The Book That God Wrote, Genesis Part 1

Welcome to the first true post in my Bible reading series "The Book That God Wrote." I plan to tear ass through the entire Bible in about a year and three months reading about a book a week (yes I did a little math to figure that out). I also plan to go in order so we're starting with some Genesis action, which includes such things as naked people, talking snakes, fratricide, giant floods, people turning into pillars of salt, raining fiery sulfur and much much more. Read on for the excitement (or read here for more preliminary exposition).

Now this being my first go at this sort of thing, I'm not really sure how to go about it really. I can't quite make it a summary of the book (nor do I want to) due to its length and density. Though I don't want it to be seemingly unconnected musings either. I'm opting for a middle ground here, if there's a story I didn't know about before I might summarize it in my own words, or if it's a well known story I might just relate my new thoughts on it or some things I never noticed before. Also, to keep things in order I'll have it organized by characters. All of this might change as I barrel along, we have a lot of Bible to get through after all, I'm sure things will start to come into their own after a while. Anywho, on with the show:

Adam and Eve Begat Cain and Abel:

Okay you all know the story of Adam and Eve, this is a story I've read many times (pretty much every time I've tried to read the Bible in the past actually). So there isn't much here I haven't seen before really. I don't really like the story to be honest, it implies nakedness is a sin (what's the big deal?) and comes up with a preposterous story to make women evil right from the get go. I hate to be one of those types, but I really feel the people who put the Bible together had a serious fear of women, or wanted their holy book to put them in their place or something. Anyway, Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree God specifically told them not to (which is a very newbie parenting mistake there God, why'd you even put the tree there in the first place?), and so they're cast out of the garden of earthly delights ... oh no I mean Eden, right Eden.

Then Cain and Able come along. Now we have to remember that Adam and Eve were the first parents of all time, they had no parenting books to read. So we should cut them some slack about forgetting to tell their kids that it's not ok to kill each other. Though reading this one brought up something that clashes with what I was taught in sunday school. I was always taught that Cain was a lazy little shit that gave God some nasty old crops. According to my translation (and according to my sister who's in divinity school at the moment btw) Cain's sacrifice wasn't bad. It never says that, just says "yeah Able's was the first born lamb or whatever and Cain's was some crops." And I guess God doesn't really like vegetables very much because he tells Cain exactly where to put those veggies and then chows down on Able's meat (...er ok I did not not mean for that to sound as bad as it did).

And you know the rest, Cain has anger management issues or God loving his veggie sandwiches really means a lot to him. So he takes his brother out for a walk and bashes him to death, and then tries to pull one over on God, who fucking knows everything by the way. When God says "Hey Cain, where's Able?" The correct answer is to run the hell away, not sarcasm, "Psht how should I know, do I look like my brother's keeper?" I'm starting to see a pattern with God here, when he asks you a question, he definitely already knows the answer. Now here's the part I love, as punishment God curses Cain, but Cain's all "but now that I'm cursed people will kill me." You mean like the way you killed your brother? Seriously? That's your response? The crazy thing is it works, God's like "well ok, you're cursed, but no one's allowed to kill you, better?" What is going on? Cain, the first murderer of all time, gets off with a slap on the wrist and a "now don't you ever do it again you crazy kid." Maybe God felt a little responsible for basically giving Cain the shaft regarding his veggies in the first place.

Noah and His Kids:

Everyone knows the story of Noah and the Ark. God feels like it's time to wipe the earth clean and start over. Noah is God's prized lego piece, so he commands him to build an Ark and cram every single animal imaginable onto it for safe keeping while God floods the shit out of everything. Now, I'm not going to comment on how impossible this is, especially when the cubits convert out to be approximately 500 ft by 85 ft by 50 ft, which is a big effin boat to be sure, but every animal ever? Nope. Anyway, there's two things I don't remember learning about in this story. One, Noah does take two of every animal, except he also takes seven of each clean animal, which I think means he takes five more of all the kosher animals. The second thing I missed actually made me laugh. After spending around a year in a boat, after God kills off everything except what's living in this boat, they land and are told to go off and re-propagate a soon to be inbred population. So, what's the first thing Noah does when he gets off the Ark and stretches his legs? Try and guess, seriously, you  wont be able to. Any ideas? Yeah, he builds an alter and kills off a few animals. So let me get this straight, the probability of propagating the world on even seven kosher species is practically nill, and Noah fucking kills some as a sacrifice. Basically I'm going to chock this up to Noah being stir crazy to all hell and needing a BBQ PDQ. I also like that God is like 'hey, here's a covenant I'm making with you, see that rainbow, right, that's gonna remind me that I wont ever do this again." So now you think this might've been a bad idea? Great job, maybe you should've thought of that BEFORE you killed off the entire planet. Ah well, everyone makes newbie mistakes when they're first starting out right?

Now after all this is said and done Noah gets wasted out of his mind, which I feel he had every right to do. He'd been on a boat crammed to the brim with smelly animals for christs sake. Anyway, he gets blitzed, gets naked and passes out in his tent. One of his sons Ham (which btw, you name your son Ham you're definitely asking for it) comes in, sees his drunk ass naked dad and apparently thinks it's the funniest shit ever. I say this because he runs out and tells his two other brothers, Shem and Japheth. Well these goody two shoes go into the tent to cover their father up, and not only that, according to my translation, they walked fucking backwards so as not to see their ass naked pop. Look, if you can't stomach the sight of your naked dad, then just leave him in there, or post a sign saying "Do not enter, Naked." When Noah wakes up he's super pissed at Ham and curses his children (who go on to be the Canaanites right?) and then blesses his good kids. Douche, you're the genius that got so drunk you did a strip tease for yourself and passed out. Why are you cursing your son just because he thought it was funny? (I'm only assuming Ham found it funny because I sure did. Hey Ham, next time get a sharpie and draw penises and such on him, just a suggestion). Also, another passage implying that nakedness is just the worst thing ever, what's the big deal?

Abraham and Sarah:

First of all Abraham and Sarah are originally named Abram and Sarai, but, as you'll see, God loves changing people's names. So for all this I'm sticking with their God given names. So Abraham is kinda crazy if you ask me. He basically just travels around collecting people and livestock and riches, which would be okay with me except for one little thing. Everywhere he goes he insists that Sarah say that she's not his wife but his sister. Yeah I know, why would someone do that? Well, his explanation is that Sarah is so goddamn beautiful that when they roll into Egypt (or anywhere really) that if the people find out she's Abraham's wife then they'll kill him and take her for themselves. I know shit was tough back then, much like the lawless west, but come on. My question is, how does being your sister help? Can't they still kill you and take her? Also, provided they don't kill you anyway, doesn't that just mean people will think that she's available?

Oh whoops, yeah that happened, seems the king of Egypt (and also later the king of Gerar) wants Sarah's sweet ass (even when she's like 90, which means she must've been seriously hot), so they take her. Well then God gets pissed at the king, and takes some action against whoever for stealing Abraham's wife; and the king is always super confused.
"Wtf man? You said that she was your sister."
"Nope, she's my wife, so give her back please."
Surprisingly, instead of cutting off his head for fucking with them they give Sarah back along with a shit ton of slaves, livestock, and silver. I'm starting to see how Abraham made such a killing, the psychopathic con artist. Actually, the second time he pulls this stunt he does admit, "Well you could say it's true because we have the same father but different mothers." So she's your wife and step sister? Yeah, Abraham was crazy, and God seems to commend his psychotic behavior, I mean, he at least backs him up.

A few more things about Abraham. God comes to him one day and says, "Yep, your offspring, yknow the totally awesome Jews? Right they're going to number the stars, but you and all your people have to be circumcised." Instead of throwing a fit and saying exactly where God can put his circumcision knife, like I would have done, Abraham basically just shrugs, "yeah ok." And off he went circumcising like it was going out of style, but I will give him this, he at least started with himself [Edit: My bad, turns out that he circumcised Ishmael first, you'll read about him below]. He was 99 fucking years old when he cut his own foreskin off, fuck that. Yeah, Abraham was crazy. One time God came to Abraham and told him "Yeah, you know your miracle son?" (Oh shit I haven't talked about that yet, um yeah Sarah was infertile, but God blessed her with a child when she was effin 90 years old, anywho) "Right that son of yours that's a miracle? Right, I need you to go build an alter and kill him on it." And again, instead of telling God to go fuck himself, Abraham just cowboys up and gets all the crap ready to do this. He's got the fucking knife in the air ready to stab his miracle boy in the face before God's like "Oh shit! Stop! Okay I get it, you're faithful, test over." Seriously, I would've failed that test before it even started. Yeah, Abraham was crazy, and his son Issac is going to need some serious counseling when he grows up.

If Abraham was crazy, then Sarah was a bitch. I know she was infertile and had to play along with Abraham's insane bullshit and all, but still. She comes up with this plan, she'll let her handmaid sleep with Abraham so he can have kids. Let me emphasize this here, this was Sarah's idea. So Abraham does it, and has a son through Hagar, and like any normal dude, seems pretty attached to both of them afterwards right? This was more than what Sarah bargained for and from then on she cannot fucking stand Hagar. She basically spends all her days calling Hagar a slut and Abraham's first son [Edit: Ishmael] a slut baby. Wtf? This was your idea genius, oh I guess you forgot about the feelings associated with sex and children eh? Tale as old as time I suppose.

Poor, Poor Lot:

Lot really got the short end of the stick in my opinion. Lot is Abraham's brother, and like Abraham, Lot travels around the world gathering riches and family and stuff. Anyway, to start things off Lot gets kidnapped and has to be rescued by his psychotic brother, that's got to be embarrassing. Then, somehow, Lot ends up in Sodom, which is apparently filled to the brim with wicked people (I note that it says "wicked" throughout not anything else, it does not say specifically that they're gay okay). So Lot is the only righteous dude in a city full of the unrighteous, which is kind of like a homophobic traditional southern baptist moving into Castro Street (and yet I insist on a gay analogy). You just have to wonder why? Anyway two angels show up (the same two angels that told Abe that Sarah would get preggers btw) and Lot greets them at the gate and insists that they spend the night at his place, and so they do. That night, and I'm not kidding here, every man in the city crowds at Lot's door and they demand that he send out the two angels so they can have sex with them. What?! You want to gang bang two angels? (To be fair my translation always calls them "men" but they also speak as the word of God, and I think everyone agrees that they're angels) Still, angels or no, what the fuck is wrong with these people? Is this their initiation for all guests to Sodom? Did they all gang bang Lot and his family when they first showed up? Sadly the Bible doesn't say. I can see the conversation now:
"Hey did you see those two guys visiting Lot?"
"Yeah, they were hot."
"Let's go have sex with them!"
"... Okay."
And like everyone in the whole city had this same conversation?

In either case the angels sneak Lot and his family from the city and tell them "Run and don't look back." This is important now, remember that they said those exact words, okay? Anyway the angels then proceed to destroy Sodom, and Gamorrah for good measure, by raining flaming sulfur down from the sky. Many people cite this story as one of the testaments against homosexuality, but seriously? Coming up as a huge group and demanding that some people come outside to be gang raped has nothing to do with being gay (unless I'm extremely misinformed). That every man in the city thought this was a good idea speaks volumes against them as human beings, not their sexual preference, i.e. it would be equally disturbing if they demanded the same thing of two women. I'm sure God would have destroyed them for that too. Also, just so you know, the angels showed up with the intention of destroying Sodom anyway, it's not just 'cause they were weirded out by their initiation routine, though I'm sure it didn't help their case. Oh, remember how they said don't look back? Well Lot's wife looks back and she turns into a pillar of salt. Argh, assholes, you could've given a warning you know. Like "Hey don't look back because you'll turn into a food seasoning." No, just "Don't look back," everyone says that geniuses, they don't ever mean it literally. God knows I would've wanted to see raining fiery sulfur, who wouldn't? That's once in a lifetime right there. Hell, I'd look right at an eclipse if I wasn't told I'd go blind, which is my fucking point exactly.

After all this, as if Lot hadn't been through enough, he goes to live in the wilderness with his daughters. Now his daughters are all perturbed because there are no men around, besides their dad. So they get this bright idea of getting Lot drunk and then sleeping with him so they can "continue their line through their father," to paraphrase it. And then they do it, one night one of the daughters gets Lot plastered to all hell and sleeps with him, she gets him so drunk the "good" book even specifies that he didn't remember (or didn't know at least). Then the next night the other daughter does the exact same thing. Story over. Is there some kind of moral tale here? Is there some retribution, or something saying "hey you shouldn't sleep with your father?" No. No there's not, this story is told for some random disturbing reason, and there seems to be no point. Even if this is a historical document, that's shit you keep secret if you ask me. Can you imagine being out in the wilderness and suddenly your two daughters are pregnant? Poor, poor Lot.

Look for the rest in part 2, where we meet Issac's sons Jacob and Esau. Jacob's a psychotic con artist much like his grandfather and Esau's a hairy wilderness man. This book just keeps getting better. They let kids read this?