The Invasion Really Gets Going – So much death . . .

 So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate? – King Theoden

After Jericho, Ai, and Beth-el were destroyed, the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon created a last great alliance to stand against the might of the Hebrew invasion.

In fact, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men was formed in 3430 of the Second Age in response to the threat of conquest by the Dark Lord Joshua. It was the greatest military alliance involving the free peoples of Middle Earth. The Alliance marched on Mordor, intent on the destruction of Barad-dûr itself. When the Alliance reached the gates of Mordor a huge host of orcs poured out to meet them. Some historians say this host of orcs numbered more than a million individuals.

The Last Alliance trying to fight off Joshua's horde of orcs

The Lord of the Rings presented a narrative in which Isuldur used his father’s broken sword to cut off Joshua’s finger, separating Joshua’s soul from the One Ring. Unfortunately this was not the case. What really happened was the destruction of the Last Alliance and the execution of its leaders. Joshua’s host defeated them in a pitched battle, and then Jehovah rained down rocks from heaven to take out the survivors.

After all this death, Joshua and his host went around to all the now undefended city-states who participated in the Alliance and burned them to the ground after slaughtering the woman and children.

Sadly, that still wasn’t the end. After the Alliance failed, the remaining free nations combined what force they had left to protect themselves. Of course that didn’t work either. This time was different though. When Joshua’s host was going around killing everyone and destroying the cities, they kept the riches and cattle for themselves.

Moral: even the Dark Lord Sauron eventually stops destroying wealth.

Ref: Joshua 10 & 11

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

Jonathan Eats Honey – OMFG!

Yay! Killing people is so cool!

Back in the days of King Saul (and many centuries afterward) the Israelites were almost constantly at war with the Philistines. One day when they were facing off in preparation for a fight, Saul’s son Jonathan and his armor bearer snuck over to the philistine camp. When they arrived at the enemy garrison the Philistines saw them and said, “Come over here. There’s something we want to show you.”

Jonathan took this as a sign that Jehovah was on his side and he and his armor bearer attacked the Philistine army. If you have trouble visualizing this, just remember the huge fight scene near the end of Mr. and Mrs. Smith; the movie that brought Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie together and left Jennifer Aniston a wealthy divorcee. In that scene Brad and Angelina kill a few hundred assassins by standing together in the middle of a warehouse and shooting at the assassin army (clearly the least effective assassins on the planet). If that doesn’t work for you, imagine Aragorn and Legolas from the Lord of the Rings killing a huge horde of orcs without getting hurt.

Anyway, after Jon and his slave killed a whole bunch of Philistines, the entire army began to shake uncontrollably and started to run away. The Israeli army noticed the confusion and disarray among the Philistines and attacked. Even the Israelites that were fighting for the Philistines switched sides and it did not go well for the enemies of King Saul that day; thanks to Jonathan.

Here’s the thing though, by killing people all day you can really work up an appetite. King Saul was lame though and earlier had told everyone they couldn’t eat anything that day on pain of death, because he thought it would help him kill more Philistines. Well, Jon didn’t know this and when he was walking back to the Israeli camp he saw a bunch of honeycomb on the ground and ate some.

Of course the jerk-face egomaniac Saul found out his son Jonathan ate some honey and sentenced him to death. Saul’s subjects were really upset by this and started to yell at the king. They said mean hurtful things like, “Jonathan saved us all today and made the Philistines lose the fight. Jehovah will be very angry if you kill him. After all, Jehovah is the one who helped Jonathan kill all those Philistines.”

Because Saul was a spoiled bully, he didn’t know what to do when he didn’t immediately get his way. He ended up dropping the whole thing and walked away.

Moral: If you just go around making up reasons to kill your friends and family all the time, you’ll regret it eventually.

Ref: 1 Samuel 14

God vs. Fanghorn – You Decide Which is Better

 Not all fictional characters are created equal

The events recounted in the Book of Amos take place during a very difficult time for God. You see, the people, they just didn’t care about God anymore. I imagine God was feeling exactly like Fanghorn (or Treebeard as he is sometimes called). Poor Treebeard expressed this quite nicely to Merry and Pippin in The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers after one of them asked which “side” he was on by saying, “I am on nobody’s side because nobody’s on my side. Nobody cares for the trees anymore.”

Unfortunately for everyone involved, God is not nearly as nice as Treebeard. You see, Treebeard decided to just hang out in the forest and take care of the trees for thousands of years while the world moved on around him and his fellow ents. It wasn’t until his precious trees were being threatened with complete destruction that he and the other ents left the forest to put some hurt on some orcs. Then he and the ents went right back to the forest and didn’t bother anyone else.

Yeah, God isn’t like Treebeard. After he discovered that nobody was on his side, he immediately started unleashing destruction upon the masses. He stopped all the rain except in one city, and when everyone went to that other city to drink, there wasn’t enough water for everyone. Then God gave all the plants mildew and parasites so all the gardens, vineyards, fig trees and olive trees died. God also sent diseases on a scale similar to the plagues of Egypt and He stirred up wars so the young men were killed with swords. Then God even took away the horses! It was so bad that the stench of all the death and decay filled the survivors’ nostrils! Because this still wasn’t enough, God even destroyed several cities Sodom and Gomorrah style.

Here’s the thing though: it didn’t help. All this evil God visited upon his people didn’t make them love him! OMFG! I can’t believe it!

No, seriously; I have major doubts about God’s intelligence at this point. God actually believed that if he made life hell for everyone they would not only start caring about him again, they would actually start to LOVE him! In recent news, I’ve heard that soldiers are dying overseas because God is punishing us for allowing gays in the military. I’ve heard that AIDS in an epidemic sent by God to punish gays and “loose” women. Does God actually think these things will make everyone “behave” sexually? Is God actually that stupid?

Apparently so.

Ref: Amos 4

The Númenóreans and the Tower of Babel – Proof that Tolkien is better than the nameless hack that wrote the bible

Not all fiction is equal

For those who are weak in Tolkien lore I have prepared this brief summary of the history of Númenor.

Once there was this half-elven guy named Eärendil who was a great hero of Middle Earth. He was so awesome that Manwë, king of the Valar (demi-gods of Middle Earth) said he and his part elven children could decide if they wanted to be elvish or manish. One of his sons, Elrond (you you may remember from The Lord of the Rings), decided to be elvish and his other son, Elros, decided to be manish. Because of his elvish heritage and his awesome dad, he became a special kind of man that lives 300 years. He became the first king of Númenor and his descendents were the Númenóreans, who all live to be 300 years old.

Númenor was this huge island to the West of Middle Earth and after many hundreds of years they became a super powerful kingdom. They also became a super bad kingdom. They decided that not living forever like the elves sucked so they decided to invade the Undying Lands and seize them from the Valar (demi-gods). Then they would be able to live forever. As soon as they landed on the Undying Lands there was this huge cataclysm that completely obliterated the invading fleet and the Undying Lands were removed from the world.

Not all the Númenóreans were bad though. Most of the good ones escaped before this failed invasion and ended up in Middle Earth. Aragorn, who I hope you remember from the films, is one of their descendents. I always thought it was funny he ended up married to Elrond’s daughter Arwen, because she is his first cousin like 30 times removed.

Summary of summary: Númenóreans were cooler than normal people. They got tired of dying so they decided to invade “heaven.” The gods didn’t like that so they killed the invaders. Also: Aragorn’s relationship with Arwen is naughty.

Now let’s look at the biblical account:

Genesis 11:4 (KJV) And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

Many contemporary writers claim this passage means the people were making the city and the tall tower to keep all the people in one place, rather than scattering across the earth according to Yahweh’s plan.


This explanation doesn’t work for me because I’m convinced a good portion of the Old Testament was ripped off from Tolkien’s writings, as is the bulk of contemporary fantasy (to be fair, Tolkien ripped off a lot of his stuff from other sources too, like Beowulf). I think the humans were tired of God having all the fun so they decided to invade heaven where they could be like gods and live forever. My reading of the Old Testament reinforces this idea. There is never any indication that people go to heaven after they die. There is no eternal reward or punishment mentioned in Genesis. All punishments and rewards from Yahweh are immediate and temporal in nature.

The people in Babel had no idea they had “eternal spirits.” That concept didn’t show up for another few thousand years. It makes sense therefore that they thought the only way to live forever was to actually build a tower to get to heaven.



Tower to Heaven



One day Yahweh wandered down from heaven to visit the people of Earth and while he was there he noticed the city and tower. This kinda freaked him out and he said, “Holy crap! It looks like if all the people live in the same place and speak the same language they can accomplish anything they put their minds to! They might even find a way to take heaven away from me, or live forever, or make an iPad!”

This simply wouldn’t do, so Yahweh confounded their language so they couldn’t talk to each other and scattered them across the planet. Then just to dick with us, he took all the color from the skin and hair of the people he stuck in Europe and gave it to these in Africa. Then he gave the Asians thick eyelids so the white people would make fun of them for having “squinty eyes.”

Biblical summary: Babelians were cooler than normal people. They got tired of dying so they decided to invade “heaven.” Yahweh didn’t like that so he/she/it scattered the invaders and messed with their language. Also: Yahweh gave Asians thick eyelids.

Ref: Genesis 11:1-9