The Book of Genesis: Lot’s Family (on the next Maury); Sodom and Gomorrah (No more-ah); God Said “Psych!”; a Redundant Tale of Pointless Lies; and Isaac Gets a Wife

“You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.” – Alec Baldwin in Malice

For those keeping score at home we’ve been through 17 chapters of Genesis, and a fine frenzy of activity has taken place so far. We’ve been kicked out of the Garden of Eden, survived the great flood, weathered the odd curse or two, and been witness to God’s quirky sense of humor at the tower of Speak ‘a da’ Babel.

When last we left Abraham he was the world’s greatest (and only) mohel (pronunciation moy’el). Truly a cut above the rest (at least that’s the slogan on the placard outside his house).

Genesis 18
God Said (That You Said) “Ha!”

Three men appeared to Abraham one day, Abraham resisted the urge to circumcise them and instead offered rest (and a proper foot washing).

Now it does get tricky here because 18 starts with the Lord appearing to Abraham. Then the three men approach. Then Abraham rushed over and bowed to them. Then he says “My Lord” and offers the three men respite. It jumps back and forth like this until one of the three men says he’ll return in a year, at which time Sarah will have a son. Sarah hears this and snickers because she’s old and so is Abe by this point. The Lord hears this and asks Abe why she would laugh, as if he hasn’t done more impressive things, so why does this amuse her? Then they have this high school exchange where Sarah says she didn’t laugh, and God says, “Nuh-uh, you did laugh.”

About this time God told Abraham about his issues with Sodom and Gomorrah and how he planned to do a clean sweep of the righteous along with the wicked in those awful cities. No flood this time, uh, it’s been done to death! Abraham found this to be a real “baby with the bathwater decision” so he spends eight paragraphs bartering God’s wrath down from killing fifty righteous to under ten. God acquiesces pretty easily each time in that, ‘Oh, alright!’ way God has, so far in the Bible, been known for.

Genesis 19
The Many Adventures of Lot, His Salty Wife & His Even Saltier Daughters

Meanwhile…

Two angels appeared at the door of Lot’s house. He of course offers them shelter and a toe bath. Before the angels could retire for the night all the men in Sodom appeared and shouted:

“Where are the men who came to spend the night with you? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

An odd plot development to say the least. Lot knew better. Miss Manners says that you should never allow your guests to be raped – party foul. Instead, offer up your finest daughters to marauders whenever possible. He explained that these men were his guest and that he had two perfectly good virgin daughters for them.

The men of Sodom were not pleased, finding Lot quite judgmental and saying they would treat him far worse than the angels, which I assume means they wouldn’t call him the next day. Luckily the angels pulled Lot into the house and blinded the men of Sodom, I like to think yelling “Shazam!”

SIDEBAR: OK, so I assume this is where “sodomy” comes from, and the fact that the men wanted to have sex with the male guests is some sort of go-to quote for homophobes and people who want to decry “homo-sin-uality”. Splendid! I’ve found my first section where people use the Bible for their own intolerance. Also, I assume when the men couldn’t get into the house they began masturbating, which of course led to them going blind, because everything in the Bible is transferable to modern times and old wives tales.

At this point, word of Sodom had reached the Lord and the angels told Lot that the city was about to be destroyed. Lot of course went and warned his daughters fiancees, glossing over the part where he offered up their lady’s flowers to the local heathens.

The angels warned Lot to flee to an agreed upon small town nearby (after Lot whined about cave living not being the life for him) and to not look back. This was in no way emphasized or stressed, but still, they can’t say they didn’t warn him.

Lot fled with his family whilst God rained down fire and sulfur destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the small towns as well. They reached Zoar (meaning Tiny Town, more or less) and when they arrived Lot’s wife became the inspiration for Ace of Base’ “Don’t Turn Around” and turned into a pillar of salt. Lot shouts out, “Oh, by the way, don’t turn around, sweetheart! I’ll take your silence as understanding! Aces!”

God had spared Lot due to Abraham. If you ask me Lot isn’t worth all the trouble. Also, God conveniently forgot to not smite the righteous. And God said, “Whoops.”

Later on, Lot left Zoar because he was afraid of the people there (whispered tone: the blacks). Seriously, his last town had sex starved men, there is no pleasing this man. So he uprooted his daughters once again.

Of course, Lot’s daughters didn’t hold it against their father…also, his daughters decided to literally hold it against him, while he slept. Allow me to explain:

For you see, there were no men around to continue the family line (their fiancees were written out in the last episode of last season never to be mentioned again I assume) so the eldest daughter devised the greatest of plans: get dad drunk on wine, intercourse him, and become pregnant.

Just to be safe, they do the same thing again the next day only the younger daughter has a go at him. Both times, it is stressed Lot has no idea what is going on. God apparently has no beef with any of this BTW. His silence speaks volumes.

Genesis 20
“She’s My Sister!” SLAP! “She’s My Wife!” SLAP! “She’s My Sister…and My Wife?”

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Abraham and Sarah go to Gerar, they meet King Abimelech and Abraham decides to introduce Sarah as his sister, not his wife. I know right? Like from before. This worked so well for these two crazy kids last time, why not try again!

You know the story: King sends for Sarah, God is all “Hey! That woman is married!” King is all, “Um, nobody told me!” King forks over a ton of stuff to appease everyone.

Then in a bit of poor storytelling God heals Abimelech, his wife, and the female servants so they can have children, because, oh, and we should’ve mentioned this plot point before resolving it, God had put the kibosh on having babies for those people. So that curse you didn’t know about? Yeah, lifted.

Genesis 21
Isaac Plays Raven Symone to Ishmael’s Rudy

Old, dried up Sarah did indeed have a son on the year Abraham turned 100. They named him Isaac. Once Sarah had her own son with Abe she had very little need for Ishmael and his mother Hagar the Dispensable.

Abraham was not pleased but God told him to respect Sarah’s wishes, which in this case meant strapping a few essentials on Hagar the Portable’s back and sending her off to wander aimlessly in Beersheba. God of course promised many descendants to Ishmael as He is wont to do.

Meanwhile Abraham made a covenant with Abimelech, who had just about had it up to here with being tricked as to whether women he fancied where sisters or wives of the people he encountered. Abimelech could clearly see God was with Abraham so he figured this was a good idea.

Genesis 22
“Never say ‘I’ll be right back…’ because you won’t be back…”

God is nothing if not the master of the ultimate pop quiz. God decides to test Abraham by telling him to take Isaac, whom he calls his “only son” now to Moriah and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. Abraham does so without much as much as a “Seriously?” and takes his son and two servants on a hike. Then he commits the ultimate horror movie no-no by telling the servants to hang back while he and his son go worship saying, “I’ll be right back.”

Not only does his take his son to the mountains, he makes the boy lug the wood he’ll be sacrificed with. After a while Isaac mentions that they’ve got everything for an offering except…an offering. Abraham tells his son that God will most certainly Abracadabra one for them.

Once they reach the mountain Abraham preps the altar and then (matter-of-factly) ties his boy up and prepares to kill him saying the sacred words:  “Abra-abracadabra….wanna reach out and stab ya” (always with the song lyric references).

It’s about this time when God decides his pilot episode of Scare Tactics has gone far enough and he commands Abraham to stop. He tells him not to sacrifice his only son (Ishmael clearly does not rate) because he, you know, is his son. However, he does admire his verve and is pleased that he truly fears him, so his whips up a ram caught in some thicket and tells Abraham to sacrifice that instead.

An angel of the Lord appears and gives Abraham the good news that God has come with his usual deal of copious amounts of descendants (which they seem to have already but God can sell ice to an Eskimo!). Sure enough his brother Nahor and his wife Milcah had eight sons (Milcah and Na’ Plus 8!). And the begetting began again.

Genesis 23
Flip This Cave

Sarah was 127 when she finally died. Abraham wept, mostly I assume because he never got a chance to sacrifice her. He then went to the Hittite elders and asked for a place to properly bury his wife. He had his eye on a cave owned by Ephron and offered to pay full price for it. Ephron, I thought at first, was saying to take the land for free despite the cost (albeit in a passive-aggressive manner):

“My lord, please listen to me. The land is worth 400 pieces of silver…but what is that between friends? Go ahead and bury your dead.”

Yet the next paragraph says Abraham paid the 400 pieces of silver (weighed according to market standard). The Hittite elders served as notaries. So I guess I misread his tone.

Sarah was buried and Abraham had a nice plot of land to bury his multitude of descendants.

Genesis 24
I Don’t Want a Recap OR Your Life Story

Abraham was very old at this point. He decided one day to help Isaac (his totally one and only son ever) find a wife. He called his oldest servant and said:

“Take an oath by putting your hand under my thigh. Swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth that you will not allow my son to marry one of these local Canaanite women. Go instead to my homeland…”

If you think that’s an odd way to take an oath, you should see Abraham’s “secret hand shake”.

The servant was skeptical he could get the job done but took the oath anyway. He traveled to Aram-naharaim (far away from icky Canaanite women) and came up with a plan. He would hang by a well with his ten camels as the women of the town came to draw water from the well, he would ask each of them, “Please give me a drink from your jug” (Voted second worst pickup line in Aram-naharaim after, “I didn’t know angels could fall so far…what’s that? Oh you actually are an angel? My bad.”) and if she responded “Yes, have a drink, and I will water your camels too!” then she’ll be the one picked to be Isaac’s wife. It was somehow specific and general all at once.

Before he could wrap up the prayer a young, beautiful woman named Rebekah came out with her water jug. The servant tried his line on Rebekah and she agreed to give him water, and also all his camels as well. The servant was so excited he gave her a nose ring and two large gold bracelets. Bling. Rebekah gave him her entire life story for the most part and the servant was pleased that God had lead him directly to Isaac’s wife.

Rebekah’s brother Laban had seen all the jewelry on Rebekah and had heard the servant jazzed up about God leading him to his sister so he promptly invited him back to the house for the night.

The servant got to tell his “Well and the Water” story all over again. Seriously. It’s like the last eight paragraphs only inside of quotation marks. Anyway, Rebekah’s family of course offers her up like it’s nothing and the servant takes her back with him after they work out the departure time. I’m not sure why he was in such a rush considering his quest took all of two minutes, unless God didn’t give him a per diem.

He returned to Isaac with Rebekah. The two of them went to his mother’s tent (ew) and she became his wife.

Stayed Tuned for Scenes From Next Week’s Blog:

This is a good place to stop since we’ll be spending a lot of time with Jacob and Joseph for the remainder of Genesis. A lot. They totally “Urkel” the rest of Genesis.

NEXT WEEK IN “The Bible”:

Abraham’s time runs out; Abimelech plays Charlie Brown to Isaac’s Lucy; and more Jacob and Joseph than you can shake a staff at!

The Book of Genesis: Creation, Adam and Eve, Glossed Over Incest, The Irascible Noah and His Unreasonably Small Ark, Curses, Convenants and More!

“Let’s start at the very beginning, I hear it’s a more than adequate place to start.” – contestant on “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” who totally forgot the lyrics to Do Re Mi

“Now it is the beginning of a fantastic story! Let us make a journey to the cave of monsters! Good luck!” – Bubble Bobble opening, apropos of nothing

* Blogger’s Note: I will be quoting from the Bible, and as this is the New Believer’s Bible it will be worded a little more plainly than an “old school” Bible would, therefore the lack of thou’s and art’s are not me taking creative license. They are, in fact, actual quotes.

The Book of Genesis

Genesis 1 - 3
I Gotta Say It Was a Good (7) Day(s)

God created the heavens and the earth, along with sky, water, vegetation, animals and…dinosaurs? No, I don’t see them in here… Ah, I’m sure they’ll work that in somewhere. Maybe one of those “last sentence of the chapter throws in a twist” type deals. You know, “Adam walked through the Garden of Eden [SPOILER ALERT!] and then a pterodactyl jumped out and shot him.” Something like that.

Thanks to my version of the Bible (The New Believer’s), each book lists who the author was, and what genre it is. Yes, genre. Genesis is listed as Narrative. I was thinking Sci-Fi/Fantasy but what do I know? Also, did you know Moses wrote Genesis? I guess him rapping with the burning bush went on a little longer than The Ten Commandments lead me to believe. Perhaps it’s a deleted scene. “Moses, dude, you’ll never believe how all this came to be…I did so much, and let me tell you, it’s all good. I even said so to myself. Only child, I talk to myself. What I would give to have been begot by someone.”

I cry foul already one page in, because it says here God rested on the seventh day of his massive creating spree. My wife works 14 days in a row sometimes, and does she rest? No. Does that make her better than God? Probably not. She more often than not doesn’t create heaven and earth within a given, truncated week so, point: God.

This is a part of the Bible most people know, or at least know the basics of (Lord’s note: Thou shalt not end a sentence with a preposition!). God was hovering in the dark void and pondered philosophically, “Is that all there is? Just ether? I wish the universe had like, you know, things.” So, what does he do? He becomes an Army of One in the Think Tank of All and creates like…everything.

For fun he creates a bunch of uninhabitable planets (he noncommittally puts Pluto on “the bubble”) and then, just for kicks, creates a livable one. He also creates man, Adam, in his own image, which I assume is where the whole “God is a man” thing comes from.

God doesn’t want Adam to be alone so he creates Eve from Adam’s rib while he sleeps. Why he didn’t just do one of his “Poof! Woman!” deals I don’t know. At least he didn’t throw Adam in a bathtub full of ice, thus creating the first suburban legend.

At this point we’ve got two people, a man and a woman living a sin-less life in a garden. Along comes a snake (Which is a James Patterson novel waiting to happen) with nothing but temptation on his mind. We all know the story: the snake “tricks” Eve into eating from the tree, her and Adam suddenly get bashful, create fig leaf outfits and hide from God because they’re naked and they haven’t invented Burning Man yet, so it’s something to be ashamed of.

God calls them on their deception, banishes them from the Garden of Eden (so that they would not be tempted to eat from the tree of life – thus living forever) and places cherubs outside the gate along with a giant, swinging, flaming sword and other things that sound like they are straight out of The Neverending Story. He also decides that the snake, which I guess walked initially, would now slither on the ground, as it is the lowest of the low (and God is nothing if not literal).

Genesis 4
He Actually Is Heavy, He’s My Brother (and His Dead Body is Totally Heavy)

Adam had sexual relations with Eve (missionary) and she gave birth (with God’s wrathful enhanced pain) to Cain. Later on, she also popped out Abel. Cain would go on to kill his brother Abel, this we know. He killed him mostly because they both presented gifts to God and He accepted Abel’s gifts but not Cain’s. Cain had a solution to this problem: lead Abel out into the fields and kill him! (First prize in the God contest: Set of steak knives. Second prize is you’re murdered!)

When God asked Cain where Abel was, Cain responded, “Do what with the who now?” He played dumb basically. He even coined the original “Hey, I’m not my brother’s keeper!” and gave the ol’ ‘Whaa? What did I do?’ face. God was not pleased. He cursed Cain and made the soil, which he lived off of, barren.

Cain took this poorly and complained to God that since he was now a homeless wanderer, anyone he came across would kill him. God decided anyone that killed Cain would be punished seven-fold, and even marked Cain so that people would know this.

Later on, Cain had sexual relations with his sister-wife (in this case, that is a very literal term) and they had a son whom they named Enoch, meaning “Ew, I think I just had a kid with my sibling!”

Genesis 5
“All Of The Sudden…”

Genesis 5 is basically a list of people (from Adam) begetting other people until we fast forward to Noah, who was the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Apologies to all the Biblical footnotes Moses (and I) glossed over.

Genesis 6 – 7
The 40 Day Future-cast: Oh, It’s Rainin’ Again…

During the time of Noah, God had just about had it up to here with humans. Men seeing beautiful women and taking them as their wives. It was madness! I know that doesn’t sound bad but that’s the example God gripes about and I’m merely his sarcastic online vessel.

“My spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh.”
- God, dissing his own work

God decides to wipe the slate clean, all humans, all animals, all plants. Everything. Well…everything except Noah, and his family, and two of every animal (including birds!).

According to this book, this Bible, Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, which seems like a bit of hyperbole to me, but it’s God’s call.

He fills Noah in on his genocide and gives him instructions to build a boat, even giving him the measurements (450′ long, 75′ wide, and 45′ high – which seems inadequate when you realize God wants the entire Noah clan to share the boat with two of each animal on the planet).

When the time came, God told Noah to board the boat with his family. Noah’s neighbors, I’m sure, were initially glad that gigantic eye sore was floating away off those cinder blocks. Then of course, it rained for forty days (and you can’t drain a sump pump when it’s all just one giant flood). This made the people furious, as nothing happened when you screamed, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there! With a raft!” back then.

Genesis 8
God’s Wrath Part II: The Dry-ening

As the earth went through an extensive drying off, Noah decided the put the doves to use. He released one to see if it could go out and find dry land. When it returned he figured there was still none. He continued to send the dove out until it finally returned with an olive leaf in its beak. This apparently told him that the flood waters were almost gone. Noah was 600 at the time, I thought every old man just needs to stick his head out the ark window to know what the weather is like.

Soon the earth had dried and God told Noah they could leave the ark. Noah built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed some pre-approved animals. God was pleased and gave this passive aggressive proclamation:

“I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent towards evil from childhood.”

Hey, God, next time you’re mad at the planet, write us an angry letter and then put it in a drawer.

Genesis 9
Noah, You Wouldn’t Like Him When He’s Angry (and Hung Over)

It seems one day Noah got drunk on a little wine and passed out in the buff. His son, Ham, came across him and ran to tell his two brothers, who promptly covered him employing a “walk backwards and drape something over him without looking” tactic.

When Noah found out what Ham had done, he cursed his son, Canaan!

“May Canaan be cursed!
May he be the lowest of servants to his relatives!”

This was my first What the Hell?! moment reading the Bible. Mostly because I am not sure what Ham’s transgression was. And what is with punishing Canaan. Is this some sort of “The sins of the father…” thing? Because, what was his sin again?

We never find out because the next paragraph we hear that Noah lived another 350 years after the flood and then he died. The Bible is very succinct that way.

Genesis 10
Ham Fisted

So Ham was cursed. We don’t hear much about it, so it’s a weak curse at best. It would’ve been worse if he had run over a gypsy with his mule or pissed off Elizabeth Taylor at General Hospital. Ham went on to have many descendants. Among them, the first heroic warrior on earth, and his name – was Nimrod. I assume due to Ham’s horrible transgression of not leaving his drunk, naked father alone, this is why Nimrod has such a negative connotation in our society.

Also, for all you people giving your newborns a Biblical name, I must say, going with Nimrod is certainly thinking outside the box.

Genesis 11
The Merry Pranksters

It is well known that all people of the world at one time spoke the same language. The people of Babylonia where an industrious people and decided to build a tower that reached to the sky. God was not pleased. However, I always recalled it was because they were trying to reach God and he wasn’t having it because it was arrogant, or something along those lines, but again, the New Believer’s Bible clears that one up, as God thus spake:

“Look! The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”

Again, I am confused by God’s actions here. Clearly he wasn’t angry with the people, he even found their working as a cohesive unit inspiring and productive, full of potential and promise!

So naturally he threw a monkey wrench into the gears of their indomitable spirit. I suppose we’ll file this under Mysterious Ways.

Genesis 12 - 14
Abram, Mart, and Joh

Abram was chosen by God. He was told to leave his family (although he does take a large number of them with him) and country, and go to the land that God would show him. He took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot.

When they arrived in Egypt, Abram had a concern that all the men would fall in love with his beautiful wife, deciding to kill Abram so they could have her. Sure, it sounds like a husband sucking up to his wife, but as it turned out, people did notice Sarai’s beauty. Abram’s solution was to tell everyone Sarai was his sister.

Soon Pharaoh noticed Sarai and had her brought to the palace. Thinking she’s his sister Pharaoh gave Abram many gifts for Sarai. God in turn calls down the thunder on Pharaoh bringing plague.

So basically, Abram lied to the Pharaoh, whored out his wife a little, and God’s solution is to punish the deceived one. I kind of think Pharaoh got a bum rap on this one, or as I will now call it, “A big serving of Ham.”

After they left Egypt, Abram and Lot walked the earth for a while, you know, like Caine in Kung Fu.

Genesis 15
It’s No Sacrifice At All

God always had a soft spot for Abram, so much so that he made a covenant with him.

The Lord told him, “Bring me a three year old heifer, a three year old female goat, a three year old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

Abram did this and killed them by cutting each animal down the middle, he did not however, cut the birds in half, because apparently that’s just bad form. Major party foul at the sacrifice.

Genesis 16
“Hagar the Acceptable” and Ishmael Wants You To Say His Name

Abram’s wife Sarai was unable to have children, so she came up with the perfect idea. Sleep with the hired help! [Insert instantly dated Arnold Schwarzenegger joke here] Sarai’s servant Hagar was given to Abram as a wife. Then, Abram and Hagar the Doable cribbed part of the plot to The Big Chill and made a baby together. Of course, once this happened, Hagar started to get all up in Sarai’s business. Once Sarai complained to Abram, he told her, “She’s your servant, deal with her as you see fit.” So Sarai started to treat Hagar the Impregnable terribly, so much so that she ran away.

Luckily an angel of the Lord stopped her, told her to go back, and pretty much spoiled the plot of the rest of her life. She returned and had Abram’s baby. They called him Ishmael.

Genesis 17
G Diddy Becomes Puff Goddy

God certainly has a lot of names for himself. In Genesis 17:1 he tells Abram that he is “El Shaddai” (or God Almighty). He then makes yet another covenant with him that guaranteed him countless descendants. Oy, this guy with the covenants!

God’s covenant states that Abram will be the father of a multitude of nations, and he also now shall be called Abraham, just ’cause. He goes so far as to calling it an everlasting covenant. But there’s a catch.

“Each male among you must be circumcised. [He goes on to explain what that word means as:] You must cut off the flesh of your foreskins as a sign of the covenant between me and you.”

God decrees that from now on every male child must be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. God goes on to say:

“Any male who fails to be circumcised will be cut off from the covenant family for breaking the covenant.”

I think we can all assume God’s pun was intended.

Abraham immediately takes his son, all the males in his house including the ones he owns, and circumcised them. I suppose this was a tough sell even with God’s endorsement.

Fun Fact: Abraham was ninety-nine when he was circumcised. It also inspired the song, “99 Luft Foreskins” (It was later renamed “99 Red Foreskins”).

Since Genesis 17 is very plot heavy, God also squeezes in renaming Sarai, calling her Sarah. Not only that, he decided that her and Abe can now have a son together, making that whole “intercourse the slave” idea seem like a poor choice in hindsight.

Stayed Tuned for Scenes From Next Week’s Blog:

That’s enough for now. I hope you all enjoy reading about my Bible adventures as much as I enjoyed doing this.

Coming Up:

Lot hardly deserves a “World’s Greatest Dad” mug, his wife inspires an Ace of Base song, and his daughters hatch the Worst – Idea – Ever.

“In the beginning…”

I tried. I really tried to open with something – anything else – but whaddaya gonna do? Seriously. How does one begin a blog about reading the Bible, the whole thing, any other way? It’s like starting a Star Wars movie with “Quite a few years ago in a galaxy not within walking distance…”.

For the next few (months?) I will be reading the Bible, the Catholic one, because I was raised Catholic and went to parochial school from kindergarten to 8th grade. Basically, that means when I came home from school mom would ask, “How was school today? What did you learn?” and I would respond, “Ah, you know, it’s Catholic school, God is good, sometimes there’s math.”

How many books are in the Bible? I don’t know. I looked it up and got like, five different answers, so this is tricky already. I have yet to even get my hands on a Bible, but when I do, I will start immediately.

First up: Genesis. Unlike Phil Collins, this is God’s early period. And yes, I am not above making “easy” references. I used to be, and then I realized if I left out easy references all my blogs would consist solely of “Goodnight, everybody!”.

So here we go, we’re on a mission from God (how was that blog URL not taken? Score!) and I’m in the driver’s seat. Apparently he’s my co-pilot.