Hold 'em, Fold 'em, RUN!

12:01 pm: Spam gets Biblical


Text
I'm reading the New Living Translation, chosen mostly because the type was big, the binding was pliant and easily held open by my little clippy thing for when I run, and there weren't many footnotes. Also, the edges were shiny.

Intent
This is my second attempt to actually read the Bible. I'm not really reading it as a spiritual guide, but as a story, and a story I will forget pieces of. It is not my intent to blaspheme, but, well it could happen and I apologize. These bits will be written in 30-45 minutes during my lunch break, without reference back to the book, and things will be glossed over, omitted, and recalled incorrectly. If this makes you foam at the mouth, please wipe the foam away and go read something else. CHEERS!




Genesis

Once upon a time there was this guy God. He took five days to create the Earth, the Heavens and all that junk, then created people in his own image. OR DID HE? Because there's like this "Choose Your Own Creation" story right after where God creates everything all at once and then creates the first man, Adam. And Adam's grateful until he realizes there's nothing on Earth for him to get jiggy with. So God creates a woman, everyone's naked, and I'm guessing life is good.

Then there's this snake, and he tells the woman that the tree of knowledge has great fruit. She eats it, Adam eats it, and for some reason this causes them to realize that they're naked. Apparently, the only knowledge the tree will give you is clothing related, because Adam and his chick think they can hide from All-Seeing God. God kicks them out of Paradise, and Adam decides this is an opportune moment to finally name his wife Eve.

Right, so, Adam and Eve get jiggy and make babies.
This is a major theme in Genesis, and keeps coming up, with how many babies people make, and how many babies THOSE people make and on and on until you can't remember anything. Baby-making was a competitive sport in Genesis.

Anyway, the first two babies are Cain and Abel, and God invites them to... I dunno, host a barbeque. Cain's a farmer and he brings the hummus. Abel is a herder/hunter and he brings the ribs. Now don't get me wrong, hummus is a fine offering to bring to a barbeque, but if you are offered hummus or ribs? I'm taking the ribs, too. God agrees and doesn't eat the hummus (to be fair, it's the beginning of time and I don't think Cain had quite perfected the recipe), and Cain gets all snitty about his shunned hummus and does what all logical people do. He kills the bastard who brought the ribs.

God is PISSED, because those were good ribs, and he curses Cain. How? Well, he has to go away and get married and no one can hurt him lest they have the hurt visited on them SEVEN FOLD! Which doesn't sound like much of a punishment to me, but I think God's just trying stuff out. It's really silly when one of Cain's baby's baby's babies kills some guy and declares that, since he's one of Cain's kids anyone who enacts revenge on him will, through completely made-up generational concentration, be punished SEVENTY-SEVEN FOLD!!!!!111!ELEVEN!!! INFINITY! We never find out what happens after that.

In the theme of God Trying Stuff Out, people are making bazillions of babies and are overrunning the earth. So God decides this is a good time to try "Major Disaster", and floods the earth except for this Noah guy and his family plus assorted animals who he puts in a boat. Major Disasters are hard work, though, and the stench of the dead must have been TERRIBLE, so when Noah and fam finally get out of the damn boat, God says, "Dude, I'm NEVER doing that AGAIN. Lookit the pretty rainbow, I'm having a nap."

Then Noah gets drunk and naked.
Seriously.
And one of his sons sees him passed out and nude. Instead of shrieking in horror he brings his brothers over to... point and laugh? I'm guessing? One of the brothers is properly abashed and throws a cloak over his dad, 'cause who wants to see that? Noah wakes up, tho, and promptly curses the first born son of the laughing and pointing son. I think God was still napping, because I finished this section and the curse is never mentioned again.

Then people make babies until one of the babies is this guy Abram and another is his brother Lot, who's kind of a doofus.

Now we get into the repetitive part of this section, and it goes like this:

Man has childless Wife.
Man makes covenant with God for lots and lots of babies.
Man and Wife visit distant land and pretend to be brother and sister so Man is not killed.
King of distant land hits on hottie Wife and Man lets King have her.
Man makes covenant with God again.
Plague is visited upon the King.
King figures out Wife is not a sister to Man.
King gives Wife back to Man plus loads of apology gifts.
Someone names a well.
Wife is still childless, and asks her GirlServant to sleep with Man and make babies.
GirlServant makes a baby.
Man reminds God of covenant thingy.
God's liek, whoa? What? OH! BABIES!
Wife has baby and GirlServant's baby is ignored.
Another well is named.
GirlServant's baby is granted some covenant thingy, too.
A sacrifice is offered to God.
Everyone gets circumcised.

Yes, this happens more than once.

Plus there's some hoohah with Sodom and Gomorrah. See, Abram is visited by angels and he sends them to his brother Lot who lives in Sodom.

Lot: Hey, angels. Let me feed you!
Angels: Oh, cool. How kind.
Sodomites: OI! Lot! We wanna rape your guests!
Angels: Um, we don't want to be raped.
Lot: Sodomites! I'll give you my virgin daughters if you'll leave these angels alone.
Sodomites: *confer amongst themselves* Lot's daughters are total sluts. He thinks they're virgins? HAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Lot: Hello? You're still not gone!
Sodomites: Nope, only the angels will do. *rush the door*
Angels: SUPER-BLINDING ATTACK! YIIIAH!
Sodomites: OMG! We're BLIND! AAAAAHHHHH! *run in terror, and into walls*
Lot: So, you'da done that blinding thing to save my daughters' precious virginity, yeah?
Angels: Ummmmmmmm.... about that... GOTTA GO! Oh, and you might want to leave this place now. We're gonna rain sulfur and fire on it.
Lot: 'K.

So they do, Lot and his daughters escape to the mountains where the girls get their dad drunk and have sex with him because there are no other men in the mountains and they need to stick with the overall theme of making babies. It's truly messed up.

But back to Abram. God told him to change his name to Abraham, and his official son Issac is alive after an unfortunate near-death sacrifice at the hands of his father, who mistook him for a goat to prove his fealty to God. It's complicated.

Then they name a well.

Anyway, Issac makes twin babies with his wife, one of whom (Esau) is hairy and therefore clearly evil, and the other (Jacob) is smooth and therefore favored by God. So not fair at all. There's some crap about birthrights but it's all boring until Jacob wants to get married.

Jacob goes to his uncle's house and wants to marry his cousin Rachel. His uncle's a douche, though, and after making him work for seven years, marries him to his other daughter Leah first. Jacob's pissy, so uncle lets him marry both sisters, and there's this whole ceremony where instead of naming a well they name a bunch of rocks. Then the sisters get into competitive baby-making, including tag-team action with their respective GirlServants and Jacob is a very busy, very happy, man. Final tally:

Leah: 4
Leah's GS: 2
Rachel: 2
Rachel's GS: 4

But Rachel's kids, Joseph and Benjamin, are Jacob's favorites so he dotes on them, buys them pretty clothes and x-boxes and basically pisses all the other kids right off. So they sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt, like you do, and tell their dad he's dead. Of course, Joseph is favored by God for some reason and becomes a big muckity muck for the Pharoah, who I am CONVINCED is totally in love with Joseph and you can't tell me otherwise.

Joseph warns his lover the Pharoah that there will be seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of abject famine and they'd best save up. It all happens like Joseph says and Egypt is the only place that has any food for miles and miles and miles. Most of his asscock brothers come to Egypt to buy grain, and Joe meets with them, but because they're idiots and it's a plot point, they don't recognize their long-abandoned bro. Though judging from the fashion tips in The Ten Commandments, it might have been the massive amounts of eyeliner.

ANYWAY, Joe leads them on this merry chase of "Bring me your youngest brother or I won't give you food!" as a ruse to get the one brother he really likes (Benjamin) and who might recognize him to the palace. They bring him, Joe outs himself as their brother, they all feel like asshats, and Joe says bring the whole family to Egypt!

Jacob comes to Egypt, is very, very old and delivers this long blessing that went something like this:

My son Judah's descendants will be kings.

My son Simeon's descendants will be hunters
and eat a lot.

My son Reuben's descendants will have sandwiches bearing their names.

My son Benjamin is like the wolf
and runs like a girl. So shall
all his children.


And so on. Then he dies, but is returned to Canaan (the covenant thingy place deal) to be buried.

Now all the Hebrews are in Egypt, under Joseph's care, and have all the food they could ever need. Nothing can possibly go wrong now that they're in Egypt! Right?!?!