Like Vincent and Julianna, I too am pretty familiar with the book of Genesis. Having gone to a catholic school for all thirteen years, the Bible and more particularly the book of Genesis is no surprise to me. However, although being very familiar with this book, I have never actually read it fully. I was usually just told about particular stories, or people; never the whole story of Genesis itself. So reading Genesis provided me with a fuller understanding of the book.

I don’t really know how to really convey my thoughts about reading Genesis, so I’ll just talk about what stood out for me and what I noticed.

Because of my background knowledge on biblical stories and the different books in the Bible, I knew many of the basic stories or people in Genesis, like the story of Adam and Eve, Abraham, Judah, Joseph etc. Upon actually taking the time to read Genesis, the temptation story particularly stood out to me, the reason being that it kind of reminds me of The Odyssey in some ways. For one, the serpent used disguise and deception to appeal to Eve and trick her into eating from the tree that God told her not to. This story basically describes the importance of being able to distinguish good from evil, such a simple concept to most people. I found that it’s pretty interesting how some of these things that we now know as common knowledge, or never really thought about, first appeared in the Bible; like Eve’s commission of the first sin, or how because of her misjudgment, her punishment was the pain of giving birth. Basically, those little things that I never exactly paid attention to stuck out to me.

Another instance that definitely reminded me of The Odyssey was when Joseph pretended he didn’t know his own brothers when they came to get food before the famine. Much like Odysseus, Joseph hid the truth of his identity though later revealed himself.

However, although I am familiar with this text, that doesn’t necessarily, mean I found it interesting. Perhaps it’s because I was constantly told of the Bible throughout my years of school, but it isn’t something that I particularly enjoy reading. I would have enjoyed a novel, or an epic more than reading Genesis. I found the read to be tedious and honestly, pretty boring. There were so many names of children, or brothers being constantly listed, and that lost my interest because it just felt like a task to read. Certain aspects of Genesis were somewhat intriguing to me, though the majority of it didn’t quite strike my interest.