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!
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