Biblelicious

So, while I was away, living my god-less liberal lesbian so-called life, you probably thought it was a party like a rock-star, all-girls-all-the-time, hedonistic dog-pile.

Sadly, this is not the case.

But then, that’s another blog, entirely.

What I have been doing in my absence from the land-o-blog, is thinking.

Thinking and reading about Genesis and the Old Testament. You know, about the whole thing. Thoughts on a grander scale, deep and wide, wondering what I might find hidden in the delicious caramel center of Genesis.

Thinking serious thoughts, like who is this God? What am I learning from Him about faith, or community, or culture, or society?

I came up with two basic themes:

1.) God is an Authoritarian ruler.
2.) He uses misogyny, shame and fear to make people obey him.

Ahh, happy, happy thoughts. What a nice religion we have here.

It feels so familiar, this shame and this fear. This deference to an all powerful father figure.

The familiarity kind of creeped me out, so I started thinking about that. These things are no good, but they are at the core of the way most of us are raised, at the core of how our society is put together. Shame and fear are the things that hold us together, that keep Americans from running amuck and reeking havoc upon our neighbors. Without fear of punishment of reprisal or retribution, how many folks would think twice about just taking what they want instead of working for it, paying for it. Generally, as a society, we don’t steal or kill or vandalize because, if we do, we stand a fair chance of ending up in prison as someone’s bitch.

We don’t refrain from those things because it’s wrong, or because at the very core of our being we care about our fellow man and the well being of all of those around us.

No, at least not here in the good o’ US of A, nope, we’re lookin’ out for number one and we get away with just exactly as much as we can.

I wonder if this would be true in non-Judeo-Christian countries? I don’t think so, maybe, I don’t know. But it seems less likely in cultures that are infused with non-fear-based religions. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there, because I am, as most of you are, living in a culture infused by a fear-based religion.

This brings me round, finally, to the subject at hand. I’m wondering if, even though we (the royal we, we as a society, we) don’t really know very much about it and we haven’t really read it, the force of the Old Testament God, the force of the Obey Me or I Shall Smite You mindset has served well the rise of fanatical Neo-Conservative politics over the past 20 years.

I may be a little slow on the uptake here, you all may be way ahead of me, but I never really made the connection between the two. I mean, I know that the religious right has a strangle hold on conservatives (hopefully this is loosening a bit), but I didn’t really make the connection with the Old Testament God.

I always think of the New Testament when I think of those guys, I think of the edict to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, that you must believe in Him and only Him or you will burn in hell, and you better get saved cause He’s coming back and gonna Rapture us and take us all to heaven and only the sinners will be left behind to suffer through the end-times with the Anti-Christ and the reign of Satan and the final battle of Armageddon. That’s what I think about when I think about Jerry Fawell and Pat Robertson and James Dobson. I don’t think about Abraham and God. I don’t think about Adam and Eve and God.

Now I do.

The Bush administration (you knew I was going there, didn’t you?) uses exactly the same tactics as the God of Genesis. Do what I say, believe what I say. Because I said so. Because, I’m the decider.

Make us afraid, shame us, and you have power over us.

I report, you decide.

Gensis Chapter 20

Seems like we’ve heard this story before. Abraham and Sarah travel to some foreign place and to keep from being killed because his wife is sooooo beautiful, he says that she is his sister.

Abraham gives Sarah up to the king who takes her for his wife. God promptly punishes the king for putting the moves on a married woman. The king promptly give Abraham all manner of bling and tells him to get the fuck out of dodge.

This is twice now that Abraham has run this scam…what are we supposed to be getting here?

I don’t know, I’ve been, with each of the preceding 19 chapters, trying and make some moral sense of this book. Trying to see a connection between the morality I perceive as good Christian values and what I see rewarded and punished in this, the Good Book.

Twice now Abraham has been handsomely rewarded for lying and giving his wife over into the arms of a stranger. While poor Lot’s wife gets turned into a pillar of salt just for looking back on a life she so suddenly had to flee.

It’s not making any sense.

I surfed the web for quite a while, looking for some commentary about this chapter, there’s not a whole lot out there. I’m going to have to reevaluate how I’m thinking about this little project of mine. Perhaps I should take a more existential view, or maybe even try a few Dada readings. Waiting for Godot vs. Waiting for God to give My 90 Year Old Wife a Baby.

I don’t know, we’ll see how I feel next week.

So, in lieu of anything new or vaguely insightful to say about this chapter, I’ll take this opportunity to amuse or possibly offend you with search strings that have caused random folks, the world over, to hit my site.

You see, I’ve got this sneaky little hit counter that tells me how many folks have come and gone. It also, most times, tells me what city they are in and if they found the site via a search engine. The ones that click in from a search engine, it gives the search string.

In descending order of popularity (I’ve eliminated the non-amusing ones):

George Micheal
This one pops up almost every day. Who knew?

Angelina Jolie Porn
There is none. I would that there were.

Naked Drunk
Returns pretty much what you would imagine.

Dad Naked
Bletch!

INCEST SEX site
Can you say…eeeeeewwwwwwwwhhhhhhhh!!!

So there you go…the seedy underbelly. And you thought it was all just witty sacrilegious banter.

Stay tuned, next week on Biblelicious, Sarah finally has that damn baby…

Lot’s Wife

Genesis 19:15-29

Word to the wise: If an angel of the Lord comes down from heaven and says to you, “Flee this place, I am going to destroy it!” For Christ sake, flee that place and DON’T LOOK BACK.

Just ask Lot’s wife. Oh no, wait, you can’t…she’s a pillar of salt.

Here’s how it went down:

As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, “On your way! Take with you your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.

“When he hesitated, the men, by the LORD’S mercy, seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city.

As soon as they had been brought outside, he was told: “Flee for your life! Don’t look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Get off to the hills at once, or you will be swept away.”

“Oh, no, my lord!” replied Lot.”You have already thought enough of your servant to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life. But I cannot flee to the hills to keep the disaster from overtaking me, and so I shall die.

Look, this town ahead is near enough to escape to. It’s only a small place. Let me flee there–it’s a small place, isn’t it?–that my life may be saved.”

“Well, then,” he replied, “I will also grant you the favor you now ask. I will not overthrow the town you speak of.Hurry, escape there! I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” That is why the town is called Zoar.

The sun was just rising over the earth as Lot arrived in Zoar; at the same time the LORD rained down sulphurous fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah (from the LORD out of heaven).

He overthrew those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil.

But Lot’s wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning Abraham went to the place where he had stood in the LORD’S presence.

As he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region of the Plain, he saw dense smoke over the land rising like fumes from a furnace.

Thus it came to pass: when God destroyed the Cities of the Plain, he was mindful of Abraham by sending Lot away from the upheaval by which God overthrew the cities where Lot had been living.

You can’t say she wasn’t warned, but Holy Crap! Who knew that was going to happen? Wham-O gone, dead, destroyed. Not really struck down, rather, turned to something completely non-human, into something the first rain would wash completely away, would dissolve and be absorbed back down into the earth.

In that moment she was just gone.

I remember Brother Rowell preaching on this when I was a kid, and until I read some commentary, I couldn’t for the life of me remember the lesson, all I could remember was that it didn’t seem to me that she did much of anything wrong. All she did was look back, that’s it, she just looked back.

I didn’t really know what a pillar of salt was, but I got the general idea. I wondered, mostly, if it looked like her. If, when she looked back and the was transformed from animal to mineral, if the salt was like a statue, if you could see the expression on her face, if, at least for a while, you could tell that it had been a woman. I wondered about her daughters, if they knew what happened, if they looked for her, if they cried. I wondered, later, after the destruction, did they go back, did they see the pillar, did they touch it, did they understand what had happened? Were they heartbroken?

It was such an intensely human thing to do. Fleeing for your very life, to look back, look back on the place you have lived. Look back for a final glimpse of your life.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I move, I have to take a little moment, after everything is out, after everything is in the truck and the place is clean and I’m about to leave and lock the door for the very last time. I always look back, I always look at the place and think about the life that was lived there. Even during the bad times, the bad places, there was something good, something worth remembering there.

It had to be the same with Lot’s wife. That was her home, and even if it was depraved and debauched, her life had been there, she’d raised a family there. So she looked back to remember. You take a moment and remember the nice times, not the debauched ones. You don’t look back and say, Oh, remember that time we took that hit of acid and had a three-way on the bathroom floor? Or, remember when Enoch got all those Quaaludes and we couldn’t move for days? Well, alright, you might want to take a moment and remember the three-way.

But, really, you think about the good times, the wonderful times, the times that make memories, that make life. Like that Christmas when Timmy was ten and you got him a puppy. Oh, wait, no Christmas yet, no Passover, I don’t think there was even Yule then, OK, Solstice then, when you got Timmy that puppy for Solstice…you get the picture.

Regardless, she didn’t have that luxury, and there is a lesson to be taken from the fate of Lot’s wife. This story is one of the few old testament stories that Jesus talks about, in Luke 17:32-33 (shoutout to Creationist Boy for the reference), Jesus says, “Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.”

I’m sure that’s what Bro. Rowell was preaching on, and really, it makes good sense. Even outside of the Christian tradition it makes good sense.

For Christians, this story tells us we have to give up the things of this world before we can live in the next. The world and worldly things are inherently wicked, you must eschew them and keep your sights set on heavenly things.

Thinking about it, that sort of jives with the Buddhist teachings of impermanence, don’t hold on to things of the world, they are impermanent and will pass away. These things bring you pain and keep you trapped in the cycle of Samsara, barring you from enlightenment.

But, you know, it’s a good thought for the here and now, for the living of this life, outside of any religious tradition. Time moves on, and holding on to the things of the past will do you no good, if you seek to hold so tightly to the things you already have, you will miss the life that is coming toward you, that you are moving through.

As Steve Miller told our debauched and stones selves back in the 70’s, Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin into the future…

Genesis Chapter 18

So god’s walking down the road with these two other dudes, I’m not really sure if they are angels or gods or whatnot, but Abraham sees them, not knowing it’s God, runs out to fetch them and bring them in for something to eat. He hollers at Sarah to “Quick make some bread, slaughter that calf, get some food on the table woman.” Then he runs back to entertain his guests.

Since it takes a while to make bread and slaughter a cow, Abraham and the three strangers have a little time to chat. Abraham figures out that it’s God there, hanging out in his tent and they continue chatting for a while and God promises once again that Sarah will have a baby.

That’s, what, Progeny
Promise 5? 6? 57? Fuck I don’t know, I’ve lost count. Sarah overhears the conversation and laughs.

Here’s the passage:

Gen Ch 18: 10 – 15

One of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.” Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, just behind him.

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years, and Sarah had stopped having her womanly periods. So Sarah laughed to herself and said, “Now that I am so withered and my husband is so old, am I still to have sexual pleasure?”But the LORD said to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I really bear a child, old as I am?’ Is anything too marvelous for the LORD to do? At the appointed time, about this time next year, I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son.”

Ok, that’s not quite what she said. It was more like, “Kid-schmid, Whoo-Hoo!! I’m gonna get me some” But, I digress…

Because she was afraid, Sarah dissembled, saying, “I didn’t laugh.” But he said, “Yes you did.”

God seems a little snippy here, don’t you think? Did not! Did too! Not! Too! I mean, he’s been promising this kid for a while now, who’s to blame her if she’s a little skeptical.

And, come on, if I were her, I’d laugh at the thought of my 90 old she-she meeting up with a 100 year old he-he. Although, I am defiantly not her, and the thought of my 41 year old she-she meetin’ up with a he-he of any age makes me feel a little icky. Now, my she-she meeting up with some other she-she…but I digress again…we’ll get to that in the Book of Ruth.

So, God and his angel homies finish feasting and chatting and move along their way. Abraham walks with them awhile, asking where they are going what they are doing, God says, “We’re on our way to Sodom.” Yep, that’s right, Sodom. But keep your pants on, we’re not to the fire and brimstone yet. (Get it? Sodom? Keep your pants on?)

Gen Ch. 18:20-33

Then the LORD said: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave, that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me. I mean to find out.”

While the two men walked on farther toward Sodom, the LORD remained standing before Abraham. Then Abraham drew nearer to him and said: “Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty? Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city; would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to make the innocent die with the guilty, so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike! Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?”

The LORD replied, “If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Abraham spoke up again: “See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am but dust and ashes! What if there are five less than fifty innocent people? Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?” “I will not destroy it,” he answered, “if I find forty-five there.”

But Abraham persisted, saying, “What if only forty are found there?” He replied, “I will forebear doing it for the sake of the forty.”

Then he said, “Let not my Lord grow impatient if I go on. What if only thirty are found there?” He replied, “I will forebear doing it if I can find but thirty there.”

Still he went on, “Since I have thus dared to speak to my Lord, what if there are no more than twenty?” “I will not destroy it,” he answered, “for the sake of the twenty.”

But he still persisted: “Please, let not my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time. What if there are at least ten there?” “For the sake of those ten,” he replied, “I will not destroy it.”

The LORD departed as soon as he had finished speaking with Abraham, and Abraham returned home.

And then it just stops.

I kept feeling like any minute, The Count was going to pop in and say, “Ten! Ten! Ten! Rightous Men, Ahhh, Ha-Ha-Ha!!, Nine! Nine! Nine! Rightious Men, Eight! Eight! Eight! Rightious Men” And so on, until the final, “One! One! One! Rightious Man.”

But he didn’t, and Abraham walked away leaving 10 innocent lives on the table.

Why? Why did the author of this story choose to leave the bargaining at 10? Is there some significance to the number 10? I read a number of commentaries and most drew the conclusion that ten was the number of people in Lot’s family. Lot and his family are down in Sodom, remember?

Remember the marauding mysterious kings and Abram saves them all and then down into Egypt they go, the whole lot of them (tee-hee, couldn’t resist), them back up out of Egypt and they’ve got so much stuff now that they have to split up and Lot pitches his tent down by Sodom, remember?

Well, the commentators, the biblical pundits, as such, say that’s why Abraham left off at 10. Abraham assumed that Lot and his family were innocent, so there wasn’t any point in bargaining any lower. We find out later that Lot’s family, not so pure. I guess we’re always blind the to faults of those we love.

Other commentaries touted this passage as the first instance of intercessory prayer. The first time in biblical history where someone prayed to God, asked for something, and behold, they got it.

Neither explanation quite does it for me. And like so much thus far, this passage just seems odd.

Makes me think about how we are so fixated on the individual in American society, we are individualists and constantly struggle with the good of the one as opposed to the good of the many. Other cultures don’t have that struggle, the good of the many always outweighs the good of the one. Maybe that’s what’s going on here. If there are less than 10 innocent people in Sodom, then you should just annihilate the whole damn thing, the betterment of society is more important than those ten lives. Plus, a big bonus deterrent for the rest of society.

God says, “Do not fall into sin and iniquity or I’ll demolish your town too.”

And I say, “But you killed innocents, you killed an innocent man, or woman, or child. That is wrong, it’s immoral.”

And, here, I would imagine God says, “Yes, I killed that innocent woman, but her death served a larger purpose. Her death served to cleanse society of a terrible influence, of terrible sin.”

And I say, “She was innocent, she did no wrong, it is You that commits a terrible sin against society.”

Hummm…I could go on for a while about this, but it’s making me kinda grumpy.

Jumping abruptly to something that made me giggle.

My bible site now has a daily podcast, you can get it from iTunes, do a search for “Daily readings from the New American Bible”, it will pop right up.

So far it’s been read by nice sounding folks, pretty much what you hear at Catholic mass. Sometimes you get a little post Vatican II Psalm singing, sometimes they just read the Psalm. I listen every day. Maybe they’ll convert me back.

Genesis Chapter 17

Abram gets a name change and a little nip and tuck to the ol’ foreskin.

He was 99 years old, and God told him to circumcise the flesh of his foreskin. Man oh man, you know that’s got to hurt. Now, getting circumcised at freaking 99 years old, there’s some faith to stand up and take notice of.

So the story goes, God comes down, does the old song and dance he’s been doing for nigh on twenty years now. Worship me and I will make you a great nation. Actually, God makes all manor of Progeny Promises in the first half of this chapter, I’ll just roll them into one count and make all of chapter 17 PPC5. But, in this go round, God up the anti a little bit, this time he says, “Worship me and only me, change your name to Abraham and your wife’s name to Sarah, and then, just one more little thing, chop a little bit of flesh off your penis so that everyone who sees you naked will know who’s the boss of you. Oh, and you need to do this to every male in your household, weather they are related by blood or they are servants or you paid for them as slaves.”

Abraham says, “Okie Dokie, I’ll get right on that.” And he does. I’m guessing he wasn’t a very popular guy after he came home with that news.

Gen Ch. 17, 23-27

Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all his slaves, whether born in his house or acquired with his money–every male among the members of Abraham’s household–and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins on that same day, as God had told him to do.

Abraham was ninety-nine years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised, and his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised.

Thus, on that same day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised;
and all the male members of his household, including the slaves born in his house or acquired with his money from foreigners, were circumcised with him.

When I read this, I couldn’t help but get the visual. That was a passel of foreskin clippin’. I mean, from what I can gather, Abraham didn’t have just a few folks in his household, I’m guessing upwards of a hundred men, perhaps more. So when God told him to circumcise all the men, it was quite a little production. Some random site I just Googled said that when Abraham rescued Lot (remember the random war with the random kings a few chapters back?) he had 318 men in his household. I don’t know where that number came from, but in my imaginings, that seems about right.

The commentaries pretty much stated the obvious about the why and wherefore of this ritual, it’s a physical reminder everyday of your commitment to God and it’s a visual sign to others that you are committed to God.

It’s just so…male…and since I don’t have a penis to clip the foreskin from, I’ve got to wonder, do men see each others hoo-hah that much? Did they back then? That whole peeing in a line in the woods thing has got to be as ancient an act as there is one.

The ancient Mother Goddess would never have asked me to go fussing around with a knife on my girl bits. Perhaps a nice tattoo on the forehead or on the backs or my hands, but no sharp objects anywhere near the neither regions.

But, if you’ve got a Man-God trying to get a Man-God cult off the ground, I guess it makes sense to focus on that hunk of anatomy shard by only men. That, and the whole hygiene thing, but let’s not go there.

Man, I’m glad I don’t have to walk around with one of those things.