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!

Genesis 6.9-11.31; Noah, the tower of Babel, to Abraham

So we pick up the story at Noah and the flood. I'm gonna make this brief. There are some things I kinda WANT to discuss here, but I'll try to save some of the stuff that will turn into quite lengthy exposition until after we have a few more related examples.

Chapter 6 [continued]

9-13

So the earth was corrupt and filled with violence. Now how'd THAT happen? Maybe it had something to do with the aforementioned "sons of God" and all that interspecies sex that was going on. No matter. God is gonna fix everything. By killing everything. This is the solution that a perfect, omnipotent being came up with. Even the all the little babies were wicked and corrupt, I suppose. I can't see this as a good solution to the world gone bad and being filled with violence. Especially given the amount of God-commanded, endorsed, and/or ignored violence that will later take place.

6.14 – 8.19

These verses describe Noah's instructions for building the ark and what to put in it. And y'know, I'd just gloss over this without saying anything other than, "this is obviously a myth," but there are quite a few young earth creationists out there who want this story to be the basis of what is taught in schools. There is a website called Answers In Genesis that is based on the text of The Bible (especially up to this point). This website is popular among people who don't accept the theory of evolution. It's so popular that I'm probably familiar with 90% of the arguments on the site because they are trotted out in debates about evolution all the time. So I'll spare you all the reasons why we know that this story is a myth. What I will give you is the REAL story: [borrowed from an earlier facebook note of mine]

There was a particularly catastrophic flood that occurred on the Euphrates, about 125 miles SE of present day Baghdad. Archaeological evidence shows that somewhere around 2900 BCE, there was a huge storm and the river rose an additional 22 feet. It overflowed the levees and of course, killed A LOT of people. One survivor of this natural disaster was a Sumerian king named Ziasudra. He resourcefully commandeered a commercial barge, loaded it with merchandise, and rode the flood downstream into the Persian Gulf where he finally ran aground. Thankful to be alive, he offered a sacrifice in a hilltop temple. And there you have it – big flood, boat full of stuff, happy landing on a hilltop. And we have geological and archaeological evidence to prove this. It should be no surprise that 6 other cultures in the area had stories LIKE the Noah story. They all experienced this flood. But it was NOT a worldwide flood. Gen 7.19 states, in no uncertain terms, that this flood was supposedly worldwide. It was not. It is a myth based on a REALLY BIG flood, but that is all.

By the way, Noah had 7 days to build this thing. That's a tall order for a 600 year old man. Heeeey, didn't God limit mankind's lifespan to 120 years in 6.3?

Chapter 8

20-22

So Noah had to take some extra "clean" animals…well, according to the non-priestly source which comprises this part of the text. The priestly source doesn't make the distinction, because the laws about what animals are clean and unclean aren't stated until around Leviticus. So in that tradition only one pair of animals is taken. So when he performs this sacrifice in 8.20, he causes some extinctions. Well at least the author(s) of the non-priestly source (J, as it is called by scholars) of the story kinda thought about that, and wrote in the part about God commanding him to take extra animals. But the anachronism gives it away.

21 – And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, "I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.

The pleasing odor of burning flesh. Let this be duly noted that God loves the smell of burning flesh. Nearly identical language was used in the Gilgamesh epic: "the gods smelled the pleasant fragrance" and regretted their decision to kill all of humanity. I'm still not sure how the pleasing odor of burnt sacrifices made him swear never to kill everything on the planet ever again. Just chalk it up to the unfamiliarity of the Bronze Age mindset, and their portrayal of the deity they created.

Well, I guess this half-heartedly explains why God liked Abel's offerings and not Cain's. [But not really…let's see what happens in a few verses.] At any rate, was it Cain's fault that he was a "tiller of the ground"? I live in Iowa, where a fair percentage of the population are "tillers of the ground". So all you farmers out there, don't send up a burnt offering of corn! God hates that shit!

Chapter 9

1-7

Be fruitful and multiply! And finally, God allows us to eat meat. Yeah, remember 1.29-30? He said that he gave humans and animals plants and fruits to eat. We were strictly vegetarians. But now he specifically says that we can eat meat. We imagine that this is a partial concession to the "violence" observed prior to the flood. But you cannot eat their blood. This is of course why an animal must have the blood drained from its body before it is declared Kosher.

We also have an injunction against killing humans. At this point it actually applies to Jew and Gentile alike. And you can tell by the way I said that that this might change in the future. We shall see…

8-17

Here is the first covenant mentioned in The Bible. This covenant is God's promise to never kill all people and animals, or curse the ground of the entire earth…ever again. God sets his weapon, the bow, in the sky facing away from the earth as a sign of his promise to not murder everything again. Yes, YHVH has a weapon. Refer to Ps 7.12-13 and Hab 3.9-11. Most gods do, after all. Thor has a hammer, Zeus has lightning bolts, others have swords, spears, bows, tridents, etc. The god of the Hebrews uses a bow. That's actually kinda cool! I always imagined that if I ever got into hunting, I'd be a bow hunter.

20-27

So Noah had his priorities in line. One of the first things he did was a plant a vineyard so he could get drunk. I mean here you are in a world completely devoid of people except you and your family. Fuck, man. Would that not be hell? I'd hit the bottle as soon as I could get some grapes to grow, too! So he passes out in his tent, butt ass nekkid. One of his sons, Ham, saw his drunk ass and told his brothers, Shem and Japheth. They grabbed some kind of garment, put it over their shoulders and walked in backwards to cover Noah. Talk about homophobia. After Noah woke up, he got pissed at Ham and cursed the fuck out all his descendents! WTF? Ham probably walked in by mistake! And he gets all of his descendents cursed for it? Another thing; it mentions that Noah curses all of Canaan, declaring that they shall be slaves to the descendents of his brothers. Shem and his descendants are blessed to the highest degree of blessitude, and for some reason Japheth gets a minor blessing. *shrug* Whatevs. I guess he should be glad he didn't get completely shat on like Ham.

Ok, let's be real here. Obviously a later redactor came in and added the whole 'Canaan curse' bit, setting the stage for and justifying the later conquest of Canaan.

"See, it says so right here…all of YOU people are to be our slaves."

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

Hilarity ensues.

Chapter 10

Here, the narrative lays out a sort of "table of nations" based on kinship. They basically list all the different peoples they know of which of Noah's sons they are descended from. Seeing as Shem is the (inexplicably) blessed one, I'll give you one guess as to which of Noah's sons the Hebrew people are descended from. Shem is a father of all Semitic peoples, and his great-grandson, Eber is a father of the Hebrew people. You may have noticed the similarity between "Eber" and "Hebrew".

Chapter 11

The tower of Babel story is from the non-priestly tradition, apparently reinforcing the idea of a definite inviolable boundary between the human and divine realms. Once again, God actually seems to fear something that the humans might do. I originally saw this merely has the Hebrew people's explanation for why people speak different languages. I mean without something like the modern study of linguistics it must have been a complete mystery why people spoke different languages. But that's not all this story says.

In this improved translation, you can see that the humans are (inexplicably) fearful of being scattered, and want to "make a name for themselves" by building a great city with a tower that reaches to the heavens. Let's just scratch our heads at this weird desire for them to make a name for themselves by building a tower with its top in the heavens and move on. The point here is that violates the diving commandment to disperse throughout the earth. So God acts (apparently with his "heavenly court" as he speaks in first person plural here) to stop the people by confusing their speech and scattering them. So it's also an explanation of why people live in separate nations as well as speak distinct languages.

Strangely enough this story appears after chapter 10 had talked about how the descendants of Noah's sons had their own languages and lands.

After that story, we get to everybody's favorite part of Genesis: 'the begats'. Raise your hand if you stopped reading The Bible here. *raises hand* I know this is where I stopped the first time I tried to read The Bible. But after we get through all of 'the begats', we get to Abraham.

And I'll definitely stop here, because I have a lot to say about Abraham and his god. So we'll pick up the story at the patriarch of the Israelites.

Introduction and Genesis 1-6.8; creation to Noah

So now the work begins in earnest. I wish that I could do the entire blog first and then edit and post the whole thing, because I know that as I continue my style and depth of analysis will change a bit, and I already wish it could be more uniform than I know it's going to be. But the entire work will take quite some time, and I might as well just take you on the journey in real time, more or less. So here are some notes about my writing style, biases, and my thoughts about what the content will look like in general.

When I write, I try to make the text look the way it would sound if I were talking to you. I use a lot of caps, bold, italics, ellipses and parentheses. So don't ignore them; they're my verbal inflections. I'll make liberal use of humor, moderate use of sarcasm, and language that some would consider vulgar. But those words are part of my speech and thought, so I will be dropping some four letter words from time to time. Don't expect grammatically correct proper English at any rate. I use slang when I speak, and therefore I use slang when I write.

As you already know, I think that The Bible is mythic storytelling. I do not believe that it was divinely inspired. I don't believe that there was a supernatural being in existence to inspire anything in the first place. I believe that very few of the moral prescriptions contained in The Bible are relevant to us in the 21^st century. So my interpretation will reflect this viewpoint. But of course, my commentary will also necessarily consider and of course contrast my interpretation with many interpretations that believers may subscribe to. In particular, I'll make sure to comment on my beliefs before and after reading The Bible for the first time, and my beliefs now.

I will capitalize God as a proper noun when I used it as a name, but I will not capitalize his pronouns. That's just silly.

The contents will not display the full extent of my Bible scholarship. But I want people to actually read this, so I don't want to bore anyone to tears.

I'll blog reasonably sized chunks; however much I can read and comment on in the amount of time I have. I'll try to do this on days when I have a few hours to spare. I'll comment on entire books, entire chapters, individual chapters, groups of verses, individual verses, whatever I think deserves some attention. But I'll also skip chapters and verses, if there's nothing I want to comment on.

I'll refer to The New Oxford Annotated Bible as the NOAB. I will also make reference to the documentary hypothesis. I recommend reading at least the introductory section of the Wikipedia article. Although there are other theories (with a small 'T') being advanced, from what I have seen, the documentary hypothesis is best supported, and explains the most.

It would be best if my readers could follow along in their NOAB as well, but other translations will suffice. The only other translation I've read is the KJV and the NOAB is quite different. The differences aren't just to update the archaic English, but to correct errors in translation. So in many cases the meanings of verses will change significantly from the KJV. I don't have to patience to go through both translations and comment on the differences, so go out and get the NOAB! You can find it at any bookstore because it is THE academic study Bible. You'll have the added benefit of getting the read The Bible along with me, if you're never read it from cover to cover. And I would love for any believers following this blog who haven't read The Bible cover to cover to read along with me in the NOAB. Minds may be blown when we get to the New Testament.

This is definitely intended to be interactive. I want your comments, corrections, criticisms, or commendations. My writing is about what I think, but tell me what you think.

So with no further ado, here is the The New Oxford Annotated Bible.

Genesis

This is the Hebrew people's account of their own origins, based on their oral traditions. These oral traditions are, of course, much older than the texts, and if we could hear them told the way they were millennia ago, they might be indistinguishable from other oral traditions from the time period. Unfortunately, I have to start right off the bat glossing over one of my favorite areas of religious scholarship, but I'll try to mention a few interesting things before moving on. I would say that it's indisputable that the Pentateuch is a composite work. The Hebrew people were no more a unified culture at the time of the Bible's construction than they are now. Each tradition that contributed to the texts had their own cultural idiosyncrasies, their own laws, their own interpretation of their deity(-ies), and their own narrative of their history. We will notice how different traditions place emphasis on different aspects of their culture and the relationship with their god.

Their concept of God wasn't what we think of when we refer to the Hebrew god today. Just like the other peoples in Canaan, the Hebrews were polytheistic. They believed in their god, but they also believed in all the gods of all the other cultures around them. They just held that their god was the biggest, best, most powerful, and indeed the father of all the other gods. So when you read about Baal, Nergal, Ashima, Nibhaz, Tartak, and Adrammelech, realize that the Hebrews believed that these gods actually existed. But you'll notice that as we read on, the text will change from assuming that these other gods exist but are inferior to El/YWVH, to denying that they exist at all. Judaism became monotheistic. And at the time, that was just crazy talk. How dare they insist that their god was the only one that existed? It was certainly arrogant of them. And can't you just smell the origins of anti-semitism because of this arrogant belief? I doubt that the idea was invented by any one priest, but slowly evolved from the belief that their god was superior to the others. And just who is El? And who is YWVH (Yahweh)? Well they both refer to the Hebrew god in the Bible. But El was worshipped by other cultures, too. He even had a wife!

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to tease you with that discussion and move on. I highly recommend further reading on this topic. I'm gonna borrow from a video posted on Evid3nc3's YouTube channel in saying that most people from the Judeo-Christian tradition cannot even begin to understand what they mean by the term "God". His professor suggested that Karen Armstrong's "A History of God" is a good place to start.

Chapters 1 & 2

There are a few key concepts to note in the first two chapters. For one, we probably all know by now that there are two creation stories. The story in chapter 1 is more detailed and was written later than the overview contained in chapter 2. Let's notice how God creates: he speaks things into existence. God said, "let there be light; and there was light." That's how God gets down, he speaks and stuff happens. Speech and words can be sacred. This idea will be revisited. Along the same lines, so is breath. Jews have no problem with abortion because they believe that life begins when you take your first breath. God breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils.

As far as the creation story itself…well it's a myth, just like all the other creation stories of all the other religions of the world. It didn't happen in the last 10,000 years, and it certainly didn't take place in 6 days. The order is bassackwards, too. Plants created before there was a sun, birds created before other land animals, and of course humankind given godlike dominion over them. We've come to realize that apparently, God gave bacteria dominion over us.

So woman was created from the rib of man right? Well, the Hebrew word for rib actually may have been used as a euphemism for the penis bone, or baculum. It's long, it's curved…get it? The ancient Hebrews had cut up enough animals to realize that we're the only ones who don't have a penis bone (and spider monkeys). So this explains why man doesn't have one: God used it to create woman. I think that phrase is more poetic – woman was created from the penis bone of man.

Chapter 3

1

The story says that the serpent was the craftiest animal. This is written as a characteristic of the animal. There is no mention of Satan speaking through the snake. The annotations mention that it was later that people interpreted this as Satan speaking through the snake. It's all very similar to animistic religions that assign different anthropomorphic traits to animals. You know the traits – Ants are thrifty, grasshoppers are lazy, foxes are crafty, snakes are shifty, lions are noble, rabbits are quick and clever, etc. I suspect that THE most ancient supernatural beliefs were probably animistic. The point I want to make here is that the story is saying that this was a talking snake – not Satan. The snake itself is doing the deceiving. Just like all the talking animals in other folk religions, and in children's fairy tales. Christianity here is like bad fan fiction, imposing its own interpretation (whether there is room for interpretation or not) in order to form it's version of the supposed continuation of the story.

7

This is where their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked. Genesis 2.25 mentions that when they were created, they were naked but not ashamed. It is obviously pointing this out to contrast with 3.7. So when it says that they weren't ashamed by their nudity, are we to imply that they were supposed to be? Well once they learn the difference between "good and evil," suddenly they are ashamed of their nudity. This implies that there is something to be ashamed about…that nudity is bad or inappropriate in some way. But people wouldn't think that there is anything wrong with being naked unless they were taught that as small children. There are cultures in Africa and South America where everyone is naked. They don't wear clothing as much as ornamentation. Their genitals and breasts are not covered. So these people don't know the differences between good and evil?

The annotations note that their nakedness is pointed out to illustrate their uncivilized status. "[C]lothing [is] is a mark of civilization in nonbiblical primeval narratives." So is the bible promoting their uncivilized status as preferable?... Mmm, yes and no. We'll talk about this a little more in a bit.

Does anyone have a good argument why nudity is bad or inappropriate? I can't think of a good one that doesn't somehow disparage cultures that don't wear clothes. But I can think of a good reason why most societies do wear clothes. Unlike most other primates, and most other mammals in fact, humans are mostly hairless, and we do not have large stores of fat under our skin. Look at where humans evolved, and all the naked people still live: in the tropics. It's warm and there is no winter. These people also have plenty of melanin to protect against sun damage. Everywhere outside of the tropics, you'll need to wear clothes for at least part of the year. If you doubt this, try standing naked even in a room that is a "perfect" room temperature of 72°. You'll be surprised at how well our clothes actually insulate us. Clothes are needed for warmth, not to "cover your shame."

8

"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden."

Wait, WHUT?! Walking? God was physically walking through the garden? 0_o Was he naked? Hmmm, is he circumcised? Everything about God is perfect, right? What does the perfect penis look like? I mean he HAS to have one, right? God created man (specifically males, that is) in his own image. So he's gotta have a holy phallus, presumably uncircumcised. Does he get the Brazilian? I bet God is hairy as all get out. I mean he's a middle eastern male! You just get that old WHITE guy image out of your head right this instant. The ancient Hebrews had never encountered the peoples who would go on to be Europeans. Whatever their god was, he was NOT European. Hard to get that image out of your head, isn't it? You'll notice that the idea of who or what God is will become more and more nebulous as time passes. Because let me tell ya, back when their earliest oral traditions began, God was a dude. He had a body, he could walk around, he could be wrestled (as we'll see later). Therefore he had a face, he had hands, he had feet, he had body hair…he had a penis. But our concept of God has become so nebulous that the questions I was asking and the assertion that he must have had a penis seem absurd.

14

Snakes do not eat dust.

22 - 24

Ok, the humans fucked up and ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Now it is apparent that God actually fears humans becoming immortal by eating fruit from another magical tree: the Tree of Life. Bet you didn't realize there were two different trees, did you? I know I didn't until the second time I read The Bible. So he banishes him from the garden, and puts one of those freaky cherubim and a flaming sword to keep them out for good. OK…why the hell did you MAKE the tree to begin with? Seriously. We're gonna call this "The Sauron Blunder." And he's actually concerned that the people will eat it and become immortal. Couldn't he just…oh I don't know, make the fruit completely innocuous with a snap of his finger? I mean he completely set them up to fail by LETTING them eat from the first no-no tree. That's stupid enough. But there's another no-no tree (the Tree of Life) that he absolutely can't let them eat from. So rather than make the tree disappear or something, he puts up a defense system involving a hideous monst- I mean angel, and a flaming sword. And of course, the story couldn't possibly allow for them to eat from that tree, because people don't live forever. So as you have guessed, this is the Hebrew people's explanation for why people don't live forever. And now that they've pissed God off by eating from the first no-no tree, they are forever denied access to immortality. I mean…it was RIGHT THERE. Not that we were allowed to eat from it ANYWAY, but now we REALLY can't eat from it. So much for "free will" huh? Apologists argue that God wanted them to have free will and that's why he allowed the incident with the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil to go down. Apparently he can't take the chance that we could become immortal (for SOME unknown reason…as you'll see, God apparently feels that he doesn't owe his sentient, intelligent, curious beings explanations for anything)!

I won't get into the free will argument right now. It's not hard to show it for the nonsense that it is, but I want to continue for now.

Of course, I know that none of this weirdness actually happened. This is the Hebrews' explanation for the human condition. It answers a few questions I posed earlier. Yes, The Bible does imply that civilized man is bad. This entire story is about man's evolution from uncivilized to civilized. Their contention is that becoming civilized necessarily involves severing the connections established earlier in the story between God, Man, and Earth. Everything was hunky-dory at first, but humankind's own nature is the reason why life is so hard. Hey, they had to come up with SOME kind of explanation for why life sucks so hard. Because trust me, we
can't fathom how shitty life was for the average person living in the ancient world. You're born, you work your ass off just to be barely able to feed yourself and your family, then you die…and return to dust. Note that it says nothing about an afterlife. It says you return to dust. The ridiculousness of heaven and the offensiveness of hell are invented later. But remember that theme when you read the origin myths of other cultures. They all attempt to explain why life sucks BALLS. Here is the Hebrew myth explaining that.

Chapter 4

1-16

And here we have the story of Cain and Abel. Even as a kid I was completely confused by why God liked Abel's offering of the firstlings of his flock, but did not like Cain's offering of fruits and vegetables. Why would he play favorites like that? Can't you imply from the text that before "the fall" Man and Eve only ate fruit? (Adam is apparently the Hebrew word for "man"… he is actually not explicitly named by God!) I have occasionally heard Christian apologists argue that predation didn't happen until after "the fall". So doesn't that mean that when everything was perfect, nobody ate meat? Doesn't that mean that carnivory is a corruption of how God intended for things to be in the first place? Shouldn't he like the fruit more than the meat? Why doesn't it explain why God likes Abel's offering better?

Yeah, apologists can throw out the silly 'free will' argument for the Garden of Eden debacle, but what's the argument for why God screwed Cain over? He set him up to fail so that he could make an example of him? Umm, yeah…in a nutshell, that's the explanation. I've read a few, and they make my head hurt. The intellectual flaming hoops that people will jump through to make excuses for God's capricious, malicious behavior leave me awestruck. Would you set up one of YOUR children to fail so that you can could then punish them severely to serve as an example to your other children?

But this isn't nearly the worst of God's behavior. Cain did kinda screw himself up with the obviously premeditated murder and all. But I'm not happy with God's unexplained divine preference, and his allowing Abel to be killed. He could have stayed Cain's hand and then punished him for wanting to kill Abel. But no.

Who mourns for Abel?

19

"…Lamech took two wives…"

Polygamy. Apparently OK here. God did not voice his disapproval at all. Why aren't Jews and Christians polygamous? Maybe somewhere later God will denounce polygamy…I guess we shall see.

Chapter 5

This is a second recounting of the first generations from creation to flood. This is from the Priestly source, which I may refer to as 'P'. This is the tradition that the first creation account (1.1—2.3) is drawn from.

Here is where we have that list of people before the flood who lived to be like 900 years old and what not. When I first read this when I was 12, I just believed it. I remember thinking, "Wow, people sure did live a long time back then!" Didn't question it at all. Why would I? It's right there in The Bible! I look at it now and I'm aware that this is mythic storytelling. There are Babylonian writings that have similar lists of heroes before the flood who lived to be similar ages. It's enlightening that the NOAB annotations point out the parallels with myths in other cultures.

Chapter 6

1-4

Ok this is just some freaky-deaky stuff right here. The "sons of God" started checkin' out some of that hot human ass, and decided they wanted some. The knocked up some of the women and apparently gave birth to some ancient, unnamed "warriors of renown". These unholy divine-human unions also produced a race of giants called the Nephilim. That's right…motherfucking giants. Somebody needs to write some fan fiction about this! This would have been a really cool part for them to go into detail about! Seriously! A good fiction writer could have a field day with this period of time! Well, the question is, how do we know that there wasn't more of an account of this weird interspecies shagging? At any rate, divine-human copulation is found in almost every mythology. I just think it would have been more interesting if they delved into it more in Hebrew mythology.

[Update: After this writing I learned that the "Book of Enoch" IS about this weird shit that Genesis glossed over. Talks about all the weirdness that ensued when these angels came down and started screwin' around. I may have to blog it someday!]

5

"The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually." Well, The Bible's right about that

6

"And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart."

Wait, what? Sorry? Grieved? Heart?? He's definitely feeling some very human emotions here, the most problematic of which is 'regret'. Let's hope he doesn't feel some of the BAD human emotions…he doesn't, right?

So about that regret. Ummm, how can an all-knowing being regret something? How can he be sorry that we ended up the way we ended up when it was he who created us the way we are. Even if you wanna jump back on the 'free will' argument, which I'm not going to be able to ignore for very much longer, he still created us with the tendencies to act however it is we act. And what about the whole omniscience angle? Ask any modern adherent to any of the Abrahamic religions and their definition of God will include omniscience. I'm gonna call bullshit at this point. If God regrets doing something he is NOT omniscient. Will The Bible later claim that he is omniscient? Because so far, he is not.

7

I'm sorry I made you…please die now.

8

"But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord."

Which is absolutely inexplicable, in light of subsequent events.

 

So that's all for now. We'll pick up right where God explains his plan to murder everything alive, and what Noah's role in this plan will be.