First Readings. "Good Book" Chapter 1 and Genesis 1.1-1.31

There are two things to know about this blog, and my experience with the bible...I have zero. Granted, I have "experienced" the bible in the sense that it permeates almost every aspect of our social discourse, and I've read books that are about or deal with the bible (namely "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs, and "Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend" by Christopher Moore). Beyond that however, my knowledge of the actual words within this important text started at "In" and ended with "the beginning". It seems almost foolish that I haven't read a book that has so much influence on some of my favorite films, books, magazines, friends, family members, political heroes, comedians...right on down the line to the feeling I get that sometimes I'm being watched. My inexperience with the bible is surprising, even to myself. My fathers family are devout catholics (like the kind that actually go to Church) and my mothers family are devout Methodists (again, the kind that actually go to church). I've been to service twice, not counting weddings. Once on Christmas eve when I was very young, and once when my aunt was couching cheer leading and I had the option of watching that or going to church (I was very young on that occasion as well, and did not fully grasp how disappointed I would be many years later that I skipped out on my other option). So, with all that said, I was extremely interested in this courses particular subject matter, because I had never actually cracked open a bible and yet the words contained in it were stretching their fingers into almost every aspect of my life.
Today started my endeavour to read the bible, as well as "Good Book", "Slave" and "The Great Code". While I will most likely not read all of them at the exact same time, I'm going to try (real hard) to at least do pieces in conjunction. This particular afternoon (which bled into the evening) I read the first chapter in "Good Book" and also Genesis 1.1 - 1.31. I did enjoy reading Plotz's personal discoveries, and he had some questions that I think I would have asked myself. However, I was almost jealous of the fact that each of these stories was being treated in one or two paragraphs, jealous because I had barely opened my own bible. I know (because I've been told) that the bible contains a lot of "begots" and "it was good"s, but I felt cheated that I had only read the very first part of Genesis and all the "cool" stuff in the story ahead had been given away. It was like being told I was going to partake in some grand adventure, only to have someone travel back from the future and hand me a cliff notes version of my journey. I was relieved, though, because I discovered that the Bible had a few turns for me as well.
I don't want to go into detail about every single question, thought, or whisper that crept into my cranium while reading, but a few things stuck out to me. Maybe it was that I've never read Genesis, or that I thought I "knew" the story just by way of social osmosis, but I was pleasantly surprised at a few things, which I think live best in list form (not necessarily in order):
1. There are monsters, real monsters, like the ones from the Iliad, in the bible. Holy Dragons (Batman), literally! I had at first been worried about losing interest, but right at the beginning, even though the footnotes tell me that the monsters don't stick around for too long, I've found something new and exciting, for me at least.
2. I know the intro talked about this a bit, but to see the words male and female next to each other, on equal footing (so to speak) was uplifting. This highlights the fact that within in the Bible, and within interpretation of it, canonical or literary, there are landmines everywhere.
3. This was the "big" one for me. The bible presents creation as a "separation" of things. I had always envisioned the Christian God as a kind of artist, sculpting things from raw materials that he made and put together. It makes me wonder a) where did my version of God, as the sculptor, come from? and b) it is ironic that Christian creation is about a separation of things, and the astronomical physicists perspective is that after the Big Bang there was nothing but a vast expanse of helium and hydrogen, that through time came together to form the universe as we see it today. One version a "pulling apart" of matter, the other a squishing of it. I'm not sure if there is anything "important" in literary terms with this last item, but I couldn't stop thinking about it.
Well, that's just about it for today. Or rather, that is it for today. This is probably more than I'll usually write, but then again, who knows. I've never blogged before. Also, I have no idea how to indent on this thing...any ideas?