Philemon and Onesimus - Some people just need to be slaves

It's not white on black slavery so it's ok, right?

Two millenia ago, Paul wrote a nice letter to his friend Philemon about Jesus and forgiveness. You see, once upon a time, Philemon had a really poor quality slave named Onesimus. This slave was so bad that Phelemon finally had to give him the boot.

This is EXACTLY the same as that part in the movie The Two Towers where Grima Wormtongue convinced King Theoden that Eomer was a poor servant and needed to be exiled.

Eventually this slave ended up in prison with the apostle Paul and while there, converted to Christianity. Paul loved Jesus and loved helping out followers of Christ, so he wrote this letter:

Dearest Philemon,

I pray for you a lot and we both love Jesus, Yay! Hey, you remember that worthless bastard Onesimus? Well, it turn out he's a Christian now and he's been super helpful to me since he converted. I would totally keep him forever, but I want him to return and be your slave again so you can learn forgiveness and see how great he is now.

Now remember, he's christian now so you should be nicer to him than the other slaves. Think of him more as a slave/brother. Like, whip him less or something out of respect for your shared faith.

Love,

Paul

This is EXACTLY the same as that part in the movie The Two Towers where a huge orc army was killing all of Theoden's people and Gandalf convinced Eomer to show up with a couple thousand light cavalry at the last possible minute and kill all the orcs.

 

Yep, exactly the same . . .

Moral: It's better to be a Christian slave than a regular slave.

Ref: Philemon 1

Slavery and Marriage – God addresses the legality of slavery

Jehovah doesn’t like it when people don’t follow the rules for slave ownership

Slavery was common among the Lord’s chosen people back when they actually followed the laws recorded in the bible. Nowadays everyone ignores most of the God’s laws so there is no more official slavery practiced in the Western world. Of course human trafficking is alive and well, primarily in the sex trade, but it no longer has any official government sanction.

When African slavery was practiced in the United States, the children of slaves always belonged to whoever owned the parents. Jehovah doesn’t think it should be that simple, that’s why God’s One True Slavery is clearly explained in the bible.

Whenever a Hebrew buys a Hebrew male as a slave, that slave automatically goes free after six years. Female Hebrew slaves are never released. Once you buy a female Hebrew, she’s yours until she dies or you sell her. If you buy a male Hebrew who is already married, you get the wife too, but after six years she and her children get released with the husband.

Let’s say that one day I decide I need some extra help in my winery; logically, I go down to the slave market to buy someone. I end up buying Stevinski. Stevinski is a 19 year-old bachelor. He was put up for sale because he borrowed money from a certain Mr. Loan Shark to bet on the New York Giants. When the Giants lost, Mr. Loan Shark went to the local authorities and had Stevinshi arrested for not paying back the debt. Mr. Loan Shark then had Stevinski sold to recover his money.

Fortunately for me, Stevinski is an excellent slave and does really good work in the winery. To reward Stevinsky I give him Paulette as a wife. Paulette is a fifteen-year-old slave I bought three years earlier from her father who needed some extra money to refurbish his house boat. Because there is no law requiring the eventual release of female slaves, I have no reason to not use Paulette this way.

Over the next four years, Stevinski and Paulette have two kids. Because Paulette is my slave, and not a wife who came into my service with Stevinski, the kids belong to me. The sixth year of Stevinski’s slavery ends and I tell him he’s free to go, but in accordance with God’s law, Paulette and the kids are staying with me.

Stevinski has the option to leave, but he decides that he loves his wife and children enough to stay a slave so they are not separated. Then I have to take Stevinski to the courthouse and he swears to a judge that he wants to remain a slave forever so he can stay with his wife and kids. Then I stab his ear with an awl to mark him as a permanent slave and he keeps working in my winery. He and Paulette have four more children, who also belong to me, and I end up with eight slaves for the price of two.

Moral: God wants Paulette and her children to belong to me for life, all so Paulette’s dad can get some extra cash.

Ref: Exodus 21:1-6

Abraham’s Plan for Murder – Yahweh has it in for Isaac

The best part is that Abraham didn’t think it was weird when God told him to kill his son

After years of trying, Abraham and his wife/cousin Sarah finally made a baby. They named him Isaac and he immediately became the favorite child. Sarah was so excited about Isaac. She wanted Isaac to be the uncontested heir of all the family wealth so she convinced Abraham to get rid of his sex slave Hagar and their 14-year-old son Ishmael.

Several years later, Yahweh got really bored one day (more jealous than bored, really) and decided to mess with his good friend Abraham. He showed up at Abraham’s tent and said, “You sent away Ishmael so now you only have one son. I know you love this new son more than anything. That doesn’t work really well for me, so I need you to prove you still like me best by taking Isaac on a little trip and then sacrificing him to me as a burnt offering. You know how I love those.”

I suppose Abraham was at least a little upset by this, even though the bible doesn’t say so, because he waited until the next morning before taking Isaac, two slaves, a donkey, and wood for a fire out for a walk. They walked for three days to get to the place Yahweh wanted Isaac killed; then Abraham stopped and told the slaves to wait with the donkey. He and Isaac then wandered off to be alone. Of course Abraham made Isaac carry the wood.

Isaac was a little confused and asked his father, “I see you have a knife and a torch while I carry the wood for a sacrifice, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham lied to Isaac and said, “The Lord will provide.” Because of the lie I’m sure Isaac was shocked pretty bad when Abraham tied him up and laid him on the wood. He may have even cried out for help, but of course the slaves had been ordered to stay with the donkey.

Abraham picked up the knife and just as he laid it on his son’s neck, Yahweh decided He’d had His fun and sent an angel to stop Abraham from committing filicide. The angel told Abraham he didn’t have to kill his only acknowledged son anymore because he’d demonstrated that he still loved Yahweh more than anything else.

Then, because Yahweh still wanted to feast on blood, fat, and kidneys; He magically provided Abraham with a ram. The ram was substituted for Isaac and Yahweh got his burnt offering. However, Yahweh was going to have to wait a long time before the descendants of Abraham started offering human sacrifices.

Moral: Don’t have a favorite son or God will get all jealous and stuff.

Ref: Genesis 21-22

Crossing the Red Sea - Moses Part VIII

We still have one more “hard heart” miracle to go . . .

Once the Hebrews were safely out of Egypt, they started to head toward Palestine so they could kill everyone there and take their land. Yahweh was worried that if the people went straight from slavery to war, they would head back to Egypt and ask to be enslaved again. To avoid this, Yahweh had Moses and Aaron take the people the long way through the Red Sea wilderness. To make doubly sure, Yahweh Himself led the people. He appeared as a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire by night.

Because Yahweh got bored easily He led His people into a trap. Once they were safely camped near the shore of the Red Sea in a place where the wilderness hedged them in, Yahweh hardened Pharaoh’s heart one last time. Magically modified Pharaoh didn’t waste any time in gathering a huge force of chariots to kill a bunch of Hebrews and re-enslave the rest.

Once the Hebrews saw the approaching force they got all upset and demanded to know why they were led out of Egypt if they were just going to die in the wilderness. It’s ok though. You see, Yahweh had a plan. The real reason he hardened Pharaoh’s heart this last time was so He could kill a whole bunch more Egyptians. Yahweh had Moses divide the Red Sea so His people could cross on dry ground. Then the magic pillar of cloud moved behind the Hebrews and temporarily blinded the Egyptian forces by blocking all the light.



crossing on dry land

 After about a day of walking, the Hebrews were almost across the Sea and Yahweh released Pharaoh’s army from darkness. The chariots raced through the magic passage, but once they were too far in to escape, Yahweh made their chariot wheels pop off. Then, when all the Hebrews were safely across the sea, Yahweh told Moses to close the passage and every single Egyptian soldier drowned.

Moral: avoid joining the Military at all costs if your country’s population is more than 50% Hebrew slaves. Otherwise, there is a good change Yahweh will kill you.

Ref: Exodus 13:17 – 14:31

God Convinces Moses to Help – Moses Part IV

Why is it that bible readers think “burning bush” means ‘flaming shrubbery’ instead of ‘giant mass of pubic hair, concealing an inflamed vagina, sore from the burning pain of syphilis or gonorrhea?’

After Moses made a baby with Zipporah, Egypt’s Pharaoh died and Yahweh FINALLY noticed the Hebrews were upset about the situation HE had landed them in by executing HIS seven-year drought plan; miraculously HE also remembered HIS promise to take care of Abraham’s descendants at the same time. Yahweh decided to use Moses as a tool to free the Hebrews from the Egyptians and transport them to Palestine where they could completely wipe out the Palestinian peoples.

To get Moses’ attention, Yahweh turned Himself into a bush and started to shoot out flame. This was an amazing sight to Moses who abandoned his flock of sheep to investigate. Moses needed to see how flame could be coming from the bush and the bush itself did not burn. Once Moses got close, Yahweh spoke out from the center of the bush. He said, “Hey, I noticed the Hebrews are upset about their current situation. I’m a magic bush and will use that magic to bring them to Palestine so they can wipe out the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Pertizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. It’s a great place and once all the current inhabitants are dead the descendants of Abraham will be a great people without peer.”

While Moses was clearly impressed by the bush trick, he didn’t think he was the man for the job. The burning bush taught Moses a cool trick he could use to turn his staff into a snake, but Moses still wasn’t convinced because he had a bad stutter. Then the burning bush got really mad and started to shout. It yelled, “Who made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?” While Moses was thinking this over, the bush said, “Look, you have a brother in Egypt. His name is Aaron. He’s good at public speaking so you can tell him what to say and he’ll do it; and don’t even bring up your problem with the law. Everybody that knew you were a murderer is dead now and they don’t keep good records over there. Seriously; don’t sweat it, you’ll be just fine.”

There was a catch however; that damn flaming bush told Moses it wouldn’t be easy to free the slaves. Moses was going to perform all sorts of wonders to convince the new Pharaoh to release the slaves, but the bush was going to make damn sure that Pharaoh would not release them until after the bush murdered Pharaoh’s son.

Moses got permission from his father-in-law to head down to Egypt and take his wife Zipporah and their son Gershom. Of course on the way to Egypt Yahweh tried to kill Moses in an inn and Zipporah used genital mutilation to scare Him off and everything turned out alright; but that’s another story.

Moral: if the bush is a burnin’ it must be a true bush. You should totally trust it. Also, Yahweh likes to kill people who stay at inns.

Ref: Exodus 3:1 – 4:26

Meet Super-Ninja Moses – Moses Part II

Silent and deadly, he strikes when an opportunity presents itself.

Moses must have inherited some of his m4d n1nj4 sk1lz from his mother who not only managed keep his birth a secret, but also kept him hidden from the world for three months. Eventually Moses’ mom decided she couldn’t keep him anymore so she put him in a basket and left him floating in the reeds by the side of the river, with his sister Miriam keeping her eye on things.
 

Luckily, one of Pharaoh’s daughters found the basket when she walked down to the river with her personal slaves to wash up. When she saw the cute little boy she immediately recognized him as a Hebrew, but she felt bad for the little guy so she didn’t toss him into the river. She decided to keep him instead, you know, like a pet snake or a frog. Miriam rushed up to the daughter and said, “Hey, do you want me to go fetch a Hebrew wet nurse to feed your new pet?” The daughter agreed and Miriam went and told her mother she could hang around her new son, feed him, and get paid for doing it; sweet deal, right?

Once the boy started getting older and didn’t feel like nursing anymore he was formally adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter who named him Moses. Moses went on to grow up in a wealthy household. He had it so good he probably got his first iPhone when he was in kindergarten and a brand new Lamborghini when he turned sixteen.

 

Aventador LP 720-4 50° Anniversario: image taken from www.lamborghini.com

Once Moses was done growing up, he went out one day to check on some of the other Hebrews. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, got upset, and went into full ninja mode. First he checked to make sure there were no witnesses. Then he slipped like a gentle breeze through the reeds and across the sand before launching a stealth attack. Because Moses was fully concealed he had a 3d6 sneak attack damage bonus and his opponent lost his dex bonus to AC. Moses rolled a 20, a crit threat with his improvised stone weapon and followed it up with a 14 which easily overcame his opponent’s AC (who wasn’t wearing heavy armor and was highly dependent on his dex bonus) and landed a CRITICAL hit for 2x damage. The poor little Egyptian crumpled like soggy paper and Moses hid the body in the sand.

Moses was really proud of himself until the next day when he decided to stop a fight between two Hebrew slaves. One of the slaves said, “Hey jackass! Since when are you in charge of us? Are you gonna kill me now, like you did the Egyptian yesterday?”

Moses was really concerned the belligerent slave knew about his murdering ways and decided the police would find out soon if they didn’t know already. Moses knew the Egyptian legal system really well and knew that Hebrews always received the death penalty for killing an Egyptian citizen. Moses didn’t like that idea very much so he booked it right out of town. He didn’t stop running until he made it all the way to Midian (modern day Saudi Arabia), probably at least 300 miles. I assume Moses didn’t run the entire stretch in one go. He probably stopped to rest every so often, maybe drink some water; but maybe not. After all, he was a super ninja with m4d sk1lz.

Moral: even super ninjas can get in trouble with the law.

Ref: Exodus 2:1-15

Note: m4d n1nj4 sk1lz = mad ninja skills

The Hebrews in Egypt – Moses Part I

Apparently Hebrews are a lot like rabbits.

After Joseph of the Technicolor Dream Coat relocated his extended family to Egypt they were super rich and multiplied like crazy. However, as the centuries came and went they lost their ties to the royal family and their protected status. Then they were just numerous, prosperous, and not Egyptian. After the Hebrews started to outnumber the Egyptians, Pharaoh decided he was concerned the Hebrews would side with an invading enemy and things would go poorly for Egypt. To solve this, all the Hebrews were pressed into government service and assigned taskmasters. Now, I’m obviously missing something here because I’m not sure how forced labor was going to keep the Hebrews from fighting against the government. Apparently nobody in Egypt watched the 1960 film Spartacus. If they had, I’m sure they would have realized that maintaining a slave class to perform all the manual labor leads accomplished gladiators named Kirk Douglas to lead slave uprisings.



Kirk Douglas as Spartacus

Pressing the Hebrews into slavery didn’t help Pharaoh feel any better. He noticed that the worse the Hebrews were treated, the more babies they had. I don’t know why he was surprised. If you take all electronic devices and reading material away and force people to stay indoors after dark; suddenly there is nothing to do in the evenings but have sex.

To solve the population growth problem, Pharaoh told all the Hebrew midwives to kill the baby boys right as they were being born. This was a really, really stupid idea for a couple of reasons. First: in a society that practices polygamy the men aren’t the limiting factor for population growth, the women are. I’m sure there were plenty of Hebrew men who were really excited by the prospect of surplus young women. Second: the Hebrew midwives didn’t want to kill the Hebrew babies. It didn’t take long for Pharaoh to notice the number of baby boys didn’t decrease, so he called in the Hebrew midwives and demanded to know why the babies weren’t being killed. The midwives were clever and came up with a clever lie. They said, “Well, the Hebrew women deliver really fast. By the time someone manages to summon a midwife, the baby has already been born.”

Finally Pharaoh came up with a sound plan to kill the babies. He charged all the citizens of Egypt with the responsibility of throwing baby Hebrew boys into the river. That worked a little better than birth canal abortions and represented significant progress toward achieving Pharaoh’s dream of seeing fewer Hebrew boys.

Moral: Pharaoh didn’t understand how babies are made.

Ref: Exodus 1

Note: wouldn’t it be nifty if there was any physical evidence that Egypt ever had a huge workforce made up of slaves?

Daughter Selling – There are rules for everything

If you have to raise a daughter, you can recoup some of the loss by selling her

Yahweh is super smart. He is so smart that he knew a lot of Hebrews were going to be selling their daughters and needed some rules for the buyers.

First Rule: Once a daughter is sold as a sex slave she doesn’t automatically go free after six years like the male Hebrew slaves.

Second Rule: If the sex slave isn’t good in bed and in the kitchen, the buyer has to sell her back to her father. He can’t sell her to foreigners because he broke the whole “I will buy you and make you my sex slave/house elf” contract.

Third Rule: If the new owner bought the girl so he could give her to his son for marriage, he has to give her all the rights and privileges he would give to his own daughter.

Fourth Rule: If the new owner buys another wife he can’t reduce the food, clothing, or sex he was giving the first wife/slave before the second purchase. If the owner fails to provide the sex, food, and clothes the sex slave goes free.

It’s a really good thing we have these rules, otherwise young girls, fathers, and prospective buyers would just be running around crazy all the time. That sort of chaos is clearly contrary to the statutes of a proper society. Hurray for Yahweh and his rules for the selling, buying, and disposal of those things men need for the sex and basket weaving.

Moral: before selling your daughter, check with your local religious leader to make sure you’re following the rules properly.

Ref: Exodus 21: 7-11

Potiphar’s Wife – The ORIGINAL MILF

Wowzah!

The trick to making money as a slaver is to buy and sell as often as possible. The slavers that bought Joseph from his brothers understood that, so as soon as they got to Egypt they sold him to Potiphar, who was one of Pharaoh’s officers and the captain of the guard. Potiphar immediately put Joseph to work as part of the household staff. Now, Jehovah really liked Joseph, so He made everything Joseph did turn out really well.

Once Potiphar noticed that Joseph had the “magic touch” he made him the overseer of the entire household. This turned out to be a good decision for Potiphar because Jehovah now felt compelled to bless the household in everything. Things were going really well for everyone involved until a porno writer/director got involved in the story. We will call him Mr. Jeremy.

Mr. Jeremy wanted to make a video called “Super Egyptian MILF” so he scripted everything out for what he expected to be a beautiful piece of work. Everything was perfect. Potiphar’s veranda had a beautiful view of the Egyptian landscape and the open nature of a veranda lent that extra bit of excitement that comes with the possibility of being discovered, especially by the husband. The natural lighting was perfect, Potiphar’s wife was dark and smokin’ hot, and Joseph was young, virile, and “well favoured” (Genesis 39:6). Unfortunately Mr. Jeremy didn’t count on just how much trouble Joseph was going to give him.   



Many Islands Low Fares

 Once Joseph was alone with Mrs. Potiphar, and the cameras were rolling, Mrs. Potiphar gently laid her hand on Joseph’s and purred, “Lie with me” (Genesis 39:7). Joseph didn’t know what was going on with the film (Mr. Jeremy really wanted the eagerness of a young virgin man to show through, without the distraction of the lights, camera, and audience). He had never been with a woman before and his whole being suddenly exploded with desire, but he keenly remembered that one time when Reuben got caught having sex with one of their father’s wives and how much trouble it caused.

Joseph didn’t want to show up in the papers as “that one slave” who was executed for having the sex with his owner’s wife. So, instead of performing for Mr. Jeremy he gently removed his hand from Mrs. Potiphar’s and said, “Look, my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God." (Genesis 39:8-9, NLT)

Of course Mrs. Potiphar and Mr. Jeremy weren’t going to just give up. Mrs. Potiphar propositioned the sex every day for weeks; Joseph kept refusing. Finally Mrs. Potiphar tried a more direct route and grabbed Joseph before propositioning. Naturally Joseph freaked out and ran away, leaving Mrs. Potiphar holding his clothes in her hands. Well, Mrs. Potiphar decided she couldn’t take it anymore and that no amount of money from Mr. Jeremy could make her keep trying to bed that insulting jerk Joseph so she called the men of the household to her. She said, “Do you see what happens when Hebrew slaves are allowed to work here? Joseph tried to rape me and when I called out for help, he ran away. Here are his clothes; see?


          

Later, when Mr. Potiphar came home and heard the tale for himself, he immediately had Joseph thrown into prison so he could spend the appropriate amount of time devising a truly heinous way to kill the treacherous slave who’d tried to rape his wife.

Ref: Genesis 39

Note: MILF does not mean Many Islands Low Fares

                                                                                                                                                  
             
 

                                                                                                                                        

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 expansive epic of Jacob, son of Isaac: Part 7 – Jacob gets ready to meet Esau again

Jacob is an awesome wrestler

When Jacob got close to home he sent some messengers to let Chewbacca know he was coming. He told the messengers to tell Chewy he had been living with their cousin/uncle Laban and now had a large collection of oxen, asses, flocks, boy slaves, and girl slaves. Also: he wanted Chewy to like him.

The messengers returned and told Jacob that Chewy was coming to meet him with a company of 400 men. Jacob was pretty prudent so he divided his company into two groups with the idea that it Chewy decided to destroy one of the groups the other could get away. Then he took about five hundred of his farm animals and divided them into several groups. He told his servants to take the groups of animals to Chewy separately and each time to tell him they were presents from Jacob who was coming along behind.

This night things got a little weird. After the gifts had been sent off toward Chewy, Jacob took his two wives, his two baby-making slaves, and his 11 sons and sent them across the steam so he was alone. As soon as the women and children were out of sight a strange man attached Jacob and they wrestled through the entire night. When dawn came, the strange man told Jacob to let him go because the sun was going to come up. Then the strange man revealed that he was, in fact, Yahweh. Yahweh told Jacob he needed to change his name to Israel because he was a good enough wrestler to beat God (weird, I know).

When the sun came up Jacob/Israel saw Chewy coming with his small army. He asked the women and children to walk behind him and approached Chewy fearing for his life. However, when Chewy got close he ran to meet Jacob/Israel, hugged him, kissed him, and wept with joy. Chewy asked who the women and children were and Jacob/Israel explained they were his family. The women and children all bowed to Chewy. Then Chewy tried to give back the animals but Jacob/Israel wouldn’t take them and said he was just happy to have Chewy like him.

And they all lived happily ever after (for a little while).

Ref: Genesis 32-33

The expansive epic of Jacob, son of Isaac: Part 5 – Jacob works for his uncle/cousin/father-in-law a bunch more

Yahweh takes a hand at genetic engineering

Now Rachel was pretty mad that Leah kept having kids and she didn’t. Of course she didn’t realize that the arrival of pubic hair and breasts are usually seen as a prerequisite. To deal with the situation Rachel gave one of her slaves to Jacob to make babies. This slave had two sons, Dan and Naphtali, which Rachel claimed as her own. Not to be outdone Leah gave her slave to Jacob and she had two sons, Gad and Asher. Then one day Rachel noticed Leah’s son Reuben had found a bunch of mandrakes. Rachel told Leah to give her the mandrakes. Leah didn’t want to and said, “What the hell? It’s bad enough that you stole my husband, but now you want my son’s mandrakes? No way bitch!” Rachel was a clever girl and usually knew how to get her way. She said, “Look, if you give me the mandrakes I’ll make sure Jacob has sex with you tonight.” Leah was really hard up so she agreed and Jacob started having sex with her again. She had two more sons, Issachar and Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah.

FINALLY enough time passed that Rachel hit puberty. She was then able to get pregnant and had a son which she named Joseph of the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.

After Joseph was born Jacob went and asked Laban, his cousin/uncle/father-in-law, permission to take his wives and children and go back home. Laban didn’t like that idea very much. He said that Yahweh was clearly helping him out because Jacob was there and invited Jacob to stay and work longer. He just had to name his price. Jacob agreed to stay in exchange for all the speckled and spotted cows and goats and the brown sheep. This sounded ok to Laban, but he didn’t count on Jacob and Yahweh being such sneaky bastards. You see, every time the strong non-speckled/brown animals would get together to make babies Jacob set some striped sticks in the ground in front of them. All the animals that conceived while looking at the sticks had brown or speckled babies which then belonged to Jacob. He let the weak animals conceived naturally so Laban only got the inferior offspring.

After a while Laban figured out something was fishy about the arrangement with Jacob and he stopped being such a fan of having Jacob work for him. Yahweh noticed and told Jacob it was time to take all his stuff and move back home. Jacob had a family meeting and asked his wives what they thought. Leah said, “Screw that old bastard. He sold me to some jerk that doesn’t even like me.” And Rachel said, “Yeah. He sold me too; way before I was old enough to make babies. That was really bad for my self-esteem. Screw that bastard. We’re both going with you and our kids.”

Ref: Genesis 30:1 - 31:18

The expansive epic of Jacob, son of Isaac: Part 1 – Isaac and Rebekah get hitched

Yahweh is really good at finding hot virgins

When Abraham got really old he decided that it was time for his son Isaac to get married. However, he didn’t want to see his son with one of those nasty local girls so he called in his senior slave and said, “I need you to put your hand UNDER MY THIGH and promise you won’t find Isaac a wife among the locals. You have to go to my hometown and fetch one of his cousins.” The slave then asked, “What if the woman doesn‘t want to travel all the way back here? Should I go find a girl, then come back here, then take Isaac out to meet her?” Abraham replied, “No! Not just no, but hell no! Yahweh told me this land here is for my descendants. My son stays here!”

So the slave took a bunch of loot and walked from Canaan back to the city of Nahor in Mesopotamia (about 100 miles). When he got there he prayed to Yahweh saying, “God of Abraham. Make it so the woman you want for Isaac offers to get water for my camels so I can tell who it is.” Isaac’s cousin Rebekah immediately showed up and gave water to the slave and the camels. Fortunately Isaac’s cousin was a virgin and pretty.

The slave then went to talk with Rebekah’s parents and told them about his deal with Yahweh regarding the camels. They were very impressed by the story and immediately sold Rebekah to Abraham’s slave. Then Rebekah gathered up her stuff and she and her personal slaves walked back to Canaan to meet Isaac. They got married the day she arrived and moved into Isaac’s mother’s basement. Wait, I mean tent. They moved into Isaac’s mom’s tent.

Ref: Genesis 24

Isaiah and Women – DON’T TAKE SMALL STEPS!

Here is yet another biblical foundation for misogyny

One day when Jehovah was ranting about the state of the world to his prophet Isaiah he got onto the topic of women. He went on for nine verses, an unusually long time for Jehovah to stay on the same topic while speaking. He said:

The Jewish women stand up straight and walk taking small steps. This is Intolerable!  Because they do this I will make huge scabs grow on top of their heads and I will expose their private parts!

I will take away their ankle bracelets, hair nets, and earrings. I won’t stop there either. I will take all their jewelry and fancy clothes. Fuck it; I’ll just take all their clothes.

I will make them stink, I’ll make their hair fall out, make them wear burlap rags, and burn them with the mark of slavery! That should teach them!

Moral: If you are a woman and are considering good posture or taking small steps, watch out! You REALLY don’t want Jehovah to catch you taking small steps.

Ref: Isaiah 3:16-26

Naaman is healed by Elisha – Musical Leprosy - Part 2

You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout, I’m telling you why. Leprosy is coming to town.

On the way back home, one of Naaman’s servants got to thinking and said to Naaman, “You know, if this Elisha guy had told you to do some fantastic thing like gather 200 Philistine foreskins or build an arc you totally would have done it. Maybe you should just try the trick with the river to see if it works.” So Naaman went to the Jordan and dipped himself seven times. After the seventh time, he came out with perfect skin – completely free from disease.

Naaman was thrilled to be healed so he rushed back to Elisha’s house and tried to give Elisha all the loot. Elisha wouldn’t take it though, so Naaman left promising that from that day forward the only god he would worship would be the Hebrew god.

Gehazi, Elisha’s servant heard all this and ran after Naaman as fast as he could. Once he caught up he said, “Hey, Elisha sent me. We have a couple of visitors coming. Elisha wants you to give me a talent of silver and two sets of clothes for these visitors. Naaman was thrilled to be able to give something to Elisha so he gave Gehazi TWO talents of silver and the clothing. He even let Gehazi borrow a couple of servants to carry the loot.

After Gehazi had the stuff safely hidden in the house Elisha tracked him down for a little chat. Elisha has NOT pleased that Gehazi ran off to get some money from Naaman and he said, “You stupid little shit. This is not time to try to get rich. Because you did this, you are the new owner of Naaman’s leprosy.

Gehazi immediately because leprous “as white as snow.”

Moral: God’s servants are really good at telling bacterial infections what to do.

Ref: 2 Kings 5:12-26

Naaman is healed by Elisha – Musical Leprosy - Part 1

You better watch out. You better not cry. Better not pout, I’m telling you why. Leprosy is coming to town.

Back when Elisha was the most famous living prophet of Jehovah, the leader of Syria’s armies was this guy named Naaman. He was so awesome that Jehovah let him keep Syria from being wiped out by the Israelites. The only problem was that he was a leper. Fortunately for him, his soldiers would regularly run raids into Israel to catch Hebrews they could use as slaves. One such slave, a young Hebrew girl, ended up belonging to Naaman’s wife. The reason this is fortunate for Naaman is one day the poor little Hebrew girl said to her owner, "I really wish your husband could visit the Hebrew prophet. I just know our prophet would heal your husband.”

Understandably Naaman’s wife wasn’t too thrilled with the whole leprous husband thing, so it didn’t take long before she figured out a way to get this information to the King of Syria. The King was fond of his military leader so he gave Naaman ten talents of silver, six thousand pieces of gold, and ten sets of clothing for payment and sent him to visit the Hebrew king.

When Naaman explained why he’d come to visit, the King freaked out, tore his clothes, and started to cry. He said, “What gives? I’m not God. I can’t give or take leprosy. The King of Syria must be looking for a reason to start another war.” In another stroke of luck, Elisha heard about the king’s little fit and sent the king a message that Naaman should be sent to him so he could be taught that God had a prophet in Israel.

When Naaman showed up at Elisha’s place, Elisha sent out a servant to tell Naaman he just needed to wash in the Jordan River seven times and he would be healed.

This was all so incredibly absurd that Naaman got all kinds of upset and said, “What gives? I came all the way down here and this bastard won’t even come outside to greet me? I totally thought he would just come outside, call upon God, lay his hands on me, I would be healed, and I could leave all this damn money I’ve been hauling around. This is total bullshit. I’m out of here!”

To be continued in Part 2. What will happen to Naaman? Stay tuned for the next update.

Ref: 2 Kings 5:1-11

Noah gets Wasted – Never, ever, under any circumstances should you make fun of your dad

Watch me seamlessly transition between past and present tense

So back in the olden days people lived a really long time, like hundreds of years. This seems to lead to sin because you must get really bored of going to church after a few hundred years. In any case, everyone in the whole world was sinning (drinking coffee probably) but good old Noah. So God tells Noah to build a really big boat and put two of every kind of unclean animal and six of every kind of clean animal (i.e. delicious) in there so they can eat them while God is busy committing genocide through drowning and still have enough left over to repopulate the planet.

 

Noah builds the boat, puts the animals in, then he and his family live in there floating around while God floods the earth. No seriously, this works because you see back then all the land was in one place, and after the land split apart the animals evolved a little. That’s why every continent has some kind of large flightless bird: ostrich, emu, penguin, elephant bird, dodo, etc. This way Noah only had to take one kind of cat, which then evolved into all the different kinds we have now. Seriously; don’t laugh.

 

World Map of Endangered Species
http://animals.desktopnexus.com

 

After the flood, one of the first orders of business is to plant a vineyard and make wine. Because all the bowling alleys and golf courses were destroyed in the flood there wasn’t much for an older guy like Noah to do besides sit at home and get wasted. One day when he was passed out drunk on his tent floor naked his son Ham saw him in there and ran to tell his brothers Shem and Japheth about their father’s condition. Well, Shem and Japheth didn’t think this was very funny, so they very carefully went into the tent and without looking at their father, covered him with a blanket.

 

 

When Noah woke up he somehow realized that Ham had disrespected him so he cursed the descendents of Ham to forever be the servants of Shem and Japheth. Several thousand years later, through the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, God let everyone know that Black people are Ham’s descendants so it’s was proper for black people to be the slaves of the white. Good thing God was able to sort that out so slave owners would know black slavery was the will of God.

Ref: Genesis 9:18-28