Biblelicious

Genesis Chapter 24

Now, I could spend a lot of time going on about this chapter, go get my son a wife, blah blah blah, women here aren’t good enough, blah blah, go get a good one from my home land, blah blah blah. Oh look there’s the perfect one, God told me so, blah blah. I’m gonna put this ring in your nose, come home with me, marry some other stranger, blah blah blah…go read the chapter so we can move on to what’s really important.

OK, good, now that we are all up to speed.

Put your hand under my thigh?

WTF?

I was almost afraid to google it. But, because you come here and read all this crap, I braved it. Just for you. You see how I am?

Surprisingly, there was very little porn. Although, I did get this really sexy pic of Jennifer Anniston. (That was gratuitous, I know, but what’s a girl to do?)

When you google “put your hand under my thigh”, you get about a bazillion pages on just that bible verse. Who’da thought that?

So, what’s up with this? Well, it’s not put your hand under the outside of my thigh. No, no, no, it’s put your hand under the inside of my thigh. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, put your hand under my balls and swear on them.

Again, I’m not making this up.

According the twenty or so random pages I perused, this “Testicle Oath”, or “Penis Oath”, as it is sometimes called, was common practice in ancient Mesopotamia.

Remember that Friends episode where Joey comes in wearing the elf costume and Chandler says, “Too…many…jokes. Must…mock…Joey.”? It’s like that in my head right now. Except replace Joey with Ancient Misogynist Patriarch.

I could stop right here and feel like I’ve done right by you all. I mean, once you get to Penis Oath, there’s really no where else to go.

So, which sounds better? Testicle Oath or Penis Oath? Testicle, I think testicle. Sounds much more serious. Penis is silly. And really, shouldn’t it be Testicular Oath?

Ok, enough jackin’ around (that was a pun, did ya get it?). According to the internets, the ancient Testicle Oath was quite common. Why the testicles? Power. Those neither regions are the source of power, the source of life.

When you get done giggling because I keep saying testicle, and think for a minute, it really makes sense. It’s mystical. In the cojones of Abraham lie the essence of life and before science made it reasonable, made it understandable, it truly a mystery. Humans have this ability to give, and take, life. It’s the most powerful thing we’ve got.

When you really, really mean it, not just pinky swear mean it or on you mother’s grave mean it, making someone swear on your stones, on your power to give life and I’m extrapolating here, but by the same token your ability to take it, then that’s one hell of a binding oath.

It’s interesting that he doesn’t make his servant to sear on God, his external source of power, but rather on his personal power. Also, asking some guy to grab your balls and swear by them, you’ve really got to have some confidence in you power over the guy with his hand on your nut sack. One quick squeeze and there’s a dramatic shift in that power dynamic.

So, what I’m wondering, where along the line did the power of the penis overtake the power of the vulva? In ancient times, way more ancient than Abraham, back before the patriarchy, where the civilizations were ruled by the matriarchy, the vulva, the womb was a mystery. Frightening and powerful and sacred.

I googled a while to see if I could come up with a analogous oath, a vulva oath, or a womb oath, but I didn’t come up with anything.

Maybe some things are too sacred to swear upon.