Waaaait, whut? Slowly reading and liveblogging the Bible!

Genesis 1:27 and then 2:7-25 - two different accounts of the creation of man and woman? You'd think they'd start with clarity but no.

Gen 4 - Cain and Abel bring God some offerings they grew only for God to act like such a dick to Cain for bringing less that he kills Abel. God then wonders why Cain is being a murderous dick. If he couldn't keep the 3rd and 4th people in check, then psssh is he shit at his job. Wonder what happens when he looks over a bunch of people...

Gen 5 - First mention of anyone having female children. Adam's son Seth has some daughters. And yet Cain and Abel had previously got married, to presumably either their own mother or their nieces. I'm sure much more incest is to follow :D

Gen 6 - So there are some more people about and they are 'corrupt' and 'violent' and in 'pain' so he gives Noah a week to find 7 of every clean animal from the whole world, 2 of every unclean animal (why God created unclean animals I don't know, maybe he got lazy as the 5th day ever went on) and a fucking ark 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. No mention of any help or volunteers although I guess his family chipped in. 7 days! Fucking hell, I couldn't find a stray puppy and build it a dog house in that time. Noah must have been pretty fucking bad ass. Also a dickhead as he seemingly doesn't mind God killing everyone like his neighbours and friends and whoever. This is when he was SIX FUCKING HUNDRED YEARS OLD BY THE WAY. I tells ya, once I hit pension age, fuck building an ark.

6:10 mentions his 2nd son's name is Ham. Lol. Middle child always the unclean meat, amirite?

Anyway, feel free to join in this fun ride of incest, pestulance, genocide and murder.

you should make this a tumblr imo, would follow

Wenger out, Christ in

No mention of any help or volunteers although I guess his family chipped in. 7 days! Fucking hell, I couldn't find a stray puppy and build it a dog house in that time. Noah must have been pretty fucking bad ass.

it was 7 days just to load the animals and family onto the ark, after it was completed. the amount of time it took to build the ark was much longer. c'mon, get realistic about Genesis!!!

Gen 7:24 'The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.'

Gen 8:1 'But God remembered Noah...'

Ok so guesses on what God was doing in those 5 months? It must just take like a week of drowning to kill everything so he then decided to go get stoned or whatever and then had a sleep and then was like 'ooh shit yeah that boat!'

when you get to Song of Solomon i'm going to post lots of pictures of couples making out

Ok so guesses on what God was doing in those 5 months?

it was paying attention to one of the other billions of planets in this galaxy alone

ok well that is only about half of war and peace away so get 'em ready should be any day now

well if i had to look at mars for 5 months i'd get p wasted out of boredom after a while

Ok so guesses on what God was doing in those 5 months?

or, God realized it could zoom in on an electron so far that the space inside the electron became another universe, which itself contained trillions^9999999 of other electrons which also contained universes. God is still zooming in and freaking out

lol he's God and he made that shitty electron, k, he should not be freaking out at his own shit

can't wait til u get to the book of revelations, save the druggy talk for then

i'd prob recommend just skipping to the end to read it tbh

*revelation

Gen 8:20 - Good to know the only reason Noah took the clean animals was to sacrifice them after the waters left, in the name of God. That was not at all pointless, nope.

a goy goy

Gen 8:21 The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma* and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood."

WITH YA THERE GOD, I BLAME WHOEVER CREATED THESE HALF ASSED MEN WITH THEIR EVILNESS. That workmanship was pretty shitty end of the week work. Oh also if a bbq is all it took for you to stop murdering everyone then I don't even know...

*of animals being sacrificied, wtf

Gen 9:13 confirms God got stoned imo - "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth"

Gen 9:20 - Ok so after being part of the murder of everyone he knows, Noah does the only sane thing imo, in starting a vineyard and becoming a depressed drunk! This was God's saviour! :D

Oh wait, but it gets better.

He gets so plastered he decides to take all his clothes off and pass out. Finding out, his sons cover him up only for him to catch the youngest son Jappy (9:25) and curses him for covering his naked drunk arse up and makes him his older bro Shem's slave!

Damn drunkard Noah.

was that a burnt offering? the Lord smelled some bbq iirc

Jappy and Shem are great comedy duo names!

its actually japheth but i prefer jappy

it was bbq

and then, according to my dad while teaching me and the rest of my sunday school class, Japheth's descendants spread into Africa, retaining the Curse of Seeing Noah's Balls, and that's why Africans ended up as slaves and have problems with famine.

this belief is actually "a thing" among lots of people.

mazing

ok so boring bits about having kids etc. and then

Gen 11 - they build a city and the tower of Babel and God is all 'fuck you being able to get along and speak to each other and do something productive! didn't you learn anything from my previous floods? (errrr.....)' and knocks it all down, presumably in a way as horrific as 9/11 was for us to go through, and then condemns everyone to the opposite ends of the earth to not be able to communicate with each other.

...I don't get it. 'I don't want you being violent towards one another and I'm going to kill you all to show you how much i don't like this'. 'I don't want you doing peaceful things together and I'm going to kill a bunch of you to show you how much i don't like this'. MAKE YR FUCKING MIND UP, DICKWAD.

That Noah's Ark movie Aronofsky is potentially doing with Christian Bale will be good for a few laughs i reckon

Ok so Abram and Lot... Gen 12:4 onwards First God colonalises (sp? argh fuck it, i'm 3 beers deep) the Canaan for Abram, and history has taught me that this may not be a smart idea. But its cool, Abram now leading Canaan fucks off as soon as famine hits (12:10) to Egypt, like any great leader would and we know God certainly has a good track record of picking his guy so...

In Egypt he tells them his wife is his sister and so the Pharoah fucks her thinking he was ok with bros before hoes and he wasn't stepping on anyones territory (12:15) only for God to be like wtf Pharoah, why you fucking another dudes broad, here have some diseases for yr sins! And then Abram and Sarai run away.

Fuck knows what the people God decided against before picking Abram were like if this is his #1 dude.

Gen 15:3 - Is it cool for Abram to bonk his servant because it was pre'do not covet yr neighbours wife'? or just because she isn't married? wonder if sarai is cool with this adultery. man god knows how to pick 'em. first they eat the fruit and raise their sons to kill each other, then there is the drunk, now this guy is going around fucking what he can! 3 for 3.

ok so i feel at 15 pages a day i can stay sane and also have it done in about 3 months. In this time I have also drunk 3 beers, put some washing on, made it to 7th after 14 games (a great feat considering I was predicted last) while also buying two sweet looking Danish regens and uploaded like 10 albums I've been meaning to do for ages. Productivity!

See you tomorrow bitches.

...I don't get it. 'I don't want you being violent towards one another and I'm going to kill you all to show you how much i don't like this'. 'I don't want you doing peaceful things together and I'm going to kill a bunch of you to show you how much i don't like this'. MAKE YR FUCKING MIND UP, DICKWAD.

well, in the case of babel god was angry because the humans thought they could build a tower so high that they'd be like god. which is UNACCEPTABLE because they might be able to kick him in the face up there

oh shit yeah

that plus the whole tree of knowledge thing - god must love day time tv keeping the masses from thinking or doing anything

Because I read the Bible at the same time as Greek mythology I could never look at the God I was taught in the same way again. Yahweh -- petulant, jealous, mercurial, and not very smart.

Harold Bloom's Book of J is essential reading.

let me get through this first

let me get through the first book first

btw i know fuck all about the bible other than like moses killed a bunch of egyptians because of slavery and jesus knew a hooker and was in a mel gibson movie because he likes seeing jews die, so this thread may not be v. scholarly

as a good catholic i feel like i should start liveblogging arsenal's start to the season in retaliation

My favorite part happens around the time Moses in wandering in the desert starving with everyone. At some point God manifests as a cloud and starts flying around singing a song about how awesome he his.

his = is

Moses as the first 'Old man yells at cloud' then

as a good catholic i feel like i should start liveblogging arsenal's start to the season in retaliation

― talking heads, quiet smith (darraghmac), Monday, 19 September 2011 23:16 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wait you havent already been doing this along with all of ilf? i guess you did spend many hours and days talking about yr mancrush on wayne instead

petulant, jealous, mercurial, and not very smart.

This was not an inaccurate view.

lol @ old man cloud etc

Indeed:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110624230054/simpsons/images/f/f7/Moses.jpg

i guess reading this in 2k11 is too late for me to be all 'hey fucknut stop it w/ the spoilers' huh

total deus ex machina ending...

in the special edition release, jappy shoots first.

would be nice to get some fucking director's commentary

I tried to do this last year and didn't get past genesis tbh

kids bibles are (used to be?) pretty kickass. absalom stuck in a tree! jezebel wau! elijah ascends on a whirlwind but elisha is merely a canadian actress featured in 24! cuts out the begats and shit iirc

in the New Testament

SPOILER ALERT

Jesus weeps.

Alfred OTM wrt the Book of J

i've just smoked one (1) joint, opened one (1) beer and my team have just pulled one (1) back against a team they should be already beating. Welcome to part 2.

You just don't see phrases like Gen 15:9 anymore: So the Lord said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."

early amazon wishlist

fuck that, that's my standard order at arby's

Ok so God sees the whole israelite slavery debacle coming 400 years off (15:13/14), decides to wait until he can kill a bunch of people until to do anything about it. man this God is shit at his job.

oh man 15:17 was so much more fun until i googled to see what it actually is and i can't spell: When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking brazier with a blazing torch appeared and passed through the trees."

Smoking hot boobies!

oh its cool dudes abram's wife encourages him fucking the slave

Gen 16:12 as said by an angel to the maidservant Hagar about her bastard child, "He will be a wild donkey of a man."

That son grew up to be one of my childhood heroes.

Or like the progenitor of Mohammed according to some!

Gen 17:11 God tells Abraham (God changed his name because we needed some real old man shouts at cloud references) to cut his dickskin off and everyone elses too. God is a penis sadist yo.

So the Lord said to him, "Bring me a heifer...

As a little kid, I had major trouble with the concept of God ordering animal sacrifices.

ts: maidservant hagar vs. manservant hecubus

p certain god just got a 90 year old married lady pregnant, kinky bastid.

the context for the bizarre ages of various people in Genesis has never been explained to me. I assume there's some kind of numerology involved, but who knows. Granted most of this was "written" prior to the invention of the solar calendar, but whatever...

loooool sodom and gommorah not passing the test of rightousness. god sends down some angels and 19:5 Lot gets asked "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that can have sex with them." Boom.

Ok that was some man on man angel rape fetish shit! And Lot replies by pimping out his daughters instead! ~classy~

daughter pimping was the style of the time

aaaand we have God's second act of genocide. goodbye s&g, you seemed like a fun party town.

That part is interesting in a really horrible way. Have read an exegesis of it that claims that the real sin wasn't homosex, it was the sin of inhospitality/a betrayal of someone who was protected by guest-right custom.

ok WTF

19:33 Lot's daughters get him so drunk they can rape him... Man this is some fucked up chapter. AND THESE WERE THE PEOPLE GOD SPARED.

yeah I've read that too.

altho God gets pretty explicit about the homo-hate in Leviticus

xp

shit there was something interesting about 19:33 in that Crumb version I read recently but I'm blanking on what the explanation/interpretation was

ffs abraham pulls the "she is my sister" thing again and God smites another dude who bangs his 90 year old wife. Think they were just into swinging tbh and god needs to lighten up.

Oh God needs to lighten up alright lol

oh wait snap 20:12 "Besides, she really is my sister" on his father's side. Damn God picked the most incestous dudes in Abraham and Lot to be his prophets. Not that either of them have done anything v. 'prophety' yet, they've just had lots of weird sex related issues and been part of colonialisation and blowing up towns.

how is this for a punishment 20:18 "for the Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Abraham's wife Sarah".

ftr these dudes aren't prophets, they are "patriarchs"

huh im sure i read 'prophet' somewhere but there are 1500 pages to go, there is no time to turn back.

altho God gets pretty explicit about the homo-hate in Leviticus

Of course there are alternate readings for all of that, too! May as well wait til a hoy hoy get there, though?

side question (apologies if you've already noted this, ahh): what version/translation/edition/etc. are you reading for this?

some boring stuff, sarah gives birth to isaac, there is a treaty over some water, abraham tries to sacrifice as a test by god, the usual...

I hate to break it to you but it goes on like this for the rest of it

it is "the one i bought for £1 at a charity shop". It says in p big letters on the front "New International Version" but that is about as specific as it gets so...?

Of course there are alternate readings for all of that, too! May as well wait til a hoy hoy get there, though?

sure, Lord knows most of Leviticus is pretty fucking boring

New International Version is the version, then.

That is specific enough, probably; the NIV is a "thing". xp yeah

I actually really liked Leviticus when I was younger. All that touchy feeling stuff in the NT with stupid disciples was boring as heck.

Sarah dies and then Abe is almost immediately all (24:2) "Put your hand under my thigh" to a maid. Dude was the Michael Douglas of his time.

it is "the one i bought for £1 at a charity shop"

lol

lol the thigh touching servant is then referred to as "He"

Uh "thigh" does not mean thigh, btw.

what does it mean then and also why ruin the man love fun

It's a translation/cleaning-up of Hebrew for genitalia. The explanation for having someone swear an oath while touching it has to do with Abraham's circumcision and how since God had commanded it, it made Abe's prick holy, a sacred object (explains a lot amirite?) so it was proper to swear on it.

Ok so you made it even better. Always <3'd you Laurel.

"Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."

I said this last time I went to Mantrap.

That part is interesting in a really horrible way. Have read an exegesis of it that claims that the real sin wasn't homosex, it was the sin of inhospitality/a betrayal of someone who was protected by guest-right custom.

yeah that's the way it reads to me too

I dunno about you but as a 'blessing' I don't see being asked to 'increase to thousands upon thousands' (24:60) as being something nice to say. Rebekah's vagina would just hurt so much after like the 300th offspring.

the context for the bizarre ages of various people in Genesis has never been explained to me.

1. if you add up the lifespans of all the people up to jesus (it lays it all out in the infamous 'x begat y begat z begat begat' shit), it adds up to about 4000 years. that's where all the "earth is 6000 years old" shit comes from (4000 from adam to jesus, 2000 from jesus to today). and it's 6000 years WITH everyone living 600-800 years back in the day! if that was crunched down to people living only 50-70 years, than the bible would be saying that from adam to jesus was only 2000 years (or whatever), and that the earth is only 4000 years old total. and that's even more hilarious than saying the earth is only 6000 years old. hence, everyone lived for a very long time back in the day.

how did they live so long?

2. the closer you get to the people who lived in the garden of eden and their direct descendants, the longer people could live. because they were eating magical fruit in that garden over there.

The whole "men's things are holy now" thing comes up (I don't even) in other places in the OT, too, and it's always because of circumcision. Just keep in mind that thigh always means genitals for both men and women.

omg we have found whiney and deej's ancestry *drudge siren* there were a type of people called the Asshurites *drudge siren*

yeah this is all p phallic and i'm only 26 pages in

the closer you get to the people who lived in the garden of eden and their direct descendants, the longer people could live. because they were eating magical fruit in that garden over there.

this is how reading C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew helped me a lot.

how so? never read it.

26:9 Isaac plays the same trick on Abimmy his father did. Dude just cannot fuck a guys 'sister' without it being a con.

as Isaac lays about on his death bed, all he seems concerned with is 'tasty food'. if this was tv you would def. need a sitcom writer to come and punch this scene up because otherwise its dull as shit. Oh and then he died.

and that is it for today folks. happy thigh touching blessings to you all, i'm gonna roll another and play football manager.

how so? never read it.

Briefly: a Son of Adam plants a tree with mystical fruit which protects Narnia from evil for centuries.

as Isaac lays about on his death bed, all he seems concerned with is 'tasty food'.

'tasty food' is an old testament euphemism for 'another sister that i haven't slept with yet'

Of course that whole death-bed scene isn't about tasty food, it's about blood sacrifices and blessings and primogeniture and stuff, but you could have guessed that. P much you shd just assume that nothing is about what it says it's about, and you'll be fine.

yes but on the other hand, reading it literally is p fun

Isaac was the dullest of the patriarchs; even Yahweh gave up on him. He exists to be a sacrifice, marry a pretty little fool, and accept pottage from his far cleverer sons.

bible was better when we thought it was about in-n-out burgers.

esau's a hunk amirite

in old testament, sacrifices were animal style

you shd just assume that nothing is about what it says it's about, and you'll be fine.

^^^

translating the Bible is like the oldest game of telephone in the world

Long thread already but I wanted to point if no one else had already that:

Genesis 1:27 and then 2:7-25 - two different accounts of the creation of man and woman? You'd think they'd start with clarity but no.

Long thread? You should try and find something posted 3 weeks ago on a rolling football thread.

The first reference to Genesis 2: 7-25 I googled (The Message version) came up with this:

At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground—God hadn't yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)

Really?!

well, the original says that a mist came up from the ground and watered the earth. nothing about underground springs

He just built the place, geez. Let a God get around to doing the plumbing.

There's quite a respectable body of thought that considers chunks of the early books as originating from (at least) dual sources and traditions, usually evidenced by the two different names for God. I of course believe that these stories are amalgams of traditions and authors (common sense seems like a strong argument, but there are plenty of reasons to reject single authorship), but names don't seem that strong a case - fashions within a generation, or family in power, could account for that. If it's particularly worth worrying about - I only took divinity for credits, and my historic studies were NT, with just a but of the old school stuff.

And aside from the American literalists/fundamentalists I don't think there are very many protestant who believe the pentateuch/torah was written by Moses - I'm not sure what the RC position is though.

SPOILERS

jesus is the son of god

"nooooooooooooooo!"

SPOILERS

"AMEN"

lol wut ppl think its written by moses? had a lot of time in the desert to kill i guess

Yeah, the first five books. I don't think he had to carve them all into stone...but maybe?

well he had to run away from the egyptians p fast so did he have enough time to pick up a muthafuckin large scroll and a shit ton of ink?

They took loads of stuff with them into the desert. Look at the ark of the covenant, tabernacle etc.

Well, you have to remember that he got crazy old. 120, 130 or so?

classic religious belief is that moses wrote the bible. no one in academia today (unless academia also = idk, brigham young, yeshiva university, touro, maybe notre dame bible dpts) still believes that. everyone basically ascribes to some version of documentary hypothesis

xxxp Priestly vestments and breastplates with 12 different kinds of semi-precious stones on them, I mean the list is practically endless.

i preferred moses's shorter pieces in the atlantic

classic religious belief is that moses wrote the bible.

You mean, the first 5 books of the OT.

classic religious belief is that moses wrote the bible. no one in academia today (unless academia also = idk, brigham young, yeshiva university, touro, maybe notre dame bible dpts) still believes that. everyone basically ascribes to some version of documentary hypothesis

^^^

the multiple authors/traditions thing - especially with the early chapters of Genesis - seems pretty indisputable

xp ie the Pentateuch/Torah.

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that serious scholarship, within Judaism or Christianity (or vaguely Islam) believed in his authorship. But the newer biblical literalists end up having to accept that, just like David's authorship of the Psalms.

just occured to me i should have done this in the church subborad but tevz

When it comes to the the Pentateuch, rabbis have been blogging it very effectively for centuries. Despite the uneven material, it is possible to come up with far more intelligent commentary than, "whut?"

Rashi = world's first liveblogger

doesn't it all just boil down to "whut?" though? I'm sure there's more nuanced and layered whutness going on but it doesn't mitigate the essential "whut?"

sometimes it boils down to gematria

Despite the uneven material, it is possible to come up with far more intelligent commentary than, "whut?"

― Aimless, Tuesday, 20 September 2011 22:28 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

if you dont like the thread, dont read it, no need to be a dick over here

if you dont like the thread, dont read it, no need to be a dick thigh over here

fixed

LOL!

What I said seems like a legitimate pov. But let's suppose you are right and I am just a poopyhead nyah-nyah dingleberry twat. It is easier that way.

I don't think I ever presented this as a massive theological debate into indepth readings. If you want that, you can find it almost anywhere else on earth.

just found this talk on the authorship of the pentateuch. turns out that EJ Young died in 1968. so if you want to hear what people talked like in olden days, listen. http://thegospelcoalition.org/listen.php?file=http://s3.amazonaws.com/tgc-audio/young_edward/young-11_Mosaic_Authorship_of_Pentateuch_Genesis_12.mp3

something about the guy's cadence reminds me of the TV rabbi from Seinfeld.

There's definitely multiple authors. At the very least there are because of the whole translation bit, different people in different places and different times translating from 'source'. All Bibles are compilations of 2nd+ generation sources even if you think Moses stole some papyrus and ink from the Egyptian scribes and wrote it all himself.

Some newer Bibles offer multiple translations alongside each other with commentary, btw.

yeah but fuck that my paperback is the size of a brick as is

again, Alfred's recommendation of the Book of J seems p relevant. iirc many scholars believe there were four diff't hands that went into the writing of the Torah, though I can't remember if one of those hands is the Redactor (the one who compiled and gave final shape to the Torah) or not (wiki seems to think that they--multiple redactors!--were not). J, or the Yahwist, is I think considered to be the earliest source, referred to as such because his/her tendency to refer to God as Yahweh...J is considered to be the source for most of the famous stories in the first five books, including most of Genesis and much of Exodus, and Bloom conjectures that it is possible that J was a woman (particularly, a noblewoman in King David's court); he reads into the Yahwist's stories a much greater interest and sympathy for the women in Genesis than for the patriarchs themselves, though I think he admits that at least some of this sympathy had been obscured by the redactors.

In later books, Bloom toys with the tantalizing idea that the Yahwist may have perhaps been Bathsheba. But you'd have to jump ahead a bit to find out who that was, a hoy hoy...

who decides when 'thigh' means dick or thigh, or 'know' means know or fuck. Always seemed arbitrary to me but i'm sure youse guys can enlighten.

and has anyone ever tried to write a version where when they mean dick instead of thigh, they just write dick?

Contemporary English Version (CEV)
2One day, Abraham called in his most trusted servant and said to him, "Solemnly promise me

Thighs even too racy for these guys

'place your hand on my holy thruster and repeat as follows:'

puts popcorn box trick into historical perspective

man now I want to pick up again from where I left off. anybody know how I can scam get a proselytizer to save me by giving me a free copy of the bible? KJV only, please.

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/

hah the one I was reading before was an e-version - feel like that's why I dropped the ball.

for all you digital biblical scholars, Logos is the best/free ipad/iphone bible app ime

i wanna d/l the bible illegally to see what happens but it may be impossible?

man now I want to pick up again from where I left off. anybody know how I can scam get a proselytizer to save me by giving me a free copy of the bible? KJV only, please.

― Whiney G. Blutfarten (dayo), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 7:10 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark

A while ago, I was feeling the urge to read the Bible and so I googled Free Bible and clicked on the first page that came up, filled out my shit, and waited. A week later, two well-dressed young men came to the door with my free copy of the Book of Mormon.

Best place for free Bibles are hotel rooms

That Bible would probably cost you $65 or more.

rob a priest

Can you read Latin?

and has anyone ever tried to write a version where when they mean dick instead of thigh, they just write dick?

May I present the Ezekiel 23:20 acid test of biblical translations?

The New American Standard Bible 
She lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

The American Standard Version 
And she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

New English Bible
She was infatuated with their male prostitutes,
whose members were like those of donkeys
and the seed of which was to flow like that of horses.

English Standard Version 
and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses.

The New King James Version 
For she lusted for her paramours, Whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys, And whose issue is like the issue of horses.

The King James Version (Authorized) 
For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible 
and lusted after their lovers, whose sexual members were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of stallions.

Third Millennium Bible 
For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

New International Version 
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

The New Living Translation 
She lusted after lovers whose attentions were gross and bestial.

The New Revised Standard Version 
and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.

The Revised Standard Version 
and doted upon her paramours there, whose members were like those of asses, and whose issue was like that of horses.

The Good News Translation 
She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions.

The Douay-Rheims 
And she was mad with lust after lying with them whose flesh is as the flesh of asses: and whose issue as the issue of horses.

The Message 
That whetted her appetite for more virile, vulgar, and violent lovers - stallions obsessive in their lust.

The Complete Jewish Bible 
Yes, she lusted after their male prostitutes, whose members are like those of donkeys and who ejaculate like stallions.

New Century Version 
She wanted men who behaved like animals in their sexual desire.

GOD'S WORD 
She lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose semen was like that of horses.

World English Bible 
She doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

The Bible in Basic English 
And she was full of desire for her lovers, whose flesh is like the flesh of asses and whose seed is like the seed of horses.

Young's Literal Translation 
And she doteth on their paramours, Whose flesh is the flesh of asses, And the issue of horses -- their issue.

Today's New International Version 
There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

New International Reader's Version 
There she had longed for her lovers. Their private parts seemed as big as those of donkeys. And their flow of semen appeared to be as much as that of horses.

New English Bible
She was infatuated with their male prostitutes,
whose members were like those of donkeys
and the seed of which was to flow like that of horses.

Jerusalem Bible
for those lovers of lust lustful as donkeys,
libidinous as stallions

The Darby Translation 
and she lusted after their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is as the issue of horses.

Webster's Bible Translation 
For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

The Latin Vulgate 
et insanivit libidine super concubitu eorum quorum carnes sunt ut carnes asinorum et sicut fluxus equorum fluxus eorum

can't see what's at issue there

That New Century Version translation reads like Cliff Notes.

man, The Message's translator is getting INTO it

I would hate for the Juggalo Bible to be the most plain-spoken and accurate translation, but for that passage it just might be the case.

I don't think I ever presented this as a massive theological debate into indepth readings. If you want that, you can find it almost anywhere else on earth.

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, September 20, 2011 9:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

oh, is it supposed to be funny

Making me mad because of the transparency of insulting all the other peoples you consider to be unlike you and therefore barbaric by comparing them to animals. And then some stupid translator takes your insults LITERALLY and flips it all the way to "and they behaved like animals, and their attentions were gross and bestial". I really hate the bible.

'bible passages that make me feel a little less innocent'

oh, is it supposed to be funny

― golgi, Wednesday, 21 September 2011 19:06 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

no it is supposed to be an encouragement for me to read it and also to open up conversation

it was supposed to be an insult?! "doting" makes it sound like nanny from muppet babies knitting sweaters for her horse pals.

wd (would dote)

JPS 1917: And she doted upon concubinage with them, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.

…concubinage?

best descendents song ever

…concubinage?

followed by "...poppage!"

So we on that train again. And as soon as Isaac dies, Esau has hulked out and shit and is going to rip up the babyface brother of his Jacob, who has fled like a bitch.

oh wait Isaac ain't dead yet and can still tell Jacob his son to (28:2) "go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother's father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there." Nothing like encouraging you to get that aunty booty.

Jacob was quite the stud, marrying Rachel and bonin' her lil sister Leah as well. Oh I guess he marries her too. I can't even find one girl atm, let alone have a whole fam pushed my way.

what you're doing here is similar to what people do when they translate rap lyrics into proper, stodgy talk

no need to get bolshi about it

Leah's the older sister, dude, read better. Jacob wanted to marry Rachel but Laban *tricked him into marrying Leah first*

i mean, for a start you're comparing the word of god to rap, which some ppl could find offensive

oh shit yeah, older sister, my bad.

yeah rap music is so much better than the word of god.

golgi otm

i ain't mad atcha tho

also fyi i don't have any preconcevied notions about the bible and am interested in it as a book of learning. if it just happens to be all lol incest instead then thats not my fault.

Leah's the older sister, dude, read better. Jacob wanted to marry Rachel but Laban *tricked him into marrying Leah first*

in the children's bible i had, rachel's a total babe and leah looks like a man.

basically im not here to be all 'haha christianity wtf' like people are all 'haha rap lyrics wtf'. but you know, god hasn't started with a killer punch.

And as soon as Isaac dies, Esau has hulked out and shit and is going to rip up the babyface brother of his Jacob, who has fled like a bitch.

Wd just like to point out that Esau had WILLINGLY TRADED his first-born rights to his brother for a BOWL OF BEANS. So for him to be all butthurt when Jacob gets Isaac's blessing in disguise is top-level disingenuousness.

what people do when they translate rap lyrics into proper, stodgy talk

me talk stodgy one day

but laurel, he was REALLY HUNGRY

jacob just seems like a real dick tbrr

i'm all about haha rap lyrics wtf but for the most part rap lyrics don't need translation to appreciate the wtf-ness of them.
like 'fuck the police' is pretty self-evident. 'doting on horses' needs some footnoting.

Hungry schmungry, it's a sign that he doesn't take his responsibilities to the family/tribe very seriously, and would be a bad leader anyway.

coincedentally am going slower tonight because i'm currently also watching fear of a black hat

The bible is weird and practically no one in it is likeable at all, really, but Esau is really the bigger jerkstore of the two brothers if you read between the lions.

no need to get bolshi about it

― talking heads, quiet smith (darraghmac), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 9:22 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://files.shroomery.org/files/06-12/285853016-LOL-Jesus.jpg

so Leah tricks Jacob into marrying her and Rachel gets made barren because he doesn't really love Leah and just uses her to make babies? Way to go God. Teach that woman who has done nothing wrong!

I'm kind of into Rahab, she seems all right, and there are some apocrypha ladies who I don't mind (Judith, for one), but mostly no one makes any sense if you read their story as written. Which is mostly, I figure, because they're all just stand-ins for mythic stories that are supposed to get a point across, not actually be ABOUT any of the characters.

...and its yet another excuse to fuck the maid. These books were not written by monogamous wives.

And now Leah has stopped having kids she has given her maid to Jacob to fuck. God damn.

i'm all about haha rap lyrics wtf but for the most part rap lyrics don't need translation to appreciate the wtf-ness of them

this seems like an odd position to take

http://www.womeninthebible.net/Copy_of_Dyce_Jacob_and_Rachel.jpg

Love this, btw

Gen 30:16 "You must sleep with me," she said. "I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." So he slept with her that night.

was a little weirded out to find out from deadwood that they were still doing weird shit like this up till 1800s.

ok when they refer to Rachel stealing her fathers 'household gods' what do they mean?

by the context you've given so far, I'm gonna go with "sperm"

presumably family idols

wtf, he's explaining his take on the bible in conversational english

that's pretty much the opposite of clinical rap description

ok when they refer to Rachel stealing her fathers 'household gods' what do they mean?

Probably statues/worship items/idols. Basically the remnants of their pre-Yahweh allegiances.

The bible is weird and practically no one in it is likeable at all, really, but Esau is really the bigger jerkstore of the two brothers if you read between the lions.

it's been a while since i read the story, but isn't it:

1. esau has the munchies so he trades his first-born son privileges for some tasty broth
2. jacob's loooooooooools
3. esau goes to isaac for a do-over
4. isaac's like "sorry son, no do overs, by the way you have first-born son broth in your beard"
5. esau and jacob have a falling out, esau says "christ, what an asshole." and leaves
6. years pass.
7. in the meantime, esau is just hanging out, building up an awesome tribe/family, romping around
8. at some point, esau's huge crew approaches jacob's crew
9. jacob is terrified because he was such an asshole back in the day. christ, he was an asshole.
10. esau's army gets closer and closer. oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-
11. PUNK'D!! esau's not going to hurt jacob, are you serious? they're family!
12. they make up.

how does esau look bad in this, he seems like a reasonable guy!

Argh sorry phone can't keep up. Hold on.

32:28 Jacob is renamed Israel because over the past couple pages he seems to have grown up, settled his score w/ his father in law, started to travel back to Esau bearing gifts and then wrestled alone at night with a man (God? the next page will reveal) after sending his ladies away.

wait, #4 should be amended to read

4. isaac's like "sorry son, no do overs...well, there might be a way. maybe if i slept with yet another woman and had a son, technically we could call that my "first born (by the new woman, ha!) son", and then when he gets old enough to nod "yes" on his own without us having to physically move his head for him, we could con him into trading his first-born rights for some...for some...ahaha..for some...SOUP!! pfffffffffffffffffT! by the way you have first-born son broth in your beard"

aw man ~spoilerz~ zachery

re: rap/bible translation crimes, the presumption is that you're taking work that is best understood in its original form and deliberately interpreting it in a way to make it look risible, but for modern English speakers, rap doesn't need such interpretation, whereas the bible in conversational English would be much better understood.

ok for anyone else ever tempted to do this, i recommend buying a copy with footnotes or something. so many times i have seen a sentence like 'and this is why they named it [x]' and i'm all 'i have no idea what [x] means, i don't talk 6000 year old yiddish'.

34:2+ - Shechum loves Dinah and yet it clearly says he 'raped' and 'defiled' her. Is this just a pre-marital boogie with good intentions gone wrong in a pre-condom time or is Shechum evil?

but for modern English speakers, rap doesn't need such interpretation

yeah see this is what I take issue with, given the density of slang involved in rap

oh its because he put his uncircumsized weiner inside her!

aw man ~spoilerz~ zachery

i shouldn't do this, but i have to! in Ch. 50 of Genesis, it's revealed that the whole thing was just a big dream, and that far from being magically placed into a garden by some godly misanthrope, humans gradually evolved from apes, gorillas and chimpanzees millions of years ago!

Esau is raised to expect to be the inheritor of Isaac's land, the herds and livestock that are the wealth of of the entire tribe, and the future leader of all these people's lives. This whole bag is supposed to be his RESPONSIBILITY, but when he's hungry, he gives it away for the price of a cheap subsistence meal, which shows you how little he regards his position. Then his father is dying and Jacob's, like, "Remember that time when I gave you the soup?" and Esau shows that he intends to accept the inheritance anyway (I guess he decided he wants it after all?)

I had to answer two phone calls and three emails in the time it took me to write that, and now I've forgotten where it was going.

but esau did hold the first-born status in very high regard, because when it became apparent that jacob was serious, he gets super pissed and ends up having to leave the family and cool off in the wilderness for several years to cool off.

jacob: "bet you a million dollars that i can run to the fence and back in 20 seconds or less!"
esau: *slurping broth* "yeah, whatever ok"
(jacob runs to the fence and back in 15 seconds)
jacob: "YOU OWE ME A MILLION DOLLARS!"
esau: "are you fucking serious?"

ok wtf so he slept with dinah and they are all 'its cool just get circumsized next time' and so he gets circumsized and his family do to and so they DECIDE TO KILL EVERY LIVING MALE IN THE CITY?

not cool guyz. not cool.

(i'm just joshin', by the way. i realize that back in the day people would take the first born status much more seriously, and you could apparently give it away for soup. i just like to imagine the parallel universe where jacob is actually a comedy legend and esau can't believe his terrible luck. also i like to imagine the parallel universe where 1/10th of genesis actually happened)

is there anything worth caring about in the pages of 'and this dude had a son called... who had a son called... who had a son called...' or am i right to skip to the good bits?

Hm ZS you make a good case! I still feel like we don't rly grok any of these episodes but I'm willing to go with "Esau seems like a bro" on this one.

that's the place where you can partially factcheck that the lineage from adam to jesus is only 6000 years. read every line and make notations on the side, it's the responsibility of every genesis reader to doublecheck that shit!

Gen 37 - Joseph has dreams of grandeur so... his brothers try to kill him. Family don't mean shit in Genesis, honestly.

but i dont care about lineage, i just want the wisdom and the soap opera stories (at this rate, it is the second bit.)

oh its cool they just sell him to egyptians for twenty sheckels of silver as a slave

one particularly juicy bit from the discovery of the dead sea scrolls was the hidden addendum to Genesis 37 that revealed that the real reason Joseph's brothers hated him was because wouldn't stop playing that where if you look at the fist below the belt you get to punch the other person really hard in the arm

xp nbd!

Yeah it kind of seems like God keeps choosing THE MOST ANNOYING, MOST NEUROTIC EGGHEADS as his representatives on earth, time after time. You'd think he'd learn.

don't be sarcastic!
http://i.imgur.com/k9JuN.gif

38:1-7 Er is born. God decides Er is wicked - no reason given - and kills him. This was the story of Er.

38:8-10 - Jacob tells Onan to fuck his bros wife. Onan skeets on the floor instead impregnating her. So God kills Onan.

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2009/02/gods-fourth-killing-er-was-wicked-in.html

More information about God's killings, with a chapter on each of the 135 killing events, can be found int the book:
Drunk With Blood: God's killings in the Bible

re: Onan - possible interpretation there is not that masturbation = evil/God will strike you down, but that Onan is being punished for not obeying the wishes of his brother/giving his wife another child

Wiki:

According to Rashi and other rabbis, Er, like Onan, purposely tried to keep Tamar from conceiving, in his case because he was afraid of spoiling her beauty.

According to biblical scholars, the description of Er is an eponymous aetiological myth concerning fluctuations in the constituency of the tribe of Judah, with the abrupt death of Er reflecting the dying out of a clan; the presence of an Er as a descendant of Shelah, in the Book of Chronicles, suggests that Er was in reality the name of a clan that was originally equal in status to the Shelah clan, but was later subsumed by it. The brother - Onan - may represent an Edomite clan named Onam, who are mentioned in an Edomite genealogy in Genesis.

38:13-25 - Judah unwittingly turns his daughter in law Shelah into a prostitute and tries to fuck her, even tries to give her a goat. Gets angry when he returns and can't find her to fuck her after giving her stuff. I'm... not exactly sure about the moral of this story.

and thats it for today. return tomorrow for the (possibly) exciting end to Genesis!

I have a book about sex in the bible that says something about that story but I can't remember what, exactly.

Judah definitely bangs her iirc

The thing to remember is that prostitution wasn't actually considered BAD...for men. It was only "bad" when it transgressed certain holy requirements according to individual circumstances. There's no condemnation of his having slept with a woman he believed to be a prostitute, for instance.

'Tamar (the widow of Er and Onan, who were killed by God) dresses up as a prostitute and Judah (her father-in-law) propositions her, saying: "Let me come in unto thee.... And he ... came in unto her, and she conceived by him." From this incestuous union, twins (38:27-28) were born (both were boys of course). One of these was Pharez -- an ancestor of Jesus ( Lk.3:33).'

hmm ok my text didnt sound like that happened at all via lol translation

King James or gtfo imo

prostitution was sacred back in the day/matriarchal societies etc

one of the things being covered by/and covered over in Genesis (altho this is subject to debate) is the transition from matriarchal social practices to patriarchal ones

^^r. crumb's Genesis made the same point iirc

i think that's debatable cos really Genesis must've been written a long time after that kind of transition happened, always wary of "folk memory" theories of ancient texts they tend to ask more questions than they answer. but reading it as narrative history is a long freaking way from the point, obv

is this gonna become useful knowledge come jesus's homegirl mary?

not really

Genesis was obv written a long time after ANYTHING depicted in it happened. It's really just a MYTH that attempts to explain HOW those things happened. I mean off the top of my head it's the MOST mythical book of the entire bible!

Sorry so EMPHATIC.

xxp

it's not like the whole book is a linear narrative by the same author, it's a little library of stuff some closely related and some a bit random and some apparently thrown in for the titillation tbh

Genesis was obv written a long time after ANYTHING depicted in it happened

^^^this. and since the transition from matriarchy>patriarchy was so long ago, you could imagine how/why patriarchal society might paper over/obscure the matriarchal stuff. ("well we have this story about the sacred priestess being solicited by our man Abraham", "eh, let's fix that a bit, she's just his wife now" etc.)

(I readily admit a lot of this is theoretical/unproveable)

but it does offer convincing explanation for certain strange things in Genesis that otherwise defy rational interpretation

it does but i just feel it begs too much to treat it v. seriously, it reminds me of all the Victorian era attempts to rationalize mythology which i love too for the fun and the imagination but they don't have a lot of theoretical basis yeah?

Yeah but the diff is that there are millions of people who like to tell you and each other that they LITERALLY BELIEVE EVERY WORD of the Holy Bible and who vote accordingly and are generally stupid idiots about it. Personally, I myself far more motivated to look into other glosses and ways of reading it esp when things seem not to hang together, because that's usu a sign that we've missed/lost the real intent and are just listening to a rote story and not getting the right message from it.

do people here hold to the documentary hypothesis? was doing a bit of reading on it and it seems a bit far fetched/forced to me.

I have no idea really. that there were multiple authors over time seems pretty obvious to me - how it all came to it's final form = eh, who knows. we'll never know, most likely.

yeah this is it, people will always posit ur-versions of ancient texts but obv the oral originals can never be proved

Genesis must've been written a long time after that kind of transition happened

If I recall correctly, the non-minimalist documentary hypothesis has the Yahwist and Elohist sources working 950-850 BCE, but figurines of Asherah, Yahweh/El's consort are ubitquitous in archeological sights right up to (and through) 800 BCE. So its not that the Genesis sources were composed long after the transition from a matriarchal-friendly paganism, but that there were some rough edits to remove most references to Yahweh's fellow gods around the time of the Deuteronomist/redactors around 600 BCE.

sights = sites....

Also re: documentary hypothesis - it makes total sense from the stand point of language and story continuity. There are segments of the Bible (in Exodus esp) where the only way a continuous narrative can be extracted is if one assumes two versions of a tale have been interpolated. The best introducttion to DH is probably Richard Elliot Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible.

It fascinated me even at twelve how Yahweh, who presumably knew how Jacob had conned Esau out of his birthright, approved Jacob's actions.

it's like God was the Ivan Boesky.

Jacob didn't con Esau out of his birthright, Esau gave it away for a damn bowl of beans.

to be more accurate, Jacob fooled his father.

Jacob ain't worth a hill of beans.

esau traded his birthright to jacob for some soup.
jacob conned isaac, who was old, blind, and probably senile, into giving him (rather than esau) the firstborn son blessing by putting fake hair on his shoulders and arms in order to trick him into thinking that he was esau. meanwhile, rebekah cackled on the sidelines like a demented broken toy.

::ponders Armour Pottage Meat or Campbell's Chunky Pottage photoshops::

Isn't there a verse about Isaac shaking uncontrollably as the truth dawns on him? I always liked that one.

David Plotz did this on Slate a few years back. The whole Old Testament. And later turned it into a book.

http://www.slate.com/id/2150150/

Where's the book with all the War-in-Heaven and Fall of the Angels and all that stuff? And when chronologically was that supposed to happen, before the first events in Genesis? Before the creation of Earth?

His Dark Materials trilogy

that would be Paradise Lost, and damn, i need to finally get around to reading that. i almost bought it at a book fair a few weeks ago. there was a copy from the 1890s for only 5 dollars, but i opened up the book to peek inside and the smell was like 1000 bodies rotting all at once. i almost passed out, and i'm not the kind of guy who passes out. even hours later, after washing my hands a few times, the stench was still there. crazy.

i read paradise lost last year and it might be my favorite thing i've ever read, i fucking love that poem so much

paradise lost spans a considerable interval of time (satan's punishment was eternal, after all) - the war in heaven was sparked by god announcing his plans to transfer his power to The Son, which satan (and 1/3 of the host of heaven) resented - this was before the creation of the earth. after being sent to hell they determine that perverting man, god's newest and most beloved creation, is their best course for revenge

i'd definitely recommend getting it in book form - i read the norton's annotated, which was great - but it's online in its entirety here, and there's some great analysis in the annotations there too

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/index.shtml

(sorry for slight derail)

one great thing about the norton's version is that it inserts quotation marks to denote speech - believe me, you will be fucking lost at times without this

The original Hebrew Shaitan functioned as a court adversary whose role in YHWH's retinue was to debate and perform as a sparring partner with the high god. Only around the time of the Maccabean revolt in the 2nd century, 6-700 years after the Pentateuch sources, did apocalyticism really take hold in the Levant and the character evolve into a font of worldly evil to rival the Zoroastrian Angra Mainyu. It really took non-Jewish first century Christians to complete the transfomation, in part to demonize the Jews of the day. At least that was my gloss on Pagel's Origin of Satan.

later he appeared as the evil guy in the Wheel of Time!

man now i'm re-reading my favorite sections from paradise lost, so beautiful. read it, ZS

this is a great thread idea and i wish i had the time to give some of this stuff a good adult reading, which shamefully i haven't (i will soon), but between school and my own leisure reading i don't really have the time

I remember the first time i sat down and read the Old Testament, thinking it would talk all about Heaven and Hell and angels and demons. None of that is in there!!!

Paradise Lost yeah it's great. Isn't that a secular source, though? What are the source texts for angels hierarchies and stuff? Is that stuff in the NT? The Zohar? It seems to be very canon throughout Christianity, but I've yet to read it in an 'official' Biblical text.

oh milton made a lotttt of shit up

It's kind of more 'Chrystian myth' rather than scripturally based. I suppose the closest thing to a sola scriptura basis for it is in, uh, a much shorter description in Revelation,

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

I suppose identification of the dragon with the serpent in Genesis meant some shifting in time as Christianity evolved? But yeah, that story isn't really scriptural, and is more an evolution as Christianity absorbed religions, cultures and folk tales as it spread. On the whole the devil isn't much of a figure in the Bible (and even then it's a bunch of different and contradictory roles and figures amalgamated into an idea), regardless of how much people focus on him, and you only really get that stuff in the crazy bit at the back.

I think I've read Paradise Lost more often than just about any other book, really magnificent.

There's a bunch of 'history of the devil' type books if that stuff really interests you, Carus (sp?) maybe the most famous (never read it, and probably a bit out of date acedemically).

Doesn't most of the stuff about angels come from the apocryphal Book of Enoch?

something about "rivers of love", yeah

thought enoch was mo' about rivers of blood due to pakistani immigrants

Enoch is the (canonical in Ethiopia) text expanding on the odd passageGenesis 6:1-4, in which 200 angels tasked with solely observing earthly affairs instead knock up human women, spawning the Nephilim. The Original Sin hence isn't pride, but angellic zoophilia.

Overall about as delightfully weird as the later Enoch:

http://acimg.auctivacommerce.com/imgdata/0/1/0/6/9/6/webimg/3737044.jpg

I read this one book on ancient Jewish magic and a main component of performing the acts was invoking a guardian angel and having them fill you in on the names & hierarchies of spirits, their different strengths and weaknesses. He had a big list of names, many known, many unkown, that he had gathered from this interaction. I bet this happened quite a bit.

shouldnt take kids to nudey films imo

The Bible bit in A Clockwork Orange is so OTM.

I am up and ready and no-one names there kids awesome names like Potiphar anymore

I played Potiphar in our high school production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"

39:11-12 One day he (Joseph) went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She (Potiphar's wife) caught him by his cloak and said, "Come to bed with me!" But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

^^^lol. great image for the first dude who seemingly just fuck everyone, god finally picking people who'll keep it in their pants.

At least that was my gloss on Pagel's Origin of Satan.

^^^this book is so great, highly recommended

re: hierarchies/angels etc most of that is derived from apocrypha (Nag Hammadi, for ex.) and from non-Pentateuch, Kabbalistic sources (Zohar, etc.)

my note next to the wife's made up bullshit is 'damn, ho!'

some people have dreams, joseph tells them what they mean also that you should save for a rainy day (in 7 year long famines, the opposite of a rainy day); gets put in charge of egypt.

Oh this part is goooood.

This guy has this knowledge and he uses it basically to enslave the poor farmers who have no idea what's going on.

noice. where is Canaan supposed to be btw? northern africa somewhere?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan

joseph has imprisoned his bros. no bros before grain policy here.

tybdjp

so irritated that all this "God gives the land of Canaan to the Hebrews!" nonsense is still influencing geopolitics today

It really chaps my hide that a book made up of 100 people's reframings of oral traditions that did nothing but enforce the desired status quo of whomever was in power is now taken as some kind of literal guide. The selective ignorance you have to have already decided to participate in to hold that view is staggering to me.

children will believe anything

is the 'you' in that rant the general christian public l? because i dont think anyone here thinks like that

joseph is just outright trolling his brothers. to think there was a page i was starting to like him.

goes to show that people named Joseph are not to be trusted

Yeah, totally. No one here, obv, but literalism really kills me when people use it as a basis for any non-biblical thing, ever.

joe reveals himself, all happy fam in the end. still a bit of a dick tho.

whoa how did i miss this thread

46:2-4 god comes to israel/jacob in a dream, tells him to go to egypt as he'll make him a 'great nation'. wonder if this influences the europeans going into africa for mass slavery, 'pretend god wants it to happen'.

hey HOOS :D

its cool, i'm only finishing up the first book of 66 (i think?), we got a looooong way to go.

Benjamin has sons named Muppim and Huppim. lol.

joseph - not a communist. collects all money fo grain and now is swapping it for all livestock the starving population have. aaaaand then they sell themselves as slaves and their land to him. man of the people he is not. man who owns the people however.

47:29 oooh joseph touching his father jacobs thigh

The first capitalist

jacob puts the younger grandson ephraim over manasseh, i suspect trouble will brew any second now.

did that crazy fox news guy who always started crying after writing on blackboards ever do a show on joseph? would seem apt.

lol 49:3 a dying jacob tells reubon he won't excel because he went 'onto my couch and defiled it.'

the OG trucker hat

omg

after p much denouncing all his kids on his death bed ('Issachar is a scrawny donkey lying down between two saddlebags' ok dad die already), Jacob says 'Naphtali is a doe set free that bears beautiful fawns' - I presume this means he is token homo child, right?

did homos bear lots of kids in the day or

Jacob dies, they bury him in Canaan with his parents/grandparents. Joseph makes up with his bros and then gets old and dies. And this is the end of Genesis.

It almost certainly does not mean that, but god only knows what it does mean.

in the list of jacobs sons heirs, no mention is made of Naphtali, thus helping along the conclusion of supergayness :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naphtali

GENESIS

Most based, God Reuben
Biggest dickhead God, closely followed by Joseph
Coolest cat The serpant, I guess
Things I've learnt Pretending to work for the people better propaganda for the capitalist in the long run; don't listen to snakes; don't cover the genitals of drunk family members.

Maybe he tried to pick up a deer and it kicked him in the head and killed him.

x-posts

wikipedia teaching me not to skim read. tomorrow i'll start exodus.

This is about to get fun!

Exodus is pretty rockin

http://www.jewishtreats.org/2010/12/naphtali-son-of-jacob.html

In case you were wondering.

I cannot wait until Leviticus 16!

Is that the part about mixed fibers??

Indeed, among much other bizarro shit!

levvy is the 3rd book right? i have been told to expect much craziness

It's all about to go monkey-sided.

Leviticus has, like, no stories and endless prescriptive stuff, some of which is a dupe (or contradicts) Exodus iirc.

I wish Mordy would come give the Hebrew Bible play-by-play. I don't recall the differences between the OT and the Torah, but I think maybe the OT and the Hebrew Bible have things in a different order after the first five books?

Mordy, help!

YO MORDY

MORDY MORDY MORDY

COME HERRE MORDY

YOU HAVE A JEWISH NAME AND I SO SUPPOSE YOU'D KNOW. Q THINKS YOU WILL.

The first 5 books of the Christian bible ARE the Jewish bible, I think. There are side-references and writings ABOUT the writings, though, that could be pretty cool.

rong

that is you just made like a minor error, the Jewish Bible, known as the Tanakh, consists of three parts:

- Torah, the five books of moses
- Nevi'im, the prophets
- Ketuvim, the writings, i.e. random scrolls, psalms, song of songs, ecclesiastes

It's an acronym! Hebrew is big on acronyms.

Whoops! Sorry, I just looked it up and I see that the Torah is only the first 5 books of the larger accepted text.

Book of Tobit (Tobias) isn't in Tanakh or most Protestant Bibles (though it is in many sects' apocrypha)

why did christians take a perfectly good word like "Torah" and dump it for "Pentateuch"?

Tanakh = the Old Testament, more or less

I have never heard of this thing about the OT being in a different order, I suppose that's possible.

why did christians take a perfectly good word like "Torah" and dump it for "Pentateuch"?

because Torah is Hebrew and Pentateuch is latin...? and Xtians aren't into that Hebrew shit, after all they murdered Jesus etc

wait no pentateuch is greek

and Xtians aren't into that Hebrew shit, after all they murdered Jesus etc Not exactly. Early Xtianity arose in a very Hellenized world which was then co-opted by the Latinate world.

is it Penta-TOIK or Penta-TOOK?

The latter usually in English

is it Penta-TOIK

only in New Jersey

Not exactly.

yeah I know I was being a bit flippant.

but Xtians were looking for converts, it was in their interests to use the language of the time/locale (ie, Greek), rather than the tongue of some exclusionary "chosen people" like the Jews

Actually, they didn't do that well with the Jews, famous exceptions aside and by the end of 1st Century they weren't so much sectarian Jews as just a new religion that was pretty much rejected by mainstream Judaism. The Septuagint was translated from Hebrew in Alexandria, then a Greek speaking city (of great learning - until the Xtians burned down their library) and its worth noting that some of the Epistles in the New Testament are addressed to various Greek congregations.

is it Penta-TOIK

If you wanted to be pedantic, it should be penta-tay-uk-(os)

Whether a letter was intended for a Jewish or Greek congregation has a profound effect on how to understand the stories and commands therein. I went to a bible study session (w my parents) in Aug in which this was the main point of the day; made everything about 30x more interesting.

I will summon a Morty by reviving the Hey Jews thread, which is also appropriate given that the high holy days are upon us next week.

A Mordy, even.

Biggest dickhead God, closely followed by Joseph

no contest on #1, but why is joseph a dick? he gets totally screwed by his brothers and then he helps his fam out at the end, even while punkin' them Ashton style!

There is this crazy awesome story in the apocrypha about Joseph and Asenath, his wife. And by crazy, I mean there are angels and bees (BEES!) and rolling in ashes on the floor and all other sorts of wacky going on. Anyhow, I love that story and if I ever convert, I will take the Hebrew name Asenath, 'cause she converted after Joseph set her straight and all.

Anyway I had a point, I think, and that Joseph was very much a bro in this story, widely respected by all, including kings who were down with idols and such.

And he was a total chick magnet.

(of great learning - until the Xtians burned down their library)

Actually a lot of ppl including Caesar and Omar helped destroy the Biblioteka. Veuillez accepter mes excuses, messieurs les chrétiens.

Anyone ever read Mann's Joseph and his Brothers? A tetralogy! I gave up after fifty pages.

Actually, they didn't do that well with the Jews, famous exceptions aside and by the end of 1st Century they weren't so much sectarian Jews as just a new religion that was pretty much rejected by mainstream Judaism. The Septuagint was translated from Hebrew in Alexandria, then a Greek speaking city (of great learning - until the Xtians burned down their library) and its worth noting that some of the Epistles in the New Testament are addressed to various Greek congregations.

right. I don't see how this contradicts anything I said but whatever

It doesn't quite contradict it but I meant that by that time it was largely Greeks talking to Greeks

i'm confused about why you guys need me... you're discussing sequencing?

the torah and OT have the same sequence for the first 5 books. after that they have different orders...

it was the "after that" that was in question, I think

tanach order: Joshua, Judges, Samuel I & II, Kings I & II, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, 12 Prophets, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Ovadyah, Jonah, Micah, Nachum, Havakuk, Zephaniah, Chaggiah, Zechariah, Malachi -- that's the prophets -- and then ketuvim is: psalms, proverbs, job, shir hashirim, ruth, lamentations, kohelet, esther, daniel, ezra-nechemia, chronicles I & II

OT order: depends on catholic, protestant or eastern orthodox iirc and i def don't remember the particular orders tho i'm sure they're easily accessible online

for one, i think only the Tanach breaks Ketuvim/Writings + Prophets down into two particular things. i think the other ones sprinkle them around. also Maccabees, Baruch, + Jeremiah (+ Judith + Tobit and a couple others maybe I think?) aren't in the canonical torah set, only in other sets.

So Mordy if I were to read the Torah in some sort of translation widely used by teh jews alongside the OT, how different would they be? Like, would they be more or less different from one another than say the King James version of the OT and New International or whatever version that A Hoy is reading?

I guess I'm asking if Christians and Jews, reading the OT/Torah in translation, get the same gist or not at all. . .

well yeah, the translations vary a lot esp since King James translates a lot of things in ways that modern scholarship disputes or that early biblical translators (partic unkles + rashi) translated differently. the really famous example is in Isaiah where King James translates that the mother of God will be a virgin when the word 'almanah' probably means 'young maiden' without a virginal connotation. the best torah translation imho is the JPS translation which is also i think standard scholarship text for ppl studying the Tnach

the version of Genesis in my copy of the Tanakh does not line up with R. Crumb's "Genesis", I know that much lol

another major translation difference is when moses comes down from the mountain the word 'keren' is used and i think going off memory that JPS translates it as 'light' or 'halo' or something like that but King James translates it as 'horns' and there's the famous Michelangelo painting where Moses has horns probably bc of this translation variation (and probably responsible for the belief that Jews have horns)

JPS is the version I am familiar with--the Women's Commentary version.

the vulgate translation: cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai tenebat duas tabulas testimonii et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Dei
so cornuta means horns, but if you look at the JPS translation of the same verse

And it cometh to pass, when Moses is coming down from mount Sinai (and the two tables of the testimony are in the hand of Moses in his coming down from the mount), that Moses hath not known that the skin of his face hath shone in His speaking with him,

his face is shining but no horn references

"cornuta"

http://www.angloamerican.free-online.co.uk/cornetto1.jpg

He just had ice creams for everyone!

wld join that religion

i always wondered how that mistranslation really came about

i think it's that the word 'keren' in hebrew as a verb means 'grew horns,' so a reader who wasn't so grammatically savvy either read the word as a verb (when it's obviously an adjective/noun) or didn't realize that it only functions there as a verb. i'm actually not very good at hebrew grammar so i'm kinda spitballing here from memory and could be totally wrong

I wonder if there is such a thing as halo-ology or some-such, because the changing ideas and interpretations (from horns to rays to glow to circle etc.) are kind of interesting.

just ftr, the original interpretation was a glow, the later interpretation was horns

no contest on #1, but why is joseph a dick? he gets totally screwed by his brothers and then he helps his fam out at the end, even while punkin' them Ashton style!

― rebels against newton (Z S), Thursday, 22 September 2011 22:52 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

HE ENSLAVED WHOLE NATIONS

Hey Mordy!

Cain is a pretty huge dick imho.

From book I just started today:

Many (of the prophets) were criminals--and not just for their revolutionary ideas. Isaiah, like many brilliant preachers, had a weakness for indecent exposure. Elisha committed first-degree murder when someone made fun of his hair. Abraham did time; Joseph did time; Jeremiah did time; Daniel did time. So did Samson. Jacob was a con man who spent most of his life on the lam. Both Moses and Elijah were fugitives for committing murder, and so was David, until he returned with a loyal gang of outlaws. The prophet Hosea had a predilection for hookers. Nearly every single one of the prophets was either a criminal or had spent time among criminals.

In answer to the question, "You want to be a PRISON LIBRARIAN? What kind of place is that for a nice Jewish boy??"

EXODUS

MOVEMENT OF JAH PEOPLE

ok p strong opinion for pharoah as the monster heel. can john cena anyone stop him killing harmless jew babies? lets find out.

otoh he does like jew ladies, so we have something in common.

ok so pharoah's daughter finds the baby and gets the boys mother to look after it until he grew up, and then took the jew child as her own. why not just put them to death as a breach of law? was she a bit of an uggo and no-one would impregnate her? why is the pharoah fam generally treated as super evil for inventing adoption? (because they killed and unslaved a race of ppl, sure.)

she doesn't know that Moses' mam is his real mam

Exodus 2:21 Moses marries Zipporah! Zipporah! What a terrific name.

ok but lol at 'bring me a random jew lady to nurse it' and getting his own mam.

It wasn't random though was it?

2:23 yet again God is like oh shit, i remember that this shouldn't be happening! Dude is such a liability.

cos the girl she asks to fetch her a wet nurse knows who the mam is and fetches her on purpose iirc

Zipporah? I barely know 'er

said girl was Moses' sister

there you go

ok one thing i'd like to ask- in a story so familiar to us as the burning bush, we see god/an angel in the flames. and yet in popular culture when we think of powerful deitys surrounded in fire, we usually think of them as devillish characters? Does this changeover happen later? Did the jews get... burnt one too many times relying on this idea? etc. Angels just approach guys in Genesis like bros hanging out, is God just trying to branch out a little, be a bit more surprising?

aand i've just noticed the time and should be getting ready for work instead of this. a whole 2 pages further, told ya it'd be slow.

devil in flames is anachronistic re: burning bush narrative. afaik it was invented in Christianity

Gehenna doesn't show up until Joshua, and i don't think stuff is burning there until Chronicles. an interesting analogue is that Abraham was thrown into the oven of fire by his father (and didn't burn) and the prophets in the time of Daniel who were burnt

(actually, they were also thrown into a furnace + didn't burn)

MOVEMENT OF JAH PEOPLE

― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Friday, September 23, 2011 7:39 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jYMP1tz02Q

the prophets in the time of Daniel who were burnt

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. There's a song about them, u kno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4UO3eZ-rk&feature=related

WE HAD THIS EXACT BOOK IN OUR CHURCH LIBRARY. I remember every single book in this series.

So much trippier than I ever have remembered!!!

Sorry, a hoy, you can't watch that yet. My bad. Spoilers, you know.

:D i don't even know what you are on about. ot or nt? book? seriously you could be talking about pig farts for all i know.

God and Moses enjoy an...ambivalent relationship. Yahweh finds a venal reason to blow up at poor dull Moses.

thakig u a hoy hoy

for what hoos?

does devil (the one god has prop bets with all the time) have an origin story in KJV? are they siblings?

We're just 3 M.C.'s and we're on the go
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego

for what hoos?

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Friday, September 23, 2011 8:32 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

for instruction on what to do when i run out of gancha

re: Burning bush. Maybe it's more like elemental deities of older religions. He also takes the form of a pillar of cloud, which would be the wind element.

Maybe earth is the ten commandments and water is the great flood. The elemental Earthly incarnations of YAHWEH.

does devil (the one god has prop bets with all the time) have an origin story in KJV? are they siblings?

not... really? gonna ref Pagels' "History of Satan" here again, which tracks the progression/development of the Satan character and how it changes over the course of the New Testament.

xp

This thread has definitely ignited my interest in delving into some biblical scholarship. Went to my local bookshop today and kind of stared at the religion section for a bit but didn't really know where to start

Satan starts as a kind of nemesis and gradually becomes the Prince of Darkness.

after robert jordan, i'm definitely waiting til this finishes before picking up bk 1

Satan starts as a kind of nemesis and gradually becomes the Prince of Darkness.

So evil he kills a whole ten people! Compared to God's 2.5 million (lower estimate)

satan and yahweh were real tight in the day but they fell out when yahweh started dating gaia even tho he knew satan wanted to hit that from way back when

stared at the religion section for a bit but didn't really know where to start

can't go wrong with Pagels. Nag Hammadi is awesome. Gershom Scholem for Kabbalah sorta stuff.

One deaths is a tragedy, 2.5 million deaths is a statistic.

One deaths? I meant ten.

actually, does KJV omit origin story for god as well? I don't remember any.

Yeah, definitely gonna take heed of some of the recommendations in here Shakey, thanks

actually, does KJV omit origin story for god as well? I don't remember any.

okay now yr trolling right

I remember there's snippets where god goes "where were you when I did this and that" (probably to Job?) that hint at some background but nothing substantial

God's speech in Job is really interesting but I don't think it's intended as a strict biographical document, more of a "shut the fuck up, you stupid human" diatribe

Whoa where is that i wanna look it up.

btw for satan origin stories check out Isaiah 14 and Ezekial 28

Job 38-41 is the bit about God talking to Job. Some beautiful language there.

ah ok http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+38&version=NIV

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+38&version=KJV please

19 “What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
20 Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
21 Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!

LOL @ this. Good zing, God!

Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?

This is some hard shit G-D is throwing down.

Sorry about the numbers. Those are from the BASIC Bible j/k

King James or gtfo imo

― Louis Jaha (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, September 21, 2011 9:34 PM (2 days ago)

I appreciate this a hoy hoy, but I already did this with a much holier book: The Game.

FYI - as usual, the Lucifer ref in Isaiah is a mistranslation of the original Hebrew

xp

Pagels makes a pretty indisputable case (imho) that the Satan of the New Testament is a wholly different figure from the "fallen angel" referenced in the OT. certainly the ROLE and various characteristics/modes of behavior are completely different.

actually even calling the OT character a "fallen angel" is sort of wrong - the more simple, poetic interpretation of Isaiah is that it's simply describing the course of Venus across the sky

ah yeah my bad. it seems its talking more about babylon and babylonian gods in Isaiah.

I seem to remember their being an "adversary" who debates with God somewhere in the OT, who is some sort of proto-satan figure but I can't remember where

isn't that pool hall buddy satan? the one who started the whole job bet?

it strikes me now how Trading Places is actually the book of Job + Eddie Murphy.

you've got Zechariah 3 with a court room thing going on with Satan as the accuser.

oh duh yeah it is the Book of Job

Well, in the Book of Job, God and Satan meet for a drink and God says, "Have a seat, yo. Have you met my boy Job? He's so good, and he loves me." Satan: "I betcha a hundred g's that I can force him to curse your name." God: "Done."

one of the gnostic accounts, excluded from the bible, provides extensive details of the rest of that night, as god had a legendary puke in the back yard of some random's house with satan holding back his golden mane of hair

I mean, in essence that's what happened! Reading this as a kid made sense after years of watching "Thundercats" and "Transformers." Megatron and Optimus Prime understood that their battle was a game worth fighting with such worthy adversaries.

MOVEMENT OF JAH PEOPLE

― Dios mio! This kid is FUN to hit! (Noodle Vague), Friday, September 23, 2011 7:39 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, September 23, 2011 8:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

3:21+ so God has said he'll help convince pharoah, which is cool. not so cool is that he then not just wants an end to slavery but for all egyptians to give up their goods and "so you will plunder the Egyptians." from one extreme to t'other. no wonder israel and egypt still fucking hate each other.

ok a few things-

God "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?" - Are you srsly bragging about giving people disabilities?

4:13 But Moses said, "O Lord, pleaser send someone else to do it." - I can get behind someone who just wants to sit in the sun while someone else cleans up after them. Good babyface build herre.

ok im confused. moses kills a dude and pharoah and egypt is after him but his father-in-law jethro (lol) who must be phraroahs son-in-law is all 'i wish you well'? pissing off the old man, liable to kill off innocent children? ok jethro, you have a set of balls on ya.

oh its cool, god killed (4:19) anyone who wanted moses dead. or they just mysteriously died, i guess. god totally has an aliby.

god does something stupid and pointless pt. 15

4:21 The Lord said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharoah all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go."

couldn't have just let him be and saved a bunch of ppls lives? huh? no you wanted to kill some first born sons.

He had to prove his might to the Egyptians, ahoy.

There's a lot of that coming up, hope you're not feeling squeamish.

lots of 'ffs moe do what i say, stop acting like a bitch' also more family history

lol not squeamish, just a pointless dickmove by god, again

also he is going to lose by drowning himself and army or whoever [childhood cartoon spoilers] which looks waaaay more weak

6:30 But Moe said to the Lord, "Since I speak w/ faltering lips, why would Pharoah listen to me?"

BECAUSE YOU KILL PEOPLE AND DO MAGIC

7 starts w/ 'because i made you like God he'll listen to you. but oh wait, i'll make him be ignorant and not listen to you, which makes my work w/ u pointless.'

There's a suggestion there that Moses had a speech impediment or a stutter or something, mind you. He gets portrayed a lot as an anti-hero, that God was confounding worldly expectations by choosing a "weak vessel" to be his representative, to so that it would be clearer that it was by HIS power that things were done, not Moses' own.

aw was hoping for yr commentary on 4:24 (altho not much to comment beyond 'wtf')

ok so twice there has been mention of 'pfft egypts magicians can do that shit too (make a snake, turn the nile into blood)'. david copperfield is a hack compared i guess.

lol 4:24 is just more foreskin stuff, right? like 'HOLY SHIT MASS SLAVERY OF PPL lets stop for a moment for foreskin fun times AND BACK TO FREEING THE OPPRESED'

Aaron >>>> Moses imo.

I don't know, what is 4:24 exactly?? I don't have the whole thing memorized, you know.

throwin' the ol pigskin

4And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.

25Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

26So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.

yeah just circumcision weirdness, what is more wtf to me is the suddenness of 4:24 - the lord has been all chummy with mo and sent him on a mission, then suddenly appears out of nowhere and TRIES TO KILL HIM!

Oh right, that weird thing in which Zipporah cuts their son at the last second and gives the circumcision to God.

god is an angry and incompetent drunk, i feel we've started to cover this

has anyone like the simpsons or some equal hacks done a 'if this happened to the french, the plague of frogs wld just get them all fat and well fed' type o' joke

can't believe you're calling the simpsons hackery when you're reading the bible

oh shit the magicians couldnt make gnats. pharoah might finally know who hes dealing w/. and i need to now google what a gnat is, because im not sure.

have you watch the simpsons of the past decade? compared it makes this look like the greatest story ever told!

Well circumcision is the only sign that Yahweh has asked his people to make themselves with at this point, right? It's like...it's way more magical than people give it credit for. Think of it as a magical talisman. Circumcision is a sign of God's covenant with the Israelites, it makes them His people -- the flip side of that is that WITHOUT it, God can't tell the difference between, like, the whole two dozen people who worship him, and all the other people in the world at the time.

So he (or his angels/messengers of death/whatv) swoop down on Moses and Zipporah, and Moses, the unfit vessel, is paralyzed with fear and does nothing. (Do not ask me why they hadn't just circumcised their son in the FIRST DAMN PLACE, because that I don't know.) Zipporah is better under pressure; she applies the magic sign to the only other male person present (that we know of) and offers the bloody offering to God to stay his hand.

*mark themselves with

compared it makes this look like the greatest story ever told!

hahaha kudos

the name zipporah still makes me irl lol

Remember, at this point in history, cutting the foreskins of the menfolks really IS the only difference between the Jewish people and the Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Cananites, Ammonites, Moabites, and anyone else I'm forgetting: they don't have the food laws yet, they don't dress any differently from other people, they've never had a temple, their worship rites of sacrifice and etc are basically the same as all the other cultures' -- the ONLY thing that distinguishes them is the condition of their males' members.

I mean I think? Mordy/Shakey/Jewish menfolks may know this stuff better.

xp Zipporah. Zip O Rah. It never suited ya.

after gnats comes flies, also getting a bit repetitive

Having stayed away from religion all of my life, this thread is the most I've ever learned of the Bible. I'm doomed, right?

Accent is on the second syllable of that, btw. Zip-POR-ah.

god now giving egyptian donkeys and camels the plague

what did they do to deserve this? WHAT GOD WHAT?

Having stayed away from religion all of my life, this thread is the most I've ever learned of the Bible. I'm doomed, right?

― she started dancing to that (Finefinemusic), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 16:54 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

presuming you are ignoring me and reading the smart ppl like l, zach, mordy etc. then you should be good! :D

They enslaved the Israelites and worshiped gods other than Yahweh, iirc. I think this is pretty clear. All people in the bible who are NOT the Israelites are evil and must be killed, you should get used to this now or it's gonna be a long haul.

ok so swarms of gnats, flies and rotting dead frogs must carry a huge amount of disease, he has plagued the livestock and turned the water into undrinkable blood - all egyptians are dead by now through famine and disease, right? or is it a case of when a new plague starts, the last one finishes?

donkeys did not enslave the israelites! come on!

Zipporah/Tzipporah/Tzippi is still a name in use today!

oh ok then yes if they haven't died from famine or disease, giant balls of hail falling from the sky are intended to kill the egyptians. there will be literally no-one left alive for pharoah to look strong on policy in front of.

Well that's another thing you should get used to: everything and everyone who is not a man/head of household is just a possession of the nearest and dearest man/head of household. So the donkeys are fair game since they're not thinking or feeling creatures, they're just things that can be used to strike at Egyptian civilization.

Wait til you get to the parts of Leviticus in which a rapist can buy a man's daughter from him after he rapes her; it's cool with God, as long as the father gets her approximate value in livestock or other assets.

ok so exodus 9 ends w/ pharoah going to moses head in hands asking for him to quit and that they can go free, so he does only to make the storm stop, seemingly forgetting this would be a good time to take the israelites out of egypt. the storm stops, moses didnt take ppl who are still enslaved and pharoah thinks lol moe is a sucka.

Wait til you get to the parts of Leviticus in which a rapist can buy a man's daughter from him after he rapes her; it's cool with God, as long as the father gets her approximate value in livestock or other assets.

― Octavia Butler's gonna be piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiised (Laurel), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 17:04 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

WHAT THE SHITTING SHIT?

AND PEOPLE BELIEVE IN THIS RELIGION?

WHAT THE SHITTING SHIT?

do you think Egyptians weren't the original culprits in the Exodus tale? since (iirc) there's no evidence of Jews ever being in Egypt I wonder if Exodus was originally written about another enemy, who were switched out for Egyptians later when some serious Egypt beef went down

It's not exactly news, little bro, it's been right there in print for hundreds of years.

crut, that is super-interesting and sounds probable, given the mish-mash of oral history that the bible really represents.

RMDE. We have already had what 6 plagues, untold amount of Egyptians surely dead and Pharoah admitting he's wrong. So how does Exodus 10 start?

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Go to Pharoah, for I HAVE HARDENED HIS HEART AND THE HEARTS OF HIS OFFICIALS SO THAT I MAY PERFORM THESE MIRACULOUS SIGNS OF MINE AMONGST THEM..."

This is just bordering on peverse psychopathic murder from God right here.

yeah dude, old testament god is a righteously indignant sociopath, p compelling character imo.

Remember, at this point in history, cutting the foreskins of the menfolks really IS the only difference between the Jewish people and the Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Cananites, Ammonites, Moabites, and anyone else I'm forgetting: they don't have the food laws yet, they don't dress any differently from other people, they've never had a temple, their worship rites of sacrifice and etc are basically the same as all the other cultures' -- the ONLY thing that distinguishes them is the condition of their males' members.

This is sorta true however this gives me a chance to trot out one of my most favorite pieces of information of all time. Archeologists have traced anti-pig dietary laws to before all potential origin dates of the Bible and long before the development of monotheism (or even monolatrism) in Judea. This means that ritually not eating pigs predates Judaism. (They know this because they can compare food sites between Israelites and surrounding groups and the latter have pig bones in their camps and the former don't.) I like to tell people that this means it's more important as a Jew to not eat pig than it is to believe in God.

do you think Egyptians weren't the original culprits in the Exodus tale? since (iirc) there's no evidence of Jews ever being in Egypt I wonder if Exodus was originally written about another enemy, who were switched out for Egyptians later when some serious Egypt beef went down

― I AM THE CROOT (crüt), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 17:07 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thought we covered Joseph enslaving everyone w/ Pharoah at the end of Genesis. Egypt was the only place with food in a great famine and he took everyones shit from all around, until they had no more to give, so they gave themselves just so they could eat.

Or do you mean in a reality sense that Jews never really turned up in North Africa 1000s of years ago?

Afaik most scholars today don't believe that the ethnic group that predominately makes up Judea around the turn of the - uh, zero CE - was ever in Egypt, tho I've read a number of ppl who suggest there was a sort of Exodus at some point in history -- tho the scope of it, or how that group integrated into Canaanite culture, is a matter of dispute.

Mordy, I have vague recollection from some book, possibly called The View from Nebo which was on my shelf for years but I'm not sure, that pigs were food for the poor? Because they don't need grazing land and you can raise them on human garbage. So pork refuse has been found in the encampments of lots of groups of people, all of them having poverty/laborer status in common?

has anyone like the simpsons or some equal hacks done a 'if this happened to the french, the plague of frogs wld just get them all fat and well fed' type o' joke

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 15:42 (25 minutes ago)

are you half-remembering 'Simpsons Bible Stories' (season 10 I think) where Milhouse is Moses and Skinner is the Pharaoh who enjoys "the juiciest frogs he's ever eaten" when they try to imitate a plague, or just half-accurately diagnosing an obvious joke?

Sorry, I should have finished that thought: so groups that were better off, or wanted to appear to be, would have shunned pork anyway.

10:10 Pharoah accuses Moe+Az of being hellbent on doing evil, so he'll only let the men leave not the women and children. He's got a point considering the fucking evil deeds they have done to so many innocent civilians.

has anyone like the simpsons or some equal hacks done a 'if this happened to the french, the plague of frogs wld just get them all fat and well fed' type o' joke

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 15:42 (25 minutes ago)

are you half-remembering 'Simpsons Bible Stories' (season 10 I think) where Milhouse is Moses and Skinner is the Pharaoh who enjoys "the juiciest frogs he's ever eaten" when they try to imitate a plague, or just half-accurately diagnosing an obvious joke?

― known for melding an outrageous stage presence with tenacious hooks (Merdeyeux), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 17:17 (35 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol maybe a bit of both

The bible frequently makes me suspect we'd be better off if the worship of Yahweh had disappeared in the desert along with all its followers.

10:20 the lord hardens the pharoahs heart again! this is some stupid fucking writing. you can have him be a stubborn out of touch cunt without having god, the guy we are supposed to support, be behind it! this not how you book a heel.

10:27 again. Pharoah has previously given in after the darkness plague (10:24 he frees everyone) and then God hardens his heart. if i roll my eyes anymore, they'll be looking at my brain.

Plague of the first born starts w/ 11:2- Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbours for articles of silver and gold.

FUCKING HELL. Rob them before you kill their kids! God is a fucking mafia boss. No wonder they call it the Godfather.

Laurel, I don't know how well off Jews were around this period of time (this is like idk 2000bc?), primarily agrarian -- Israel Finkelstein's theory is that there was a lot of social/political disturbance around 2000bc and that's what inspired the formation of early period Judaism which ultimately led to the compilation of the Torah years later. I don't know how widespread this theory is today but I think it's very interesting. Most ppl seem to believe that some asshole wrote the Bible and then everyone spontaneously stopped eating pork bc it said to. It's much more likely that the taboo was in place from much earlier on and when writing + redacting the texts it was incorporated bc it was already widespread and popular among the group.

11:5 'Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharoah, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.'

Now as it later in the speech makes a distinction between Israelites not having their firstborn die unlike the Egyptians- is Moses killing the kids of just other random, non-israelite slaves? wtf?

If it makes the eye-rolling hurt less, I just assume that the only reason Pharoah keeps hardening his heart, as they say, is that the whole story of Exodus is about the struggle. If he said, "Dude, gtfo" on the first plague, the story would be substantially less compelling. Remember, you're working your way up to Passover, which is one of the key dates in the entire Jewish calendar, this is the event that sealed the Israelites' fate as God's people.

Also the bible is thick with ritual numbers taken from different cultures: things happen in 3s or in 7s or in multiples of something or other. It gets more obvious in the New Testament, in which a thing will happen three times, because three was a sacred number to uh the Greeks maybe? I can't remember. But anyway, the whole 7 plagues thing, I figure it's just to show the GRAVITY of the situation and the immensity of God's power as his people face a very long period of forsakenness and need something to keep them going.

its not so much that pharoah has a hard heart, its that god makes it so! if pharoah had no interaction with god and was a big evil bastard that wants to make the israelites struggle, that makes for a compelling story. but this has pharoah seem reasonable and trying to help and god butting in and making it harder for... the people he is supposedly trying to help!

The literal story is never what actually happened, though. It's two thousand years of accumulated rhetorical devices and point-making.

passover ritual stuff is kinda boring (sorry mordy) and it ends w/ pharoah having his son murdered, plus lots of other sons slaughtered. and that is the end of exodus pt. 1 - lets see what happens next tomorrow, because im going for a bike ride and a nap :D

The literal story is never what actually happened, though. It's two thousand years of accumulated rhetorical devices and point-making.

― Octavia Butler's gonna be piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiised (Laurel), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 17:35 (50 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well no shit. But half the point of me reading this is that the only bible knowledge i have was pre-school cartoons and not what it says actually inside the book.

It's much more likely that the taboo was in place from much earlier on and when writing + redacting the texts it was incorporated bc it was already widespread and popular among the group.

Absolutely agree! But among all groups, not just those that would eventually become the Jews.

lol i diss passover and then notice HEY JEWS is at the top of SNA. Hope this doesn't mean something bad is coming my way.

you know, this pharaoh guy has already been established as being a genocidal slaver so... i suspect 'god hardened his heart' might be idiomatic since the guy is clearly a psychopath (and maybe raises interesting questions about how much culpability someone has in their actions if their actions are dictated by mental states that could be said to be external -- ie chemical process based or GOD)

Rosh hashana tmmrw nite.

passover ritual stuff is kinda boring (sorry mordy)

the most interesting stuff imho! (lol, if you think this is boring wait till you get to vayikra/leviticus)

also, Chronicles I + II is basically just two books of genealogical records

I love that part! All the uncleanliness and separations of unlike things in all respects, it's like an OCD purification over-scrupulousity handbook! xp

Do you like the chapter after chapter discussing the dimensions of the mishkan?

Or the innumerable repetitive permutations of burnt sacrifice offerings + incense offerings?

I read it when I was like 12 and of course didn't know what any of the dimensions represented, even approximately (lol cubits), so I didn't retail the specifics, but I loved the detail of it.

*retain

It's very ritualistic, like magic, and there are apparently a ton of running sores and bodily fluids issuing from things, which I was WAY too young to realize would have anything to do with sex or sexuality.

So many mentions of crushed testicles in Leviticus/Deuteronomy.

I was just thinking about the title of this thread (slowly reading...) and it's funny bc by most criteria this is a pretty slow reading of the Bible but it still seems impossibly fast to me. like you went through genesis in a week and I could probably spend a month on each chapter in the book. so many things i haven't commented on bc i don't have the time to respond to every passage but there's so much to say about anything. like have we discussed yet that the first mention of egypt isn't actually Joseph but Abraham (who went down with his wife and the Pharaoh kidnapped her and then his whole household got diseased)?

Do you like the chapter after chapter discussing the dimensions of the mishkan?

― Mordy, Tuesday, 27 September 2011 16:49 (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

did God mess up and allow Alain Robbe-Grillet to write a book?

a hoy hoy: nope - only you! ;D I'm not retaining much nor do I intend on preaching the Word, so everyone's safe

sorta! God messed up and let "P" (aka some Priest guy) write a book and fill it with tons of minutiae about building various temple implements down to materials/dimensions/construction and long explanations of numerous karbanot (temple offerings).

I love exodus. There's lots of interesting foreshadowing of the New Testament. You've got the sacrificial lamb without blemish, then you've got the blood on the doorpost/cross which protects them from death. Richard Blackham reckons the pre-incarnate Jesus appears throughout Exodus which makes sense particularly if you read Exodus 33, where God says you can't see his face, then Moses speaks to him face to face in the same chapter, how else do you reconcile that apart from it being another member of the trinity.

foreshadowing

?!??!?!?!

he goes on to explain it in the next two sentences

maybe it was different god? like god of abraham might be different guy than father who art in heaven.

just...

You've got the sacrificial lamb without blemish

this is pretty reaching since sacrificial lambs without blemishes were used throughout both temples and throughout the entire desert narrative wrt actually real unblemished sacrificial lambs. and the unblemished trope shows up wrt real human beings as well (Kohanim/Priests with certain blemishes were considered unfit to serve in the temple).

you've got the blood on the doorpost/cross which protests them from death

i've never heard any reference to the blood on the doorpost being a cross and it makes no spatial sense to say that. the blood was put on the top of the doorpost and both sides making an upside down U shape if anything bc that's the way a doorframe looks! if anything i've heard that it was the inspiration for the mezuzah which is put on the side of the door. i've never even heard of a cross put on a doorframe. does you have any source for this association?

you read Exodus 33, where God says you can't see his face, then Moses speaks to him face to face in the same chapter, how else do you reconcile that apart from it being another member of the trinity.

this is beyond anachronistic and totally nonsensical, which is actually the broader point that the OT can only be foreshadowing the NT if you either a) believe that somehow both narratives are actually literally true and GOD who wrote the OT put secret references to Jesus in them so that Christians could feel authentic thousands of years later or b) you source the compilation and redaction of the OT to much much later than any reputable scholar does so that you can argue that the ppl writing the NT were also writing the OT. but (b) is not only not true, but actually not how either of these texts were actually compiled since the OT was primarily pulled from various narrative oral traditions that were thrown together over the course of many years and the NT was sourced by at least two major "witness" documents written thousands of years later!

Maybe I should unpack why the Trinity comment is so ridiculous more: First of all, because God is anthropomorphized in a variety of differing ways that can either be attributed to different poetic systems, or actually two totally distinct narratives. There are numerous interpretations of what 'seeing God's face' means, and for that matter what it means when God passes before Moses to show him his 'back' that are much more compelling than that Moses couldn't see Father God but could see Holy Ghost God or Jesus God. Also, bc the Trinity didn't exist until like 300AC it's totally crazy to try to say that it somehow explains a passage in a text from a significantly earlier period of history!

it's totally crazy to try to say that it somehow explains a passage in a text from a significantly earlier period of history!

Welcome to Xtian exegesis!

believe that somehow both narratives are actually literally true and GOD who wrote the OT put secret references to Jesus in them so that Christians could feel authentic thousands of years later

It seems like you're saying you don't think this is EXACTLY how the bible is taught...?

xp Yeah, exactly!

God knew that would happen, so he caused those passages to be written for us.

The fact that Xtainity gives me some wiggle room on bacon, sodomy and cashmere/cotton blends tends to make me slightly indulgent wrt the nuttier readings.

But we must remain very, very humble about God's gift of scripture; the fact that we have His Word to follow at all is a sign of His grace toward us, in giving us a guide to lead us to Him, in whom lies our salvation.

I really wish I were making this up.

Mordy OTM, I must say

xp

I don't think cajunsunday was talking about an oddity of Christian exegesis. He wrote that the "foreshadowing" is something he enjoys about Exodus. I'm pointing out that that is insane.

yeah "foreshadowing" here only works if you literally think the Bible was written by a single author at some point after the death of Jesus.

i've never heard any reference to the blood on the doorpost being a cross and it makes no spatial sense to say that. the blood was put on the top of the doorpost and both sides making an upside down U shape if anything bc that's the way a doorframe looks! if anything i've heard that it was the inspiration for the mezuzah which is put on the side of the door. i've never even heard of a cross put on a doorframe. does you have any source for this association?

No, the use of "cross" refers not to a shape, but to the eventual crucifixion. He's saying the mercy of Passover is repeated, re-signified in a more perfect way, by Christ's blood on the cross. I was taught this in college theology classes, too.

Nothing funnier than people of different religions discussing what is and isn't "insane" about each other's beliefs.

The whole thing is batshit on all sides, imo.

OTM.

Yeah I'm a member of the Church of scholarly literature in the academy on the Bible but thx for playing. Xp

Basically, for a Christian, the Old Testament is primarily useful as a harbinger of Jesus. Obviously for Jews who have studied it ad nauseum for centuries, their reading is very different, as their uses are very different.

what is and isn't "insane" about each other's beliefs

we aren't discussing belief here afaict

It's the doctrine of re-something-iation. I can't remember. I didn't grow up with theology, evangelicals are more into sola scriptura, by which they really mean "we don't need no stinking authorities telling us what to think about our holy writ."

foreshadowing requires that the same author that wrote the NT wrote the OT. Since the latter was in existence thousands of years prior to the former, this is literally not possible.

xp

xxp Sure you are. You're discussing the rather widespread Christian belief that the Old Testament generally, and particularly the Exodus, the practices in the temple and the writings of the major prophets are all seeded with clues that match up nearly perfectly with events in the life of Jesus.

There is nothing more 'insane' in thinking that God wrote through many, many authors and liked hiding hints in his works or liked suggestive imagery or whatnot than in most of the rest of the Bible.

Iow, Xtians believe that the writers of the Bible and the councils that chose which books to include and which to exclude were all guided by the hand of God.

The whole thing is superannuated folly, imo, but whatever...

foreshadowing requires that the same author that wrote the NT wrote the OT. Since the latter was in existence thousands of years prior to the former, this is literally not possible.

See, for the Christians to which Laurel is referring, the "author" of both is God, and any errors are simply transcription errors, as it were. But the "foreshadowing" is a result of God slipping clues to his transcribers.

Many xps

if LCS can "foreshadow" vader as anakin in episode IV, then YHWH is entitled to retcon, too.

There is nothing more 'insane' in thinking that God wrote through many, many authors and liked hiding hints in his works or liked suggestive imagery or whatnot than in most of the rest of the Bible.

Holy shit, have you guys read a single one of my posts on this thread? I've never made a declaration of believe or faith unless that was my belief about a particular academic theory being more or less accepted among scholars. Someone made an actual truth claim about foreshadowing in the OT which either a) requires faith that these documents were written by God or b) indicates ignorance at the year in which these documents came into existence. The op for this discussion did not say, "Hey, isn't it weird that some ppl believe..." He said, "I like that this is foreshadowing."

Nothing funnier than people of different religions discussing what is and isn't "insane" about each other's beliefs.

Like this is very very very poor reading comprehension.

cashmere/cotton blends

Isn't it just wool and linen that is prohibited?

Someone made an actual truth claim about foreshadowing in the OT which either a) requires faith that these documents were written by God or b) indicates ignorance at the year in which these documents came into existence.

So which of these, A or B -- or both! -- is "totally crazy," which was, after all, the word you picked, and which I suppose might differ from "insane" in some yet-unrecognized way?

what is and isn't "insane" about each other's beliefs

Mordy is not expressing a religious belief FYI

cajunsunday may have been, it's kind of the only way to interpret his post - it's either guided by faith or some kind of weird ignorance about when the OT was written

xxp They are both crazy!

What's your argument? That they make logical sense?

No, he's calling someone else's beliefs "totally crazy." He doesn't have to express his own in order to do that. See how that works?

xxp I wasn't making an argument, I was pointing something amusing out. If we're going to resort to "reading comprehension" snark, then . . .

I mean if you want we can get into the question of whether anything even remotely resembling the plagues or the Passover actually happened and talk about how crazy that is, too! AFAIC, it's all crazy!

My belief is in a complex version of the documentary hypothesis that posits that the OT is a compilation of a myriad of different writers (both oral and textual) that was redacted a few different times throughout history and probably canonized around the time of the Babylonian Exile. I think that was pretty clear if you've read a single one of my posts on this thread. As you can imagine, this view is incompatible with a belief that there is foreshadowing for the NT in the OT.

Phil, read some of my posts in this thread. It's clear that you didn't.

i read "foreshadowing" as commenting on the fact that certain things "rhyme" in the Lucasian sense, which doesn't require a coherent, intelligent author. LUCAS-ZING!

But, as has been pointed out, it's not "incompatible" for a certain school of Christian exegesis which posits that all of the writing, compilation, redaction and canonization was guided by the hand of God for the purposes of seeing the fulfillment of all scripture in Jesus.

Ok, how does the blood on the doorway or the sacrificial lamb "rhyme" with the crucification narrative in any way that implies "foreshadowing?" Keep in mind that the authors of the NT were for the most part very intimately familiar with the OT text which would suggest any "rhyming" was an intentional resonance on behalf of the later author. Unless you also believe that The Odyssey "foreshadows" Ulysses.

xp Phil, I'm going to assume that you're not actually going to respond to anything I've written here or earlier on the thread and just let you argue w/ yourself, okay?

That's the only way a lot of people are taught to read it, Mordy. Don't be TOO hard on the guy?

Ok, how does the blood on the doorway or the sacrificial lamb "rhyme" with the crucification narrative in any way that implies "foreshadowing?"

Uh, there was a crucifixion in which the unblemished sacrificial lamb spilled his blood on a wooden cross? Much like the blood of an unblemished sacrificial lamb spread on a wooden doorframe?

You do whatever you like, Mordy. I'll continue to be amused.

'the authors of the NT were for the most part very intimately familiar with the OT text which would suggest any "rhyming" was an intentional resonance on behalf of the later author.'

this is a perfectly acceptable method by which most modern fantasy achieves foreshadowing, particularly in properties where the original authors are no longer involved, or ones where the authors are vamping the whole time (cough cough L O S T)

Hey you guys so given our unique perspective in history we have the funny ability to treat this book thing as, you know, a book, and in so doing one might loosely use words like "foreshadowing" to describe regularly-historically-identified textual echoes--you're doing a lotta raging, Mordy, at what I imagine was a much less than literal employment of the word foreshadowing.

The doctrine of satisfaction/substitution? Our office network isn't connecting to the internet right now so I can't look that up. I can only get through on ilx (thank god).

Oh! Recapitulation! Irenaeus! I love that name. THAT'S why I always remembered that one thing.

Actually it's kind of similar to the idea of tikkun olam, as far as I understand it? Reweaving/repairing the rift in the fabric of how-things-should-have-been, one kindness or point of honor at a time? Except for Irenaeus(!), it's God doing the repairing, not humanity.

Uh, there was a crucifixion in which the unblemished sacrificial lamb spilled his blood on a wooden cross? Much like the blood of an unblemished sacrificial lamb spread on a wooden doorframe?

1) Blemish is a translation issue since an umblemished lamb means that the eyes or lips don't have cuts in them and umblemished when referring to Jesus refers to the condition of his soul, not cuts that would render him unfit for sacrifice.
2) A cross is not a doorframe.
3) One is a literal lamb and one is called a lamb in the later written book.

This just isn't an example of foreshadowing.

It is a great example though of how Christian theology often manufactured resonances between the NT and OT to lend authority to the brand new text so that it would have legitimacy in the eyes of contemporaneous citizens of Israel!

Yes, welcome to organized religion. ??

The entire NT is talking to the new Christians who were formerly Jews, except for the parts that are talking to new Christians who used to be Greek pagans, so the manufactured resonances shouldn't really be surprising.

hahaha wow

Still loving this line:

two thousand years of accumulated rhetorical devices and point-making.

mordy r u religious?

newp.

1) Blemish is a translation issue since an umblemished lamb means that the eyes or lips don't have cuts in them and umblemished when referring to Jesus refers to the condition of his soul, not cuts that would render him unfit for sacrifice.
2) A cross is not a doorframe.
3) One is a literal lamb and one is called a lamb in the later written book.

Haha, heaven forfend that God speak in metaphor.

Well, what does religious mean? I don't believe that the OT is the word of God and except for things I keep bc of cultural/social reasons I am non-observant.

I don't think anyone in this thread would argue with you, Mord, as a matter of historical fact--but atm you're sorta the guy insisting the rain dances we're learning don't really make it rain?