Our God of the Jews
My friend Mike posts:

• i am reading, "How the Jews saved civilization" have you ever read that? it is by thomas cahil. he talks about until the jews came along, people thought of the story of history as an endless cycle of repeating events...the jews changed this by telling people that we are all apart of the same story that has one big climactic ending...hear o israel that the Ll-rd your G-d is one!

I haven't read it, but it does sound cool. I think that is something we fail to understand in the biblical narrative. God always comes into the scene and does something new. He changed the world by declaring that there is one God who is not confined to a geographic space or to some event like rain. He comes on scene again and says "I am like you" by becoming human and then goes about creating an alternative community that is not confined to a geographic space or an organization. Each time, God introduces freedom into the world. He keeps reminded us that we don't have to live life the way everyone else does. We don't have to repeat our sin, repeat our meaningless existence. We can indeed recreate Eden.