As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting,
by Michael Massing, from the NYT.



a memory from my very early childhood:
I must have been four or five years old when my father, who is a Protestant pastor, used to take me along on hospital visits for folks in his congregation.
I would sit in the lobby and look at picture books and feel very grown-up for being allowed to be left alone in such a mysterious place.
One day I was reading a picture book of children's bible stories and when Dad emerged, I asked him something about Adam and Eve.
His response is so clear in my memory, unusual for me. He explained that the story of Adam and Eve isn't really necessarily the way things really happened; that when the Bible was written, a long time ago, people didn't know how the world had been created, so they made up stories to have a way to explain it to themselves and their children.
To me, the inference was that Adam and Eve weren't the only fictitious items in the Bible. Honestly, I don't think I was ever able to read any stories in the Bible with any kind of faith in their historical fact. Consider that I was a PK and went to church every Sunday from birth to high school:  by age ten, I was trying to convince my mother that I shouldn't have to go to church since I wasn't sure I believed in any of it.  She sort of lovingly smiled/smirked, patted me on the head, and the subject was thereby dismissed and never discussed in those terms again.

more thoughts on religion another time.

earlier I was listening to West Coast Live, a show I usually don't particularly like much, but today they were broadcasting from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of my favorite places in the whole world. They interviewed the guy who takes care of the seahorses.  I want that job. Is it too late for a career in Marine Biology?
fun facts:  The female seahorse fills the male up with eggs, and after he gives birth, she gives him about 24 hours before she fills him up again.
baretailed and pregnant?