Judges 10-12: Fucking human sacrifice

Now we've come to one of my favorites... the story of Jephthah.  It's much like that one time when Abraham almost killed Isaac, except if he had actually killed him.

But first, the usual bullshit... the Israelites "sin" and are generally "evil," God gets pissed and sends a bunch of people to attack them.  The Ammonites in particular are being a nuisance in Gilead, and the people there decide that, for whatever reason, they absolutely need Jephthah to lead the attack against them.  Some time ago, Jephthah's brothers chased him away because his mother was a prostitute (obviously), but these people win him to their cause by saying he gets to be leader of Gilead if he'll do it.

So Jephthah and the leader of the Ammonite army exchange some messages... Jephthah wants to know why the Ammonites are attacking Gilead, they say it's because the Israelites stole their land back when they first left Egypt and they want it back.  Jephthah says, "We didn't take your land, our god gave it to us!  Why don't you just take whatever your god gives you, and be happy with that!"  No problem with that, clearly.  Oh, your god gave you the same land that our god gave us?  Now I'm at a complete loss for what to do, I guess we should just bludgeon and stab each other to death now.

So that's what they do.  Right before the battle, Jephthah makes this promise to God:

If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.

What a fucking moron.  Maybe it was way more common back then to have, like, goats or chickens coming out of your door to greet after a hard day's battle, but isn't much more likely to be his wife or daugther?  Or maybe a servant?  Some sort of human, for the burnt sacrifice?  Hmm.

Anyway, the Israelites win the battle and Jephthah goes home.  And guess who comes out of the house first?  His only daughter!  Surprise!  He allows her to go off into the woods with her friends for two months to mourn her virginity, or something.  I figured this was a flimsy pretext she came up with to get away, and it worked!  Run, girl, run!  But no, for some stupid reason she comes back to her stupid, murderous father, and "he did to her as he had vowed. And she was a virgin."  Well goodie, at least she was a virgin.  What the fuck does that have to do with anything.

Great biblical morals in this story.  Jephthah murders his daughter as a human sacrifice to God, and God doesn't say anything about it whatsoever, meaning that he either approved or wasn't paying attention.  Either way, I'm disgusted.  As usual.

Here's a great video about this story:

After that, Jephthah leads another battle against Ephraim, for some reason.  They won (even though Jephthah is fresh out of daughters to murder) and killed everyone who lived there, including the one guy who tried to pretend he was from somewhere else, but he couldn't pronounce "Sibboleth" correctly.  Then Jephthah dies and it lists a few people who ruled after him.  Very exciting.

Joshua 7-8: God makes the Israelites lose a battle

So the Israelites have just destroyed Jericho. Before they attacked, Joshua specifically told them to not take anything from inside the city; they were to burn it all and leave it there. But some guy, Achan, didn't listen. He took something (a "devoted thing"... and idol or some holy symbol, maybe?), and now they must all suffer for it. Obviously.

Joshua sends a couple of guys out to spy on the next target, Ai (which is an awesome name for a city). These spies are better than the last; they return with no problems. They report that there aren't many people there, so they don't even have to use their entire army. Just send a few thousand people. So that's what they do...little do they know that God is pissed that Achan took something from Jericho, so he let a bunch of them die in the attack. Not only that, but they fail to conquer the city and are chased off.

Joshua says, "What the hell, God? I thought you were going to be helping us out!" God says, "Nope, I'm pissed because somebody took something from Jericho. I know I could have told you this before all those people died, but what fun would that be? Anyway, if you want my help you'll have to find them and destroy them." God tells Joshua to get the people ready, and tomorrow Joshua should present them family by family before him. If they are found with the stolen items, they will be burned to death. I do find it amusing that all-knowing God has to search people in this limited fashion, one family at a time.

So the next day, Achan's turn comes up, and he stupidly confesses. They take him and all his children to some valley and stone them all to death. Because that's fair; the children were totally to blame. Also, I thought God was going to burn them to death...guess not.

As far as I can see, this is just a story about superstitious people and stupid brutality. Superstitious people loose battle, find scapegoat, murder scapegoat. Fantastic.

Then God says, "Thanks for murdering that guy and his children! Now I'm not mad anymore!" He tells Joshua to send the entire army to Ai and conquer it. He also gives them permission to loot it. Weird.

So, this time 30,000 men go to Ai. 25,000 men led by Joshua run away and get all the men of Ai to chase them. Meanwhile, while everyone from Ai who know how to fight are away, the 5,000 other Israelites run in to Ai and slaughter the women and children. Then Joshua and his men stop running, fight the men from Ai, and kill them all. A successful mission!

It's amazing what 30,000 men and a tricky ambush can do, compared with 3,000 men doing a straightforward attack. Wait, I mean, it's all because God helped them out this time!!!! Yeah.

Anyway, after they kill everyone, they loot the city and burn it to the ground.

Then they go to Mount Ebal, build an alter and bless and curse themselves, just like Moses told them to.

Joshua 1-6: Destruction of Jericho

So Moses is dead, and Joshua is the new leader. The 1st chapter is pretty much a waste of space; God reminds Joshua to obey all the rules, and Joshua reminds the tribes who want to live on this side of the Jordan that they have to come help with the fighting. Yawn.

Joshua tells everyone to prepare to leave in 3 days, and in the meantime he sends 2 spies into Jericho. They stay at a prostitute's house for some reason. Her name is Rahab.

They must be really shitty spies, because they are discovered after only 2 sentences. The king comes to Rahab's house looking for them, but she sends him off looking somewhere else. They were hidden on the roof the whole time! Clever.

She tells them she knows what they are up to, and she asks that they spare her and her family when they take over. They agree, but only if she ties a red cord on her window.

God is going to be pissed when he finds out about this. He has been very clear from the start; fucking kill everybody.

Then they get away and get back to Joshua, who for some reason isn't upset at the idea of sparing some people, in direct violation of God's commands. Hmm.

The next day they set out. Joshua tells everyone to follow the Ark of the Covenant, but not to get too close to it. Why not?

When they get to the Jordan, God decides to do a magic trick to show them, once again, that the "living God is among you." Does God ever tire of glorifying himself? I guess not. Anyway, the trick is that when the Ark of the Covenant gets into the River, it effectively acts as a dam; the river stops flowing. So the guys carrying the Ark stand there while everyone crosses the dry riverbed. Ooo, magic.

God tells them to make a little monument for the occasion... 12 guys, 1 from each tribe, take a stone each from the dry riverbed and put it in their camp that evening. Right then.

So they crossed the river and are camped outside of Jericho.

There are 40,000 Israelites armed for battle. This number seems pretty small to me. There were 601,730 at the last census (numbers 26), and that only counts men older than 20, and doesn't even include Levites, who as priests might not be fighting. Some of those might be too old to fight. But still, 40,000 isn't even 10% of their total fighting force. Why?

Apparently that little trick with the river freaked out the natives... "their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites." So really, if they aren't even going to put up a fight, this isn't even going to be a battle; it will be a massacre. Apparently God is OK with that.

This next bit is just freaking weird. God says, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” AGAIN? What does that even mean? What are they cutting off now??

Oh I see. This whole generation of Israelites have never been circumcised in their 40 years of God making them wander around. Why not? And why are they bothering now, after all this time? And why hasn't God killed them or whatever for this transgression? And why did that previous bit say "circumcise them again," implying that it was already done?

Whatever. They stay there until they are all healed. They could have done this in the safety of their camp across the river, but no, they do it now, right outside of Jericho. That makes no sense.

Also, while camped near Jericho, they celebrate the passover. Again, why are they doing all this stuff here that could have been done in relative safety on the other side of the river?

Weird. Joshua finds some guy with a sword. He asks him who's side he's on. The guy says he is "commander of the army of the LORD." I thought Joshua was leader of the army, but I guess not. Joshua is convinced anyway... he bows before this guy, and asks what message God has for him. Apparently that message is "take off your sandals!" If you'll remember, this is also the first thing the burning bush said to Moses, so God must really advocate going barefoot. Who the fuck is this guy? I guess we'll never know.

Chapter 6 is all about the fall of Jericho, and I think most everyone knows how it goes. In fact I remember singing a song about it in school choir. Anyway, God has them all march around the city once a day, for 6 days, and on the 7th day, they marched around the city 7 times, then when 7 priests blew their 7 trumpets, everyone shouted and the wall of Jericho fell down. 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7!! Holy crap, 7.

Anyway, that's where the song ended, but that's not where the story ends. When the walls fall down, the Israelites run inside and kill everything, except Rahab and her family. They collect them, and apparently they became Israelites forever after. Aww. They also collected all the gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and put it in "treasury of the LORD’s house," whatever that is. What does God need money for anyway?

Then they burned everything else to the ground. Joshua puts a curse on the place, and on anyone who might try to rebuild it.

I really want to know why it's OK that they spared Rahab's family. God has been so clear on this point, that they must kill everything, even the animals. Spare nothing, or God will be fucking pissed; that has been the message. And what's the first thing they do? Spare someone. And God doesn't care. What?

Deuteronomy 14-25: Where to poop (and other rules)

Yeah, this is a really huge section of bible, but it's mostly a repeat of the rules from before, with a few new things thrown in. I marked the new things; you could just read those parts and not miss anything. That's pretty much what I did.

We get reminded what food is clean and unclean. It still says that rabbits chew the cud and bats are birds, just incase that wasn't wrong enough before.

Then it says that thing about "don't cook a baby goat in its mother's milk." That never gets any less weird, no matter how many times I read it.

NEW: Tithes. Reserve 1/10 of your harvest, and once a year travel to that one place where God is going to "put his Name," (since it doesn't have a name yet, I will call it "God's Special Place") and eat it there. If it's too far and you can't carry it all, go there with an equivalent amount of money and buy food there to eat in God's presence. Every year do that, except on the third year. On that year, store all the tithes in the cities so the Levites and other people who don't have much (widows, orphans) can use it. How nice.

If God really cared about the poor, he'd give all the tithes to them, not just 1/3 of them. Just a thought.

Every 7 years, all debts between Israelites are cancelled (debts with foreigners remain). This is kind of random, and seems to be pretty much a "because I'm God and I say so" thing. There is an admonition to not be tightfisted toward the end of those 7 years, because you won't be paid back...in fact, you should be extra generous then.

Sorta new: A small change from Leviticus... all servants go free after 6 years, including the women. That's the different part, used to be female servants were yours forever and ever. Like before, if a servant wants to stay, you have to nail their earlobe to the doorframe. Then they stay forever.

As we've heard before, God wants the firstborn of all the livestock. But here we finally find out what that means. You're supposed to take them with your tithe to God's Special Place, and eat them.

This is a TON of food they're supposed to eat in God's Special Place. How does that work? Or are they just supposed to stay there for months until it's all eaten? How inconvenient.

Once again, celebrate the Passover! No fucking yeast. It must be celebrated at God's Special Place. Also, celebrate the festival of weeks and the festival of tabernacles.

NEW: Select judges for each city, and they shall judge with fairness, justice, and no bribes. If a case is too hard for these judges, go to God's Special Place and bring the case to the Levitcal priests (apparently the Levites got a promotion). You must accept their ruling, anyone who doesn't will be killed.

Don't sacrifice any animal with a defect.

Stone to death anyone who worships other gods. You must have at least 2 witnesses to do so, and they must throw the first stone.

NEW: When you are set up in the promised land, you can have a king, but only the king that God chooses. That king may not have too many horses, too many wives, or too much money. He must have his own personal copy of all these rules, so he can become familiar with them. And even though he is the king, he may not break them.

Levites and priests don't get their own stuff. For food, they eat specific parts of the sacrifices and other offerings (grain, etc).

Do not follow the ways of the people you're about to wipe out. No other gods, no divination, child sacrifice, witchcraft, etc.

NEW: Apparently, there is going to be a prophet to talk for God, because at some point the people said they couldn't stand to talk to God themselves (I don't remember that). Any false prophet must be killed. You can tell the difference by whether what they say is true or not. Lol, clearly there are no problems with that.

Set up cities of refuge for people who accidentally kill someone to go to and be safe from revenge. Here it gives a ridiculous example of an accidental murder: you could be cutting down a tree, when the head of your axe flies off and kills someone! That's random.

You need at least 2 witnesses to convict someone of a crime. If a witness is found to be lying, they will suffer the same fate as though they had committed the crime they lied about.

NEW: When you go to war, don't worry if the opponent is stronger, because God is with you. You should bring a priest, and just before the fighting starts he should address the soldiers with an uplifting speech. And apparently after that, the officers will give everyone one last chance to desert. Weird. Then, before you attack, offer them peace. If they accept, you just got some new slaves!! Congratulations. If they refuse, you can kill all the men, and keep the women and children. If there's a woman you fancy, you can take her as your wife. Take her home, give her a month to mourn, then fuck her. If it wasn't to your satisfaction, throw her out. But you can't make her into a slave at this point, you have to just let her go free. This is disgusting.

However, in the conquest of the promised land (which I'm sure they'll get around to eventually), spare no one. Also disgusting.

NEW: This is weird. If a murdered person is found in the middle of nowhere, the leaders of the nearest city have to make atonement to God. I'm not sure why they are to blame. Anyway, they have to make atonement by finding a cow that has never worked, take it to a valley that has never been plowed and that has a stream, and break its neck. Random as ever.

NEW: You have to give your firstborn son a double share of the inheritance, even if he's not your favorite. It also casually mentions what to do if you have 2 wives here, so clearly the Bible still doesn't care about monogamy. Just an FYI.

If you have a "stubborn and rebellious son" and he just won't obey, everybody in town must stone him to death. That'll show him.

NEW: If you put someone to death for some crime, you may hang their corpse on a pole, but only til sundown, then you have to take it down and bury it. Don't want to stink up the place I guess.

If you see something that someone lost, return it to them.

If you see someone with an animal that fell down, go help them get it up again.

NEW: No transvestites. "A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this." Awesome, I will add this to my big list of reason God hates me. I honestly had no idea the bible says this, I'm surprised it's not brought up more often.

NEW: You can take eggs from a bird's nest, but don't get greedy and take the bird also. Random.

NEW: When you build a new house, include a parapet (a wall around the roof) so no one will fall off the roof and hurt themselves. Also random.

Don't crossbreed your crops.

Don't yoke a donkey and ox to the same plow.

No fabric blends.

Attach tassels to the corners of your cloak, to remind you of God's rules somehow.

NEW: If a man, after sleeping with his new wife, suspects she is not a virgin, he can accuse her of being a whore. Now the burden of proof falls on her father. He must "display the cloth before the elders of the town." Apparently that proves it somehow. I don't know what cloth it's talking about. Anyway, if it can be proved that she was a virgin, the man must pay a fine and is never allowed to divorce her. If it cannot be proved, she must be stoned to death in front of her father's house. Yay, biblical morality. I guess "innocent until proven guilty" hasn't been invented yet.

If a man sleeps with a married woman, they both need to die.

NEW: Here's an interesting rhetorical question for you: if a woman is raped in a forest and there's no one around to hear it, is she still guilty? Guilty of what, you might wonder? Don't think about it or you'll just get angry. Here's what the bible says:

• If a virgin is raped inside a city: they both get stoned to death. (The woman must be punished because she didn't call for help, obviously.)
• If a virgin is raped outside a city: only the man is killed, do not punish the woman. (Because, clearly, there was no one to hear her scream.)

If a man rapes a virgin who is not betrothed to marry anyone yet, he must pay her father a fine and they have to get married. Because that's fair.

Hey bible, what happens if a woman who isn't a virgin is raped? Or what if a man is raped? I guess that just doesn't matter. It's almost like the bible doesn't care about rape for the reasons a normal human being would (because rape is obviously horrible), but because virginity is some sort of commodity that is stolen, and you must be punished for the theft of it. Or for not protecting it by screaming loud enough, I guess.

Don't marry your father's wife.

NEW: The following people may not enter the "assembly of God," whatever that is:

• anyone who has lost his testicles in an accident (random)
  
• no bastards, or any of their kids for 10 generations
• no Ammonites or Moabites, no matter how many generations later
• Edomites and Egyptians can join after 3 generations

NEW: Go outside the camp to poop. When you do, dig a hole and bury it. Seriously, the bible has rules for pooping. And it's not because it's more hygienic, it's because poop is unholy. Apparently God is in the camp, and if he sees you pooping, he'll be all grossed out and "turn away from you." So, since omnipresent God is somehow not outside the camp (I still haven't figured that one out), you have to out there to poop. What is God, 2 years old? I really think he needs to read "everybody poops" or something. Seriously.

Don't give foreign runaway slaves back to their masters. That's actually pretty good.

Don't be a shrine prostitute. I don't know what that is.

Don't charge an Israelite interest when you loan them money.

If you make a vow to God, do whatever it is quickly.

You can go eat from someone else's field, but just eat there and don't take anything away with you. Like a buffet!

NEW: Say a man and woman get divorced, the woman remarries, then divorced again. The first guy isn't allowed to marry her again "because she has been defiled." I really don't know why it matters.

NEW: A man can't be drafted for 1 year after being married, because he should have a chance to be happy with his wife. Aww.

Kidnappers must die.

Be nice to the poor, foreigners, widows, and orphans. Let them forage in your fields.

NEW: Don't punish the parents for the children's sins or vice versa.

NEW: The maximum number of lashes as punishment is 40.

If a man dies, is brother has to marry his widow. If he doesn't want to marry her, God will kill him!!! Ahem, or, she goes and complains to the town elders, and the elders try to talk him into it. If he still doesn't want to, she gets to spit in his face in front of everybody. She also takes one of his sandals, and his family will ever after be known as "The Family of the Unsandaled." Oh snap! (I assume someone from that time and place would say) That is fucking silly, is what I, from this time and place, would say. But at least God changed his mind about killing people in this situation. Good.

If a man is in a fight and his wife tries to help out by grabbing the other guy's junk, her hand must be cut off. "Show no mercy!!"

Use honest weights and measures.

God still hates the Amalekites.

And that's about it, I think. The whole rulebook for the Israelites. Interestingly, as much as it repeated the stuff from Leviticus, there's a bunch of stuff that got left out. Like the bit about "man shall not lie with man, blah blah, etc." Totally not in Deuteronomy (so far, but I think rule-making time is over). I guess that's just not as important as "no fabric blends," which did make the final cut. Oh yeah! That's right. God does care more about fabric blends than homosexuality. Bwah haha.

Anyway, most of this stuff is either just plain weird or morally reprehensible. This is where people claim to get their morals from? I would fear for my safety if I thought that was true. And I'm the immoral one, because I don't believe in this shit. Really?

Deuteronomy 9-13: Circumcise your heart. No, really.

Guess what, Moses is still talking.

He talks some more about how the enemy is strong, but never fear, you will destroy them with God's help. (Also God's magic hornet, but it doesn't mention that. Boo.) But! God is not helping you because you are righteous! It is because they are wicked, more wicked than you.

So... what, this is like that one joke; how fast do you have to be to outrun a bear and/or zombie? Faster than the other guy! How do you survive God's wrath? Be slightly less wicked than somebody else! Got it.

He's also helping because God never reneges on a promise! (Though he can apparently take 500 years to make good on it, and kill bunches of your people in the meantime) But of course, I still want to know why he bothered to make a promise to Abraham in the first place.

To illustrate just how unrighteous the Israelites are, Moses rehashes the story of how they made a gold calf to worship, while Moses was off getting the tablets of covenant law. Of course, all those people are dead now so I don't know why this is supposed to make them feel bad about themselves.

Funny thing about that story, Moses says while he was off getting the 1st set of tablets (the ones he broke), he didn't eat or drink for 40 days. Then he went to get the 2nd set of tablets, and also didn't eat or drink for 40 days, but that time it was because of their sin. So what, the first time he didn't eat or drink just for fun? At that point they hadn't sinned yet, after all.

My, Moses really likes to guilt them. I don't want to be offensive, but I'm pretty sure Moses is the world's first stereotypical Jewish grandfather. Oh how I've suffered for you!! But don't worry about it, I'll be fine. Also I'll be dead soon. But don't worry about it, I know how you have things to do.

He also mentioned some of the other times God got angry enough to kill them, but not in as much detail.

Then Moses says, God doesn't ask for so much really! Just your complete, unthinking, unwavering, zombie-like obedience! Love him, serve him, fear him, and above all obey him. We've heard this before, sigh.

God owns everything in heaven and earth, and yet he chose you losers as his favorite. The least you could do is give him what he wants...obedience. Therefore, "circumcise your hearts, and do not be stiff-necked any longer." What a disgusting image. What the fuck does that even mean??

So, God chose you out of all people to be his favorite. And in return, all you have to do is have absolutely no choice in how you live your own life, or even how you think your own thoughts. Stray out of the tight little mold God has made for you to live in, and he will fucking kill you. How magnanimous God is! What a great deal! Ugh.

LOL: "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes." God is God of gods. What an excellent definition of God.

Also, since when does God accept no bribes?? Are they supposed to stop doing animal sacrifice now? No. God demanded the first born of all people and animals (for what, who knows). Then he decided to take all the Levites instead. Is that over now? Do the Levites get to live their own lives instead of being bound in service to the priesthood? No. God not only accepts bribes, he demands them. And yes, those things are bribes; they do them to gain favor with God (ie, not be killed by him). So what the fuck is that all about?

Ugh, Moses is still going on about "love and obey God." STILL.

Apparently this land is so fantastic because God cares for it... this whole time he's cared for it, even though the Israelites aren't there yet and it's been inhabited by the 'even more unrighteous than the Israelites and therefore they deserve to die' people.

Also, they won't have to irrigate it because it "drinks rain from heaven." So...it rains here. Awesome. But only if they love God will it rain. If they don't love God, he "will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you." Ouch.

So why does it rain there now, with all the wicked people in it? If this is how it works, shouldn't God have been saying, "no rain for you, wicked people!" And they all would have died or moved away, and the conquest would have been so much easier. Or is this just another example of God making the Israelites' lives harder for no apparent reason. This book makes no sense.

Once again, Moses tells them to destroy all their places of worship and holy things. God has been going on about this about a million times since Exodus. I think they get the picture.

He also says that once they're all settled in the promised land, God will come and "put his Name" on some place, and that is where they all have to go to do their sacrifices and whatnot. Don't do sacrifices just anywhere! Do them at that one specific place.

Now, I don't know how big the promised land is, but I imagine that some people will have to travel for weeks to get to this place. How can God possibly avoid playing favorites when he picks this place? Or maybe that doesn't matter to him.

While he's talking about sacrifice, he reminds everyone that they aren't allowed to eat (drink?) blood, but this time he includes the reason: the blood is where the "life" is. I'm pretty sure all life isn't in the circulatory system. Maybe that's where the soul is.

Lol. If some prophet shows up and says "let's worship other gods!" - that is actually God testing you. He wants to see if you really love him. Why does he have to test them like that?? Why does he make them destroy all the people and holy objects just so they wouldn't be tempted to worship other gods, only to throw temptation at them himself? What's the point??

Oh yeah, and that prophet... he must be put to death. Why? If God is making this happen, why does that guy have to die now?? What is his crime? Being a pawn in God's sick twisted mind games? What the fuck!?!?!

Yes, put to death anyone who suggests worship of another god, be it your brother, son, daughter or wife. Stone them to death! And you, who love them, must cast the first stone. Even though God is apparently mind-controlling them just to fuck with you. Prove your loyalty to God by killing your loved ones. This makes me ill.

Furthermore, if some town has gone astray and started worshiping other gods, you must kill everybody in the town and then burn the town to the ground, as a burnt offering to God. Only if you do this burnt offering will God "show you mercy." Um, mercy for what? You weren't worshiping other Gods; those other people were.

Anyway, then the town must remain a burnt ruin forever.

This is awfully convenient. Kill anyone at the first hint of turning away from God! Then no one will ever have to be confronted with a different opinion ever again. Not for long anyway. How lovely.

Numbers 26-34: 8 chapters and nothing happened

God says, look, I know you're all busy with the conquest and whatnot, but I demand you do another census! And they count every male older than 20 years, and it was boring. It makes some statement about how not a single person counted last time is still alive, except Caleb and Joshua (and Moses I suppose). God promised that they would all be dead by the time they reached the promised land, and I guess that's one promise he actually kept. Wonderful.

Then God gives the Israelites some inheritance law. This is prompted by some uppity woman complaining to Moses about how she should get her father's inheritance, and for some reason God agrees with her. I am shocked.

For his next act, God orders Moses to climb a mountain and die, just like Aaron. And he names Joshua the new leader. But first, God spends a chapter reiterating some of the rules from Exodus and Leviticus. Just reliving those good old times, I suppose. There's actually a new rule here: if a woman makes a vow and her father or husband forbid her from actually making good on it, God will release her from the vow. Random, as ever.

Hmm, actually, before Moses can die God wants him to "take vengeance on the Midianites." For what, I don't know. So the Israelites killed every Midianite man, and took all the woman and children and goods for themselves, and burned everything else down. But that's not good enough for Moses, he tells them to kill every boy and every woman who isn't a virgin. And they do. Yay.

Then there is half a chapter about what they looted (including the virgins!) and how much, and how it was all split up. This is Numbers, after all, I suppose. I'm just surprised it wasn't longer.

I continue to be amazed at how the bible can be so horrifically violent, and yet so boring, all at the same time. I've never read anything else quite like it.

So they are about to cross the river Jordan, which is seemingly the official boundary of the "promised land." (So why have they been killing so many people on their way here? I thought the point of all that killing was so they could take over the promised land. But it seems it was just some pointless slaughtering of innocents, just for fun! Cause they weren't staying there...they just killed everyone and moved on. WTF.) A couple of clans come up to Moses (who for some reason isn't dead yet) and say they want to stay here. Moses calls them cowards for not going into battle with the rest. As a compromise, Moses agrees that their women and children can stay here because it's safer, but their men have to come help with the fighting, and they can't come back here until the whole promised land is conquered.

Interesting tidbit here... we finally find out the time scale of their trip now. I know it was supposed to take 40 years, but I've been wondering when (or if) that happened. So a few chapters ago, they just got near the promised land and sent scouts out, and God got upset about their realistic reports and killed them, and also promised that anyone who had "grumbled" would die in the wilderness before they get there. Apparently it is now 40 years since that happened...God's solution for killing them off in the wilderness was apparently to just make them wander around until that generation died of old age. I guess this is what God not killing people looks like (remember he promised not to kill them?) Brilliant loophole. Excellent story telling too. I had absolutely no idea that the seemingly random wandering of the past few chapters was supposed to have taken 40 years.

Anyway...then we get a chapter long recap of their journey so far. Boring. God takes the opportunity to once again tell them to fucking kill everybody. Or he will kill them and you. Somebody needs a nap.

Then God tells them what the boundaries of their land will be. And he tells them who will decide which clan gets what land. Can't these people decide anything for themselves?

By the way, Moses is still not dead.

Numbers 22-25: Shrek and the talking donkey

Right, where was I? Oh yes, the Israelites have just started their ruthless conquest of the promised land.

The Israelites are now camped in Moab near Jericho. I guess their reputation has preceded them, because the people of Moab are pretty freaked out. The king of Moab, Balak, sends some messengers out to some guy named Balaam, who is apparently some sort of holy man, or divination guy, or something. Balak knows he can't defeat the Israelites on his own, so he wants Balaam to curse them before they fight.

The funny thing about Balaam is that he talks to the same God as the Israelites do. I don't get why there is some guy who is on God's good side already in the promised land, with all the people who are so horrible that they all need to die. I wonder what happens to God's BFF Balaam when the Israelites take over? And I wonder if there are any other secret friends of God in the promised land? There must be. This is just weird. I was expecting Balaam to either be talking to some other God, or to himself.

So Balaam asks God if he should go with Balak and curse the Israelites, and God is like, "Don't curse the Israelites! They're my favorite! Even though I've personally killed hundreds of thousands of them..." So Balaam says no. Undeterred, Balak sends fancier messengers with money. This time God tells Balaam to go with them, but not to do anything without his OK.

This next part is just weird. Balaam, as per God's instructions, goes off with the messengers to see Balak. But God is pissed off for some reason. Is anyone surprised... So God sends a couple of angels to stand in the road and get in the way. Somehow Balaam doesn't see them, but his donkey does and stops. And Balaam beats the donkey to get it going again. 3 times this happens, then God speaks out of the donkey's mouth and makes it ask, "what did I ever do to you, you jerk?" Shrek - err, Balaam - has a nice little conversation with his donkey about how frustrated he is that the donkey won't move. Like as though this happens all the time. If that happened to me, the first thing out of my mouth would be something along the lines of "holy crap, a talking donkey!" But no.

Anyway, then suddenly Balaam can see the angels in the road. The angels tell him that he shouldn't be going with the messengers, and that they are here to "oppose" him, and that they would have killed him for going on, except the donkey stopped. I so don't get this...God told Balaam to go with the messengers. Balaam says just that, and the angel is like, "OK fine, go with them." Seriously.

He gets there without being murdered by God for following God's own instructions, and then makes Balak build 7 alters (that seems extravagant), then they sacrifice a bull and a ram on each one. Then Balaam, speaking for God, says nice things about the Israelites. Balak is like, WTF!? You're supposed to curse them! I know, come stand over here; maybe it's a location problem. (Weird.) They go somewhere else, built 7 more alters, and try again...and the same thing happens. So they do it all again. Then Balak is like, "go away, you suck." *pout* But Balaam has more to say, mostly about how the Israelites will crush their enemies (which is himself. Great.) Then they part ways and go home.

Lol. While all this is going on, the Israelites are apparently getting bored again. Again! (I've said before, I really don't know who I hate more, God or the Israelites.) "The men indulge in sexual immorality" with the Moab women (men having sex with women? what's the problem!) and participate in sacrifices to somebody named Baal. God makes Moses kill all the Israelite elders for allowing this to happen.

Just as this is being decided, some poor sap comes into the camp with a Midianite woman. One of the priests stabs them both with a spear. "Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped," though it never started. Oh well. God is thoroughly impressed with this display of zealotry, and decides not to kill anyone else today (though he already killed 24,000 with that plague, so he's still way ahead). And he decides to reward that priest and all his descendants by making them priests forever. Though he's already a descendant of Aaron, so I thought this already happened. Hmm. God is clearly expert at giving you what you already have, and making it seem like a big treat.

Numbers 20-21: God kills MORE Israelites, then he finally kills someone else

Miriam (sister of Moses and Aaron) is dead. Nobody cares. Surprise.

Once again, the Israelites have no water and are bitching about it. Moses does the old trick of hitting a rock with a staff (this time the magic Levite staff from chapter 17) and makes water come out of it. But apparently this time he fucks it up somehow, because God comes along and says that Moses and Aaron are going to die before they get to the promised land. Clearly, that is totally warranted.

Then the Israelites try to negotiate passage through the land of Edom (as I recall, Edom was Jacob's brother, aka Esau) but they are denied. They don't stop badgering the King of Edom about it until he sends his army out to threaten them.

Then God makes Aaron climb a mountain just to die naked on top of it, as (clearly) fair and just punishment for Moses somehow fucking up the whole 'making water come out of a rock' thing. He's naked because he has to hike up there with his son, and once up there, he has to give his priestly clothes to his son so he can be the next priest. Like they couldn't have done that before. Fantastic.

I like how everything Moses and Aaron do seems to take place on top of a mountain, or shut away inside of a tent...away from the prying eyes of the Israelites, in other words. These 2 sound like a couple of con artists to me. Aaron probably just took his son up there to tell him about the scam and then vanished into comfortable retirement or something.

The King of Arad hears that the Israelites are coming, so he sends out an army to capture some of them. Then the Israelites "completely destroyed them and their towns," with God's eager help of course. Fantastic.

While they are going around Edom, they start bitching once more about the lack of water and how sick they are of manna. So, obviously, God sends a bunch of poisonous snakes to bite them all. "And many Israelites died." Again. God is always killing his chosen people. And, as usual, the people repent and ask Moses to pray to God for them. He does, and God tells him to make a bronze snake, so all the people who were bitten and haven't died yet could look at it and be cured. Oh what a miracle, God saves a few people from the snakebites that he himself caused! God didn't kill quite as many of his own chosen people as he was going to! What. The. Fuck.

Seriously, I am so sick of this lame story. Israelites complain, God kills a bunch of Israelites, Israelites repent, God somehow manages to stop short of killing everybody, and for some stupid reason everybody is grateful. Ugh. How many times is this going to happen? I don't know who I hate more, God or the Israelites.

They hike on through the wilderness of 5 different places for who knows how long, until they come to a place called Beer (seriously). Here, God magnanimously decides he's going to give the Israelites water. Hey, good job God! You finally figured out the #1 reason the Israelites complain about you: you never give them water, even though you clearly have the power to. Then everyone sings a silly little song about a well. It never says whether they actually got their water, or if they were just promised it and then sang about it...I'll just assume they did get it.

Then they walk through 4 more places. After that, they ask the King of the Amorites for passage through his land. I don't get whey they walked through 9 places without talking to anybody, and then all of the sudden they do. Actually, I'm not even sure where they are going, it doesn't say. Are they just wandering around the holy land looking for a fight? It sure seems that way.

Anyway, he says no, and sends his army out to attack. The Israelites fight back, and apparently win, because they take over all the Amorite cities and "settled" there. They also left no survivors. Wonderful.

I guess after all that the Israelites aren't finished with the Amorites, because they also attack the surrounding areas to get the Amorites who managed to get away. Then they go to Bashan, fight their army, win, and again leave no survivors and take over their land. And they do it all with God's help. Hey, God is finally at least helping to kill somebody besides the Israelites.

Let the conquest begin, I guess. I wonder how long this goes on for?

Numbers 15-19: God kills some more Israelites

Right, so we've just gone from Mt. Sinai to the promised land (or at least near the promised land) in like 2 chapters, God almost kills everyone a couple of times on the way there, then they get there and have a fight about whether they can conquer the natives, God tries to kill everyone again, but gets talked into doing it later rather than now. Action packed, that was.

But now, it's boring again. God demands more sacrifice now that they're in the promised land, but doesn't say why. Maybe it's because they have more because the land is so great. But I think it's because God thinks he deserves a reward for his fine behavior thus far. That seems more in line with his nature anyway.

Here's a charming little story about how the Israelites found some random guy gathering wood on the sabbath. It's not clear to me, but it looks like this guy isn't even Israelite, so he's probably not even aware of their stupid laws. Nonetheless, God decrees that everyone has to stone him to death. So they do. Aww.

I don't get why gathering wood counts as working on the sabbath, but throwing rocks and someone until their body is a useless pile of pulp is not working on the sabbath. Oh well.

Then God tells Moses that everyone has to put blue tassels on the "corners of their garments," as a continual reminder of God and his petty commandments. Random.

In chapter 16 God kills some more Israelites. Seriously, God has killed more Israelites than he has killed anyone else so far, and they are his chosen people!! WTF?!

Chapter 16 starts with Korah and 250 others who think that the privileged priest class is unfair, and that everyone is holy and thus should be equals. Lol, I think Jesus said something like that; sadly for Korah, he is way ahead of his time. Moses's solution to this obviously terrible problem is to have the dissenters and all the priests offer incense to God, and see who God picks. (But how will they tell? It doesn't say, but later we learn it's the ones that don't burn to death that are the winners.) So they do that, and God shows up and tells the priests to stand clear so he can destroy the dissenters. Apparently God has not lost his flair for the dramatic. Moses pleads with God to only destroy the leaders and spare the rest (this shit is so predictable). So God makes a hole in the earth to swallow up the leaders, and their families (God is, yet again, murdering innocent children). Then God goes ahead and burns the rest of the 250 dissenters to death, in a big "fuck you!" to Moses.

Interestingly, the bible has this to say about the hole he made for the dissenters to fall into:

They went down alive into the realm of the dead ... the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community.

Is this the first mention of some sort of afterlife? Or is this the first mention of hell? I don't really get that.

Anywho, after this happens, all the Israelites get upset, thinking that they're going to be next. Moses has another uprising on his hands. God shows up and starts smiting everyone with a plague. Moses, what a quick thinker, has Aaron make atonement for the Israelites. Apparently just when he does that the plague suddenly stops, but not before 14,700 people died.

Er, God? Just a thought...maybe if you didn't habitually murder your own people, they wouldn't "grumble" about you so much.

Chapter 17, God gets this brilliant idea for getting the people to stop their grumbling. He gets Moses to collect a staff from each of the 12 tribes and put them in the God-tent. Then, "The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites." What the fuck is this supposed to prove?

So they do that, and surprise surprise, it's Aaron and the Levites staff that blossoms. And grows acorns, no less. So Moses shows this to everyone, then puts the Levites staff back in the tabernacle. "Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the ark of the covenant law, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die."

I still have no idea what the fuck this is all about.

Apparently the Israelites don't get it either, because the story ends with this: “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost! Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the LORD will die. Are we all going to die?" Guess that didn't work.

Chapter 18 is all about the duties and privileges of the Levites and the priests. Nothing we haven't heard before really, except that they aren't going to get any land in Canaan.

Chapter 19 gives the recipe for "water of cleansing." Take one red heifer outside the camp and burn it with cedar, hyssop, and scarlet wool. Collect the ashes and mix with water.

Why, oh why, would anyone want to make this, you ask? Why, it is used to cleanse people who are unclean because they've been in contact with dead bodies. (That is so specific. I remember like 30 ways to become unclean, but you only use the "water of cleansing" for one of them?) There's a bunch of ritual given involving sprinking the water on the unclean person, and presto, clean again!

Leviticus 20-27: Yet more random shit

Now we get a list of punishments for this stuff they aren't supposed to do.

• Sacrificing your children to Molek - stoned to death. (Who the fuck is Molek?) You also get "cut off from your people," though I don't see why that matters when you're dead.
  
• If you know of someone who sacrifices children to Molek, but you ignore it, you also get "cut off from your people." But you don't get bludgeoned to death with rocks.
• Following spiritists and mediums - cut off from your people
• Cursing your mother or father - death. Obviously.
• Adultery - both people die
• Gay sex - death for both people
• Marrying both a women and her mother - all 3 of you get to "burn in the fire, so no wickedness will be among you." Err...burn that wickedness away? Again, not sure why it matters that you got rid of your wickedness when you're dead.
  
• Bestiality - death. Also, death for the animal.
• Having sex with a women on her period - you both get cut off from your people!
• Having sex with a close family member - you get cut off from your people.
• But if you have sex with your aunt, you will both "die childless." Uh huh.
• Being a medium or spiritist - stoned to death
  

Again there is a little statement about the Israelites had better be damned sure to not follow the ways of the people they're about to conquer, because they were bad, horrible people and God hates them all. Even though God already knew they were going to be bad back in Genesis and did absolutely nothing to prevent it. I don't get this book.

Now, there's even more stupid rules to torture the priests with! Gah. The priests must not make himself unclean by handling dead bodies. They must not cut their hair or beards. The girl they marry must be a virgin. If their daughter becomes a prostitute, she must be burned to death. Any person with a "defect" cannot be a priest, clearly because he would desecrate the tabernacle if he went in it.

The priests must be ceremonially clean when they do sacrifices, otherwise they will be cut off from the people. Also, "The priests are to perform my service in such a way that they do not become guilty and die for treating it with contempt." WTF?

It says (AGAIN) that the animal sacrifices cannot have a defect (which includes everything from a wart to crushed testicles). Also, animals become eligible for sacrifice after they are only 8 days old.

Then the holidays are listed, and details about how to celebrate them are given. Seriously, it's been over all this so many times already, I'm not going to go into it again.

And here, again, is the command that Aaron light and tend the lamp in the tabernacle all night, every night. When is this guy supposed to sleep? Seriously? And, again, God says that he wants bread on the table in the tabernacle. Why, who knows.

Now here's a charming little anecdote about someone (possibly a little boy? hard to tell) who blasphemes the name of God! Oh such horribleness. Then God tells Moses to have the entire assembly stone him to death. Make an example of the cheeky bastard, I guess... I remember something about "don't blaspheme," but, interestingly, I don't remember anything about the fact that if you do, you get stoned to death. Surprise!

Funnily enough, God seems to take this opportunity to ramble on some more about his laws. Immediately after the stoning, God says, "Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death." So... I guess that means all the Israelites have to die now. As well as God himself, really. Wonderful.

He also rambles on about some other stuff at this point, but it's nothing we haven't heard already, repeatedly.

They must give the land a "sabbath," every 7th year, where they don't plant anything. We've heard this a few times before.

Now here's some stuff about property. Some confusing stuff about a "year of jubilation" every 50 years... something about how on that year, everyone is supposed to return to his family's property. So as I understand it, the Smiths own this chunk of land. But young Bob Smith buys a piece of land from the Johnsons and starts his own farm or whatever. But on the year of jubilation, Bob gives the Johnsons back "their land," for good, and goes back to the Smith land. This excludes houses in a walled city, apparently. That is so weird. But that's how it sounds.

Hmm, apparently none of this matters at all, because all the land actually belongs to God: Leviticus 25:23, God says, "The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers." WTF??? The Israelites are all going to be foreigners in the promised land? After God has been going on since Genesis about how "the land is going to be yours!" This God makes no fucking sense.

Also, more thinly veiled threats from God...apparently the land will only produce food if the Israelites are good and do what they're told.

There's some stuff about how you really shouldn't take advantage of poor Israelites... don't turn them into slaves or whatever. Nope, the slaves are supposed to come from other nations. This part downright encourages them to enslave other people, actually.

Here's that threat from God again...do what I say, and you get rain, and abundant food, and peace, and wild beasts and enemies won't attack, and lots of babies. Great.

Now, holy crap. God rants for about a chapter about all the stuff he will do to the Israelites if they disobey him. Really twisted shit. Here's a good part: Leviticus 26:29 "You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters." Great. It goes on like that for a whole chapter. How can anyone reconcile chapter 26 with a loving God?

Chapter 27 is really weird, and all about "dedicating" stuff to God. Apparently you can dedicate something (a person, animal, house, etc) to God, by giving...someone (the priests?)...the equivalent monetary value. Aside from the fact that I don't know what it means to "dedicate" something like a house to God, this chapter is fun because it gives monetary value for human beings, something I didn't really think was possible... Is it any surprise to anyone that men are twice as valuable as women? Also age factors in, basically people in their prime are worth the most, the elderly are worth not much, and babies are worth almost nothing at all. Interesting.

So that's basically Leviticus. Seriously, so fucking boring and repetitive. They have been at Mt. Sinai for the entire book and half of the last one, listening to God lay down random, arbitrary, wandering, repetitive, stupid, tedious laws. The only break in this was the parts where God demonstrates his cruelty and wrath by ruthlessly burning Aaron's sons to death, for no obvious reason, and by ordering the stoning of the guy who blasphemed. And I guess the part where they find out they get to eat their own children if they disobey. Ugh.

This covenant just gets better and better. We've gone from tons of descendants and good land, no strings attached, to you people get to live as strangers in my land, provided you mutilate your genitals, are willing to sacrifice your own children to me, get enslaved by the Egyptians for 400 years (at least that part is over now), and you generally have to follow every single one of my stupid little nit-picky commandments, or I'll kill you or send you away. What a load of bullshit.

And this is how God treats his favorite people! What horrible things does he do to the people he doesn't like? I suspect we'll find out soon, if God ever shuts his mouth and they leave Mt. Sinai.

Exodus 32-40: Moses throws a tantrum

So, Moses is up on the mountain talking to God for 40 days, though I don't know why it had to take that long.

Meanwhile, the Israelites are getting restless. They get Aaron to make them the golden calf idol, and they sacrifice to it, and there's all sorts of "revelry."

God tells Moses to "leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” God is so predictable. But Moses convinces him that it's a bad idea. Wait, is it even possible to talk God out of something? Never mind.

So Moses goes down the mountain, back to the Israelites, with the covenant tablets. He sees the idol, and he sees them dancing, and flies into a rage (even though God already told him all about this, so I don't know why he's so surprised). He throws the tablets to the ground, breaking them. Then he ground up the idol to a powder and made everyone drink it. (I don't get this...why would you do that? Is it not good enough to destroy the idol...melt it down or something?)

Moses tells the Levites that God wants them to kill everyone. So they do that...they kill 3000 people. Of course, as far as the bible says, God never actually said that, Moses just made it up. God was going to just let it go! So that's just great.

Then Moses goes back up the mountain to talk to God some more. He asks God to forgive them, and God just says something about how anyone who sins will be "blotted out of his book." Err, what book? And he gives them a plague for good measure.

Then God tells them to go on to Canaan, but he won't be going with them, because they are "a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way." lol. Like God has any business calling anybody "stiff-necked."

Moses asks to see Gods "glory." So God says he's going to walk in front of Moses and say his (God's) name. But, since no one can see God's face and live (when did that happen?), God will be kind enough to cover Moses's face with his hand until he's passes, then Moses gets to see his back. There is a plan to do this, but it never says whether it actually happened.

Then Moses goes back up the mountain to make new tablets. They are supposed to be exactly the same as the ones that are broken. But, here's what God told Moses to write on this set of tablets:

• Do not make a treaty with the people already in Canaan; worship meee goddamnit!!!
  
• Do not make idols
• Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread
• The first offspring of every womb belongs to me (I still don't know what this is about...God's been going on about this since the very beginning of Exodus, but I still don't get the point, or even what that means)
  
• Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest
• Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year
• Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel.
• Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast
• Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God
• Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk

So I know he said all this stuff before. But there's nothing about not killing, stealing, or any of the other stuff that makes sense on it's own. Nope. There's this, which is apparently the most important part. Seriously. And the bible actually calls these 10 things I've just listed "the 10 commandments." This is totally different than the 10 commandments that everyone knows (which the bible doesn't actually call "the 1o commandments"). That is just crazy.

I gotta say, the idea that the 10 commandments form a good basis of morality, or of US law, or anything else besides batshit-crazy-mumbo-jumbo, is completely ludicrous.

God also promises that he is going to go ahead of them and "drive out" all the people already in Canaan. And you people be damn sure to destroy all their temples and idols!!! For I am a ridiculously jealous and insecure god.

And Moses is up there for 40 days again, without food or water. Wow. That sounds horrible.

Actually, here's a great video summing up all this Mount Sinai stuff.



Lol. "They're the hos, I'm the pimp. And people needs to know who their pimp is." Yep, I could not have summarized Exodus any better than that.

Anyway, When Moses comes down from the mountain this time, he glows in the dark. Actually, he's "radiant" because he was talking to God. So after that, Moses took to wearing a veil, which he only removed to talk to God. I guess he didn't want to freak people out.

So then Moses goes about soliciting donations for the tabernacle, and getting people to build all that stuff. And it goes on for 6 chapters about how they made it, and how much stuff was used, and what the finished product was like. It is all extremely repetitive from before (like it wasn't boring enough to read one time. Seriously, this is a terrible book.)

Then God tells them that they are to set this up on the first day of the month. In all their travels, they set up the tabernacle on the first of the month, and then the "cloud of the lord" would descend on the tent, and they would wait (sometimes for days) for it to lift before they moved on.

I don't get the point of setting up a tent so God can visit, because I thought God wasn't going to be with them in their travels. Oh well.

I also don't get why they are hanging around at Mount Sinai to build all this stuff, when God clearly told them like 8 chapters ago that they have to get a move on to Canaan.

So I'm getting a clearer idea of why it took them 40 years to get to Canaan...not only do they have to haul all this stuff around, but every month they have to hang around for some indeterminate number of days waiting for God to clear off so they can keep going.

Anyway, this is the end of exodus. Pretty boring toward the end. If I had to sum up Exodus in just 2 sentences, it would have to be:

• "They're the hos, I'm the pimp. And people needs to know who their pimp is."
• No fucking yeast!
  

Genesis 34-36: A series of random events

So, Jacob et al are in Shechem. The son of the ruler of Shechem rapes Jacob's daughter, Dinah. Then the ruler asks Jacob et al to let Dinah marry his son. They say, "sure, but every man in your city must be circumcised." And they all get circumcised with shockingly little complaint.

Turns out, it was all a trap! While every man is still in pain from the circumcision, Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi kill every man, and take all the women and children. Harsh.

Jacob is slightly pissed off when he learns of all this, but just because he doesn't want to make any enemies and not because he felt that what they did was wrong, of course. But they say, basically, "they totally had it coming."

And God doesn't say a single thing about this, which I can only assume means he approved. WTF.

What a charming story.

Then God said, "go to Bethel," so they do. But first, Jacob tells everyone to give him their "gods," which he buries. I guess idols?

They get to Bethel safely; no one attacks them because they were too afraid...something about the "terror of God." When they get there, God shows up and says the same old line to Jacob...numerous descendants, land, blah, blah, blah. He also renames Jacob Israel, even though he already did this back when they were wrestling that one night. From here on out the Bible seems to randomly switch between Jacob and Israel...guess the name didn't really stick.

They leave Bethel and head somewhere else, we don't know where yet. On the way, Rachel dies in childbirth, but no one seems to care much. And oooh, Jacob's son Reuben slept with Jacob's "concubine," and Jacob found out about it! But that's all we get about that juicy tidbit.

Then Jacob's 12 sons are randomly listed, even though we already know who they all are. The daughter Dinah is of course not listed, even though she was totally worth murdering a whole city not one chapter ago.

Then Jacob got back to Isaac just in time to watch him die. And again, no one seems to care much...so I don't either. Seriously.

Wait, wasn't Isaac like super old and on the verge of death when Jacob left? That was at least 20 years ago (we know Jacob spent 20 years with Laban, and who knows how long the journey back took). But I'm bored with this book, so I don't care.

Yes, chapter 35 was just stuffed full of completely random events that didn't seem to have much of anything to do with anything.

Chapter 36 lists Esau's (or Edom, apparently) descendants, frankly I didn't bother to actually read it.

Oh, I got it! I bet the secrets of the universe are hidden in these really boring parts.

[some time goes by...]

Well, I've read chapter 36 now, and no, the secrets of the universe are not hidden in the boring parts. They're just boring. Though this chapter did contain a verse 42...