Some bible-based songs are just so damn awesome they need their own blog entries
The Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn!
Ripped Straight out of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3
(Which makes it a bible story)
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it's not too late!
Monday, July 30, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Deborah and Jael – When the Women start the killin’
Now tell me again; why can’t they get equal pay for equal work?
Predictably, the Israelites weren’t doing what God wanted again, so of course he sold them (yes, sold them) to Jabin, the King of Canaan. After twenty years of enslavement to the Canaanites some of the Israeli leaders tracked down the prophet of Jehovah for help. At that time the prophet was a highly capable woman named Deborah. Deborah was perfectly happy to help and sent for Barak, the leader of the Israelite armies and said, “Listen jackass. God says you need to take your little army to Mount Tabor so God can make Sisera, the leader of Jabin’s army, go down to the river so you can eradicate his Army.”
Barak didn’t think a woman should talk to him like that so he replied,” Ok, Little Debbie, I may like your Oatmeal Creme Pies but I still don’t trust you. I’m not going anywhere God orders me unless you go too.”
Little Debbie doesn’t have a problem with tagging along. She just needs to say one more thing: “Ok, I’ll go. You just need to know that no matter what you do, you’re not getting’ any of the cred for this little operation. God’s gonna make sure that something called a WOMAN is gonna take out Sisera. Choke on it sucker!”
Everything went down just as Deborah predicted. Once Barak got his army to Mount Tabor, Sisera showed up with his army and Barak’s troops were able to wipe the floor with Sisera’s boys. When Sisera saw how badly his ass was being beaten he booked it out of there. He ran until he made it to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. He figured that was a safe bet because Heber was friendly with King Jabin.
Jael came out of the tent when she saw Sisera coming and told him to hide in the tent. Jael gave Sisera a cup of warm milk and tucked him into bed where he fell right asleep on account of his being tired from running so far. Jael then went outside and pulled up a giant tent stake. She walked into the tent, grabbed a hammer and drove the FUCKING GIANT SPIKE into Sisera’s skull. Of course blood starts spurting everywhere, making a huge mess and getting all over Jael. So when Barak shows up this blood-covered woman walks out of the tent and calmly says, “Hey jackass, you know that guy you were chasing? He’s in here. Kindly remove him so I can get this shit cleaned up.”
Ref: Judges 4
Ref: Judges 4
Monday, July 23, 2012
The Philistines take the Arc – The Lord works in mysterious ways
This is the way it went down? Really?
It just so happened that after Moses but before King David the Hebrews lived near the Philistines. Well, the Hebrews figured they should just go ahead and kill all the Philistines and take their stuff. After all, it had worked very well for them in the past. So they all line up and have this big battle where the Philistines kick the piss out of the Hebrews, killing several thousand of them.
The Hebrews weren’t used to losing so this kinda threw them for a loop, but as luck would have it, some of the Hebrew leaders had seen Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Arc. They remembered how those German guys said the Arc would make any army who possessed it invincible. In another stroke of luck, they actually had the arc. So they sent some people to fetch the thing. When it arrived the Hebrew army got super excited because they were sure they could win by using the Arc. The Philistines had seen the film too, so they were genuinely concerned. These Philistines weren’t the kind to run away from a fight though, so they engaged the Hebrews again.
Well, it turns out the Arc wasn’t really all that, so the Philistines were still able to massacre the invading Hebrews; taking out another 30 thousand. They also captured the Arc and took it to the temple of their god, Dagon. Even though the Jehovah couldn’t be bothered to help his chosen people win the fight against the Philistines, he didn’t like them having the Arc, so with all his Godly might, he made the statue of Dagon fall over sometime during the night. That’s right, God made a statue fall down while nobody was looking.
The Philistines thought it was weird their statue had fallen over, so they put it back up. God wasn’t about to let them get away with that, so he made the statue fall over AGAIN the next night. This time though, the statue’s hands and head broke off. Good thing the Philistine priests were incredibly superstitious because they figured if their statue had fallen twice it must be bad news. They blamed the falls on the Arc and sent it away to a different Philistine city. When the arc got there everybody got sick. After this the Philistines figured the Arc wasn’t worth the trouble if it made statues fall down and made people sick, so they sent it to the Hebrew city of Beth-shemite.
The Hebrews in Beth-shemite hadn’t seen Raiders of the Lost Arc because they couldn’t afford a surround sound upgrade for their theater and Lucas Arts was only allowing screenings in THX theaters. Therefore they didn’t know how the movie ended. In any case, they were super excited to see the Arc and opened it to have a look inside.
For those of you who have not seem Raiders of the Lost Arc, let me explain what happens when you open the thing. First you see that there’s nothing in there but dust, then strange lights appear and a big wind comes out of nowhere. Then demonic looking creatures start flying through the air killing everyone that isn’t smart enough to close their eyes and at least one person has their face melted off. If you believe the biblical account, 50,070 men died that way.
I think this is sad because it shows that God only punishes the Philistines for messing with the Arc by making some dumb statue fall down, but he’s perfectly happy to melt the faces off his Hebrew buddies.
Ref: 1 Samuel 4-6
Ref: 1 Samuel 4-6
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Judah and his Daughter-in-Law – Keeping things in the Family
Now with 50% more typos
This story is about Judah. He is a son of Israel (the man, not the country) and is one of the guys that sold his brother Joseph (the guy with the coat of many colors) to slave traders. The word Jew comes from Judah.
Well, after selling off Joseph of the Technicolor Dream Coat, but before moving to Egypt to live off Joseph’s success; Judah found a wife for his firstborn son, Er. Her name was Tamar. It turns out that Er wasn’t such a great guy so God killed him. This doesn’t sit very well with Judah so he sat down his second son Onan and explained that he was going to have to marry Tamar now and make babies which would count as Er’s children.
Onan decided he didn’t want to make babies if they were weren’t going to count as his, so when having sex with his sister-in-law/wife he used the best form of birth control available to him: early withdrawal (also known as Onanism, what are the odds, right?). The bible isn’t clear if God doesn’t like letting sperm hit the ground or not making babies for your brother. In either case, Onan is guilty so God kills him too. Christianity in general decided this verse is more about wasting sperm than not making babies for your brother. It is the basis for the condemnation of masturbation and birth control. I.E. don’t use birth control or God will kill you.
According to tradition, Tamar should then have passed on the Judah’s third son, Shelah. However, Judah was starting to think that any dude who marries Tamar ends up dead so he told her she needed to move back in with her parents and wait until Shelah was fully grown before being passed off to him.
Well, because Judah didn’t want Tamar’s vagina to kill Shelah he didn’t let them get married after Shelah was fully grown. Tamar decided this was no good so when Judah was out tending the sheep one day she dressed up like a hooker and waited for Judah to come by. Of course, being the upstanding guy he was, Judah saw a hooker (didn’t realize it was his man-killing daughter-in-law) and asked her for sex. Tamar asked him how much he was willing to pay and Judah promised her a sheep. Since he didn’t have any sheep with him just then, Tamer asked him to leave his ring, bracelets, and staff as security. They have sex and Tamar gets pregenant, but she doesn’t show up later to trade Judah’s bling for the sheep.
Eventually Judah finds out that Tamar is pregnant and he ordered her to be burned for having sex without his permission. She showed up for the burning and told everyone the father was the owner of the ring, bracelets, and staff. Judah realized he was the father so he didn’t have his daughter-in-law burned. She was allowed to live and a few months later squeezed out her father-in-law’s babies: twins.
Ref: Gensis 38
This story is about Judah. He is a son of Israel (the man, not the country) and is one of the guys that sold his brother Joseph (the guy with the coat of many colors) to slave traders. The word Jew comes from Judah.
Well, after selling off Joseph of the Technicolor Dream Coat, but before moving to Egypt to live off Joseph’s success; Judah found a wife for his firstborn son, Er. Her name was Tamar. It turns out that Er wasn’t such a great guy so God killed him. This doesn’t sit very well with Judah so he sat down his second son Onan and explained that he was going to have to marry Tamar now and make babies which would count as Er’s children.
Onan decided he didn’t want to make babies if they were weren’t going to count as his, so when having sex with his sister-in-law/wife he used the best form of birth control available to him: early withdrawal (also known as Onanism, what are the odds, right?). The bible isn’t clear if God doesn’t like letting sperm hit the ground or not making babies for your brother. In either case, Onan is guilty so God kills him too. Christianity in general decided this verse is more about wasting sperm than not making babies for your brother. It is the basis for the condemnation of masturbation and birth control. I.E. don’t use birth control or God will kill you.
According to tradition, Tamar should then have passed on the Judah’s third son, Shelah. However, Judah was starting to think that any dude who marries Tamar ends up dead so he told her she needed to move back in with her parents and wait until Shelah was fully grown before being passed off to him.
Well, because Judah didn’t want Tamar’s vagina to kill Shelah he didn’t let them get married after Shelah was fully grown. Tamar decided this was no good so when Judah was out tending the sheep one day she dressed up like a hooker and waited for Judah to come by. Of course, being the upstanding guy he was, Judah saw a hooker (didn’t realize it was his man-killing daughter-in-law) and asked her for sex. Tamar asked him how much he was willing to pay and Judah promised her a sheep. Since he didn’t have any sheep with him just then, Tamer asked him to leave his ring, bracelets, and staff as security. They have sex and Tamar gets pregenant, but she doesn’t show up later to trade Judah’s bling for the sheep.
Eventually Judah finds out that Tamar is pregnant and he ordered her to be burned for having sex without his permission. She showed up for the burning and told everyone the father was the owner of the ring, bracelets, and staff. Judah realized he was the father so he didn’t have his daughter-in-law burned. She was allowed to live and a few months later squeezed out her father-in-law’s babies: twins.
Ref: Gensis 38
Monday, July 16, 2012
Balaam Gets Jerked Around by God – How doing what God says gets you killed
Doing my part to spread the Good Word
After the Hebrews left Egypt they started to move toward the land promised by God to Abraham’s descendents. Along the way they destroyed all the civilizations they came across. Now the king of Moab noticed the approach of the blood-thirsty people of God and figured his kingdom was next. Fortunately he knew a skilled wizard named Balaam. He sent some messengers to Balaam with gifts and a request that Balaam curse the Hebrews so they would lose in battle and NOT commit genocide against the Moabites.
After the messengers talked with Balaam, God showed up to put in his two cents. He said, “Hey man. You can’t go cursing my chosen people. You best just be stayin’ at home.” So Balaam is a good little boy and does what God says. After the King of Moab hears about Balaam’s refusal to curse the Hebrews he sends more messengers with more presents. This time when God shows up he says, “Alright man, I guess you should go with the Moabites, but you better not do what they ask. You just better do what I say instead.”
So Balaam gets on his Donkey and starts on his trip. Somehow God must have forgotten that He told Balaam to go because He gets MAD and sends an invisible angel to stop Balaam. Fortunately, Balaam’s donkey is special and can see invisible angels so when the angel blocks the path the donkey won’t walk. Balaam doesn’t know what’s going on so he hits the donkey. The donkey doesn’t think this is very fair so he STARTS TALKING. The donkey says, “Whoa man. Whacha be hittin’ me for?” Of course Balaam doesn’t think it’s weird at all to have a conversation with a donkey so he responds, “Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.” The donkey then says, “Hey now, you know I be a good donkey. I’ve like, never disrespected you before.”
Then God makes it so Balaam can see the angel who says, “Yo, Balaam it’s not nice to hit donkeys, oh and, by the way; God’s mad at you for doing what he told you to do last night.” Balaam doesn’t want God mad at him so he starts to head home. The angel stops him and says, “Ok Balaam. The thing is, now God wants you to go with the Moabites again. Just make sure you do what God tells you at the opportune moment.”
When that moment arrived Balaam was a good boy and blessed the Israelites instead of cursing them. This super awesome blessing from a hedge wizard who talks with God made it so the Israelites could then wipe out all the kingdoms in the region with impunity. Of course Balaam received an appropriate reward for his part in helping God’s people commit genocide. They killed him too.
Ref: Numbers 22 and Numbers 31:8
After the Hebrews left Egypt they started to move toward the land promised by God to Abraham’s descendents. Along the way they destroyed all the civilizations they came across. Now the king of Moab noticed the approach of the blood-thirsty people of God and figured his kingdom was next. Fortunately he knew a skilled wizard named Balaam. He sent some messengers to Balaam with gifts and a request that Balaam curse the Hebrews so they would lose in battle and NOT commit genocide against the Moabites.
After the messengers talked with Balaam, God showed up to put in his two cents. He said, “Hey man. You can’t go cursing my chosen people. You best just be stayin’ at home.” So Balaam is a good little boy and does what God says. After the King of Moab hears about Balaam’s refusal to curse the Hebrews he sends more messengers with more presents. This time when God shows up he says, “Alright man, I guess you should go with the Moabites, but you better not do what they ask. You just better do what I say instead.”
So Balaam gets on his Donkey and starts on his trip. Somehow God must have forgotten that He told Balaam to go because He gets MAD and sends an invisible angel to stop Balaam. Fortunately, Balaam’s donkey is special and can see invisible angels so when the angel blocks the path the donkey won’t walk. Balaam doesn’t know what’s going on so he hits the donkey. The donkey doesn’t think this is very fair so he STARTS TALKING. The donkey says, “Whoa man. Whacha be hittin’ me for?” Of course Balaam doesn’t think it’s weird at all to have a conversation with a donkey so he responds, “Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.” The donkey then says, “Hey now, you know I be a good donkey. I’ve like, never disrespected you before.”
Then God makes it so Balaam can see the angel who says, “Yo, Balaam it’s not nice to hit donkeys, oh and, by the way; God’s mad at you for doing what he told you to do last night.” Balaam doesn’t want God mad at him so he starts to head home. The angel stops him and says, “Ok Balaam. The thing is, now God wants you to go with the Moabites again. Just make sure you do what God tells you at the opportune moment.”
When that moment arrived Balaam was a good boy and blessed the Israelites instead of cursing them. This super awesome blessing from a hedge wizard who talks with God made it so the Israelites could then wipe out all the kingdoms in the region with impunity. Of course Balaam received an appropriate reward for his part in helping God’s people commit genocide. They killed him too.
Ref: Numbers 22 and Numbers 31:8
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Jesus and the Demons – Showing again that the Son of God is an asshole
Trying to make things more interesting
One day when Jesus and his posse were wandering around stirring up trouble in Gadarenes (which is adjacent to Galilee) this crazy, naked guy who had been living in a cemetery ran up to the Lord and said something like, “Hey, what you do here bra? Why you needs bodda us? No make us move to da mainland, yeah.”
One day when Jesus and his posse were wandering around stirring up trouble in Gadarenes (which is adjacent to Galilee) this crazy, naked guy who had been living in a cemetery ran up to the Lord and said something like, “Hey, what you do here bra? Why you needs bodda us? No make us move to da mainland, yeah.”
Now Jesus was surprised to hear a crazy guy talking like a pacific islander so he asked his name. Naked guy then said something like, “We be Legion bra. Der be lotsa us in here yeah.” Jesus explained that he wasn’t going to allow the evil islander spirits to live their host anymore so Legion said, “Ok bra, we gets it. Jus be lettin’ us inta dohs pigs ova der yeah.”
Jesus though about this quickly weighing the needs of the pig owners (who would have been Gentiles – second class citizens to Jesus) with the needs of the islander spirits and decides it’s better to side with the spirits, so he sends the unclean spirits into the “unclean” animals who then run into the sea and drown. All 2,000 pigs die. Now, before you get all excited about how cool Jesus is because he negotiated a deal with the demons, remember those pigs represented a significant financial loss for their owners. With an approximate modern value of $200 per pig, that would be around $400,000.
The pig keepers freaked out when Jesus killed their herd so they ran into town to let everyone know that a visiting foreigner (Jesus) was using magic to destroy other people’s property. Understandably the townsfolk were very concerned so they banded together and forced Jesus and his “gentlemen friends” out of the region. Good thing too. Who knows what other damage Jesus would have done if he’d been allowed to stay in Gadarenes.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I do not think evil spirits are from Hawaii, or that Hawaiians are evil spirits. I just thought it would be funny to have Legion talk like that.
Ref: Mark 5:10-17
Ref: Mark 5:10-17
Monday, July 9, 2012
Jews vs Arabs – The fight begins
This one is Truly Educational
After Abram (Abraham) sold his wife Sarai to Pharaoh and got kicked out of Egypt he moved back to the land God gave him for his posterity: modern day Israel. For 10 years his wife Sarai (Pharaoh gave her back when he make Abram leave Egypt) tried to get pregnant but it just wasn’t working out.
If you remember, part of the sale price for Sarai was a bunch of Egyptian slaves. Sarai was using one of these slaves as a personal maid and because she felt bad about not being able to get pregnant she gave her slave Hagar to Abraham so they could make babies. Hagar got pregnant pretty easy and this made Sarai MAD. Sarai beat the shit out of Hagar for getting pregnant and Hagar ran away.
Well, this didn’t work for God who wanted his chosen guy to have lots of babies so he sent an angel to sort things out. The angel found Hagar off by herself and told her she had to go back and just let Sarai keep beating her up as long as necessary so she could give Abram the kid. The angel also told her she had to name the kid Ishmael. Hagar was really used to doing what she was told so went back to Sarai and Abram. She eventually had the kid and like a good girl named him Ishmael (It’s important here to remember that God promised the “Holy Land” to Abraham’s posterity).
The next major event is that God comes down and tell Abram that he has to change his name to Abraham and Sarai has to change her name to Sarah. God tells Abraham that his descendents will be the covenant people of God and God will always like them best. Furthermore, from then on all the males have to have their foreskins removed when they are eight days old as their part of the covenant. A long as they keep cutting off their foreskins God will be good to them. If they don’t chop off the foreskin, God won’t like them anymore. God also mentioned that Sarah was going to have a son.
They have this huge circumcision party where all the family and the slaves do their part for God.
This is pretty unbelievable but after the party Abraham moves his people to a new location and Abraham pulls the “Sarah is my sister” trick again and Abimelech the local king marries her. This is just a little odd because by this time Sarah is 90 years old. In any case, after the wedding God has a little chat with Abimelech explaining the situation. Abimelech does some quick talking and gets God to agree to not kill all his people if he gives back Sarah and pays off Abraham. Once again Abraham makes out like a bandit with tons more animals and slaves and God doesn’t kill Abimelech’s people.
Then Sarah actually does have a son and they name him Isaac. Well, now that Sarah has her own son she doesn’t want Hagar’s kid hanging around anymore so she tells Abraham to get rid of her. Abraham isn’t too keen on the idea of getting rid of his son but God tells him it’s ok so he gaves Hagar a bottle of water, a loaf and bread, and sends her off into the desert with her son.
The reason this is SUCH a problem is that God promised Canaan (Israel, Gaza, West Bank) to Abraham’s descendents. Because Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away he then had two separate groups of descendents. The Jews are convinced they own the region through Sarah and Isaac. The Arabs are convinced they own the region through Hagar and Ishmael. Because the deed to the land comes from God both groups are unwilling to change their position and are going to just keep on killing each other. Yay. Nice move God.
Secret to bliblical success: 1. get married 2. sell wife 3. have God kill people 4. get wife back 5. repeat steps 2-4
Note: The more traditional viewpoint of Islam is that they are supposed to share because they are all Abraham's decendants. The more traditional viewpoint of Judeaism is that the Arabs get none of it because Abraham sent away Ishmael. Over time the view of the Islamic world has been shifting toward a more radical solution: genocide.
What's interesting to me is that both groups can't even consider the idea that the biblical account of Abraham's family may not be entirely accurate. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Arabs had no idea they were decended from Ishmael until after Muhammad, about 1400 years ago. Also, there is absolutely zero evidence outside of the biblical and Quranic accounts that any of the Abrahamic tradition is true.
Ref: Genesis 16-17 and Genesis 20-21
After Abram (Abraham) sold his wife Sarai to Pharaoh and got kicked out of Egypt he moved back to the land God gave him for his posterity: modern day Israel. For 10 years his wife Sarai (Pharaoh gave her back when he make Abram leave Egypt) tried to get pregnant but it just wasn’t working out.
If you remember, part of the sale price for Sarai was a bunch of Egyptian slaves. Sarai was using one of these slaves as a personal maid and because she felt bad about not being able to get pregnant she gave her slave Hagar to Abraham so they could make babies. Hagar got pregnant pretty easy and this made Sarai MAD. Sarai beat the shit out of Hagar for getting pregnant and Hagar ran away.
Well, this didn’t work for God who wanted his chosen guy to have lots of babies so he sent an angel to sort things out. The angel found Hagar off by herself and told her she had to go back and just let Sarai keep beating her up as long as necessary so she could give Abram the kid. The angel also told her she had to name the kid Ishmael. Hagar was really used to doing what she was told so went back to Sarai and Abram. She eventually had the kid and like a good girl named him Ishmael (It’s important here to remember that God promised the “Holy Land” to Abraham’s posterity).
The next major event is that God comes down and tell Abram that he has to change his name to Abraham and Sarai has to change her name to Sarah. God tells Abraham that his descendents will be the covenant people of God and God will always like them best. Furthermore, from then on all the males have to have their foreskins removed when they are eight days old as their part of the covenant. A long as they keep cutting off their foreskins God will be good to them. If they don’t chop off the foreskin, God won’t like them anymore. God also mentioned that Sarah was going to have a son.
They have this huge circumcision party where all the family and the slaves do their part for God.
This is pretty unbelievable but after the party Abraham moves his people to a new location and Abraham pulls the “Sarah is my sister” trick again and Abimelech the local king marries her. This is just a little odd because by this time Sarah is 90 years old. In any case, after the wedding God has a little chat with Abimelech explaining the situation. Abimelech does some quick talking and gets God to agree to not kill all his people if he gives back Sarah and pays off Abraham. Once again Abraham makes out like a bandit with tons more animals and slaves and God doesn’t kill Abimelech’s people.
Then Sarah actually does have a son and they name him Isaac. Well, now that Sarah has her own son she doesn’t want Hagar’s kid hanging around anymore so she tells Abraham to get rid of her. Abraham isn’t too keen on the idea of getting rid of his son but God tells him it’s ok so he gaves Hagar a bottle of water, a loaf and bread, and sends her off into the desert with her son.
The reason this is SUCH a problem is that God promised Canaan (Israel, Gaza, West Bank) to Abraham’s descendents. Because Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away he then had two separate groups of descendents. The Jews are convinced they own the region through Sarah and Isaac. The Arabs are convinced they own the region through Hagar and Ishmael. Because the deed to the land comes from God both groups are unwilling to change their position and are going to just keep on killing each other. Yay. Nice move God.
Secret to bliblical success: 1. get married 2. sell wife 3. have God kill people 4. get wife back 5. repeat steps 2-4
Note: The more traditional viewpoint of Islam is that they are supposed to share because they are all Abraham's decendants. The more traditional viewpoint of Judeaism is that the Arabs get none of it because Abraham sent away Ishmael. Over time the view of the Islamic world has been shifting toward a more radical solution: genocide.
What's interesting to me is that both groups can't even consider the idea that the biblical account of Abraham's family may not be entirely accurate. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Arabs had no idea they were decended from Ishmael until after Muhammad, about 1400 years ago. Also, there is absolutely zero evidence outside of the biblical and Quranic accounts that any of the Abrahamic tradition is true.
Ref: Genesis 16-17 and Genesis 20-21
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Abraham in Egypt – How to sell your wife and come out ahead
Because you didn’t hear this in Sunday School
Abraham’s birth name was Abram so for this story we’ll call him Abram. It turns out that after God confounds the languages at the Tower of Babel he sits on the sidelines for a few hundred years. Then out of the blue he comes to Abram and tells him it’s time to move. So Abram (who was 75 at the time) takes his wife Sarai, his son-in-law Lot (the guy who later got drunk and made babies with his daughters), and the rest of his household and they walk to Caanan. Caanan is an area that includes the modern nation of Israel, part of Lebanon, part of Jordan, part of Egypt, and Gaza.
God tells Abram he can have Caanan for his posterity. Screw the people who were already living there (modern Palestine anyone?).
Sadly, Caanan was in a bad spot at the time: no rain. To get away from the famine Abram and his posse walk down to Egypt. When they get to the edge of Egypt Abram tell his wife that she’s such a hottie he’s afraid the Egyptians will kill him so they can have her for themselves; so they need to lie and say she’s his sister. Well, Abram was right. The Egyptians did think Mrs. Abram was super hot so they ran and told Pharaoh about this new hottie. Pharaoh liked the new hottie so he paid Abram a ton of animals and servants (slaves) so he could marry her.
Apparently God doesn’t approve of polyandry (someone should have told Joseph Smith) because after Pharaoh marries Abram’s wife bad stuff happens. God starts to kill people in Pharaoh’s household using disease. Pharaoh is a smart guy so ALL BY HIMSELF he figures out that if God is killing his family and servants Abram must have lied, and his new wife MUST also be married to Abram.
Pharaoh takes the new wife back to Abram, lectures him for lying to him, and tells him to take all his crap and get out of town. So Abram takes back his wife and heads out of Egypt a much richer man than when he arrived.
Note: Sarai was in her 60s at the time of this story.
Ref: Genesis 12
Abraham’s birth name was Abram so for this story we’ll call him Abram. It turns out that after God confounds the languages at the Tower of Babel he sits on the sidelines for a few hundred years. Then out of the blue he comes to Abram and tells him it’s time to move. So Abram (who was 75 at the time) takes his wife Sarai, his son-in-law Lot (the guy who later got drunk and made babies with his daughters), and the rest of his household and they walk to Caanan. Caanan is an area that includes the modern nation of Israel, part of Lebanon, part of Jordan, part of Egypt, and Gaza.
God tells Abram he can have Caanan for his posterity. Screw the people who were already living there (modern Palestine anyone?).
Sadly, Caanan was in a bad spot at the time: no rain. To get away from the famine Abram and his posse walk down to Egypt. When they get to the edge of Egypt Abram tell his wife that she’s such a hottie he’s afraid the Egyptians will kill him so they can have her for themselves; so they need to lie and say she’s his sister. Well, Abram was right. The Egyptians did think Mrs. Abram was super hot so they ran and told Pharaoh about this new hottie. Pharaoh liked the new hottie so he paid Abram a ton of animals and servants (slaves) so he could marry her.
Apparently God doesn’t approve of polyandry (someone should have told Joseph Smith) because after Pharaoh marries Abram’s wife bad stuff happens. God starts to kill people in Pharaoh’s household using disease. Pharaoh is a smart guy so ALL BY HIMSELF he figures out that if God is killing his family and servants Abram must have lied, and his new wife MUST also be married to Abram.
Pharaoh takes the new wife back to Abram, lectures him for lying to him, and tells him to take all his crap and get out of town. So Abram takes back his wife and heads out of Egypt a much richer man than when he arrived.
Note: Sarai was in her 60s at the time of this story.
Ref: Genesis 12
Monday, July 2, 2012
David and the Foreskins – A tale of inappropriate touching
Just like history class, but shorter
King David’s life is pretty thoroughly chronicled in the bible, from before he killed Goliath by throwing a rock at him, to his death. This tale takes place after the rock-throwing incident but before David becomes King.
King David’s life is pretty thoroughly chronicled in the bible, from before he killed Goliath by throwing a rock at him, to his death. This tale takes place after the rock-throwing incident but before David becomes King.
At this time David is a war leader of the Israelites and works for King Saul. His main job is to kill Philistines. Because David is super sexy and extra good at killing people the Israeli people really like him. They like him more than the king which is a problem because King Saul doesn’t like competition. So God sends an evil spirit upon Saul who then throws a couple of javelins at David trying to not only kill him, but also pin him to the wall. Well, David dodges the javelins and this really freaks out Saul who figures this could only happen if God had decided to no longer like Saul, but like David instead. So naturally Saul moved David out of the palace and made him the captain of a fighting force of 1000 men.
The obvious solution is that David must die now, since God likes him. Saul had already figured out he couldn’t kill David so he tried to foist it off on the Philistines. Saul told David he could marry his daughter Merab (Saul’s daughter, not David’s) if he would just fight some more against the Philistines, figuring that eventually David would die. Well, this didn’t work. David didn’t die. To get even with David for not dying, Saul married off his daughter Merab to someone else.
Saul’s next move was to tell David he could marry a different daughter, Michal. Well David was pretty sure he didn’t have enough money to buy one of the King’s daughters but that was ok. You see, the King’s messengers told David all he would need to do was bring the king 100 Philistine foreskins. Saul was sure this would get David killed and he could go back to being God’s favorite.
I don’t know what the hell was wrong with Saul. He must have forgotten about David’s 1000 fighting men. Anyway, they pretty easily went over to Philistine, killed 200 men and cut off their foreskins. David took the foreskins and gave them to Saul who then gave David his daughter Michal in trade as promised.
Now this story proves how cool David was. You see, when someone asks David for 100 foreskins, he brings them 200. Go foreskins!
Ref: 1 Samuel 18
Now this story proves how cool David was. You see, when someone asks David for 100 foreskins, he brings them 200. Go foreskins!
Ref: 1 Samuel 18
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