An Interlude of In-Laws and Prostitution (Gen 38)

This chapter is apparently the brief interlude in the Joseph story. Like a commercial for how to properly be a brother-in-law back in the day. It even came at the proper dramatic TV moment where Joseph had just been sold into slavery... (Insert Law & Order dun-dun noise here).

We launch immediately into Judah's family and offspring. Remember Judah? The brother that suggested they sell Joseph instead of just leaving him for dead. Well, God smites Judah's firstborn, Er, for being wicked, and then Er's brother Onan didn't fulfill his brother-in-law duties of sleeping with Er's widow Tamar... so Onan also feels the mortal wrath. Judah tells Tamar to go back and live with her father because, well, my footnote says it so brilliantly, "Judah effectively consigns Tamar to oblivion."

Then Judah's wife dies. This one's natural though, no smiting needed. After the appropriate time of mourning, Judah finally goes to shear his sheep. Yep. Anyways, when Tamar hears this, she takes off her widow's wear, puts on a fancy veil, and goes and sits along the road that Judah will be travelling to go...shear his sheep. When Judah happens across cloaked and veiled Tamar, he thinks she's a temple prostitute. Fans of the show Firefly would also call her a Companion. The Hebrew word for it literally translates to "sacred woman." Anyways, when he propositions her, and has no immediate payment, she suggests a few things she can hold for collateral until she gets her baby goat as payment, specifically his signet, cord, and staff. Time passes, sex is had, and Judah sends along that baby goat with someone to look for the "prostitute." Because Tamar was not actually a Companion, none can be found!

More time passes. Three months to be exact, and Judah is told that Tamar has been whoring and is preggers "as a result of her whoredom" (Gen 38:24). Clearly, this means she needs to get burned at the stake. Can I pause here to acknowledge again that the Bible uses the word "whoredom?" Okay. So at this point, Tamar brings out Judah's stuff, and he's all embarrassed that he slept with his daughter-in-law. It does, however, legitimize her pregnancy. Yay for not getting burned at the stake! Eventually, Tamar goes into labor and has twins. The firstborn actually ends up as the second born... it's a little weird. Either way, my footnotes tell me that this whole little interrupting story line is important because Tamar's son Perez (the eventual first born) begets the line of King David. If you don't already know: King David is kind of a big deal.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Joseph and the Technicolor Robe of Sibling Rivalry (Gen 37)

Now that Jacob has finally settled down in the land of Canaan, we move on to his sons. Joseph specifically. You know him. The seventeen year old spoiled tattle-tale.  He was the youngest, and so most loved by Jacob. Fancy robe and everything. Here the main text calls it a “long robe with sleeves” but footnotes also translate it as the more familiar coat of many colors. No matter what his coat looked like, his brothers hated him and his swanky duds. Joseph did incredibly little to ease sibling tensions. He had a few dreams in which his whole family bowed down to him as their ruler, first wheat based then astronomically. Needless to say, his brothers hated him even more for these dreams. I mean, seriously. Wouldn’t you? Jacob, however, knows a thing or two about prophetic type dreams and doesn't dismiss it out of hand.

One day, Jacob tells Joseph to go check on his brothers who were tending the sheep, probably because he knew Joseph would tattle if they were doing anything untoward. As it turns out, his brothers had moved the flock… Not that Joseph gets the chance to say anything about it.  They see him coming, and they start plotting to murder him. Serious sibling rivalry indeed. One brother, Reuben, pauses the bloody train of thought. He persuades the other brothers to just throw Joseph in a pit alive, instead of killing him and then throwing him in the pit. When they agree, he apparently leaves (if only because later in the chapter he comes back).  Joseph comes up, they strip him of his fancy robe with sleeves, throw him in a pit, and sit down for lunch. All that plotting to kill your own brother must stir up an appetite.  While they’re grubbing, a caravan comes along. One brother named Judah was apparently a Ferengi in another life because he starts looking for the profit in the situation.  He convinces the others to sell their brother to the caravan for 20 pieces of silver. Now how to explain all of this to dear old dad who loved the youngest son most of all? Fake Joseph’s death of course. The brothers took the robe, shred it, douse it in goat blood, and allow Jacob to draw his own conclusions.  Meanwhile, Joseph has been sold again to Pharaoh’s captain of the guard.

Okay. So parent-child favoritism is really bad. This is not the first story from Genesis displaying this. It makes me wonder how prevalent an issue this really was…or is. We’ve also got sibling rivalry blown out of proportion yet again.  Now, I’ve got sisters. And as kids we fought. Okay, that may be an understatement. There were occasional mini-world-wars in our household. Did we ever beat on each other and plot to ruin each other’s lives? Sure. Plot to murder? I don’t think so. At least I didn’t. My sisters may tell you a different story, but rest assured ladies, I was never actually going to kill you. Maybe it’s different with brothers? Probably not that different. Eventually everyone grows up, moves out, and you realize that you can actually be friends with the people you have all of these shared experiences with. I know it doesn’t always work out that way, but it’s nice when it does.  Growing up, I never thought I’d be friends with my sisters. Not in a million years. I wouldn’t trade them for anything now.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Jacob Finally Goes Home (Gen 35-36)

God tells Jacob to go home.  Shows up out of nowhere and tells him to go back to Bethel, put away any other gods, clean up, and go home. Jacob’s been away for a long time. In fact, he hasn’t been home since he stole Esau’s birthright and ran away. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d be too keen on going home after that… ever.  But the ever dutiful Jacob does as he’s told. When he gets there, he gets a new name: Israel. He also gets the promises his father and grandfather got. You remember. Land abounding, offspring kings of nations. I believe it a little more now that he’s also called Israel, though.

As soon as all of that happens, they leave again, even though the deal was to settle in Bethel, and Rachel was the most pregnant. So pregnant, that she went into labor on the journey to their next destination (Ephrath).  She bore a son whom she named Ben-oni (lit. “Son of my sorrow”), and died. Jacob instead calls him Benjamin (lit. “Son of the South”), taking away the tragic element of his name and making it geographically based. They bury Rachel in the small town they were in and mark the site with a pillar. Some podunk little town called Bethlehem that no one has ever heard of…

Eventually Jacob/Israel (because this time the name change is more of an add-on than a real replacement) catch up with Isaac who promptly dies at 180 years old. Good timing. The bible doesn’t go into it at all, but Jacob and Esau bury their father together, hatchet apparently buried too. Esau is theoretically totally cool now. I mean, his little brother only stole his birthright, ran away, and didn’t come back for like, a whole lifetime, but we’re apparently just letting bygones be bygones. Props Esau for finding your inner peace. Care to share with the class how you did it? No? I’m sure it could help out. Or maybe you’re still bitter and that’s why you don’t want to talk about it. Or at all.

Chapter 36 (yep! Two whole chapters today!) is just a listing of Esau’s descendants which will eventually get added into that handy-dandy biblical family tree. Mostly the important thing here is that Jacob/Israel’s sons are (wait-for-it) Israelites. Esau’s spawn are Canaanites because his wives were Canaanites. But yeah… genealogy is the entirety of Chapter 36. 

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Rape and Retribution (Genesis 34)

Okay, so since we last heard from Jacob, a lot of time passed, and his kids are all grown up now. Dinah, Leah and Jacob’s daughter, goes out into the world, gets seen by a prince named Shechem, and promptly raped by him. Raped. The next few verses talk about Shechem’s feelings for Dinah as love. “He loved the girl, and spoke tenderly to her” and he essentially commands that she will be his wife (Gen 34:3). Jacob “held his peace” until his sons come back from the field, and when they do, they are appropriately outraged that their sister has been defiled “for such a thing ought not to be done” (Gen  34:4, 7). The king (Hamor) and prince keep trying to get Dinah and the other Israelite women to become their wives, at whatever the price of the dowry. Jacob’s sons then decide to have a little fun with them, saying that unless all the men are circumcised, they will not be of one people, and they could never marry their women. And what do Hamor and Shechem do? The get together all the men in the city, and everyone gets circumcised… seems a little extreme, but okay. But while all the newly snipped men are still recovering, Dinah’s brothers go kill everyone, and Jacob’s other sons go and loot everything. Retribution. Then Jacob reprimands his sons for their behavior, and we’re left with his sons questioning back “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” (Gen 34:31).

I have serious mixed feelings about this. In part, this just disgusts me.  Dinah gets no voice of her own. Absolutely none. She’s talked about more as an object than a person. Granted, this is the Old Testament, written by stodgy old men in a time where women were property, not people. But still!! Then if that’s not enough, the fact that Shechem talks about his abounding love for Dinah after raping her just about made me throw the book across the room. Rape is a power trip, not love. Love has already been given some good precedents, like Jacob working forever to earn the hand of Rebekah, and this feels like it’s undermining all of that.

Moving on from the actual rape and theoretical motivations for it… Jacob and his sons’ reactions. I appreciate the justified anger of Jacob’s sons. They are legitimately outraged, and completely justified in it. But Jacob gives no guidance here. He just stays quiet until after his sons have incapacitated then murdered everyone. Now, I’m sure he wasn’t told the whole plan, but he could have pre-empted the entire situation by ending it as head of household before letting his sons meddle. And after it’s all over, he yells at them, trying to guide after the fact, but it just confuses his morally loose sons. It leaves them wondering how to let their sisters, wives, and daughters be treated at all.

We live in a culture that teaches to not get raped, instead of teaching not to rape. There are people in the world who honestly believe that “legitimate rape” causes a woman’s body to shut down and therefore not become pregnant because of it. While this stems from a debate about abortion, the idea is out there, and the rapists get latent sympathy. We are self-aware enough as a society, however, to know the attitude about rape, but instead of helping to solve the problem, it perpetuates it.  Every so often, you’ll hear a story about a girl who cries rape, but she consented, regretted, and knew she could take advantage of the system in place.  I wish I had some nugget of wisdom to add here about how we are continuing to grow and evolve. About how at least women aren’t actually property anymore. About how overzealous justice can still teach us something.  But I don’t. The whole thing just makes me sick to my stomach.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

New Year, New Beginning

Second week of Advent. Second week in the church year. I thought really hard about coming back last week. New year, new start and all that jazz. It would’ve been a nice touch, and I honestly don’t know why I didn’t get my ass in gear.  This whole season is full of beginnings and endings though. The winter solstice marks the longest night, the end of the darkness and the return of the light. Second chances and starting overs will happen ad nauseum at the turn of the year. I’m going to get one in now.

My longtime silence here can be explained very easily: I got bored. It’s a roadblock that I’d been warned about, especially trying to read the Bible the way I was going to. To be fair, I did have a fairly busy stretch in that boredom that I might’ve warned you about otherwise… But really, I just got bored.  So I’m going to try something else. I’m going to actually go through that listing at the front of the bible I’ve got that wasn’t my mother’s.  When I hit passages I’ve already covered here, I’ll note when they’re recommended to be read, but I’m going to skip right over reading it a second time. I’m hoping that with the skipping around, I won’t get as bored, and I’ll be able to more easily talk about deeper issues than whose ancestors are whose.  It looks like I’ve got a few chapters of Genesis left to go before the Old Testament lets up for a little while, but now that I’ve got a check list that I can mark off chapters… I’ll feel slightly more accomplished and stick with it.  Like adding smaller and fun things to a to-do list.

And really? Comment. I want some discussion. Disagree with me. Agree with me. Tell me something I didn’t know. Or did know.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Presents and Wrestling (Gen 32:3-33:20)

After Jacob and Laban make their peace and go their separate ways, Jacob decides to continue cleaning up his act and make nice with Esau. He and his whole parade of family and livestock head back towards his homeland. But when Jacob realizes that his caravan has attracted some early attention, namely Esau's... and Esau's army, he decides to head the whole thing off with a sizable bribe.  He also takes extra precautions by splitting up his family and goods into two separate groups so that if one section gets attacked, the other faction can escape. Using messengers and aforementioned bribery, Jacob tries to lull Esau into a state of forgiveness by asserting Esau's birthright... which he doesn't actually have anymore... Jacob tries to coerce some divine influence for the impending battle by reminding God that he and his whole family can't be wiped out because his descendants are supposed to eventually outnumber grains of sand. Smooth.  Either way, Jacob sends ahead the bribe of incredible amounts of livestock with the messengers.

That night, when the two family factions have gone their separate ways, "Jacob was left alone" (Gen 32:24). During this solitary time, he wrestles with an unnamed man. The whole scene feels like a dream sequence or a visual play-out of a wholly internal struggle. About how he took his brother for everything he had, ran the heck away, and doesn't really want to go back and face the music perhaps. During the wrestling match, pronouns are loosely assigned and we aren't sure who is doing what when until Jacob gets wailed in the "hip socket" (a.k.a. the gonads). This injury is what seems to knock some sense and maturity into him. When day breaks, Jacob finally asks the man what his name is. You would think that the man would answer, giving his own name in response to the query. Instead, Jacob is given a new name, Israel. Unlike when Abram became Abraham, Jacob's new name is used more as a sometimes name. Anyway, we also find out as sort of an aside that in reverence to Jacob/Israel's "hip" injury, Israelites don't eat the meat from the hip socket of animals.

Daybreak has come and so has Esau plus army. Jacob gets everyone ready for battle, but Esau, that crazy dude, runs right up and greets his long lost brother with love and affection. What? I mean, I guess twenty years is enough to let bygones be bygones. I think it helps, too, that Jacob keeps "trying" to assert Esau's firstborn-ness. Let's face it, though. What's done is done. Oh, P.S. Jacob ends up with all of the livestock he had gifted to Esau because Esau insists. So they decide to travel on together, aaaaand... Jacob ducks out. Instead of going back to his homeland, he skulks off to Succoth and eventually Shechem as opposed to chillin' with Esau and his harems like he promised. Oh, Jacob...

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

How Not to Settle Your Differences by Laban and Jacob (Gen 31:1-32:2)

Jacob is apparently really good at running away from unpleasantness that he's created for himself.  First from stealing his brother's birthright, now he's running away from Laban for swindling a bunch of livestock.  This time, at least, God tells Jacob to go home. But when Jacob tells Rachel and Leah that they're all leaving, he puts words in God's mouth. He makes it sound like he didn't work the livestock mating system, but that God decided that Jacob deserved more that Laban had been giving him. Hey, Jacob? I'm pretty sure you decided that one, buddy. Anyway, he spins this little story about how he had this dream about receiving as much of the flock as he did (like, all of it...). And the girls, instead of sticking up for their dad, go on about how he never did anything for them but sell them into marriage. So they pack up and go.  But first, Rachel steals Laban's household gods (little figurines with some sort of legal significance).

After a few days, Laban realizes that they've all disappeared and chases after them.  God shows up in a dream and tells Laban, essentially, to not say a single word to Jacob. Not one word. Eventually, Laban catches up with Jacob and crew, and immediately starts saying words to Jacob. No one listens, I swear. It's just like, "Oh hey, an all-powerful deity is telling me to do something, and I recognize it's power... and I'm still not going to do what it tells me to. It'll all work out, right? It's not like God could wipe out the whole human race or something..."  So Laban gets all huffy with Jacob accusing him of stealing his flock, daughters, and household gods. Jacob calls shenanigans. He "earned" the flock and daughters, and frankly knows nothing about the idols (Rachel didn't tell anyone). Jacob even tells Laban that he can search everything for them and kill whoever is found with them. Nice. So he looks and looks.  Rachel comes up with a clever plan to hang on to the little things. She sits on them, and tells her dad while he's looking through her stuff that she can't get up because she has her period (the footnotes tell me that anything she would've been seated on would've been taboo for him to touch). Needless to say, Laban doesn't find anything.

Now since Laban's searching proved futile, Jacob turns on him. He calls him out on being a big jerk for the last 20 years (yeah, remember how Jacob's been with them for that long?) and makes it sound like it's all entirely unfounded... because Jacob never did anything even remotely underhanded towards Laban. Oh, and he also reiterates that the only reason he's got more than two pennies to rub together is because God is on his side.  I want to point out that God is being referred to in a couple different ways here. We've got God of Abraham; fairly straight forward.  We also have God referred to as "the Fear of Isaac" which brings to mind not only the fear of God thing (which I don't know how I feel about, and one of these days I'll spend some time on it), but the fact that Isaac was almost brutally murdered - I mean, sacrificed to God. That's pretty fear inspiring, to say the least. So what are two stubborn, pig-headed, downright-dirty-deceivers to do at such an impasse? They essentially draw a line in the sand by heaping a bunch of rocks together and promise to stay on their own sides. Did you ever share a room with your sibling and do that? I think at one point, I did that to the extreme of laying down masking tape on the carpet in such a way that even the doorway was split in two in order to protect my side. How adult of you, gentlemen. Really good problem-solving techniques there. But it works for them, I guess, and they go on about their business.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Wheelin' and Dealin' (Gen 28:10-30:43)

We pick up the next section with yet another iteration of God's promise to Abraham and his descendants about being a great nation with as much land and as many children as one could possibly imagine. This time, Jacob hears it. Well, he dreams it. Oh hey, this is where Jacob's Ladder comes from (only because in the dream...there was a ladder, or stairway depending on the translation, leading up to Heaven). Due to the dream, Jacob notes the holiness of the place he had the dream, and essentially makes a deal with God. Jacob says that if God jumps through all of these different hoops, like providing plenty of food and clothing, then Jacob shall keep Abraham's God as his own. I didn't realize one human could boss a deity around quite like that...

Jacob continues on his journey to his mom's relatives' place, and it appears he comes across the very same well that Abraham's servant found Rebekah. Small world, huh? Anyway, the other people at the well know his relatives, and introduce him to Rachel, Laban's daughter (Jacob's first cousin for those of you keeping track). In order to make a really excellent first impression, Jacob performs great feats of strength for the good of the others around the well. And because Jacob is family, she essentially brings him home with her. While he's staying with them (for a month), he falls in love with Rachel. He strikes up a deal with Laban that says if Jacob works for him for seven years, he (Jacob) can marry Rachel. Rachel, however, has an older sister named Leah, who doesn't seem to be as pretty as Rachel is. After seven years of toiling away, there's the wedding night. Laban gives Jacob Leah instead of Rachel, theoretically because of some birthright of the older sister marrying first. Jacob gets upset and strikes up another seven year deal to marry Rachel. This time, there's not an older ugly sister to get rid of first, so it works out.

Then we hit some serious cat-fighting...using childbirth. It's all very odd when you think about it.  So the sister-wives (with God's help) feud over being the favored wife with who bears Jacob how many children. God helps Leah out by making Rachel barren for awhile. Or maybe Rachel just didn't want kids until she realized Jacob was going to just stick with Leah because she was willing to have them. Anyway, mixed up in this anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better baby game, there's a lot of clever name/wordplay. Oh, did I mention Rachel cheats? She (and eventually Leah joins in on this too) gets Jacob to have relations with her servant (reminding us of Abram, Sarai, and Hagar) to bear more children. Eventually Joseph (born of Rachel) comes into the world! And we move on.

The last bit for today is another set of deal making and swindling, again with Jacob and Laban.  After Jacob's done his time for both of his wives, he tries to get some sheep and goats from Laban, too, because he's made the existing flocks so plentiful apparently just by his very presence. A deal is made, Jacob gets the spotty ones from Laban's own herds. Before he claims them, Laban goes in and separates out the spotted animals, essentially lending them to his other family in the area, so Jacob can't take them. Jacob plays that game... using visual animal husbandry? He puts things in front of the mating sheep and goats that will make the conceived baby spotty... because it's parents were looking at a thing while doin' it. Because that's how it works.  Either way, Jacob's plan somehow miraculously works out for him, and he gets a pretty sizable chunk of livestock. Go figure.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

The Man May Be the Head of the House, but the Woman Is the Neck (Gen 27:1-28-9)

The day has come when Isaac, who is now blind, has realized that he’s approaching the end of his life and could kick it any day now. So he calls to Esau, his firstborn and favorite son, to give him the easiest of challenges in order to get a blessing. He wants a fresh, meaty, savory dinner in exchange for a blessing. This impending blessing seems like it’s going to be of inheritance and last will and testament proportions. Guess who’s eavesdropping? Rebekah. She hears all of this, and finds Jacob. She talks Jacob into deceiving Isaac, and having Isaac bestow the blessing on Jacob instead. It’s a very elaborate ruse. Because Esau is so freakin’ hairy, and Jacob isn’t, she has Jacob slaughter some baby goats/sheep for the meal that Isaac wants. She cooks it just the way he likes, and uses the skins from the now-food fluffy animals to cover the would-be hairy parts of Jacob if he were Esau (specifically the backs of his hands and neck). She also makes Jacob wear Esau’s clothes for good measure. Good thinkin’ Rebekah.

Jacob, in his Esau costume, goes to see his dad with the requested dinner. Isaac is like, “Wow, that was fast.” Jacob doesn’t miss a beat and replies, “Because the Lord your God granted me success” (Gen 27:20). Isaac wants to be sure that the son that came is in fact Esau though, so he gets some confirmation from other senses. He feels the backs of Jacob-as-Esau’s hands, and smells his clothes. Isaac even exclaims his doubt that the son that’s there is really Esau even then because the voice he’s hearing doesn’t match with his other senses, but he puts his doubts aside and blesses his son that’s there anyway.  It’s a pretty sweet blessing too. Dew of heaven, fatness of the earth, nations bowing down, cursing everyone that curses him, and blessing everyone that blesses him.  I don’t think he left anything out. Way to go Jacob and Rebekah. You swindled that blessing!

Then Esau comes back. He’s got the fresh meat, and cooks it all by himself, and brings it in to Daddy. Isaac is seriously confused and pissed. He tells Esau that he’s already given his blessing to someone that he thought was Esau. Esau then throws a little bit of a tantrum here, but not really unjustifiably. Let’s face it. He was going to get a good deal. So he begs to be blessed also, and Isaac confesses that he really did just bless away everything. He tries to think of something, and it’s very clearly the afterthought blessing meant for Jacob, reinforcing that the second brother blessed is meant to bow down and serve the first brother blessed. Sucks to be that second brother.  It was right about here that I realized something. Harry Potter nerds, I’d like you to weigh in on this: I think Rebekah and Jacob would’ve been sorted into Slytherin, while Isaac and Esau would’ve totally been Hufflepuffs. Keep in mind, I’m speaking as a Slytherin myself. Not all of us are Death Eaters, okay?

Anyway, back to the story. After all that goes down, Esau starts planning to kill off Jacob for vengeance after their father dies.  Money is one of the biggest motives for pre-meditated murder after all.  While he’s scheming and apparently doing a really bad job of keeping it to himself, Rebekah catches wind of his intents. She hatches a plan of her own to send Jacob away to protect him from his brother’s wrath.  She’s also pretty sure he’ll calm down after a little while, and Jacob will be able to come back home.  So she plants the idea into Isaac’s head that if both of her sons are marrying only Hittite women, her life is worth nothing. ‘Kay… Skipping right over all of the really terrible things that implies about a woman’s inherent value, Isaac makes the all-powerful-male-decision to send Jacob away in exactly the manner that Rebekah wanted it to happen (back to her brother’s family). Before Jacob goes off to Laban and Betheul, he gets another one of Isaac’s blessings. Well, okay, he just gets the famous Abraham land and progeny blessing bestowed on him as well. I don’t think we’re ever going to see the end of that one.  The last little thing that happens here is that Esau sees how displeased his parents are with Hittite wives, so he adds a few of Ishmael’s daughters to his ever growing harem.  Because more wives will solve everything.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Like Father Like Son (Gen 25:19-26:35)

There are, so far, a lot of similarities between Isaac and Rebekah and Abraham and Sarah.  Initially, Rebekah is also barren, but God granted her the ability to have at least some children... well, two. Twins! While she's pregnant, the twins apparently have some serious in-womb boxing matches. God tells her it's because they're going to be like that in life too.  They'll each be the father of a nation, and those nations will be divided. Oh, and the law of the first born is going to be somehow reversed. So they're eventually born, and Esau is red and hairy (name-wordplay) and Jacob comes out clutching Esau's heel (also, apparently, name-wordplay). There are a couple other things that get mentioned here to illustrate the differences between the brothers. Esau loves hunting; Jacob loves being indoors. Esau and Isaac bond, while "Rebekah loves Jacob" (Gen 25:28).

One day, when the boys were much older, Jacob was cooking stew.  Esau was apparently not a good hunter at all because when he came in from the fields, he was starving. He begged Jacob for "some of that red stuff," but as we'll find out a few verses from now, there's a new famine in town (Gen 25:30).  So Jacob's not going to part with his stew and bread very easily.  He convinces Esau (without too much trouble) to sell his birthright as the elder son... for some soup. "Thus Esau despised his birthright" (Gen 25:34). I really hope that he was so hungry he was about to die literally  right there because that eldest son birthright thing... is a big freakin' deal then. I'm sure we'll see the fallout of that in the coming chapters.

In the meantime, we get to see some more of Isaac and Abimelech (because that guy is still around?). That famine causes Isaac to be in Abimelech's lands again, he's even led there by God with promises just like the promises given to Abraham, multiple times. Many nations, descendants numbering as plentiful as the stars...  Anyways, while he's in Gerar, he does exactly what Abraham did. He calls his wife his sister to protect her.  But maybe Rebekah wasn't quite as pretty as Sarah, because she's not taken as someone else's wife the second they hit town. Then one day, Abimelech is playing Peeping Tom, and sees "[Isaac] fondling his wife Rebekah" (Gen 26:8). Abimelech freaks out. He's like, "Hey man! She's your sister! Ew!" And the truth comes out. Abimelech must remember all of the impending doom from his dream when this happened with Abraham and Sarah, because he proclaims that any man who harms Isaac or Rebekah will be executed.

Now that everyone's safe, Isaac has a chance to build up some wealth and property.  He does such a good job amassing material goods, that everyone in Gerar gets jealous and kick him out of the country. Once Rich Uncle Pennybags, I mean, Isaac has left, he goes around trying to find a good spot for a well. His first two choices (Esek and Sitnah) meet with local contention, so he keeps moving until he gets to a place where there's enough room for him and names the place Rehoboth (lit.: room). After he's there awhile, Abimelech comes calling and makes pretty much the same oath with Isaac as he did with Abraham.

Then there's a random little interlude about Esau's Hittite wives. Yes, plural. More than one wife. "And they made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah" (Gen 26:35). Maybe Esau was pissed that Isaac let Jacob get away with swindling his firstborn rights from him. Maybe he was just not a nice person. Maybe Isaac and Rebekah didn't like those Hittite women. Who the heck knows? Not my footnotes.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

A Wife for Isaac (Gen 24:1-25:19)

Now that Sarah is dead, and Abraham is no spring chicken, Isaac needs a wife to ensure that the lineage continues.  So Abraham gets one of his servants to swear an oath to go find Isaac a wife from Abraham's own people. By the way, back in those pre-Bible days, they swore oaths by laying a hand on each others testicles. What exciting oaths those must have been! So the servant swears that he will, and even has a get out of jail free card if he finds a good wife and she won't willingly come back. The servant (who remains nameless) takes a bunch of camels and gifts, and he goes. When he gets to the well near Nahor, it's around the time when women come to draw water for their houses.  He prays to God for success, which he wishes to happen specifically.  The servant wants to find Isaac a helpful, submissive sounding kind of wife, apparently.  He says that the first lady to draw him, and his camels, some water when he exclaims his thirst shall be Isaac's wife.  While he's still praying, up comes Rebekah. And that's exactly what happens.  She gets him and all of his camels some water, running merrily back and forth between them and the well.  He then gives her a big gold nose ring and some bracelets, and asks what family she belongs to and if he can meet the family.  Good for the servant, she's one of Abraham's kindred. So they go back to her place, and Rebekah's brother Laban comes out, greets the servant as a guest, and the servant tells the whole story to him. In the retelling though, the servant takes a little feminism away from Abraham and says that marrying Isaac is not up to Rebekah, but her family. I guess a little ego stroking in a super patriarchal society as a means to an end is forgivable...  Anyways, Laban and his father Bethuel agree that Rebekah should go.  The servant stays the night, and in the morning they finally ask Rebekah what she wants.  The menfolk are in luck! She, her nurse, and her maids get on the extra camels the servant brought, and head off to their new home.  Rebekah and Isaac meet, get married, and "Isaac was comforted after his mother's death" (Gen 24:67).

Then we get to hear a tiny, footnote-like blurb about Abraham's second wife, Keturah, and their kids. We also find out that while he gave gifts to his non-legitimate children (a.k.a. everyone but Isaac), only Isaac inherits everything once Abraham dies, which he does at 175 years old.  Thus ends the reign of Abraham.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

No One Likes A Pop Quiz Except Abraham (Gen 22:1-23:20)

"God tested Abraham" (Gen 22:1). Things like this make me glad I'm not among the most faithful. Every single completely devout person in the bible, in what I know of it so far, gets tested in a serious way. Adam and Eve. Noah. Job (eventually). And Abraham. God calls up Abraham and nonchalantly tells him to offer up "your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love," as a burnt offering (Gen 22:2). Well, apparently Ishmael doesn't count, but sons from Egyptian servants aside, Abraham doesn't bat an eye. Gathers up some servants, and he treks to where he's supposed to burn his son. They leave the servants at the bottom of the mountain, Abraham telling them that they're just going to worship over that way, and then come back.  Meanwhile, Isaac starts to get curious... he's noticed that they don't have a lamb to use for the burnt offering... Abraham either is the most faithful, and believes that God will, in fact, supply an animal to be offered without any kind of promise to the kind, or just flat out lies to Isaac to hide the fact that he's about to be slaughtered. Abraham is literally raising the knife to kill Isaac when an angel jumps in and says "Stop! God believes in you now!" And magically there's a ram right there that they can offer up instead, and again more promises of making great nations from Abraham's descendants. I know this story is supposed to illustrate exactly how faithful Abraham is to God, but to me, it's terrifying.  It reeks of slasher movie to me. Only this time, God did step in. And I know that choice is a HUGE issue in the whole God/omniscient/omnipotent problem... but every time there's one of these faith pop-quizzes, it sounds like God doesn't know what's going to happen, which choice the human involved will make. No lies: I didn't expect this to be an issue yet...or at all.

Anyways, after that bombshell, we get a bit more genealogical information. Then all of a sudden, Sarah's died. I would've loved to read her reaction to Abraham confessing to her that he almost killed their miracle baby. Maybe that's what did it. Shock. The tricky thing here is that she died in a foreign country. So Abraham goes about making all of the necessary legal arrangements securing land to bury her in.  The locals try to just give him a spot, but he insists on paying for it, which (according to the footnotes) gives him some serious inhabitant rights. It's a little dry to summarize the section, but all of the little phrases and interjections that point to 'proper legal proceedings' make it sound like being at High Tea with Emily Gilmore.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

p.s. There's a fixed and updated Biblical Family Tree. I'll try to point out when I've updated it... but rule of thumb: whenever I mention genealogies, it's a safe bet it's been, or will shortly be updated.

Screw Texas. Don't Mess With Sarah (Gen 20:1-21:34)

Alright folks, after a brief, riotous American holiday interlude, I'm back!

So post-wickedness/ -destruction/ -incest with Lot, the focus comes back to Abraham and Sarah.  This time, they're living as immigrants in Gerar (no one seems to know where that is). Again, Abraham tells everyone that Sarah is his sister... and again, the king takes Sarah for a wife.  This time, however, God gives the king (Abimelech) a little more credit, coming to him in a dream warning him of impending death and doom because of his actions towards Sarah. King Abimelech asserts his ignorance of the situation. Actually, he pretty much tells God, "Hey dude, not my fault. For reals. Don't kill me." God says, "No worries! Just give her back to Abraham now 'for he is a prophet.' I had already taken precautions against you doing anything stupid." (Which we find out at the end of this particular anecdote. God "closed fast all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah").  Also, when God calls Abraham a prophet in Gen 20:7, it's literally the only time Abraham is specifically called such. Once. Weird, huh? Anyways, when Abimelech tells his servants about his dreamt conversation with God, they experience the fear of God... which Abraham was sure they had none of... which is apparently the reason he called Sarah his sister this time.  But then we find out that she is his sister. Well, his paternal half-sister. There's already intensely more incest in the Bible than I thought, guys. Who saw that coming? Anyways, that little story gets wrapped up nice and neatly with a little prayer from Abraham letting God know they'd sorted everything out and livestock had exchanged hands.

And Isaac is born! And Abraham and Sarah are really, really old when it happens! And more circumcision!

But then Sarah's a bitch. Again. The second that Isaac is weaned, she insists that Abraham send away Hagar and Ishmael (yeah, they're still hangin' around) because she saw Ishmael playing. Now, I need to point out here, that the NRSV gives Sarah a little more wiggle room by saying that she saw Ishmael playing with Isaac as part of the verse. My handy, dandy footnotes, however, inform me that the Hebrew lacks "with her son Isaac," which means that she just happened upon him playing with a little tool set, or ancient hot-wheels, or hop-scotch and was so incensed by his presence that he must be cast out. Abraham is a better guy than that and knows it's not a nice thing to do at all. And what does God have to say about all of this nonsense? God backs Sarah! God says Abraham should do whatever Sarah tells him to do! So the dutiful servant gives Hagar some bread and a skin of water and sends her on her way with her very young child. Not too long after, the water runs out. Hagar cannot bring herself to watch her one and only (mentioned) child die from thirst and exposure, so she puts him under some bushes and sits down "about the distance of a bowshot" away and cries her little heart out. It's a pretty heart-wrenching moment, actually.  But remember what "Ishmael" means?  God hears the boy.  Not Hagar, you know, the one who seemed to be doing the actual weeping and gnashing of teeth... Either way I suppose. So an angel calls to Hagar from heaven and helps her open her eyes to see the well that may or may not have been there the whole time, and they're saved! Ishmael grows up in the wilderness, becomes an expert archer, and marries a lovely, little Egyptian girl that Hagar brings home for him.

Oh, and we're back to Abimelech.  He realizes that Abraham is a Godly man, but that he has already lied once in their dealings together. So they make a pact. A covenant, if you will, that in all of their joint ventures and tradings that they be 100% truthful with each other, and their children forever should be held to those standards as well.  Now that everyone's agreed, Abraham brings forth a complaint against Abimelech's servants who have commandeered a well that Abraham claims to have dug himself. He backs up this claim with a gift of seven lambs...? And there are Philistines being talked about?  My footnotes tell me Philistines don't even exist yet. At least we get a little secret that Abraham kept from Sarah (probably). That well is the same well that Hagar stumbles upon in the wilderness that saves her and Ishmael. D'awwww.

Next time, a story you probably know... and an updated family tree.
<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Wickedness and Incest (Gen 18:16-19:38)

After chilling with Abraham and Sarah for awhile, the visiting emissaries move on towards Sodom, but God stays behind to have a little chat with Abraham. You see, God had decided to not hide what is about to happen from the father of nations, especially because it'll end up being the bloody past of the land they'll all inherit. God will wipe clean the rampant wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. At least, God is going to check out the situation, and make sure that everything matches up to the rumors going around. (Again with that supposedly omniscient thing...?)  And Abraham brings up a good point: What if there are still righteous people in the cities? Do they also get destroyed because everyone around them is bad? So they haggle for human life, with God seemingly in favor of destroying it all, but God gets talked down to 10 people. But any less than 10, and the remaining righteous people are apparently S.O.L.  Wouldn't that suck? To be the one good person in a place and get wiped out anyway?

The two angels (of the three that visited Abraham...the third being God...) get to Sodom, and Lot greets them at the gates, proving his righteousness just enough to pass the test and save himself and his family (righteousness count: 6).  Lot tries to tell his (future) sons-in-law about the impending doom and they just laugh at him and go about their business (down to 4). The angels intend to stay the night in Lot's house to judge just how bad Sodom is.  While they are there, the men of Sodom, all the men, surround the house and demand to see those who would judge them...because somehow, magically, they know they will be judged by Lot's strange visitors.  Or they just feel guilty enough about all of their wickedness and assume.  So Lot goes out to tell them to go away, and offers up his virginal daughters to them to use as they see fit instead of letting them rape and destroy the angels of God.  Nice move Lot. That'll surely prove your righteousness. Also... THEY'RE YOUR DAUGHTERS!! Don't they teach you that in Parenting 101? Don't offer up your children to violence and sexual abuse. That's got to be second only to the your-children-need-to-breathe-air-to-live rule. Ugh. Anyways, instead of giving up his daughters for real, the angels pull Lot back inside and blind everyone outside.

Come morning, the angels tell Lot to get the hell out of Dodge with his family, but Lot lingers.  Really?? Dude. When angels tell you to go: GO! So the angels take them by the hand, and lead them out of the city where God says to them "Flee for your life; do not look back or stop..." (Gen 19:17)  And Lot keeps bargaining. Instead of fleeing to the hills like he's told, he wants to go to the little city nearby because that one can't be bad... it's just a little city. God, who is sick of arguing with him, just says "Fine, Go! Just go now. I've got work to do." So Lot, Lot's wife, and Lot's two daughters go. But Lot's wife looks back, and immediately becomes a pillar of salt. I can't say I blame her. She probably spent her whole life in that city, and just happened to find the one good(ish) guy who moved in. Everything she's ever known is there.  Also, her daughters might've been running behind her in the mad dash. Wouldn't you look back to make sure they're okay? The only thing my footnotes have to say about that is that there was probably a local landmark that happened to be a pillar of salt... I'm not satisfied with that. Poor Lot's wife.  Then randomly Abraham shows up to check out the aftermath of the sulfur and heavenly-wrath-fire, and God kind of does a "see? I told you I'd save the righteous people," thing. Super classy, God, super classy.

Once Lot and his daughters get to Zoar, they don't stay. Lot's afraid of cities now it seems. Go figure. So they go live in the caves like God initially intended. Hmm. Okay. Lot's daughters start hatching plans. They seem to be under the impression that they have no men left in the world other than their father that might be able to give them children. None at all. Apparently the residents of Zoar are all female, or gay men. Seems unlikely. Where was I? Oh right, Lot's daughters were scheming... to get their dad so drunk that he passes out and they can rape him so they can have his children? What? Ew. This leads to Lot's failure of Parenting 102: Incest is bad, especially with your parents. Spread out that gene pool. Night one: the firstborn daughter takes her turn, and, um, succeeds? So she tells her sister that it worked, and then the next night, her sister goes for it. And they both end up pregnant... I wonder how that conversation went... The firstborn daughter's son gets named Moab (a play on "[Of] the Same Father"), and from him come the Moabites. Remember them, they're important later. The younger daughter's son gets named Ben-ammi ("Son of My Paternal Kin") who begets the Ammonites.

And on that incestuous daughters-rape-father unsettling kind of note...

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

What's in a Name? (Gen 15:1-18:15)

"Do not be afraid," are probably the best four foreshadowing words in the bible. I know that they get used at the beginning of a lot of prophecies or promises from God (or an angel of God), especially when Jesus is concerned. Just think about Christmas and Easter. It's all over the place there.  At the beginning of Genesis 15, God says this to Abram, and goes on to answer to the doubts that Abram has about God's promises of land and progeny. Once it's established that Abram will indeed have an heir that issues from his loins and his descendants will be as plentiful as stars in the sky, Abram "believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to  him as righteousness" (Gen 15:6).  And that one verse is how Abram/Abraham initially got his super faithful reputation.  Then they move on to the point about landownership. Instead of just being given (like the heir and the multitudes of nations), there's a catch here.  The Canaanite land that has been promised will belong to Abram and all of his offspring forever...after about 400 years...

Sarai takes matters of the promised heir into her own hands.  She believes that since she can't seem to have children, that Abram's child must come to him another way, though Hagar, her Egyptian slave-girl.  It seems to be common practice in a slave-owning household according to my footnotes, and no one bats an eye at it... until Hagar actually conceives. When she does, she realizes that Sarai is to blame for the idea instead of Abram, and "looked with contempt on her mistress" (Gen 16:4) Wouldn't you? Her child will essentially be taken from her and raised as Sarai's.   Instead of dealing with it herself, Sarai appeals to Abram to intervene.  He basically tells her, "You made this mess. You clean it up." So Sarai opresses her (in the Hebrew), and Hagar runs away.  At this point, the angel of the Lord catches up with her, and tells her to go back and submit because her offspring shall have multitudes of descendants (but the connotation is not as many as Abram's true heir...).  Because God heard her suffering, she is to name her son Ishmael (literally God hears). Hagar then recognizes God as "El-Roi" (God who sees) because God saw her in her struggles. And then Ishmael was born.

Several years later, God comes to Abram again, to make a covenant...again. Seems very much like the same one that they've been making since Abram appeared on the scene. Only this time, Abram is given a new name as a sign of it: Abraham! (literally: ancestor of a multitude). And a new catch is introduced. All of this will only go down if all the males are circumcised. All of them. Slaves born into the house and otherwise acquired too. Within 8 days of being born or right now since they've just brokered this covenant. It's a bad day to be a man. Meanwhile Sarai gets a new name, too (Sarah), and is promised to bear a son of her very own! And Abraham laughs in God's face. She's never had children, and even if she had... she's post-menopause. It's just not possible. Then, like a good dad, makes a plea for Ishmael to be blessed instead, which God does. A little. God then rebukes Abraham for disbelieving that all things are possible for God, and that Sarah's child shall be named Isaac (literally: he laughs). After their little conversation, Abraham promptly runs off and circumcises everyone. All the males anyways...

Now it's Sarah's turn to hear the good news. God/heavenly beings appear at Abraham's tent, and Abraham plays the most gracious host providing water, meat, bread, milk, and shade in the heat of the day.  At which point, they/God (it likes to switch around between pronouns) tell Abraham again that Sarah shall have a son "in due season." Sarah has been eavesdropping, and on hearing this, she laughs. She then calls out Abraham for being too old to give her pleasure (same undertones as being known). God then calls Sarah out on her doubt in the Lord, and it's like she remembers who was talking to her. She denies laughing in the first place because "she was afraid." I mean, dude. She laughed at God who not too long ago wiped the earth clean. I'd be scared too. But God is cool with it. Just says, "Oh yes, you did laugh." in a friendly, non-accusatory kind of way.  After all, laughter is the very best medicine.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

All Who Wander Are Not Lost (Gen12:1-14:24)

We've just hardly been introduced to Abram, who will be our next leading man, when God shows up to send him on a mission to find a specific and yet unnamed land. If and when he gets there, Abram will be blessed and the source of a great nation. At this point in his life, Abram is already seventy-five years old... but keep in mind, people are living longer then (or at least they're counting differently). Still, he's not a young man. His apparent faith in God, however, sends him forth to search for this promised land... We get another slavery sighting here. Abram and Sarai had slaves.  In packing up all their belongings to venture forth, the list starts with the main players, Abram, Sarai, and Lot (Abram's nephew, if you'll remember from last time), then things, then people they've acquired. That's right: less than things. Anyways, they journey, and eventually God says, "To your offspring, I will give this land." (Gen 12:7)  Never mind that the Canaanites were already living there... But Abram builds an altar to God, and moves on.

While they're doing their nomad thing, there's a massive famine in the land, but not over in Egypt.  So they head over that way. Abram realizes, however, that because Sarai is wicked pretty, if those rowdy Egyptians know that she is his wife, they'll kill him, take her for their very own, and have their wicked way with her. So he hatches a plan.  In order to keep them safe, they'll lie and say she's his sister. Now I'm not really sure why this would keep them any safer than being husband and wife, and while I can get behind a bit of falsehood in order to save your skins, isn't Abram the pious and holy supposed to be better than that?  Either way, they get into Egypt.  All of the officials see how beautiful Sarai is, and like the good little officials they are, run off and tell Pharaoh that he's got a new wife prospect. Bet you can't guess what happens next.  Pharaoh takes Sarai from Abram for his own, and gives him quite the collection of livestock in return. What does Pharaoh get? Plagues. And one less wife. When he finds out that Abram and Sarai are actually married, he basically says, "What the hell, man? Why'd you tell me she was your sister? I wouldn't've touched her if I knew she was your wife! Take your stuff, and go!" So they do.  I'm with you on this one Pharaoh. I don't get it either.

Anyway, now that the gang has food, they take a roundabout way to get back to where Abram built that altar.  There, Abram and Lot try to live and raise their livestock in the same area, and realize pretty quickly that it is a bad idea. The herds are eating them out of house and home all crammed together like that. After much "strife," Abram tells Lot to choose where he (Lot) would rather be, and says he (Abram) will go the opposite direction. So Lot looks around and picks the best spot for himself, which just happens to be right by Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, the very same. It even mentions now how God hasn't destroyed those two cities yet, but that they are full of "wicked, great sinners against the Lord." After Lot chooses, God tells Abram again where his offspring will end up living, in the land that he has been promised.

Now while all of this is going on, we've also got war. One group of kings vs. a second group of kings that includes King Bera of Sodom and King Birsha of Gomorrah. Their names actually translate to "In Evil" and "In Wickedness" respectively, pointing towards allegory (not our last sighting of allegory, I'm sure...) And war being, well, war, people get taken prisoner. People like Lot, for example. Want to rethink where you chose to live Lot? Not yet? Okay...  Abram won't stand for his family to be held captive though, so he charges in with only 318 "trained men" and saves the day along with Lot and his goods, some women, and "the people."  When Abram returned from his great feats of family values and selflessness, "King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High." (Gen 14:18) Bread and wine. I wonder where we'll see that again...  I'd also like to point out "God Most High" in Hebrew is "El Elyon" who was a Canaanite deity, and it just kind of mushes together with Abram's God here.  Without that little footnote, it reads like just an exalted way of calling God.  With it... it sounds like they understand that El Elyon and Abram's God might be the same God, just called different things, and they're cool with that.  Gotta love footnotes.  Anyways, after the blessing, Abram tithes, that is, he gives up a tenth of his holdings to the King of Sodom (who was there the whole time, I just didn't need to mention him again 'til now). The king then tries to give Abram spoils of war, but Abram and his mighty foresight turn it down.  Now the king is indebted to him, which I'm sure will come in handy...

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Look at My Happy Families! (Gen 9:18-11:32)

For most of what happened this time, I've posted a new link! This link (Biblical Family Tree), will be updated  whenever I come across another set of genealogical information. I cheated a little and didn't include the universe's... I figured we'd keep it to people.  A couple notes on it:
1. If the box is blue, the person has been referred to as male.
2. Red for ladies.
3. Black for nations, or due lacking clarity as to whether the name listed was for a person, or a nation, or which gender the person was.
4. Occasional notes within the same box as a person are things that came up while reading. Age, something specifically attributed to that person/nation, name meaning/name wordplay.
Unless I forgot everything about how to draw a basic family tree, it should follow the standard, but please let me know if I'm gravely mistaken. It can be fixed! (It'll also eventually be a cleaner image. I'm workin' with a netbook and Word Starter here.)

So before I got thrown into long accounts of who fathered whom and when, there's a little anecdote about Noah post-covenant. The first thing he does is plant a vineyard, make wine, and gets plastered. Noah gets so drunk that he passes out naked. And then what happens? His son Ham walks in and sees Noah in all his drunken, naked, comatose glory, and warns his brothers.  His brothers go cover up dear old drunky dad with their eyes averted. When Noah wakes up, he knows "what his youngest son had done to him." Yep, this is knows as in some sort of sexual something or other again... Actually from here on out, if you see me italicize any form of "to know," know that somethin' kinky is going on. Might make things easier.  Anyways, because Ham peeped on his dad, he and all his descendants (the Canaanites) are marked as slaves to their brothers (or brothers' descendants). Dear Noah, God just wiped the earth clean because of the wickedness of man. You probably shouldn't drink until you pass out naked, accuse your youngest son of voyeurism when he was probably just trying to help, and then condemn him and all of his children to slavery. Love, your progeny.

After that little gem that no one mentions, we've got family histories and who begets which nations...until Ham's descendants in Shinar want to build a great city, with a big tower in it. You guessed it: Babel.  I remember being told this story. Let me tell you, what I was told is so not what I read. I was told that the people wanted to build a tower so tall as to touch the heavens and be like gods, and when they were succeeding (but not finished), God punished them for their pride by scattering them, and causing everyone to speak in different languages.  What I read went a little different.  The people in Shinar started to settle there, and they made bricks together. Then, they built a city from those bricks, and a high tower in the city (yes with it's top in the heavens), and a name for themselves, lest they be scattered to the winds and not part of a larger community. They were afraid of being separated. And God saw that they built a city, just like people had before the flood. Then God decided that history was not going to repeat itself, confused their language, and scattered them. Not quite the pride story I thought it was. It read like God saying "Now don't start that again!"  And you know what struck me about this? God learned. God saw what happened before, and changed tactics based on that. Are so-called omniscient beings allowed to learn and still be considered all-knowing?

After that bombshell, we get tossed back into genealogy. Shem's specifically. Which brings us to Abram and Sarai.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Noah Already? (Gen 4:17-9:17)

I wonder how frequently I'll be beginning or ending with genealogies...

Before the next post (because there's more family tree listings coming then, I'm sure), I'll be starting a visual representation of the biblical genealogies. I don't know about you, but it'll make them easier for me.  The end of Genesis chapter 4 and all of Genesis chapter 5 are devoted to who married who, had which son, and how old they were when they died.  Spoiler alert: They were freaking old.  Methuselah old, literally (nine hundred sixty-nine years old! 969!).  The youngest person listed is Enoch, and it's actually unclear what happened to him, at three hundred and sixty-five years old.  Everyone else is listed with "and he died" at the end of their little blurb, but Enoch "walked with God" after his son Methuselah (the very same) was born. And he kept on "[walking] with God" for three hundred more years, and "then he was no more, because God took him." Okay...? Could this be like, a comatose situation? Literal walking with God? Or maybe severe depression at the wickedness of humankind that after three hundred years he could stand living no longer and took his own life?  Either way, at the end of this branch of humanity's family tree, we get to Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

While those boys were up and kickin', the world was a bad place. Humans were wicked and violent. The sons of God came down and took human wives because the ladies were so pretty. It seems like God wanted to get a handle on the situation because God cut human lifespans way down to a measly 120 years. Guess we can't go for Methuselah's record now unless we change the calendar and counting system all around... Are we sure they hadn't done that in the first place? Anyways. The Nephilim also get mentioned in the wickedness, and my footnotes say that they are possibly synonymous with the sons of God. What is this nonsense you say? Well, when in doubt: the Internet. I found some pretty weird things, and a lot of photoshopped pictures, but Wikipedia seems to have an okay page about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim  So with all the wickedness abounding, God saw that humans are inclined to be evil. It seems to be our nature. Evil enough that God regretted making us so much that God decided to Etch-a-Sketch the Earth clean. I don't know how I feel about God regretting humankind, even if it was before starting over. While I understand that God is supposed to be infallible, don't you think that that would mean that God is incapable of making bad things? I know that with choice, good things can go bad, and choice makes life interesting, but still. When I read Gen 6:6-7, it sounds like God is saying "My bad. This sucks. Let me clean up after myself." And after fessing up to that, God noticed Noah, like some kind of happy accident of righteousness.

Noah is described as "blameless in his generation" and walking with God (like Enoch?). Because of Noah, God decided to not kill off everything... just, you know, most things... except fish. The whole story only ever discusses fleshy things that depend on the breath of life and that walk or creep on the earth or fly in the heavens. Apparently the fish were right the first time. So God tells Noah to build an ark, which can also be translated as chest, box, and basket. Picture that. Big floating wooden box... weird, but kind of neat. In the ark, Noah is to take his whole immediate family (wife, sons, and sons' wives), and two of every land dwelling creature. Not that it's said in so many words, but mating purposes.  Oh, but there should be some extra sets of the clean animals. Not for eating though, because animals aren't food yet, just for fun. And it's an itty-bitty living space for all of that. 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, 45 feet high (yeah, I did the math). For two of each animal, bird, and creeping thing in existence, plus Noah and family, plus food for everything/one. But Noah did it, and God made the waters come (not only rain, but from under the land as well) for forty days and nights, as promised earlier, and then leaves it sit for 150 days.

"But God remembered Noah" and caused the waters to start receding. Nothing else is said about God remembering here, but to me, that implies forgetfulness. It's not like God had a million other people to watch over. They've all just recently drowned! Isn't God also supposed to be omniscient? How does forgetfulness play into that? So far God is not being painted as the picture of divinity in this story. Let's see how they deal with that later...  Anyway, Noah starts using birds to test out the waters and to find land.  First a raven, an unclean animal, that finds nothing, nothing, and more nothing. Then, a dove. First try, nothing. Second try, an olive leaf! Third try? One less dove. Presumably it's off nesting somewhere, building a pretty home for its lover that it met on its Gilligan's Island style three hour tour.

Now that land is back, Noah and his family venture out.  Noah being the stand-up guy that he is builds an altar and gives a burnt offering to God of those extra clean animals he was supposed to bring along. Because God so liked the smell of the offering, God resolved to do a few things:
1. Never again curse the ground (like God did when Adam and Eve ate from the special tree, or when Cain murdered Abel).
2. "Destroy every living creature as I have done," i.e. with a flood.
3. Give humans complete reign over the animals, including when to kill and eat them. Yep. As long as humans kill the animals wisely, and there's no blood left in 'em, beef is what's for dinner.
4. Requires blood for blood as far as humans go, establishing law essentially. Even animals can be held accountable (and will be apparently) to this if they kill a human.
God then seals this covenant with a rainbow. How pretty! Granted, it's a large scale symbolic representation, where "hanging up a bow signifies retirement from battle." God reiterates though that God will never again wipe the earth clean with a flood. I spy with my little eye a loophole... hm...

Until the next genealogy,
<3 Agnostic in the Pews

Oldies but Goodies (Genesis 1-4:16)

"In the beginning when God created..."
Genesis begins with the familiar six day plus one creation story. God sees "the primordial chaos," and starts sorting things out. Light from darkness. Sky from waters. Land from seas, and vegetation on the land. Specific tasks for lights to dictate passage of time. Sea monsters and birds. Cattle, creeping things (yes, specifically creeping things), wild animals, and finally humankind in God's own image, male and female, and God gave the living creatures "every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food" (Gen 1:29). And once God finished this process of creating, on the seventh day the Creator rested.

It's interesting to note that most things in the progression of the creation story fall into line with how scientists have discovered the Earth to have come into being and evolved life.  With that, we have our very first biblical genealogy of... the universe. The story even ends the way the familial genealogies do. "These are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created." (Gen 2:4) We also get the first, albeit indirect, mention of the divine court. In Gen 1:26, "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image...'" Now, I'd like to point out that little translation footnote that pops up at the bottom of your page, at least throughout the sections I'll be discussing today. In Hebrew, the word that means "humankind" or "man," until a woman is on the scene, is adam. My footnote (and my mom), told me that in Hebrew, species are always designated by the masculine and feminine forms of the word, except for adam. "No creature born of earth ('adamah) is yet a fitting partner." But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I was still talking about the first creation story.

What's that? There's only one? Nope. The first one is very mystical and full of warm fuzzies, with God kickin' back at the end and having a little holiday...holy day... see what I did there? Okay, I'm a little sorry for that one.  Anyway, after God rests, we back-track to what seems like day number two. We've got heavens and earth, but no vegetation yet. While a stream is rising forth from the earth, as it seems wont to do, God forms an adam from the dust, and breathes life into, well, it.  Now that God's got a human, what's God to do with it? Let's give it a garden to tend with plenty of food to eat, and only one rule (Don't touch that special tree). The human got lonely though, so then  God made the animals with the purpose of the human finding a partner. Now, if this weren't before one of those special trees... that could have a whole other kind of terrible, spoiling of innocence type meanings, but the human didn't know about any of that yet. Still, as we know none of the animals were a suitable partner, so God created another human from the first human... and here's where physical sex differentiation comes in. The first human is in the habit of naming things, like all those animals, so he names himself Man, and his partner Woman (ish and ishshah respectively). Nakedness and innocence abounded.

Enter stage left: the serpent. Sneaky little creepy temptress. It uses doubt and curiosity (one of the best and most dangerous traits of humanity), to persuade the woman into eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and because everyone else was doing it, so did the man. In that split second, they became ashamed of their nakedness and tried to hide it. Bad call, 'cause now they've been caught red handed and won't admit it without blaming someone else. The man even blames God for it because God gave him the woman.  So what happens now that everyone's guilty and shameful? Well, the serpent (and his family forever) is cursed to crawl on it's belly and be hated by the woman and her children (forever). The woman has to suffer during childbirth, and be subservient to her husband, yep, husband. And the man? Well instead of just tending a pretty garden, he and his family are cast out and made to toil for their bread. Oh yeah, there's bread now instead of just fruit to eat. Also, the ultimate punishment, now humans die. Thanks guys. Way to go... I totally wouldn't ever have done the exact same thing probably even without the serpent's tantalizing words.  I never was very good at following directions.

And here we are at sin. God gave specific directions, and then backed away for a bit, allowing choice to come into play. I mean really, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil probably had seeds, and according to God's own words (see creation story numero uno) was therefore food.  But God said not to eat it, and even said gave the worst of the consequences: death.  They still ate it.  What does that say about humans? Definitely that we're fallible. Too curious perhaps? Maybe just stupid? I mean, talked into it by a serpent? Still... we love to have that choice thing in play.

So we've got choice. We've got sin. We've got banishment and painful childbirth and toiling. How about a little murder too? By this point, the man is going by Adam, and he named his wife Eve (life-bringer). He "knew" his wife (yes, knowing her biblically, which is to say: sex, and yes this "knowledge" seems to have come from that tree), and Cain was born! By the way, so far, the bible loves punny names. Cain, in Hebrew folk etymology is "production." He was the first product of man and woman *ahem* knowing one another. He also had a brother named Abel ("emptiness, futility"), and together they had the first sibling rivalry. Cain grew crops while Abel tended sheep, and one day they both put forth an offering to God from their respective farming endeavors. God accepted Abel's, and not Cain's...for no apparent reason. I don't know about you, but I'd be pissed if that happened with my sisters and me. God calls Cain out on it, and tells him to do well in order to be accepted and not sin. So what's Cain do? Well he lures Abel to a field, kills him, and lies about it of course.  Choice again, friends. What do you think would've happened if Cain just said, "Okay God, I'll try harder next time. I'll pour my heart and soul into my tomatoes just for you"? Maybe it's just me, but in reading it... it sounds a little like God is pushin' his buttons to see how far Cain'll go before he snaps. Either way, Cain chose to do a terrible thing and commit the first premeditated murder, and God punishes him by marking him,  and making him wander all the days of his life.

So I know that was like, three stories all at once, but it seemed weird to break them up. They also bring up massively huge issues that are consistently struggled with, not only throughout the bible, but in theology and philosophy and art and just, life. Process. Choice. Sin. Punishment. Even on a slightly smaller scale: Women's rights, the relationship and "alienation between humans and animals" (footnote p.10), and how we figured out how to make bread.

Opinions, thoughts, comments, questions are always encouraged.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

"In Search of the Silver Lining"

Today is Father's Day here in America.  Like Mother's Day, it can be loving and full of praise and wonderment at how our parents do everything that they do. On the other hand, these two days also drag strained parent-child relationships into a harsh light, or cause us to grieve anew if we are without the celebratory parent.

The Old Testament lesson today was 2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15.  I'm not going to go too far into the actual story yet, as it looks like it'll be cropping up in the not too distant future, but the point was that because David killed a man to have that man's wife, and therefore scorned God, "the sword shall never depart from [David's] house," and David's son with that woman died because of it. In the sermon today ("In Search of the Silver Lining"), my Associate Pastor called for us to be able to lay down our families' swords to better find the silver lining.  She discussed a genetics study that discovered how a parent's childhood and stress levels can impact that parent's DNA, which in turn gets passed to his or her children. (I found one such study here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830144630.htm)  So you have an anxiety prone parent? Do you also suffer from anxiety issues?  How about depression running in families? I see it. I know this argument gets into Nature v. Nurture, and I don't really want to debate that now, but how often do you realize that you are acting just like one of your parents? It happens to me all the time. Mostly like my dad, but I've got mom-moments too.

Anywho, it's up to us to continue or break the cycle, and in the case of destructive relationships... lay down the sword, and move past it. My pastor also spoke candidly about her own childhood, relationship with her father, his Bipolar Disorder, and his dementia. She's not much for celebrating the parent days, but did send him a gift this year: a letter, thanking him for giving her the gift of her experiences, friends and family from Colorado. She found the silver lining to their relationship. I cried. In my last post, I mentioned my own mother's dementia, and how I'll be using her bible for this project. While I mentioned baggage associated with that, I was hardly even scratching the surface. My mother and I had a tumultuous relationship at the best of times. The number of times I screamed at her how much I hated her, ran away because I was lit up with anger (only to come back later that night), tried to move out... I don't even know anymore. A lot has happened between then and now, a lot. But now that I'm an adult and could make peace with, and maybe even befriend my mother, I can't. She can't even speak real words most of the time anymore.

So Mom, this project seems to be my letter to you, thanking you. Even though it will still be there for me to see, and remember how sharp it is, I'm laying down the sword.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

The Tale of Two Bibles

The bible I ordered arrived in the mail today! I flipped through it, read the introduction, and everything is pretty much as I expected to find it.  There are brightly colored maps, lists and mini-bios of important people (both biblical and non-biblical for those who get mentioned in the notes), suggestions on how best to read each book, even different techniques to reading the bible itself. It breaks it down into three different commitment levels of reading: a few category based two week stints, a six month general overview that hits every book, and a three year plan for every word... Three years? Wow. I'm not sure I knew exactly what I was getting into here, but now that I'm here I might as well keep on going. Right? Granted, I won't actually be following their suggested way of reading as it jumps around quite a bit, and will most likely be reading more than one chapter at a time. So everything is in order, except for one small thing. Other than investigating added in discussion questions, I'm going to also be primarily using a different bible.

It belonged to my mother.  I use the past tense because she's in the late stages of early onset dementia, specifically Frontotemporal Dementia.  I have a matched set of baggage to go along with that; believe me. Her bible came into my possession today as well.  My older sister went to visit her today, knowing about this undertaking, and pawed through the bibles she used in seminary, ministry, and personal study.  My sister said she wanted to bring home about six different bibles, but settled on one.  The HarperCollins Study Bible (a link will be added for those interested in this version as well).  She said that it was my mother's favorite.  That it was her all-inclusive, if she could only ever have one book to use forever and ever this would be it, version.  She had two.  One with all of her own notes and thoughts and connections... and one just with her first name written inside the front cover.  The latter will now become filled with all of my notes, thoughts, and connections. I think she'd like that.

So starting Monday regular posts will begin "in the beginning..." Unless, you know, tomorrow's sermon/liturgy begs further discussion.

<3 Agnostic in the Pews

In Order to Understand Where I'm Going...

You should probably know how I got here.

I was raised in the Presbyterian Church (USA). I went to Sunday School every single Sunday unless I had some sort of childhood contagion. My mother went from Sunday School teacher, to Church Secretary, to Associate Pastor. I knew all the stories, and hymns, and traditions. Church was something that I couldn't even believe that other people didn't participate in.  In middle school, I brought my friends from school to my youth group events with such frequency, the senior staff referred to me as "the evangelical," until confirmation class at least.

I went through most of my confirmation class at my mother's church... and then dropped out, inspiring a few fellow confirmands to follow suit. That Sunday, we were talking about who gets into heaven, and who goes to hell.  My Youth Pastor, who was leading the discussion, put forth that if you don't believe that Jesus Christ was your Lord and Saviour, you would end up in the fiery underworld. If you did believe, however, you were saved... but only if you believed. Being the argumentative type, I said, "Well what about Gandhi?" My Youth Pastor then essentially said that because Gandhi was Hindu, one of the most peaceful and loving people ever to have walked the planet was in hell. I simply cannot fathom that. What kind of God would do that?

I started soul-searching. A lot. I still am, and probably always will be. I've learned about all kinds of traditions, religions, and spiritualities that I otherwise may have just skipped over completely.  In the last ten years, the only belief that I have consistently returned to is that there must be something greater out there than ourselves. Whether it's God, or gods, or goddesses, or karma, or even the Force. I don't know, and I'm comfortable with that.

This year has seen several sizable life changes.  Somehow after ten (count 'em 10) years, I'm back attending a PC(USA) regularly. Like, an in the choir, being an adult leader at youth group, part of a bible study group kind of regular attendance. It's a little weird for me, but neither the church nor I have been struck down by hellfire or holy wrath yet.  Anyways, I've decided to do something that I have never in my life ever done before.  Read the whole Bible. All of it from start to finish: Genesis to Revelations... and then probably the Gnostic Gospels, too, for good measure.  And aren't you lucky? I'm going to write about it.

I expect that I'll be reading the Bible from an intellectual/literary criticism perspective while bearing in mind that it is a religious text, and therefore, deeply personal.  I'll be using an NRSV Study Bible (which will be arriving in the mail in the next few days) in hopes that some of the finer points of the geography and important contexts will be touched on, as well as the provision of inevitable discussion questions. As I mentioned, I do plan on reading it in the paginated order it appears between the covers, about a chapter at a time, and posting about three times a week.  I'll even post about Sunday's sermon/liturgy as an occasional bonus!  I do not, however, want to take this journey all by myself, hence the blog. I welcome comments, questions, discussion, links to articles or sermons or even a lesson in Hebrew or Greek. That being said, hatefulness of any kind will not be tolerated. Love your neighbor folks, am I right?

<3 Agnostic in the Pews