Genesis 12

This chapter starts out with god telling Abram to leave behind his life in return for basically founding a "great nation." There's no reason given for this, either. At least with Noah, they mention that he was righteous and everything. The impression here is that god just kind of randomly said "Hey...you!"

So Abram and his wife (Sarai, remember) and his nephew Lot pack up their things and head off to Canaan. A litany of forgettable place names follow, but the gist is that god promises Canaan to Abram's descendents.

However, for now the place is full of Canaanites, so Abram and his people just settle down minding their own business until there is a famine. There was so little food that Abram had to go down to Egypt to try and feed everyone. He comes up with a pretty genius plan before they get there—since Sarai is so beautiful, they'll kill him if they know she's his wife. So they'll just tell everyone they're brother and sister! There is no way this plan goes wrong.

Except, of course, that it does. Sarai is so beautiful that word gets to the pharaoh—I mean, really, are we to believe Sarai is THAT freaking hot? It's like the oldest Mary Sue.—and so he takes her for his wife and gives Abram lots of gifts. This seems like a good thing (guess Abram isn't a jealous dude), until god sends plagues on pharaoh and his household. Cause this is in any way his fault? God sure does love to play favorites—send the plagues on Abram for being a lying sack of shit, eh? Anyway. So the pharaoh figures it out and sends Sarai and Abram away.

Fairly simple chapter, but it leaves me wondering what the point of a lot of this crap is. It seems like so much filler! If I had written the bible, or been on the councils that edited it, I would definitely pare down!