Genesis 23-25: Put your hand under my thigh

Sarah dies at 127. Abraham spends about 1/2 of a sentence mourning his dead wife, and the entire rest of chapter 23 haggling for the price of burying her. To summarize, they try to let him bury her for free, but he begs to pay.

Next comes my new favorite bible verse, Genesis 24:2: "He said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, 'Put your hand under my thigh.'" Yes, apparently the way you swear something in the bible is by putting your hand under someone's thigh. Hilarous.

Abraham asks the servant to go to his (Abraham's) family to find a wife for Isaac. Seriously, why with the rampant inbreeding, bible? Adam and Eve, Cain and whoever, Lot and his daughters, Sarah is Abraham's half sister (chapter 20), and now this.

Anyway, the servant sets off (with some other people...more servants possibly) for Abraham's family. He sits by a spring and makes this promise with himself (or God, I suppose) that the first marriageable girl who waters all of his camels will be the one who is supposed to be Isaac's wife.

So along comes Rebekah (Isaac's 2nd cousin...oh the rampant biblical inbreeding), and she waters the camels, and she's a virgin!!! The servant asks to stay at her house, and gives her a nose ring (what?).

They get to Rebekah's house, do a bunch of stuff like feed the camels and wash their feet, then when they try to give them food, Abraham's servant is like (paraphrasing), "There's no time for food! I have important stuff to say!" Why didn't he say it before they did all that other stuff, who knows.

So he explains his mission, and his little deal with God at the spring, and how Rebekah is therefore meant to marry Isaac. And he explains it in excruciating detail...it's like reading the entire chapter again.

Rebekah's family agrees that she should marry Isaac (Rebekah has shockingly little say in this, other than to agree to go right away instead of 10 days later), and she and the servants go back. As soon as they get back, she and Isaac apparently do it in his dead mother's tent. Err...kinky? No, that is just weird. So far the bible seems to really be all for (what some might consider) "sexual deviancy"...the inbreeding, the daughters basically raping Lot, now this bit of weirdness.

Abraham remarried after Sarah's death, and had 6 more kids. But Isaac is still the favorite...Abraham sent the other 6 away (with gifts!), and he left everything to Isaac when he died. Isaac is still God's favorite too, he's the only one who gets "blessed." The bible also refers to Hagar and this new wife as "concubines," which is just weird. I guess it just illustrates even further that Isaac is the favorite.

Anyway, Abraham dies and is buried with Sarah.

There is also a little blurb about Ishmael. It lists his 12 children, and says they are each tribe leaders (The 12 tribes of Israel? I've heard that phrase before, but I still don't know what it means).

There's considerably more about Isaac (he's the favorite!). Rebekah is barren...of course she is, I swear every woman in the bible is barren. Maybe if they'd knock off the inbreeding. Isaac prays to God, and lo and behold, a miracle! Rebekah gets pregnant with twins.

Apparently the kids were fighting in her uterus (ouch...), and God told her basically that they were going to fight all their lives. That just sounds strange, and unpleasant.

Anyway, the slightly older one was a hairy baby (Literally, hairy all over...WTF. Knock off that inbreeding, seriously, then maybe you won't have barren goat babies.) named Esau, and the younger one was Jacob (not hairy). Isaac liked Esau best (because Esau could hunt and Isaac liked meat...OK...), Rebekah liked Jacob best.

Then there's a random little story about how Esau "sold" Jacob his birthright for bean stew. I really don't know why these random, inconsequential moments are given such weight in the bible.

Genesis 20-22: Isaac is born, God tests Abraham

Abraham moved to someplace called Gerar, where he and Sarah worked the same con as before...they pretend to be siblings, and the king takes her (apparently as a concubine or something, since he's already married). God comes along as tells the king, (paraphrasing) "Sarah is actually married, and even though you couldn't possibly have known about it, I'm going to kill you and everyone else here." Good old God. This stuff is getting downright predictable.

The king actually sticks up for himself...good for him. He makes the point that he couldn't have possibly known she was married because he was lied to, and that he hadn't even touched Sarah yet anyway. God says, yeah you haven't touched her because of me. You return her, or you'll all die. That's friendly.

So the king gives Sarah back to Abraham, and he gives him a bunch of animals, slaves, and money, and lets him live anywhere in his land.

This is also the first time Abraham is referred to as a prophet.

Sarah got pregnant and had a son...they named him Isaac and circumcised him, aww.

After Isaac was born, Sarah wanted to have Hagar and Ishmael sent away, apparently so Isaac won't have to compete with Ishmael. Abraham didn't really want to do that, but God (what a dick) thought it was a fine idea, so that's what they did.

After wandering around in the desert for a while, Hagar and Ishmael run out of food and water, and it makes it sound like they are just about dead before an angel comes by and encourages them, and then God made Hagar notice a well that was right there. I think saying, "hey, look at that well over there," is the nicest thing God has done so far (never mind that God wanted them sent away in the first place). So Ishmael grew up in the desert, became an archer, and married some chick is mom found in Egypt. Alright then.

Meanwhile, that King that Abraham and Sarah conned out of a bunch of stuff, and who's land they are living in, asks them to swear that they will play nice, which they do.

Then Abraham asks the King to return a well that he (Abraham) dug, that the king's men had captured. The king says, I don't know what you're talking about, but OK. Abraham plants a tree to commemorate this apparently very important occasion.

Next is one of my favorite heart-warming stories...God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham, the sucker, falls for it. Abraham and Isaac start hiking up this mountain, with wood for a sacrifice. Isaac asks his father where the lamb is (what a thinker), and Abraham says "God will provide." They get to the place, and Abraham has tied up Isaac and is on the verge of killing him, when an angel comes along and says (paraphrasing), "Stop that." So Abraham sacrifices a handy ram that happens to wander by. Then the angel comes back and says (paraphrasing), "Now that I know you really fear me, I'll be sure to do all that stuff I keep going on about (numerous descendants, land, etc)."

So, God ups the ante on this covenant again. It's not enough that they have to be enslaved for 400 years, or that to prove their loyalty they have to chop a bit of their penis off, now Abraham has to further prove how faithful he is by being willing to kill is son. Seriously...let it never be said that God doesn't test people.

How insecure must God be to need this much reassurance that his people really, truly fear him?

Genesis 18-19: The destruction of Sodom

Something, which is either 3 men, 3 angels, or God, appears to Abraham near his tent. He begs them to stay and rest, they agree. Abraham runs off and tells Sarah to get 20 quarts of flour and make bread. That is a lot of bread... Abraham then runs off to kill a calf, and he brings it to the men and they all eat. Then God says that Sarah will have a son in a year. Sarah heard this from inside the tent and laughs; she doesn't quite believe it. Then there was this bit of pedantry:

God: Why'd you laugh?
Sarah: Nuh-uh, I didn't laugh!
God: Yuh-uh you did!

The men walk off toward Sodom, and God tells Abraham that Sodom's "sin is grievous," so he's going to go there and see what's what. (Really, all-knowing God has to go to Sodom to see how bad it is? He can't just know?) Abraham then has this weird haggling session with God:

Abraham: Will you spare the city if there are 50 good people in it?
God: Yeah, OK
Abraham: How bout 45?
God: Fine
Abraham: 40?
God: OK
Abraham: 30?
God: Yeah, fine
Abraham: 20?
God: K
Abraham: 10?
God: K

Then he stops. How about not destroying a even single good person, God? Really?

I've heard this sort of ethical question before (mostly on star trek)...how many innocent people is it OK to wipe out? Now we know the answer, the bible says it's 10. See, I am learning things.

The next chapter starts with "The 2 angels arrived at Sodom." I thought it was 3 that set off from Abraham's tent. But, whatever.

They find Lot at the gate of the city, and he basically badgers them into staying with him. Later that evening, the house was surrounded with men demanding that Lot send the 2 angels out so they can have sex with them. So obviously, Lot offers the mob his 2 virgin daughters instead. Really, Lot, really? That's a despicable act if I ever heard one. The angels pull Lot inside and make all the men outside blind.

The angels tell Lot to gather up his family and go to the mountains, because they are going to destroy the city (and apparently all the other nearby cities). Lot asks if they could just go to that other city instead, and the angels promise to spare that one city. So Lot runs away with his wife and daughters.

I want to know why Lot gets to live. The story is the people of Sodom are horrible and need to be destroyed...and I guess if the angel-raping mob is representative of the city as a whole, I could sort of see that. But is Lot really any better? He offers his virgin daughters to the mob. I don't care what anybody says, that is disgusting and he deserves to die with the would-be angel-rapers.

This is all assuming, of course, that God is vengeful and cruel, and doesn't much care about actually doing anything to make people better. Seriously, God's big solution to everything is to just destroy everything when things get tough, surely he could do better.

Anyway, Lot and family are running away, and his wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt. OK... As usual, I don't get it. I guess it must be symbolic of something. But as literal truth, that makes no sense.

Lot and his 2 daughters end up holed up in a mountain cave, where the daughters hatch this brilliant scheme: let's have sex with our father! Brilliant. So one night, they get him super drunk, and the one sleeps with him...and the next night they get him super drunk, and the other sleeps with him. The bible is very clear that Lot doesn't know what's going on. And they both get pregnant and have sons. What a charming story.

So I was kind of interested in this story, because it's one of those that get trotted out by the anti-gay wingnuts, in that, "the bible says it's wrong and this story proves it," way. Really, I don't see it. God destroyed Sodom because the people there were so bad, and I guess the rapist mob was an example of that. And I would agree, that would be bad. But it says nothing about consensual homosexual relationships, which is what these wingnuts fight so hard against.

In this story, there was a mob of men who wanted to rape men (I assume the angels looked like men). And what the wingnuts claim is that it was the men having sex with men part that was so wrong. But would it have been OK if that mob wanted to rape women instead? That would be heterosexual, so I guess it would be OK. Really? Ugh. Maybe that would be OK with God and right-wing nutcases, but it's not OK with me...

If anything, I could see where this story says that God frowns on rapist mobs, and as usual overreacts by destroying everything. I don't see where it has anything to do with gay marriage, or homosexuality in general, like the wingnuts claim.

Genesis 15-17: Abram knocks up servant, chops up dicks

God tells Abram that his reward will be great (that’s random). Abram says, what does it matter, I don’t have any children, and one of my servants is my heir. God reiterates his promise to Abram, your descendants will be as numerous as the stars, all this land I give to you (in this chapter, 10 tribes who already live here are listed...but fuck ‘em) etc. This time Abram says “how can I now that I will gain possession of it?” Is Abram asking for proof, or a sign? What a thinker. So God tells Abram to bring him a cow, goat, ram, dove, and pigeon. Abram brings these, and for some reason cuts them all in half (except the birds!). I guess “cut them in half” was implied in God’s request to “bring them here.” Then Abram spends the rest of the day fending off all the things that come by trying to eat them, and eventually he falls asleep.

Then God apparently talks to Abram in a dream. Even though this here is the “promised land,” Abram’s descendants have to go away to be enslaved somewhere else for 400 years. But it’s OK, because after 400 years, God will punish that country where they will be enslaved, and they will come out with “great possessions.” The reason, apparently, is because of all the people who are already living in the promised land; their sin “has not yet reached its full measure.”

Seriously, this is the weirdest fucking covenant I've ever heard of. I guess the people already living here aren’t quite evil enough to destroy yet (Seriously, this is the best example of a benevolent God I've seen so far...that he's willing to wait until they are sufficiently bad to kill them all. That's just great.), so Abram et al have to go somewhere else for 400 years. For some reason they can’t just wait anywhere for 400 years, they have to go be enslaved. But God is going to punish these people (400 years later) for enslaving them. But why is God going to punish them, when it is part of his own plan that his chosen people be slaves for 400 years? Seriously, it was his idea in the first place. What an all-around shitty deal.

At the beginning of chapter 16 we get a hilarious piece of news: even though God has promised Abram three times that his descendants will be numerous as the stars and the grains of dust on the earth, Abram’s wife Sarai is barren! Good move, God.

They (Abram and Sarai) decide Abram should start sleeping with Sarai’s servant, Hagar. So Abram knocks up Hagar, then Hagar starts to “despise” Sarai. So Sarai beats Hagar, and Hagar runs away.

An angel (the first we’ve seen so far) finds Hagar in the desert and says (paraphrasing), “Whatcha doin?” Hagar says she’s running away, and the angel tells her to go back and submit to Sarai. Well, that’s friendly, and helpful too *snark*. The angel also says her descendants will be too numerous to count (this is quite the common promise, apparently), that her son will be named Ishmael, and he will be a wild man. This all sounds good to Hagar, apparently, and she goes back to Abram and Sarai. The chapter ends with Ishmael’s birth.

13 years later, God comes to Abram and reiterates his promise (for the 4th time). This time, however, there is a catch. God will make Abram’s descendants numerous, and give them all of the land of Canaan, and all that, but all of the males in the household have to be circumcised…every male, even the servants and the servants’ children. Any male not circumcised will be considered to have broken the covenant, and will be cut off from his people.

So this is circumcision… there is absolutely no reason given for it, other than, “I’m God and I say so.” I was hoping for something, but there is nothing. And why only on the 4th time God makes his "covenant" with Abraham does he mention circumcision, why didn't he say that in the first place? I cannot believe people are still circumcised today. The bible gives no reason whatsoever, and there is no good secular reason to do it.

Also, Abram is now Abraham, and Sarai is now Sarah. I assume that this has some significance in Hebrew.

God also promises that Sarah will have a son named Isaac. Amusingly, Abraham doesn’t seem to believe him, because he and Sarai are so old.

God says that he still likes Ishmael and all, and he will bless him and his descendants, but it is Isaac he is making this covenant with. (I’ve heard before that Ishmael et al are supposed to be the Muslims, and Isaac et al are the Jews.)

So on that same day, Abraham circumcised himself, his 13-year-old son Ishmael (why? Ishmael isn’t part of this covenant anyway…), and all of his male servants. Busy day. I can only imagine how that must have gone down…I imagine Abraham basically rampaging around, chopping up people’s dicks, while everyone else runs around going, “Ahhh! He’s gone crazy!!!”

Seriously, this covenant...it's like God keeps upping the ante. The first couple of times it sounds great; numerous descendants and land. Then later...yeah, all that will happen, but you all have to go be enslaved for 400 years. And now...yep, we'll do that, but first you have to mutilate your own genitals, then go be enslaved for 400 years. I cannot wait to see what comes next!

I still want to know why Abraham and his descendants are chosen out of all the people in the world to be so blessed (if you can call enslavement and genital mutilation "blessed") by God. Abraham doesn't seem special or particularly righteous. He lies, he sleeps with someone who isn't his wife, he doesn't quite believe God about his prolific descendants or his barren wife's miracle baby. He sounds like a normal person, in other words (aside from that genital mutilation rampage he just went on...that was pretty not normal). As far as I can tell, he's just randomly, arbitrarily chosen. Why does God always play favorites? Can't he just bless everybody? Is that too hard for him? Does he only have time for one guy at a time? I don't get it.

I also want to know what's so great about this land God keeps promising Abraham. It's so special, it's worth Abraham et al being enslaved for 400 years, and totally wiping out 10 tribes worth of people! Why? In any description of it, it's just desert, like everything else. Why can't they just go somewhere else? Or live somewhere with other people without destroying them all?

Genesis 14: Abram rescues Lot

This bit is just kind of random and weird.

There was some sort of battle involving 4 kings vs. 5 kings, and at some point one of the kings took stuff from Sodom and Gomorrah, which included Lot (and Lot’s possessions, oh dear). Abram heard about this and decided to go rescue him…he took a bunch of his people and attacked them, and took Lot (and his possessions!), and other people and goods.

Afterward, there is this weird exchange between Abram and the king of Sodom. At first, Abram has all the goods (that originally came from Sodom), and Abram apparently gives 10% of this to the king of Salem (Don’t know why…maybe it’s because the king of Salem was praising Abram, saying he was blessed by God and such. With Abram, flattery will get you everywhere apparently). After this, the king of Sodom says, give me my people and keep the stuff for yourself. Abram says he doesn’t want to take anything from the king of Sodom, so that he won’t owe the king anything later (I thought pride was one of those 7 deadly sins, lol). But he already gave away 10% of the stuff that he admits he doesn’t want, and never considered to be his. Bit weird.

So, Abram is willing to take stuff (under false pretenses no less) from the pharaoh of Egypt, but is too high-and-mighty to take stuff freely offered from the King of Sodom. But he's not too high-and-mighty to give the King of Sodom's stuff away to other people.

This whole chapter confuses me. Actually, make that, everything that has happened so far confuses me.

Genesis 12-13: God's abritrarily "chosen people"

God comes to Abram and says that he will be blessed, and his name will be great, and so on. He tells Abram to go away to some land that he will show him, and live there. So Abram goes away with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. Eventually they get to a place, where God appears and says, all this land I give to you and your children. There are other people already living in this place of course, I wonder what is going to happen to them?

So, why is Abram so blessed, why is he chosen? There is no reason given whatsoever. By my count, Abram is 9 generations removed from Noah’s sons…if you start with 3 couples, 9 generations later there must be thousands of people. Out of all of these, God chooses Abram to be his chosen people, and fuck the rest. Why? It’s a mystery.

Then Abram and Sarai pull off this con in Egypt. They go there, and Abram says something about how he’s afraid that if the people know they are married, they will kill Abram to have Sarai, because she is so beautiful. So he convinces her that they should pretend to be siblings. The pharaoh marries Sarai, and Abram, as the royal brother-in-law, gets all sorts of amazing riches.

God decides to be pissed at the pharaoh (why? For all the pharaoh knew, she was unmarried. Abram and Sarai are the ones who lied to him.), so he unleashes a bunch of horrible diseases on the pharaoh’s household. So the pharaoh says to Abram, you suck, take your wife and go. So they left, and they also got to keep all the stuff they were given. What a couple of con artists.

So Abram, Sarai, and Lot leave Eypgt. There was no mention of what Lot was up to in Egypt, but he must not have done too bad for himself…between Abram and Lot they had so many possessions that the land could not support them, and they had to split up. Lot went toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abram went to the land of Canaan.

After they separate, God comes and reiterates his promise to Abram; all this land (where people already live, but fuck them) I give to you and your offspring. Your offspring will be as numerous as grains of dust on the earth, etc, etc.