We return to the journey of Abraham and Sarah. He revives his old gag of passing off his wife as his sister. This time King Abimelech of Gerar takes a turn at the wheel. God again gets pissed at the wrong guy. He appears to Abimelech in a dream: "thou are but a dead man." Abimelech points out he didn't know Sarah is Abraham's wife and God eases up on the dead man talk but demands Sarah be returned to her husband. Because she is not property, right? Why no. Because Abraham is a prophet. He's so special that if he lies to you, it's your fault.
Abimelech confronts Abraham, who blames the people of Gerar. Obviously they would have killed him to get to his luscious 100 year old wife, who apparently has no say in who is banging her. So he had to say she is his sister. He then reveals this little nugget: Abraham and Sarah have the same dad. That's right. His wife IS his sister. WTF.
Abimelech makes it up to Abraham (he owed him, wouldn't you say?) with the return of Sarah and a gift of silver, sheep, oxen and plenty of slaves. He tells Abraham to live wherever he wants in Gerar. Abraham finds this satisfactory, and God heals Abimelech, his wife and slaves. Turns out when he heard about Abimelech screwing Sarah, he "closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech." That's right. Sterilized them all.
Sarah gives birth to Isaac, the son long promised by God, and Abraham circumcises him. How can Isaac be part of the covenant if his penis doesn't look just like God likes it? Sarah is very merry now that she can "give children suck." The day Isaac stops sucking, Abraham prepares a great feast. Yahoo! No more nursing bras!
Sarah has had enough of Hagar and tells Abraham to throw her and Ishmael out. Abraham is sad, but if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. So he gives Hagar a loaf of bread and a bit of water, and tells her to get the hell out. Recall Ishmael was 13 when he was circumcised. Now he is small enough for Hagar to carry. How does that work? It doesn't take long for the two to find themselves totally screwed, alone in the desert. God intervenes and provides water, saving them from certain death. Ishmael grows up, and his mom finds him a nice Egyptian wife.
Abimelech and Abraham form a covenant where Abraham promises not to be a lying douche again. Abraham gives the gift of some animals but puts seven ewes off to the side, which apparently is supposed to mean something to me. "And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days." Uh... ok. The end of this chapter (verses 25-34) was lost on me. Hope this isn't the key to the whole book. I'm just going to plow ahead, or I'll never get through this thing.
Showing posts with label lies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lies. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Genesis 19
Just when you think this book cannot get any freakier, it does just that. Welcome to Chapter 19.
Two angels visit Sodom and Lot invites them over for dinner. The male townsfolk show up and demand the guests be handed over to be raped. I guess these Sodomites really are wicked assholes after all. Lot is determined to protect his guests so he offers up his own daughters for the raping. And Lot is the good guy in town. He claims his daughters are virgins but we learn later in the chapter they are married, not that this detail makes the story any better or worse. Anyway, the suggestion ticks off the Sodomites who storm the house. The angels help Lot slip back inside and strike all the would-be rapists blind.
The angels escort Lot, his wife and two daughters out of town. Run away, and don't look back! God then gets down to business destroying the entire Jordanian valley, including Sodom and Gomorrah. Classic old testament hellfire and brimstone. Lot's wife looks back at the burning city. Big mistake. She immediately turns into a pillar of salt (what?!). Hey, you were warned, babe. But Lot -- who presents his daughters to would-be rapists -- escapes safely. Clearly he's done nothing so terrible as look back over his shoulder.
Lot and his daughters end up in a nice cave in Zoar. The daughters want their dad's name to live on, and who wouldn't want to preserve the bloodline of a wonderful dad who offered you up to be raped. So they did the only logical thing and got him drunk and took turns fucking him. Did it ever occur to you he might get married again? Maybe show him how to use eharmony.com.
OK, so both daughters have sons, making Lot a dad and grandpa to the same kids.
Two angels visit Sodom and Lot invites them over for dinner. The male townsfolk show up and demand the guests be handed over to be raped. I guess these Sodomites really are wicked assholes after all. Lot is determined to protect his guests so he offers up his own daughters for the raping. And Lot is the good guy in town. He claims his daughters are virgins but we learn later in the chapter they are married, not that this detail makes the story any better or worse. Anyway, the suggestion ticks off the Sodomites who storm the house. The angels help Lot slip back inside and strike all the would-be rapists blind.
The angels escort Lot, his wife and two daughters out of town. Run away, and don't look back! God then gets down to business destroying the entire Jordanian valley, including Sodom and Gomorrah. Classic old testament hellfire and brimstone. Lot's wife looks back at the burning city. Big mistake. She immediately turns into a pillar of salt (what?!). Hey, you were warned, babe. But Lot -- who presents his daughters to would-be rapists -- escapes safely. Clearly he's done nothing so terrible as look back over his shoulder.
Lot and his daughters end up in a nice cave in Zoar. The daughters want their dad's name to live on, and who wouldn't want to preserve the bloodline of a wonderful dad who offered you up to be raped. So they did the only logical thing and got him drunk and took turns fucking him. Did it ever occur to you he might get married again? Maybe show him how to use eharmony.com.
OK, so both daughters have sons, making Lot a dad and grandpa to the same kids.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Genesis 10-12
A whole lot of begatting is going on in Genesis Chapter 10 with the descendants of Noah. Joktan begat Almomad and Sheleph, and on and on. Chapter 11 is more of the same. We meet Abram and Sarai whom we follow for a few chapters. They are married but childless.
10/10/11 EDIT: Today I realized I missed something significant in Ch. 11: the Tower of Babel, which is a pretty enduring image from the bible, so I'm breaking some blog rule and editing an old post. You know, I have wrestled with getting into too much detail in these posts because I don't want them to go on ad nauseam, but then when I try to be concise I miss something. Also, this book is effing boring at times.
OK, so... everyone on earth speaks the same language, which is really handy for building a tower to heaven. Makes it easier to assign roles and such. When God gets wind of this, he makes it so that people no longer speak one common language. And wa-la, foils their plans to build a tower to heaven. Why not just tell them it isn't possible to build a tower that tall because heaven doesn't exist?
In Chapter 12, God tells Abram it's time to leave his father's land. He will be greatly blessed and have a great nation. Well all right then. Let's do this thing. With that, Abram and Sarai hit the road. When they reach Canaan, they build an altar and God promises Abram his descendants will inherit this land.
Abram and Sarai head to Egypt where there is a horrible famine. Things get seriously fucked up at this point. Abram tells Sarai that she is so beautiful the Egyptians will kill him if they think that she is his wife, so he will pass her off as his sister. What? Pharaoh is smitten and starts getting it on with Sarai. Because Abram is her "brother" he is taken care of by Pharoah's folks. He is provided with servants (again, slavery presented as a ho-hum no big deal) and animals including she asses and camels. All is well until God gets involved. He is pretty pissed at Pharaoh for sleeping with Abram's wife and plagues him and his house with some sort of horrible illness. Now, if this is somehow the appropriate penalty, why not punish Abram for lying about Sarai instead of afflicting Pharaoh for what he didn't know?
Pharaoh confronts Abram about his lies and shoos them out of Egypt.
Seriously, what in the hell kind of story is this?
10/10/11 EDIT: Today I realized I missed something significant in Ch. 11: the Tower of Babel, which is a pretty enduring image from the bible, so I'm breaking some blog rule and editing an old post. You know, I have wrestled with getting into too much detail in these posts because I don't want them to go on ad nauseam, but then when I try to be concise I miss something. Also, this book is effing boring at times.
OK, so... everyone on earth speaks the same language, which is really handy for building a tower to heaven. Makes it easier to assign roles and such. When God gets wind of this, he makes it so that people no longer speak one common language. And wa-la, foils their plans to build a tower to heaven. Why not just tell them it isn't possible to build a tower that tall because heaven doesn't exist?
In Chapter 12, God tells Abram it's time to leave his father's land. He will be greatly blessed and have a great nation. Well all right then. Let's do this thing. With that, Abram and Sarai hit the road. When they reach Canaan, they build an altar and God promises Abram his descendants will inherit this land.
Abram and Sarai head to Egypt where there is a horrible famine. Things get seriously fucked up at this point. Abram tells Sarai that she is so beautiful the Egyptians will kill him if they think that she is his wife, so he will pass her off as his sister. What? Pharaoh is smitten and starts getting it on with Sarai. Because Abram is her "brother" he is taken care of by Pharoah's folks. He is provided with servants (again, slavery presented as a ho-hum no big deal) and animals including she asses and camels. All is well until God gets involved. He is pretty pissed at Pharaoh for sleeping with Abram's wife and plagues him and his house with some sort of horrible illness. Now, if this is somehow the appropriate penalty, why not punish Abram for lying about Sarai instead of afflicting Pharaoh for what he didn't know?
Pharaoh confronts Abram about his lies and shoos them out of Egypt.
Seriously, what in the hell kind of story is this?
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