Wine – The great enigma

You know, alcohol made early civilization possible. Without it, there was nothing safe to drink in urban areas.

One day when Jesus was feeling especially picked on he chose to chastise his audience (Matt 11:16-19). He had this to say: “You people are like a bunch of kids in the marketplace who complain to their friends saying ‘We played music for you, but you didn’t dance; we complained and you didn’t feel bad for us.’ When John was preaching in the desert he didn’t feast or drink wine and y’all said he was possessed by a devil. When I showed up feasting and drinking wine, y’all said that I’m a glutton and a drunk; that I’m friends with sinners and tax collectors.”

Of course the reason educated people harassed Jesus for drinking was the strong scriptural condemnation of alcohol. According to the Old Testament abstaining from wine makes you smart, wine takes away the heart, and wine causes you to commit wicked acts. Because of this, drinking wine was consistently forbidden by God and his prophets.

Jesus was all about the wine though. His first public miracle was to turn water into wine, he commanded his followers to drink wine so they would be able to remember him, and after his death, his disciples taught that drinking wine was a good thing: e.g. 1 Timothy 5:23 “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities (KJV).”

Too bad they didn’t have Mary Jane back in the day, or I’m pretty sure Jesus would have endorsed that too: the damn hippie.

Song of Solomon – The Song of Songs

All in all, this seems a lot more tame to me now than it did when I first read it. I was pretty scandalized back then.

The Song of Solomon (Song of Songs in Hebrew) is one of the shortest books in the Old Testament with a mere 117 verses. There is zero religious content in the book, but somehow it is typically interpreted as a parable of the relationship between God and Israel, Christ and his Church, or Christ and the human soul.

These interpretations are really stretching things. Let me explain: there is tons of sexual imagery in the book. It is unlikely an Old Testament author would use sex to sell religion. My preferred explanation is that Song of Solomon made it into the bible to satisfy the porn fetish of early religious leaders.

In the first chapter the author wants her lover to kiss her on the mouth and remarks that such kisses are better than wine. Then there is this desire to share this wine-like love in a bedchamber. Then there is a parable: the author’s lover is like a bundle of myrrh because he’s going to lie all night between her breasts. In chapter two this same author comments that her lover’s fruit is sweet to her taste. Of course this may not be an allusion to oral sex. Just before this phrase the author says that just like an apple tree is better than normal trees, her lover is better than the other men. Of course to me this sounds more like a clever lead-in to a racy innuendo.

When we switch to a male speaker he goes on about the great looks of his lover: her hair, her teeth, her lips, temples, and neck. Her breasts are so awesome; they are like two young roes that feed among the lilies. Nice. Then again with the wine; the loving is better than wine. Then we learn that the lover’s lips “drop as the honeycomb” and there is another statement regarding the eating of fruit.

It gets really good in chapter seven. I’ll paraphrase: You are tall like a palm tree and your breasts are like clusters of grapes. I will go up to the palm tree and grab its limbs. Your breasts are like clusters of the vine and your nose smells like apples. The roof of your mouth is the best wine (tonguing anyone?). It goes down so nice and makes people talk in their sleep. The desire of my beloved is toward me.

Later the female voice says, “Oh, I wish you were my brother that sucked the breasts of my mother! If we were thus related I would be able to kiss you when we were out in public and we wouldn’t get in trouble.”

Of course if you still doubt me, consider chapter 8 verse 8. “We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?” This is pretty clearly a concern for a pre-pubescent sibling in a sexually charged discussion. I would really like to hear how you think this sister fits in the story if the Song of Songs really is discussing the relationship between the Lord and his followers. Could it be perhaps a different God, or a different group of followers? Yes, that makes sense: a different group of followers that falls to sleep every night praying for God to give them breasts.

Reuben and Bilhah – A full-sized scandal

I really can’t say that I blame them

Jacob was one of the most significant characters in the Old Testament. He was the grandson of Abraham and the Father of that one guy Joseph, who had the coat of many colors. From Jacob’s 12 sons came the 12 tribes of Israel. Reuben was the firstborn of Jacob. Two or three years after Reuben was born, Jacob’s second wife Rachel gave her personal slave to Jacob for sex/reproduction because Rachel wasn’t getting pregnant. This slave was named Bilhah. Jacob had two sons with Bilhah, Dan and Naphtali.

After Rachel started having children (which I argue was because she finally hit puberty) Jacob didn’t have a need for Bilhah anymore. You see, Jacob had enough wives that he didn’t need Bilhah for sex and he was only screwing her to help out his favorite wife, Rachel who took Bilhah’s children for herself. Besides, Bilhah wasn’t a close relative of Jacob’s by blood, so he just wasn’t that into her.

Disclaimer: The bible is really short on detail regarding Reuben and Bilhah’s relationship so I’ve had to assume a lot of stuff to be able to tell this story.

Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel was a total bitch. She was selfish and mean. For example: when Reuben went out into the field to collect mandrakes, Rachel noticed and demanded that Reuben’s mom, Leah, give her those mandrakes. So we know that Rachel was mean to Reuben. We also know that Bilhah didn’t ever choose to have sex with Jacob. Rachel forced her into the arrangement so she could take the resulting babies for herself. That seems pretty crappy. Therefore, Reuben and Bilhah had this common dislike for Rachel that served as the basis for their early relationship.

Because Bilhah was a slave, Jacob’s other wives felt they were much too high-class to be friends with her. Bilhah was only good for emptying chamber pots, serving as a surrogate, and breast feeding. Bilhah ended up spending most of her free time with the children and because Reuben was the oldest they developed a close relationship. Initially their friendship was based on a mutual dislike for Rachel, but eventually they were able to find common interests in raising sheep and making cheese.

When Reuben was going through puberty he had a lot of questions. Because his father was so busy and he didn’t have any other adolescents around, Reuben ended up talking about gender differences and his physical changes with Bilhah. Now, Bilhah remembered that sex was pretty nice from her earlier encounters with Jacob and Reuben was turning out to be pretty attractive, so Bilhah started helping Reuben with educational demonstrations in the privacy of one of the tents. Eventually this evolved into a full-blown sexual relationship and was actually really fulfilling for both of them. It was literally the realization of every adolescent boy’s fantasies.

Eventually someone noticed this was going on and told Jacob. And here the Bible really lets me down. It says absolutely nothing about what happened to poor Bilhah. We know that basically nothing happens to Reuben. His dad told him that he wasn’t the official “firstborn” anymore and he was as “unstable as water.” Because it’s the bible though, I’m pretty sure they did something horrific to Bilhah like cut off her breasts or impale her on a sharp stick. Either way, it really sucks. I guess the only hope for Bilhah to have survived getting caught fooling around with her husband’s son was for her to be considered property to the point that her actions didn’t really matter that much as long as she could keep those damn chamber pots empty.

Ref: Genesis 30 & Genesis 35:12

The Epic Tale of Job: Part 2 – From bad to worse to awesome

It’s ok if Job is a dick to his wife, as long as he still loves God

So the next time Elohim and Lucifer met (which I imagine was to play chess in the park as seen in the 2000 remake of Bedazzled) Elohim said, “Ha ha looser. Check it out. Even though you convinced me to destroy Job’s wealth and family for no reason whatsoever he still loves me.” Predictably, Lucifer was unconvinced. He said to Elohim, “Yeah of course. Anyone would give all they had to preserve their own life and Job was perfectly aware that if he complained about you, you would kill him. If you destroy Job’s health, then he will curse you.”

This sounded reasonable to Elohim who said, “Ok, fine. Let’s do this your way. We’ll just keep dicking with Job until you admit that I’m right and you’re wrong.” So Job developed severe boils. These really hurt and Job was covered from head to toe, including the bottoms of his feet. Ouch! Job’s wife was still alive here and she said, “Hey dumbass. What’s wrong with you? Clearly God is out to get you. You should just curse his name and die.” Job responded to this provocation by saying, “You’re talking just like anyone would expect someone as stupid and useless as a woman to talk. It’s perfectly obvious that because God does good unto us, he also does evil; duh!”

Then from chapter 3 through chapter 37 Job complains about how much his life sucks, he talks about how awesome God is, his friends tell him he is a sinner who needs to repent, and he says he is innocent. That’s 35 chapters of the most boring, inane crap in the entire bible. It’s seriously really bad. Then in Job 38 Elohim starts talking to Job. He goes on for three chapters about how awesome he is and FINALLY in Chapter 42 things turn around.

After talking with God, Job felt compelled to repent for not fully understanding God’s awesomeness. Then Elohim started to fix things for Job by first chastising Job’s friends for giving him a hard time and demanding they repent. Elohim finished up by giving Job exactly twice as many animals and servants as he had before and gave him another seven sons and three daughters. This time though, the daughters were much more attractive (ref:  Job 42:15).

Moral: If you are good then Lucifer will convince Elohim to dick with you, but you’ll come out ahead in the end because your new set of daughters will be better looking.

Ref: Job chapters 2-42

The Epic Tale of Job: Part 1 – Elohim feels compelled to prove himself to Lucifer

It appears that God likes to punish the people who love him the most

One well-known story from the Old Testament is that of Job. Job was this poor sap that God decided to test. When Job’s faith remained unshaken he got lots of cool stuff from God as a reward. It’s odd to me that people teach this story in Sunday school like it’s a good thing. This is a really twisted story. Let’s break it down.

Job was the richest man in the East. He had seven sons and three daughters. He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses. This is WAY more than Aladdin had after the Genie made him into Prince Ali Ababwa.  Job was also a God-fearing man who made seven burnt offerings every day for his sons just in case they may have sinned by cursing God in their hearts.

Ok, now let’s get the story underway: periodically the angels would present themselves to Elohim. I’m not sure why, probably to make sure their ears and fingernails were clean, their boots were polished, and they had regulation haircuts. In any case, at one of these inspections Lucifer showed up. Elohim was surprised to see his favorite fallen angel but he was also eager to show off his favorite rich guy, Job. He said to Lucifer, “Have you seen Job? There is no one like him on the Earth. He is so great. He has more money than the Mormon flip-flopper, Mit Romney, but still manages to fear me and avoid evil.

Lucifer scoffed and said, “Yeah, of course. You’ve coddled this guy from infancy. If you destroyed all his riches he would totally curse you. He would spit in your face if he had the chance.” Elohim said, “No way. You’re SO wrong. I’ll totally prove it to you. Go and kill all his servants and animals and he’ll totally still like me.” (This is so cool. You totally have to love God-endorsed murder.)

So the next day Job received news that the oxen and asses had been captured by the Sabeans and their caretakers murdered. The camels were captured by the Chaldeans and the camel servants were murdered too. Then my personal favorite: the fire of God descended upon the sheep and the sheepherders destroying all of them. Finally, while Job’s sons and daughters were eating dinner together the house collapsed, killing them and their servants.

All in all, it was a bad day. Job was sad of course, but he did not curse God. He said, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21, KJV) Now I know this is meant to be a sad and meaningful verse, but all I get from it is that Job is planning to get naked and head for his mother’s womb. Do you think he’ll make it? Is he planning to enter vaginally or surgically?

Ref: Job 1

Gideon – The Scottish Freedom Fighter

Can you tell which parts are fact, and which are fiction?

The ancient Hebrews had this weird relationship with Jehovah and with Baal. When things were going well they would all stop worshiping Jehovah and start worshiping Baal. Then when things were bad they would switch back to Jehovah.

Well, in one of these Baal-inspired downturns the Children of Israel, who we will call the Scotts, were conquered by the Midianites, who we will call the English. One of these Israelites (Scotts) was named Gideon and he was still a huge fan of Jehovah. To simplify things for this story though, we’re just going to call him William Wallace, or Wallace for short.

Wallace had this conversation with Jehovah one day about freeing the Scotts from English rule and was instructed to lead the insurrection (they just made up that stuff about his wife for the movie). Wallace started destroying holy sites of Baal and making altars to Jehovah where he would sacrifice animals. This got some attention as did Wallace’s recruitment efforts and hundreds of Scotts from surrounding clans joined Wallace’s army at Falkirk. Wallace was starting to think things would turn out when Jehovah visited him again and said, “Look, this just isn’t working out. You have WAY too many clansmen here. If you win with an army this size Scotland will claim they were able to drive out the English through their own might rather than with my strength. You need to get rid of most of them.”

So Wallace stood up before his army of 30,000 and told them they needed to go home if they were afraid to die. 20,000 left but 10,000 remained. Jehovah said this was still too many so Wallace told the remaining force to go drink from the river. Everyone who got down on their knees to drink was sent home and those who drank by bringing their hand to their mouth were allowed to stay. This left Wallace with a force of 300 Scotsmen.

When the English arrived at Falkirk “as the sand by the seaside for multitude,” Wallace’s 300 men got a little nervous so Wallace gave them this speech:

William Wallace: Sons of Scotland! I am William Wallace. Young Soldier: William Wallace is seven feet tall! William Wallace: Yes, I've heard. Kills men by the hundreds. And if HE were here, he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse.
[Scottish army laughs] William Wallace: I *am* William Wallace! And I see [an] army of my countrymen, here in defiance of tyranny. You've come to fight as free men... and free men you are. What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight? Veteran: Fight? Against that? No! We will run. And we will live. William Wallace: Aye, fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!

After this touching moment, Wallace and his 300 men took their trumpets and hooded lanterns and approached the English from the direction of Callender Wood in the middle of the night. When they reached the edge of the English camp they unhooded their lanterns, blew their trumpets, and shouted, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.” The English who woke up to this ruckus were incredibly confused and started killing each other because they couldn’t tell who was friend and who was foe. Eventually what was left of the English army fled Falkirk.

Not wanting the English to get away, Wallace sent out messengers to collect a huge force of Scotts again. They pursued the remnant of the English army and killed every single last one of them. Then they embarked upon a successful campaign to destroy all the English strongholds within their country.

The Scotts were super excited about not being under English rule anymore and they offered to make Wallace their king. Wallace didn’t accept though and said instead of having a King to rule over them, the Scotts should instead allow Jehovah to rule. This actually worked for a while. The Scotts worshiped Jehovah and Wallace became super rich and had tons of wives who gave him seventy sons.

Then, after Wallace died of old age, the Scotts predictably returned to their worship of Baal. Morons.

“Braveheart” quote taken from IMDB.

Ref: Judges 6-8