Jerusalem the Violated Virgin – How Jehovah treats those who disrespect

Like a virgin, crushed for the very first time

After Jehovah stopped liking the descendants of Abraham, things got pretty bad in Jerusalem. You see, Jehovah only helps out people who like Him and is deliberately cruel to those who disrespect him. In this case, Jehovah had the Babylonians invade Israel and haul off most of the people to work in the region we know today as Iraq.

The sacred book of Lamentations serves to enlighten us as to the condition of Jerusalem after Jehovah stopped being nice to it. In Lamentations 1:4 we learn that Zion mourns because nobody goes to parties anymore and the virgins are afflicted. Oh no: afflicted? How? Well, I hope these are metaphorical virgins. I hope it so much; I’m going to write this like both Jerusalem and its people are represented as virgins in Lamentations. If they are not metaphorical, God is even more messed up that I thought.

From Lamentations Chapter 1:

First: No longer full *cough cough* of people – just like a widow

Second: No lovers to give comfort

Third: All friends became enemies

Fourth: Live among non-religious people

Fifth: Be overtaken by persecutors “between the straits”

Sixth: Children (from a virgin?) are taken away as prisoners

Seventh: Disrespected by former fans because they’ve been seen naked

Eighth: Filthy skirts

Ninth: Adversary gets to rub his/her hands all over the “pleasant bits”

Tenth: Hungry

Eleventh: Fire sent into the bones

Twelfth: Trodden upon and squished by God, like in a winepress

Thirteenth: Menstruating

Moral: Don’t be a virgin or your adversaries will get to see you naked and rub your “pleasant bits,” God will squish you like a grape, and you will have to menstruate.

Ref: Lamentations 1:1-17

Christian Wedding Nights – Not quite what you may expect

Sometimes I do Christians the discourtesy of assuming they follow God’s laws as presented in the Holy Scripture

God demands that after a couple is married, the sheet on which they first have sex be saved and given to the woman’s parents. THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT! Most women have enough of a hymen that upon initial intercourse, it breaks painfully and bleeds. The blood is meant to get on the sheet which then becomes a “token of virginity.” In God-fearing nations like Iran and Yemen, this is still a common practice.

You may think this sounds creepy or anachronistic, but as a father I know there is no way in hell I’m not keeping those bloody sheets. You see, if the groom decides he’s not thrilled with my daughter after the wedding night, he might decide to get out of the marriage by claiming my daughter wasn’t a virgin when they tied the knot. You know, like Henry VIII did when he was trying to get rid of Catherine of Aragon.

If I don’t have a bloody sheet to present to the local authorities, then the people of the city are commanded by God to take my daughter to my front door and then throw rocks at her until she dies from the injuries. I DO NOT want that to happen.

If I do have the sheet, then the jerkface that tried to have my daughter executed has to pay me 100 shekels of silver because he slandered my daughter. Then he can never get rid of her; they have to stay married until the jerkface dies. Of course she may not want to stay married to the asshole that wanted her dead, but you know; she’s a woman and God doesn’t want women to have any rights other than the right to be bought and sold.

Moral: save the blood!

Ref: Deuteronomy 22:13-21

Rules for Raping Virgins – Law makes order from chaos

Sometimes you aren’t required to blame the victim

In the case of rape, the bible requires that both the rapist and victim die by stoning if the victim is married. You know, to keep the ickyness of rape from contaminating the community.

That seems fine, but what about unmarried women? As far as I can tell, it’s ok to rape an unmarried non-virgin: probably because the chick in that situation doesn’t have any marriage potential or monetary value. The complications arise when raping a virgin. If a man is caught in the act of raping a virgin, he is then required to pay the girl’s father 50 shekels of silver and marry the girl. I’m not sure if this is a punishment or a reward. It could be, “You raped Sarah the daughter of Seth, so now you have to pay off Seth and you’re stuck with Sarah forever.” Or it could be a good way to pick out a new wife without having to get her father’s permission: “I don’t like you Seth. You are a stupid piece of crap and I would never have allowed you to marry my daughter, but since you raped her now I have no choice. Here is your new bride.”

Now you may say, “What if the virgin is already betrothed to someone? If you made her marry the rapist that wouldn’t be fair to the guy that had already arranged to marry her and paid the bride price?” Fortunately Jehovah thought of that too. If someone rapes a betrothed virgin in a city, then it’s the victim’s fault because she didn’t yell loud enough to attract someone that could protect her from the rape. In that case, both the rapist and victim are taken outside the city gate and everyone throws rocks at them until they die.

That may seem unfair, but Jehovah isn’t a monster. If the betrothed virgin is raped out in a field somewhere, the law understands that it isn’t her fault. You see, there aren’t enough people around for her to call successfully for help. In this case only the rapist is stoned to death.

Sadly, the “rape in a field” rule doesn’t bring me a lot of comfort. Once the girl is no longer a virgin the bridegroom can get out of marrying her because he paid for a virgin. Then the victim is an unmarried non-virgin and I’m pretty sure the only job she could get after that is in the respectable field of prostitution. Then I wonder if that is how all biblical prostitutes get started on their career path. Also: please refer to the section of the second paragraph dealing with non-married, non-virgins.

Moral: Jehovah came up with some pretty great rules for dealing with rape in a large community setting.

Ref: Deuteronomy 22:22-29

Human Sacrifice – I used to think Jehovah only liked smoke and blood from animals

Of course the best human sacrifices are virgin girls

Back when the Israelites were still wiping out their neighbors, Jephthah was made the captain of the combined armies of Israel. When the Ammonites attacked Israel, Jephthah sent messengers to ask why they were invading. The Ammonites responded, “It’s because the children of Israel stole our land when they came up out of Egypt.” Jephthah wasn’t versed well enough in Israeli history to know this was true, so he made up some story about how the Israelis didn’t actually take the Ammonites’ land and the Ammonites needed to back the F**K off.  Of course this message did nothing for the Ammonites so Jephthah moved to make battle.

Being the God-fearing man he was, Jephthah swore an oath to Jehovah that if the children of Israel were victorious against the Ammonites, he would offer whichever person first came out of his house to meet him when he got home as a sacrifice to the Lord. This must have worked because Jehovah helped Jephthah’s armies kill all sorts of Ammonites until the Ammonites didn’t have enough people left to mount an offensive.

When Jephthah got home he was really upset when his daughter was the first person to come out of his house to greet him. Because the daughter isn’t named in the bible, we will call her Autumn. You see, Jephthah really liked Autumn and she was his only offspring. Unfortunately Jephthah couldn’t go back on his promise and once he explained the situation to Autumn she understood that it was the only course of action. You see, she also believed that Jehovah would not have helped the Israelis kill all those Ammonites without the promise of a human sacrifice. This always makes my think of the scene in Dragonslayer where the kings daughter Princess Elspeth went willinging to be sacrificed to the dragon, as a virgin, to protect the townspeople from the dragon's wrath.

A Virgin Sacrifice for a Dragon

Autumn had a single request before she was sacrificed in accordance with Hebrew law. She just wanted to go into the wilderness with her friends so they could cry for two months because she was going to die a virgin. This made a lot of sense to Jephthah because he, like most men, believed that all females are eager for sex and can’t live properly without it.

Autumn bewailing her virginity

Two months later, Autumn came back home like she promised. Then she was sacrificed. For those that don’t know, this means a priest grabbed Autumn by the head and killed her in front of a crowd. Then the priest sprinkled her blood on an altar. Finally, Autumn’s fat and kidneys were removed and burned on the altar. This constitutes an “offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”

Moral: the Lord doesn’t always stop a parent from sacrificing their child.

Ref: Judges 11:29-39 & Leviticus 3:1-6

Note: when I tell biblical stories this horrific, I always have a hard time typing by the end because I get upset. Also, when I started writing this I planned to focus on the whole “bewailing virginity” thing because it's funny, but by the time I got there; I just didn’t have it in me.

Merry Christmas Part 1 – The really confusing story of how Mary got knocked up

This is going to be really offensive to fans of Mary and the virgin birth

It’s pretty common knowledge that Christians believe Mary was made pregnant through the power of God and gave birth to Jesus as a virgin. However, the scriptural accounts are not really that clear if you know what to look for. The account in the Gospel According to St. Matthew says that while Mary was engaged to Joseph people discovered she had been knocked up by “The Holy Spirit.” The Gospel according to St. Luke says that the “power” of God would “rest upon” Mary and she would become pregnant.

I see two possible explanations for these accounts.

First: Several times in the New Testament, God is referred to as the Holy Spirit. Also the phallus has been a symbol of power since people first understood symbolism. This symbolism was MUCH more powerful 2,000 years ago than it is now of course. So then; God got Mary pregnant after she was engaged to Joseph by holding her down (resting upon her) and using his power (phallus).

Second: Mary got pregnant through more conventional means and the child was made holy (magical) through the Holy Spirit which “rested” upon Mary.

According to the American Heritage Medical Dictionary rape is “the crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.” Because Mary acted surprised when she figured out she was pregnant I highly doubt she gave the almighty permission to impregnate her. Did Jehovah rape his mother so he could be born in the flesh? I think not. That’s why I’m more inclined to believe the second possibility is the correct one.

Here’s how I see it happening: Mary had her first period and told her mom. Mom got super excited because it meant Mary was old enough to be sold to a suitor. Mom and Dad were short on cash and Mary was super hot so they figured they could find someone with boatloads of cash. After a sort search they figured out all the really rich dudes were already married or tied up by previous arrangements. Fortunately there was this older carpenter in town who had been saving up for a hot virgin bride since he was a kid. He was the only one with the cash so Mary’s parents made the deal.

When Mary’s parents told her she was engaged to this old guy Joseph she got pretty upset. This is pretty understandable, after all she had just barely turned 13 and Joseph didn’t have all his teeth anymore and didn’t really wash up that often. Oh, and his hands were really calloused and rough looking. In any case, Mary stormed out of the house and went to her friend Sarah’s house. They broke into Sarah’s parents’ liquor cabinet and got pretty smashed before Mary got it into her head that she didn’t want her first time to be with Mr. Smelly McRoughHands. To take care of this problem she crawled into Sarah’s older brother’s bed (for whom she’s always had a little crush) shortly before dawn. Older brother was more than happy to take care of Mary’s need and after he finished up Mary had this vision where an angel came to her and said, “Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. The power of God will overpower your womb and the holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”

When Joseph noticed that Mary was pregnant before their wedding day he was pretty upset so Mary lied and told him that although she was pregnant, she like, totally never had sex. She spontaneously got pregnant with Jehovah’s baby. Joseph didn’t really believe Mary; after all he wasn’t TOTALLY retarded. He’d already made the down payment to Mary’s parents though. So he decided that in light of everything, Mary was still hot enough to warrant continuing with the purchase.

Ref: Matthew 1:18, Luke 1:31 & Luke 1:35

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

Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.

Bible stories by Matt often illustrate the magical properties of a virgin woman

When King David got old he had a hard time keeping warm, because we all know how cold it is in the Middle East. His slaves kept piling blankets on him, but he just wouldn’t stop bitching about how cold he was. Of course the obvious solution for any of King David’s problems was to find a young virgin for him. Now pay attention. If you are going to use a woman instead of an electric blanket, she absolutely has to be super hot, and totally have never let a penis inside her vagina. This made everyone in King David’s huge collection of wives ineligible because they were either ugly, or had sex with David or his son Absilon, or both (ref: 2 Samuel 16:21-22).

Once this course of action was decided upon, those faithful to the King went on a huge hot-chick hunt to find a virgin who was attractive enough for the King. Finally they found this girl named Abishag. She was definitely hot enough, and virgin enough to climb under the covers with the king and keep him warm. At this point King David really wanted to be warm, and he knew the magicial warmness exuded by a hot virgin so he managed to refrain from sticking his penis in Abishag (or maybe it was just her name that turned him off).

I always felt bad for Ahishag because I reckon that for an attractive girl in the countryside of Israel in King David’s time to still be a virgin she must have been pre-pubescent because I’m pretty sure families sold off their daughters at menarche. Also, she had to spend all her time under a blanket with wrinkly old King David and breathe in unwashed old person smell all day, ick!

Ref: 1 Kings 1:1-4

The King lets Esther save the day – Always enter the king’s room booty first

The Epic of Esther in Four Parts: Part IV
It must be so cool to be the King’s wife

Once Esther learned about her uncle’s behavior earning a death warrant for all the Jews she asked her uncle to tell all the Jews in the city to fast for three days because she was going to have to have a chat with her husband. She also had her virgin servants fast because you see; the queen isn’t allowed to talk to the king without his permission. She can’t enter any room he’s in unless he calls for her. If she does, the standard penalty is death.

Esther didn’t see any other way to save the Jews other than risking her life to talk with the King. Now don’t go thinking she was just doing this to save herself from Jew genocide. Remember nobody knew she was a Jew because her uncle told her to make sure nobody found out. She was genuinely concerned for other people. Also, she did not blow Hegai. Seriously; I can’t believe you’re still going on about that.

Ok, here goes. Now for the moment of truth:

Esther put on her best clothes then went and stood outside the King’s palace where he could see her, breaking the law. Then, a true miracle occurred. The king remembered how he felt about Esther’s sweet booty, decided not to have her killed, and raised his golden scepter to indicate she was allowed to approach him. Esther walked up to her husband who asked what she wanted. Esther had a plan and said, “If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet I have prepared for him.” That’s right. Esther asked the king to come eat dinner with her and bring a friend.

This is where the second miracle occurs: the king said yes. At the banquet the king told Esther to ask him for something and Esther asked him to come to dinner with his friend Haman, AGAIN. Dinner, two nights in a row: it’s insane. It’s even more insane that the king said yes (I hope you see what Esther is doing here. She’s making the king get used to doing as she asks). At this second banquet the king again told Esther to ask for something. Then it got real intense.

Esther said, “If you like me, then please don’t kill me or my people. We have been sold and are scheduled to be executed. If we had just been sold into slavery I wouldn’t complain, but I really don’t think we should have to die.” The king was surprised to hear someone was planning to kill his wife so he said, “Who did this? Where is he, and how dare he?” Esther replied, “The enemy of your wife is your best friend Haman.”

The king was so upset he went into his garden to get some fresh air. Now, Haman was no fool. He knew he was in deep shit, so he went to the bed Esther was lying on to beg for his life. This was not a good move. When the king came back into the room he saw Haman on Esther’s bed and he said, “What's This? Is he trying to rape the queen now too? In my house?” So the king immediately had Haman hanged.

Then the king rescinded the order to have all the Jews executed and Esther came clean about her upbringing and told the King Mordecai was her uncle. Then the king gave Mordecai all of Haman’s stuff. You know, slaves, estates, family members, normal stuff to give someone.

And here we have it: proof that if your niece has good skin and a large ass, you should force her into a marriage where talking to your husband can get you killed.

Ref: Esther 4-8

Esther takes center stage – “She’s pretty enough, and virgin enough”

The Epic of Esther in Four Parts: Part II
Sometimes it must be nice to have absolute power

After Ahasuerus tossed out the queen he remembered how much he liked booty. So to make sure he got the best booty in the kingdom he appointed recruiting centers in every province of the kingdom. He told his recruiters, “Ok, here’s the thing; I need a new wife. Now pay attention. This is the most important part. She MUST be super hot, she MUST be young, she MUST be a virgin, and YOU must remember that above all else, I am an ass man.”

Mordecai was a Jewish guy who had raised his niece Esther. Esther was damn fine and had an ample behind so Mordecai saw an opportunity. He told Esther not to let anyone know she was a Jew and bribed the recruiter to make sure she made it through the first round of elimination. This meant Esther made it to the palace where she met Hegai who was in charge of the palace women. Hegai liked Esther, who did NOT give him a blow job to get him to help. I don’t care who told you that, it’s not true!

In any case, Hegai gave Esther seven virgin women to be her servants and put her in the best part of the house of women: seriously, no blow job involved. Esther was just really likable. Get your mind out of the gutter.

After 12 months of purifying rituals the virgins were allowed to meet King Ahasuerus. First the virgins moved to the concubine housing on the king’s estate. Then they were paraded in front of the King. Turns out that Mordecai knew what he was doing because the King decided that Esther not only had the smoothest skin, firmest breasts, and prettiest hair; she also had the sweetest ass he had ever seen. She was the obvious choice to replace the old queen.

Now Mordecai was still hanging around. I mean, he wasn’t about to go anywhere now that his niece was a free meal ticket, uh, I mean queen. Because Mordecai was unemployed he spent a lot of time just hanging around near the palace. One day he overheard two of the king’s chamberlains talking. They were upset one of their daughters wasn’t chosen as the new queen and had decided to kill the king. Mordecai told his niece who told her husband. The king then launched a formal inquiry into the matter, decided the chamberlains were up to no good, and had them hung from a tree.

Moral: if you decide to marry a chick based only on her hip-to-waist ratio, you better hope you get lucky and end up with one who has a lazy uncle.

Ref: Esther 2