How Noah killed grandpa

The day before yesterday, sadly, I did not have my Hebrew class I usually have every Sunday. This is tragic, because I love that class and Hebrew in general - I'm a big language nerd, and luckily that entails that I pick up languages easily. I already knew some of the Hebrew alphabet, since I've been trying to learn (admitted half-assedly) for years, but this class is REALLY paying off during services, since the Siddur does not provide transliteration for a number of the prayers and songs. And I love singing along.

I did have my Intro to Judaism class, which is very interesting and this week covered Jewish and Biblical history. I always loved learning about that at school - it's fascinating how at a certain point myth and history collide and the Bible gradually gains a degree of historically verifiable fact. Maybe one of the reasons why I love the Old Testament is because it is essentially a mythology - a heap of stories in vaguely chronological order, which may or may not have happened, and which carry some sort of message.

The Rabbi said that some Jews have tried to read what we know about the origins of earth and people into the Bible - 'yom', or 'day', then, does not literally mean day, but can stand for an entire era, which would mean the world was created in six phases, not six days. I quite like that idea, maybe because I am a structuralist by nature and maybe because it is an intelligent alternative for creationism (which I have zero patience for - come on now, guys... the earth is only four thousand years old and people rode dinosaurs, amirite?), but in the end, it doesn't matter. The Bible does not accurate represent the actual origins of the earth because it was written thousands of years later, and I like a religion that can acknowledge that. It does not take away the morals and ethics we may find within this ancient text and apply to our current-day lives.

I also learned last Sunday that while Noah was all a-okay on his Ark, his grandpa was actually also still alive, but apparently not invited because according to my Rabbi's calculations, he died that same year, presumably in the flood. Poor grandpa.

It was an interesting class.