.