Hey there, I'm back after a quick little legal battle. Don't worry, I have the best lawyer ever, seriously you should've heard her. She rocked in some freedom of speech arguments along with the obvious separation of church and state point. And my favorite, "My client's beliefs resemble those of Deist practices, which may I remind the court, were held by many of the founding fathers. Under this belief system, it would be impossible for the God my client believes in to be present enough to bring charges on a follower." It was brilliant, not that God had much of a case anyway. But I'm back, to tell you all about how awesome Elijah was. Let's get to it.
Quoth the Raven "Eat Some More":
And now for a man that needs no introduction (Which is good because the Bible doesn't really give him one), Elijah. Elijah is a major badass, in fact, he's one of the only cats in the Bible that could hold his own against Moses in a badass contest. Is Elijah more badass than Moses? Wow, there's a debate for the ages, I'm not even sure where I'd fall in that argument (Probably Moses, yet...). Here, let me just tell you about him already and you can decide for yourself. But first I have to tell you about King Ahab, the king of Israel when Elijah comes on the scene. Ahab, while not hunting the white whale, pretty much goes out of his way to piss off God as much as possible. According to the Bible he was the most wicked King that Israel had ever seen. What did he do to gain this notoriety? Oh well on top of committing every sin Jeroboam did, he fucking married Jezebel. Can you believe that shit? A Sidonian princess as queen of Israel? It's completely scandalous ... Yeah, I don't know who Jezebel is either, or who the Sidonians were, but apparently marrying one was a big ass deal. Did he do anything else? Yep, this dude started worshiping Baal, and pretty much made that worthless douche of a deity the state god. He also built an Asherah pole, which is also bad, but also means he was worshiping Asherah (pictured below). |
| You're such a tease Asherah! |
Then one day, out of nowhere, like some kinda magical ghost tiger, Elijah bombs onto the scene, spits some lines at Ahab and bombs out. Seriously, one thing you have to know about Elijah is that he's like a guerrilla hit and run prophet. He'll bomb into a place, fuck everyone's shit up (Provided you're a sinner), and then bomb right the fuck back out and disappear off the radar; never to be seen until he decides to fuck some shit up again. His first appearance is no different, he bombs into Ahab's chamber, and before he can say "Who the eff are you?" or "How did you get past the guards?" Elijah says "Surely as the Lord, God of Israel lives, which he does, there wont be any rain for years until I say so. How's that for fucking up your shit? Elijah out." And in a puff of smoke he disappears, before Ahab can even call for his guards or throw a harpoon at the nutjob. And so it stops raining like Elijah said, and Elijah spends his time hiding out in the wilderness.
As if this wasn't badass enough, I mean causing a drought by just saying that it's going to stop raining is hardcore enough. That's right up there with parting the red sea. But no, Elijah finds this brook, and decides to camp out there for a while, so he's set for water, but he's also set for food because ravens start bringing him bread and meat each day. That's right, Elijah is so badass that he can cause a country wide drought and have birds bring him food to eat. And thanks to this constant stream of bird food, he's able to stay at his campsite until the whole damn brook dries up. Unfortunately, the ravens can't bring him water, they're not magic ravens after all. So he sits his raven friends down, "Teeky, Beeky, and Rumrunner, I have something serious to talk to you about." The ravens look at Elijah inquisitively, so he continues, "I love you guys, I really do, but as you know man can't live on bread alone." One of the ravens, let's say Beeky, starts preening its back feathers, "Don't make this harder than it already is!" Elijah screams, tears welling up in his eyes, "I have to go and find water, you knew this day would come." Rumrunner caws and stretches his wings, a reaction more to this dude screaming and crying than actually understanding what he's saying. "I know, I know, I'll miss you too, but I promise I'll write, I pinky swear." Elijah attempts to pinky swear with the ravens (Yeah just imagine how that would look), then hoists his bag over his shoulder and goes on his way.
The Walking Dead:
Anyway, Elijah makes his way to the city of Zarephath and comes across a widow named ... um ... okay I guess she doesn't have a name. In any case, it's good to see Elijah meeting new people, I feel like he might have spent too much time by himself out in the wilderness. The widow is gathering sticks when Elijah calls to her and asks her for some water and bread. Now remember, a drought's going on, not everyone had the privilege of ravens bringing them food, so this widow has no bread, and she tells Elijah so: "I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die (17:12)." Haha wow, morbid much? Well, Elijah says "I said get me some bread, don't you know who I am? I'm a man of God, so long as I'm around your jar of oil and and your bag of flour wont ever be empty, Bam Magic! Now go make me a cake, I'm starving." Dude, I thought you wanted bread, now you want cake? Don't you know there's a drought on? And yes he does randomly ask for cake immediately after asking for bread (See 17:13).So Elijah stays with the widow and her son, and while he was living there she never ran out of flour or oil. I told you Elijah was badass. Unfortunately, after some time, the widow's son gets sick, he gets worse and worse and then finally dies. Now unsurprisingly the woman freaks out, "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son (17:18)?" Now really? I know your son just died and all and you're being irrational, but come on. I don't see how it could possibly be Elijah's fault, shit all he did is give you a damned magic bag of flour and jar of oil. I mean unless you fucking fed your son to death I can't really see the cause and effect here. Still, just to prove further how badass he is, Elijah takes the woman's son and lays him down on a bad and prays over him. Then he, well er ... let me just quote it: "Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, 'O Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him (17:21).'" So he uh ... humped him back to life? I have no idea, in any case the boy wakes back up. Tada, your son's alive now, hooray. "Then the woman said to Elijah, 'Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.(17:24).'" Oh so I guess the magic flour and oil didn't prove that already? Jesus lady, you're hard to please.
Let's get serious for a moment shall we, this is the first resurrection in the Bible. Elijah is so badass that he's the first cat in scripture to raise someone from the dead. He beat Jesus to the punch by about nine hundred or so years. Sure I wish he had a better method than rubbing his body all over them, but still he just invented the technique, you can't expect resurrection to be perfect the first day it's tried. Enough of that, there's another serious thing I need to tell you about. The next story I'm about to share might be the most important one there is in regards to "The Book That God Wrote." It's a story that may have indirectly created this entire blog, what could this story be? Read on to find out (In the "What I Learned" I'll take the time to explain exactly why it's so dear to my heart, I don't want to clutter up this entry with my own history).
Baal Boys From Hell (Elijah's Wood):
Elijah stays with weeping widow and zombie boy for three years, at this time God tells Elijah to go fuck with Ahab again. So, one day while King Ahab was wondering out in the wilderness, searching for the white whale no doubt, Elijah appears before him. "Is that you, you troubler of Israel (18:16)?" Ahab says, man is that ever a great title. Elijah, the troubler of Israel. "I haven't made trouble for Israel," Elijah jeers, "You and your family have, worshiping Baal, you should be ashamed."
"It's you and your mischievous god that caused this drought, if you even really did."
"Then I will prove that I worship the one true God of Israel," Elijah responds, "meet me on Mount Carmel and bring the prophets of Baal when you come," and with that he vanishes into the surrounding landscape, leaving Ahab alone in the wilderness once more.
When Ahab, the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, the four hundred prophets of Asherah, and a bunch of spectators assemble on Mount Carmel (Mmm caramel), Elijah appears in white blinding flash. "What is the meaning of all this troubler?" Ahab calls out to him, "Why have you brought us to this delicious mountain?"
"Baal has four hundred prophets in this land," Elijah answers, "whereas I am the last living prophet of God, yet I am here to prove that I worship the one true God, and that your gods are worthless imaginary punks."
This audacious comments causes the prophets of Baal and Asherah to start frantically whispering amonst themselves. Words like "blasphemer" and "asshole" can be made out from the cacophony. "And how are you going to do that?" Ahab calls over the bedlam.
"We're gonna have ourselves a contest."
That's right folks, Elijah sets up a contest with the prophets of Baal, to prove once and for all which God is better. Here's the rules: Elijah and the Baal boys will both set up a big pile of wood and they'll chop up a ram as a sacrifice to lay on the wood all ready to burn. Then they'll pray to their respective gods and ask them to catch their pile of wood on fire. If Baal is the true god then he will consume their altar in flames, otherwise if God torches Elijah's wood pile then all will know that his is the one true God of Israel. Yeah spoiler alert: you already know what happens right? Still, bear with me, it gets better. When it's all set up Elijah motions to his competitors, "Ladies first assholes, give it your best shot." So the four hundred and fifty prophets start praying, and dancing, and singing, and doing cartwheels, and screaming, and begging for Baal to catch their wooden altar on fire. This goes on for hours and hours, and at about noon Elijah starts to taunt them, "Shout louder! ... Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is in deep thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened (18:27)." That's right folks, that shit's Biblical, I could understand if you thought this part was my own little flourish, but he pretty much does trash talk them in about the same way I would make up. Though I would've thrown in a "Where's your messiah now?" into the mix for good measure. But still, I like this Elijah fellow.
 |
| He was probly busy fighting a Hammerdin. |
Well these Baal boys aren't going to be made fun of by Elijah, so they start screaming louder and start cutting on themselves. Yeah I'm not making that part up, according to the Bible that was their custom. So, they're screaming, and jumping around, and dancing, and cutting on themselves, and a few of them start up a orgy, 'cause yknow, why the fuck not? And still not even a puff of smoke. Not even a screaming bloody dancing orgy can wake Baal up apparently. Finally, after hours of this, Elijah puts a stop to it, "I think you've had enough time fellows, let's just say it's my turn before you all bleed to death." On his turn Elijah doesn't just start praying, nope, first he has some of his buddies dig a trench around his altar, effectively putting a moat around it. Then he has them pour a jug of water on his pile of wood. That's right folks, this cocky mother fucker just poured water on his woodpile during a fire fight, and he doesn't stop there. No, he tells his friends to keep pouring water on his altar until the whole moat is full of water. Now with his woodpile thoroughly soaked, he steps forward and prays a simple prayer: "Oh Lord, God of Abraham, Issac and Israel, let it be known that you are the one true God of Israel and I am your humble servant. Burn this shit down."
And that, boys and girls, is all that it takes. God sends down a gigantic fireball that doesn't just burn up the wood; nope, it destroys the soil, the rocks, hell it even consumes all the water in the moat, all in a matter of seconds. Then Elijah rallies all of his new followers to his side and they slaughter all of Baal's prophets. In the midst of this chaos Elijah grabs Ahab by the arm and says to him "Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain (18:41)." And so Ahab left, which by the way, that might just be one of the most badass things I've heard anyone say in the Bible, just saying. After the slaughter Elijah has his servant look towards the sea from the top of the mountain, but the servant sees nothing. So he asks him again, and still nothing, and again and again, until the seventh time when the servant sees a rain cloud forming over the sea. And so rain finally returned to Israel.
Elijah Meets His Maker:
When Jezebel hears of what happened from Ahab she's fucking pissed and puts a hit out on Elijah. Jesus Ahab, who wears the pants in that relationship (Spoiler alert: she does)? So, as he's wont to do, Elijah bombs the fuck out of dodge, and takes out into the wilderness. He walks for three days and collapses under a tree, he has no food or water, so he prays for a quick death and passes out. A few hours later an angel wakes him up and gives him food and water. Dude seriously, first he has ravens bringing him food, now he's got angels doing it? Elijah is a pimp for reals. Why is he scared of Jezebel again? Why doesn't he just bomb into her chamber, have the angel snap his finger and explode her head. Yes, angels can totally do that, I saw it on that Supernatural show. You know the one.Anyway, the angel wakes Elijah up a second time and feeds him again, "Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God (19:8)." Damn, that's some serious angel food, you should patent that shit as an energy drink. So Elijah climbs into a cave on Mount Horeb to spend the night there. That night God speaks to him, he tells him to get his ass outside for God was going to visit him, so Elijah makes his way outside and one of the most beautiful passages of the Bible happens. I'll just quote it for you because it's so awesome:
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (19:11-13)Not in the wind, nor the quake, nor the fire, God was in the gentle whisper. Elijah is the second person (that I can remember) to stand in the actual presence of God (The other being Moses). God tells Elijah not worry that he's the last prophet or that Jezebel wants him dead. "Everything's going to be fine," God comforts Elijah with his soothing whisper, "just you wait, everything's going to work out fine for you."
And that, dear readers, is a great place to stop for now. Be on the lookout for Part 4. Until next time.
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