Catching up

Hi Everybody! I think this thing is on? Hello, hello!check, check! How about that Genesis, huh? A Gen.1 and a Gen. 2.
And how does it happen that a person, me, raised in the Catholic faith; priests, nuns, the whole thing... Catholic boarding schools, one year Perochial and years of Sunday Mass with my Grandmother; how did I so fully miss the boat on comprehending basic stuff about the 'Bible'? I'll simply surmize to the fact that my home environment didn't support all the dogma that I was taught by the Catholic church, while away there all week long. My single mom was very busy at working two jobs in order to support her four children and although mom demanded respect for anything about church, we didn't pray at meals or before bed, or have discussions about the religion. I think my mom thought that was the job of the church boarding school. My grandmother and I were the only two interested in going to church on Sundays, so we'd walk hand in hand together the whole six blocks every Sunday! I loved it. I felt real happiness and some kind of sence of satisfaction and desired the weekly connection to 'God".
What DID the Catholic church teach me while I was still a child?
Let's see, Eve was bad and Adam was in charge of everything. We all know he wasn't to blame for the apple, I mean fruit thing. We know that was Eve's fault. Cain killed Abel because he was jealous, yet he lived to old age with wife(s) children.
Oh yeah, I made my first 'Holy Communion', age 7 I think. It was so wonderful, I got to wear a pretty white dress and even a white veil. I was marrying Jesus, no God, anyway, I got to choose a Holy Communion name to add after my first and middle names. A special day, but it didn't mean much more than that to me!
I may have been 9 when I got to dawn another white dress, just like a bride, and a beautiful white veil. Another name I chose to add to my own for the rest of my life. Now I boast three middle names! Still no large understanding of the whole ceremony thing, I ldid enjoy it all just for the gaudiness and beautiful music! I like to mention why my bros and me were in a boarding school. After some close calls by babysitters, mom decided her children safer at a Catholic boarding school.
In the 1960's, living life as a girl child under the Catholic domain, had a lot of limitations. Maybe I created those limitations through what was expected of me as a good Catholic girl, but whatever it is, if you were raised Catholic you also got the priviledge of sharing in the curse of the Catholic guilt!
No one ever pointed out any differences to me on the Gen1 and Gen2 stories, and I went to Catochism(sp?) where I was told more childlike stories. The stories never seem to make sense to me, I couldn't tell when what happened to who, or is that whom?? There was a lot of Latin used then, too bad I was not bilinqual.
I feel like I only got a 'childized' story of Adam and Eve. The mark of Cain wasn't explained or embellished in anyway and was not interesting enough for me to ask for more information. Although, I recall being scolded not to question, just believe. That's what you're supposed to do, just believe. Well, it took a few rebukes and then I got it... don't ask, and the nuns and priests would be happy. That was one of my first disappointments in those 'people' in that church. It sent a clear message to me that they didn't think I was worth the time to answer my questions.
Residule emotional effects like this may be considered "Catholic Guilt". After all, it's my fault that I was such a clueless Catholic. Right?
How did the Torah ever get into the Bible? That's Hebrew stuff!! Not one time did I ever hear the word Torah uttered by a nun or a priest, and I was around a lot of them, I lived with them. And how come I haven't ever noticed the lists of other religous Bibles right in the front of the book like a page of contents?
Before Lit 240, I thought that the Bible(Old Testment&New Testament), and the Hebrew Torah were two, very seperate things!
Now the white veil has been lifted from my naive eyes! Thanks to Lit 240, I have seen the light!
From the first day of this class, I have been redirected in the ways of the Bible that is akin having help at putting a big, complicated puzzle together.
page xxxi, Jewish Bibles The Torah:
1-Genesis, 2-Exodus, 3-Leviticus, 4-Numbers, 5- Deuteronomy
And there is more; the Jewish Bible includes the 24 books of the Hebrew scriptures called the Tanak, the Jewish Prophets and Writings
Protestant Bibles: includes the book of Hebrew scriptures!! What? Their Protestants! Why do they have Hebrew Scriptures? Confusing!
Protestants also have the Old Testament and the New Testament, which I thought was the Catholic Bible. So how come all these other religeons have the same doctrines? Since the time I realized that all the world's religeons were shoving the same stuff at each other, I thought that we should all take our doctrines down to their simplest forms, notice how they all speak the same message, and begin our journies together on one, all emcompassing path back tothe Godhead. Later*