Day 7, Exodus 22-31

 I regret to say that today's bible reading was boring -- insufferably boring -- and so this entry will be on the brief side. On one hand I was a little bummed that this reading segment was such a bust, but on the other hand it's probably better that we get these duds every so often because it saves me from having to write an awestruck 2000 word account every day! Isn't Saturday the Sabbath, too? I deserve some freaking rest.

Chapters 22 through 24 consist of laws given to Moses by God, known as the Covenant Code. Some of these laws are pretty reasonable and well thought out, and some -- as you can probably imagine -- are really goddamn weird. I will share some of my favorites below:

• "If a burglar is caught in the act and receives a fatal injury, it is not murder; but if he breaks in after sunrise and receives a fatal injury, then it is murder" (Exodus 22:4). In other words, it is ethically more acceptable to rob people during the day!
• "You must not allow a witch to live" (Exodus 22:18). Sorry Hermione.
• "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a beast must be put to death" (22:19). Good to know!
• "You must not wrong or oppress an alien; you were yourselves aliens in Egypt" (Exodus 22:21). This one is not funny, but I found it rather interesting. I wonder what kind of aliens God was referring to? Border-hoppin' Mexicans? Alf? Who knows!
• "You must not wrong a widow or a fatherless child. If you do, and they appeal to me, be sure that I shall listen; my anger will be roused and I shall kill you with the sword; your own wives will become widows and your children fatherless" (Exodus 22:22-24). Good for you, God! Stickin' up for the little guy!

In Chapter 23, God goes on to lay down more laws, along with the guidelines for celebrating Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkkot.  He also tells Moses about how he will obliterate all the non-Hebrewite groups living in the promised land: the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hittites. It made me wonder a bit why God picked one group of people to be his "chosen" group. Why can't God like everyone equally? What a jerk.

Chapter 24 fuses somewhat with the earlier chapters, again depicting Moses's ascent to the top of Mount Sinai. Of particular interest is the fact that he stays there for "forty days and forty nights" (Exodus 24:18). That's a long freaking time! Maybe it's just a metaphor; this makes sense to me, since the next few chapters contain the topics of discussion on the mountain, and they are so boring they felt like they took 40 days to read.

In chapters 25 to 27, God goes into laborious detail about the altar he wants built, repeating himself often to emphasize his points: "I want acacia wood, Moses, darling, and nothing else!" God also really likes the colors violet and gold. He spends these chapters agonizingly describing the exact number of cubits each part of the Tabernacle should be, and how they should be constructed, and so on and so forth. Chapter 28 is little better; at the beginning of this chapter he appoints Aaron and his sons as priests, and spends the duration describing exactly how they should dress. On top of being a stellar interior decorator, God is also quite the fashionista. His favorite colors are, as aforementioned, violet and gold, and he takes some interesting fashion risks by putting bells on the outfit, something that would make the judges of Project Runway contemplate him with intrigue.

In Chapter 29, God explains the weird rituals that Aaron and the priests are to partake in. God rambles on and on about this, so rather than summarize his weird plans in whole I'll share my favorite excerpt from the ritual to give you an idea of how everything is supposed to go down: "Take the second ram and, after Aaron and his sons have laid their hands on its head, slaughter it; take some of its blood and put it on the lobes of the right ears of Aaron and his sons, and on their right thumbs and the big toes of their right feet" (Exodus 29:19-20). After that, they presumably do the hokey pokey and turn themselves around. You get the gist.

In chapter 30, God actually RE-EXPLAINS how to build the Tabernacle, probably because he knows that when he's being so freaking boring it's really difficult to pay attention to him. He is evidently hoping that at least one of his four descriptions will sink in. Then in chapter 31 he tells Moses specifically who in the tribes he has picked to construct these things (some guys named Bezalel and Aholiab), and finally -- FINALLY -- Moses gets to leave the goddamn mountain.

Tomorrow takes us to the end of Exodus, and if memory serves me right, some scandal is going to ensue. So expect a more interesting entry tomorrow. Signing off!

Day 6, Exodus 10-21

Today's reading takes us out of Egypt and into the wilderness, where Moses receives the Ten Commandments from God at the top of Mount Sinai. In between these events a lot of crazy stuff happens, so get excited.

As you may remember, Pharaoh had been pretty back and forth about letting the Jews go free. After the thunderstorms he consents (again) to let them go, but he changes his mind and is subjected to two more plagues: locusts and perpetual darkness. God addresses Pharaoh directly, warning him that if he does not comply, the last of the plagues will be so freaking terrible that Pharaoh will "drive [the Jews] out forcibly as a man might dismiss a rejected bride" (Exodus 11:1), but he is still stubborn and -- what was our SAT word, everyone? -- OBDURATE! So in Chapter 12, God explains to Moses and Aaron the precautions they must take in preparation for the first Passover.

The name Passover, as you probably know, refers to how the Angel of Death passes over the  houses of the Israelites while inflicting the last of the plagues, death of the firstborn. There are a lot of weird ritualistic practices to be observed, like barbecuing sheep heads and eating "in urgent haste" (12:11), which the Jews comply with and are, as a result, spared from the massacre. In the morning, Pharaoh finally agrees to set the Hebrews free. Before leaving, the Israelites are instructed to ask their Egyptian neighbors to fork over all the gold and silver, and weirdly enough the Egyptians are described as being "well disposed towards [the Israelites]...[and] let the Israelites have whatever they asked; in this way the Egyptians were plundered" (Exodus 12:36). Gee. I would probably be "well disposed" towards people who inflicted ten horrific plagues on me too. Thus begins the Exodus from Egypt; to give you an idea of the magnitude of this event, the freed slaves are said to number six hundred thousand! Wow!

In Chapter 13, God outlines the logistics of the Passover feast, which is to be partaken in each year to commemorate God's deliverance of the Jews to the promised land. Most of this should be pretty familiar: Jews are to abstain from eating leavened bread for seven days, have a feast, retell the story of the Exodus to their children, yada yada yada. One interesting tradition that never quite made it to modern times, however, is the human sacrifice of the firstborn! I wish my parents had known that this is allowed in Jewish tradition when my brother was born. Just kidding! I love my brother! What a great kid! Ha ha ha!!!!!

Another weird thing is that Moses digs up Joseph's bones and takes them with him when he leaves Egypt. I think you can get arrested for that nowadays, so don't try this one at home.

When the Jews leave Egypt, a lot of crazy cool stuff happens, most of which you are probably familiar with: they are guided by a pillar of cloud during the day, which turns into a pillar of fire at night; they are pursued by the Egyptians (who have another change of heart) but are saved when Moses parts the Sea of Reeds and allows them to cross; the Egyptians perish when they attempt to follow the Jews, and the walls of the sea crash back down on them. After all these miracles you would think the Israelites would be pretty psyched --- and initially they are, spending chapter 15 singing songs of triumph and dancing -- but by chapter 16 they reveal themselves to be insufferable whiners, and spend the remainder of today's reading complaining to Moses about just about everything. "If only," they lament at one point, "we had died at the Lord's hand in Egypt, where we sat by the fleshpots and had plenty of bread! But you have brought us out into this wilderness to let this whole assembly starve to death" (Exodus 16:3). Hey Jews, would you guys like some cheese with that WHINE? Should I call a WAAAAAAHmbulence? The Israelites go on to bitch about every minor problem they encounter, and though God continually proves his presence by providing them with, for instance, bread raining down from the sky, they remain doubtful and irritable.

The Jews continue to wander aimlessly in the desert, and in chapter 17 they encounter a tribe of Amalekites who they must fight. Moses instructs some guy named Joshua (who is introduced as though we know who he is, even though he's never been mentioned) to lead the troops, while he stands on a hill and watches. Moses discovers that if he raises his staff in the air, the Israelites will succeed in battle, but if he lowers his staff they will lose. So he holds his arms up all day, and when they get tired he sits down and has two of his pals hold up his arms for him. That's what we call teamwork!

By chapter 19, Moses reaches Mount Sinai and ascends to the top to receive the ten commandments from God. The rest of the reading consists mainly of weird laws, some of which I will draw attention to. Commandment numbers six and seven tell us that we should not murder or commit adultery, but given the sexual deviance and violent nature of our biblical pals so far, I am inclined to question what exactly God means by this! Doesn't not murdering contradict his later instructions to stone people to death for breaking other laws? Does having sex with your multitude of slave concubines count as adultery?

There are also some interesting laws involving slaves; for instance, a male slave is to be kept for only six years, and set free on the seventh year with no charge or penalty. However, if the slave wishes to stay with the family, "then his master must bring him to God: he is to be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master will pierce his ear with an awl; the man will then be his slave for life" (Exodus 21:6) An awl? That would hurt! Can't he just go to Claire's?

And here's another gem: "When a man strikes his slave or his slave-girl with a stick and the slave dies on the spot, he must be punished. But he is not to be punished if the slave survives for one day or two, because the slave is his property" (Exodus 21:20-21). In other words, make sure that when you beat someone to death, they survive for at least a day afterward.

How interesting that these countless laws regarding slave treatment immediately follow the Jewish release from slavery! I think this sufficiently proves the point I made at the end of yesterday's entry: slavery itself is not considered a moral issue here, but rather, the enslavement of God's chosen people.

Good to be a member of the Jew Crew!

I think that wraps things up. Tomorrow's reading takes us through chapter 31, and on Sunday we will finish up with Exodus entirely. Such speedy progress! Stay tuned.

Day 5, Genesis 48-50, Exodus 1-9

I will preface this entry with a request: comment, comment, COMMENT! If you are reading this right now, leave a comment! A few people have told me that they've tried to comment and had difficulty, so I just made some modifications to the settings that should make things easier. Obviously comments aren't necessary, because my prime motivation for doing this blog is self-fulfillment and obsessive compulsion, but it does take awhile to write every day and it's nice to hear what people think of it.

Secondly, I want to establish something about the terminology I have chosen to use in this blog. Although the idea of Judaism in a modern sense did not come into existence until much, much later than these stories, and the characters within were correspondingly not really Jews, it is tedious to reuse "Hebrewite" and "Israelite" all the time, my spell checker doesn't like them, and overall it makes me feel more comfortable to have a third noun at my disposal. So I will often use the word "Jew" to describe these people, and I ask you pardon me for it.

Thirdly, I would like to share my jubilation on having completed Genesis. One book down! Sixty-five to go! So what am I doing wasting my time with all these silly side notes? Let's get started on today's analysis.

The last three chapters of Genesis center around Jacob's death, and the blessings he bestows on his sons and grandchildren. In chapter 48, Joseph introduces his father to his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. Incidentally, their names literally translate to "forgetfulness" and "fruit" because they were born during Joseph's time in Egypt, when he had forgotten his family in Canaan, and was enjoying the fruits God provided him. By this logic, were I to have children today I might name them Watermelon, because I just bought a great watermelon, and Useless Activities,  because that's what I've spent my morning doing. Maybe I would name one Crossword Puzzle too, after my favorite past time.

Jacob bestows a rather sweet blessing on the two boys and adopts them as his own sons, which is a little weird but we'll go with it since Jacob is being nice instead of an asshole at this particular stage in his human development. Chapter 49 follows with a much bigger blessing of all his real sons, who will go on to found the tribes of Israel. The blessings themselves reflect the state of the tribes at the time the book was written; for instance, Reuben is described by his father as someone "uncontrollable as a flood, [who] will excel no more, because [he] climbed into [his] father's bed and defiled his concubine's couch" (Gen 49:4). The footnotes expand on this, explaining that the tribe of Reuben is prosperous at first but eventually dwindled in numbers. Some of the boys receive favorable blessings, like Judah, who "crouch[es] and stretch[es] like a lion, like a lion no one dares rouse" (Gen 49:9), while Issachar is conversely "a gelded donkey lying down in the cattle pens" (Gen 49:14). In chapter 50, Jacob finally dies (he also died at the end of chapter 47 but the authors are backtracking! Okay?!!), and the family goes to Canaan to bury him in the Cave of Machpelah, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, and Leah are buried as well. At the very end of chapter 50, Joseph dies, leaving behind hordes of prosperous Israelites in Goshen, an area of Egypt.

So now, let us begin Exodus! As you probably know, Exodus tells the story of the Israelite enslavement in Egypt, and their eventual deliverance to the "promised land." I should forewarn my readership that so far, the first nine chapters of Exodus have proven nowhere near as funny as Genesis. Where Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were rather laughably self-interested, cruel, and corrupt by modern standards, Moses is actually... kind of cool! Of course, I have only read nine chapters of this imposing tome, so my opinion may easily change as we delve further in.

Exodus begins a fair time after the end of Genesis, and all of Joseph's brothers have died. The Israelites continue to flourish in Egypt, but after awhile a new Pharaoh takes possession of the throne, and he is unfamiliar with Joseph's contributions to the country long ago. He resents seeing the Jews, who breed like bunny rabbits, sprawled throughout his fine nation, so he enslaves them. This Pharaoh is a huge jerk and also commands that all the sons born to Israelite families be thrown in the Nile. One Levite woman, who is unnamed, comes up with a clever scheme to save her son; she builds a basket of reeds and floats him down the Nile, hoping that someone will find him and he will be spared. She has crazy good luck, because the Pharaoh's daughter finds him and decides to raise him herself! She calls him Moses, which folklore tells us is a name that means "from the bulrushes" but actually is an Egyptian name meaning "has begotten a child." Oh well. I like the folklore version better.

The Levite family's luck continues, because Moses's older sister has watched the progress of her brother in the river, and immediately presents herself to the Pharaoh's daughter, suggesting that her own mother serve as nurse for the baby. The Pharaoh's daughter, who has a lot of important Egyptian things to attend to like putting on eyeliner and mummifying people, agrees. So Moses's real mother gets to raise him! Awesome!

A lot of modern interpretations of Exodus will play up Moses's adoption into the Egyptian household, mostly to heighten the drama of the story and explain his hesitation to assume the role as "deliverer" of the Hebrew people. But the bible barely mentions his childhood, jumping ahead to much later in his life, when he is walking around Egypt watching the Hebrews at work as slaves. He seems to be completely aware that he is a Jew, and upon seeing an Egyptian striking one of the workers, he kills the man and is sentenced to execution by the Pharaoh. Moses escapes into the wilderness of Midian, where he marries a nice young Jewish girl named Zipporah and has a son named Gershom. All is well for Moses, who doesn't really give a crap about the Jews enslaved -- but unlike his forefathers, who were straight up assholes, I have a little more sympathy for Moses. He doesn't really seem connected to his heritage, and doesn't recognize how the plight of the slaves in Egypt involves him. God, as we will see, eventually has to spell it out.

One day Moses is chilling with his sheep, when he sees a bush on fire -- but remarkably, not burning up. He approaches the spectacle and a voice speaks to him, claiming to be the voice of the Hebrew god. The voice instructs Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt. Moses, who is evidently wary of anonymous sources, asks God what his name is. "I am that I am" (Exodus 3:14) says God, doing his best Popeye impression. Moses asks him to do Betty Boop too, but God emphasizes the seriousness of the issue at hand. He provides Moses with a sign, by turning his staff into a snake, and tells Moses he may perform this trick to convince any nonbelievers. Moses remains hesitant: "Lord, send anyone else you like" (Exodus 4:13) he begs, but this just pisses God off. He tells Moses to go meet his brother, Aaron, who will do all the talking. Moses must have a lisp or something, because he alludes constantly to the fact that he is not "a man of ready speech" (Exodus 4:10). As someone with a lisp, I am inclined to be sympathetic, but on the other hand the phrase "Let my people go" doesn't have the 's' sound anywhere, so Moses is really just being a little bitch about this. But not too much of a bitch. To me, he feels a little bit like an anti-hero, a man who has great potential but is unable to see it in himself, and is afraid to fulfill it. I like that!

After Moses consents, God explains the plan a bit more fully, saying that Moses will display his signs before the Pharaoh but that "I shall make him obstinate and he will not let the people go" (Exodus 4:21). Hooooooooold up. God is going to make the Pharaoh obstinate? Isn't the whole point of this that people have free will and can choose to be "righteous" and follow God or whatever? Now we're finding out that this whole mess is God's fault!

If you were missing the weird sex moments from Genesis, don't you worry. Moses leaves on his journey that day, and when he sets up camp for the night God realizes that his son is not circumcised and freaks out. He's about to kill Moses even though he just made a big deal about how Moses is the only one who can free the Jews, but luckily Zipporah "pick[s] up a sharp flint, cut[s] off her son's foreskin, and touch[es] Moses' genitals with it, saying 'You are my blood bridegroom'" (Exodus 4:25). Whew! I was worried there for a minute, but now everything is resolved. I am sure glad she did that, because it makes perfect sense and isn't weird at all.

Moses goes with Aaron to the Pharaoh and makes his speech, but the Pharaoh is -- as previously mentioned -- a big jerk, and just increases the Jews' workload. There is a fair amount of repetition in the account, with chapters 6 and 7 basically telling the same story as chapter 5, but further emphasizing the role of Aaron; this is because the accounts were written when the Aaronite priesthood ruled Israel. Handy!

I feel that I am making very slow progress through this entry, so I will not go into extensive detail about the plagues, because they are not really all that exciting. Everyone knows about how Moses, via God, inflicts ten disasters on Egypt, and by the end of chapter nine we get through seven of them: water turning to blood, frogs, maggots, flies, disease on livestock, boils, and a big thunderstorm. One amusing note is that for the first few plagues, the Pharaoh's magicians attempt to discredit Moses by reproducing the plagues themselves -- and they are successful! "You can make frogs and blood appear?" they say, "Whatever! We can do it too!" Evidently, no one thinks maybe they should put their magicianship to better use by cleaning up the plagues as opposed to making a bigger mess. Unfortunately for everyone, the magicians are not able to make maggots appear, only frogs and blood. This proves the superiority of the Hebrew God; he can make as many gross things as he wants.

After a handful of these plagues, Pharaoh consents to let the Hebrew people go free, but every time that Moses has God clean up the mess, Pharaoh retracts his concession. He is described over and over as being "obdurate" which means "unmoved by persuasion, pity, or tender feelings; stubborn; unyielding." Write that one down for when you take the SAT.


Chapter 9 ends, as previously mentioned, with thunderstorms. Tomorrow's reading brings us to chapter 21, where we will encounter the rest of the plagues, and quite possibly the exodus out of Egypt as well!


I will conclude today's analysis with an interesting sidenote: although the story of Exodus has been embraced in modern times as containing a strong anti-slavery message, and was even considered inspirational by a number of slaves and abolitionists in the Antebellum era United States, it should be noted that the Torah does not actually condemn slavery at all. As you may have remembered, Moses's descendants in Genesis all had slaves, and in fact around half of Jacob's sons are born from his slave concubines. The issue at hand here is that the Israelites do not deserve to be slaves, because they were not conquered or captured, but rather permitted to live in Egypt because of the valuable service that Joseph provided the nation. It is certainly something to ponder.


That being said, this has grown lengthy enough! See you tomorrow!

Day 4, Genesis 37-47

Today's reading focuses almost exclusively on Joseph, Jacob's son by Rachel, with one incredibly weird interruption addressing his brother Judah. Joseph's story is a good one, and is pretty well known, so I am delighted to share my impressions of the original text.

Joseph is introduced to us immediately as a little bitch who "used to accompany his brothers...when they were in charge of the flock [and tell] tales about them to his father" (Gen 37:2). What an asshole. He is also blatantly preferred by Jacob, causing his siblings to dislike him -- and can anyone blame them? Joseph's reputation today is that of a "dreamer." He is in fact referred to by his  brothers as "the dreamer" which elicits modern sympathy, since the terminology causes us to imagine him as an idealist and romantic compared to his unimaginative kin, who are herdsmen and shepherds. In reality, the title "dreamer" just refers to the fact that he has asshole dreams about his family being subservient to him, and rather tactlessly describes them to everyone who will listen.

Another disappointing note: Joseph's famous robe, given to him by his father and described charmingly by Andrew Lloyd Webber as a "technicolor dreamcoat" in his musical, is not depicted in the bible as being colorful at all. Instead, it simply has "sleeves." Wow, sleeves. How romantic.

One day, at the instruction of his father, Joseph follows his brothers as they go about their work -- probably to spy on them like the little bitch he is. When they spot him, they seize the opportunity and throw him into a ditch. Most of them want to kill him, but Reuben -- who is uncharacteristically something of a Nice Guy -- talks them out of it, suggesting that they simply leave him there. His intention is to retrieve Joseph later, but the brothers ultimately decide to sell Joseph to some Midianites, who in turn sell him into slavery in Egypt. Reuben is rather distressed about this, but his sadness is nothing compared to that of Jacob, who presumes his son dead.

Chapter 38 completely departs from the storyline to convey a very, very weird story about Judah. Judah meets a nice Jewish girl and sires some heirs, one of whom is named Er. Er also marries a nice Jewish girl named Tamar, but he is "wicked" (Gen 38:7) so God kills him and Tamar is widowed before she bears any children. In ancient Judaism, it was traditional for a childless widow to have sex with her brother-in-law, ensuring the progeny of her deceased husband. But Er's brother Onan does not want to sire a child that doesn't count as his own, so "whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his seed on the ground so as not to raise up offspring for his brother" (Gen 38:9). FYI, this doesn't actually work. Don't try this one at home. God gets pretty pissed off about Onan's refusal to partake in this weird tradition, and kills him too.

Tamar seems pretty screwed at this point, but Judah consoles her by promising that when his younger son, Shelah, grows up, he will give her to him as a wife. Time goes by and he totally blows her off, so Tamar decides to take off her widow's clothes and sit in the road with a veil over her face. Judah mistakes her as a prostitute and gives her some goats in exchange for sex, and she finally becomes pregnant.

When Judah hears that Tamar has entered prostitution and become pregnant, he orders that she be burnt to death, but at this point she reveals the scam to him and he realizes that it's actually his own fault for not giving her to Shelah, or something. The tradition of the levirate, or "brother-in-law", marriage, allows the father-in-law to fulfill the terms if no brother is able, and thus both parties had acted within the law and all is forgiven.

Hooray for Judah! Hooray for Tamar!

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

When we left before the commercial break, Joseph had been sold into slavery in Egypt. Luckily for him, his master is a pretty nice guy and allows him to rise to a position of authority among the other slaves in the household. However, misfortune arrives to him again in the form of his master's wife, who is somewhat sexually devious and tries to coerce him into having sex with her. Perhaps because he possesses some kind of moral fiber, but more likely because he knows it'll get him into trouble, Joseph resists her, but one day her libido proves too strong and she grabs him by the loincloth, demanding sex. He flees from the house, leaving behind his loincloth, and the wife tells her husband that Joseph tried to rape her. Enraged, he throws his slave in prison.

As a child in Hebrew School, when I was being fed sugarcoated, sanitized versions of these horrifying stories, I remember one teacher described Joseph's life as a carousel, with his fortune rising and falling like a ceramic horse. Even in prison, Joseph is lucky again! Because of his natural charm and obedience, and the fact that God is on his side, Joseph becomes a favorite of the prison warden, and is given some authority over the other prisoners. While in jail, he encounters a baker and a "cupbearer" previously employed by the Pharaoh. Both of them are distressed by recent dreams, and in a pretty cool display of divination, Joseph correctly provides an interpretation. The cupbearer has a dream where he plucks grapes from three branches and gives them to the Pharaoh, which foreshadows his return to his post in three days. The baker has a dream where he is carrying three baskets of bread to the Pharaoh, but the contents of the topmost basket are eaten by birds. This foreshadows his execution in three days. When in doubt, it seems, one should always assume that things in dreams represent quantities of time!

The cupbearer promises Joseph that he will remember him and have him freed from prison, but he totally spaces it out for two years, until the Pharaoh himself starts having weird dreams about seven fat cows being eaten by seven starving cows. None of his interpreters can make sense of this, so the cupbearer recommends Joseph. Immediately, he tells the Pharaoh that the dream signifies seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, and the Pharaoh nearly pisses himself with excitement over the interpretation. He tells Joseph, "I hereby give you authority over the whole land of Egypt" (Gen 41:41) and gives him a ring so that he might imprint the Pharaoh's seal into official documents. Um... Okay, Pharaoh. Are you sure you don't want some proof that Joseph's prediction is actually ACCURATE before you make him your second in command? I guess not. After all, this is the bible. Who the hell wants proof?!

In fairness to the Pharaoh, his judgment of character is pretty good and Joseph turns out to be right. He reveals himself to be an astute government official, and during the years of plenty he mandates the storage of enough food to help Egypt through the famine. Meanwhile, back in Canaan, Jacob is getting hungry.

"Why do you stand there staring at each other?" he asks his sons. "I hear there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us to keep us alive and save us from starving to death" (Gen 42:1-2). In other words, "Get off your asses and find me something to eat!" So all the brothers, aside from Benjamin, make the southward journey where they encounter their brother. Joseph recognizes them, but they do not know who he is, so his "little bitch" instincts from childhood return and he has a great time fucking with them.

Joseph accuses his brothers of being spies. They counter by proclaiming their innocence and relating their sad family story: "We are honest men, we are not spies. There were twelve of us, all brothers, sons of the same father. One has disappeared, and the youngest is with our father in Canaan" (Gen 42:32). Okay, says Joseph, so let's see the twelfth brother then. The men are apprehensive, knowing that Jacob is not keen to be parted from his youngest son, but consent and return to Canaan, leaving Simeon behind as a sort of deposit. Kind of like when you go to the grocery store and have to put a quarter in the slot in order to get a basket. Have you ever seen those? It's pretty crazy.

When Jacob hears about what happened, however, he is having none of it. He asks his sons, "Why have you treated me so badly by telling the man that you had another brother?" (Gen 43:6). In other words, "Why are you incapable of lying like all of us really significant biblical figures?" Like an asshole, he totally ditches Simeon and doesn't give the matter another thought until he gets hungry again and realizes the necessity of returning to Egypt. Jacob finally consents and allows Benjamin to accompany his brothers.

Joseph, who seems rather fraught with emotion over this odd family reunion, continues to act in a number of perplexing ways. Part of him wants to embrace his brothers, and he provides them with a hearty Egyptian meal, but his asshole genetics prevent him from revealing himself, and he continues to fuck with them. When the party leaves Egypt with their food, Joseph instructs one of his servants to hide an expensive silver goblet in Benjamin's pack. He then sends a group to track them down and accuse the brothers of stealing it. They are returned to Egypt, and Joseph demands that Benjamin  be put into slavery as punishment for the theft.

This is a little more interesting than the typical fucking around we see in the bible, as Joseph is actually trying to test his brothers; he wants to see if they have changed, or if they are still willing to sell one of their own into slavery. To his satisfaction, Judah comes forth and begs to stay in Egypt in lieu of Benjamin. At this point Joseph reveals himself, and a happy ending follows. Joseph instructs his brothers to bring the rest of their family to Egypt, where they will live under the protection of the Pharaoh. The whole gang -- who are rather tediously named off in chapter 46 -- join him, and Joseph continues to prove himself as a clever businessman, acquiring all the land in Egypt for the Pharaoh as payment for food from the starving populace. At the end of chapter 47, Jacob is able to die happily at the age of 147 years, having been reunited with his beloved son.

I have a few impressions to share about these chapters. First of all, I should say that I found them rather enjoyable. This is the most coherent story I've seen so far, occupying the better part of ten chapters, and because of its length, this saga is able to more effectively develop its characters. Furthermore, although Joseph is definitely still an asshole, he seemed to have some interesting motivations for his actions (like testing his brothers to see if they had matured and would be more loyal to Benjamin then they had been to him), and he is able to do some pretty cool things (like interpret dreams). His relationship to God -- who allows him to essentially practice divination -- is more complex then that of his forefathers.

It should also be noted that this story sets the stage for the enslavement of the Jews in Egypt, and on a related note, the Book of Exodus. Yes, only two chapters in Genesis remain! What progress we have made! See you tomorrow, when we will embark on a new book and new adventure.

Day 3, Genesis 27-36

Today's reading centers mostly on the exploits of Jacob, the younger twin son of Isaac and Rebecca. As we know from our prior reading, Jacob is the favorite of his mother and has already tricked his brother out of his birthrite in exchange for a bowl of delicious lentil soup. Our tale continues with another instance of good old fashioned biblical fucking over.

At the beginning of chapter 27, Isaac is on his deathbed and wishes to give his blessing to Esau, his older son. He instructs the lad to go hunting and make him a savory dish (so we can safely assume he didn't have oatmeal as his last meal, as I would) but while Esau is in the wilderness, Rebecca comes up with a scheme so that her younger son might inherit the blessing in Esau's stead. Knowing that Isaac has gone mostly blind, she prepares a savory dish herself and instructs Jacob to present it to his father, pretending to be Esau. Jacob apparently has no moral qualms with this plan, but is concerned with the logistics: "But my brother Esau is a hairy man...and my skin is smooth. Suppose my father touches me; he will know I am playing a trick on him and I shall bring a curse instead of a blessing on myself" (Gen 27:11-12). Rebecca tells him to shut up and do it anyway.

Isaac is initially surprised that "Esau" was able to find the game so quickly, but Jacob quells his suspicion by attributing his speediness to help from "the Lord your God [who] put it in my way" (Gen 27:20). This is  ethically acceptable?!!! Well, okay. Isaac is sufficiently convinced and bestows his blessing on Jacob, promising him prosperity, many descendants, and authority over his brother.

When Esau finally returns and the scam is revealed, he is understandably pretty pissed off. He vows to kill Jacob, and fearing for the life of her favorite son, Rebecca sends him away to find her brother, Laban, in Harran. She hopes that he will marry a Caananite woman there, since she is "weary to death of Hittite women" (Gen 27:46). He follows her instructions and meets Laban near a well, along with his daughters, Rachel and Leah. Prior to this, he has a pretty famous dream with angels going up and down a ladder, and God promises him more success and offspring and so on and so forth. For some reason, Jacob is super entitled to lots of good things even though he has demonstrated himself on countless occasions to be an asshole with a capital 'A'.

Rachel is described as being hot stuff, while Leah is homely and unattractive. His reasoning is a little shallow by modern standards, but I couldn't help thinking that Jacob was a bit of a sweetie pie when he falls in love with Rachel. This is the first mention of romantic love we have seen! How cute. He tells Laban that he will work for seven years to marry Rachel, and his uncle agrees to this plan. When the seven years are over ("and they seemed like a few days because he loved her" (Genesis 29:20) -- aaaaawwwwww) Jacob is psyched to seal the deal, but on his wedding night, scandal ensues! Laban sends Leah into the marital tent instead of Rachel, and Jacob accidentally consummates his marriage with the wrong woman. Enraged that someone else has adopted HIS favorite past time of biblically fucking people over, Jacob confronts Laban, who explains that it is against tradition for the younger daughter to be married off before the older, and he will have to work another seven years to win Rachel. Apparently, Jacob did not catch onto this custom in spite of living in the region for like a decade, and he has no choice but to comply.

After the second round of indentured servitude Jacob finally succeeds in his goal, takes his second wife, and chapter 30 follows with an exciting account of the competitive baby-making that ensues. Because God pities her, he makes Leah significantly more fertile than her sister, and she manages to have something like five sons before Rachel can produce any. In her jealousy Rachel provides one of her slaves to Jacob for further baby-making, and Leah counters with one of her slaves. Babies are popping up everywhere, mostly sons, and one daughter named Dinah. We will return to Dinah in a bit. After a long freaking time, Rachel finally sires her firstborn, a boy named Joseph.

The happy family lives peaceably for time, but after awhile Jacob becomes frustrated with how Laban continually partakes in the biblical practice of fucking him over, changing his wages and trying to cheat him out of what he is owed. Laban's sons also begin to suspect that Jacob is becoming wealthy at the expense of Laban, and so Jacob decides to return to his native land with his family. They stow away in the middle of the night, and Rachel steals her father's idols, unbeknownst to Jacob.

Laban tracks them down and throws a hissy fit about how they left without saying goodbye and stole his idols and so on and so forth. Jacob admits that he was worried Laban would try and take Rachel and Leah from him -- a reasonable concern, I think, given that everyone in this story is a total asshole -- and says that he has no freaking idea where the idols are. Laban searches all the tents, but is unable to find them because Rachel sits on top of them and claims that she is on her period and thus can't stand up. A clever ruse!

Laban parts on reasonably good terms with Jacob, and they set up a covenant and build a stone pillar together. Then Jacob continues the journey homeward, and I am delighted to say that in the following section we encounter a character who does something halfway decent!

Jacob is concerned about his brother Esau, who he fears might still be angry about the whole "birthrite for soup trade" and the stolen blessing. He prepares a large gift from his herds as a sort of bribe, and splits up his party into groups so that if Esau attacks one, the others might survive. To his credit, Jacob does show some remorse, proclaiming that "I am not worthy of all the true and steadfast love which [God has] shown to me" (Gen 32:10).

But these precautions are unnecessary, because Esau behaves like a true champ. Upon seeing his jerkwad of a brother, who robbed him of everything he had, he runs to Jacob and embraces him!

Wow!

So let us take a moment and applaud Esau, who has shown some real decency for the first time in this crazy book. In Mark Twain's book, The Innocents Abroad, there is a lovely passage about this act of forgiveness, which I will share with you now. It makes allusions to some parts of Joseph's life that we have not yet reached in our reading, but I think the quote is straightforward enough to understand in spite of this.

"Joseph became rich, distinguished, powerful--as the Bible expresses it, "lord over all the land of Egypt." Joseph was the real king, the strength, the brain of the monarchy, though Pharaoh held the title. Joseph is one of the truly great men of the Old Testament. And he was the noblest and the manliest save Esau. Why shall we not say a good word for the princely Bedouin? The only crime that can be brought against him is that he was unfortunate. Why must everybody praise Joseph's great-hearted generosity to his cruel brethren without stint of fervent language, and fling only a reluctant bone of praise to Esau for his still sublimer generosity to the brother who had wronged him? Jacob took advantage of Esau's consuming hunger to rob him of his birthright and the great honor and consideration that belonged to the position; by treachery and falsehood he robbed him of his father's blessing; he made of him a stranger in his home and a wanderer. Yet after twenty years had passed away and Jacob met Esau and fell at his feet, quaking with fear and begging piteously to be spared the punishment he knew he deserved, what did that magnificent savage do? He fell upon his neck and embraced him! When Jacob -- who was incapable of comprehending nobility of character -- still doubting, still fearing, insisted upon 'finding grace with my lord' by the bribe of a present of cattle, what did the gorgeous son of the desert say?

'Nay, I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself.'

Esau found Jacob rich, beloved by wives and children, and traveling in state, with servants, herds of cattle, and trains of camels -- but he himself was still the uncourted outcast this brother had made him. After thirteen years of romantic mystery, the brethren who had wronged Joseph came, strangers in a strange land, hungry and humble, to buy 'a little food:' and being summoned to a palace, charged with crime, they beheld in its owner their wronged brother; they were trembling beggars -- he, the lord of a mighty empire! What Joseph that ever lived would have thrown away such a chance to "show off"? Who stands first -- outcast Esau forgiving Jacob in prosperity or Joseph on a king's throne forgiving the ragged tremblers whose happy rascality placed him there?"

Three cheers for Esau! The dapper woodsman departs and at this point, and our narrative shifts in chapter 34 to focus on Dinah, Leah's daughter by Jacob.

The family settles in a town called Shechem in Canaan, and on a stroll to visit the women of the district (whatever that means), Dinah is raped by the son of a local prince named... uh... Shechem. Wasn't that the name of the town too? Jacob and his sons are pretty mad about this, but apparently for different reasons. Jacob's concern is not that his daughter was violated against her will, but that she was violated against her will by an uncircumcised man. He still had a foreskin, for crying out loud! Shechem's father, Hamor the Hivite, bargains with Jacob, claiming that Shechem was just in love and doing what any lad would do. Jacob -- perhaps remembering his own courtship of the lovely Rachel -- agrees to give his daughter to Shechem if he and all of his community become circumcised. They consent, but only a few days later -- in an outburst of brotherly rage that would make Quentin Compson proud -- two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, go into the town and kill all the men.

Jacob confronts them, saying in essence, "What the hell are you doing?! You're making me look like a lying asshole!"

The brothers reply, in a very Faulknerian manner: "Is our sister to be treated as a common whore?" (Gen 34:31)

Good for them? Maybe? I am not really sure what to make of this one. At least they seemed to have their sister's best interests at heart.

Since chapter 36 contains only a very dry summary of the noble Esau's lineage and future offspring, chapter 35 is the last section of real interest in today's reading. This is lucky, as I have class in ten minutes! In this section, Jacob makes a covenant with God along the same line as Abraham's covenant, and has his name changed to Israel. Yeah, like the country. He founds the town of Bethel, and continues to journey onward, but during his trip Rachel goes into labor and dies. Her last child is a son, who she calls Ben-oni, but in his classic asshole manner Jacob ignores the request of his dying wife and instead calls the child Benjamin. In fairness, Benjamin is a nicer name. So in the end Jacob has twelve sons from four wives. At the end of this chapter, Isaac reaches the ripe age of 180 and dies, which seems a little misplaced since didn't he give Jacob his blessing while he was on his deathbed? We won't probe too far into this mystery.

Alas, I have an econ conference to be getting to, so I will end this account here! Tomorrow's reading will take us to chapter 47 of Genesis. See you then.

Day 2, Genesis 16- 26

Day two of reading takes us deeper into Genesis, and man, things are really getting saucy. If you thought yesterday's reading was scandalous, nothing can adequately prepare you for today. The raunchiness of these accounts are enough to make anyone consider the conversion to Christianity or Judaism!

 I will attempt to provide a brief summary of the reading, interlaced with my observations. At the end of yesterday's section, Abram makes a covenant with God and is promised to have many prosperous descendants. However, ten years go by without any realization of this promise and so Sarai asks Abram to procreate with one of his slaves, a woman named Hagar -- this is apparently the standard tract for a man to take when his wife is barren, during biblical times. At 86 years of age, Abram sires his first son, Ishmael.

But these happy times do not last! At least not for Hagar. In the very next chapter Abram forges another covenant with God. It's actually basically the same as the first covenant, except that in this instance God gives Abram and Sarai new names -- Abraham and Sarah -- and makes a more explicit promise about this supposed multitude of offspring that is coming their way, guaranteeing that within a year Sarah will bear a child, and instructing her to name him Isaac. Sarah is completely incredulous about this because she is nearing 100 years in age. Apparently age is a big stinking deal now, even though every other biblical figure thus far has been able to give birth at 800 or older! By all prior accounts, Sarah seems pretty spry to me. She is also still hot shit, a phenomenon we will address later, in chapter 20.

Also of interest in the new covenant is the ritual of circumcision. God requests that all of Abraham's future offspring be circumcised at 8 days of age, and there is a big hooplah where everyone in the house undergoes the ritual. Abraham and Ishmael, who are 99 years old and 13 years old respectively, are circumcised on the same day! How cute.

At this point the narrative makes a shift, and our focus turns from Abraham's attempts at babymaking to a situation that has arisen in two nearby cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently they are rife with sin and decadence, and God wants to destroy them. Abraham bargains with him, and they come up with an agreement that if ten righteous people can be found in the city, God will spare it. This is significant because -- according to the footnotes in my bible -- it marks a shift in religious development. Previously it was believed that a few "wicked" people would invariably corrupt any good people they encountered, but here the reverse is applied and the ten "innocents" would be able to save the city from destruction.

Alas, these ten good people cannot be found. It seems the only righteous man in Sodom is Lot, Abraham's nephew. Two angels arrive, presumably to search the city for any "innocents" , and in a typical display of biblical friendliness Lot invites them inside for dinner. Almost immediately the house is surrounded by men, "both young and old" (Gen 19:4), who raucously appeal to him: "Where are they men who came to you tonight? Bring them out so that we may have intercourse with them." (Gen 19:5). Lot is a good man, however, and instead offers up his two virginal daughters to the hordes outside. They are unimpressed.

Because he is so darn friendly to his guests, and protects them from being gang-raped, the two angels allow Lot and his family to escape from the town before its destruction. He flees with his two daughters and wife into the hills, but his wife looks back at the burning city -- although she is vaguely instructed not to -- and is
transformed into a pillar of salt. This is a lasting image from the bible, and one that has always struck me as eerie and intriguing.

After Lot's wife's transformation into salthood, things get really fucked up. Lot and his daughters hide in a cave, where they -- get this!!! -- take it in turns to dine and date him. I am not joking. Here is the passage where the elder daughter relates her Freudian plan to her sister: "Come now, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him and in this way preserve the family through our father" (Gen 19:32). Both bear children by their father, who grow up to lead enemy tribes of Israel, the Moabites and the Ammonites. I guess this is God's way of telling children not to seduce their parents.

Wow! This is quite the saga! We still have six chapters to cover! I will forge on bravely. I hope you are not growing bored.

Our story returns to Abraham and Sarah, who have moved to a place called Gerar. Again Abraham pulls what I will henceforth refer to as the "sister card." He has not learned that it's an asshole move. In spite of being nearly a century old, Sarah is still hot stuff, and the king of the region, Abimelech, is tricked into sin by Abraham's stupid lie. When confronted, he reveals that Sarah actually is his half sister, she just happens to be his wife too. God forgives Abimelech of his transgression presumably because at this point, it could happen to anyone.

In chapter 21, Isaac is finally born, and Sarah reveals herself to be as much of an asshole as her liar of a husband. Jealous of Ishmael and Hagar, and not at all keen to share her son's inheritance with Abraham's slave offspring, she demands that her husband set them both free. In spite of the fact that Ishmael was previously noted to be at least thirteen years of age, he reverts to baby form and is taken by his mother to wander around in the desert. At a certain point the pair seem doomed to die, but God intervenes and guarantees Hagar that Ishmael will grow up to be a great man and father princes and so on and so forth. He grows up in the wilderness, becomes an archer, and marries and Egyptian woman.

The next few chapters follow Isaac's progress. When the boy is older, Abraham is famously tested by God -- he is asked to sacrifice his son at the top of a mountain. Like any good, God-fearing man, Abraham obeys and is rewarded for his loyalty when God interjects at the last moment, sparing Isaac. The following chapters detail Isaac's courtship (I guess you could call it that) of Rebecca, which interested me less than these previous chapters because they lacked the scandalous sex I have since grown accustomed to. One item of note: when Abraham sends a servant to find a wife for his son, the servant "put[s] his hand under his master Abraham's thigh and [swears] that oath" (Gen 24:9). According to the footnotes, the "thigh" is a euphemism for testicles! This was standard in the day!

Isaac marries a nice young Jewish girl named Rebecca, and they have twin sons named Esau and Jacob. Esau is a studly, hairy kind of guy, favored by his father, and Jacob is a quieter, smarter fellow favored by his mother. Although Esau is technically the older one, he trades his birthright for a bowl of soup. What can we say? I guess he likes soup. I like soup a lot too.

The happy family settles in Gerar, where they are once again aliens. Do I even need to tell you what Isaac tells everyone about Rebecca? Why don't you guess?

HE SAYS SHE'S HIS SISTER!

Like father, like son.

The Philistine king eventually catches on and asks Isaac what's up. "Why have you treated us like this? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and then you would have made us incur guilt" (Gen 26:9-10). In other words, "GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY, ASSHOLE FREAK!"

Tomorrow will take us all the way to chapter 36 of Genesis. Get excited... I know I am! Feel free to leave me comments as well, they are always delightful.

Day 1, Genesis 1-15

Good morning! I am reporting fresh and early to my first day of bible blogging, although I can't guarantee that this timeliness will be the norm. To my great chagrin, my computer spent about three hours updating itself this morning, giving me a nice window of time to do my first session with the good ol' testament.

The first fifteen chapters of Genesis contain, notably, the creation myth, Adam and Eve's encounter with the serpent and expulsion from the Garden of Eden,  Cain's murder of his brother Abel, the story of Noah's ark, the Tower of Babel, and Abram's journey to Canaan. Genesis 15 ends with God promising the childless Abram that his descendants will equal the number of stars in the sky. God forewarns of the Hebrew enslavement in Egypt, and makes a covenant with Abram.

It was a little surprising to me how much happens in just a few short chapters of the bible, and also how much of the text I was mostly unfamiliar with. The story of the Garden of Eden is well known to everyone, but after the expulsion I was surprised by the bombardment of names, recognizable to me only because I do like six crossword puzzles a day... Sons after sons after sons, most of whom I have never heard of. I was delighted to see a man named Kenan appear, and happily await the arrival of Kel at some point.

These biblical characters, perhaps due to their magnitude of offspring, are not entirely creative in naming their children. Both an Enoch and an Enosh appeared during these first fifteen chapters of Genesis. Come on, guys. Throw a Buster in there once in awhile!

Interestingly, the first two chapters of Genesis are somewhat contradictory, offering two separate accounts of the creation myth; these are later merged. The first chapter depicts God emerging from nothingness, using language to mold the chaos into recognizable form. "Let there be light, let there be water, let there be land, etc." In this version he creates all people -- men and women -- at once, but in the second chapter he creates only Adam, and later makes Eve from his rib. In my younger and more irreverent days I was morbidly delighted by the fact that supposedly all people originated from Adam and Eve -- meaning that Cain and his brothers, in order to produce offspring, would need to have sex with their mother or possibly sisters -- but this is not the case. After the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, some elements of the original creation myth return and the presence of other people on earth is alluded to.

It is interesting to me how the bible differentiates little from any other book of mythology, seeking to explain seemingly unexplainable reality: man has to toil for his food as punishment for the first sin, enmity exists between humans and snakes because of the encounter in the Garden of Eden, women experience painful childbirth because it was Eve who tempted Adam with the fruit of knowledge.

I would also like to share a confusion of mine that has been clarified. I'm sure that if you have any familiarity with the bible at all, you have at some point been bewildered by the fact that Adam and his kin supposedly live to anywhere from 700 to 900 years of age. Actually, the bible writers depict their characters living progressively shorter lives, to demonstrate the effects of sin on mankind. How interesting!

I will wrap up this entry by talking about the flood. One question occurred to me while reading: what happened to the fish? Don't they count as creatures too? Obviously they would be unaffected by rain unless it was fatally acidic or something. I guess the fish were exempt from God's destruction of the world, which makes sense in a way, since I don't think fish are particularly sinful creatures.

The story of Noah also contains a passage that has been used as recently as the 19th century to justify white enslavement of blacks in America. The absurdity of the passage has provided me with one of my first genuine WHAT THE FUCK?!!! moments, both because of the content itself and the way it has been put to use in recent history.

Basically, Noah plants a vineyard and gets drunk. He passes out naked in a cave, where his son Ham sees him. Ham goes out to tell his brothers, who walk into the cave backwards and drop a blanket over their father to avoid seeing his naked form. Ham, "blackened" by the sin of seeing his unclothed father, is punished: "Cursed be Canaan!" says Noah, "The lowest of slaves / will he be to his brothers" (Genesis 9:25).

Apparently there are further interpretations of this event, which I will have to read at some point, because as it stands alone it is pretty weird and retarded.

Although I said I would finish with the flood, and leave the story of Abram for tomorrow, I would like to share one more "what the fuck" moment before I end this. In chapter 12 of Genesis, Abram and his wife Sarai travel into Egypt. Abram, fearing that he will be killed if the beautiful Sarai is known to be his wife, tells the Egyptians that she is his sister. She shacks up with the Pharaoh, who is subsequently punished by God with horrific disease. The Pharoah confronts Abram in Genesis 12:18-19: "What have you done to me?...Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!" I will rephrase this in more simple terms: "GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY, ASSHOLE FREAK!!!"

What a weird book this is! I am excited for the readings to come.