What I Learned From Numbers

I'm certainly tempted not to do this, the more I think about Numbers the more I want to throw my Bible in the darkest corner of my closet and never find it again. So the sooner I forget about Numbers completely the sooner I'll have the inspiration to tackle the remaining books of the Bible. As true as this may be, the alternative to writing a "What I Learned" is reading more of Deuteronomy, which is far far worse, or maybe not, I don't know, as of right now I'd prefer to blather on a bit about Numbers. Remember how I said that Exodus was boring? I take it back, remember how I said Leviticus was boring? I take it back, even Leviticus was interesting compared to the train wreck that's Numbers. Wait, no, train wrecks are interesting, Numbers is more like a colloquium at the math department: where a stuffy old man blathers on for an hour about some obscure field of mathematics that no one understands or cares about, except Numbers goes on for days. Yes, Numbers is boring.

Now wait just a second, how in the hell is Numbers boring? I can hear you asking, and if all you've read is my blog then you might not believe me. Some interesting stuff happens in Numbers, in fact some flat out awesome shit happens in Numbers. The poison quail, the mutinies, the ground swallowing people, the genocidal manslaughter, the talking donkey, and the mid-coitus killing just to name a few. So why then is Numbers so boring? I wish I could answer that, I guess it's the same reason that your stuffy old history professor can make the civil war so goddamned boring. The civil war is certainly not boring, but your professor is, and so is your text book. The asshole that wrote Numbers was the stuffiest of stuff bags, the only person who could yawn through a priest impaling a couple in the middle of sexing it up while spending over two pages going into excruciating detail describing what each Israelite leader offered to the tabernacle. Seriously, see all of Chapter 7, spoiler alert, they all bring the same exact shit.

The Bible is known for being excruciatingly boring, but Genesis and Exodus really made me think that was just an exaggeration, sure they both had their moments, but for the most part they were interesting, if not completely batshit fun. Even Leviticus had its interesting parts, and nothing fucking happened in Leviticus. For Numbers I had 3 parts worth of things that happened, and yet somehow that only feels like about 2% of the book, whereas the boring counting, recounting, and rerecounting bullshit I spared you from seems to take up most of it. My Dad visited me over spring break, and we spent some of it talking about the Bible, he's read it through before, multiple times I'm sure, and we laughed over how boring Numbers was, but of course I had to say, "Well ok, there was some interesting stuff in Numbers but most of it was so boring." He looked at me very seriously and said, "I wish you'd tell me what that was, because I don't remember anything being interesting in Numbers."

That right there is Numbers in a nutshell, there's some interesting shit in there, some straight badassery, but it's hidden behind pages and pages and pages of agonizing tortuous excruciatingly boring nonsense. Numbers was the hardest to write about too, mainly because when I sat down to do so I would have forgotten everything I read, and I read it the fucking day before, yet all I could remember was the boring. Numbers is like a great work of fiction hidden in the pages of a company's financials, and not even a cool evil corporation that pads their numbers and is up to a bunch of illegal shit. No it's like a mom-and-pop's boring ass handwritten financials where the only thing of interest is the amount of money spent on bandaids that day and how much bait was sold. It's like Numbers comes with its own "forget" and "remember" buttons, and once you trudge through the excruciating boringness you can't help but push "forget," everyone pushes the "forget" button (any Doctor Who fans out there? Very recent reference there).

So is that all I learned from Numbers? Yes, yes it is. Now granted, I'm still kind of bitter about this book, it completely killed my initial excitement for this project. So I might look back later and think "Yeah, Numbers wasn't that bad," but I think it's more likely that I'll be on my future son's porch saying, "Wait, what the hell was interesting in Numbers?" See, I knew that the Bible was known for being boring (and sure it had been at times before) but I didn't know it came to a complete fucking stop in the fourth book, only to stay at the stand still for the next book as well. Speaking of, Deuteronomy is just as boring, if not worse, Deuteronomy is just Moses blathering about everything that we already know. Spoiler alert: he summarizes all of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. It's like a goddamned clip show of the Bible, I find myself jumping to Proverbs or Psalms after about a page of Deuteronomy, just to read something better. This is bad, I hate to admit defeat so early, but I expect Deuteronomy to come in very late, but fortunately it should only require one part. Then we'll be in Joshua, and I can only hope beyond hope that Joshua will be as badass as its namesake, and I know for a fact that Judges is awesome. So it'll turn around, and my speedy and prolific entries should return, I can hope so anyway. Next year in the promised land.