The Lost 10 Tribes – Oops, I seem to have misplaced something . . .

Speculating is SO much more fun than fact finding

After safely establishing themselves in Palestine, the people of Israel were very naughty and worshiped other gods; fancier and less real than Jehovah. Periodically Jehovah would cause really bad things to happen and the people would return to Him for a while before drifting away again. The ultimate culmination of this behavior pattern took place sometime about 720 BC. The Assyrians smashed the Kingdom of Israel and took all the Hebrews except the ones in the tribe of Judah away and resettled them elsewhere. These Hebrews never returned to Palestine. Dun dun dun . . .

But what happened to these people?

There is no general consensus. The evil sciencey types claim that the missing tribes thing never actually happened and was an invention of the Medieval Europeans so they could claim they were the true descendants of these lost tribes and therefore part of the “people of God.” They say there is no physical evidence and stuff. Pfft! As if God wouldn’t hide the evidence to force us to rely on faith anyway.

There are many different ethnic groups in the world that could be descended from one tribe or another, Ethiopian Jews, the Japanese, Cimmerians, the Brits, Iranian Jews, the Irish, Pakistanis, the Kurds, several different ethnic groups in India, and the indigenous people of the Americas. Lots of people (mostly Americans and Brits) believe the ten tribes were the “barbarian tribes” that spread across Europe, like after the fall of Rome and stuff.



Picture of Earth taken from the NPIEE website



Of course all these theories are wrong. The Lost Hebrews all live inside the Earth. You see, the Earth is hollow and the Lost Tribes have flourished down there. They have a very complex civilization and some population estimates place their number near a billion.

There is an entrance to the “Hollow Earth” near the North Pole and currently efforts are underway to find that entrance and enter into contact with these noble individuals. I understand that you may find this idea strange and you may not believe me. Luckily you don’t have to take my word for it. You can read all about it here.

Moral: The Earth is hollow and people live there. Disrespect at your peril.

Ref: 2 Kings 17

Adam and Eve – Do you know the real story?

Today is the 104^th bible story. That’s one year of twice a week. Congratulations to me!

Back in the days when the Earth was new, there was a young man named Adam and a young woman named Eve who lived in a garden paradise created for them by God. It was just the two of them of course, and if you only ever have one person to talk to and you never have to do any work, you might get pretty bored; eventually. I mean, there was no celebrity gossip column 6,000 years ago. They didn’t even have Ricki Lake OR Guiding Light.

I’m sure when the serpent suddenly started talking to Eve she was thrilled to talk to someone that was interested in saying anything other than: "I bet you wish you could pee standing up," "Be careful when you squat so the pee doesn’t end up running down your legs," or "I sure bet you wish we had a way to make toilet paper" (it turns out that Adam was kinda a jerk).

So, after introducing himself to Eve, the snake said, “So, what gives here? Do you just wander around all day eating fruit off trees?” Eve said, “Pretty much. We just have to be careful to not eat anything off the tree right in the center of the garden. God says it’s poisonous and if we eat it we will die.” The snake laughed and said, “You actually believe that? God is so full of shit. He doesn’t want you to eat that fruit because it will make you smart. Perhaps even smart enough to invent toilet paper, or indoor plumbing.”

This sounded pretty awesome to Eve so she chowed right down on some of the magic fruit and became super smart. Then, because she already thought Adam was a vulgar ape, she gave him some of the fruit in the hope that more knowledge would help him reform his behavior and make him a better conversationalist. Adam ate it and the only thing that occurred to him was the idea that women MUST be covered at all times. He immediately made Eve cover up and explained that Men have no control over themselves and if they see bare flesh on a female they will be compelled to rape her. As we all know, everyone in the bible was all about blaming the victim in the case of sexual assault.

Pretty soon afterward, God came to visit the garden. When he saw that Eve was wearing a burka made out of leaves, he asked Adam what was going on. Adam immediately panicked and said, “It’s not my fault. This ‘woman’ creature you made for me tricked me into eating the forbidden fruit and it made me afraid of female skin. It’s your fault really!” God turned to Eve and said, “Is this true?” Because Eve was a morally superior creature she simply said, “Yes. After the snake told me the fruit would make me smart enough to make toilet paper, I couldn’t wait to eat some.”

God called the snake and said, “Snake, because you told Eve about the smart-making fruit I am going to take away your legs and I will instill fear of you into the heart of every single descendant of Eve. They will try to kill your kind anytime they see one of you, until the end of time.” Then God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden and made Eve a fancy new burka out of animal skins.

 

Notes:

Many people believe the serpent in the Garden of Eden was Satan. I find this patently absurd. The idea of “Satan” didn’t enter into Jewish writing until AFTER the Babylonian Exile started in the early sixth century BC. Incidentally, this is when the concepts of “heaven” and “hell” showed up as well. Of course the serpent in Genesis was just a really clever talking snake, exactly as described in Genesis 3:1. The other crazy belief I run into a lot is that the “original sin” was vaginal intercourse (thank you Roman Catholic Church).

Let me explain: Right after Eve was made from Adam’s rib, the bible says: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:23-24, KJV) I don’t know how you imaging Adam “cleaving” unto Eve or how they became “one flesh,” but for me it definitely involves the bump ugly. Seeing as how all this “cleaving” and “one fleshing” was going on before the incident with the snake, I propose sex didn’t get the young lovebirds kicked out of the garden. Instead, it was Adam forcing Eve to wear clothes.

Moral: naked is better

Ref: Genesis 2-3

Jesus’ Garment – Supernatural Conductor of Virtue

We could really use Jesus’ clothes in a children’s cancer ward. I’m just sayin’ . . .

Once upon a time, there was a woman who lived in the Middle East who suffered from a rather unpleasant affliction. She bled, like, all the time. She’d bled steadily for twelve years. I used to think that she’d either been menstruating for 12 years or had a particularly nasty STD; but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Either way, she was in bad shape and was probably severely iron deficient.

Well after 12 years of suffering, she heard of some crazy rabble rouser named Jesus that did all sorts of nifty magical stuff. When she saw him walking with his apostles through a huge crowd on his way to bring some poor, dead virgin back to life, she sprang into action. After pushing desperately through a crowd, she managed to touch Jesus’ clothing and was instantly healed.

Jesus immediately stopped after the touch and said, “Who touched me?” Nobody fessed up and Jesus’ poor, confused apostles said, “What you do mean, ‘Who touched me?’ You are surrounded by tons of people and most of them have bumped or jostled you at some point during our walk.” Jesus was in a generous mood, so he explained: “I know somebody touched me, because I could feel virtue leaving me.”

Ok, that explains how Jesus knew about the touch, but it leaves me with some important questions. Did Jesus have some limited amount of magic virtue he could use during his life and he only died after it ran out? Did Jesus not have any control over when and how the virtue was used? Did virtue transfer require physical contact? If so, was some other source of magical power used to perform miracles when no direct contact occurred? Is virtue the name of power specifically allocated to fix persistent bleeding, or can it be used for all sorts of things?

Once the now healed woman knew that Jesus had a supernatural way to tell what she did and who she was, she got really scared. She started trembling violently and fell down on the ground at Jesus’ feet and declared to the entire crowd her blood story and why she’d taken virtue without permission. Jesus loved groveling, and felt a little guilty about the poor woman sharing her blood story with the crowd, which was probably pretty embarrassing. Therefore, he just said, “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.”

Moral: magic is awesome!

Ref: Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 8:43-48

Note: This whole thing is weird to me because we were just told that the virtue healed her, not her faith. Does virture transfer also require faith to work? How can someone be brought back to life if faith is required? Do they still have faith after they die?

Cake made a great song that appears to draw at least some inspiration from this story called, “Hem of Your Garment.”

I am intrinsically no good
I have a heart that's made of wood
I am only biding time
Only reciting memorized lines
And I'm not fit to touch
The hem of your garment

No, no I'm not fit to touch the hem of your garment

I have no love but only goals
How very empty is my soul
It is a soul that feels no thrill
A soul that could easily kill
And I'm not fit to touch
The hem of your garment

No, no I'm not fit to touch the hem of your garment

I am intrinsically no good
I have a heart that's made of wood
I am only biding time
Only reciting memorized lines
And I'm not fit to touch
The hem of your garment

I am intrinsically no good
I have a heart that's made of wood
I am only biding time
Only reciting memorized lines
And I'm not fit to touch
The hem of your garment

No, no I'm not fit to touch the hem of your garment
The hem of your garment


Lyrics taken from www.azlyrics.com

Noah’s Ark – Easily Believable

You shouldn’t try to argue with God. It’s almost universally fatal.

Back when genocide was an acceptable form of behavior modification, God decided to kill everyone except Noah and his family. Noah had to build a giant boat (Ark) and put two of every kind of unclean animal, male and female, and seven of every clean (i.e. delicious) animal in it. Then there was a huge flood that killed every person and every animal not on the boat. It’s a well-known, faith-promoting story about how awesome god is, and how important it is to follow His rules (Ref: Genesis 6-8).



Animals boarding the Ark; especially the dinosaurs

Many people who love the bible far less than I, try to discredit the entire book by attacking the story of Noah’s Ark. They make crazy claims like, “There isn’t enough space for all the animals” and “The technology of the time was insufficient to build a wood vessel of that size.” If you’re concerned about that sort of stuff, you can now rest at ease, because I am going to prove it’s possible using math. I think math is something we can all agree on. Yay for math!

First: the available cargo volume of the arc

God told Noah to build the Ark 300 cubits by 75 cubits by 30 cubits (Genesis 6:15). Using the standard, accepted conversion for cubits to feet (1 cubit -> 1.5 feet) this gives us 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. If the Ark was a perfect rectangular prism AND Noah used God’s guidelines for the interior dimensions rather than the exterior dimensions, it would have a volume of 1,518,750 cubic feet.

Rectangular Prism

 Of course the Ark wasn’t a rectangular prism. It had curvy corners, and the biblical dimensions are assumed to be exterior. The Ark was probably made of a multi-directional composite wood structure (similar to plywood) about a yard thick at the base to give it the strength to support itself, and got thinner near the top to save on total weight. Then the Ark needed internal structure to keep the humans from living directly with the animals and to keep the animals from ending up in a giant pile at the bottom. This means there were multiple levels with the corresponding support structure and possibly interior walls. Let’s assume all this only represents a 15% loss in total volume, which is probably possible given Noah’s divinely inspired carpentry skills; honed through 600 years of life. This gives us an interior volume of 1,290,940 cubic feet.

Second: the apparent problems

There are currently around 1.2 million known species of animal. There are more than 10,000 different types of birds alone. Unfortunately the vast majority of species are unknown. Typical estimates put the total number at no less than 7 million different species, and some are much higher. Don’t worry though; most species live in the water and Noah only had to take the land types. If 75% or all species live in the water, that only leaves 1,750,000 different species for the Ark and most of these are much, much smaller than one cubic foot. If God was helping to gather and load the animals, and they boarded the Ark day and night at a rate of five seconds per species, it would only take two months.

This all seems like it would be great, were it not for Genesis 6:21, “And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee: and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.” That’s right, Noah had to load food. Noah and the animals lived on the Ark for one year and ten days (Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:13). That is a LOT of food. An average horse eats about three tons (6,000 pounds) of food a year. If that’s all alfalfa, two horses would need 1,800 cubic feet of feed, if the alfalfa was compressed into bales. If it was loose, as it would be in Noah’s time, the two horses would need 3,000 cubic feet.

Let’s assume all the animals ate, on average, one pound a year. This would give 1,750,000 pounds of food. At the density of baled alfalfa this is only 175,000 cubic feet. Hey! It still works! Well, maybe not because each animal needs slightly more space that its body actually occupies. They can’t just be all packed in there like sardines or there would be no survival for 375 days. Even intensive pig farming operations need SOME space, and some pretty fancy technology to keep them from overheating in crowded conditions. 1,750,000 different species now seems like a bit of a stretch, especially with God limiting Noah to three levels (Genesis 6:16). This only gives Noah about 90,000 square feet of surface after taking walls and support structure into account, and giving up 5,000 square feet for food storage and the humans. This gives an average of 0.026 square feet (3.7 square inches) of deck per animal, which is probably not enough, and I probably underestimated the amount of food too. Good thing I have the solution, eh?

Third: the solution

If you carefully read Genesis 6:19-20, almost every single English translation calls for two of every kind or sort of animal. Noah didn’t have to take two of all 36 different known species of wild cat. He only had to take two felines. Similarly, he didn’t need to take all the different types of donkey, horse, and zebra; he just needed to take two animals from the family Equidae. Only the birds needed all 10,000 species (see Genesis 7:14). This cuts down on the total number of animals real fast. Also, many of the land based worms, snails and microscopic animals probably didn’t end up on the arc and survived by floating around on debris. Noah didn’t even take the Unicorns (per the Irish Rovers song: The Unicorn).

Of course you may ask, “If Noah didn’t take all the animals we are familiar with on the Ark, how is there so much biodiversity today?” This is easy. Prior to the flood all the land on the planet was in one place, and was relatively flat. Genesis 7:20 says that 15 cubits (22.5 feet) of water covered the hills and “mountains” of Noah’s time. It was five generation later, after Peleg was born, that all the land was violently divided into its current configuration (Genesis 10:25). The high mountains, deep valleys, and isles of the sea were formed at that time.

Note: the New Living Translation of the Bible presents this differently than all the other English translations, which appear to agree with me.

After the kinds of animals were split up into radically different environments, they adapted into their current forms (except the birds, which were all saved on the Ark).

See? It’s easy to explain if you know how.


Note: if you are looking for an entertaining analysis of the Ark story that is less supportive of its veracity, check out Ricky Gervais' stand up bot on Noah's Ark. Here is the youtube video.

Solomon the Judge – Righteousness was never so creepy

Solomon the Wise or Saruman the White?

The wizards of Middle Earth were sent by the Valar (demi-gods) to help the people of Middle Earth stand against Sauron. They were immortal spirits called Maiar. While in Middle Earth, they took the physical form of old men, while retaining superior physical and mental power. This is how when Gandalf’s physical form died after his battle with a Balrog (the physical form of an evil and corrupted Maiar who became a servant of Morgoth thousands of years earlier) he could be restored to “life” by the supreme being, Eru Ilúvatar, so he could complete his mission.

In any case, Saruman was one of these Maiar turned old man helper. He was an expert in mechanical devices and metal working. He was also regarded at the most wise of his order. That’s right. He was Saruman the Wise and because he wore white robes he was called Saruman the White. Of course in the end it turned out that Saruman wasn’t good or wise at all. Instead of helping like he was supposed to, he tried to conquer all of Middle Earth using the tools of Sauron.

Hopefully you remember Solomon as the son of David and Bathsheba. He was their second son. Jehovah killed their first son to teach David a lesson about being a stupid jerkface rapist/murderer. Well, Solomon became King after his father died. Solomon was supposed to be a wise and righteous man, but in the bible it says he was righteous because he followed in his father’s footsteps (1 Kings 3:3). We know King David was a truly terrible person so I can only draw the conclusion that he was supposed to be righteous and good, but was really pretty shady and self-serving. This is why I call him Saruman the White instead of Solomon the Wise.

The biblical Saruman the White was seen as a really good boy, so one day Jehovah visited him in a dream and offered him a present of his own choosing. Because Saruman the White was so “wise” he knew to ask for an “understanding heart.” This request made Jehovah very happy and he gave Saruman the White a heart that was wiser and more understanding than any other heart that would ever exist on Earth.

Conveniently, the morning after the dream two hookers showed up at the royal palace with a dispute about a child. The mean hooker had accidently smothered her newborn while asleep and had switched it for the nice hooker’s living infant. Of course the mean hooker said it was a lie and the nice hooker had killer her own baby and was now trying to lay claim to the mean hooker’s baby.

Because Saruman the White really liked prostitutes, he agreed to judge the matter himself. After the hookers presented their arguments, Saruman used his wise and understanding heart to send someone for a sword. Then Saruman used his wise and understanding heart to tell one of his slaves to use that sword and “divide the living child in two” so each hooker could keep half of it.

The nice hooker didn’t want her baby murdered by a wise and understanding heart so she said, “No, no, no! Please don’t kill my baby. Just let the mean hooker have it instead.” Because the mean hooker wasn’t very smart, she didn’t realize she was ahead and told the King that it was a great idea. She said, “Yay! Cut the baby in half! That way the stupid nice hooker will never get her kid back!”

Of course Saruman the White could tell the kid would be much better off with the nice hooker than the mean one, so he gave her full parental rights and only gave the mean hooker a two hour supervised visit once a month.

When word spread about how the “wise and understanding heart” handled domestic disputes between prostitutes, everyone feared the king because they could tell that he had the “Wisdom of God.”

To misquote the 1961 Disney film 101 Dalmatians:

Look out for the Wisdom of God

Wisdom of God
Wisdom of God
If it doesn't scare you
No evil thing will
To see it is to take a sudden chill
Wisdom, Wisdom of God

The curl of God’s lips
The ice in God’s stare
All innocent children had better beware
God’s like a spider waiting for the kill
Look out for the Wisdom of God

Wisdom, Wisdom of God
If it doesn't scare you, no evil thing will
Wisdom, Wisdom of God
To see it is to take a sudden chill
Wisdom of God

This vampire bat
This inhumane beast
God 'outta be locked up and never released
This world was such a wholesome place until
Wisdom, Wisdom of God

Wisdom, Wisdom of God
If it doesn't scare you, no evil thing will
Wisdom, Wisdom of God
To see it is to take a sudden chill
Wisdom of God

At first you think God is the devil
But after time has worn away the shock
You've come to realize
You've seen His kind of eyes
Watching you from underneath a rock!

Wisdom, Wisdom of God
If it doesn't scare you, no evil thing will
Wisdom, Wisdom of God
To see it is to take a sudden chill
Wisdom of God

Wisdom, Wisdom of God
If it doesn't scare you, no evil thing will
Wisdom, Wisdom of God
To see it is to take a sudden chill
Wisdom of God

Look out for the Wisdom of God

Ref: 1 Kings 3

David and Bathsheba – When it rains, it pours

"It's a sucky life and just when you think it can't suck any more it does." – Phoebe Buffay

My last post explained all about the early relationship between David and Bathsheba. If you haven’t read it, please do so now.

continuing on . . .

All King David’s ass-hattery didn’t go unnoticed by Jehovah who was displeased. Apparently He doesn’t like it when mortals try to edge in on his “nearly random acts of terrorism” bit, so He sent His prophet Nathan to have a little chat with David. Nathan told David this really sappy story about how some rich guy with tons of sheep killed and served for dinner the sheep of some poor guy who didn’t really have anything else in the world. This story made David mad. David immediately declared a sentence of death for the rich guy in the story.

I suppose David was supposed to understand that the story was a parable for his rape of Bathsheba and murder of her husband, but David wasn’t very bright so Nathan had to explain it to him very patiently. Rich man kills and eats beloved, single sheep; signifying how David rapes Bathsheba and has her husband killed. Then Nathan had a message from Jehovah for David. The message went something like this: “You are a jerk and because you secretly had sex with someone else’s wife, I’m going to make sure somebody has public sex with all your wives. Oh, and the kid you made with Uriah’s wife? Yeah. He’s going to die too now.”

So Jehovah struck the child and it became very ill. David was bummed that the kid was dying so he stopped eating and prayed a lot because he thought this would change God’s mind about the kid. It didn’t work though and after seven days the kid died. Once David figured out that acting all sad and whiny didn’t do any good after all, he washed up, got dressed, and sat down to a nice meal. His servants thought this was weird and asked, “What’s going on? You seemed really concerned when the child was dying, but now that he’s dead you’re acting fine.” David had a simple response, “Meh, can’t bring him back, so why bother with it?”

David didn’t like that the whole rape and murder thing didn’t get him a son, so he had more sex with Bathsheba (poor girl) until she had another son. David named this kid Solomon, which sounds an awful lot like Saruman.

Note: I’m bothered that nobody seems to care how badly David destroyed Bathsheba’s life. She was violently raped multiple times, her husband was murdered by the King (using the swords of the Ammonites), she was forced to marry her rapist and the murderer of her husband, and her son was murdered by Jehovah. There are no words.

I also don’t like how God’s solution to the problem is to have someone rape all of David’s wives. This is so unbelievably misogynistic, I can’t believe how any modern woman can read this and think God is OK.

Ref: 2 Samuel 12

David and Bathsheba – A tale of shame and disgrace for God’s chosen king

When God “gives” a man hundreds of wives and concubines with whom can have sex whenever he wants (because spousal rape is as old as marriage), he apparently starts to crave variety.

This tale starts with at “the time when kings go forth to battle.” That’s right; the bible actually defined a time of year for making battle. Apparently this is just after the New Year begins. I don’t know if the weather was better for war at that time of year, or our biblical predecessors had defined specific months for peace or war, or what. Anyway, it seems weird to me.

It just so happens that one particular year King David didn’t go to war with his buddies. Instead he stayed home for the bird watching season. Late one night when he was on his roof looking for “birds” he spotted a particularly attractive woman outside bathing in the moonlight. I imagine that was exactly like when Gilthanas caught Silvara bathing in Dragons of Winter Night. Well, except Silvara and Gilthanas were decent people/creatures and Bathsheba wasn’t a silver dragon posing as an elf.



"Water Maiden" by John E Kaufman

 In any case, King David was a filthy bastard ass-face piece of shit. So Ass-Face asked a servant who the hot chick was and learned she was Uriah’s wife. Well, Ass-Face didn’t give a flying fuck about anyone else so he sent some of his people to collect her. They brought Bathsheba to Ass-Face’s room and “he lay with her.” Of course the bible doesn’t say the king had this poor woman dragged from her bath to his room where he raped her repeatedly, but I can’t possible imagine it happening any other way. King Ass-Face was just that classy of a guy.

It wasn’t too long before Bathsheba learned the rape resulted in pregnancy. There was no abortion for rape victims in those days and Bathsheba was terrified her husband would have her stoned for getting pregnant without his help, as any woman who stepped out on her husband was put to death. She informed Ass-Face of the problem. He didn’t want the embarrassment that would come if word got out he was impregnating other men’s wives, so he came up with a plan to keep Uriah from letting the world know of his affinity for raping married women.

Ass-Face sent orders for Uriah to return home from battle for a brief vacation in the hope that Uriah would have sex with Bathsheba and wouldn’t notice the baby was born a little too early to be his. This plan didn’t work though. It turned out that Uriah was such a stand up guy that he refused to enter his home and partake of any special comforts while his boys were still out on the front lines. Ass-Face tried for several days to get Uriah to make a booty call, but eventually gave up and sent Uriah back to war with a message for his commander. The letter Uriah carried had very specific instructions on how Uriah should be utilized in combat to ensure his death.

After Uriah was safely dead Bathsheba was extremely distraught and mourned bitterly. I feel so incredibly bad for Bathsheba. Not only was she raped by King Ass-Face, her husband was executed so he wouldn’t cry foul concerning the King’s raping ways. Even worse, Bathsheba was forced into a marriage with Ass-Face and bore him a son.

Note: This story really, really makes me mad. King David was such a horrible, horrible person and has been revered for many centuries as a righteous and successful king of Israel for his influence/longevity and his ability to apply sufficient violence to keep the Philistines in check while expanding the borders of his kingdom.

Ref: 2 Samuel 11

Mass Filicide – Fire from Heaven

Filicide: the deliberate act of a parent killing his or her own son or daughter

If you’ve been faithfully reading my bible stories, you should be familiar with the idea of Jehovah calling down fire from heaven to destroy his children. You may even be tempted to think this is a repeat story. It’s not though. I promise. God just really likes to kill people with fire from heaven.

It just so happens that right before Jehovah sent all the quail and then the plague, the children of Israel were complaining. That’s right the no good beggars were complaining. I like to imagine Oliver Twist (here are links for the book and movie) at the workhouse where he was forced to work all day for very little food. One day the desperately hungry boys drew lots to see who they would make ask for more food. The lot fell to Oliver who trembling, bowl in hand, approached a well-fed administrator and said, “Please, sir, I want some more.” Of course this caused a huge uproar and the workhouse administrators couldn’t get rid of Oliver fast enough. Good thing Jehovah wasn’t on the workhouse board of directors or I’m sure the entire young workforce would have been burnt to a crisp.

Back to the story: The Hebrews complained and Jehovah sent down fire from heaven, just like every single other time. The fire killed a ton of people, but not everyone. After Moses prayed to Jehovah, the fires died out. Then the really stupid survivors complained about the type of food they were getting, so Jehovah sent those quail and the plague.

Moral: Read Dickens’ books and assume that God is much meaner than any of Dickens’ characters and far more homicidal. Use that as your guide to action, and you are far less likely to be the victim of godly filicide. Also: never complain.

Ref: Numbers 11: 1-3

A Serious History Lesson – Jesus and his religious leaders

To understand Jesus, you must understand a little of his culture

There have been many different sects of Judaism throughout the centuries. Two that are well known to Christians are the Sadducees and Pharisees. Both were active, along with the Essenes, during the Second Temple Period which ended about 70 AD. The reason they are known today is Jesus was constantly complaining about them and criticizing them. He often fought with them in public and warned his followers about them, saying they should not follow or believe these spiritual and political leaders. For one example, see Matthew 16:1-12.

But who were the Sadducees and Pharisees?

The Sadducees were affiliated primarily with the upper class. They assumed various political, social, and religious roles. They were the ones tasked with maintaining the temple and had a deep interest in religious law as laid out in the Torah. They were obsessed with purity and holiness. They believed that God does not commit evil, that men have free will to choose between good and evil, and there is no afterlife: no eternal rewards or punishments. However, not all priests and aristocrats were Sadducees. Many were Pharisees, and many were not affiliated with any organized group (think independent voters).

The Pharisees’ interpretation of Jewish law was more liberal. They claimed to represent and have support from the majority of the common people, in contrast to the more elite Sadducees. The Pharisees accepted the teachings of the oral Torah, while the Sadducees would only accept the written version. They agreed with the Sadducees on the idea that people have free will, but differed because they believed that God knew in advance what people would do. They also believed in an afterlife with the associated eternal punishments and rewards.

Enter Jesus.

When Jesus showed up on the scene he was MUCH more liberal than even the Pharisees and constantly disregarded both law and tradition. When his religious leaders tried to encourage him to be a law-abiding citizen he both argued with them and taught his followers to ignore the priests who were honestly trying to teach and enforce God’s laws as recorded in the religious texts of the time.

In Jesus’ defense, he was typically trying to push the idea that helping people was more important than the law. This makes things a little more ambiguous. Imagine how modern law enforcement would feel about you stealing a police car to take someone to the hospital. Then remember Jean Valjean who stole some bread to feed his starving niece in Les Misérables and ended up in prison for 19 years before spending the rest of his life on the run from authorities for breaking parole. Most readers/viewers think Valjean is justified in stealing the bread because it’s for a “good cause.” But remember, someone had their bread stolen. What if it was the only food they had? Just think how you would feel if someone stole your car to take someone to the hospital. Yeah. It’s like that.

Ref: The Four Gospels