I Am The Blog

Genesis 21 — EweTube

Some more great family fun here, with some ewes thrown in at the end for fun!

Sarah the 90+ year old has a boy, Isaac. She thinks it’s hilarious that she would have a son at her age, as does everyone else. That rascal God, he really knows how to make people laugh.

But Ishmael laughed at his new brother, and Sarah is outraged. Laughing at what God does, okay. Laughing at your younger brother, not okay. Sarah wants rid of Ishmael and his mom. Abraham doesn’t want to kick out his son, but God sides with Sarah on this. God tells Abraham not to worry though, because Ishmael will also become a great nation after you kick him and his mom out.

After their meager supply of water run out (how nice of Abraham to abandon his son and the woman he slept with in the desert without enough water!), Hagar the mom tries to abandon her son to die, but just can’t go through with it. Turns out though that there was actually a well of water there, Hagar just couldn’t see it until God "opened her eyes" (21:19). From then on, God followed Ishmael wherever he’d go, kind of like the My Buddy doll from the 80s, I guess. Ishmael got to be an archer!

The story of Ishmael, Isaac, and the gang, along with some other related anecdotes from the Bible, is related in Roy Zimmerman’s song Two Brothers , which you can see on YouTube.

Speaking of you/ewe, the last part of this chapter is some more business between Abraham and Abimelech, the leader Sarah and Abraham duped in the last chapter. Abimelech makes Abraham promise God won’t pull any more shenanigans on him or his ancestors. There was this dispute about a well of water, but it was nothing that seven female sheep couldn’t clear up. I would have thought five ewe would have sufficed for such a minor matter!

Genesis seems to be obsessed with saying why places and people were named as they were. Beersheba is apparently named because of the oath between Abraham and Abimelech there. To me, it kind of sounds like they had the names for these places and people and then they just made up the stories, kind of like how parents make up stories for little kids when they don’t know why something is the way it is, or how kids just make things up when they don’t understand something.

Nah, that couldn’t be the case!

Update: The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible gives a possible explanation of why Ishmael was kicked out. Maybe it was more than just laughing at his brother…

Currently He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother see related

Genesis 20 — She ain’t married, she’s my sister

So here we have Abraham passing off Sarah as his sister again (how tantalizing a woman she must have been, even approaching 100 years old, that the local leaders just couldn’t keep themselves from marrying her!). But this time, we find out Abraham wasn’t totally lying about Sarah being his sister.

" Yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father , but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." (Gen 20:12, KJV)

So apparently, Sarah is only Abraham’s half-sister. Which apparently makes it okay? Sounds pretty sick to me, but God doesn’t say anything against this in these verses. Nor does he appear to get mad at Abraham and Sarah for lying again.

Instead, God threatens the local leader (Abimelech) with destruction because he married Sarah, who’s already married to Abraham. After the local leader points out that they haven’t consummated the relationship, and that he had been lied to about Sarah’s identity, then God lets him off the hook. The local chieftain even tells Abraham to make himself at home, and to make up for everything gives Abraham a thousand shekles.

And the moral is?? Who knows. My guess is the leader saw how completely screwy the whole situation and figured he’d better make nice with Abraham and his god to avoid punishment. A wise move, I’d say.

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Genesis 18 — Please Yahweh, don’t hurt ‘em

We have two different episodes in this chapter. First, God and Abraham have dinner together with Sarah (and a few men?), then Abraham tries to plead with God not to kill an entire city.

In the first part, God appears by Abraham’s tent with three men. It’s unclear to me, even after consulting several versions of this chapter, who is who at some points due to unclear pronouns and references to who is speaking to whom. But the general idea is God stop by, Abraham invites him in, Sarah prepares bread, milk, and beef (the SAB points out this isn’t kosher , but I’m sure some would argue that’s because God hadn’t arbitrarily decided what was and wasn’t kosher yet) and they chat.

God says that Sarah will have a son, but she laughs. Abraham and Sarah like laughing at God apparently (since Abraham did the same in the last chapter on this subject), but this time the Lord calls her on it. She lies and says she didn’t laugh, but shouldn’t she know you can’t lie to an all-knowing being? She isn’t punished here, I guess we’ll see if it comes up later or not.

In the second part, God’s deciding whether or not to tell Abraham about his upcoming mass murder of Sodom and Gomorrah. Since Abraham is so great, God decides to go ahead and tell him his upcoming project. Abraham is taken aback and says (Gen 18:23-25, New King James version: NKJV)

"Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked"

Abraham must not know Yahweh very well if he thinks God will have any problem whatsoever killing whomever he pleases. So anyway, Abraham starts to plead with God, asking God if he can find 50 righteous people there, will God still kill the whole city? God says no, he will spare "all the place" for the sake of the 50. He’ll mosey on down to Sodom and Gomorrah to see what they’re up to. (So much for an omniscient God!) Abraham haggles with God all the way down to 10 people. If even 10 people are righteous, S & G will be spared. After this, the Lord goes on his merry way.

Isn’t there something wrong with a God when his creation is more just and compassionate than he is? I’m sure some would argue God is just testing Abraham, or proving a point that not even 10 people were righteous there.

Instead, one could argue that this is a sign that people should not just blindly follow what God says. God left on his own apparently would have just killed an entire people without even looking into whether or not he’d killing innocents, too. Acceptable losses, I guess. Guess we know now who many military leaders look up to…

PS Here is the copyright notice for the New King James Version . "Bible text from the New King James Version® is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions, P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214-1000." I am putting this here on my own initiative even though I do not believe such a lengthy copyright notice should be necessary, especially since according to their guidelines, if I were a church I wouldn’t have to put this here…

Currently Automatic for the People By R.E.M. Everybody Hurts see related

Genesis 17 — God likes genital mutilation

God created us so perfectly (in his image, right?), that he decides in Genesis 17 that genital mutilation is mandatory for all his male believers.

Yes, billions of baby boys (and adults, too) everywhere have suffered this pain at God’s command. I guess when we go to the Pearly Gates, God asks us to drop ‘em and checks to see if we’re circumcised. No shirt, no circumcision, no salvation.

Sure, some will argue that was the Old Testament. Some New Testament verses speak out against it (e.g. Galatians 5:2). But Jesus himself was allegedly circumcised (many churches even have this glorious day on their calendar, including Catholics) and he did not speak out against it, even though he had a good opportunity to (John 7:21-24).

Not only do all male babies have to be circumcised to keep God’s covenant, but one’s slaves/servants as well. Talk about adding insult to injury: you’re bought as a God-sanctioned slave, and then you have to have private parts mutilated. And the babies can’t even talk yet to protest.

I guess this is one case where women can praise the Lord for being sexist, since women are not told they need to be circumcised (unlike some other cultures and religions, including some forms of Islam).

God praises Abram (yet again) and gives him and his wife new names, Abraham and Sarah. Then God tells Abraham that he and Sarah will have a son. Telling from his reaction, Abraham apparently forgot about this (God promised this in the last chapter, but apparently over a decade has passed based on comparing his age in the two chapters). Even Abraham laughs at God for suggesting that two near-centenarians can have a baby. Fortunately God’s apparently in a good mood that day and doesn’t seem to mind being laughed at.

Abraham is able to squeeze out a little mercy for his other son, Ishmael, who had been cursed in the previous chapter. God promises Ishmael fertility and fathering 12 rulers. Why did God have a change of heart about Ishmael? I guess because Abraham circumcised him! (Even though God comes out and indicates in verse 21 that he’s establishing his covenant with Abraham’s upcoming son instead. Doesn’t make sense Ishmael would have to pay the price for the covenant but not be included!)

It seems silly that God would want people to mutilate themselves (or worse yet, their babies) for him. But that’s what God wants, and billions of babies have suffered the consequences of it. Some people think it’s necessary and even cleaner for boys to be circumcised. Besides the fact that there’s apparently no consensus that this is true and that circumcision has other negative side effects (google it if you want; I want to keep my blog more family-friendly than the Bible is)—even if it were true that it’s better to be circumcised, why couldn’t God just get it right the first time then when he created us?

Why does God like to see people suffer?

Currently Walk Like An Egyptian (Extended Dance Mix) see related

Genesis 12 — Plagued Like an Egyptian

In this chapter, we see the Egyptian Pharaoh and the people in his palace punished because Abram and Sarai lie to them. Not very fair, but we’ve already seen (and I’m sure will see many other times) that God is anything but fair a lot of the time.

First though, God sends Abram on a wild goose chase so that he can go somewhere where there isn’t enough food to eat. He loves Abram, and blesses him, but doesn’t like him enough to let him and his family eat right, I guess. God shows him Canaan, but then says he can’t live there (his descendants will, lucky them). Then Abram moves on, because of a famine, has to settle in Egypt. God could have just stopped the famine of course, but apparently wasn’t in the mood.

His wife Sarai (who amazingly has a name, unlike many women in the Bible) is so beautiful, Abram decides the Egyptians would be too jealous if they knew she was already married to him. So they just lie and don’t tell anyone that they’re married. They tell the Egyptians that they’re just brother and sister. So the beautiful Sarai is taken to the Pharaoh’s palace. We’re told Pharaoh marries her, so we can only assume what else goes on behind closed doors…

Then God sends plagues on the Pharaoh’s house (which ones, we’re not told, but I have faith that God could come up with something violent or nasty like he does for the later plagues he sends the Egyptians), and Pharaoh of course figures out it must be because Sarai and Abram are actually married. That’s what I always assume when there’s a plague: I must have married someone who was already married, and God wants to punish me.

So to sum up, Abram lies and says Sarai is his sister, he lets her get taken to the Pharaoh’s palace, Sarai apparently says nothing and marries Pharaoh, and then God punishes Pharaoh for Abram and Sarai’s sins. How is this fair? God expects the Pharaoh to be psychic, I guess.

Why isn’t Abram punished for lying? The 10 commandments didn’t exist yet, so I guess it was okay for Abram to lie to the Pharaoh. No wonder Pharaoh sends them on their merry way. Why would he want anything to do with them or their God if this is how they act? Seems like God just entrapped Pharaoh.

And shouldn’t Sarai be punished for polygamy (and presumably adultery)? The Bible says nothing about her being forced into any of this, and she was already married to another man.

What is the moral of this story: men should not marry women who claim to have a brother, in case their brother is actually their husband, or else God will send you "great plagues" (12:17). Or maybe the moral is that, if you lie, then God will punish the people you fooled. I can’t even figure out what would be the moral of such a story. The Bible, your guide to morality.