The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 3, T+81 -- Nothing About The Bakken Or The Market Or Politics

Wow, I'm in a great mood.

It was a beautiful, beautiful ride into "work" this morning. It was cool, about 46 degrees when I got started, a bit before sunrise. It was pitch black and it was a bit hard to see where I was riding, but no mishaps. I got started a bit late, and rush-hour traffic -- morning commute -- had just begun. I like to get on my bike before the heavy traffic begins, but today I slept in. I did get to work before the sun rose, and actually before dawn itself. I did not see the rose fingers of dawn, as Homer would say.

But 46 degrees, no precipitation, though I did have to bike through one errant lawn sprinkling system, and absolutely calm. No wind. A great ride.

I would normally stay here and blog for another hour or so, but I'm reading a couple of books, too heavy to carry with me and I want to get back home and continue reading them.

The two books: the Bible and Virgil's Aeneid. I will only read a few passages from each every day for the next few weeks. I can't really say I'm reading them; I'm enjoying them, very, very slowly, like one enjoys a buffet.

The one or two verses in Genesis telling how God used the wind to end the flood is uncannily like Virgil's description of how Juno used the wind to almost drown Aeneas. The latter was the founder of Rome. Noah, mankind's common ancestor after the Flood. By the way, putting "2 and 2 together" as they say, it appears an argument could be made for suggesting that the early author(s) of the Bible and Homer were contemporary authors -- if +/-  250 years can make these early authors "contemporary." I think one can consider writers living anytime between 1000 BC and 300 BC as "contemporary." LOL. Yeah, that's a stretch, I know. Don't get me started.

Having read just a few pages of the commentary in the Bible I'm reading now (if I remember, I will post the specific Bible later after I get home) it explains a lot -- I now feel much more comfortable with the historical basis for the Bible. I know I have stumbled onto nothing new, but for me it is very, very rewarding. Sort of like "knowing" the real Shakespeare.

I also understood, for the first time, the "reason" for the long lifetimes of those early Biblical figures (850 years or so) and why it dropped to 120 years. Some will take those 850-year lives as "gospel," and, if so, "it is what it is." However, if not "gospel," one wonders how/why that "mythology" developed. I am unaware of that phenomenon in any other writings, unless of course, one considers the immortal lives of the Greek gods. There's probably something in Asian literature or subcontinent Indian literature of which I am unaware.

Those are the two big books I'm reading right now, but will continue to read several other books at the same time. Little snippets of each. Not seriously reading anything now.

So, I will be off the net for about an hour, I suppose, while biking home. And then we will begin again.

Oh, here it is, from my "library page":

• The New Oxford Annotated Bible; NRSV with the Apocrypha, an ecumenical study bible, Michael D. Coogan, editor, c. 1989; full price, $45; Barnes and Noble purchase; 

The book of consequence I'm reading this week is The Peabody Sisters, Megan Marshall, c. 2005. It's in my own library so I am under no pressure to finish it one week.