Do You Ever Miss The "Old" Testament?

The original indie dude. He even had a beard!

a similar idea was used in harlan ellison's story "the deathbird," in which the earth is created by a super-advanced race of aliens and then taken from them by a creature so monstrous they refer to it only as "the mad one." they leave one of their own behind, who spends centuries trying desperately to warn humans about the evil "god" that is out to kill them; for his troubles, he gets called "the devil."

One of the things I miss about the "Old" Testament is that it used to be common to have great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents.

For example, in Genesis 11, Shem begot Arpachshad when he was already 100 years old, and then lived another 500 years. Arpachshad begot Shelah when he was 35 (Shem was 135 now), Shelah begot Eber when he was 30 (Shem was 165 now), Eber begot Peleg when he was 34 (Shem = 199), Peleg begot Reu when he was 30 (Shem = 229), Reu begot Serug when he was 32 (Shem = 261), Serug begot Nahor when he was 30 (Shem = 291), Nahor begot Terah when he was 29 (Shem = 320), Terah begot Abram, Nahor and Haran when he was 70 (Shem = 390).

So Abram, Nahor and Haran lived for 210 years with Shem as a great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather. And then Shem finally died. Of course, this sprawling family tree led to some awkward moments, as documented in Genesis 11:13-14 - "Shelah turned to his great-great-great-great grandson Terah and said 'wait, who are you again? I can't keep track of what vag everyone popped out anymore"

I also miss the days when great patriarchs like Noah would get shitfaced and stumble around tents, and then punish the son (Ham) who had the gall to catch a glimpse of Noah's immense hanging sack by cursing Ham's SON Canaan

I was actually thinking the other day about how people just don't live as long as they used to back in biblical days.

so speaking of that passage where Noah is wasted and his one son glimpses the nutsack and God gets all t.o.'ed-- what are the conventional strategies of apologia as far as that goes? i remember reading that passage as a kid along with a footnote in which the editors simply did some shoulder-shrugging thing to the effect of "yeah, no one has really ever satisfactorily explained why God acts so goddamn arbitrarily in this passage"

Mr Jaq has been reading this through, and gleaning snippets for me occasionally. God was one cranky sonofabitch when he was living among the people on a daily basis! Complaining about your husband not getting preferential treatment? ZOT! You're made a leper for week. Think you can do a better job than Moses, hm? ZOT!!! The ground swallows you up and the rest of your friends fall over dead. Random acts of extreme violence due to exposure to all that wandering kvetching humanity. Tired of manna all the damn time? FINE! You'll get meat until it comes out your nostrils, and your camp is over-run with peeping quails. Good stuff.

Ur used to be such a charming city - great idol shops.

ah, okay, sorry, sweet smiting rainbow-maker

(addressed to god, not you)

Reading Crumb's Genesis recently, it was like a Hope/Crosby "Road" movie crossed with, I dunno, Weekend at Bernies 3, or Michael Bay's vision of the Dead End Kids or something. Great to look at, but I just wanted to blow up every single character.

I'm reading through Crumb's Genesis right now, actually.

Thanks for deleting that, WmC. And lemme post it again for posterity, minus the stupid formatting:

xpost

Well, actually in that passage (Genesis 9:20-24) it's Noah that's the arbitrary asshole:

20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father's nakedness.
24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
"Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers."

Crumb's version also drew my attention to various places in Genesis where God says "our" and "us" where you wouldn't expect it..

Like in Genesis 11:7, when he's about to go fuck up the tower of Babel: "Come, let US go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

And in Genesis 1:26 - "Then God said, "Let US make man in OUR image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

And in Genesis 3:22, where God gets all paranoid after Adam+Eve eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil: "And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of US, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." (by the way, THANKS GOD FOR UR GENEROSITY THERE, you sure didn't mind when Adam ate from the tree of the impressive penis, but I guess the tree of life is "off limits")

Does "Us" and "Our" refer to angels?

Thanks for deleting that, WmC. And lemme post it again for posterity, minus the stupid formatting:

can you remove my subsequent "rainbow-maker" post up there, cos it sounds kinda crazy w/o any context

j/k i don't care