Still setting things up

Listening to the Bible

Since I’m still setting up the story readings, and this is my first week here, I thought I’d talk about other things.

At the present, at least five days a week, I have half an hour's drive by myself twice a day. Sometimes I listen to music during that time, sometimes I just talk to myself (and occasionally listen. But for the past few months, I decided to use that time for Bible reading, which, alas, I had been sadly negligent of for years.

I have the Bible app YouVersion on my phone (note: the website really wants you to use the app, though you can use it online). I know others prefer Bible Hub. I’m not as familiar with it.

YouVersion has many different reading plans, as well as many different Bible versions, some of which have spoken narration. I’m currently using NIV, which has about 3 different narrators to choose from. Some of the reading plans have daily devotions with them, which, sadly, are read by an AI.

The Through the Bible plan I’m using is sponsored by The Bible Project, which uses videos to teach lessons. (I'm just starting Joshua.) I’m not going to use a video while driving, so I tend to be behind on the videos. But I do find them very interesting. Such as this one, which is part of a series on the Shema (Hear, O Israel).

I hope I can keep this going.

I have discovered that in listening to the Bible, I’ve picked up things that I probably glossed over all the times that I’ve read it. I’m also sure that I’ve missed things, since, after all, I’m driving, and having to pay attention to the road.

The things that I’ve picked up aren’t necessarily of any deep theological impact. More like, the priest who is assigned to empty the ashes out of the altar first wears his priest clothes while dumping the ashes out of the altar to the ground next to it. Then he goes and changes into his regular clothes, and gathers up the ashes to take to the assigned place outside of the camp.

And Aaron the High Priest, when he is to go into the Holiest Place, comes into the Holy Place, takes a bath, changes into the High Priest clothing, and goes into the Holiest Place. Then he comes back out, takes another bath (there is a lot of bathing in the Law), changes into his regular clothes, and leaves. His High Priest clothing stays there.

Which leaves me wondering, when do they wash these clothes? Between the blood and the ashes, the clothes must get awfully dirty, quickly. And do they ever wash the blood off the altar, and all the other things they sprinkle it on? Or did it just build up, millennia after millennia? At least on the altar, there was a chance it’d burn off.

And all those pictures they do of showing the Ark of the Covenant being carried in front of the tribes are wrong, though perhaps justifiable license to see what is happening. But first they would cover the Ark in a really fancy cloth, and then in durable leather. Only then would they put the poles through the rings so the Levites could carry them. So the ordinary people, and even the Levites, would never actually see the Ark. They would just have to take it on faith that it was there.

None of this really matters, of course, nowadays. But just questions my mind asks.