Genesis 14

Two posts in a week! I'm getting far too regular, I think it is almost time for me to let this blog go defunct for two years again...

Today's chapter isn't very exciting in any way, which is a little odd since it talks about a battle involving nine kings. That sounds like it should be epic, but it was merely mindnumbing. The bible that I am using has all the longer names spelled out in some form of phonetic notation that actually just makes them seem even longer and more confusing. There are several of these names jammed into one sentence, which makes the eyes glaze over a bit.

Some kings are rebelling against some other kings, and it ends up five kings on one side and four on the other. Didn't the ancients know that too many kings spoil the region?? I can only imagine how tiny their kingdoms were.

The reason that this battle is even mentioned at all is not because it's significant that all these kings (including one who might be Hammurabi, apparently) were fighting, but because the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah lost (they really just have the worst luck, eh?). Lot, if you remember, was living in the plains near Sodom, so he ends up getting captured. Luckily, someone escapes and lets Abram know.

Obviously, Abram isn't just going to let Lot be carried off after all the trouble he took to never have to see him, so he takes 318 men and goes and defeats the army that just won the battle. Yeah. The five kings who just whooped the ass of four other kings goes on to lose to a shepherd with a couple hundred men. I guess their kingdoms/armies are even smaller than I thought!

When Abram returns with all the shit he re-captured, the king of Sodom is pretty happy about it and blesses Abram. Abram gives a tenth of it to the king, but the king tries to make Abram keep all of the goods (he's happy to take the people). Abram says he doesn't want the king to be able to claim to be making Abram rich, which I think was a pretty good call on his part. I've read enough fantasy to know that you don't want to end up in debt to a king.

All in all, I think they managed to make what could have been an interesting story way, way more boring than it needed to be. Although I did get a good laugh out of Chedorlaomer. King Cheddar!

This is what you get when you Google King Cheddar...

Genesis 13

On a random note, I think it's totally awesome that my bookmark is still in the right place even after moving across the country!

Anyway, on to Abram and Lot!

Last we saw them, they were getting kicked out of Egypt for running a scam on the pharaoh. Pharaoh can't have been too pissed, though, because he let them take all of their things. Apparently, that was a lot. Both Lot and Abram are established here as being wealthy dudes—lots of livestock and precious metals. Guess that stuff about rich men and needles comes later, eh?

Because they were both so rich, they were having trouble living together. Herders getting into fights all over the place—in my mind this is like Slytherin vs Gryffindor right before a Quidditch match. Abram, being a relative decent dude, offers Lot first pick on which side of the land he wants, and Abram will take the other. Where are all the people who actually live in these lands? How can these guys have so much livestock that they seemingly have to settle in different countries? Weird.

Anyway, Lot thinks he sees a good deal and takes the plain of Jordan, to the east. This is probably not a good idea in the long run, since Sodom and Gomorrah are over there and, spoilers, I'm pretty sure they'll feature negatively at some point. For now, all it says is that they haven't been destroyed yet and that Lot settles his tents near Sodom, whose people are ominously described as "wicked [and] great sinners against the Lord."

Abram heads over to the land he got left with (turns out to be Canaan), and god shows up and tells him that someday, all the land will be his. I guess this is in return for him being fair and giving Lot first choice, but it seems like a big middle finger to Lot to have this come right after he settles his own land. Here we get the metaphor of Abram's descendants being as uncountable as the dust of the earth. I foresee more of these in our future. God tells Abram to walk around the land and get used to the idea that it will all belong to him and his descendants. Abram must think that is cool because he builds yet another altar. Seriously, how many of these things is he leaving in his wake?

And that's it for Genesis 13. It's not the most thrilling chapter with which to make my return, but I'm happy to be back and blogging!

I'm So Tech Savvy

I finally figured out how to transfer this blog to my new account! (Necessitated by a name change--yes, the estranged husband became the ex-husband. I've been happily dating someone new for over a year a half now, though!) And we're back to lovely San Diego, thankfully.

Which means more fun adventures through the Bible. Holy shit do we have a long way to go! Stay tuned to continue our romp through Genesis...

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!

Genesis 11

I don't know who decided where the chapter breaks would go in these books, but it really is poorly designed. The poor tower of Babel story gets crunched in 9 verses before yet another genealogy list that drones on for 23 verses.

Anyway, the story of Babel is pretty straightforward. The "whole earth" (so far, the only impression given is the "whole fertile crescent," shockingly enough) spoke one language, and so they decided to get together and build a huge tower with "its top in the heavens." God, of course, wasn't too pleased with this. I don't know why—if we haven't got to heaven with spacecraft, it hardly seems like a tower had any chance of it—but god isn't particularly logical so far. So god gives them a bunch of different languages and scatters them all over. Interesting that the languages he made them were so conveniently and logically interconnected based on where he scattered them to. Also, one has to wonder again about god's so-called omniscience. He didn't see from the start that there should be different languages? He didn't know they were going to build Babel? Why is this "omniscient" god acting as if he's surprised by humanity's wacky antics, like some bad sitcom?

That's all there is to Babel. Short and sweet explanation about why we have different languages. Again, fulfilling a mythical function to a people who didn't understand the way languages were interconnected and evolved.

From here on, it's more "son of son of" stuff. We get a recap again on Shem's descendants, even thought we just heard that in the previous chapter! The line is traced all the way from Shem to Abram and Lot, who will soon feature more prominently. Interestingly enough, the men are having their sons earlier and living shorter every generation. It starts with Shem having Arpachshad at 100 and living to be 600 and ends with Nahor having Terah at 29 and living to be 148. There is no explanation given for this, which seems odd to me.

We finish off the exciting genealogy with a mess of a family—Terah is the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Abram is married to Sarai and Nahor to Milcah. It seems to me that Milcah is Haran's daughter, but to be honest I'm a little confused. I read verse 29b like five times and still have no idea what they're trying to say: "Nahor's wife was Milcah. She was the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah." I think they need more commas!

So Haran—who is dead at this point—has a son Lot. Terah, Abram, Sarai, and Lot set out to Canaan but end up settling in Haran (I can only guess they named the place after they got there, or that's a pretty big coincidence!) instead. This is where the chapter ends—perfect set up and hook for Genesis 12!

Genesis 10

Another chapter devoted to an endless list of difficult names and family relations! Good thing we have all this stuff written down and sold around the world more than 100 million times every year, or how would I ever know that Togarmah was the son of Gomer, who was himself the son of Japheth (who was one of Noah's sons, if you can't remember, which would hardly be surprising at this point).

One random descendant who gets special attention is Nimrod (ha!), son of Cush, son of Ham. He was "the first on earth to become a mighty warrior." Given that, by this point, it's already been hundreds or thousands of years, I'd bet that there have been some mighty warriors. Mankind is good at nothing if not trying to kill each other! Apparently Nimrod was the original badass, though. "Therefore it is said, 'Like Nimrod a might hunter before the Lord.'" Sounds to me like nothing more than an explanation for a pithy statement of the time. Weird to get a mention like that.

Nimrod's kingdom included Shinar (Babel, Erech, Accad), and Assyria (Nineveh, Rehobothir, Calah, Resen). Canaan has a bunch of sons and they spread out from Sidon to Gaza, "in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim," whatever that means. Shem's brood takes over from Mesha to Sephar. Spoiler alert: Some of these places might be important later!

And that's it. Thrilling chapter, wrapped up with this gem of a line: "From these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood."

So yes. All 7 billion people on this planet are descended from Noah, whose sons established some nations all in the same vicinity. Not to mention that all of them were originally descended from one couple and the incestuous genealogy that followed. I don't know much about genetics, but I know enough to know that is complete BS.

Long Time No See!

Phew. Can't believe it's been over a year since I've updated. It's positively shameful, and I'm sure I've probably lost the few readers I had. My sincere apologies! Life has been life, and for a long time I wasn't sure I would ever take this up again.

But! Here I am, ready to blog! Lovely San Diego is now lovely Charleston, lovely husband is now estranged husband, but the crazy-ass Bible is still the crazy-ass Bible. =)

Now where was I...