What I Learned From Exodus

Let's see, what did I learn from from Exodus? First of all, Exodus is pretty boring. Ok, well that's not exactly fair, the story of Moses is one of the coolest in Bible to be sure, but compared to Genesis? Yeah I know, it's not really fair to compare anything to Genesis, I have a feeling none of the other books will be as enthusiastically crazy and fun as the one we get right out of the gate. Which is smart, the Bible has one of the best beginnings I've ever read, hook them in the first ten pages right? Well they chose the right book to open the Bible with then, that's for damn sure. Exodus though, well remember when I compared Genesis to the big bang and said by the time we see Joesph that things had started cooling down a bit? Right, well Exodus just keeps the cooling down thing rolling. For one, where Genesis focused on generations of people, all with fucked up families and rivalries, Exodus tells the story of one man, albeit a badass one. Further, by the second half most of the story is over and God just starts listing things off in the most boring way he possibly can. Seriously, I had to actually work to make Exodus humorous, whereas Genesis easily spoke for itself and I could really just employ Jon Stewart's strategy he wrote on his hand a couple of weeks ago: "Make face, curse."

Exodus is also (obviously) written by someone else, I knew this already, I'm fairly certain most of the books of the Bible were written by different people, and even then it was after these stories had been passed down through various different generations (which mucked things up from the get go). Regardless. I didn't think it would be so obvious when reading it, especially through the lenses of various translations (which I'm reading through the NIV version for those curious), but it's as plain as day. The dude writing Genesis seemed pretty excited, almost like this really enthusiastic fellow making up a batshit crazy story as he goes along, "OH oh, and then when Jacob get's back to his tent an angel is waiting for him, and they fucking wrestle all night." Whereas the writer of Exodus feels a little drier to me, he seems more like a stuffy history professor, who obviously loves the subject, but has taught this class for 30 years and doesn't have the same spark he had as an idealistic graduate student. Am I reaching here? Oh most definitely yes, but it's just something I noticed (and how I interpreted things) as I jumped from Book 1 to Book 2.

Alright, I hear you, did I learn anything substantial from Exodus? Yes, I learned that God is really scary, he scares the shit out of me actually, not just because he's in control of everything, but because he's a mean bastard who seems impossible to predict, no matter how many laws and rules he hands down. Seriously, it's like we gave the reigns of the entire universe to a schizophrenic bully with multiple personality disorder. There are a lot of questions I have, for instance, God's sixth commandment is "do not murder," yet God has murdered more people than I can count, how does he justify this? He doesn't, apparently his children can't do these things, but when daddy does it? Well you can't say anything or he'll beat you. Now, I'm not just upset about God murdering people (which is certainly enough to bother me), it's that in Exodus he's suddenly not making a distinction between the wicked and the innocent anymore. I'm going to use the tenth plague as an example, if you couldn't tell I was fairly upset about this one. God killed the firstborn son of everyone in Egypt (minus the Israelites), including people not even living in Memphis who had no idea what the fuck was going on. Including slaves of other races and people who were actually rooting for God and his people.

Now, this isn't the first time God has killed off people, not to mention on this scale. Sodom immediately comes to mind, but every man, and it does specifically say "every" man, in Sodom showed up to gang rape two angels. To me, this says that the entire city was wicked. Before this Abraham had actually begged the angels, "If there are even ten righteous people in Sodom, will you please spare it?" The angels agreed, but the only righteous people they found were Lot's family, and so they helped them escape and Sodom went down. The city of the Shechemites comes to mind as well, but Levi and Simeon did that, God never told them to, and Jacob even rebuked them for it, "Kill Shechem sure, but the whole fucking city? What's wrong with you assholes?" But suddenly God is killing off innocent people, people who did nothing to the Israelites, people who are just as mistreated themselves as the people of God were. He killed off fucking kids for christsake. Imagine if God had done this a few years before, he might have easily killed off Moses, who grew up (despite being raised by Egyptians) to be the savior of the Israelites. Then when all is said and done, and God decides "Okay, murder is wrong now, we shouldn't do it anymore," what happens when the people of God disobey one of the other commandments? Sure it's actually Moses and the Levites who slaughter three thousand of their own fucking people, but Moses says, "You have been apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day (Ex 32:29)." So, God blesses these dudes for murdering his own fucking people because they got out of line, and let me say, these Levites were worshiping the golden calf too, it doesn't specifically say otherwise, but because they turned on their own sons and brothers they get a clean slate? This is what scares me, this God is so completely unpredictable, there's no telling what will set him off or when breaking one commandment is worse than breaking another. In other words, will God punish me for murdering 3000 people? Or will he fucking bless me? When does he consider breaking commandments justifyable? I have no fucking clue, and he doesn't seem to either. That's what's scary.

Also, what is up with God's unprecedented micromanaging of his building, down to the clothes of the people working in it? Where in the hell did that come from? This has given my super spy girlfriend more evidence for her theory that God looks less like this,

and more like,

and you know what? I'm tempted to start agreeing with her. Massive mood swings, actions based on anything but logical thinking, exuberant wetness over purple curtains, with precise details down to the very thread? Yes, God is a bipolar obsessive compulsive woman, with a strain of violent psychosis thrown in for good measure. Seriously though, this is not a God I want to worship, this God is violent, cruel, and anything but fair. In fact, in Exodus 34:6-7 when I read:

And he [God] passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."

I can't help but laugh. Slow to anger? That's a fucking joke right? So far, all of that is a joke, except that last sentence. That's something this God would certainly do, it's something completely unfair, so he's all over it. Maintaining love to thousands? God says this right after Moses and his boys slaughter thousands of Israelites, if by "love" you actually mean stabbing people in the face then sure. Like I said, this is not the God I want to worship, I want to worship a God that promotes (through actions) love and peace and friendship. I haven't seen God do a single "good" thing throughout this entire book so far. Now I know it's Jesus that comes along later and says things like "Moses said this, but I say this instead," but I'm reading this in order, and I can't stand this old testament God so far, he's a brutal unfriendly heathen God that I don't want to have anything to do with.

So I ask you, are you the type of person who takes this book 100% literally (probably not if you're reading this blog)? If so, what is your take on God so far? I can't fucking stand him, he acts more like a violent alcoholic father than a loving/caring creator. Also, what kind of God doesn't proofread his own book? The fifth plague is livestock, where all the livestock in Egypt die. Then the tenth plague, when God says he'll kill off all the firstborn sons in Egypt, he mentions Pharaoh's son and the slave girl's son, and "All the firstborn of the cattle as well (Ex 11:5)." Um, God, all the cattle are already dead. Oh well, God's got universes to run, people to kill, and other responsibilities, he can't micromanage every tiny precise detail about everything right? Oh wait...