Déjà Lu

OT: Psalms 18-22

Psalm 18

[This is David talking after God saved him from Saul.] God is awesome. He’s my rock. I was about to die but I asked him for help and he heard and saved me. His anger caused an earthquake. [And then, um, God became a dragon?] “Smoke went up from God’s nostrils; out of his mouth came a devouring fire; flaming coals blazed out in front of him!” (8). Smaug-God dispersed my enemies with arrows and lightning. God saved me and rewarded me for my righteousness, because I’ve followed all his rules. God, you are nice to good people and mean to bad people. You’re perfect. Nobody but God is divine. God makes me strong. God helped me annihilate my enemies. “I crushed them like dust blown away by the wind; I threw them out like mud dumped in the streets” (42). Thanks to God, “foreigners grovel before me” (44). Yay for God who “delivered me from violent people” (48) but then helped me kill them!

Psalm 19

“Heaven is declaring God’s glory” (1). Each day tells the next day about God’s awesomeness, and spreads the news worldwide. God built a tent for the sun. “The sun is like a groom coming out of his honeymoon suite” (5). It runs across the sky and heats everything. God is a perfect teacher, whose commands make people wiser and happier and healthier. His judgment is true. God’s laws are worth more than gold. God, please forgive any sins I have unknowingly committed, and prevent me from willful disobedience. I hope my words and thoughts please you, God.

Psalm 20

I hope God helps you when you’re in trouble. Let God protect you, remember your offerings, and make your dreams come true. Then we’ll celebrate. I know God saves his favorite people. Some people trust worldly things, and they will collapse, but we who trust God will stand strong. God save the king and give us what we want!

Psalm 21

God, the king is glad that you gave him what he asked for. You gave him life, glory, and happiness. Because he trusts you, he won’t fall. God, you will capture all your enemies, and “you will light them up like an oven on fire. God will eat them whole in his anger; fire will devour them” (9). You’ll kill their children, too, for good measure. They tried to hurt you, so you will shoot arrows into their faces. Yay for God’s strength!

Psalm 22

God, why have you left me alone? I cry out but you don’t answer. You’re holy and my ancestors trusted you and you helped them. People hate me and tease me for trusting you. “I was thrown on you at birth; you’ve been my God since I was in my mother’s womb” (10). A bunch of evil people surround me, threatening me, and I’m terrified. My strength is gone, my mouth is dry, and you’ve left me to die. They watch me and divvy up my clothes. God, come save me! Oh good, you’ve finally answered me! Now I’ll celebrate you and make others honor you because you listened to my cries for help. Let all the sufferers find God and praise him! Everyone will worship you because you are the only ruler. The strong and the weak all serve you, and people who aren’t alive yet will serve you too and tell their children how great you are.

Highlights

There’s one part in psalm 22 when David announces, for no apparent reason, “I can count all my bones!” (17)

Lowlights

Everything else. But also, the hypocrisy of thanking God for saving you from “violent people” and then killing them brutally. Also, David’s imperialist tendencies, where he wants to make foreigners grovel before him. By the way, David seems to get himself into trouble a lot. He constantly talks about being surrounded by his enemies and despairing and then being saved by God. Are all these psalms retelling of one battle, or is he just a terrible soldier who constantly needs to be rescued from death? Also, I dislike the hereditary nature of religion described in psalm 22. Children shouldn’t have people choose their beliefs for them, let alone fetuses. Oh, also, there’s that part where God eats people alive.

NT: Mark 2-3

Mark 2

Jesus goes back to Capernaum, and people flock to hear him. Some bring in a paralyzed man – because they can’t carry him through the crowd, they bust open a hole in the roof and lower him into the room where Jesus is speaking. Jesus is impressed with their creative problem-solving, so he tells the paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven. The legal experts in the room start mumbling and saying that Jesus is blaspheming because “only the one God can forgive sins” (7). Jesus basically tells them they’re stupid, and says, “Well, it’s easier to forgive sins than to make paralytics walk. Now you’ll know that the Human One can forgive sins!” Then he tells the paralyzed man to take his mat and walk home, which he does, amazing everyone.

This is what Levi said to Jesus later.

Jesus goes out and walks around teaching people some more. He sees Levi, a tax-collector, and tells him to follow him. So Levi follows Jesus…to Levi’s own house, where Jesus has invited himself over for lunch. Awkward. Jesus and his disciples eat with a bunch of tax-collectors and sinners. The legal experts are like, “Hey disciples! If Jesus is so cool, why is he hanging out with sinners? Huh!?” Jesus is like, “Dumbasses, sick people need doctors, not healthy people. I’m here for the sinners, not the righteous.”

Some people ask Jesus why John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast, but he doesn’t. Jesus says wedding guests can’t fast while the groom is still around, but soon the groom will leave and then they will fast. Then Jesus goes back to two metaphors I still don’t really understand: don’t sew a new patch on old clothes, and don’t pour new wine into old wineskins.

Jesus and his disciples walk through the fields picking wheat on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees freak out. Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for people, not the other way around.

Mark 3

Jesus goes to the synagogue, where there is a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees are looking for an excuse to arrest Jesus, so they watch to see if he will break Sabbath law by healing the man. But didn’t they just see Jesus breaking Sabbath law by picking wheat…? Anyway, Jesus asks them whether it’s legal to save lives or kill on the Sabbath, but they don’t answer. Jesus is angry and “deeply grieved at their unyielding hearts” (5). He heals the man’s hand and the Pharisees go to Herod’s supporters to plot Jesus’s death.

Jesus goes back to the lake and, as usual, people come from all over to see him and be healed, so he asks his followers to get a boat ready for him so he isn’t trampled to death. When evil spirits see him, “they fall down at his feet and shout, ‘You are God’s Son!’” (11) and then Jesus is like “shhhh don’t reveal my identity!” Which is odd since he keeps healing people and walking on water and shit. Also, why would evil spirits listen to his orders? Although the text ambiguously says that Jesus tells “them” not to say who he is, and it’s unclear whether “them” refers to the evil spirits, the people trying to be healed, or the disciples. In any case, his secrecy is weird since he hasn’t exactly kept his magic powers on the DL.

Jesus goes up a mountain and appoints twelve apostles to go preach on his behalf and gives them the power to throw out demons. Also he gives cool nicknames to some of them. He picks Simon, but calls him Peter. He picks James and John, but calls them the Sons of Thunder. He also picks Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, a different James, Thaddaeus, a different Simon, and Judas Iscariot, but they don’t get cool nicknames.

Jesus and his followers go into a house to eat but the crowds make it impossible. Jesus’s family comes and says he’s out of his mind and tries to “take control of him” (21). By Jesus’s family do we mean Mary and Joseph? Wouldn’t they know that he’s the son of God because of all the angel messengers and the immaculate conception and all that? So why would they ruin his plans by trying to have him committed? Anyway, the legal experts say he’s possessed by the devil and that’s how he throws out demons. Jesus is like, “Idiots. How could the devil throw himself out? A house divided will fall. If Satan fights himself, he’s screwed. I promise that humans will be forgiven for every possible kind of sin except insulting the Holy Spirit.”

His mother and brothers arrive. When Jesus hears that they’re outside waiting for him, he’s like, “What do you mean, my family is outside? My family is in here! All of you who obey God are my family.” Awwwww.

Highlights

I am a fan of the “humanity is one big family” trope (although obviously I wouldn’t make membership contingent on worship).

Lowlights

You know, this book is unnecessarily repetitive. We haven’t really heard anything new in this installment. Mark is just telling us what Matthew already did, and David is just writing more psalms that sound exactly like the other ones. It’s getting boring and I am running out of funny to make it interesting. =(

Emily Dickinson > God

HEY EVERYBODY I TURNED IN THE FULL DRAFT OF MY THESIS YESTERDAY!!

This has a couple of implications.

1) I will probably graduate! It was touch and go for a while there.

2) Now I can respond to all the emails that have been languishing in my inbox for the past couple of weeks. If you’re one of those poor neglected souls, please accept my apologies.

3) It’s time to get Biblical again! This weekend, as promised, I’ll be publishing a couple of gargantuan catching-up posts. So grab some snacks or roll a joint or something, because we’re going to be here for a while.

OT: Exodus 15-19

Exodus 15

Moses & co., to celebrate the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of their fellow human beings, sing a happy song! It goes a little something like this.

Yay! God drowned all the Egyptians!
God’s the man. He saved us. We like him.
Did I mention that he drowned all the Egyptians?
Sometimes he kills people!
He “shatters the enemy” and “burns them up like straw” (6-7)!
Isn’t that cool?
Also, he just drowned a bunch of people.
People were chasing us,
But he drowned them all.
Who else is as cool as God? Nobody!
He led us to safety.
He scared all our enemies away.
He brought us to our homeland.
He’ll rule forever.

For good measure, Miriam, Aaron’s and Moses’s sister, leads all the women in dancing and playing tambourines and singing along with the chorus (which is one of the many parts about how God just drowned a bunch of people).

The Moses leads everyone out into the desert. They go three days without finding water, which I’m pretty sure would kill them if this were real life. Then they find somewhere with water, but the water is “bitter” (23). They panic about what to drink. God shows Moses a tree, and Moses somehow intuits from this that he is supposed to throw the tree into the water. For some reason, when he does that, the water turns sweet.

God makes a rule that if the Israelites obey all his commandments, he won’t give them any of the diseases he tormented the Egyptians with. Isn’t that nice? Then the Israelites arrive at an oasis with exactly 12 springs and 70 palm trees, and they camp there. I’m guessing this is somehow symbolic of the fact that 70 members of Jacob’s family, including the 12 sons who founded the 12 tribes of Israel, migrated to Egypt back in the day. See? I’m paying attention.

Exodus 16

They leave the numerology oasis and relocate to the Sin desert, which is confusing because last time I checked they were nowhere near Nevada. By now they’ve been wandering in the desert for like six weeks, and everybody is yelling at Aaron and Moses, saying they were better off back in Egypt where they could sit down and cook their food like normal people and they should have look at a map before they left and we told them to pull over at the next rest stop but no they just had to wait until they got to the one with a Starbucks but here we are an hour later and we still have to pee and no Starbucks so where does that leave us? And Aaron and Moses are like well we only did this because you complained about the whole slavery thing every day so we’re doing this for you but you can’t be satisfied with anything and you were the one who wanted coffee in the first place and it’s your own fault we don’t have bread here because while we were out negotiating with Pharaoh and getting us set free your job was to pack up the food and jewelry and it certainly wasn’t us who told you wait until the last minute to make the bread and now you’re complaining because your bread is too flat and you don’t have coffee and you could feel free to take the lead any time but you’d much rather sit back and keep complaining and for god’s sake quiet down in the backseat because NO WE ARE NOT THERE YET!

Yes, this actually exists.

God sees Moses is in trouble so he’s like “I got you, Moses! I’m gonna make it rain bread.” So he rains bread down on the desert, and it covers the sand in thin flaky layers, like frost, which sounds like it would be really difficult to gather without getting sand all up in your bread. Everybody gathers it anyway and Moses tells them to eat it all and trust that God will send more in the morning, but some people save some just in case, but it becomes infested with worms, or melts in the sun. Gross. But then on sixth day Moses tells everyone to collect double weird-flaky-heaven-bread because tomorrow God is going to rest and won’t rain bread, so they save half and it doesn’t become infested, so they eat the rest the next day. Some people go out to look for more anyway, and God is like “OMG why can’t you just do what I say? I gave you double food for exactly this reason. Go home and rest.” So they do. Apparently the flaky magic bread, which the Israelites call manna, looks like cilantro seeds but tastes like honey wafers. Moses, on God’s instructions, saves a jar of the manna for posterity so future generations can see what the Israelites ate in the desert when they escaped from Egypt. They all wander the desert for forty more years and live off of manna until they finally get to Canaan.

Exodus 17

Wait, now we’re back to the whole wandering-the-desert part. Sigh. So they leave the Sin desert and they don’t have any water and they all complain to Moses and he’s like “why don’t you trust God?!” And they’re like “BECAUSE WE’RE FUCKING THIRSTY.” So Moses is like “God, you gotta help me out man!” So God’s like “go on ahead with some elders and use your magic stick to whack a rock and it will squirt water.” Then the Amalekites come fight with the Israelites. Moses tells Joshua to pick some strong men and go fight them, which he does while Moses sits on a hill with his magic stick to watch. Moses quickly figures out that whenever he puts his hand in the air (presumably the one holding the stick), the Israelites start winning the battle, but whenever he puts his hand down, the Amalekites start winning, which is a dumb system if you ask me, since God could just make the battle go however he wants without making Moses wave his hands around. Moses’s arms start getting tired so people get him a rock to sit on and help hold his arms up and then the Israelites win the battle. God tells Moses to write on a scroll that God “will completely wipe out the memory of Amalek” (14) and to read that to Joshua. Not sure why Moses needs to read it to Joshua, or why he can’t just tell Joshua verbally, or why God can’t tell Joshua himself. In any case, it makes no sense since the Amalekites are recorded right here in the Bible, keeping their memory alive for several thousand years. Fail?

Exodus 18

Jethro (Moses’s father-in-law, remember?) hears about what Moses has been up to, and comes to visit him along with Zipporah and her two sons, Gershom and Eliezer. (I think Moses sent his wife and children away to live with Jethro back when shit was getting real with Pharaoh.) Jethro & co. arrive at Moses’s tent and they all catch up with each other and have a grand old time. After the story of the escape, Jethro talks about how much he likes God and says, “Now I know that the LORD is greater than all the gods” (11), again supporting my polytheism theory. Jethro sacrifices to God, and everybody has dinner. The next day, Jethro sees Moses sitting around all day answering people’s questions about God and adjudicating their disagreements and teaching them the commandments. Jethro’s like, “Hey, Moses, this is way too much work for one person. You should pick some other smart people and put them in charge of smaller groups of people. They can bring big difficult questions to you, but mostly they can take care of this stuff without you.” Moses is like “yeah good idea” and appoints his judges accordingly, and bids Jethro adieu.

Exodus 19

This is probably why men can't touch women

Exactly three months after leaving Egypt, the Israelites get to Sinai and set up camp. Moses heads up the mountain and God tells him to tell his peeps that if they obey the commandments they’ll be his favorites. So Moses spreads the news. God tells Moses that, in three days, he’s going to come chat with Moses in front of everyone so they can hear what God says and trust Moses’s authority. In preparation for this, God tells Moses to ready the peeps for his visit by washing all their clothes and such, and tells him to keep the men from having sex with women in the days preceding. God also warns that anybody who touches the mountain during his visit must be put to death, as must anybody who touches the people who have touched the mountain, with stones or arrows. Three days later, God comes down, wrapped in a cloud as disguise; Moses gather the peeps around the mountain to watch while he ascends. God is chilling with Moses on the mountain, but he panics and worries about how many people will die from his own stupid rule about not touching the mountain. Instead of revoking it, like a responsible person, he’s like, “Hey Moses, make sure your peeps don’t touch the mountain!” And Moses is like “nah it’s all good they won’t do that!” And God’s like “Ok, bring Aaron here.”

Highlights

Jethro’s division of labor into lower courts and supreme courts (or what have you) is smart.

Lowlights

Celebrating genocide = not so classy.

OT: Psalms 15-17

Psalm 15

Who gets to chill with you, God? Only perfect people who do the right thing and tell the truth and are nice and hate the wicked and like the faithful and keep promises and lend money without interest. Those people are set for life.

Psalm 16

God, save me, you’re the only good thing in my life. As for those people who thought they were holy but worshiped the wrong God, please fuck them up. I’m not friends with them anymore. You’re all I want. You give me great advice and never lead me astray, so I trust you and I’m happy. You make things great.

Psalm 17

Listen to me! I’m needy! You know me, I don’t mess around. Other people suck but I always obey you. You always do what I want, so do that now! You’re the bomb and you protect your followers. So protect me from my enemies! They’re all around and they want to fuck me up. Kill them! Save me! Hurt them and nurture the people you like more. I know I’ll be rewarded for my awesomeness.

Highlights

Zip. Still hate the psalms.

Take THAT, stupid psalm narrator!

Lowlights

My favorite part of the whining in psalm 17 is, “Rescue me from these people whose only possession is their fleeting life” (14). I think Emily Dickinson responded well to this sentiment when she observed, “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” Emily Dickinson: 1; Psalms: 0.

NT: Matthew 22-23

Matthew 22

More parables. FML.

The kingdom of heaven is like a guy who is throwing a party. He invites a bunch of people and prepares a delicious feast for them but they are ungrateful jerks and don’t come and either ignore the invitation or kill the servants who came to invite them. The host gets angry and sets fire to the city where the people who slighted him live. Then he tells his (surviving) servants to go invite everybody they can find on the road to his party because those other people “weren’t worthy” (8). So a bunch of randos come to the party, and the host wanders around his guests. He finds one person who isn’t wearing party-appropriate attire, and asks how he got in. The guy has no answer, so the host tells his servants, “Tie his hands and feet and throw him out into the farthest darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth” (13). Wow, way to break the metaphor there, Jesus. At the end of this horrific parable, Jesus helpfully tells us the moral of the story: “Many people are invited, but few are chosen” (14). Also, God is a crazed psychopath, apparenty.

The Pharisees keep trying to trip Jesus up. So they ask him whether the law allows people to pay taxes to Caesar given that Jesus doesn’t support favoritism (not sure how those things are related). Jesus is like, “Why are you trying to fuck with me? Go bring me a coin.” So they bring him a coin and he’s like “Whose fucking head is on this fucking coin?” And they’re like, “Caesar’s.” And he’s like, “Great. Give Caesar what’s Caesar’s and give God what’s God’s. Fuck off.” So they do.

Remember their joyous posthumous reunion? Not part of Jesus's plan.

The Sadducees, who don’t believe in resurrection, come to ask Jesus a resurrection-related question. They explain that they knew of seven brothers who each married the same woman, all in a row, with the next one marrying her when the last one died. Eventually they all died and so did the woman, and none of them had any children. So, they ask, which of the men will the woman be married to after they are all resurrected? Jesus answers that “At the resurrection people won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like angels from God” (30). The Sadducees freak out and leave.

The Pharisees try again, and ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is. He says that the most important is to love God as hard as you can, and that the next most important is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that the whole law depends on those two commandments. Then Jesus turns the Pharisees’ tactics on them. He asks them whose son the Christ is, and they say David’s. But Jesus quotes some passage from the Old Testament where David calls the Christ “lord,” and says, “If David calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” (45). Nobody can answer him and from then on nobody dares ask him any questions ever again. I’m not sure how exactly this was such a rhetorical knock-down punch, but okay.

Matthew 23

Jesus tells his followers to do what the Pharisees say but not what they do, because “Everything they do, they do to be noticed by others” (5). He points out that they really liked to be called “Rabbi” (i.e. “teacher”), and warns everyone that Christ is their only teacher and God is their only father, so no human should be called teacher or father because they are really brothers and sisters. He also talks again about how the low will be lifted up and the high and mighty will be brought low and the greatest will be servants and so on.

Jesus condemns the Pharisees and similar folks for their hypocrisy and general lameness. He calls them stupid and blind, and blames them for keeping people out of the kingdom of heaven. They follow the tiny busybody rules to the letter but totally miss the big picture – they tithe diligently but don’t understand justice, for example. He says that though they look righteous and pure on the outside, they are polluted inside (yes, this section was alluded to in this video). Finally, Jesus bemoans Jerusalem’s lostness and blindness and how God has tried so hard to save the people of Israel but they keep going astray.

Highlights

The condemnation of hypocrisy is pretty cool, and pretty ironic given the political climate of this country.

Lowlights

The most appealing part of the idea of an afterlife, to me, is the idea of being reunited after death with those whom you loved in life. And that certainly seems to be one of the components which most comforts people I know who believe in an afterlife. But Jesus puts the kibosh on that idea with the whole story of the seven brothers. Too bad.

Moses is a Parselmouth

Heads up: there are some naked butts in this one. But also there is a cute stack of frogs.

OT: Exodus 7-10

Exodus 7

"Scared, Pharaoh?" "You wish!"

God’s like, “Ok, Moses, you and Aaron keep hassling Pharaoh, but I’ll make him stubborn so I can show off my magic tricks. I’ll attack and bring my peeps out of there, and then the Egyptians will know who’s boss. Moses, when Pharaoh asks you to do your tricks, tell Aaron to do the staff-turning-into-a-snake thing.” So they go do the snake trick for Pharaoh, but he gets his “wise men and wizards” together and they do the same trick because of their “secret knowledge” (11). It probably went like this. Moses’s stick-snake eats all the other guys’ stick-snakes, but Pharaoh’s unimpressed. God’s like, “Ok, plan B. Go tell Pharaoh to release the peeps, and when he says no, whack the Nile with your staff and it will turn to blood and smell bad and all the fish will die and nobody will be able to drink it. That’ll be cool.” So Moses does all that, and the river turns to blood, as planned. But Pharaoh’s magician friends can do the same thing, so Pharaoh remains unimpressed. One would think the magician friends would use their “secret knowledge” to turn the river back to potable water, but no, they just make more blood. Also, did it occur to God and/or Moses that the Hebrews need to drink the Nile water too? In any case, now everybody has to dig wells to get non-bloody water. Great.

Exodus 8

“Okay, plan C! Tell Pharaoh to release the peeps, and when he says no, I’ll rain frogs all over.” So Moses and Aaron tell Pharaoh to release the peeps, and he’s like “still no,” so Moses is like “Okay Aaron do the frog thing!” and then Aaron waves his arms around and then suddenly there are frogs all up in Egypt. But the Pharaoh’s magicians are like “look we can do it too!” and they add some more frogs. They really are just making things worse for themselves by doubling all the plagues. Anyway, Pharaoh is like, “Ok, Moses, this frog infestation is kind of gross, so if you pray to God to take the frogs away, I’ll let your peeps go to Burning Man.” Moses is like “Ok, when do you want me to pray for the frogs to go away?” Which seems like a stupid question, because obviously Pharaoh wants them gone as soon as possible, right? Wrong. Pharaoh asks Moses to pray tomorrow. Maybe he wants one more night to say goodbye to the frogs he’s befriended.

So Moses prays the frogs away. Except they don’t disappear; they all die. “Great,” Pharaoh thinks. “There’s no more hopping and ribbiting, but now my country is full of decomposing frog carcasses. Gross.” He changes his mind and doesn’t release the peeps.

God’s like, “ok, Moses, tell Aaron to use his magic wand to poke the dirt so lice show up everywhere.” I’m wondering why God doesn’t cut out the middleman and just talk to Aaron himself, or why Moses can’t do his own stunts. Anyway, Aaron does his thing, and “all the land’s dirt turned into lice throughout the whole land of Egypt” (17). Really? All the land’s dirt? If by “dirt” we mean “sand,” since this is Egypt, then the entire country is basically just made of lice now. I don’t think the society could continue to function. I’m pretty sure buildings built on writhing insect foundations would fall to the ground, people would be literally eaten alive, etc. In any case, the magicians once again try to make things worse by making lice of their own, except this time they can’t figure out how to do it, so they tell Pharaoh that this must be an act of God. But Pharaoh still refuses to release the peeps, which is pretty freaking stupid.

The Egyptians couldn't handle this kinky shit.

Next God sends insects of an unspecified nature on Egypt but spares Goshen to make it very clear who his favorites are. God calls Moses and Aaron over and he’s like, “Can’t your peeps just do their sacrifices right here?” And Moses is like, “No, because we’re going to be doing some freaky shit and when the Egyptians see it they will stone us to death. We need to go to the desert where nobody can see us.” Pharaoh is like, “Fine, you can go to the desert, but you can’t go too far, and you have to pray for me while you’re there.” Moses is like “Ok, it’s a deal. The bugs will go away tomorrow. You better not screw us over again.” So Moses goes and prays and God makes the bugs disappear but Pharaoh decides again not to release the peeps.

Exodus 9

God has Moses warn Pharaoh that if he pursues in his dickery, all the Egyptian livestock (but none of the livestock belonging to the Israelites) will be infected with a fatal disease. Pharaoh’s like “BRING IT.” So God brings it, and all the Egyptian livestock die. But Pharaoh still won’t release the peeps. Next God has Moses throw a handful of ashes into the air which turn into soot and cover all of Egypt which somehow causes all the Egyptians (but none of the Hebrews) to break out in blisters. But Pharaoh still won’t release the peeps. Next, God threatens to rain deadly hail down on Egypt. Some people have caught on to the whole whatever-Moses-warns-us-will-happen-actually-happens pattern, so they bring all their livestock inside and huddle under their roofs. But others ignore the warnings and hang out outside with their cows and shit. Then the hail falls everywhere in Egypt (except in Goshen) and destroys everyone and everything that’s outdoors. So Pharaoh summons Moses and Aaron and is like “okay! you win! you win! my bad! you can go! please stop the hail!” So Moses is like, “okay, as soon as I’m outside the city limits, I’ll make God stop the hail.” So he goes and stops the hail and then Pharaoh changes his mind and doesn’t let the Israelites leave. Which is kind of confusing, because didn’t Moses wait until he was outside the city? Did Pharaoh go bring them back? Can’t he wait to stop the hail until he gets way out into the desert instead?

Exodus 10

Imagine trying to breathe in this. Wait - don't. Oh, too late? Sorry.

Moses goes to Pharaoh and he’s like “Guess what’s next? Locusts! Locusts everywhere! Locusts eating all your trees! Locusts crawling all up in your homes! Locusts all over your children! Locusts! Locusts!” Pharaoh’s advisers are like “Um, Pharaoh, get with the program. It is time to release the peeps before Egypt is completely destroyed.” So Pharaoh calls Moses and Aaron and is like “Okay, go do your sacrifices! Who all is going?” And Moses is like “All of us need to go.” And Pharaoh is like “Yeah right! I’m not letting all of you go. That’s very suspicious. You’re plotting something crafty. Your men can go, but the women and children stay here.” So God sends a locust shitstorm, and Pharaoh is like “OH GOD MAKE IT STOP I’M SO SORRY PLEASE FORGIVE ME I MESSED UP PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.” So Moses sends the locusts away, at which point Pharaoh promptly changes his mind. So then Moses turns Egypt pitch-black (except where the Israelites live) so nobody can move or see or do anything. Except somehow they are able to summon Moses and Aaron, and Pharaoh tells them all the Israelites can go to the desert – even the children – but the livestock have to stay in Egypt. But Moses is like “nope, we need to take all the animals with us, every single one, because we have to sacrifice some of them but we won’t know which ones we’re supposed to sacrifice until we get there.” And Pharaoh is like “well that sounds made up.” And he decides he’s done with Moses’s bullshit and sends him away and threatens him with death if he ever sees him again.

Highlights

"I told you, the Knight Bus doesn't run on Columbus Day! Can you just keep looking for the Portkey? I'm sick of trying to outrun the wind!"

Magic staffs! Transfiguration! Freaky natural disasters! It’s like Harry Potter and The Happening by J.K. Shyamalan!

Also: Perseverance! Plucky underdogs! The American Dream!

Lowlights

At one point, somewhere between the blisters and the hail, God sends Pharaoh the following message through Moses:

By now I could have used my power to strike you and your people with a deadly disease so that you would have disappeared from the earth. But I’ve left you standing for this reason: in order to show you my power and in order to make my name known in the whole world. (15-16)

See, it’s easy to get carried away by the Passover story of slavery and abolition and magical retribution and hard-won freedom and the escape through the desert and so on. But the social justice narrative you usually hear is a far cry from the way the story is actually told in scripture. It’s not a battle of God against Pharaoh, or oppressor against oppressed; God makes Pharaoh stubbornly refuse to free the Israelites in order to achieve his real goal, which is to show off his power and “make [his] name known in the whole world.” In this light, God looks a little less like Abraham Lincoln and a little more like Tamburlaine.

OT: Psalms 13-14

Psalm 13

God, how long do I have to suffer? Why aren’t you helping me? Come back and save me from enemies! I still trust you because you’ve been faithful.

Psalm 14

Fools say in their hearts,
There is no God.
They are corrupt and do evil things;
not one of them does anything good. (1)

This seemed called for again.

God looks to see if there are any good humans – nope, zero. Those jerks attacking my faithful people must be stupid to not be on God’s side. Eventually they’ll freak out when they see how wrong they were. God’s gonna make us win in the end!

Highlights

Nope. I still hate the psalms.

Lowlights

Really, not a single person on earth is good? Psalm 14 says that God “look down from heaven on humans” to see if any of them are good, “but all of them have turned bad….No one does good – not even one person!” (2-3). But then in the next verse the narrator talks about “my people” (4), who are “the righteous generation” (5). Um…you might want to check your math there. Also, whenever Christians are like “don’t worry I’m not bigoted enough to think that atheists can’t be good people!” I’m like “okay well that’s nice of you but your God seems to disagree since he says that ‘not one of [us] does anything good’…but thanks?”

NT: Matthew 21

…is for tomorrow.

Why God Hates Violence, But Loves Fiery Death-Rain

OT: Exodus 1-4

Exodus 1

Joseph and all of Jacob’s other descendants – all seventy of them – are in Egypt now, breeding like rabbits. Soon, all Jacob’s sons are dead, but Egypt is chock full of Israelites, to the point where they outnumber the “real” Egyptians. A new Pharaoh comes to power and freaks out over all the Israelites, kind of like one of those jerks who panics about what will happen when white people are no longer a majority in America. So, according to this translation, Pharaoh says, “Come on, let’s be smart and deal with them” (10). But at least Pharaoh’s Final Solution is just slavery, not genocide – at first. After they’ve been enslaved for a while, he tells some Hebrew midwives to kill all the baby Israelite boys that are born, but let the girls live. But the midwives are like, “Yeah okay Pharaoh,” and then obviously don’t do what he says. But obviously Pharaoh catches on to the fact that there continue to be Israelite boy babies, so he calls the midwives in and is like, “um, what about that thing we talked about?” And the midwives are badasses and are like, “Oh, yeah, the problem is that Israelite women are just way tougher and cooler than Egyptian women – they squeeze out the babies early and fast, before midwives can get to them.” Instead of realizing that this would put them out of a job if it were true, Pharaoh’s like, “Oh, okay. Bummer.” God rewards the midwives for their badassery, but in the meantime, Pharaoh has a new solution: he orders all Egyptians to throw all baby Hebrew boys into the Nile.

Exodus 2

One day, a Hebrew woman has a baby boy, and she decides she’s had enough of this semi-genocide bullshit, because god damn it, she loves her kid. So she hides him for three months, but then realizes she can’t hide him any longer, so she puts him in a tar-sealed reed basket and sets him down in a clump of reeds at the riverbank. But his older sister (that’s going to be Miriam, right?) stays nearby to watch what happens to him.

When Pharaoh’s daughter comes along to bathe in the river, she finds the baby in the basket, crying, and feels bad for him. She figures out that it’s one of the Hebrew boys, right when the baby’s older sister, who’s been watching, comes over and asks if she should go find a Hebrew women to nurse the baby for her, and Pharaoh’s daughter says yes. So the smart awesome girl goes to her mother and explains the situation and brings her back. Pharaoh’s daughter offers to pay her to nurse the baby for her, and the mother obviously agrees. But once he’s weaned, she has to bring him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopts him and names him Moses.

I guess Pharaoh’s daughter was upfront with Moses about his origins, because one day when he’s an adult, he goes out and sees their hard slave labor and gets upset. When he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he kills the Egyptian and buries him, which is a creepy detail I never hear about during Passover. Funny. So the next day he sees two Hebrew men fighting, and asks the one who started it why he would attack his fellow Hebrew. The guy pulls a “you’re not the boss of me” maneuver, and then taunts Moses by asking if he’s going to kill him like he killed the Egyptian. Oooooohhhh. Moses freaks out and realizes his murder isn’t a secret; Pharaoh finds out about it and tries to kill Moses, but he runs away to Midian (wherever that is). One day, Moses is chilling by a well in Midian, when seven sisters come to get water, but are chased away by some asshole shepherds. Moses defends the girls and draws their water for them and their sheep. When their father finds out about this, he invites Moses to come over for dinner, which turns into Moses living there. Usually that’s the worst kind of house guest, but apparently the host really liked Moses because he let him marry his daughter Zipporah, which is probably the best Bible name so far. Moses and Zipporah have a son named Gershom. Years go by and the asshole Pharaoh dies but the Israelites are still enslaved and cry out to God, who hears them and “remembers his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (24), which maybe means he forgot before? Oops.

Exodus 3

Moses is taking care of Jethro’s (his father-in-law’s) flock when he sees a bush that is on fire but not burning up, and so he aptly thinks, “Let me check out this amazing sight and find out why the bush isn’t burning up” (3). Check out, really? Okay. So God calls Moses’s name from the bush, and Moses gives the same stupid answer that Abraham and everyone would always give when God would call them: “I’m here” (4). God tells Moses to take off his shoes because he’s on holy ground (apparently he’s on a special mountain called Horeb), and then tells Moses he’s God, so Moses averts his eyes in fear from the thing he went to “check out” a moment ago. God is like, “Moses, the Hebrews are in deep shit. You’re going to get them out of there and lead them to a land of milk and honey, aka Canaan.” Moses is like, “Who, me?” And God goes, “Yes, you.” And Moses goes, “Couldn’t be!” And God goes, “Then who?” Wait, just kidding. That was from that episode of Barney where they can’t figure out who took the cookies. Got my wires crossed.

God’s like “no it’s cool I’ll come with and make sure everything goes smoothly and then you’ll come back here and worship, okay?” Moses asks the weirdest possible question: “What if the Hebrews ask me what your name is?” But God, unfazed, replies, “I Am Who I Am” (14), and helpfully clarifies that Moses should tell people that he was sent by I Am. God promises that the Hebrews will listen to Moses, and tells Moses the plan: Moses will tell Pharaoh that all the Hebrews need to make a three-day religious pilgrimage into the desert to offer sacrifices, and then they’ll come back. God promises to manipulate the Egyptians (see?! no pretensions to free will!!) into lending the Hebrews a bunch of jewelry and riches, so they can rob the Egyptians when they don’t come back from their three-hour tour three-day pilgrimage.

Exodus 4

Moses is all, “What if they don’t believe me that I had a conversation with God in the desert?” And then God decides to do an epic mind-fuck: he asks Moses what he’s holding, and Moses is like, “A shepherd’s staff,” and God is like, “Throw it on the ground,” and Moses is like “I WON’T BE PART OF YOUR SYSTEM” and throws it on the ground where it TURNS INTO A SNAKE OMG EW. Moses is like “GAH WHAT THE FUCK” and God is like “Now pick it up!” and Moses is like “WHAT” but he picks it up and it turns back into a stick. So God is like “See? Isn’t that a great party trick? They’ll believe you now!” God also has Moses put his hand into his pocket and pull it out with a gross skin diseases, then put it back in and take it out again all healthy. And he tells him that if the other two magic tricks don’t work, Moses can throw some Nile water on the ground where it will turn to blood. Cool!

Then Moses keeps whining and whining and he’s like “But I’m not good at public speaking!” And God is like “Moses, who makes people good at public speaking? ME. Because I’m fucking GOD. You’ll be fine.” And Moses is like “I DON’T WANNA” and God is like “Ok I’m done with this. Aaron is coming to meet you now, and he can be your spokesperson. Now scurry along, and don’t forget your magic snaky stick. Have fun!” So Moses goes and tells Jethro he needs to go home to Egypt to find out if his family is still alive, and Jethro’s like “yeah okay.” God tells Moses it’s time to go back because everyone who wants to kill him before has died (how old must Moses be by now?!). So Moses gets his wife and his kids and his special stick and heads out on donkeys. On the way, God tells Moses what to do when he gets there: first, he should do his magic tricks for Pharaoh. “But,” God says, “I’ll make him stubborn so that he won’t let the people go” (21). Ummm…wouldn’t it be easier to not do that, so he just lets everyone go peacefully? That seems preferable in every possible way. Anyway, God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh that God says (seriously) that Israel is his (God’s) oldest son, and since Pharaoh wouldn’t let him/it/them go, now God is going to kill Pharaoh’s oldest son.

Then things get freaky, which is too bad, because so far Exodus has been so much better than Genesis. Anyway, everything about this paragraph is so weird that I can’t not post it in full:

During their journey, as they camped overnight, the LORD met Moses and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a sharp-edged flint stone and cut off her son’s foreskin. Then she touched Moses’ genitals with it, and she said, “You are my bridegroom because of bloodshed.” So the LORD let him alone. At that time, she announced, “A bridegroom because of bloodshed by circumcision.”

Ummmmmmmmmmmm………………………………………………….

what is this i don’t even

No words

Does not compute.

Ahem.

God tells Aaron to go meet Moses on God’s mountain, and Moses tells the whole story. They get all the Israelite elders together and do the magic tricks and tell the story and all and everyone believes and gets excited that God has decided to get up off his ass and do something about the whole slavery situation so they all worship him.

Highlights

It was so normal at first! People were nice and sane! The mother loved her child and was smart and tried to save it and the older sister was smart and saved it and the Pharaoh’s daughter was nice and everyone was doing great there for a while besides the whole slavery thing!

Lowlights

The foreskin situation. What. What. WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

OT: Psalms 11-12

Psalm 11

God protects me so I don’t need to run away from evil people, God sees everything. And the Least Self-Aware Juxtaposition Award goes to…

[God's] very being hates anyone who loves violence.
God will rain fiery coals and sulfur on the wicked. (5-6)

How is this not a Colbert Report-style ironic commentary or something!?!?

Anyway, God loves righteous people and fucks everyone else blah blah.

Psalm 12

Oh, this one’s good. David (or whoever) is complaining to God that all the faithful people are gone and the world is overrun with lying bragging atheist assholes. But God rescues the oppressed faithful (I thought they were all gone?) and protects them from the depraved atheists.

Highlights

ZERO

Lowlights

God hates violence! That’s why he BURNS PEOPLE ALIVE BY RAINING COALS ON THEM.

NT: Matthew 19

Eh…bedtime. Matthew 19 can be tacked onto tomorrow’s chunk. This is the kind of flexibility we’re going to have to be okay with if this blog is going to survive thesis season. Sorry folks.

But Can Harold Camping Cure Vaginal Itch?

Personal note: today is my last first day of classes (read it again; it works) as an undergraduate. =( =( =(

OT: Genesis 43-46

Genesis 43

Eventually, Jacob and his sons finish all the grain they got from Egypt in exchange for Simeon. Judah is like, “Dad, we can’t go back without Benjamin, or the guy will flip out.” Jacob is like “WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM ABOUT BENJAMIN IN THE FIRST PLACE?!” And the sons are like “HE JUST ASKED US ABOUT OUR FAMILY HOW WERE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW IT WOULD LEAD TO A WEIRD RANDOM SCHEME?!” Judah’s like, “Look, I could have gone and come back by now. I’ll take care of him. But we have to go so we don’t starve.” Jacob’s like, “Okay, fine. Take Benjamin. And take back the silver you took before, and some more. And take some of this random shit we have lying around, like resin and honey and nuts that we aren’t eating for some reason.”

I hope they had miniature donkeys. Those are the cutest.

So they go back to Egypt and Joseph sees them coming and has dinner prepared for their arrival. He has them brought to his house, which freaks them out, and they worry that he is going to “make slaves of us, and take our donkeys” (18). OH NOES NOT THE DONKEYS. They tell Joseph’s assistant that they’ve brought back the silver they left with before plus more and that they don’t know how it got put back in their sacks to begin with, confirming commenter Jenin’s suspicion that Joseph was framing them for theft, not forgiving them. So much for forgiveness, then. The assistant is like, “It’s cool, I got the money.” Maybe Joseph paid for the grain himself? So yes to forgiveness, but also with sneaky framing?

The assistant reunites Simeon with his brothers and gives everyone refreshments. Joseph comes home and the dudes present him with their gift of souvenirs from Canaan or wherever, and bow to him. He asks if their father is still alive, which they confirm. Then he sees Benjamin and asks if that’s the younger brother, and when he’s told it is, he runs into the next room to cry because he loves Benjamin so much. Awww. Then he comes back and has dinner served, but the Egyptians have to eat separately from the Hebrews because everybody is racist. Also, Joseph gives Benjamin literally five times as much food as he gives to everybody else, which just makes me think of this.

Genesis 44

Joseph tells his assistant to put grain in the brothers’s sacks with their silver on top, and to put his (Joseph’s) silver cup on top of Benjamin’s sack. He sends them off, and then, a little while later, sends his men after them to stop them and accuse them of stealing the cup. When they catch up to the brothers, they’re like, “What are you talking about? We brought back the silver we mysteriously left with before, and we certainly didn’t take anything this time. You can check our sacks, and whoever has the cup you think we stole can be executed and the rest of us can become your slaves.” (You would think they’d remember what happened last time they didn’t pack their own sacks.) Of course the servants search and find the cup in Benjamin’s sack, so everyone freaks out and goes back to Joseph’s house. Instead of defending themselves or doing anything useful, the brothers are like “oh I guess we’re your slaves now, bummer!” Joseph says, “No, only the one with the cup will be my slave. The rest of you can go home.” Judah is like, “Look, dude, if we don’t bring Benjamin back, our father will plotz. Can I stay as the slave instead?”

Genesis 45

Goshen, Egypt

Joseph decides he can’t deal with his web of lies anymore, so he sends away all his servants and then bursts into tears and confesses that he’s Joseph. The brothers are all terrified of what he’ll do to them, but he’s like, “No, don’t worry, I’m not mad, God obviously sent me to Egypt to save lives by predicting the famine.” Because that’s definitely easier than just letting Pharaoh figure out his own dream, or maybe sending an angel to say “Hey Egypt, get ready for famine,” or maybe not causing a famine in the first place. Anyway, Joseph is like, “Look, go tell Dad what happened and how powerful I am here, and then you and he and all your family should move here and live in Goshen.” I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure Joseph means the Land of Goshen in Egypt, and not Goshen, NY, the shithole where some of my cousins live and whose website is partying like it’s 1996. Pharaoh hears about the plans and is excited that Joseph’s family is coming, and sends along extra wagons and supplies to make their move nice and comfy. They get home and tell Joseph everything, and he’s ecstatic and can’t wait to get to Egypt to see Joseph.

Genesis 46

Goshen, New York

Jacob & co. head out for Egypt. En route, Jacob stops to sacrifice to God, and God tells him in a dream that everything will be copacetic in Egypt. Then the narrator helpfully lists Jacob’s approximately nine trillion grandchildren, plus some confusing and questionable math. However many people went along with Jacob and his three-ish wives and his eleven sons minus Joseph and his one oft-neglected daughter, they all go to Egypt. Judah goes ahead to ask Joseph for directions to Goshen. When they get there, Joseph comes to meet them and is joyfully reunited with his father, who says he can die now. Joseph tells his family that when Pharaoh asks what they do, they should say they’re shepherds, because Egyptians think shepherds are beneath them and so will let them live in Goshen (as opposed to what?). Then Joseph goes to tell Pharaoh everyone’s arrived.

Highlights

It’s nice that they’re all one big happy family now.

Lowlights

What was the point of all the lying and kidnapping and ransoming and threatening?

OT: Psalm 10

God, where are you when the wicked are hassling the good? I hope their plans backfire.

WAIT. We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (hasty first-person summary of boring psalms) to share this excellent excerpt with you:

The wicked brag
about their body’s cravings;
the greedy reject the LORD, cursing.
At the peak of their wrath,
the wicked don’t seek God:
There’s no God—
that’s what they are always thinking.
Their ways are always twisted.
Your rules are too lofty for them.
They snort at all their foes.
They think to themselves,
We’ll never stumble.
We’ll never encounter
any resistance.
Their mouths are filled
with curses, dishonesty, violence.
Under their tongues lie
troublemaking and wrongdoing.
They wait in a place
perfect for ambush;
from their hiding places
they kill innocent people;
their eyes spot those
who are helpless.
They lie in ambush
in secret places,
like a lion in its lair.
They lie in ambush
so they can seize those who suffer!
They seize the poor, all right,
dragging them off in their nets.
Their helpless victims are crushed;
they collapse, falling prey
to the strength of the wicked.
The wicked think to themselves:
God has forgotten.
God has hidden his face.
God never sees anything!

[gnawing on a severed human leg] …Mmrph. Sorry, what was that? I was so busy hunting and eating innocents that I forgot you were there! Wait, shh! Get down behind this shrub. I think another Christian baby is about to crawl over here! [sharpening a spear]

But seriously, this very fair and accurate and not at all stereotyped or offensive characterization of atheists is only slightly marred by a minor contradiction. Are we “always thinking” to ourselves that “There’s no God” (per verse 4), or do we “think to [our]selves” that God exists but “has hidden his face” (according to verse 11)? Or are we so stupid that we believe both of those things without any cognitive dissonance? I just want to make sure I’m getting this right.

Anyway, the eloquent psalm-bitcher continues:

Blah blah atheists are stupid, you are God and you see everything, you’ll punish the wicked and help the oppressed.

Highlights

One less psalm left to read.

Lowlights

[sigh]

NT: Matthew 16

Those pesky Pharisees are at it again, and with the Sadducees in tow, too. They demand that Jesus show them a sign – because I guess they missed all the magical healings and such? Jesus is like, “You stupid Pharisees. You can tell the weather by looking at the sky, but you can’t see the other signs that are right in front of you.” He also says that only evil people demand signs (which is pretty unfair, because how else are we supposed to know what to believe?), and that they “won’t receive any sign except Jonah’s sign” (4). I learned in church today (another friend was preaching) that Jonah went to Nineveh to warn them of God’s punishment, and then the people of Nineveh abandoned their evil ways and God changed his mind about destroying them. So maybe Jonah’s sign is the thing John the Baptist and all the apostles have been doing about warning everyone that God will punish them if they don’t get their shit together.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON

The disciples get to the other side of the lake (I guess the Pharisees were on the boat with them? Why did they even let them on?) and realize they once again don’t have any bread. Jesus tells them to watch out “for the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (6). The disciples ignore this comment and confer amongst themselves, then uselessly announce out loud what they had collectively realized two verses earlier: “We didn’t bring any bread” (7). Jesus again calls them “people of weak faith” (8) and is like “Remember all those times I MADE FOOD APPEAR FROM NOWHERE? Also don’t you get that it wasn’t really about bread? It was all a METAPHOR. Now watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees.” Then the disciples have a belated epiphany: “Then they understood that he wasn’t telling them to be on their guard for yeast used in making bread. No, he was telling them to watch out for the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (12). First of all, duh. But second, to be fair, what does teaching have to do with yeast? Couldn’t Jesus just have easily have said “watch out for the teaching of the Pharisees” instead of “watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees”?

Jesus asks everyone who people say the Human One (or Son of Man) is, and they answer that popular theories include John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or other prophets. Then he asks who they think he is, and Simon/Peter replies, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (16). Jesus is like, “You’re lucky – you learned that from God, not from any human. You’re Peter [which means "rock"] and I will build my church on this rock and give you the keys to heaven.” Then he tells all his disciples not to tell anyone he’s the Christ, which still makes no sense to me.

Then Jesus starts telling everyone he’s going to have to go to Jerusalem and suffer and be killed and then raised three days later. Peter is like “No, that can’t happen!” Then Jesus calls Peter Satan – which is a bit harsh since he was just being compassionate and compassion was basically the whole point of the Sermon on the Mount – and calls him “a stone that could make me stumble” (rather than the rock on which the church will be built) because he is “not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts” (23).

Let me just say that if God’s thoughts involve torture and sacrifice while human thoughts involve compassion and peace, I’m proud to be human.

Jesus tells his disciples they “must say no to themselves” (24) in order to follow him, and must be willing to give up their lives in order to truly gain life. He promises to repay them for their sacrifices – which makes said sacrifices not really sacrifices so much as loans, if you ask me (but why would you?).

Finally – and this is really interesting – he promises “that some standing here won’t die before they see the Human One coming in his kingdom” (28). In other words, Jesus seems to anticipate that his famed and glorious Second Coming will occur within the next century or so, at most. It sounds like Christianity wasn’t really supposed to be a millennia-long journey so much as a sprint to the finish. He’s kind of pulling a Harold Camping here. Speaking of which, he apparently retired after his most recent false apocalypse prediction. I bet his retirement is nice and comfy thanks to all those donations he got from the people who sold all their belongings in order to follow him – just like Jesus told everyone to do. Maybe Harold Camping is actually the truest Christian of them all for most closely following Christ’s example.

Highlights

Btw, if yeast is so bad, how is Christ our Risen Lord? Did he just use copious amounts of baking soda?

Remember that guy who became a YouTube sensation for his fairly unoriginal and arrhythmic spoken word piece about why he “hates religion but loves Jesus?” I already knew enough to figure out that his references to religious hypocrites in Jesus’s time are alluding to the Pharisees. But now that I’ve read that whole bit in Matthew 16 with the extraneous yeast metaphor, it just took on a new level of hilarity. The voice of our generation, bball1989, claims about two and a half minutes into his magnum opus that “Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums,” in that the former is the “cure” and the latter is the “infection.” So…Jesus is like an antifungal cream, or maybe just a glass of strong cranberry juice?

Lowlights

I’ve been liking Jesus less and less as the Gospel of Matthew goes on, but his creepy similarity to Harold Camping is the real dealbreaker.

Flock, Raper, Spitzers, FRUIT!

…And we’re back!

I worry that some of you may have been worried in the last few days. I’m worried about your potential worrying. Don’t worry. I didn’t abandon you. I had a thesis chapter due, and things got real. This may happen periodically throughout the year – especially once classes start – but remember not to worry! I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU.

OT: Genesis 34-38

Genesis 34

Oh thank god, the first word of this chapter is “Dinah.” Dinah “went out to meet the women of that country” (1)…of Canaan? What is going out to meet them? Anyway, Shechem – the prince, not the place – sees her and rapes her. Nice. But also he “love[s] the young woman and trie[s] to win her heart” (3)…by raping her? He asks his dad Hamor to arrange his marriage to her with her father Jacob. When Jacob and his sons hear about the rape, they are angry – not because their sister has been assaulted, but “because Shechem had disgraced Israel by sleeping with Jacob’s daughter. Such things are simply not done” (7).

Hamor asks Jacob to give Dinah to Shechem in marriage. Jacob’s sons respond “deviously,” telling Shechem and Hamor that they can’t let women of Israel marry uncircumcised men, so all the men of Hamor’s city will need to be circumcised first. So Hamor says to all the guys in his city, “Dudes, if we cut off a little bit of our penises, we’ll get to marry Israeli women and we’ll get all their livestock.” And the dudes are like, “Sounds good.” A couple of days later, Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons, go into the city and kill every single male in it. Because the best response to rape is genocide! Their brothers loot the city and carry off all the property and women and children. Jacob’s like, “Wtf guys? Now you’ve made me look like an ass to everyone in this land, and the people of nearby cities might attack me, and I don’t have enough men to fend them off.” And the sons answer, “But didn’t he treat our sister like a prostitute?” (31).

Genesis 35

God tells Jacob to go to Bethel and build an altar. Jacob tells all his people to “get rid of the foreign gods you have with you” (2) and wash and change their clothes (maybe to get rid of the evidence of the killing spree they just committed?). Everybody gets rid of their “foreign gods” (meaning images of them, I think) and their earrings too, for some reason, and Jacob buries them all. Then they head to Bethel, and “God [makes] all of the surrounding cities fearful” (5) so they won’t attack Jacob’s tribe, again demonstrating that God can manipulate people and prevent horrible crimes, contra the people who think free will ends theodicy. Jacob & co. get to Bethel and Jacob builds an altar, and Rachel’s nurse Deborah (since when did she have a nurse?) dies and is buried there.

Or by the concussed adoption evaluator in that episode of 30 Rock where Liz is trying to get a kid. Or by H.M. Or by a goldfish.

God appears to Jacob and blesses him, and says, “Your name is Jacob, but your name will be Jacob no longer. No, your name will be Israel” (10), and then God officially names Jacob Israel…again. God gives the land to his descendants…again. Jacob makes a sacred pillar out of a stone and pours wine and oil on it…again. Jacob names the place Bethel…again. Is this book written by the guy in Memento?

The leave Bethel, and then Rachel goes into “hard labor” (16). She has a son, and, with her dying breath, names him Ben-oni. Jacob ignores his wife’s last choice in life, and renames him Benjamin after she dies. They bury Rachel and pack up camp and move on to make a new camp near the tower of Eder. Reuben, Leah’s son, sleeps with Bilhah, one of the servants that Jacob mated with. Aka, he slept with his half-brother’s mom. Apparently Jacob/Israel (the names are used interchangeably in this chapter) “heard about it” (22), but that’s all the info we get about that story.

Jacob goes to visit his dad Isaac, who dies at age 180 (this has been a rough chapter for Jacob), and his sons bury him.

Genesis 36

Esau has some kids. Esau and Jacob have too many livestock to live in one place, so Esau moves away from Canaan. Esau’s kids have kids who have kids and so on. Also, it’s unclear whether or not Esau and Edom are the same person. One verse says, “These are the descendants of Esau, that is, Edom” (1). But a few verses later, we get, “These are the descendants of Esau, the ancestor of Edom” (9). And then it says something about Edom lying in the mountains, so maybe Edom is a place, not a person, and Esau is the ancestor of all the people in that place? Anyway, this whole chapter is just a list of who begat whom and who was king when and what tribes came from where and so on.

Genesis 37

So Jacob and his sons are living in Canaan. Joseph is 17, and sounds like a little shit – he tells his dad mean things about his brothers. But Jacob loves Joseph the most out of all his sons “because he was born when Jacob was old” (3) – but by that measure, shouldn’t he love Benjamin even more? Jacob makes Joseph “a long robe” (3) – one might even say, an amazing technicolor dreamcoat. Jacob’s other sons hate Joseph for being their father’s favorite. Joseph dreams that when he is gathering grain with his brothers, his grain stalk stands upright [PHALLIC SYMBOL] and his brothers’ stalks bow down to it. He tells his brothers about his dream, and they interpret it to mean that he will rule over them (obviously), so they resent him extra. Then Joseph dreams that the sun and moon and 11 stars bow down to him, and he stupidly tells his family again, and his brothers get pissed off again, and Jacob is like, “What, you want me and your mother and your brothers to bow down to you? Nice try. Go to your room.”

One day, Joseph’s brothers are tending the flock, and Jacob is like, “you should go check on the sheep situation and report back to me,” and Joseph’s like, “I’m down.” So he goes and finds them (even though they’ve left the field and a random guy has to point Joseph in their direction), but as he’s approaching, they see him and decide to kill him and throw him in a cistern and say he was killed by a wild animal, because they’re tired of his megalomaniacal dreams. Reuben is like, “wait, let’s throw him in the cistern, but let’s not kill him,” and he plans to rescue Joseph and bring him home safely.

So Joseph gets there and they take away his robe/dreamcoat and throw him in the cistern (it’s empty so he’s not going to drown). Then some Ishmaelites come along, and Judah’s like, “hey, if we kill Joseph, we don’t gain anything, so let’s sell him!” And everyone’s like “yeah good idea!” So they pull Joseph out of the cistern and sell him to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver. Good luck dividing that by eleven, assholes.

Reuben goes back to the cistern and sees that Joseph isn’t there anymore and freaks out – I guess he wasn’t around for the whole selling-his-brother-into-slavery thing. The brothers kill a goat and smear its blood on Joseph’s special robe, and bring it to Jacob claiming they found it. Jacob assumes a wild animal has killed Joseph, because this was before the CSI thing where you can swab the blood and find out whether or not it’s human in like four seconds. Too bad. Jacob freaks out, goes into mourning, and refuses to be comforted by his family, understandably. Meanwhile, Joseph has been sold to the chief officer of Egypt’s Pharaoh.

Genesis 38

Judah moves away and marries a Canaanite woman (of no specified name, described only as the daughter of Shua) and has three sons with her: Er, Onan, and Shelah. I like to think that her first son was a preemie and so she hadn’t thought about names yet when she went into labor, and once she delivered the doctor/midwife/whoever was like, “Hey, congratulations, it’s a boy! What are you going to name him?” And she was taken off-guard and went, “Er…” and the doctor was like “Great, I’ll write that in the file! Welcome Baby Er!”

Er marries a woman named Tamar, but God thinks Er is “immoral” (7) so he strikes him dead. His immoral behavior isn’t described, so we have no idea what offence, if any, he’s being punished for. Judah tells Onan to go to Tamar and “do your duty as her brother-in-law, and provide children for your brother” (8). Since when is that part of the brother-in-law’s job description? And in what sense could those children possibly belong to Er? Even once a man dies, his wife he still his property, and whatever comes out of her body belongs to him too? Onan finds this system unjust, so he agrees to sleep with Tamar but he pulls out and ejaculates on the floor. That’s admittedly pretty yucky and I wouldn’t want to be the one who had to clean that up, but God overreacts and executes Onan.

(I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t embed that video. Linking to it seemed insufficient.)

Tamar is probably pretty freaked out by now, but do we get to hear about her perspective? Of course not! Judah just tells her to go back and live with her dad until Shelah grows up, but Judah thinks Shelah’s going to be zapped too if he marries her. Eventually Judah’s wife dies, and after the mourning period, he and his neighbor head off to shear his sheep. Someone tells Tamar that Judah’s on his way, so she takes off her widow clothes and puts on a veil and makeup (in that order) and goes and waits on the road where Judah will be coming.

Judah sees her and thinks she’s a prostitute because of her veil. This is part of her crafty plan: she knows Shelah has grown up but she hasn’t been married to him, so she’s tricking Judah as a punishment. Anyway, Judah asks to sleep with her (since he doesn’t recognize her), and she’s like, “What’s in it for me?” And he’s like, “A baby goat!” But he doesn’t have the goat with him, so she’s like, “Oh yeah? I need a deposit.” And he’s like, “What kind of deposit?” And she’s like, “Your seal and your staff.” And he’s like, “Okay.” And they get it on and she gets pregnant.

She leaves and changes back into widow clothes. Judah sends the goat with his neighbor to give to her and retrieve his deposit, but the neighbor can’t find her. He asks locals where the “consecrated worker” (21) is – apparently an alternate translation is “cultic prostitute” – and they’re like, “there isn’t one here,” so he goes home confused. He tells Judah he couldn’t find the “holy woman” (22). What exactly is it that they think her job is? What’s the difference between a cultic prostitute and just a prostitute? What’s religious about the job? Anyway, Judah’s like, “whatever, I don’t want to be laughed at, so she can just keep the deposit.”

Three months later, somebody tells Judah that his daughter-in-law Tamar has become a prostitue and is pregnant. So he naturally responds, “Bring her out so that she may be burned” (24). So Judah will execute some prostitutes, but employ others? He’s like a nightmare version of Eliot Spitzer. When Tamar is brought out to be burned, she sends the deposit to Judah along with the message that she is pregnant by the man who owns those things. Crafty! He recognizes his stuff and is like, “Shit.” Except actually he says, “She’s more righteous than I am, because I didn’t allow her to marry my son Shelah.”

Tamar eventually gives birth to twins, in a really bizarre and, I think, physiologically impossible way. First, one boy sticks his hand out of her vagina. So the midwife, instead of, you know, helping him be born, ties a piece of red string to his hand in order to mark him as the firstborn, because birth order is incredibly important to everybody in the Bible, even with twins. Priorities. Then, the string-baby pulls his hand back into the womb. Then, the other baby pops out all at once. That one is named Perez, meaning “bursting out.” Finally, the string-baby pops out, and is named Zerah (meaning “dawn”).

Lowlights

Rape. Genocide. Slavery. Betrayal. Deception. Murder. Hypocrisy. Sexism.

Fun fact: this picture came from "ultimategoatfansite.com." I love the Internet.

Highlights

Baby goat!

OT: Psalm 9

Thanks God, I like you, I’ll tell everyone you’re great. My enemies “will fall down and die right in front of you because you have established justice” (3-4). You’ve annihilated everyone and everything you don’t like. You rule justly forever and help the oppressed and don’t abandon them. You’re vengeful and remember the suffering. Yay for you. Have mercy on me. I suffer but you save me so I will give you a positive review on Yelp. The wicked are punished by their own schemes – hoist with their own petard, if you will. Kill all the wicked and the atheists and the wrong kinds of theists. Sufferers will be soothed. Judge everyone and scare them.

Highlights

From now on I’m going to imagine all the psalms as Yelp reviews.

Lowlights

Still shitty.

NT: Matthew 13

Jesus goes and sits by the lake, but there are so many spectators that he gets into a boat to preach from there. Prepare yourself for the lesser-known Sermon on the Boat, which is just a shitload of parables.

Parable of the soils: A farmer scattered a bunch of seeds, and most of them failed (eaten by birds, dried in the sun, choked by thorns), but others bore lots of fruit.

Jesus’s disciples are like, “dude, why do you have to always speak in opaque parables?” And Jesus is like, “here, let me answer your straightforward question with more opacity!” and gives a little Yoda speech. The intelligible part is that people see without truly seeing and hear without truly hearing; they pay attention but don’t really understand what they’re being taught/shown. Um, Jesus, has it occurred to you that this might be because you speak in confusing metaphors all of the time?! Also, btw, it turns out that Jesus’s habit of speaking in parables fulfills a prophecy. I should have known.

Jesus helpfully explains the farmer parable. The seed is the news about the kingdom of heaven. If they hear it but don’t understand it, the devil steals what was planted in their hearts, like the birds eating the seeds. Other people get the news and are happy for a while but lack perseverance and so abandon the new philosophy when it gets hard, like the seeds planted in shallow soil and dried by the sun. Others have the virtue strangled out of them by wealth and earthly matters, like thorns.

Parable of the weeds: The kingdom of heaven is like planting good seeds in good soil. But while everyone’s asleep, an enemy comes and plants weeds too. The landowner’s servants ask if they should go pull the weeds, but the landowner says not to because they’ll pull the good grain up too. Instead, let them both grow side by side, and at harvest, the weeds will be burnt while the grain is gathered.

Okay, that one was pretty clear.

Parable of the mustard seed: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed – the smallest seed grows into the largest plant.

Yes, I get that one too. This is all much better than the “new wine in old wineskins” nonsense.

Parable of the yeast: ”The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, which a woman took and hid in a bushel of wheat flour until the yeast had worked its way through all the dough” (33).

…I take it back. That one was weird.

We’re told again how Jesus’s parables fulfill prophecy.

Jesus goes home and his disciples are confused and ask him to explain the weed parable. I’m not sure why, since I thought that one was pretty obvious. But he spells it out for them anyway: Jesus is the grain-planter, the devil is the weed-planter, the grain is the righteous, the weeds are the wicked, the harvest is the end of days, the harvesters are angels. Followers of God will join the kingdom of heaven. As for the others, Jesus “will throw them into a burning furnace. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth” (42). Again, let’s drop the whole myth that Jesus never mentions hell – and the story that hell is just separation from God that you bring on yourself rather than a place that God puts you.

Parable of the treasure: The kingdom of heaven is like a buried treasure that is exciting to find.

Well that one was underwhelming.

Parable of the merchant: The kingdom of heaven is like a guy who sells everything he owns in order to buy one very precious pearl.

So…the kingdom of heaven is an idiot?

Parable of the net: The kingdom of heaven is a net that gathers lots of fish, and then the fishers keep the good fish and throw out the bad ones.

Redundant with the weeds parable, but okay.

Jesus asks if everyone understands the parables, and they say yes. Then he compares the legal experts to people who take old and new things out of their treasure chests. Great, he’s getting all opaque again.

CLAP HARDER

He leaves for his hometown and teaches in synagogues there. People freak out and wonder how he learned to be wise and do miracles, and then “they were repulsed by him and fell into sin” (57), for some reason. Jesus says that “prophets are honored everywhere except in their own hometowns and in their own households” (57) – is that true? Anyway, because of people’s disbelief, he’s not able to perform many miracles there. So I guess he’s like Tinkerbell and needs people to believe in him in order to do his thing.

Highlights

Jesus was pretty clear for most of this chapter.

Lowlights

Less substantial ethical discussion, and more fixation on judgment and reward/punishment. Also, the yeast-as-evangelism thing was bizarre.

Jacob Only Loves One of His Wives

OT: Genesis 28-29

Genesis 28

Isaac calls Jacob over and blesses him (what, again? after all the hubbub before?) and tells him not to marry a Canaanite woman (is that the same as a Hittite woman like Rebekah hates?), but to go marry one of Laban’s daughters – i.e. one of his first cousins. Great. Esau figures out from this that his parents hate Canaanite women like his wives, so he marries Ishmael’s daughter (his first cousin) as a third wife, as though that will fix things.

On his way to Laban’s house, Jacob has a dream about a staircase from earth to heaven, with angels going up and down, and then God appears on the staircase and tells Jacob he’ll have lots of descendants and the land he’s sleeping on will be theirs and God is protecting him – you know, the usual. Jacob wakes up and freaks out in terror of God’s presence, and takes a stone that he had set next to his head when he went to sleep (why, I don’t know) and makes it a “sacred pillar” (18) and pours oil on it. He renames that place Bethel (meaning “God’s house”), because Bible people love renaming things symbolically, and promises that if God protects him on his trip, “then the LORD will be my God” (21). The random rock that he decided was a pillar will be God’s house, and he’ll give a tenth of his earnings back to God.

Now, hold up. There have been a lot of times already in Genesis where the way people have spoken about God has made it sound like there are multiple gods to choose from. This whole thing with Jacob deciding whether to follow God is just one example. It seems less like he’s unconvinced of God’s existence and is waiting around for more evidence before committing, than that he knows God exists and is just figuring out whether or not he’s worth following, which only makes sense if there are other options. Obviously if we all knew definitively that there was exactly one God and he was in charge of everything and all that, we would follow him without a second thought. We’d have to be daft not to. But people keep talking about the God of Abraham and so on, as though in opposition to other gods. And every time somebody makes a statement about how their god is a good god and so on, that always sounds to me like they’re comparing him with other gods. Am I crazy? Or does the Old Testament seem like a vaguely polytheistic document? Not always – the actual creation story at the beginning doesn’t seem to admit of other gods, at least not ones who are concerned with the earth – but in some places it seems to tell a different story.

Genesis 29

Jacob has an oddly technical conversation with some shepherds about proper sheep watering schedules, then sees Rachel shepherding her father’s sheep. He gives them water, then kisses Rachel and bursts into tears. Awkward. He tells Rachel who he is and they go to Laban’s house to tell him too. Jacob stays and works for Laban, and after a month Laban says Jacob shouldn’t have to work for him for free just because they’re related, and asks what payment he wants. Jacob is in love with Rachel, so he offers to work seven years for Jacob in exchange for Rachel, and Laban agrees. I’m not sure why Rachel “costs” seven years of work when Rebekah was sent off for free.

Anyway, after seven years, Jacob gets really blunt with Laban: “The time has come. Give me my wife so that I may sleep with her” (21). Laban invites everyone in town over for a feast to celebrate, but that night he sends his older daughter Leah to sleep with Jacob instead of Rachel. Why didn’t Rachel intervene? Why couldn’t Jacob tell it was Leah? Even if we imagine that it was pitch black, wouldn’t her voice sound different? Did they just not talk at all? In the morning he sees that the woman in bed with him is Leah, so he’s like, “Laban, WTF?”

Guys, remember when Heath Ledger was still alive? Those were the days.

Laban’s all, “Well, I don’t know what they been teachin’ you down in Canaan, but round these here parts, we don’t let the younger sisters get married until the older ones are. Like a Taming of the Shrew kind of situation. Or a 10 Things I Hate About You situation, if you prefer.” So sneaky Laban tells Jacob to enjoy his week-long honeymoon with Leah, and then, if he promises to work seven more years, he can have Rachel too. So he finishes his honeymoon, marries Rachel too, finally gets to nail her, loves her more than Leah (seriously, it says this), and then works seven more years for that prick Laban.

Why isn’t anybody in this book nice? It’s like Wuthering Heights. Except not nearly as well-written or interesting.

God sees that Leah is unloved, so he makes up for it by giving her kids and making Rachel barren, even though Leah was complicit in the trickery and this whole thing wasn’t really Rachel’s fault. Leah has four sons in a row – Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah – and every time, she thinks this will be the son that will make Jacob love her. It’s really sad, actually.

Highlights

I guess Jacob’s willingness to work to earn Rachel is kind of sweet in a Ferdinand-and-Miranda-in-The-Tempest kind of way, except, again, not as well-written.

Lowlights

Everybody is so deceitful!

OT: Psalms 7-8

I don’t like the psalms so far, but I’m guessing they’re prettier in the KJV.

Psalm 7

God needs to work on his anger management.

David complains again about all his enemies and asks God to save him, unless he’s done anything wrong in his life, in which case he asks to be caught and killed. He asks God to get angry and establish justice, and calls God a “shield” (10) and a “righteous judge” (11) who will punish those who don’t change their ways. He also says that the wicked basically get what’s coming to them – “the trouble they cause will come back on their own heads” and so on (16). There’s actually one line in this psalm that says God “is angry at evil every single day” (11), but there’s a footnote saying that “at evil” doesn’t appear in the original Hebrew. So the translators just added it…? I think “God is angry every single day” would be a more accurate description of the character depicted so far in the OT.

Psalm 8

God is glorious and majestic and defeats enemies and it’s amazing that he bothers to think about humans at all and gives them power over the whole earth.

Highlights

None.

Lowlights

The psalms are repetitive and boring. I’m always sad on the days when we have psalms to read instead of NT.

Family Values Fail

Things I learned this week: the last book of the New Testament is actually called Revelation, not Revelations. Go figure.

Also, I came down with a nasty cold yesterday, which is probably divine punishment of some kind.

OT: Genesis 22-23

Genesis 22

Oh, shit’s about to get real. This is the chapter where Abraham almost kills his own son. Yay family values!

Andrea Yates drowned all five of her children in the bathtub because she heard voices telling her that they would surely go to Hell if she didn't kill them before they got too evil. She is currently incarcerated in a mental hospital.

God decides to “test” Abraham, so he calls him and Abraham answers, “I’m here” (Genesis 22:1), which is probably one of the dumbest things you can say to God, since he already sees you. God tells Abraham to “Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac” (Genesis 22:2) – even though Abraham explicitly said a couple chapters ago that he loves Ishmael equally – up a mountain and sacrifice him as a burned offering. Instead of concluding that either A) he’s hearing violent voices and is probably schizophrenic, or B) the God he’s been serving is a supreme asshole, Abraham is like “Whatever you say, boss!” and starts up the mountain in the morning with a donkey, his son, a couple servants, and a bunch of kindling. After they’ve been climbing for a while, Abraham is all, “Hey servants, stay here with the donkey while I and my son go up on the summit and worship. Also we’re taking the wood with us. Why? Oh, no reason. Why are you asking so many questions? What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?! LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Abraham makes Isaac carry the wood – which is kind of sick and twisted – and carries a torch and a knife himself. Eventually Isaac notices there’s something missing, and asks, “Where is the lamb for the entirely burned offering?” (Genesis 22:6). [Tangent: people consistently use the phrase "entirely burned offering" throughout this chapter, which leads me to believe that there must be distinct Hebrew words for "entirely burned offering" and "lightly singed offering." I like my offerings quickly seared and then served with a nice balsamic glace, but it's all a matter of personal preference.] Abraham is like, “Lamb? Lamb?! WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ LAMB!!” Except he actually says, “God will see to it, my son” (Genesis 22:8). Isaac doesn’t say anything, indicating that either he doesn’t realize how weird it is to expect God to provide the materials for his own offering, or he has figured out that his dad has a screw loose and doesn’t want to push him.

Abraham prepared to slit his son's throat because a voice told him to, and only stopped because another voice told him not to. He is revered by billions of people around the world as the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and as an exemplar of piety and goodness.

When they get to the special spot, Abraham builds an altar, stacks the wood on top, ties up Isaac (who doesn’t say a single word for the rest of the chapter, so we have no idea what he’s thinking through all this), and sets him on the wood. As Abraham is lifting the knife in preparation to murder his son, a messenger calls out to him from heaven, and again he stupidly answers, “I’m here” (Genesis 22:11). The messenger is like, “Guess what? You just got punk’d! You don’t have to kill your son since you’ve proven that you would do anything I tell you to.” Abraham conveniently finds a ram stuck in a bush, so he sacrifices it instead.

God promises to reward Abraham for his Nurembergian compliance by blessing him with infinite descendants who will conquer the world. Abraham & co. go home, and Abraham learns that he has a bunch of nephews now.

Genesis 23

Sarah dies at age 127, and Abraham grieves. He asks the people whose land he’s living in for a place to bury his wife, and they’re like “mi graveyard es su graveyard!” So Abraham is like, “Okay, ask that guy Ephron if he will sell me the cave at the edge of his field so I can bury my wife in it.” And Ephron’s like, “Dude, I’ll give you the cave, and the field.” And Abraham’s like, “No, I insist, let me pay you for the field.” And Ephron responds, “Sir, what is four hundred shekels of silver between me and you for the land so that you can bury your dead?” (Genesis 23:15). Now, that sounds to me like Ephron is telling Abraham again to forget about it and take the land for free. But the next verse says that “Abraham accepted Ephron’s offer and weighed out for Ephron the silver he requested publicly” (Genesis 23:16), even though it really didn’t sound like he requested any silver. In any case, Abraham gets the field and the cave and buries Sarah in the cave.

Highlights

It’s nice that Abraham was sad when his wife died?

Lowlights

God told a guy to murder his own son as a test and he was actually going to do it and was somehow rewarded for that. Jesus fucking Christ.

OT: Psalms 5-6

Psalm 5

This is another Psalm of David. I’m starting to get the idea that all the Psalms might actually be by David.

David demands that God listen to him. He talks about how “you aren’t a God who enjoys wickedness; evil doesn’t live with you” (Psalm 5:4), proving that David has not read as much of Genesis as I have. He goes on to say that “The LORD despises people who are violent and dishonest” (Psalm 5:6), which completely contradicts the idea that God loves everybody and the “love the sinner, hate the sin” philosophy. David says that he’ll worship God because of his love, and asks God to lead him in righteousness. Speaking of his enemies, David says that “their throats are open graves; their tongues slick with talk” (Psalm 5:9), which is a repulsive image. He tells God to condemn them and protect the faithful.

Psalm 6

David asks God for mercy and salvation because he is afraid of all those enemies we’ve been hearing so much about. He inexplicably informs God that “No one is going to praise you when they are dead” (Psalm 6:5). He complains that he cries every night and is worn out by grief. He announces that God has heard his prayer and so will defeat his enemies.

Highlights

None, really. The Psalms are pretty underwhelming.

Lowlights

David kind of sounds like a paranoid schizophrenic.

Turns Out L.A. Is In Israel

OT: Genesis 14-15

Genesis 14

The kings of a bunch of cities declare war on the kings of a bunch of other cities. The five attacked kings prepared for a battle against the four attacker kings in the Dead Sea Valley, which is “filled with tar pits” (Genesis 14:10). The only tar pits I’ve ever been to are the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, so I’m assuming those are the ones we’re talking about. During the retreat, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fall into the tar pits, and their three allies flee. The allies pillage Sodom and Gomorrah for food and supplies – with allies like those, who needs enemies? – and, for good measure, they also kidnap Lot and all his possessions, and book it out of there. When Abram hears the news about his nephew’s kidnapping, he takes all 318 of “the loyal men born in his household” (which, as Branan pointed out in a comment on a previous post, likely means his slaves) and goes after the kidnappers. He attacks them and reclaims “all of the looted property” (from two entire cities?), and his nephew Lot, and “Lot’s property, wives, and people” (Genesis 14:16). I’m not sure why Abram and his wife need 318 slaves, or where Lot picked up multiple wives and “people” (aka slaves?) of his own. Also I like how the wives are listed between the property and the slaves. So it’s three kinds of chattels, basically.

I forgot to mention that Sodom and Gomorrah were ruled by elephant-kings.

Abram comes home and the king of Sodom, who I guess recovered from his tar dip, comes to meet him. Yet another king brings a priest along to bless Abram and thank God for the victory, and Abram repays the blessing king with 1/10 of his loot. Side note: I think this is the first instance so far of people claiming that God picked sides in a fight. Anyway, the king of Sodom tells Abram, “Give me the people and take the property for yourself” (Genesis 14:21). I’m not sure which people we’re talking about here. I thought Lot’s household were the only people taken from Sodom…so maybe he means Lot’s slaves? And/or Lot and his family? Anyway, Abram denies the gift, saying that he promised God he wouldn’t take anything from the king of Sodom so that the king couldn’t claim to be the one who made Abram rich…or something. Biblical people have the weirdest hangups. Anyway, Abram says he’ll just let his men keep food to eat and give the rest back to the king.

Well, that was a boring chapter.

Genesis 15

This should be more interesting, because now we have God’s covenant with Abram.

So God comes to Abram in a vision and says, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your protector. Your reward will be very great” (Genesis 15:1). And Abram’s all, “But nothing you can give me will matter because I don’t have any kids. This random dude from Damascus who runs my household will have to be my heir. Wtf?” And God says – and these are his actual words – “Your heir will definitely be your very own biological child” (Genesis 15:4). Well, those are his actual words as translated in the Common English Bible. His actual actual words were probably in Hebrew. Anyway, God tells Abram he’ll have as many children as there are stars in the sky, which makes my vagina hurt on behalf of Sarai.

“Abram trusted the LORD, and the LORD recognized Abram’s high moral character” (Genesis 15:6), because a high moral character consists of faith and obedience. Sigh.

God reminds Abram that he’s God, after all, and that he gave him all this land. And then Abram asks how he can know that the land is actually his, because apparently the word of God himself isn’t good enough for Abram. What happened to his high moral character? Then God asks for an animal sacrifice – of very specific animals – which Abram of course gives him, magically knowing that he’s supposed to leave the birds whole but split all the other animals in half. I can only assume that he was butterflying them so they would cook evenly, because I know sometimes steakhouses do that with big cuts of meat.

Anyway.

God tells Abram that his descendants will live as immigrants in a foreign land “where they will be oppressed slaves for four hundred years,” and then God will punish the oppressing nation, and Abram’s descendants will leave “with great wealth,” and Abram will die peacefully after a long life (Genesis 15:13-15). God also tells Abram, “The fourth generation will return here since the Amorites’ wrongdoing won’t have reached its peak until then” (Genesis 15:16). I don’t know what’s special about the Amorites compared to all the other tribes we’ve talked about, or what their “wrongdoing” is, but I suppose I’ll find out.

Then it gets dark and “a smoking vessel with a fiery flame passed between the split-open animals” (Genesis 15:17), for some reason. Then God “cut a covenant with Abram” (Genesis 15:18), all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates to Abram’s descendants, “together with” a whole lot of other clans. I’m not sure if that means Abram’s descendants will be sharing that land with those clans, or if God is giving all those clans to Abram’s descendants along with the land, as slaves or subjects or what have you. With God, all things are possible!

…Nope, that was still kinda boring.

Highlights

Eh, nothing good really happened in this section.

Lowlights

Sarai will apparently be expected to squeeze approximately one hundred billion babies out – and that’s just if we’re assuming God was limiting himself to the Milky Way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, metaphor. I know. I know.

Animal sacrifice is a lowlight in my book.

Also, it’s always a little discomfiting when people decide that God is on their side fighting against other people.

More OT: Psalms 3-4

Psalm 3

This one’s sung/narrated/possibly written by David, who complains to God that he is surrounded by enemies. But he declares that God is his “shield” and his “glory” (Psalms 3:3), who answers when he cries out, who helps him sleep and wake up and face his enemies without fear. That’s all very well, but the last stanza is absolutely charming. David calls on God to save him, and then elaborates: “In fact, hit all my enemies on the jaw; shatter the teeth of the wicked!” (Psalms 3:7). Finally, David asks for God’s blessing on his people.

Psalm 4

Oh good, another one by David. David asks God to answer his cries and hear his prayers and have mercy on him and release him from his troubles. He chastises the people he’s fighting against, I guess – it’s unclear since he just called them “you people” – and asks them, “How long will you continue to love what is worthless and go after lies?” (Psalms 4:2). He warns them that God “takes personal care of the faithful….So be afraid, and don’t sin! Think hard about it in your bed and weep over it!” (Psalms 4:3-4). He tells them to truth God and give him offerings. And he wraps up by telling God again how great he is for filling his heart with joy and protecting him.

Highlights

Ehh…this part was also pretty mediocre.

Lowlights

I really wish people could come up with a better motivation for ethical behavior than fear. “Be afraid and don’t sin” isn’t the kind of lesson I would want taught to my children. No Sunday School for them, I guess.

How now? Ararat?

Who’s ready for some more genealogy?

OT: Genesis 5-8

Genesis 5 = Just a list of some of Adam’s descendants – specifically, Seth (Adam’s 3rd son), Seth’s firstborn son, his firstborn son, his firstborn son, etc., and all of their ages. All of them also “had other sons and daughters,” but why would we mention the women? They don’t matter! All these people lived to be about 750-1000 years old, which either sounds great or miserable. Methuselah is, predictably, the oldest person mentioned, living 969 years, but only narrowly edging out Jared, who died at 962. Confusingly, a bunch of Seth’s descendants have the same names as Cain’s descendants. Seth’s great-great-great-grandson is named Enoch, just like Cain’s son. Methuselah is the Seth-Enoch’s son, which is an anagram of the Cain-Enoch’s sons name, Methushael. And Methuselah and Methushael both named their sons Lamech. This is some Wuthering Heights shit. Anyway, the Lamech who’s descended from Seth fathers Noah – yes, the Noah. Lamech predicts that Noah will relieve the world from the curse on Adam that made agriculture hard. And then to wrap things up, Noah, at the tender age of 500, fathers triplets: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Side note: I’m still not sure why Adam’s and Eve’s kids get blamed for Adam’s and Eve’s sins. That seems like the opposite of fair. I get that, metaphorically, this is probably just supposed to set up the situation in which humanity is imperfect and separated from God and therefore needs salvation. But God isn’t setting a good moral precedent with the whole thing where the sins of the father will be visited upon the son, IMHO.

I thought God promised not to do this anymore?

Genesis 6 = The flood! Get excited! But first, people keep reproducing, and some “divine beings” (angels?) are turned on by the human women, so they marry their favorites (Genesis 6:2). God reminds everyone that humans are mortal, and then sets their life span at 120 years, but Noah keeps on keeping on into his sixth century. Also, Genesis 6:4 is trippy as all hell: “In those days, giants lived on the earth and also afterward, when divine beings and human daughters had sexual relations and gave birth to children. These were the ancient heroes, famous men.” Giants, huh? Like, literal giants a la Jack and the beanstalk, or metaphorical giants a la, I don’t know, Ajax? Also, what’s with all the interspecies breeding between “divine beings and human daughters?” This seems to imply that all the divine beings are male. Naturally. Anyway, grab your buoys – it’s flood time! God realizes that humanity has become “thoroughly evil,” and that “every idea their minds thought up was always completely evil” (Genesis 6:5), which is kind of extreme, if you ask me. God regrets ever making humans at all, and prepares for what Eddie Izzard has aptly described as “the Etch-a-Sketch End of the World,” where you make a little mistake and then just annihilate everything. Except God doesn’t make mistakes – but he has regrets…? Hm. Anyway, God is disgusted with everybody except Noah and his triplet sons. So God tells Noah he’s going to kill everyone except him and his family, and orders him to make an ark (with measurements and all that), and to bring one male and one female of every animal on board. Except God never gave Noah measurements for an aquarium, so I guess he left the fish alone since they’d be better off in the floodwaters? Anyway, Noah is also told to bring his wife (who still isn’t named) and his sons and their wives (who also aren’t named) on board. And Noah does everything he’s told.

Genesis 7 = God changes his plans slightly, telling Noah this time to bring seven male-female pairs of every bird, plus seven pairs of every “clean” animal, but just one pair of every “unclean” animal (Genesis 7:2-3). Naturally he doesn’t explain what makes an animal “clean” or “unclean.” Define your terms! But then, inexplicably, a few verses later, “From the clean and unclean animals, from the birds and everything crawling on the ground, two of each, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, just as God commanded Noah” (Genesis 7:8-9). Except that wasn’t what God commanded Noah to do – at least not most recently. What happened to the other six pairs of birds and all that…? Whatever. So a week later, it starts raining, when Noah is exactly 599 years and 1 month and 17 days old. And on that day, Noah and his family and the animals all go into the ark…again. So, to recap: they all board the ark; seven days later, it starts raining, and they all board the ark.

Haha, my dorm just lost power. I’m probably being punished for my irreverence.

Anyway, back to Genesis 7. God closes the door behind Noah &co., and then unleashes the flood. It rains for 40 days and 40 nights, and the flood rises to a depth of 23 feet, “covering the mountains” (Genesis 7:20) – I guess the Andes hadn’t been invented yet. Everything dies but Noah &co. (and the fish…?), and the flood lasts for like 5 months. Maybe overkill?

Genesis 8 = God evaporates all the floodwaters using the Power of Wind, and the ark lands on Ararat. Which gives me the opportunity to share the dumbest joke I’ve heard recently.

Q: What did the cats on the ark say when they saw land?

A: Look, A-ra-rat!

So even after the ark hits land, it takes two and a half more months for mountain peaks to appear, somehow. Forty days later (why wait so long?), Noah sends a raven out to fly around until the water dries up, for unclear reasons. Then he sends out a dove, but the dove finds nowhere to land and comes back to the ark in disgrace, which makes no sense since the mountaintops had already appeared. A week later, Noah sends the dove off again, and this time it comes back with an olive leaf – meaning that somehow, in the week since its last expedition, not only did the water evaporate from dry land somewhere, but also an olive tree had time to sprout and grow leaves, or else it survived being submerged for the better part of a year. I can’t decide which is less implausible. A week later, he sends the dove out again, and it never comes back, indicating either that it found enough land to settle down, or that it gave up and drowned itself. But Noah is an optimist, I guess, so he opens up the ark (not sure how he released the birds without doing that before) and, sure enough, he finds dry land. God tells Noah to bring everyone out of the ark. Noah builds an altar and sacrifices some of the clean animals and birds to God. So either he just made several species extinct, or else he did take seven pairs of clean things and birds after all, contrary to the most recent version of the story. God “smelled the pleasing scent” (Genesis 8: 21) of burning flesh (ew), and decides not to destroy everything anymore, or at least not “as long as the earth exists” (Genesis 8:22), which is sort of an empty promise. “Until I destroy everything, I promise I won’t destroy everything!” “Great, thanks.”

Highlights

Look, A-ra-rat!

Lowlights

Before the flood, God tells Noah that “the end has come for all creatures, since they have filled the earth with violence” (Genesis 6:13). Because the best way to end violence is to destroy absolutely everything with a giant fucking flood. I guess God wasn’t familiar with the whole “be the change you want to see in the world” idea since Gandhi hadn’t been born yet.

NT: Matthew 3, Psalms 1-2

[EDIT 1/5/12: It turns out the Psalms are actually in the Old Testament. Oops.]

When we last left our intrepid baby hero, he had narrowly escape death in Herod’s genocide by fleeing (slash being carried by Joseph) to Egypt, then returned to Nazareth in order to, you guessed it, fulfill a prophecy.

Matthew 3 = John the Baptist shows up in Judea and tells everyone to clean up their act because “Here comes the kingdom of heaven!” (Matthew 3:2). This fulfills a prophecy about a person “shouting in the wilderness” (Isaiah 40:3) about God coming to check in on everyone. People come from all over Jerusalem and Judea and Jordan and confess their sins to John, who baptizes them in the Jordan River. John is skeptical of some of the people who come to him for baptism (the Pharisees and the Sadducees), and warns them that God won’t put up with any bullshit. He’s going to “sift the wheat from the husks” and burn the husks (Matthew 3:12), and only those who have truly “changed [their] hearts and lives” are going to make the cut.

(Just to be clear, I’m fully aware that sifting the wheat from the husks is a metaphor. That kind of metaphor is easy to spot. The whole story of creation is more ambiguous.)

Then things get funky. Jesus comes from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. John is all, “wait, shouldn’t you be baptizing me?” And Jesus is all, “No, just do what I say.” Except what Jesus actually says is “This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15), which sounds way cooler. So John baptizes Jesus, and when Jesus emerges from the river, heaven is open to him, and he sees “the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and resting on him” (Matthew 3:16). But I thought Jesus is God…? Anyway, a “voice from heaven” (presumably God’s) says, “This is my Son whom I dearly love; I find happiness in him” (Matthew 3:17).

Psalm 1 = Happy people don’t take bad advice or hang out with sinners and disrespecters; instead, “they recite God’s Instruction day and night!” (Psalms 1:2). “Whatever they do succeeds” (Psalms 1:3), aka all they do is win. The wicked, on the other hand, are fucked. They don’t have a place in “the court of justice” or “the assembly of the righteous” (Psalms 1:5).

Psalm 2 = The world leaders are rebelling against God and “his anointed one” (Psalms 2:2) – who is Jesus, I’m assuming. But God “makes fun of them” (Psalms 2:4), and then yells at them. God tells the narrator, “You are my son, today I have become your father” (Psalms 2:7), and promises to give him all the rebelling nations as his property, so he can “smash them with an iron rod” and “shatter them like a pottery jar” (Psalms 2:9). Nice guy, huh? The narrator then warns everyone to “wise up” (Psalms 2:10) and serve God, “because his anger ignites in an instant. But all who take refuge in the LORD are truly happy!” (Psalms 2:12).

John the Baptist

Highlights

Apparently John the Baptist “wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist,” and “ate locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4). What a BAMF.

Lowlights

The Psalms are a pretty unflattering depiction of God as vengeful.