Day Seventeen and a Quarter

When I saw Song of Songs described in my Bible as "Solomon's Most Excellent Love Song" I realised that Bill and Ted must have paused their time travels to do a bit of translation.  They probably overshot on the way back to find Socrates. (Dust... Wind... Dude)

I just think that "God gave rock 'n' roll to you" is a much better lyric than "Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep  coming up from the washing place"  I tried this line out on Mrs Gerbil and she seemed unconvinced - she gave me THAT look. There's probably a lot lost in translation here, so while I work out what the two of you, the maidens and the night watchman are on about, would the lot of you please just take the portable couch and get a room.

That's all for now.  Party on, and be excellent to each other.

Day Seventeen

So today I finished the psalms, then went on to do Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

Nothing much to report.  Solomon seems like a wise old chap, despite his earlier worhiping of flase gods.  If only he had listened to his own proverbs.

I've caught up to being a day behind. 

Day Sixteen

Today I got up to Psalm 100, or about halfway through day 15's reading.  The psalms are where modern hymwriters go to seek inspiration, or in other words, to steal a line or two.

The version of the bible that I'm reading has captions above some of the psalms describing them as a well written psalm.  I'm not sure how much significance this has to a modern reader, given  that these same verses have been translated into english from the original, probably through translators who want to put their own spin on things.Some bits feel as if an early version of Bad Translator has been at work.  For example, the first three verses of psalm 23 translated at random 56 times comes out as...

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I do not know. I think the watershed. Give me your real name and spirit."

or

"My pastor said. Water transport is high. I feel good, he thought the street."

or even

"One of my friends did not rest in peace. This is the name of my mind." 

(please note that this is most certainly not the word of God.)

So it might have been a well written psalm when originally written, but it's a bit rough now.

For a bit of entertainment, in the spirit of  hymn writers everywhere, and in particular, as tribute to "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" let's try a version of Psalm 23 to the tune of "Tiptoe through the Tulips"
  

Day Fifteen

I've done all of day 12 and a good chunk of day 13, that includes Esther, Nehemiah, Ezra and Job.  Not too keen on Job - he was a bit of a slog.  I may do the first 20 or so psalms later to take me up to the end of day 13.  If I was on track, I should have finished the psalms today.

Day Fourteen

I'm a bit behind.  I was visiting some friends all weekend, and I didn't want to be as rude as to spend hours staring at my phone.  I'll catch up soon enough.

Church News

We had a streaker in our church last Sunday.

After a short chase, we caught him by the organ...

Thanks.  I'm here all week.

Day Eleven. To the end of Chronicles

Glad to see the back of Chronicles.  Most of it has been told in the preceding books, so it was a bit dull.

Tomorrow it's on to Job 5.

England disruption

Would calm heads please prevail in England.  It's not a protest, it's not a riot.  It's theft, arson and violence.

A few months ago I praised social media for helping to bring reform in the middle east.  Now this is the darker side, as social media is ised to cause trouble.  While the trouble makers may feel they have a gripe with the UK state, in other countries if you go on a looting spree, you find yourself dangling from a lamp post.

Let's have some prayers for calm, support for the broomstick army, and lets have a lot of rain for England for the next week or so.

And to anyone that is stupid enough to steal a phone and try and use it, don't you know they log the serial numbers...

Day Ten. Of Kings and Chronicles

So I'm a third of the way through.  It's heavy going, as it's a lot of reading to fit around work and sleeping, but I'm still going.

Today took me through the last of Kings whch led up to the exile in Babylon.  Chronicles is a bit dull, as there's a lot of geneology, or if I was reading an older translation, a load of begatting.

Tomorrow it's on to 2 Chronicles 33, and probably more begatting.

Day Nine. Kings, Kings and more Kings.

Today I encountered King Solomon.  At first glance he seems like a wise old chap, but by the end he's off worshiping false gods.

It's getting a bit repettitive.  God leads these folk out of Egypt, shows miracle after miracle, and says in no uncertain terms that bad things will happen if you worship false gods, and they still go off and do wrong things.  Israel, would you just get a grip on yourself!  Do you want God to put it in thousand foot high burning letters above Jerusalem?  "THERE IS NO OTHER GOD THAN ME!!!"  Would they get the message?

Probably not.

Tomorrow it's the remainder of 2 Kings.