Supplementary – Do you believe that everything happens for a reason?

Alright, we're finally at the last 5 chapters of Genesis. Genesis is the 4^th longest book of the Bible, so it seems like we're moving slower than we actually are. This is basically the lead-up to the events of the Exodus. It explains how the hell the Israelites ended up in Egypt in the first place. The age of the patriarchs is about to come to an end, and the people who are the subject of this book are the Israelites from here on out. The other peoples that can be considered Hebrews aren't gone, and we will meet them again, but the story will focus specifically on the descendents of Jacob. Other Semitic peoples (descendents of Shem), and other Hebrew peoples (descendents of Eber) will almost universally be considered enemies of the Israelites.

So apparently, the descendents of Jacob felt that God's promise to Abraham applied only to them. What about the other Hebrew and Semitic people, and the other descendents of Abraham? Why didn't they have their own books which vouched for superiority? Did the Israelites really have any special favor with God? Looking at the events in the Bible that we're all somewhat familiar with, we know that the answer seems to be, "hell no." So what's the dilly yo? Why did the descendents of Jacob establish this religion which asserted their superiority, insisting that the father of all gods favored them above all others, while the other people in this area did not? What made them different? Well we all know it's not because of any covenant with an invisible man in the sky. But the surprise is that it may not even be because they thought they had a covenant with an invisible man in the sky. Not originally. It should be no surprise that the events of Genesis and Exodus have no basis in historical fact whatsoever. But the story of the real origins of the Israelites is coming to light due to recent discoveries, and you might be knocked on your ass when you hear it.

But before we finish up Genesis, I need to tackle an important implication from Chapter 45 that I left you with.

Chapter 45 (continued)

So after Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he basically forgives them for what they did. He says that it was God's will that he end up in Egypt. He was about to save their lives because he was responsible for the food surplus in Egypt, and he asked them to move there so that they would have plenty through him and survive the remaining five years of famine. It was all part of God's plan to preserve them. After all, he's got a promise to Abraham to fulfill.

Of course, God could have just not caused a famine.

It's perfectly ok, because it all happened for a reason. Forget the stuff that happened to Joseph. If he wants to think that getting sold up the river by his brothers is perfectly fine because he ended up pretty well off, then more power to him. It's the famine part of God's plan that bothers me. I guess Joseph would be justified in even thanking God for the famine that allowed him to become rich. Nevermind all the people around the world who died from the food shortage. Fuck them, God's gotta save his chosen desert tribe! Everything ended up better as a result! Or did it? Let's keep in mind that this is how the Israelites ended up in Egypt…from which their god had to allegedly deliver them…by massacring more people. And of course, God wants to be thanked for delivering them from bondage, when it was his fault that they were Egypt in the first fucking place. Wow. Just wow.

I wanna look at the bigger picture, too. At the idea that "everything happens for a reason." That's the basic moral of this part of the story. And I don't like it. I don't believe that everything happens for a reason. It endows the universe with some sort of goal or purpose, and even a casual look at reality will reveal that the universe is completely indifferent to us in every way.

It always irks me when I hear someone say that everything happens for a reason in response to something bad happening. I understand the need for comfort in bad times. When something horrible happens, you mind will start searching for explanations. Why did this happen to me? Just because a question can be asked with a grammatically correct sentence doesn't mean it actually has an answer. But that doesn't satisfy most minds. What we'll do is use subsequent events to make up an answer. You lose your job, and endure months of privation and lifestyle changes then finally find a job…a better one! Almost ANYONE, would start to think that they lost their job for a reason: so that they could land a better job, which God or the universe knew was waiting for you. This is the type of reasoning which sustains religious thinking, and it's a shame that we're all so susceptible to it. How do you know that you wouldn't have gotten a promotion to a position with a six-figure salary in a few years at your first job, making twice what you do at the new one? How do you know that God didn't actually make you lose your job to keep something even better from happening to you? How do you know that your new job won't be the cause of your death two years from now?

Worse yet, I think it can provide false comfort, and there's something uncomfortable about false comfort to me. Death is particularly singled out for false comfort. A woman who is a good friend of yours dies. She was a 19 year old college student. It's always particularly sad when a young person dies, and it's one of those situations where people are bound to say that "everything happens for a reason". Well in this particular case because she was abducted and killed. This prompted a new law to help law enforcement officials keep up with repeat offenders, and started a scholarship charity in her name. So it happened for a reason, right? And this would reinforce your belief that everything happens for a reason. Well let's add some details and change some others. What if there were no new law or scholarship foundation? Existing laws already cover what happened, and she wasn't even a student. She just worked at a minimum wage job, raising her daughter as a single mother. Does that change your mind about everything happening for a reason? Well maybe she injured him in the struggle for her life, and that left a trail of blood or other clues that allowed law enforcement to catch this serial killer early in his murderous career. Ok…you can still believe that she died for a reason. But what if her killer was never brought to justice? What if before dying she was sodomized, tortured, and died slowly over the course of nine days from traumatic injuries? What if he used a whip, a blowtorch, knives, electrodes and a car battery, a broom handle to sodomize her vaginally and anally, and strangled her to unconsciousness multiple times, then dismembered her while she was still alive and had sex with her corpse? What if her remains were never found, and she died alone (in a state of extreme terror and despair), in a place that would never be found, and her fate never to be known by anyone other than her killer?

Yes, that description was necessary. I needed to make you feel something. If you have a vivid imagination, you should feel very uneasy right now. What's worse than how uneasy you feel reading that is that we know that things like this have happened to people. And what's worse than that is that it will happen to others. Now I fucking DARE you to tell me that this happened for a reason. Who are YOU to say that about her fate because of your need to relieve your discomfort, and affirm your belief in the supernatural? How about in the middle of her last hellish days of existence you look at her and tell HER that this is happening for a reason and see if that makes HER feel any better? Of course not. Because the reason you say that everything happens for a reason is to make YOU feel better. Dead people can't feel better, and luckily for you, they can't speak. How would the murder victim feel about you brushing off her fate and comforting yourself by saying, "Oh, it happened for a reason"? If dead people could speak, the idea that everything happens for a reason would be quickly discarded.

If everyone on earth simultaneously realized that not everything that happens results in some kind of positive outcome in the universe, can you imagine how the course of human history would abruptly and positively change? (I can dream, can't I?)

Things happen. There doesn't have to be any meaning or good to come from them. Some things are just bad, and shouldn't have happened. Just because we can't go back and change those things doesn't mean that we have to rationalize them. We can't undo the fate of this imaginary woman, or of all the real people that things like this have happened to. But that doesn't give us the right to imply that it should have happened…or that it had to happen that way…or that because of something fortunate that happens later to someone who wasn't killed makes it alright. That's bullshit, and it's not fair to those who have died horrible, senseless deaths.

I have no false comfort. I have no imaginary friends to talk to. And yes, that does make life a little tougher to handle; a little darker; a lot less warm and fuzzy. There is an excess of human misery in the world, and I feel that very acutely when I think about it. When something terrible happens to a friend, it's harder for me to say something comforting because I don't believe in false comfort. While other people are saying, "You'll be in my prayers," or everything happens for a reason, I have to actually think of something to warm their spirit that comes from MY mind and not some useless statement that others can just trot out because they have nothing of substance to say. That's hard to do, but it makes me feel so much more when I have to try to say something meaningful rather than a cop-out appeal to a non-existent deity or a universe that doesn't care. I've decided to embrace reality, as horrible as it often is.

So that sums up my feeling about this part of Joseph's story. You're forgiven for what you did, my brothers, because God made it turn out right in the end. Everything turned out great for the Israelites; they survived. But who cries for those who died in the famine that their god caused? I do.

Genesis 38.12-45; Judah gets pwnt, Joseph invents corporate America

We left off in the middle of this strange story with Judah. His two eldest sons end up getting whacked by God. The first is killed for being "wicked"…no other explanation. And the 2^nd is killed because he wouldn't give his brother's widow, Tamar, any sons. So Judah's starting to think that this chick is bad news. Judah promises to give her to his last remaining son when he gets old enough, but he's scared that his youngest son will end up getting whacked, too. She apparently has some kind of sinister power. And she's not done wreaking havoc.

I want to cover quite a few chapters here so that I can finish Genesis with the next post. So there will be a good bit of summarizing 'cuz I'm getting a little antsy to get to Exodus.

Chapter 38 (continued)

12-19

Tamar is gettin' a lil pissed off. She noticed that Judah's son, Shelah, was grown up now, but Judah had not given her to him for marriage like he promised. So she's gonna fix his wagon. Tamar hears that Judah is heading off with his neighbor to Timnah (wherever the hell that is) to shear his sheep. So she takes off her widow's garments, dresses up like a prostitute, and goes to hang out at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah.

Judah, being the pious man that he is, propositions her for sex.

"C'mon baby…let me pull up to your bumper and smack that monkey." (If you recognize this reference, you're awesome.)

"20 shekels for a blow job, 50 for half and half."

"Got no cash on me, babe…how 'bout a kid from my flock?"

"I'm a hooker, what the fuck am I gonna do with a goat? –I mean, ummm, ok. Sure. Where is it?

"It's back at home. I'll send it when I get back."

"Naah, chief…I need some collateral. Gimme your signet and cord, and your staff."

The signet was "a seal, often suspended from the neck with a cord, used to sign documents." And he agreed. After that, she switched back to widow mode from ho mode.

So later, Judah sent the kid he promised to her by his friend, but she was nowhere to be found. About 3 months later, Tamar was apparently showing, because word around town is that she "played the whore" and is pregnant "as a result of whoredom." I love it when the Bible mentions whores, whoring, and whoredom. And it mentions it A LOT. You will gather as we read on that whores are apparently the worst people in the world, and whoredom seems to be second in offense only to worshipping other gods…later. Right now, contrary to popular belief, there really is no monotheism to speak of.

I will use the word whoredom to humorous effect as often as possible.

Judah's response to his widowed daughter-in-law's alleged whoredom: Burn the bitch!

But hold up! Tamar send word to Judah that it was the owner of this signet, cord, and staff who knocked me up!

Maury Povich: So the DNA test results are right here in my hand, so we're gonna find out once and for all who's the father of the bastard child that Tamar is carrying. Judah…on the question of Tamar's yet-to-be-named bastard… you are. . . . . . . . the father!

*Crowd starts cheering, Tamar does a celebratory booty dance right in front of Judah's face.*

Judah admits that he has been pwnt for not giving Tamar to Shelah for a wife. Apparently, the charges were dropped. I bet Judah didn't say, "Burn me at the stake!" Of course not. He's a man, and nobody cares if he plays WITH the whore who's playing the whore.

And furthermore, have you noticed how all the women in the Bible have been portrayed so far? All they do is deceive. Tamar, Rachel, Lot's daughters, Sarah, Eve…they deceive men and lust after giving birth to sons. Oh well…could be worse…could be Islam.

Chapter 39

Ok, back to Joseph being a slave to Potiphar, the Egyptian captain of the guard.

1-5

What we have here is something we've seen a lot of: Hebrews becoming wealthy and powerful in a foreign land. The NOAB points out that this prosperity "is an outgrowth of the promise to Abraham." Kinda like when Abraham became wealthy in Egypt, and Jacob became wealthy by exploiting his uncle. Here we have Joseph prospering. So far, God is doing an extraordinarily shitty job keeping his promise. I mean yeah, Joseph is prospering decently…but he's still a SLAVE. He's in charge of his master's household, but he's still a servant. Not exactly a good fulfillment of the promise. Whatevs.

6-23

39.6 points out, "…Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking." Of course he is! The heroes of the Bible couldn't possibly be unattractive or even average looking. I guess this is why he was Jacob – excuse me, Israel's and God's favorite. So God is shallow, too. I detect that you're not surprised. Neither am I.

So Potiphar's wife totally wants to bang Joseph. She just straight up asks him to do her. But Joseph is actually honorable (rare for a Biblical character) and refuses. She keeps trying, and he keeps rejecting her. So one day she corners him with that cock-hungry look in her eyes, but he escapes her clutches. But she grabbed his "garment" as he ran.

Of course, being a good-for-nothing woman, she uses whatever clothing she ripped off him as evidence that Joseph tried to rape her. She blabs it to everyone in the household, and to Potiphar when he comes home. He believes her and throws Joe in the can. Of course, God was with him, and gave him favor in the sight of the jailer. So he prospers once again…in prison.

Chapter 40

At some point, the Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker ended up pissing him off and getting themselves thrown into prison with Joseph. The both had some trippy ass dreams on the same night, and Joseph offered to interpret them. According to what they told him, Joseph said the cupbearer's dream meant that in 3 days, Pharaoh would restore him to his position. Joseph asked him to remember this good fortune when he gets out and everything is well with him, so that it may help him get released. He said that the baker's dream meant that in 3 days, he would be hanged and the birds would eat the flesh from his carcass. And what'dya know…both came true! However, that bitch ass cupbearer forgot Joseph.

Chapter 41

1-36

Now Pharaoh had a dream, and needed someone to interpret it. Then the cupbearer finally remembered Joseph's ability to interpret dreams, and told Pharaoh about him. Pharaoh summoned Joseph and asked him what that fucked up dream meant. Joseph said that it meant that God would bring 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of like, the mother of all famines. He advised Pharaoh to store up grain from all over Egypt during the years of plenty so that they'd have grain stores when the famine came.

37-45

Pharaoh is incredibly impressed by Joseph's prediction and plan to avoid disaster. He makes Joseph his right hand man. Look at the stuff he's saying here. Putting Joseph in charge of his house, and saying "only with regard to the throne will I be greater than you," giving Joseph his signet ring, making people bow to Joseph, and finally saying, "I am Pharaoh (which one?), and without your consent no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt." He even married Joseph into the priesthood of Egpyt; he let him marry a priest's daughter!

Ok, this is where my bullshit detector went off. There is no fucking way, a Pharaoh of Egypt, considered a god on Earth by himself and his subjects would have given a formerly imprisoned Hebrew slave charge over the whole damn kingdom in this way. And they definitely wouldn't have done any bullshit like this without it having been recorded. Yeah right, Israelites. Nice try.

46-57

So Joseph goes all around the kingdom storing up food during the 7 years of plenty, had a couple of sons along with way, and when the famine hits, Egypt is the only place in the world that isn't starving. That's right…this is a worldwide famine. See, when God said he wouldn't kill everything in a flood, he had his grubby, divine fingers crossed behind his back. People die in famines. Lots of people. On the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, they keep up with God's killings, both mass and individual. This is God's 6^th killing/killing spree, as no doubt millions of people died in this worldwide famine that he caused for no apparent reason. Actually, there is a reason. When the people came to Joseph for food, he sold it to them. That's right. God killed millions to make Joseph rich…and to humble Joseph's brother before him, as we shall see shortly.

Also, all the world came to Joseph for food. All the Chinese, Aboriginal Australians, and Native Americans came to Joseph for food. Too bad they were worshipping the wrong god and had no way of knowing that they were worshipping the wrong god.

Chapters 42-44

These last chapters for today comprise most of one story, which is the last story of Genesis. It describes how Joseph's brothers were finally humbled before him, and how the Israelites ended up in Egypt. So I'm gonna summarize with some highlights. The story is actually kinda sweet. =)

When the famine reached Caanan, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain because he heard about the large stores there. Well, all of them except Benjamin. He had already lost his favorite son (Joseph) by his favorite wife (Rachel), and he wasn't about to lose this one, dammit.

When his 10 brothers got to Egpyt, they bowed to him, partially fulfilling his first dream. He recognized them, but they did not recognize him, so he decided to fuck with them for awhile.

He accused them of being spies. They said that they are honest men, and told Joseph that they were 12 brothers, but one was no more, and the youngest is at home with their father because he loves him so. So Joseph said that he would test them. In order to prove that they were honest, they had to bring their youngest brother to him, and in the meantime one of them would stay imprisoned in Egypt until they returned.

They understood that God was now punishing them for what they had done to Joseph. Ruben, the only nice guy, who still gets cursed later because he screwed his father's concubine, chastises them all: "Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you would not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood." Joseph could, of course, understand every word of this, which they didn't know because he spoke through an interpreter. He turned away from them and wept. Then he picked out Simeon to remain imprisoned, and sent the rest away.

They told their father, Israel (who is STILL called Jacob in these verses sometimes), what happened. Jacob basically said, "fuck you, I'm not sending Benjamin!"

After the grain that they had bought ran out, Jacob told them to go get more. This is the part that kills me. Poor Simeon! They apparently just didn't a damn about him, because they didn't even go back until they needed more food! So the brothers pleaded with their father to let them take Benjamin to Egypt, because they definitely didn't wanna show up empty-handed. This was a test of their honesty! So Jacob is like, "Oh fuck me. Alright just go. Nice knowin' ya Benjamin."

So they get there with Benjamin. Joseph asks them if this is indeed their youngest brother. They confirm this, and Joseph is overcome with emotion. He leaves the room to weep. Before they leave, he orders their sacks filled with grain, their money returned (which also happened last time), and a sacred silver cup used for divination (magical prediction of the future) to be planted in Benjamin's sack of grain. He ordered his steward to go after them shortly and accuse them of stealing the silver cup.

The brothers denied stealing, and stated that if the cup was found on any of them, let the thief be put to death. And lo and behold, it was on Benjamin. Fuck.

Back in front of Joseph, Judah stepped up and offered himself into slavery, pleading with Joseph that Benjamin be allow to return to his father, who would surely die if anything happened to him. At this, Joseph couldn't contain his emotion any longer. He sent the Egyptians out of the room, and revealed himself to his brothers. Joseph tells them all to come and settle in Egypt, in the land of Goshen so that they will survive the famine. They all wept together. Jacob's sons went back to tell them Joseph was alive, and he pretty much pissed himself. He agreed to go live in Egypt to see his beloved son before he dies.

Now, I'm gonna leave you with a little teaser, because I'm already over 2100 words, but I have a little to discuss about something Joseph says here:

45.5-9

And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in this land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Of course, God gets the credit for making you rich and powerful. Nevermind the millions who died in the famine. Hold that thought for next time…

Genesis 35-38.12; Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat!

Since it's been about 2 months, you might wanna skim the last entry just to remember where we left off. These chapters are mostly a whole bunch of nothing. But even thought the content is lacking there are still some interesting things to learn and think about. I'll try not to skip over as much of the biblical scholarship of this section to prepare you for a lengthier digression on the history of the god of Israel that I'll dive into in Exodus after he reveals his name to his chosen people. That is one of the most important events in the Hebrew Bible from an academic perspective.

We're about to start the story of Joseph. Having already reviewed ahead quite a bit, I can recall this for ya: Joseph is a weirdo. I think he might be a little, ummm…slow. Or maybe he's just lacking in character development. Which is probably a good thing. If we got to know him really well, we'd probably find that he's a douchebag like the other "heroes" so far.

So grab your NRSV, or look up the text of it online, and let's go!

Chapter 35

1-4

God told Jacob to go to Bethel, settle there, and build an altar to the God who appeared to him when he fled from his brother Esau. So in preparation, he asks all in his household to put away their foreign gods, and he buries them under a tree. Oooh, we actually see a hint of monotheism here. However, the annotations suggest that this story and later parallels "may presuppose a more ancient practice of burial of divine images in sacred places, i.e., by a sacred tree."

5

So God is a terrorist. This should come as no surprise. Jake was scared shitless after the murdering and pillaging that his sons did, and was worried that the people of the land would be after them. But "a terror" from God kept the people from pursuing them. What kind of terror? Did he make Jacob and his family smell really bad or something? What sort of unnamed "terror" was this? I'm gonna assume he told them that Ben Rothlisberger was in town…and nobody wants to get felt up by Ben Rothlisberger.

6-7

The thing to remember here is that he made an altar and called it El-Bethel. Remember how deities in the ancient world had specific manifestations? Remember El-Roi in 16.13? I skipped over the last verse of chapter 33, where Jacob built an altar on the land he bought from Shechem (the rapist)'s father. He named it El-Elohe-Israel (El is the God of Israel). Well this is "El of Bethel". So take note of the worship of El in early Israel. El and YHWH are kinda the same, but kinda not. They're definitely not the same at this point, but of course, we'll talk about this more later on.

9

So here's God appearing to Jacob again. Boy, he sure does appear to people a lot for supposedly being unseen and unseeable. Oh wait…they haven't yet invented the mythology that no one can see God and live. That'll be in Exodus. Getting ahead of myself there.

10

So God names Jacob Israel again. Didn't stick the first time. This time it mostly sticks. He's usually called Israel from here on out. Usually.

11-12

Oh guess what we have here? The promise that we've heard a million times already. I'm starting to think that God his this prerecorded message that he plays whenever one of the patriarchs talks to him.

16-21

So Rachel is about to pop out another kid, and labor isn't going so well. But the midwife told her not to despair because she's about to give birth to another son. How the hell did she know that? Apparently, with her last breath, she named him Ben-oni, which means "son of my sorrow." Geez…real nice name there, Mom. Jacob wasn't havin' it. He renamed him Benjamin.

22-29

Reuben slept with his father's concubine, and Israel heard about it. Oops. Apparently this is a bad thing, because Reuben will be cursed for it. Hmmm. This is reminiscent of the curses on Ham's descendents, and on the Moabites and Ammonites (born to Lot's daughters through incest). It's probably a story – not even fleshed out; consisting of one short verse – thrown in to give the Israelites a reason to exterminate a group of people. Will my prediction be correct? Actually, I'll answer: not in this case. Although, whoever wrote it probably hated the Reubenites. There will be a split between the 12 tribes later, as you may remember. Nothing particularly bad happens to Reuben's descendents…well except for them probably being assimilated out of existence after being conquered by the Assyrians. Getting ahead of myself again.

So the patriarchs of all the 12 tribes have finally all been born! And how Jacob, at the ripe old age of 180, kicks the bucket.

Chapter 36

Boooring. I thought we were done with crap like this. More geneology. It's all about Esau's decendants (Edomites, by the way), and it doesn't even agree with previous lists. Whatevs.

Chapter 37

1-4

So now we meet that weirdo, Joseph. We pick up when he's 17. And here we go playing favorites again. In 37.3, we learn that Israel loves Joseph more than any of his other children. Ok, I get it. If you ask a parent to name their favorite child, most parents will be reluctant to do so, and that's a good thing. Now that doesn't mean parents don't have a favorite child. In fact, if any parent told me that they don't have a favorite child, I'd say it's because they don't know their children very well. You have a favorite child, but I'd say that doesn't justify differential treatment.

Jacob made Joseph a "long robe with sleeves." This is what was translated in the KJV as "coat of many colors." The translation used here is much closer to what the original Hebrew was saying. So there's no Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat…just a robe. Now this was a very regal-looking robe, however, anticipating Joseph's future status.

Of course, Joseph's brothers hated him. He was the obvious favorite.

5-8

Joseph had a dream. In the ancient world that was HUGE. An alarming percentage of people alive today firmly believe that dreams have some kind of supernatural significance. So you know at this time, everybody believed that. He dreamed that he and this brothers were in the field, binding sheaves (bundles of harvested grain stalks), when his sheaf suddenly stood up, and his brothers' sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to it.

And now his brothers hated him even MORE. Not sure what reaction Joseph was expecting here. Really bright idea to tell your brothers who hate you about a dream predicting that they will bow down to you. But he's not done being stupid yet.

9-11

He had another dream where the sun, moon, and 11 stars bow down to him. The 11 stars are obviously his brothers. We can assume that the sun and moon, must mean his mother and father. Even his father was like, "What the dick, man? You even think me and your mom are gonna bow down to your scrawny ass? Nigga, please." And the enmity of his brothers increases. Now even his father is wondering what the hell is wrong with that kid. [Hank Hill voice] "Rachel, that boy ain't right." Except that Rachel is already dead. Oops. This little story is probably part of a narrative that didn't follow an account of Rachel's death.

12-28

Joseph is about to get his comeuppance. (That sentence was really unnecessary…I just wanted to use the word comeuppance) His brothers are tending to the flock, and Jacob sends Joseph out to see if everything is well with them. Poor, blissfully ignorant Joseph. He was probably gonna tell them about the dream where he teabagged all of them. But alas, as soon as they saw him coming, they planned to whack him. Reuben, who still gets cursed later, is the only one who objected to spilling his blood. He suggested that they throw Joseph into a pit. He planned on rescuing Joseph later. So they took off his fancy robe and tossed him in a pit.

Things get foggy here, because it's apparent that several traditions have been mashed together. The brothers conspire to sell him into slavery. But then it says the Midianites found Joseph, pulled him out of the pit, and they sold him to the Ishmaelites, who then took him to Egypt. But later Joseph said his brothers sold him. And later, both the Midianites and the Ishmaelites will be identified as the people who sold him to the Egyptians. Whatevs.

29-36

Reuben comes back to the pit, and of course Joseph is gone. Fuck. He basically asked his brothers what the hell he's supposed to do now, which I guess means he had to tell them of his plan to rescue Joseph later…which makes me wonder why they didn't dump HIS bitch ass in the pit, because isn't he the most likely candidate to rat them out?! Whatevs. So they take Joseph's robe and cover it in goat blood, and show that to Jacob. Jacob is predictably inconsolable. He wouldn't stop bemoaning the death of his favorite son, and said "…I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning." This is where the dead go in Judaism…the righteous AND the wicked. That's right. In Judaism, you don't go to heaven if you're good, or hell if you're bad. Heaven is where God is; it is for the divine only (and a few select mortals, as we shall see), and Sheol is where the dead are. The idea that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell is some more junk from that fan-fiction we know as Christianity. Sheol is NOT the same as the Christian hell. I'll quote professor James D. Tabor:

"The ancient Hebrews had no idea of an immortal soul living a full and vital life beyond death, nor of any resurrection or return from death. Human beings, like the beasts of the field, are made of "dust of the earth," and at death they return to that dust (Gen. 2:7; 3:19).

…This idea of Sheol is negative in contrast to the world of life and light above, but there is no idea of judgment or of reward and punishment. If one faces extreme circumstances of suffering in the realm of the living above, as did Job, it can even be seen as a welcome relief from pain–see the third chapter of Job. But basically it is a kind of "nothingness," an existence that is barely existence at all, in which a "shadow" or "shade" of the former self survives (Ps. 88:10)."

Joseph was sold to the Egyptian pharaoh's captain of the guard, Potiphar, and this is where his story fleshes out.

Chapter 38

Genesis goes off on a little tangent to talk about Judah before continuing with Joseph's story. Hopefully, you recognize the name as one of Jacob's sons, and patriarch of the Tribe of Judah, which was the lead tribe of the later Kingdom of Judah.

1-12

Judah had 3 sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Judah found a wife for Er, his firstborn; she was Tamar, the black widow. At least, that's what I'm gonna call her.

Apparently, Er was wicked in the sight of the lord and put him to death. I wonder how? What was the method of killing God used? Did he come down and do this personally? Did Er have an "unfortunate accident"? God generally acts like a mob boss anyway, so we'll assume the latter. What was Er's crime? What made him so wicked? These are important questions, actually. I don't mean for my humor to trivialize this, but seriously; if this God character can just kill us for being "wicked," it sure would be nice to tell us what the hell was Er's major malfunction so we can avoid his fate…right?

At this time, it was customary for a brother to sire a male descendent for his deceased brother. So Judah asked this of Onan. But since he knew that the child would not be his, Onan pulled out and spilled his semen on the ground. God didn't like that, so he killed him. This little story has caused quite a bit of untold misery in the Christian world. It's used to justify condemnation of both masturbation AND birth control. This is ridiculous, because it's very apparent from the story that God was angry that he refused to give his brother offspring. Onan wasn't jacking off, he was pulling out. And it doesn't even suggest there's anything wrong with pulling out as a method of birth control in general; God was just condemning this particular situation, where Onan is shirking his duty as a brother.

And since I've determined that 2,000 words is about as long as I should make these, lest people complain about the length, I better stop here and continue with Judah's story next time.

Genesis 31-34; Jacob is still a douchebag.

Alright, this one will be a quickie. I'm gonna gloss over some very interesting biblical scholarship as we try to get to some more of the really interesting stuff in the remainder of Genesis. I would like to do a little extra discussion of how the God character is shaping up by this point at a later date. I may just wait until Exodus when God finally tells them his name. This is a very important event, and a little exposition about the history of the god of Israel will be in order.

So Jacob and Laban have been acting like bad roommates, tricking each other back and forth. Let's see what eventually happens with these two lovebirds, then finally get around to some more killing.

Chapter 31

1-18

So Laban's sons notice that Jacob has become wealthy at the expense of their father. Jacob hears this, and oh would you just look at the time? Conveniently, God now tells Jacob to return to the land of his ancestors. Perfect timing, huh? So he packs up and gets ready to just sneak out without telling his uncle.

19-51

Before leaving, Rachel steals her father's household gods. What? Yeah. Stole all the gods. According to the annotations, "[These] may have been figures representing ancestral deities. Possession of them ensured leadership of the family and legitimated property claims." So note two things here. #1 The ancestors of the Israelites, again, were not monotheistic. And God didn't seem to care too much. #2 Rachel is also a douchebag.

Eventually Laban found out that Jacob had high-tailed it, and with some of his kinsmen, took off after Jacob. He eventually caught Jacob, and was like, "WTF, man?" For some reason, he complained about Jacob absconding with his daughters, but weren't they Jacob's wives now? In the context of the times, Jacob owned them at this point. Whatevs. So he asked, "…why did you steal my gods?" Jacob claimed that he secretly left because he was afraid that Laban would take his daughters back by force. Pshyeah, right. Jacob then made the promise to summarily execute anyone who was caught with Laban's stolen gods. Rachel hadn't told Jacob that she harvested them from her dad's house. Whoops!

So Laban went looking around, then finally came to Rachel's tent. She had taken the household gods, put them in the camel's saddle, and was sitting on it. She apologized that she could not rise in his presence because she was on the rag. She knew that no man would come near her while she was menstruating. Wow. Brilliant. So she got away with it. Let's note here that God is perfectly OK with petty theft.

So after pleading his case and what not, Laban proposes they make a pact not to fuck with each other. They piled up some rocks in a heap and make a pillar. They basically make this a Mason-Dixon line between them. To paraphrase the agreement they made, I shall use the words of Lil' Jon: "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit."

Chapter 32

1-21

So now comes the point where Jacob is gonna hafta pass near the lands of his brother, Esau. Understandably, he's scared as hell. He completely screwed his brother over, after all. He sends some messengers to tell Esau that he's coming with all his flocks and slaves. They come back with some interesting news. Esau is coming to meet him…with 400 men. At this point Jacob shits himself. He comes up with a plan to split all his people into two companies. Then he begs God to not let his brother kill him. Then he comes up with another plan to send several waves of livestock each attended by a different servant, to appease Esau. Full panic mode here.

22-32

That night he sent his wives, maids, and his children and all his possessions across the river and when he was alone on the other side...a man wrestled with him until daybreak! Huh? Yeah. Just like that. No exposition, no explanation. I wouldn't know what to think if some guy just started wrestling with me out of nowhere. I'd assume he was trying to KILL ME. In which case, bring it. Apparently, Jacob is so strong this guy can't take him. So he dislocates Jacob's hip. Owwwww!!

Then he says, "Hey, let me get a move on because the sun's coming up."

Jacob says, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." Yes. THAT'S what Jacob said. Not, "Hey, why the fuck did you just wrestle with me all night?!" not "You just tried to kill me, you asshole!" …but "Not until you bless me." Which is exactly what I would say after wrestling with an unknown assailant for hours on end. The only way to think about this story without your head exploding is to assume that at some point during the contest, Jacob realized he was wrestling with a divine being.

God asks his name (what, he didn't already know?), and after he says, "Jacob," God renames him. His name is now Israel because he has fought with God and with humans and has prevailed. Curiously, this name change doesn't take fully. When Abram's name is changed, the text refers to him by his new name for the rest of the Bible. Jacob is still mostly called Jacob after this. But obviously, Jacob is the direct patriarch of the 12 tribes of Israel, so it's all symbolic and what not.

So note that if God is about to smite you, all you have to do is call Jacob to work God over. That'll straighten him out.

Chapter 33

Jacob finally comes face to face with Esau. He keeps his family all split up and behind him, so that they may have a chance to escape. To Jacob's surprise, Esau embraced him and they wept together. For the whole conversation he refers to Esau as, "my lord." What a suck up. Tricked him out of his birthright, and stole his deathbed blessing that basically give him lordship over Esau, but he defers to Esau here. Douchebag. And a disingenuous douchebag at that.

Esau accepts a gift of livestock after refusing several times, and proposes that they walk together to his lands. But Jacob says that he's got a bunch of slow ass children and nursing flocks with him. "You go right ahead to Seir and I'll catch up with you!"

Jacob didn't go to Seir. Douche.

Of course, he was probably wise. Esau might have been biding his time to kill him. Jacob instead went to the city of Shechem, where our final story for today will unfold.

Chapter 34

When the prince of the city-state, Shechem, saw Jacob's daughter Rachel, he took her and raped her. So we finally meet someone who's a bigger douche than the heroes of the Bible. And get this; he then pleads with his father, Hamor, to procure the girl as his wife. So Hamor goes to Jacob to ask if Dinah can be Shechem's wife. Jacob and her brothers were enraged, understandably.

Hamor proposes that they set as high a marriage price as they like and his whole clan can live in their land. It is implied that he intended to impoverish the Israelites by assimilation. So Jacob and his sons were like, "Sure… if you'll agree to be circumcised as the custom of our people demands before we can give you our daughter."

So Hamor agreed, and promptly had all the males circumcised. So Simeon and Levi, Dinah's older full brothers attacked while all the men were still in pain and killed every man in the city. Jacob's other sons came afterwards and plundered the entire city. Jacob frets that they have now screwed him over in the land of Canaan. Their reply was, "Should our sister be treated like a whore?"

Ok, I get it. If any of you out there had a loved one who was raped, you would be ready to kill someone. We have codified laws to deal with such behavior today, but at this time and place, rule of law was comparatively nonexistent. I just would have expected God to mete out justice in such a way that the other men in the city who had nothing to do with Shechem's actions didn't have to be killed, too. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently so. Because it gets worse.

That's gonna do it for now. Next time we have a couple of extremely boring chapters to skip before we get to Joseph and his amazing Technicolor dreamcoat! The next 2 or 3 entries will finish up Genesis as it sets the stage for the all-important story of the Exodus. We got some really heavy subject matter to cover there, but don't ignore these last chapters of Genesis!

Genesis 27.46 – 30; Jacob The Gigolo (bow-chicka-wow-wow!)

We're gonna get a good dose of some biblical family values here, so pay close attention. Women should especially take note. We're gonna pick up basically at chapter 28, which is somewhat uneventful, but after that, let the baby wars begin!

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27.46 – 28.22

Isaac sends Jacob away to find a cousin on his mother's side to marry. Esau, not to be outdone, marries a first cousin on his father's side…in addition to the wives he already has. Wow, the Bible is really making a firm case for polygamy. Polygamy is obviously OK, right?!

Jacob beds down for the night in the middle of his journey and falls asleep using a rock for a pillow. Ouch. So he has this weird ass dream about angels ascending and descending a stairway (which is a better translation than ladder). Jacob's ladder. That's it. Doesn't really mean a damn thing, apparently, although plenty of theologians have hypothesized what it symbolizes. It was very awkwardly juxtaposed with an appearance by God, which was probviously added by either the J source (the main narrative here is from the P source) or another later redactor. What is Jacob's ladder now? A piercing. Google that shit if you don't know what it is.

So guess who appears and starts making promises? You guessed it: Frank Stallone. No, but seriously. I'm gonna kick this God character in the balls if he keeps talking about this promise bullshit. He didn't even keep it! Jacob's descendants aren't particularly numerous, they've seldom possessed even a portion of the land mentioned, and the nations of the earth have not been blessed through them. And due to that horrible fan fiction known as Christianity, the Jews are inexplicably vilified throughout history, and Jews are currently the butts of more jokes than reality TV stars. Later, we're gonna hafta have a long talk about anti-semitism, and it's strange evolution to the modern flavor of it. Honestly, I struggle to understand it. But I'm gonna do some reading so that by the time I get to the death of Jesus, we're gonna hammer it out and see what we're dealing with.

Jacob woke up and felt that this place was holy because of the visions he had, so he named it the "House of God": Bethel.

Chapter 29

1-20

He comes up on a well and starts chit-chatting with the men there, who know his uncle, Laban. They point out Laban's daughter Rachel. When Jacob sees her, he feels the need to show off his superhuman strength to help her. There's a large stone covering the well that all the shepherds usually have to move together when it's time to water the sheep, but Jacob moves it all by himself. Then he waters Laban's flock.

Then he kissed Rachel and wept aloud. WTF? Pussy.

Anyway, he told Rachel who he was. They went back to Laban's house, and Jacob stayed there in service to his uncle for a month. So Laban asked Jacob what should he pay for Jacob's service to him. So Laban has two daughters: Leah, the older and Rachel, the younger. 29.17 says, "Leah's eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful. ¹⁸Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, "I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel." Oh wow. If you're going on a blind date, and your friend says, "she has really pretty eyes," you already know what you're in for. The next thing you'll probably hear is, "she has a really nice personality." Yeah, she's a troll. Sorry for being a horrible person here…I'm just telling it like it is. Rachel is obviously the hot one.

So instead of paying the normal marriage price (we'll get to that later in the Bible), he works his ass off for seven years so that he can marry Rachel.

21-30

Finally, his seven years is up. Let me paraphrase what Jacob then says to Laban. "Aight, dude…I've done my time, and I am hornier than a toad. Can I please marry Rachel so I can finally hit that?" And Laban probably says, "Sure!" with his fingers crossed behind his back.

So they begin the wedding feast. That night, his veiled bride came to him and he finally got the sex he worked seven years for. But when he woke up, it was Leah! Jacob was like, "WTF, man? Why you play me like that? I worked my fingers to the bone for seven years, but not for THIS freak!"

"Look sonny, around these here parts, we ain't gonna marry off the younger daughter before the firstborn." So Jacob, the trickster, got tricked. Laban told him to finish the week long wedding celebration with Leah, and he'll give up Rachel for another seven years of service. Wow. For fourteen years of servitude, Rachel better be GOOD, if you know what I mean. But Jacob got his two wives, along with their slave girls and served his uncle another seven years.

Now the fun begins. Joseph worked for freakin' EVER just to get some booty, and now it's time to go to work. Cue the porn music.

31 – "When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb; but Rachel was barren."

Awww, isn't that sweet of God? He sees that Leah is getting shat on, so he lets her have children. Oh Lord…are you not merciful? But when you think about it, here's another example of God's dickery. What did Rachel do to deserve being barren? Even today infertility can be very hard on a person psychologically. That's just being mean to Rachel. Is it HER fault that she's the hot one? I can understand him wanting to even the score, but is this the best solution that an omniscient being can come up with?

32-35

So now Jacob gets busy and Leah starts shittin' out kids like it's goin' outta style. For each son that is born, a folk-explanation of his name is given. The first son, is named Reuben, which in Hebrew means "See, a son". Leah has four kids (all sons, of course) then stops getting prego.

Chapter 30

1-13

So Rachel gets all pissed and starts yelling at Jacob, "Give me children, or I shall die!" Ok…the instinct to reproduce is pretty strong, but did women at the time really think that their lives were worthless without children? Maybe that's how the men saw it. Or maybe women really did feel worthless unless they were baby factories. A woman's worth in these times was directly tied to her reproductive ability, especially the "ability" to produce sons. So Jake was like, "Look woman, I'm not God! He's the one who's not letting you have any kids!" Of course the problem is ALWAYS with the woman. Just like I wonder how black people could possibly follow any religion based on this book, I often wonder the same thing about women. But it gets MUCH worse.

So Rachel does the same thing that Sarah did, and gives Jacob her maid Bilhah so that she may have children through her, which as I mentioned earlier, was not uncommon at this time. So Jacob knocks her up, and SHE starts shittin' out kids now. And the naming explanations continue.

Bilhah has three sons (surprise, surprise!). Leah's like, "Oh yeah? Well two can play at that game! Hey Jake! Get over here and knock up MY slave girl!" Jacob has gotta be lovin' this. So Jacob bangs Zilpah, Leah's maid, and bears him two more sons.

14-24

This part is humorous all on its own. So Reuben found some mandrakes out in the field (which were valuable because the roots were believed to be an aphrodisiac), and brought them back to his mother Leah, the unloved. By the way, it doesn't say that Leah is any more loved than she was before she had all these sons. I mean she proclaimed that now her husband would honor her, but we have no indication that this actually happened. So Rachel comes to Leah and asks for some of the mandrakes. Leah is like, "You stole my man; now you wanna take my son's mandrakes? Bitch, please."

"Aight, how 'bout this then…You can have sex with Jacob tonight in exchange for the mandrakes." And Leah agreed. Yup. That's right. Leah just paid to have sex with her own husband. Jacob got pimped out by Rachel for some mandrake roots.

When Jacob came in from the field… "Get over here. I just paid for some ass with the mandrakes my son found. You're my bitch tonight. Bedroom. Now!"

And God let Leah be fertile again, and she had two more sons! Jeebus! Then, as an afterthought, she has a daughter and names her Dinah.

²²Then God remembered Rachel, and God heeded her and opened her womb.

You have to laugh at this. Like I mentioned earlier, if you talk to ANY believer and ask them to describe the God that they believe in, the description will invariably include the trait of omniscience. This is why the idea of God remembering is ridiculous. How the hell can he forget? How can something slip his mind? Whatevs. As we can clearly see, God up to this point is NOT omniscient.

The astute reader will recognize that this baby race produces the patriarchs of the twelve tribes of Israel. But there are only 11 born for now; Benjamin will come later.

25-43

And finishing up the story of Jacob's life with Laban, we have this story which displays the biblical Hebrews' prodigious knowledge of biology and genetics.

Laban is all like, "You've been a good whipping boy, and God has blessed me through your presence. What do I owe you?" Jacob asked for all the black, speckled, and spotted sheep in his flock. Since those are pretty rare, Laban figured he wasn't losing much, so he agreed. But Laban is a shysty mofo. He took all these oddballs that Jacob wanted out of the flock and put his sons in charge of them, and put them three days journey away from Jacob and the rest of the flock. C'mon Laban…you can't play a playa! Jacob had a trick up his sleeve. Back in the day, people thought that when female animals conceived, visual impressions determined the appearance of the offspring. So he peeled stripes into some rods and put them in the troughs when he watered them. Since they bred there at the trough, they produced striped, spotted, and speckled offspring. So whenever the best animals bred he put the rods in the troughs, but not when the weaklings mated. And this is how Jacob ended up with gigantic flocks, and became wealthy. So far, all the heroes in the Bible became wealthy by means that we would consider dishonest today.

It amazes me that people actually think that we get our morals from the Bible. The family values are especially atrocious, and we haven't even seen the worst of that yet!

Well that's gonna do it for now. We'll pick up where Jacob finally leaves his uncle's basement with his gigantic family and acquired riches, and we'll see if we can make it to the birth of Benjamin. Later on!

Genesis 23 – 27.45; Isaac is a dumbass.

First off, I'll try to keep this entry short. I apologize for the length of the last one, but I had A LOT to talk about.

We begin today at the death of Sarah at the ripe old impossible age of 127. Pshyeah, right. Should I even waste a sentence by mentioning (again) that God limited human lifespan to 120 years? Sadly, that's the only thing in chapter 23 worth mentioning. After the attempted child sacrifice in chapter 22, the Bible gets boring fast. Sarah dies, and Abraham buys a family burial plot from the Hittites. So let's scoot on over to chapter 24, where Abraham sends a servant to find a wife for Isaac.

Chapter 24

This chapter isn't incredibly interesting either. Abraham tasks one of his slaves to find a wife for Isaac. But he makes him swear not to find him a wife from among the Canaanite people. To make the oath, Abraham says, "Put your hand under my thigh…" This is a euphemism for "grab my nuts". No, seriously. The similarity between the words "testicle" and "testify" is not a coincidence! It was pretty common when making oaths to swear while holding the man's testicles you were swearing to.

Abraham made him go back to his father's house and find a wife. Whut? Yeah…go find a close relative for my son to marry. Obviously, they had a much looser definition of incest at this time. So he brings back Rebekah, Isaac's first cousin once removed. Par for the course back in the day.

The servant saw her getting water at the well and she was, "…very fair to look upon, a virgin, who no man had known." Of course she's gorgeous. What is the author of this story gonna say? "she was OK looking…you know, just kinda 'office hot'. Not really anything special to look at." You'll never see that. All the Bible's heroes had hot wives. And yeah, she's a virgin, of course. And you can tell that right away. Ummm, is that good? Any time you can TELL a person is a virgin just by LOOKING at them…usually not a good thing.

Chapter 25

1-20

Abraham apparently senses this his time is coming to an end, so he goes on a fucking rampage – literally! He goes out with a bang by re-marrying and having a crapload more kids. In 25.6, it mentions that he also had concubines. Whut? I remember distinctly when I first read the Bible that this was the point where I finally looked this word up. Needless to say, my jaw dropped when I learned what a concubine was. "And God is ok with men having multiple wives and concubines? God is awesome." Actually, if you want to know my real thoughts replace that second sentence with, "So why don't people do that now?"

Some more begats concerning Ishmael's offspring.

21-28

Of course Rebekah was barren…it's always the woman's fault. And when God finally lets these barren women conceive (were they truly barren, in the first place?) they always have sons. No surprises here.

So now that Isaac is about to have a proper family, let me pause to say that we are about to read about the dumbest family in the Bible (so far).

Rebekah is pregnant with twins and they're fighting in the womb. God tells her that the two kids will be the ancestors of two separate nations. He says that, "the elder shall serve the younger." So Esau's hairy ass was born, with Jacob hanging onto his heel. Ok, that proclamation from God sounds suspicious, doesn't it? Sounds like the curse on Ham and the story of the kids born from the incest between Lot and his daughters. Yeah, they threw this shit in to explain and justify Israel's pwnage of the Edomites, who are (supposedly) descended from Esau.

"See? It says right here that you people descended from Esau shall serve the descendants of Jacob. See! God said it!"

"What do you mean, 'you people'?"

Hilarity ensues.

Isaac loved Esau, because Esau was a hunter and Isaac loved game. But Rebekah loved Jacob. Uh oh. This spells trouble.

29-34

So one day, Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the fields hungry as all get out. Esau was like, "Hey bro, gimme some eats man; I'm hungrier than a hostage!"

"Oh? Alright…if you give me your birthright."

"Uhhhhhhhhhh, well since I'm about to starve to death, what good would a birthright do me anyway?"

What what what?!? You've got to be kidding me. I almost don't wanna go over the idiocy that is this story, but I must. Ok, so you can't just feed your brother…you have to make him give you something? Esau…if your brother is trying to get something out of you for just sharing his food with you, why didn't you just get some food from somewhere else? The birthright traditionally consists of a leadership role in the family, and double the inheritance. That's not something you give away for a bowl of freakin' stew. Esau obviously rode the short bus, and Jacob is an asshole. God is apparently OK with all of this.

Chapter 26

Here, Isaac's story parallels his father's in several respects. Of interest here is the dumbest king in the Bible: Abimelech. Remember him? Well a famine drove Isaac to Gerar, ruled by King Abimelech of the Philistines (btw, the Philistines didn't even come this area for another 800 years…whatevs). God makes the same tired promises to Isaac at the beginning of this chapter that he had made to Abraham like umpteen times already. Even the editors of the NOAB got tired of commenting on it. Gonna give you this land, blah blah blah, your descendents will inherit these lands, blah blah blah, numerous offspring, blah blah blah, all nations of the earth will gain blessing for themselves through you, yada yada yada.

While in Gerar, when the men of the place asked about his wife he said, "She is my sister". Really? We're back to this tired excuse? Obviously somebody is about to get fucked over, and Isaac is about to get rich. That's what happened each time Abraham told this lie…except it wasn't a lie in his case. At some point after they had been living there awhile, King Abimelech saw Isaac fondling his wife. Yeah. He fell for it again. Abimelech also rode the short bus. You'd think all these foreigners coming through with their 'sisters' might raise an eyebrow.

The king was like, "WTF, Isaac? You said she was your sister!"

"Well, I thought I might get whacked because my wife is so desirable." (As if Abimelech even had to ask. Wait I forgot how dumb this guy is.)

The rest of the chapter is useless…Isaac gets rich just like Abe did.

Except for the last verse, which has NO continuity with the previous verses. It just comes out of left field mentioning Esau's two wives (more polygamy), and how they made Isaac and Rebekah's lives a living hell.

Chapter 27

Our final story of the day is the most bewildering. Well not really, but it would be if you had to convince yourself that the story was true. In a nutshell…Isaac is now old and blind. He asks Esau to go hunt some game and fix it the way he likes it. Esau says, "sure thing, Dad," and head out to do just that. Rebekah was listening and told Jacob to go get a couple of kids from the flock and prepare it for Isaac so that HE can get Isaac's blessing instead of Esau. Jacob is a little worried because Esau is one hairy bastard, and Isaac might want to touch him. She was all like, "Don't worry about it…I got this!" So she prepared the meal, dressed Jacob in Esau's clothes, and put the animals' skins on Jacob's skin to fool Isaac. This badly thought out, badly executed ruse actually freakin' WORKS.

Jacob goes in with the food, and Isaac asks how he did it so fast. "Because the Lord your God granted me success." A LIE. God is apparently OK with this, by the way. Talk about bearing false witness. Isaac smells a rat, so he asks his son to come near so that he can touch him. The goat skin fools him. "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Really, Isaac? I'm sorry, but I think I can tell the difference between hairy human hands and goat hair. Why the hell would Esau all of a sudden SOUND like Jacob? Whatevs. So he blesses Jacob.

This story is very similar to mythologies of other cultures. It is common for culture heroes to succeed and (particularly) to rise to prominence through underhanded tactics. Today, when people resort to underhanded tactics, we call it cheating. It's why Martha Stewart had to go to jail. Underhanded tactics are not acceptable means to overcome the odds, no matter how famous, popular, or deified you are. So ok…Jacob and Rebekah weren't really being all that bad in the context of the society they lived in. But shouldn't God provide some moral instruction to the patriarch of his chosen people? God is still an asshole because he lets Jacob and Rebekah be assholes.

Poor Esau. Shat on for no particular reason, really. He cries over his lost blessing. Deathbed blessings were VERY important to ancient cultures. They believed that they irrevocably released power that determined the destinies of those they were bestowed upon, so just imagine how Esau felt. He rightfully felt that he had been shafted. Esau mumbles to himself about killing Jacob. So Rebekah tells Jacob to go hide out with her brother until Esau has cooled down.

Ok, I have one other problem with this story other than the shysty behavior of Jacob and his mom. Let's look at 27.29

"Let peoples serve you,

and nations bow down to you.

Be Lord over your brothers,

and may your mother's sons bow down to you."

Why is that part of the "blessing"? Why is it necessary to grant someone lordship over his own brothers? Why would you wish for any of your children to be subjugated by any of your other children? Rom 9.13 actually tells us that God hated Esau in the womb. WTF? What a capricious bully. Once again, I can say with confidence that God is a dick. By the way parents, have you chosen which of your children to hate? Have you chosen which you will give your deathbed blessing to rule over your other children?

Well that's it for now. We'll pick up where Jacob and Esau go their separate ways. I'm gonna have a little dinner, drink a little wine, and take a little nap. Until next time…lechaim!

Genesis 17 -22; Birth of Ishmael to child sacrifice

We pick up at the birth of Abram's bastard child, Ishmael, and God's command to seal the covenant. I'm gonna hafta skip over a lot of interesting biblical scholarship to get to the meat of these 5 chapters…because there's a lot to talk about.

Chapter 17

1-4

So here comes God…again with the promises? Oy vey! He starts talking about the covenant again, and how he's gonna make Abram's progeny numerous, and telling him that he will be the father of kings and of nations. Now right when God starts talking, "…Abram fell on his face." People in the Bible fall on their faces A LOT. I can't help but laugh because I always see a mental image of someone instantly falling flat on their face. You'd think it was a worshipful 'bowing down', but the Bible uses the Hebrew for 'bowing down' all over the place. Also, the next instance of someone falling on their face is not in worshipful deference to God. So henceforth, when we run across someone falling on their face, we'll designate it with "FOF" and then you and I can "LOL".

5

Here we get the name change from Abram to Abraham. This signifies a change in status or a change in the relationship between him and God.

9-14

Finally God tells Abraham his part of the covenant. Circumcision is mandated for Abraham and his household. I was born in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world; circumcision is pretty much standard in New York City (the doctor who delivered me also happened to be Jewish). Maimonides, the preeminent Jewish scholar during the golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, had this to say about circumcision.

"With regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible. It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally…How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is for that member. In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally. The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision… The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened.

Yup. That pretty much sums it up.

15

Name change from Sarai to Sarah. Good…Sarai is awkward to say.

16-22

God promises that Sarah will bear him a son. And what did Abraham do? FOF laughing. So falling on your face isn't necessarily worshipful, but it's always hilarious. He laughs at the idea of his 90 year old wife having a kid, and asks God to please let Ishmael survive and be his heir. But God says that Sarah will bear him a son, and he is to name this son Isaac, which means "he laughs" in Hebrew. Cool little play on words there. He also promises that Ishmael will be a patriarch as well, but the covenant he is establishing will be fulfilled through Isaac.

God: "Now quit laughing and get to the penis butchering. I better see a pile of foreskins on that floor by sundown, Abe."

Chapter 18

1-15

God and a couple of angels visit, Abraham shows ideal hospitality, which is extremely important to this culture. God tells Sarah she's gonna get knocked up, and SHE laughs at him, too, but without FOF.

16-19

Abraham went with the three divine beings to start them on their way towards Sodom. God apparently debates whether he should tell Abraham about his next mass murder plans. He figures that since this guy has to be an example of righteousness for all nations of the earth, he should at least tell him about this so that he can see an example of God's righteousness. Too bad there's no righteousness save the dialogue which follows. God is about to merely pay lip service to righteousness.

20-21

So there's an apparent outcry about the wickedness of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and God figures he better go have a look. Just like in the tower of Babel story, God is obviously not omniscient. He has to go down and see whether the stories are true.

22-33

The angels head toward the city (where Lot lives, btw) and leave God and Abraham. Abraham asks God if he really intends to kill everyone in the cities. "Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked!..." Except he's already done that once with the flood. Abraham asks if there are 50 righteous there, will he still slay everyone? God said if there are 50, he will spare them all for the 50. Well what if there's 45? God said that he would spare them all for the 45. Abraham went all the way down to 10, and God said that he would spare the cities if there were 10 righteous people therein.

Chapter 19

1-23

The two angels show up in town and Lot pleads with them to be his guest for the evening. They finally accompany him to his home, and right as they're about to eat a nice meal, "all the people to the last man, surround the house." Really? All the people in the town are standing around Lot's house? Small freakin' town, apparently.

They ask Lot to bring the men out so that they may rape them. Angels must be pretty hot. However, hospitality and protection of guests in your home are such an imperative in this culture, that Lot offers his virgin daughters to the mob that they might leave his guests in peace. You've GOT to be kidding me. I don't care how important hospitality is, you don't offer your freakin' daughters to be raped by a mob! But Lot is probably only the 3^rd worst parent in the Old Testament. Just chalk this one up to that kooky Bronze Age mentality.

The angels pull him back inside and blind the mob outside so they can't find the door to get in. They tell Lot to get his family and get the fuck outta Dodge.

Lot: "So girls, you know I was totally kidding about offering you up to be raped by the mob, right?" *uncomfortable laughter*

24-29

So God rains sulfur and fire from the heavens, laying waste to Sodom and Gomorrah. Another mass murder under his belt, he takes a moment to kill Lot's wife as well, just for turning around to take a look. Seems like a pretty piddling thing to be killed for, right? There are people in the Bible who do MUCH worse things than violate a commandment to not look at something, and they don't get killed for it.

And I've still got some beef with the mass murder here. Those two angels really didn't look like they did a thorough search of the city to see if there were 10 righteous people there. Let's cut to the conversation between Abraham and God immediately after the slaughter:

"Oh wow. Man, look at those smoldering ruins. Must not have found 10, huh?"

"… Huh? Whut?..."

"There must not have been 10 righteous people."

"Huh?"

"You know… remember that conversation we had, where you said you'd spare the cities if there were as few as ten righteous people there?"

"Oh yeah! That! Yeah……… I remember that." God continues looking at the smoldering ruins, enjoying the pleasing smell of burning flesh.

"So not even 10, huh? … How many were there?"

"Huh?"

"Well obviously there weren't 10 righteous people there. But how many were there?"

"Oh! Ummm………………. 8."

"8? Wow. So close. …………. Well like, uhhhh…how many kids were in the cities?"

"Whut?"

"About how many kids you reckon lived there?"

"Oh, uhhh… I dunno, like a couple hundred maybe?"

"Ahhh, I see."

…………………..

"How many you suppose were infants? …Y'know like 2 years or younger."

"Uhhh, shit if I know… maybe 40 or 50."

"So more than 10?"

"I guess."

"Wwwwwell, I thought you were gonna… y'know… spare them if you, uhhh…."

"Oh, I meant adults."

"O- Ohhh, OK. Ummm, alright."

God doesn't give a flying fuck about kids. No seriously. I was too emotionally and morally immature when I read the Bible at the age of 12 to even notice that all the child killing was downright evil.

30-37

After fleeing, Lot and his daughters decide to hang out in a cave for a bit. Apparently, his daughters are worried that because there are no other men around, they won't be able to get any nookie or have any kids. Because everyone knows that a woman's #1 goal in life is to be a baby factory. So the older sister had a great idea: get Lot drunk and have sex with him. They each in turn get their father drunk and have sex with him. Since when does a blackout drunk man have a functioning penis? At any rate it apparently worked, because they both got prego. Let's pause for a moment to consider an alternate scenario. What if Lot, who was now a widower mind you, was the one who got drunk on purpose as an excuse to have sex with his daughters? Either way, God really picked a winner with this family. A disobedient mom, an alcoholic dad, and two horny daughters who'll fuck anything, including their own father.

37-38

Amusing to think about, but we all know that this story never happened at all. These verses tell us that the older daughter gave birth to Moab, ancestor of the Moabites, and the younger gave birth to Ben-ammi, ancestor of the Ammonites. Ah ha! Now we find the real point of this story. This is just like the curse on Ham in the Noah story. That story made sure to curse all the non-Semitic Canaanite peoples. However there are some more closely related peoples who are descended from Shem who they need to have justification to utterly destroy. And here it is… justification for the future genocide against the Moabites and Ammonites, whose names you will see again. These peoples are the products of filthy incest!

"See, it says right here in our holy scriptures. See? Proof that you people are the products of an incestuous union instigated by Lot's daughter. That's why God likes us better, and your lands now belong to us."

"What do you mean 'you people'?"

Hilarity ensues.

Chapter 20

Abraham and Sarah were living in Gerar as aliens, and decided to keep using the 'you're-my-sister' story, so that he doesn't get killed. And of course, King Abimelech of Gerar couldn't resist Sarah, and took her to be his wife. Let us pause for a good laugh again. Apparently, Sarah is still an irresistibly hot piece of ass at the age of 90. I'm gonna fall on my face laughing for a moment here. FOFLMAO!

*picks self up off face* OK, moving on…

God decides to tell Abimelech in a dream that he's gonna smite his ass because Sarah is a married woman. And Abimelech is rightfully like, "Dude. You would fuckin' kill me and I didn't even know?! I just took Abraham's word for it! WTF, man? And God was all like, "I know… that's why I stopped you from touching her, dickweed."

Then he went back to Abraham and was all like, "WTF, bro? You almost got me killed by that crazy ass God of yours because YOU lied to me. Not cool, Bro-ham, not cool." Abe was like, "Heh… well uhh, I just sorta assumed that you'd have me whacked and take my wife because I know that Sarah is the sexiest 90 year old ever. Besides…uh, funny thing is she actually IS my half sister."

Yup. God blessed their union…brother and sister.

Of course, maybe Abe was just saying that to give himself as many excuses as possible. Whatevs.

He gives Abraham sheep, oxen, and slaves. Yeah, to appease God for believing Abraham's lie. Sarah's like, "Aight, king…we cool now." And God healed Abimelech's wife and sex slaves…because apparently he had "closed fast" all their wombs…because the king believed Abraham's lie.

This God guy is kinda turning out to be a real dick. How come he warned Abimelech, but not the pharaoh?

Chapter 21

1-21

So with God's help, Sarah conceives and gives birth to Isaac. 21.7 mentions something about Sarah nursing children, and I have to pause to paint a picture. Can you imagine suckling from a 90 year old titty? You're welcome for that mental image.

Sarah wants Hagar, that Egyptian hussy out of her house because she doesn't want the son of "this slave woman" to inherit what rightfully belongs to her son. Abraham didn't really like it but God tells him to go along with it and kick Hagar and Ishmael out. Poor Hagar. Here she is out on the street (wilderness) again. This time she's out on her ass with a kid, who strangely seems to be described as an infant here, although he was supposedly 16 when the penis carving took place. Whatevs.

God keeps them from dying of thirst in the wilderness, and he goes on to find a wife in Egypt. Remember, he has already promised that Ishmael will also have a shit ton of descendants. But he confided to Abraham that Isaac is the true heir to the promise he made. Besides, God can't let "a wild ass of a man" be Abraham's heir, right?

Chapter 22

Now we come to what is arguably the most despicable chapter in the Bible so far. When I first read this, I was too young to see the immorality in God's test of Abraham. God tells Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering. Strangely, Isaac is described as Abraham's "only son". Wow. As soon as Ishmael is outta the picture, God is like, "Ishmael, who?" Whatevs.

Abraham does not object. The NOAB comments: "The story does not presuppose a general practice of sacrifice of the firstborn, but does suggest that such a practice could be performed under extraordinary circumstances." This is not a surprise to anyone with a good knowledge of ancient cultures in this part of the world.

In 22.7 Isaac says, "the fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" Abraham says that God will provide the lamb… *wink wink* Then when they get where they're going, Abraham proceeds to tie Isaac up and place him on the Altar. He raises his knife to ritually slit Isaac's throat, and an Angel stops him. "…for now I know that you fear God, since you have not with-held your son, your only son, from me."

And I'm gonna stop right here because I don't give a flying fuck what the rest of this chapter says. It's just more promises about Abraham being blessed for passing this sadistic test. Seriously, how many times is God gonna reiterate this promise shit? It's not like he even kept it! The Jews need to sue his ass for breach of covenant.

This is the point where I can definitely say that God is a world class dick. I am morally superior to this monster that billions of people around the world claim to worship. If God spoke to me and told me to offer my firstborn son as a burnt offering…no wait, it wouldn't matter WHAT child. If God asked me to do this to any child, I would look him right in the eye and say, "fuck you." I would never harm an innocent child, no matter what. There is nothing that even the creator of the universe could do to get me, out of my own free will, to harm a child. That is beyond disgusting. The only way this story would have any sort of moral value is if Abraham looked at God and said, "No. I will not. Kill me now if you must, but I will do no such thing to this – or any – child." Every time someone tries to glean any kind of good moral out of this story sends me into a bloody rage. If this same thing happened TODAY, you know exactly what would happen. Abraham wouldn't be revered as an obedient servant of God. He'd be branded as a nutcase and put into a freakin' mental institution. He was willing to listen to voices in his head or visions that tell him to kill his child, tie the kid up, then go so far as drawing back the knife in his hand (just think about the absolute terror that fills the child at this point). What…should we praise him for hearing other voices or visions that stopped the filicide?

This of course brings Euthyphro's dilemma to mind. Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God? You can philosophize for hours, but let's get right down to it. The second option couldn't possibly be correct. That's saying that anything that God commands instantly becomes moral. In other words, God could say, "euthanize all children who don't reach the height of 48 inches by age 6," and that action would not just be right, but a moral imperative. The distinction between moral and immoral would cease to exist. A true believer would probably say that whatever God commands is indeed the right thing to do. But that presents an interesting problem that you may not have thought of.

How do you know that God isn't evil? No, seriously. It seems like a no-brainer, but it's actually not if you believe that morality comes from God. If whatever God commands is always moral, then he defines what is moral. By what standard then can you judge HIS actions? God could be actually be evil and you wouldn't know! Because anything he says is the right thing to do, he could command you to become a sadistic child serial killer, and it would be moral to do so! You could not discern whether this action is good or evil because God said it, therefore it is instantly good!

How do you know Satan isn't the good deity, and YHWH the evil deity? Did Satan order any genocides? Did he punish anyone because of someone else's wrongdoing? Did Satan kill any babies? Robert G. Ingersoll put it better than I ever could:

"In nearly all the theologies, mythologies and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities were always ordered by the good gods. The pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods. The frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality.

And I've heard believers say that obviously YHWH is the good guy because he is more powerful. So might makes right?

If you are a believer, and God spoke to you and asked you to make a blood sacrifice of your own child…complete with ritualistic throat slitting, and then burning on an altar, I guarantee that every last one of you would say no. It wouldn't matter if your life depended on it; it wouldn't matter if the lives of every other living thing in the entire world depended on it, you would not do it. And you would tell him so. You would say, "If YOU want this child to be killed, then YOU do it. YOU be the asshole."

And here's why God truly is a dick. Because if God were good he would say to that, "You have done well, my child. You have passed the test. By refusing to harm a child you have shown to me that you know that difference between right and wrong. This was only a test…you know that I would never command something evil. So now I know that you would know the difference between something that I commanded and something that Satan commanded." Of course, neither of these mythical fairies actually exists, and Satan hadn't been invented at this point in the Bible yet, but you see the point I'm making. This is not what happened. God requested child sacrifice, Abraham said OK and God praised him for that. In other words, Abraham passed the test for not being able to discern right and wrong. And furthermore, if you object to that and suggest that Abraham may have realized it was wrong, but still would have done it anyway because that's what the Almighty God asked of him, then Abraham is a dick, too!

God: "Let's see how much of a mindless sycophant this guy is. Let's see if he will do evil in my name without even recognizing that it IS evil simply because I asked him to do it."

And Abraham passed this test with flying colors. He is willing to do evil in the name of God.

[Of course, I'm using the word "evil" for simplicity and effect. I actually don't believe in the dichotomy of good vs. evil, but we'll talk about that some other time.]

I hope you can see why I said this post was important. If there was nothing else written in the Bible…if the text stopped right here at Genesis chapter 22, that's all I would need know to refuse to worship this God. I wouldn't care if the God of Israel actually did exist. He doesn't, thank goodness…but even if he did I would absolutely not worship him. This is reason #2 why I wouldn't.

And this is WAY longer than I wanted it to be, so we'll stop here and pick up at Chapter 23, when Sarah, the hottest 120 year old woman who ever lived, dies. Ciao!

Genesis 12-16; Abra(ha)m and the promise

OK, we're finally at Abraham. The Bible up to this point was mostly prologue. It was explanation of how the earth was created, how man was created, how man was separated from God, why life is so hard for mankind, why people live in different countries and speak different languages…and we have an official curse on the people of Canaan to boot! The stage has been set for the Children of Israel to make their entrance and royally screw everything up.

But first we gotta talk about the patriarchs. First, this Abraham guy…he is THE patriarch of the Israelites, and some stuff happens during his life that we must pay close attention to. I've got so much to say about him that his story will probably take 2 or 3 posts. For this entry I'll start at God's call to Abram and pause right before Abraham seals the deal by circumcision, which will happen in chapter 17.

Chapter 12

In this group of chapters, the promise of God to Abraham is echoed several times. The promises are, of course, to make him great, famous, have innumerable descendents who will be an independent nation with their own land. Here is the first call and promise. He tells Abram where to go, and starts making promises.

1 – Now the Lord said to Abram…

While God will sometimes justify his selections, as he did with Noah and will do in the future with Lot, he gives no reason for choosing Abram. He just got lucky in the ancestral lottery.

5

Slavery. Y'know after I had read the Bible the first time, I was a little disgusted at the fact that slavery was apparently A-OK with God. It made no sense to me whatsoever. I read the first few mentions of slavery over and over again. Because it was Abram who had slaves. The topic of slavery certainly wasn't unfamiliar to my world. A fair portion of my ancestry was in bondage quite recently. Historically speaking, slavery just ended. In the larger context of historical timescales, 144 years is not very long at all. We had all seen Roots, we all learned about slavery in the United States in school. The effects of this practice are profound and are still with us.

So there I was reading about Abram and his slaves. This was probably the first thing that really made me raise an eyebrow. Long after I first read the Bible, as time went on and my belief eroded, I eventually wondered this: How the HELL do black people follow this religion? Before I actually read the Bible, I assumed that God hated slavery. I assumed that he was on our side! All I had heard of slavery in the Bible was the story that everybody knew about: The Exodus! The Egyptians held the Israelites in bondage, and God delivered them because slavery is bad! It mirrored our own story. Whites held us in bondage, and eventually God delivered us because slavery is bad! Then when I started reading, it was apparent that God freed the Israelites because they were his chosen desert tribe. Anybody else in slavery, God apparently didn't give a damn.

The very word slavery invokes emotion among blacks in the United States. It is rightfully considered to be downright evil. It is just plain wrong to own another human being, and consider them property, and deny them freedoms that you have. Yet Abraham keeps slaves and God doesn't say anything bad about it. I remember waiting for God to condemn slavery in the Bible. I waited, and waited, and waited. It never happened. I cannot not worship or even respect a god who allowed people to be the property of other people. It's as simple as that. Slavery was just a little too close to home, so this was the first real bone I had to pick with God.

10-13

So there was a famine, and Abram and Sarai went to chill in Egypt. Before they entered, Abram got a little nervous. He knew that his wife was beautiful. Of course the patriarch of the Israelites had a hot wife. Back in the day, if a king saw your wife and wanted her, he was gonna take her and probably kill you. So he was all like, "OK, let's just say that you're my sister instead of my wife so they won't whack me." Let's remember this whole let's-say-you're-my-sister business. This will return.

14-20

And Abram was right! The pharaoh's toadies saw her and told the pharaoh about her and he made her his wife. Now let's just wait a minute before we continue, because you need a good laugh. Sarai was apparently a hot piece of ass at the age of 70. Yeah…remember this is an elderly couple we got here. Somehow a 70 year old woman turned heads, and the pharaoh was like, "Dayum! Lookit dat ass! Mmmph…must be jell-o 'cuz jam don't shake like that! Baby girl, what I gotta do to get wit' YOU?!"

And for those of you familiar with the culture of the internet:

Let's take a moment to point out the reference to "Pharaoh." Just Pharaoh. Capitalized, no less…as if it were a proper name. This is the first of many mentions of Pharaoh. Genesis and Exodus refer to "Pharaoh" all over the place. 155 times to be exact. Of course this refers to many different Egyptian pharaohs over many centuries. It never refers to them by name, curiously. Well actually, it's not curious. The names of characters in myths and fairy tales aren't always important. "Many years ago there was an Emperor so exceedingly fond of new clothes…"

Abram was treated very well. He totally dodged a bullet by concealing that he was Sarai's husband. Of course, the pharaoh is now shagging his wife. I suppose it's better be alive and having your wife get worked over by the pharaoh, than the alternative…which would have been being dead and still having the pharaoh get to bang your wife. And he got all kinds of goods, and slaves, and herds and flocks, and silver and gold! Abram is the first pimp in recorded history. He pimped the SHIT out of his own wife, no less. Bitch betta have my shekels!

But apparently God hit the pharaoh with great plagues… because he believed Abram's lie. Yeah, real fair, God. Somehow (it doesn't explain) the pharaoh finds out the truth and kicks those two troublemakers the hell outta his country. Inexplicably, he let them leave with all the riches he gave them. I lol'd.

Chapter 13

14-16

So he told Lot to move outta the basement and get a job, God was like, "Phew, now that THAT freeloader is gone, here's what I'm gonna do for YOU." And he promises to give him a shit ton of descendents. Apparently, there's nothing Bronze Age people wanted more than tons of descendants, because God promises that to EVERYBODY! Jeez! Funny thing is, mathematically, it's very likely that anybody alive in the 19^th century BCE who had any descendents at all had LOTS of them. For instance, if you know that your ancestry is mostly British, and you threw a rock into a crowd of the weirdo Bronze Age people who lived there in the 19^th century BCE, there's a VERY good chance that you just brained one of your ancestors. When you go back that far, any one person alive at that time is either the ancestor of no one alive today, or is the ancestor of millions of people alive today. That's just how ancestry works. I wish I could talk about this some more, but I'll leave you with that for now.

Chapter 14

So apparently, Lot got caught up in some shit. Some Canaanite kings rebelled against some eastern kings who had previously subjugated them. The eastern kings crushed the rebellion, and since Lot was living near the rebellious lands he ended up getting captured. Let's note that the rebels were Canaanites, and the eastern kings were Shemites, descendents of Noah's son, Shem. Get it…Shemites, Semites? Shem is the father of all Semitic peoples, if you recall.

Anyway, Abram takes his army of slaves and with 318 men, kicks the crap out of these 4 eastern kings who had kicked the crap out of 5 Canaanite kings. Obviously the scale of these conflicts is pretty piddling. But this cements Abraham's status as the true heir to the blessing of Shem, and not these poseur ass kings.

We have some telltale anachronisms here. Amalekites are mentioned in 14.7, but Amalek hadn't been born yet. The city of Dan mentioned in 14.14 was not named Dan until the time of Judges, and Dan himself also hadn't been born yet.

18-22

Here, God is referred to as "God Most High." The name used here is El, who was the high god of the Canaanite gods. And here was Abram referring to El! See what's happening here? We'll come to back to this in a couple of chapters.

Chapter 15

So here's God making more promises. Lots of descendents yada yada yada, all this land yada yada yada… This is like the third time already, and Abram should be thinking, "Uhhh, so what's the catch?" You just wait and see, Abram. You're gonna LOVE what he wants you to do.

When God makes these promises, Abram was wondering how the hell he was gonna get all these descendents, because Sarai was barren. He just figured that his slaves would have to be his heirs. But God assured him that it would be his own biological children who would be his heirs. Keep this promise-objection-reassurance pattern in mind as you read the Old Testament. I actually do respect Judaism for this part of their tradition; the fact that many of the main characters in the Bible will actually question God, almost to the point of arguing with him. Well, just wait 'till we get to Jacob. They're not always unquestioningly following orders, and that's a good thing. But there are times that they DO unquestioningly follow God's orders or go along with God's evil plans that kind of make a mockery of the bright spots where they question God.

12-16

We have a fake prophecy here. Because of the linguistics and the writing style, scholars are aware that this passage was inserted long after the section that it follows. It's talking about the Israelites being slaves in Egypt. Whoever inserted this probably thought he had gotten away with it and that no one would ever know that it was added. Gotcha!

18-21

And here's where God caused a whole lotta trouble. He delineates what lands he is giving to Abram's descendents…and lists the people already inhabiting those lands. *sigh* This particular promise is still fucking shit up in the world TODAY. We'll talk about this later.

Chapter 16

So Sarai has a GREAT idea.

"Ok, so God like promised you all these offspring and descendants and what not, right? Well how about you knock up my slave girl? THAT'S how we'll get around this whole barren thing!"

Sarai is the first of several barren women in the Bible desperate to have children. Notice it's always the woman's fault. You'll never hear about a man with a low sperm count.

It was actually customary for a wife to use a servant as a surrogate. The servant would have children and the woman would claim them as her own. Problem is, this isn't what God had in mind. He wasn't being clear earlier when he told Abram that his heirs would be his biological children. He left it open to interpretation about who the biological mother would be.

So Sarai handed Hagar the Egyptian slave girl over to Abram. I bet Abram wasn't complaining! He probably told Sarai, "I thought you'd never ask!" She got pregnant and apparently didn't look up to Sarai the way she used to. Sarai got pissed and was cursing Abram, but he was all like, "Chill! Don't take it out on me if Hagar is getting snotty…she's your servant…why don't you lay the smack down if she's copping a 'tude!" So Sarai smacks her bitch up, and Hagar is like, "Screw this; I'm outta here!" The angel of the Lord appears to her in the wilderness. It's apparent here that the angel of the Lord is not one of God's flunkies, but God himself in bodily form. After she explains why she has run away, he says, "Return to your mistress, and submit to her" … "I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude" … Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael, for the Lord has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin."

LOL @ "wild ass of a man". I know they weren't trying to be funny in this translation, but I swear, I'm gonna use the phrase "wild ass of a man" one of these days. So God commands her to go back to her mistress and submit to beatings and forced childbirth so that she can bear a wild ass of a man who will be the enemy of all humanity. Boy, I really don't understand why people are seriously obsessed with having a shit ton of descendents, because that's the only 'good' thing in her future according to God. But she takes the deal! WTF?

13 – So she named the Lord who spoke to her, "You are El-roi"; for she said, "Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?" ¹⁴ Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

El-roi translates as "God of seeing" or "God who sees". Beer-lahai-roi means "the Well of the Living One who sees me". "God of seeing" was the name of the deity at the Beer-lahai-roi well who, in this passage, is now identified with Israel's god. Look, there it is again! We're seeing the beginnings of the formation of the identity of the god of Israel. The ancestors of the Israelites had their tribal god as we know. Now take a look at what's happening in this passage and in 14.18-22. They're co-opting other known gods and identifying them with their god. Abram agreed that El, the high god of the Canaanite pantheon of gods is his god, and the writer of this passage is claiming another known deity that resided at this particular well to be the god of Israel as well. Interesting, no?

And we'll pause here at the birth of Ishmael, because this is about as long as I want this entry to be. I know how you kids have internet attention spans! We'll pick up at the penis butchering in the next installment!