God creates light and separates light from darkness,
and
day from night, on the first day.
Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars)
until the fourth day
(1:14-19). 1:3-5
God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the
second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which
God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the
lower waters. 1:6-8
Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun
to drive their photosynthetic
processes (1:14-19). 1:11
In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places
the
sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used
"for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the
signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth.
1:14
"He made the stars also." God spends a day making light
(before making the stars) and
separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work,
and almost as an
afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars. 1:16
"And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to
give
light upon the earth." 1:17
God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and
replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every
living thing that moveth upon the earth." 1:28
"I have given you every herb ... and every tree ... for
meat."
Since many plants have evolved poisons to protect
against animals that
would like to eat them, God's advice is more than a little reckless.
Would you tell your children to go out in the garden and eat whatever
plants they encounter? Of course not. But then, you are much nicer and
smarter than God. 1:29
"The tree of life ... and the tree of knowledge of good
and evil."
God created two magic trees: the tree of life and the
tree of knowledge. Eat from the the first, and you live forever (3:22); eat from the second
and you'll die the same day (2:17).
(Or that's what God said, anyway. Adam ate from the tree of knowledge
and lived for another 930 years or so (5:5).
But he never got a change to eat from the tree of life. God prevented
him from eating from the tree of life before Adam could eat from the
tree, become a god, and live forever.)
2:9
God makes the animals and parades them before Adam to
see if any would strike his
fancy. But none seem to have what it takes to please him. (Although he
was tempted to go for
the sheep.) After making the animals, God has
Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have
kept Adam busy for a
while. 2:18-20
God walks and talks (to himself?) in the garden, and
plays a little hide and seek with
Adam and Eve. 3:8-11
God curses the serpent. From now on the serpent will
crawl on his belly and eat dust.
One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail,
perhaps? But snakes don't
eat dust, do they? 3:14
God curses the ground and causes thorns and thistles
to grow. 3:17-18
God kills some animals and makes some skin coats for
Adam and Eve. 3:21
"Behold, the man is become as one of us."
God expels Adam and Eve from the garden before they get
a chance to eat from that other tree -- the tree of life.
God knows that if they do that, they well become "like one of us" and
live forever. 3:22-24
Cain is worried after killing Abel and says, "Every one
who finds me shall slay me." This
is a strange concern since there were only two other humans alive at
the time -- his parents! 4:14
"And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD." 4:16
"And Cain knew his wife." That's nice, but
where the hell did she come from? 4:17
Lamech kills a man and claims that since Cain's
murderer
would be punished
sevenfold, whoever murders him will be punished seventy-seven fold.
That sounds fair. 4:23-24
"And to Seth ... was born a son." Where'd he find his
wife? 4:26
God created a man and a woman, and he "called their
name
Adam." So the woman's
name was Adam, too! 5:2
Enoch doesn't die he just ascends into heaven. 5:21-24
When Lamech was born, nine generations were alive at
once. Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah,
and Lamech were all alive at the time of Lamech's birth. Adam lived to
see his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson. 5:25
When Noah was 500 years old, he had three sons.
[Three sons in one year? Was that with one (nameless)
wife or several?] 5:32
"The sons of God came in unto the daughters of
men."
The "sons of God" had sex with the "daughters of men,"
and had sons who became "the mighty men of old, men of renown." 6:2-4
"The LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with
man, for that he also is flesh."
God shortened the human lifespan to 120 years because
humans are "flesh" and he was tired of fighting with them. 6:3
"There were giants in the earth in those days."6:4
God decides to kill all living things because the human
imagination is evil. Later (8:21),
after he kills everything, he promises never to do it again because the
human imagination is evil. Go figure. 6:5
Noah is called a "just man and perfect," but he didn't
seem so perfect when he was drunk and naked in front of his sons (9:20-21). 6:9, 7:1
"Behold, I will destroy them with the earth."
God was angry because "the earth was filled with
violence." So he killed every living thing to make the world less
violent. 6:11-13
Noah is told to make an ark that is 450 feet long. 6:14-15
God tells Noah to make one small window (18 inches
square) in the 450 foot ark for ventilation. 6:16
"And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten ...
for thee, and for them." 6:21
"Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by
sevens."
How did Noah know which animals were "clean" and
"unclean" to God? (It wasn't defined until Leviticus was written.) 7:2
Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and
female
representatives from each
species of "every thing that creepeth upon the earth." 7:8
God opens the "windows of heaven." He does this every
time it rains. 7:11
All of the animals boarded the ark "in the selfsame
day." 7:13-14
"And God remembered Noah."
Yeah. He probably said something like, "Isn't Noah the
guy who built the ark?" 8:1
"The windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from
heaven was restrained." This happens whenever it stops raining. 8:2
Noah sends a dove out to see if there was any dry land.
But the dove returns without
finding any. Then, just seven days later, the dove goes out again and
returns with an olive leaf.
But how could an olive tree survive the flood? And if any seeds
happened to survive, they
certainly wouldn't germinate and grow leaves within a seven day period.
8:8-11
"And the Lord smelled a sweet savor."
Noah kills the "clean beasts" and burns their dead
bodies for God. According to 7:8
this would have caused the extinction of all "clean" animals since only
two of each were taken
onto the ark. "And the Lord smelled a sweet savor." After this God
"said in his heart" that he'd
never do it again because "man's heart is evil from his youth." So God
killed all living things
(6:5) because humans
are evil, and then promises not to do it again (8:21) because humans are
evil. The mind of God is a frightening thing. 8:20-21
According to this verse, all animals fear humans.
Although it is true that many do, it is also true that some do not.
Sharks and grizzly bears, for example, are generally much less afraid
of us than we are of them. 9:2
"Into your hand are they (the animals)
delivered."
God gave the animals to humans, and they can do
whatever
they please with them. This verse has been used by bible believers to
justify all kinds of cruelty to animals and environmental destruction. 9:2
God is rightly filled with remorse for having
killed his creatures. He makes a deal with the animals, promising never
to drown them all again. He even puts the rainbow in the sky so that
whenever he sees it, it will remind him of his promise so that he won't
be tempted to do it again. (Every time God sees the rainbow he says to
himself: "Oh, yeah.... That's right. I promised not to drown the
animals again. I guess I'll have to find something else to do."). 9:9-13
"Noah ... drank of the wine, and was drunken;
and he was uncovered within his tent."
The entire tenth chapter is the first of many boring
genealogies (see 1 Chr.1-9,
Mt.1:1-17, Lk.3:23-28 for other
examples) that we are told to avoid in 1
Tim.1:4 and Tit.3:9
("Avoid foolish questions and genealogies.") 10:1-32
"Now nothing will be restrained from them,
which they have imagined to do."
God worries that the people will succeed in building a
tower high enough to reach him (them?) in heaven, and that by so doing
they will become omnipotent. 11:4-6
God says, "Let us go down ..."
Maybe
he hasn't been talking to himself; maybe
there is more than one of them up there. Well, however many there may
be,
they all decide to come down to confuse the builders by confounding
human language and
scattering them [humans] abroad. 11:7
Another boring genealogy that we are told to avoid in 1 Tim.1:4 and Tit.3:9. ("Avoid foolish
questions and genealogies.") Also note the ridiculously long lives of
the patriarchs. 11:10-32
The Amalekites were smitten before Amalek (from whom
they descended) was born.
Amalek was the grandson of Esau (Gen.36:12).
14:7
Abraham laughs at God for telling him that he and Sarah
will have a child, when they are 100 and 90 years old, respectively. 17:17
Abraham circumcises himself and all of the males in his
household. Since he supposedly had 318 slaves back in 14:14, poor old Abe must
have been pretty busy with his knife. But it was worth it. Penises are
supremely important to God. And he can't stand foreskins. 17:23-24
"He took butter, and milk, and the calf ... and they
did
eat."
Not a very kosher meal for God and Abraham to eat!
(See
Exodus 23:19)
18:8
Sarah, who is about 90 years old and has gone through
menopause, laughs at God
when he tells her that she will have a son. She asks God if she will
"have pleasure" with her
"Lord" [Abraham], when both are so very old. God assures her that he
will return and
impregnate her at the appointed time. 18:11-14
God, who is planning another mass murder, is worried
that Abraham might try to stop
him. so he asks himself if he should hide his intentions from Abraham. 18:17
"I will not destroy it for ten's sake."
I guess God couldn't find even ten good Sodomites
because he decides to kill them all in Genesis
19.
Too bad Abraham didn't ask God about the children. Why not save them?
If Abraham could find 10 good children, toddlers, infants, or babies,
would God spare the city? Apparently not. God doesn't give a damn about
children. 18:32
"And the Lord went his way." Now where might that be? 18:33
The two angels that visit Lot wash their feet, eat, and
are sexually irresistible to Sodomites. 19:1-5
Lot [the just and righteous (2 Pet.2:7-8)]
offers his daughters to a crowd of angel rapers. 19:8
Lot lied about his daughters being "virgins" in 19:8. But it was a "just
and righteous" lie, intended to make them more attractive to the
sex-crazed mob. 19:14
Lot's nameless wife looks back, and God
turns her into a pillar of salt. 19:26
Lot and his daughters camp out in a cave for a while.
The daughters get their "just
and righteous" father drunk, and have sexual intercourse with him, and
each conceives and
bears a son (wouldn't you know it!). Just another wholesome family
values Bible story. 19:30-38
Honest Abe does the same "she's my sister" routine
again, for the same cowardly reason.
And once again, the king just couldn't resist Sarah -- even though by
now she is over 90 years
old. (See Gen.12:13-20
for the first, nearly identical, episode.) 20:2
"The Lord visited Sarah" and he "did unto Sarah as he
had spoken." And "Sarah
conceived and bare Abraham a son." (God-assisted conceptions never
result in daughters.) 21:1-2
These verses suggest that Ishmael was an infant when
his
father abandoned him, yet
according to Gen.17:25
and Gen.21:5-8 he
must have been about 16 years old. It must have
been tough for poor Hagar to carry Ishmael on her shoulder and to then
"cast him under one of the shrubs." 21:14-18
Abraham names the place where he nearly kills Isaac
after Jehovah. But according to
Exodus 6:3,
Abraham couldn't have known that God's name was Jehovah. 22:14
Abraham needed God's help to father Isaac when he was
100 years old (Gen.21:1-2,
Rom.4:19, Heb.11:12). But here,
when he is even older, he manages to have six more children
without any help from God. 25:2
In the Bible it's always the woman that are "barren",
never the men.
And when God "opens their womb," the resulting babies are always little
boys. 25:21-26
Esau and Jacob were already fighting each other in the
womb. 25:22
Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bit of bread
and
a bowl of lentil soup. 25:33-34
Isaac uses the same "she's my sister" lie that his
father used so effectively on the same king Abimelech. (see Gen.12:13, 20:2). 26:7
Jacob names Bethel for the first time, before meeting
Rachel. Later in 35:15,
just before Rachel dies, he names Bethel again. (And it was called
Bethel long before it was named Bethel in 12:8
and 13:3.) 28:19
Jacob is tricked by Laban, the father of Rachel and
Leah. Jacob asks for Rachel so
that he can "go in unto her." But Laban gives him Leah instead, and
Jacob "went in unto her
[Leah]" by mistake. Jacob was fooled until morning -- apparently he
didn't know who he was
going in unto. Finally they worked things out and Jacob got to "go in
unto" Rachel, too. 29:21-30
"And Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah conceived, and
bare Jacob a son." (These
arrangements never seem to produce daughters.) 30:4
Leah, not to be outdone, gives Jacob her maid (Zilpah)
"to wife." And Zilpah "bare
Jacob a son." 30:9
Rachel trades her husband's favors for some mandrakes.
And so, when Jacob cam
home, Leah said: "Thou must come in unto me, for surely I have hired
thee with my son's
mandrakes. And he lay with her that night." Presumably God, by telling
us this edifying story, is
teaching us something about sexual ethics. 30:15-16
And finally, "God remembered Rachel ... and opened her
womb. And she conceived
and bare a son [surprise, surprise]." 30:22
Laban learns "by experience" that God has blessed him
for Jacob's sake. "By experience" means "by divination", at least that
is how most
other versions translate this verse. 30:27
Jacob displays his (and God's) knowledge of biology by
having goats copulate while
looking at streaked rods. The result is streaked baby goats. 30:37-39
God (or an angel) praises Jacob for his fancy genetic
work in Gen.30:37-39.
31:11-12
Jacob wrestles with god and wins. God changes Jacob's
name to Israel to signify
that he wrestled with God and "prevailed." 32:24-30
Unable to beat Jacob in a fair fight, God dislocates
Jacob's leg. 32:25
God begs Jacobs to let him go, but Jacob says, "Not
unless you bless me." So God blessed Jacob and Jacob let God go. 32:26-29
"What is thy name?" (God didn't know Jacob's name.) 32:27
God
renames Jacob for the first time. God says that Jacob will henceforth
be called Israel, but the Bible continues to call him Jacob anyway. And
even God himself calls him Jacob in 46:2.
32:28
"Tell me, I pray thee, thy name."
God refuses to tell Jacob his name. (It's a secret.) 32:29
"Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew
...."
Jews don't eat the sinew of something or other because
God messed with Jacob's leg while wrestling with him. (Now that's 32:32 a good reason!)
"I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of
God."
Since Jacob just saw the face of God a few verses ago (Genesis 32:30), he ought
to know what God looks like. So now we do too. God looks just like
Esau! Which is kind of strange, since God
hates Esau. So all those pictures of God that you've seen?
They had it all wrong. God is a redhead, just like Esau was. In fact,
God is covered with red hair all over his body. 33:10
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). 38:13-18
There was a seven year, God-created famine over the
entire earth. 41:56
"All countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy
corn."
The Aztecs, the Chinese, and the Indigenous Australians
all came to Joseph to buy grain. 41:57
"And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him."
Stupid stories like this can only be found in the
Bible
(and the Quran).
42:8
"He washed his garments in wine ... His eyes shall be
red with wine."
Did Judah really wash his clothes in wine? Were his
eyes bloodshot from drinking too much? Or is this a prophecy of Jesus?
(I didn't know Jesus had a drinking problem.) 49:11-12
The Israelite population went from 70 (or 75) to
several
million in a few hundred years. 1:5,7,
12:37, 38:26
The birth story of Moses is suspiciously similar to
that
of the birth of Sargon, an Akkadian monarch from the 3rd millennium
BCE. (BBC:
The tale of the basket) 2:3
God, disguised as a burning bush, has a long
heart-to-heart talk with Moses. 3:4
- 4:17
God shows Moses some tricks that he says are sure to
impress. First, throw your rod on the ground; it will become a snake.
Then grab the snake by the tail and it will become a rod again. Next,
make your hand appear leprous, and then cure it. And finally, pour
water on the ground and it will turn into blood. (That ought to do it!)
4:2-9
God decides to kill Moses because his son had not yet
been circumcised. Luckily for
Moses, his Egyptian wife 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. So he [God] let him
go." This story shows the importance of penises to God, and his hatred
of foreskins. 4:24-26
Moses and Aaron ask the Pharaoh to let all the
Israelites go into the desert to pray for three days, or else God will
kill them all "with pestilence, or with the sword." 5:3
God says that Abraham didn't know that his name was
Jehovah. Yet in Gen.22:14
Abraham names the place where he nearly kills Isaac after God's name,
Jehovah. 6:3
Lehi, Kohath, and Amram join the long list of biblical
characters with ridiculously long lives (137, 133, and 137 years,
respectively). 6:16, 18, 20
In complaining about his difficulty with public
speaking, Moses says, "Behold I am of uncircumcised lips." 6:12, 6:30
God tells Moses and Aaron that when Pharaoh asks for a
miracle just throw your rod down and it will become a serpent.
So when the time comes, Moses throws down his rod and it becomes a
serpent. But the Egyptian magicians duplicate this trick.
Luckily, for Aaron, his snake swallows theirs. (Whew!) 7:9-13
After the rod to serpent trick, God tells Moses and
Aaron to smite the river and turn it into blood. This is the first of
the
famous 10 plagues of Egypt. Unfortunately, the magicians know this
trick too, and they do so with their enchantments. Shucks!
Just how the river could be turned to blood by the Egyptian sorcerers
after it had been turned to blood by Moses and Aaron is not
explained. 7:17-24
The second plague is frogs. Frogs covered the land.
They were all over the beds and filled the ovens. But the Egyptian
magicians did this trick too. (Did they wait until the frogs cleared
out from the last performance before doing it again?) After the
frog making contest was declared a draw, all the frogs died and "they
gathered them together upon heaps; and the land stank." I
bet. But at least it was all for the greater glory of God. 8:2-7
Plague #3 is lice in man and beast. This is the first
trick that the magicians couldn't do. After this the magicians were
convinced that Moses and Aaron's plagues were done by "the finger of
God," and they gave up trying to match the remaining
seven plagues. I guess lice are harder to make than frogs. 8:17-19
The fourth plague is swarms of flies, continuing the
frogs and lice theme. 8:21
But a little later (9:19-20,
12:29), God
kills them again a couple more times.
The sixth plague: boils and blains upon man and beast.9:9-12
Why does God send plagues? So that people can get to
know him better. 9:14
God gave power to the Pharaoh so that he could show off
his own power by killing him. 9:15-16
The seventh plague is hail. "And the hail smote
throughout the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and
beast." 9:22-25
God killed Egyptians and their livestock by smashing
them with huge hailstones mixed with fire. 9:24
God wants to be remembered forever for the mass murder
of little children. 10:2
Eighth plague: locusts that are so thick that they
"covered the face of the whole earth." (Even over Antarctica?) 10:4-5
Ninth plague: three days of darkness. The darkness was
so this that the Egyptians couldn't even see each other. But the
darkness knew how to avoid the Israelites, and so "all the children of
Israel had light in their dwellings." 10:21-23
God tells the Israelites to smear some blood on their
doors. That way when he's going around killing Egyptian
children, he'll remember not to kill their children too. He probably
said to himself when he saw the blood, "Oh yeah, I
remember now. I not supposed to kill the children in this house." 12:7, 13
"And the pillar of the cloud went from before their
face, and stood behind them." 14:19
"It was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light
by night to these."
God's special cloud was a cloud of darkness to the
Egyptians, but a cloud of light to the Hebrews. 14:20
God travels in a cloud by day and a fire by night. 13:21
The Egyptians chased after the Israelites with "all
Pharaoh's horses." But according to 9:3-6
there wouldn't have been any horses, since God killed them all in "a
very grievous murrain." 14:23
"The Lord ... took off their chariot wheels."
God (the devious mechanic) personally removed the
wheels
from the Egyptian chariots. 14:25
God divided the sea with a "blast of [his] nostrils." 15:8
Moses casts a tree into the water and makes the bitter
water taste sweet. 15:25
God appears to the Israelites and speaks from a cloud
promising to send lots of food (quails and mana) from the sky. 16:10-12
It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to
Canaan, yet such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more
than ten days. 16:35
God stands on a rock and tells Moses to hit the rock.
Then water comes out of it for the people to drink. God's such a clever
guy! 17:6
As long as Moses the magician keeps his hand up, the
Israelites are successful in battle, but the second his hand falls,
they start getting beat. So when Moses' arm gets tired, Aaron props it
up so that the Amalekites get slaughtered. 17:11-12
"The Lord has sworn [God swears!] that the Lord will
have war with Amalek from generation to generation." So God
is still fighting Amalek. I hope Moses can still keep his hand up. 17:14-16
A magical trumpet played loud while God came down in
smoke, fire, and earthquakes onto Mt. Sinai. 19:16-18
Like the great and powerful Wizard of Oz, nobody can
see
God and live. 19:21
God tells the priests not to go up the steps to the
altar "that thy nakedness not be discovered thereon." (Skirts on stairs
are a problem.) 20:26
If an ox gores someone, "then the ox shall surely be
stoned." 21:28
If an ox gores someone due to the negligence of its
owner, then "the ox shall be stoned, and his owner shall be put to
death.". 21:29
"Thou shalt not seethe a kid in a kid in his mother's
milk." 23:19
God has hornets that bite and kill people.23:27-28
Aaron must wear a bell whenever he enters "the holy
place" or God will kill him. 28:34-35
God gives instructions for making priestly breeches.
"And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness;
from the loins even unto the thighs shall they reach." 28:42
Priest must wear holy breeches or die!
"They shall be upon Aaron, and upon his sons, when they
come in unto the tabernacle ... or ... die." 28:43
God instructs the priests to burn the dung of bullocks
outside the camp as a sin offering. 29:14
God tells Moses to kill a ram and put the blood on the
tip of Aaron's right ear, and on his right thumb, and on his right
big toe, and then sprinkle the blood around the altar. Finally,
sprinkle some on Aaron and his sons and on their garments. This
will make them "hallowed." 29:20-21
God tells Aaron and his sons to take the rump, fat,
caul, kidneys, and right shoulder of the ram and add a loaf of bread
or two, and a wafer of unleavened bread. Then they put the whole mess
in the hands of Aaron and his sons and they wave them
before the Lord. This is a wave offering. 29:22-24
Wash up or die. This is a good verse to use when
reminding the kiddies to wash their hands before supper. 30:20
Whoever puts holy oil on a stranger shall be "cut off
from his people." 30:33
And whoever uses God's favorite perfume will be exiled.
30:37-38
Aaron makes a golden calf and tells the people to take
off their clothes and dance around naked. God then
punishes them mercilessly for following their divinely appointed
religious leader. Ex.32:1-35
Moses talks God out of killing all the Israelites. 32:11-13
"And the Lord repented of the evil which he though to
do
unto his people." But how could a good God even consider doing
evil to anyone? 32:14
"I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf."
Aaron just threw the gold earings into the fire and
(Presto!) out came a golden calf! 32:24
Aaron makes the people take off all their clothes and
dance naked around his golden calf. 32:25
Although God is too shy to let Moses see his face, he
does permit a peek at his "back parts." (The divine mooning) 33:23
God gives detailed instructions for performing
ritualistic animal sacrifices. such bloody rituals
must be important to God, judging from the number of times that he
repeats their instructions.
Indeed the entire first nine chapters of Leviticus can be summarized as
follows: Get an animal,
kill it, sprinkle the blood around, cut the dead animal into pieces,
and burn it for a "sweet savor
unto the Lord." Chapters 1 - 9
"It is a thing most holy of the offerings of the LORD
made by fire." 2:10
"The fat that covereth the inwards ... and the two
kidneys ... and the caul above the liver.... It is ... a sweet savour
unto the Lord." 3:3-5
"The fat ... the whole rump ... the inwards ... the two
kidneys ... burn it upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made
by fire unto the LORD." 3:9-11
When you are making your animal sacrifices, be sure to
remember that "all the fat is the
Lord's." God loves blood and guts, but most especially fat. And he
doesn't like to share! 3:16
"If a soul shall sin through ignorance...." But how can
someone "sin through
ignorance?" Don't your have to at least know that an act is wrong
before it can be sinful? 4:2,
13, 22, 27
"The priest shall dip his finger in the blood and
sprinkle the blood seven times before the Lord." 4:6
"And the skin of the bullock, and all his flesh, with
his head, and with his legs, and his inwards, and his dung...."
What to do with the fat, kidneys, liver, skin, head,
entrails, and dung from your burnt offerings. 4:11-12
"If the whole congregation ... sin through ignorance" 4:13
"Bring of the bullock's blood ... And the priest shall
dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle the blood seven times before
the Lord." 4:16-17
"Put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar ...
and ... pour out all the blood ... and ... take all his fat from him,
and burn it upon the altar." 4:18-19
"When a ruler hath sinned ... through ignorance" 4:22
"If any one of the common people sin through ignorance
... then he shall bring his offering, a kid of the goats, a female
without blemish, for his sin which he hath sinned."
If a common person sins through ignorance, then kill a
female goat. (More important people must kill male goats.) 4:27-28
"He shall take away all the fat ... and ... burn it
upon
the altar for a sweet savour unto the LORD." 4:31
"If a soul touch any unclean thing, whether it be a
carcase of an unclean beast, or a carcase of unclean cattle, or the
carcase of unclean creeping things, and if it be hidden from him; he
also shall be unclean, and guilty."
If you touch any unclean thing (like a dead cow or a
bug), then you'll be both unclean and guilty. 5:2
"Or if he touch the uncleanness of man ... he shall be
guilty."
If you touch "the uncleanness of man" (?!) you'll be
guilty. 5:3
"Or if a soul swear, pronouncing with his lips to do
evil, or to do good ... he shall be guilty."
If you swear to do something evil or good, you'll be
guilty. 5:4
"He shall bring his trespass offering unto the LORD ...
a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats."
If you touch an insect, dead animal, or "the
uncleanness
of man" or if
you swear to do something good or bad (5:2-4), kill a female lamb or
goat for God. (A female will do since it's a minor offense.) 5:6
"The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul ... sin
through ignorance ... then he shall bring for his trespass unto the
LORD a ram without blemish."
If you sin without knowing that you've done anything
wrong, kill an unblemished ram for God. 5:14-15
"If a soul sin ... though he wist it not, yet is he
guilty, and shall bear his iniquity."
If you sin against your own will, you are still guilty.
5:17
"Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be
holy."
Whatever touches the dead body of a burnt offering is
holy. 6:27
"Offer
of it all the fat thereof; the rump, and the fat that covereth the
inwards, and the two kidneys, and the fat that is on them ... and the
caul that is above the liver." 7:3
"The priest shall have to himself the skin of the burnt
offering."
The priest gets all the skin to himself. Lucky! 7:8
"And all the meat offering that is baken in the oven,
and all that is dressed in the fryingpan, and in the pan, shall be the
priest's that offereth it."
The priest also gets all the meat in the frying pan. 7:9
"And every meat offering, mingled with oil, and dry,
shall all the sons of Aaron have."
"The flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for
thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day that it is offered; he shall
not leave any of it until the morning."
Be sure to eat all your sacrificed animals the same day
that you kill them. Leftovers are not allowed! 7:15
"If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace
offerings be eaten at all on the third day ... it shall be an
abomination, and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity."
Don't eat any of your dead sacrifcial animals on the
third day after you kill them. That is an abomination to God and he
will never forgive you for it! 7:18
"And the flesh that toucheth any unclean thing shall
not
be eaten."
Don't eat any of your dead sacrficed animals if they
have touched any unclean thing. 7:19
"But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice
of peace offerings ... having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul
shall be cut off from his people."
Don't eat any sacrificed animals while you have your
uncleanness upon you. If you do, you'll be exiled. 7:20
"Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing,
as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable
unclean thing, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace
offerings, which pertain unto the LORD, even that soul shall be cut off
from his people."
If you touch any unclean thing (like "the uncleanness
of
man, or any unclean beast, or any other abominable unclean thing")
while eating sacrifieced animals, you will be exiled. 7:21
"Ye shall eat no manner of fat ... for whosoever eateth
the fat of the beast, of which men offer an offering made by fire unto
the LORD ... shall be cut off from his people."
Be careful what you eat during these animal sacrifices.
Don't eat fat or you will be exiled. 7:23-25
"Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood ...
Whatsoever
soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut
off from his people." 7:26
"The fat with the breast, it shall he bring, that the
breast may be waved for a wave offering before the LORD."
Wave the fat and the breast for "a wave offering before the Lord." 7:30
"And the priest shall burn the fat upon the altar: but
the breast shall be Aaron's and his sons'." 7:31
"And the right shoulder shall ye give unto the priest
for an heave offering." 7:32
"He among the sons of Aaron, that offereth the blood of
the peace offerings, and the fat, shall have the right shoulder for his
part."
Aaron's sons get the right shoulder from all peace
offerings. 7:33
"For the wave breast and the heave shoulder ... a
statute for ever."
Be sure to do your wave breast or heave shoulder today.
It is a statute forver. 7:34
"Moses brought Aaron and ... he girded him with the
curious girdle of the ephod." 8:6-7
"The Urim and Thummim"
The Urim and Thummim were like the two sides of a magic
coin that could
be flipped to to give a yes or no answer to any question. They were
also what Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon. 8:8
Moses does it all for God. First he kills an animal;
wipes the blood on Aaron's ears,
thumbs, and big toes. Then he sprinkles blood round about and waves the
guts before the Lord.
Finally he burns the whole mess for "a sweet savour before the Lord." 8:14-32
"Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the
altar round about with his finger .. and poured the blood at the bottom
of the altar." 8:15
"And
he took all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the
liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and Moses burned it upon the
altar." 8:16
"But the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his
dung,
he burnt with fire without the camp; as the LORD commanded Moses." 8:17
"Moses
took of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron's right ear,
and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his
right foot." 8:23
"And he brought Aaron's sons, and Moses put of the
blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumbs of their
right hands, and upon the great toes of their right feet: and Moses
sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about." 8:24
"And he took the fat, and the rump, and all the fat
that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two
kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder." 8:25
"And he put all upon Aaron's hands, and upon his sons'
hands, and waved them for a wave offering before the LORD." 8:27
"Moses ... burnt them ... for a sweet savour." 8:28
"And Moses took the breast, and waved it for a wave
offering before the LORD." 8:29
"And Moses took ... of the blood which was upon the
altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his
sons, and upon his sons' garments." 8:30
Kill the calf, dip your finger in the blood, sprinkle
the blood round about, burn the fat and entrails, and wave the breast
for a wave offering before the Lord. 9:8-21
"And the sons of Aaron brought the blood unto him: and
he dipped his finger in the blood, and put it upon the horns of the
altar, and poured out the blood at the bottom of the altar." 9:9
"But the fat, and the kidneys, and the caul above the
liver of the sin offering, he burnt upon the altar; as the LORD
commanded Moses." 9:10
"And the fat of the bullock and of the ram, the rump,
and that which covereth the inwards, and the kidneys, and the caul
above the liver." 9:19
"And the breasts and the right shoulder Aaron waved for
a wave offering before the LORD; as Moses commanded." 9:21
God sent a fire to burn the dead animals and all the
people "shouted and fell on their faces." 9:24
God will kill any priest that leaves the tabernacle. 10:7
If priests misbehave at the tabernacle by by drinking
"wine or strong drink," then God will kill them and send his wrath on
"all the people." "It shall be a statute for ever." 10:9
"And the wave breast and heave shoulder shall ye eat in
a clean place." 10:14
"The heave shoulder and the wave breast ... bring with
the offerings made by fire of the fat, to wave it for a wave offering
before the LORD." 10:15
God commands the Israelites to keep doing these wave
and
heave offerings "by a statute
forever." 10:15
Clams, oysters, crabs, lobsters, and shrimp are
abominations to God. 11:10-12
Be sure to watch out for those "other flying creeping
things which have four feet." (I wish
God wouldn't get so technical!) I guess he must mean four-legged
insects. You'd think that since
God made the insects, and so many of them (at least several million
species), that he would know
how many legs they have! 11:23
If your hair has fallen out, you are bald, yet clean.
And if your hair falls out from the part of your head toward your face,
you are forehead bald, yet clean. 13:40-41
"The swine ... is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall
ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch." 11:7-8
"Every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth
shall
be an abomination." 11:41
"Whatsoever goeth upon the belly, and whatsoever goeth
upon all four, or whatsoever hath more feet ... are an abomination." 11:42
"Ye shall not make yourselves abominable with any
creeping thing that creepeth." 11:43
"She shall be unclean."
Women are dirty and sinful after childbirth, so God
prescribes rituals for their purification. (And baby girls make them
twice as sinful and dirty as baby boys do.) 12:1-5
"If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child:
then she shall be unclean seven days ... And she shall then continue in
the blood of her purifying three and thirty days."
If a boy is born, the mother is unclean for 7 days and
must be purified for 33 days. 12:2,
4
"But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be
unclean
two weeks ... and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying
threescore and six days."
If a girl is born, the mother is unclean for 14 days
and
be purified for 66 days. This is because, in the eyes of God, girls are
twice as dirty as boys. 12:5
"She shall bring a lamb ... for a burnt offering,
and...
a young pigeon, or dove, for a sin offering."
After a woman gives birth, a priest must kill a lamb,
pigeon, or dove
as a sin offering. This is because having children is sinful and God
likes it when things are killed for him. 12:6
"She shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood." 12:7
"if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall
bring two turtles, or two young pigeons ... and she shall be clean." 12:8
"And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is
bald; yet is he clean." 13:40
"And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of
his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean." 13:41
God's law for lepers: Get two birds. Kill one. Dip the
live bird in the blood of the
dead one. Sprinkle the blood on the leper seven times, and then let the
blood-soaked bird fly off.
Next find a lamb and kill it. Wipe some of its blood on the patient's
right ear, thumb, and big toe.
Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right
ear, thumb and big toe.
Repeat. Finally kill a couple doves and offer one for a sin offering
and the other for a burnt
offering. 14:2-52
"Then shall the priest command to take for him that is
to be cleansed two birds alive and clean ... and the priest shall
command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over
running water." 14:4
"And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed
from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall
let the living bird loose." 14:7
"And on the eighth day he shall take two he lambs
without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish ...
And the priest shall take one he lamb, and offer him for a trespass
offering ... and wave them for a wave offering before the LORD." 14:10-12
"And he shall slay the lamb ... in the holy place: ...
it is most holy." 14:13
"And the priest shall take some of the blood of the
trespass offering, and ... put it upon the tip of the right ear of him
that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon
the great toe of his right foot." 14:14
"And the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil
that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger
seven times before the LORD." 14:16
"And of the rest of the oil that is in his hand shall
the priest put upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be
cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe
of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass offering." 14:17
"The priest shall offer the sin offering ... and
afterward he shall kill the burnt offering." 14:19
"If he be poor, and cannot get so much; then he shall
take one lamb for a trespass offering to be waved ... and two
turtledoves, or two young pigeons ... and the one shall be a sin
offering, and the other a burnt offering." 14:21-22
"And the priest shall take the lamb of the trespass
offering ... and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before
the LORD:" 14:24
"And he shall kill the lamb of the trespass offering,
and the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering,
and put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed,
and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his
right foot." 14:25
"And the priest shall sprinkle with his right finger
some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the LORD." 14:27
"And the priest shall put of the oil that is in his
hand upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and
upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right
foot, upon the place of the blood of the trespass offering." 14:28
"And he shall offer the one of the turtledoves, or of
the young pigeons, such as he can get." 14:30
"Even such as he is able to get, the one for a sin
offering, and the other for a burnt offering, with the meat offering." 14:31
"He shall take to cleanse the house two birds ... And
he
shall kill the one of the birds ... And he shall take ... the living
bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird ... and sprinkle the
house seven times ... And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of
the bird." 14:49-52
Long, tiresome, and disgusting instructions regarding
the treatment of men who have a
"running issue" out of their "flesh." Very enlightening. "And if he
that hath the issue spit upon him
that is clean ..." 15:1-15
"Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue, is
unclean: and every thing, whereon he sitteth, shall be unclean." 15:4
"And whosoever toucheth his bed shall ... be unclean
until the even." 15:5
"And he that sitteth on any thing whereon he sat ...
shall ... be unclean until the even." 15:6
"And he that toucheth the flesh of him that hath the
issue shall ... be unclean until the even." 15:7
"And if he that hath the issue spit upon him that is
clean; then he shall ... be unclean until the even." 15:8
"And what saddle soever he rideth upon that hath the
issue shall be unclean." 15:9
"And whosoever toucheth any thing that was under him
shall be unclean until the even." 15:10
"And whomsoever he toucheth ... shall ... be unclean
until the even." 15:11
"And the vessel of earth, that he toucheth ... shall be
broken: and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water." 15:12
"He that hath an issue ... shall number to himself
seven
days for his cleansing ... and shall be clean." 15:13
"If any man's seed of copulation go out from him...."
(God's law for wet dreams)
This passage tells you what to do if you get your "seed
of copulation" on yourself,
your clothes, or your partner. Thank God this is in the Bible. 15:16-18, 32
"If any man's seed of copulation go out from him, then
he shall ... be unclean until the even." 15:16
"And every garment ... whereon is the seed of
copulation, shall be ... unclean until the even." 15:17
"The woman also with whom man shall lie with seed of
copulation, they shall both bathe themselves in water, and be unclean
until the even." 15:18
"And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation
shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be
unclean." 15:20
"And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes,
and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even." 15:21
"Whosoever toucheth any thing that she sat upon shall
... be unclean until the even." 15:22
"And if it be on her bed, or on any thing whereon she
sitteth, when he toucheth it, he shall be unclean until the even." 15:23
"Every bed whereon she lieth ... and whatsoever she
sitteth upon shall be unclean." 15:26
"Whosoever toucheth those things shall be unclean." 15:27
"This is the law of him that hath an issue, and of him
whose seed goeth from him ... And of her that is sick of her flowers,
and of him that hath an issue, of the man, and of the woman, and of him
that lieth with her that is unclean." 15:32-33
"I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat." 16:2
God explains the use of scapegoats. It goes like this:
Get two goats. Kill one. Wipe,
smear, and sprinkle the blood around seven times. Then take the other
goat, give it the sins of all
the people, and send it off into the wilderness. 16:8-28
"Take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it ...
seven times." 16:14
"Kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the
people, and bring his blood ... and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat." 16:15
"Take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of
the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about." 16:18
"He shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger
seven times." 16:19
"Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the
live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of
Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them
upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit
man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their
iniquities." 16:21-22
Sprinkle the blood and burn the fat for a sweet savour
unto the Lord. 17:6
Don't "uncover the nakedness" of any of your relatives
or neighbors. Just ask them
to keep their clothes on while you are around. 18:6-18, 20
"Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover
her nakedness, as long as she is
apart for her uncleanness," Don't even look at a menstruating woman. 18:19
"Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse
kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with a
mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come
upon thee." 19:19
God tells the Israelites that the fruit from fruit
trees
is "uncircumcised" for three years
after the trees are planted. 19:23
"Ye shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither
shall ye use enchantment, nor observe times."
Don't eat anything with blood, or use magic or
astrology. 19:26
"Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither
shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard."
Don't round the corners of your head or beard. 19:27
"Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the
dead, nor print any marks upon you."
Stay away from wizards and people with familiar
spirits.
19:31
If you "lie" with your wife and your mother-in-law (now
that sounds fun!), then all three
of your must be burned to death. 20:14
Priests must not "make baldness upon their head,
neither
shall they shave off the corner of
their beard." 21:5
The high priest shall not "go in to any dead body, nor
defile himself for his father, or for
his mother." 21:11
Handicapped people cannot approach the altar of God.
They would "profane" it. 21:16-23
Anyone with a "flat nose, or any thing superfluous"
must
stay away from the altar of God. 21:18
A man with damaged testicles must not "come nigh to
offer the bread of his God." 21:20
A man who is unclean, or is a leper, or has a "running
issue", or "whose seed goeth from
him", or who touches any dead or "creeping thing" ... "shall not eat of
the holy things, until he be
clean." 22:3-5
What to do if you eat some holy thing unwittingly.
Important stuff that you need to know about. 22:14
God gives us more instructions on killing and burning
animals. I guess the first nine
chapters of Leviticus wasn't enough. He says we must do this because he
really likes the smell
-- it is "a sweet savour unto the Lord." 23:12-14,
18
"Ye shall offer ... a male without blemish ... Blind,
or
broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not
offer these unto the LORD ... Ye shall not offer unto the LORD that
which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut."
God wants us to kill lots of animals for him. Not just
any animals,
though. God only wants dead, male animals without any blemishes. Don't
kill any blind , broken, maimed, or scabbed animials for him. It will
just get him pissed off. (And, since you've been reading Leviticus, you
know what God does when he's pissed off.) 22:19-24
God won't accept animal sacrifices from strangers,
since
strangers have blemishes and are corrupt. 22:25
Don't kill animals for God until they are at least
eight days old. And don't kill mother and her young on the same day.
You can kill the mom on one day and her young on the next. 22:27-28
"Keep my commandments, and do them."
God wants everyone to do all the stuff he's commanded
in Leviticus. 22:31
God will make it so that 100 Israelites can defeat an
army of 10,000. 26:8
God describes the torments that he has planned for
those
who displease him. The usual
stuff: plagues, burning fevers that will consume the eyes, etc. but he
reserves the worst for the
little children. He says "ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your
enemies shall eat it," "I will send
wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children," and "ye
shall eat the flesh of your
sons and daughters." But if you humble your uncircumcised heart, God
won't do all these nasty things to you. It's your choice. 26:16-41
"And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me,
then I will punish you seven times more for your sins." 26:18
"I will bring seven times more plagues upon you
according to your sins." 26:21
"I ... will punish you yet (another) seven times for
your sins." 26:24
"And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten
women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you
your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied." 26:26
"And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me ...
then ... I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins." 26:27-28
"I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours." 26:31
The Israelite population went from seventy (Ex.1:5) to several million
(over 600,000 adult males) in 400 years. 1:45-46,
26:51
The Law of Jealousies. If a man suspects his wife of
being unfaithful, he reports it to the priest. The priest then
makes her drink some "bitter water." If she is guilty, the water makes
her thigh rot and her belly swell. If innocent, no harm
done -- the woman is free and will "conceive seed." In any case, "the
man shall be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall
bear her iniquity." 5:11-31
"And the spirit of jealousy come upon him ... and she
be
defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him ... and she be not
defiled."
If a husband is jealous, his wife must submit to the
law of jealousies whether she was "defiled" or not. 5:14
"Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest ...
And the priest shall ... set her before the LORD ... and the priest
shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse." 5:15-17
"And the priest shall ... say unto the woman, If no man
have lain with thee ... be thou free from this bitter water that
causeth the curse." 5:19
"Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of
cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a
curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh
to rot, and thy belly to swell." 5:20-21
"But if ... some man have lain with thee beside thine
husband ... The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people,
when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell." 5:22
"And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water
that causeth the curse." 5:24
"And when he hath made her to drink the water ... if
she be defiled ... the water that causeth the curse shall ... become
bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the
woman shall be a curse among her people." 5:27
"And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then
she
shall be free, and shall conceive seed." 5:28
"Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and
this
woman shall bear her iniquity." 5:31
"Take the Levites ... and let them shave all their
flesh
... and so make themselves clean."
To get really clean, you've got to shave off your
pubic
hair. 8:6-7
All firstborn Israelites, "both man and beast", belong
to God. He got them the day that he killed every Egyptian firstborn
child and animal. 8:17
When the tabernacle was set up, it was covered by a
cloud during the day and by fire all night. 9:15
God led the Israelites from one camp to the other with
a cloud. When the cloud stopped and rested someplace, the Israelites
pitched their tents. When the cloud started moving again, the
Israelites followed it. 9:16-23
"And if ye go to war ... ye shall blow an alarm with
the
trumpets ... and ye shall be saved from your enemies." 10:9
God continues (mis)leading the Israelites through the
wilderness with a cloud. 10:11-12
"And the cloud of the LORD was upon them by day." 10:34
"And when the people complained, it displeased the
Lord:
and the Lord heard it." (He had his hearing aid on.) He then
burned the complainers alive. That'll teach them. 11:1
The people begin to whine about not having any meat. So
God says he'll give them meat, alright. He'll give them "flesh to eat,"
not for just a few days, but "for a whole month, until it come out of
[their] nostrils, and it be loathsome to [them]." Yuck. 11:4, 19-20
"As a nursing father beareth the suckling child...." 11:12
God promises to give them "flesh to eat," not for just
a
few days, but "for a whole month, until it come out of your
nostrils, and it be loathsome to you." Yuck. 11:20
God sends quails to feed his people until they were
"two
cubits [about a meter] high upon the face of the earth." Taking
the "face of the earth" to be a circle with a radius of say 30
kilometers (an approximate day's journey), this would amount to 3
trillion (3x1012) liters of quails. At 2 quails
per liter, this would provide a couple million quails for each of
several million
people. 11:31
"Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men
which were upon the face of the earth." This is a strange way
to describe on of the cruelest men to have ever lived (If he ever did
live, which he probably didn't). Moses, as he is described
in the Bible, is anything but meek (See Num.31:14-18
for an example of his "meekness"). 12:3
"If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will ...
speak unto him in a dream." Now there's a reliable
way to communicate with someone! 12:6
"And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but
spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? 12:14
"They ... cut down ... a branch with one cluster of
grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff."
A single cluster of grapes was so heavy that it took
two
men to carry it. I guess that's what you'd expect, though, since they
were in the land of giants. (See verses 32-33.)
13:23
"And there we saw the giants
... And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in
their
sight." This statement may have been figurative, hyperbole, typical
biblical exaggeration, or an actual description of the sons of Anak, in
which case they must have been
about 100 meters tall. These are the same giants (the Nephilium) that
resulted when the "sons of God" mated with "the daughters of men in Gen.6:4 Of course, these
superhuman god-men should have been destroyed in the flood. So what are
they doing still alive? 13:33
"Joshua ... and Caleb ... rent their clothes." 14:6
"All the congregation bade stone them with stones."
The people have had enough of wandering around in the
desert and they don't much want to fight giants (see 13:33), so they decide to
stone Joshua and his merry men (with stones). 14:10a
"The glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of
the
congregation before all the children of Israel."
But before the people get started with the stoning, God shows up in all
his glory. 14:10b
God tells Moses that he is going to kill all of the
Israelites -- every last whining one of the them, and then make a whole
bunch of brand new Israelites. 14:12
Moses tries to talk God out of killing everyone by
telling him that the Egyptians will hear about it and will say that he
wasn't able to lead the Israelites to Israel, so he killed them all
instead. 14:13-19
Thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest
before them, by day time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of
fire by night." 14:14
It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to
Canaan, yet such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more
than a few weeks. 14:33,
32:13
God gives more instructions for the ritualistic killing
of animals. The smell of burning flesh is "a sweet savour
unto the Lord." 15:3,
13-14, 24
"If any soul sin through ignorance ..." but how can
someone sin through ignorance? Don't you have to know that an
action is wrong for it to be sinful? Oh well, if you do happen to sin
through ignorance, you can be forgiven by God if you kill
some animals. 15:27-30
Immediately after ordering the execution of the sabbath
breaker, God gets down to some more important business
-- like instructing the people on how to make fringes on their
garments. 15:38-39
"And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face." 16:4
"The glory of the LORD appeared unto all the
congregation." 16:19
After burning the the 250 guys that offered incense,
God tells Moses to keep their censers (because they are holy) to remind
everyone not to offer incense without a license. 16:36-40
"Behold ... the glory of the Lord appeared." 16:42
"Take a censer ... and go quickly unto the
congregation,
and make an atonement for them."
Moses tells Aaron to burn some incense to make God
quit
killing people. (God just killed 250 for burning incense.) 16:45
Aaron is getting better at his magic tricks. He has rod
bud, bloom, and yield almonds. 17:8
"They shall not come nigh the vessels of the sanctuary
and the altar, that neither they, nor ye also, die."
Stay away from holy things and places -- like churches.
God might have to kill you if you get too close. 18:3
God describes once again the procedure for ritualistic
animal sacrifices. such rituals must be extremely important to
God, since he makes their performance a "statute" and "covenant"
forever. Why, then don't Bible-believers perform these
sacrifices anymore? Don't they realize how God must miss the "sweet
savour" of burning flesh? Don't they believe God when
he says "forever"? 18:17-19
"Neither must the children of Israel henceforth come
nigh the tabernacle of the congregation, lest they bear sin, and die." 18:22
"Neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the
children of Israel, lest ye die." 18:32
"This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath
commanded."
These absurd rituals, cruel sacrifices, and unjust
punishments are vitally
important to God. They are to be "a perpetual statute" for everyone on
earth. 19:1-22
The Red Heifer. Some fundamentalists believe that when
a
red heifer is born, Armageddon will soon follow. Well, a red heifer was
born in March 2002 and has been declared ritually acceptable by the
rabbis. So in a few years it can be sacrificed, ushering in, so they
say, the end of the world. You can read all about it here
in the National Review.
19:2
"Take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle ...
seven times."
God's instructions for putting blood on fingers,
sprinkling it around, and then burning the dung of sacrificial animals.
This is something that everyone needs to know about. (That's why it's
in the Bible!). 19:4-5
"Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall
bathe ... and shall be unclean until the even." (The guy who burns the
dung also has to take a bath, which sounds like a pretty good idea to
me.) 19:7-8
"And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of
the heifer ... and it shall be kept ... for a water of separation: it
is a purification for sin."
After you kill and burn the dung of the red heifer have
a clean guy gather the ashes and then be sure to keep them for "a water
of separation: it is a purification for sin." 19:9
"He that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash
his clothes, and be unclean until the even; and it shall be ... a
statute forever." 19:10
He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be
unclean seven days." (Bad news for understakers.) 19:11
He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and
on
the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the
third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean."
(Use the "water of separation" made from the ashes of the dung of the
red heifer. See 19:9.)
19:12
"Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is
dead, and purifieth not himself ... shall be cut off from Israel:
because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be
unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him." 19:13
"When a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the
tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days." 19:14
"And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound
upon it, is unclean." (Don't you just hate it when people leave the lid
off containers?) 19:15
"And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword
... or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean
seven days." 19:16
"And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes
of the burnt heifer ... And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip
it in the water, and sprinkle it ... upon him that touched a bone, or
one slain, or one dead, or a grave. And the clean person shall sprinkle
upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the
seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe
himself in water, and shall be clean at even." (Well that sounds simple
enough!) 19:17-19
"But the man that shall be unclean ... shall be cut off
... the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is
unclean." 19:20
"It shall be a perpetual statute ... that he that
sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash his clothes; and he that
toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean until even." 19:21
"And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be
unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even." 19:22
And they fell upon their faces: and the glory of the
LORD appeared unto them." 20:6
Moses is punished for hitting the rock with his staff
(like he did before in Ex.17:6)
to get water, rather than just speaking to the rock (as God asked him
to do this time). For messing up the magic trick, Moses will never get
to the promised land. 20:8-12
Moses hits a rock with his rod and Presto! -- water
comes out. 20:11
God sends "fiery serpents" to bite his chosen people,
and many of them die. 21:6
To save the people from God's snakes, Moses makes a
graven image in the form of a snake (breaking the second
commandment) and puts it on a pole. Those who look at Moses' magic
snake to not die -- even if they were previously bit by
God's snakes. 21:8
God asks Balaam the non-rhetorical question, "What men
are these with thee?" 22:9
God says to Balaam, "If men come to call thee, rise up,
and go with them." Men come, and Balaam goes with them,
just as cog had commanded." And God's anger was kindled because he
went" -- but he was just following God's instructions! 22:20-22
Balaam has a nice little chat with his ass. 22:28-30
"Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw
the
angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand:
and he ... fell flat on his face." 22:31
God meets Balaam and "put a word in his mouth." 23:15-16
God has "the strength of a unicorn." Oh heck, I bet
he's
even stronger than a unicorn. 23:22
Balaam says "his king shall be higher than Agag." But
Balaam couldn't have known about Agag since Agag didn't live
until the time of King Saul. (See 1Sam.15:33
where Samuel hacks king Agag into pieces.) 24:7
God, who is as strong as a unicorn, will eat up the
nations, break their bones, and then pierce them through with his
arrows. What a guy! 24:8
In these chapters, God provides ridiculously detailed
instructions for the ritualistic sacrifice of animals. The burning of
their dead bodies smells great to God. Eleven times in these two
chapters God says that they are to him a "sweet savour." 28-29
"He made them wander in the wilderness forty years."
It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to
Canaan, yet
such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more than a few
weeks. 32:13
If a person accidentally kills someone, then she should
go to a city of refuge. If she can get to the city of refuge before the
"revenger of blood" (the victim's closest relative) can catch her, then
she is safe, at least until the high priest dies (I don't know what he
has to do with it). But if she is caught outside the city of refuge,
then the revenger of blood can kill her. 35:11-12
"If he smite him with an instrument of iron, so that he
die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put to death." 35:16
"If he smite him with throwing a stone, wherewith he
may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall surely be put
to death." 35:17
"Or if he smite him with an hand weapon of wood,
wherewith he may die, and he die, he is a murderer: the murderer shall
surely be put to death." 35:18
"But if the slayer shall at any time come without the
border of the city of his refuge ... and the revenger of blood kill the
slayer; he shall not be guilty of blood. Because he should have
remained in the city of his refuge until the death of the high priest"
If the accidental killer leaves the city of refuge and is caught by the
revenger of blood, then the revenger can legally kill the accidental
killer. 35:26-28
"The people is greater and taller than we ... we have
seen the sons of the Anakims there."
More giants in the promised land. 1:28
It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to
Canaan, yet such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more
than a few weeks. 2:7,
8:2, 29:5
God gave the Moabites and the Ammonites special
protection since they were the descendents of Lot's drunken,
incestuous affair with his daughters (Gen.19:30-38). 2:9, 19
"A land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time."
(They must have been much more common back then.) 2:10-11, 20-21
"The hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them
from among the host, until they were consumed."
God killed all the Israelite soldiers -- slowly. It
took
him 38 years to kill them all, but he finally got the job done. 2:14-16
Og, the king of the giants, was a tall man, even by NBA
standards. His bed measured 9 by 4 cubits (13.5 feet long and
6 feet wide). 3:11
When going to war, don't be afraid. God is on your
side;
"he shall fight for you." 3:22
"Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you
neither shall ye diminish ought from it." This verse is one of
those that prevent Bible-believers from cleaning up the Bible. So
they're stuck with the unedited version. 4:2
God's favorite people will never be infertile (neither
will their cows!) and will never get sick. (God will send
infertility and diseases on the other guys.) 7:14-15
God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the
Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible." 7:20-23
The Israelites clothing didn't wear out while wandering
around in the desert for 40 years. (God made the childrens' shoes grow
with their feet so they wouldn't need new ones!) 8:4
Here is some good advice from God: "Circumcise the
foreskin of your heart." 10:16
After God instructs the Israelites to mercilessly
slaughter all the strangers that they encounter (Dt.7:2, 16), he tells them to "love
ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
10:19
God says that we shouldn't add to, or take away from,
any of his commands. Why then don't modern
Bible-believers stone to death blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, and
disobedient sons? 12:32
Don't "make any baldness between your eyes for the
dead." 14:1
This verse mistakenly says that the hare chews its cud.
14:7-8
Don't eat any seafood unless it has fins and scales.
Oysters, clams, crabs, and lobsters are "unclean" and shouldn't
be eaten. 14:10
To the biblical God, a bat is just an another unclean
bird. 14:11, 18
Don't eat any dead animals that you find lying around.
But it's okay to give it to strangers or sell it to foreigners. And
don't boil a kid (young goat) is its mother's milk. 14:21
Don't sacrifice any animal with a blemish to God -- he
is very picky! 17:1
God travels with people and fights in their wars. 20:4
If you find a dead body and don't know the cause of
death, then get all the elders together, cut off the head of a
heifer, wash your hands over its body, and say our hands have not shed
this blood. (That'll do it!) 21:1-8
Hang on trees the bodies of those who are "accursed of
God." They make nice decorations. 21:22
Women are not to wear men's clothing -- it's an
"abomination unto the Lord." 22:5
"Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together." 22:10
"Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of
woollen and linen together." 22:11
You can't go to church if your testicles are damaged or
your penis has been cut off. 23:1
God won't let bastards attend church. Neither can the
sons or daughters of bastards "even to the tenth generation."
So if you plan to attend church next Sunday be ready to prove that your
genitals are intact and don't forget your birth
certificate and genealogical records for at least the last ten
generations. Don't laugh. This stuff is important to God. 23:2
God gives us instructions for defecating. He says to
carefully cover up all feces "for the Lord walketh in the midst
of thy camp." (You wouldn't want the divine foot to step in your shit,
would you?) 23:12-14
Remarrying your former wife after divorcing her is an
abomination to the Lord. 24:4
If a man dies without having a child, his brother shall
"go in unto" his dead brother's wife. If he refuses, the dead
man's wife is to loosen his shoe and spit in his face. 25:5-10
If two men fight and the wife of one grabs the
"secrets"
of the other, "then thou shalt cut off her hand" and "thy eye
shall not pity her." 25:11-12
"I have not ... given ought thereof for the dead.
Don't worry God. I haven't offered any food to dead
people. 26:14
Cursed be the man that maketh any graven image. 27:15
"Cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife,
because
he uncovereth his father's skirt." 27:20
"Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast: and
all the people shall say, Amen." 27:21
"Cursed be he that lieth with his sister ... And all
the
people shall say, Amen." 27:22
"Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law: and
all
the people shall say, Amen." 27:23
"Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this
law." 27:26
"Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt
thou
be in the field." I guess you'll be cursed just about wherever you go. 28:16
"Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed
shalt thou be when thou goest out." 28:19
"And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass,
and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." 28:23
"The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and
dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be
destroyed." 28:24
"The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and
the emerods [hemorrhoids], and with the scab, and with the
itch, whereof thou canst be healed. The Lord will smite thee with
madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart." 28:27-28
"The stranger that is within thee shall get up above
thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low ... he shall
be the head, and thou shalt be the tail." 28:43-44
The shoes and clothing of the Israelites didn't wear
out
even after wandering in the wilderness for forty years. They
just don't make them like they used to! 29:5
God will circumcise your heart and "the heart of thy
seed." 30:6
"Their wine is the poison of dragons." I wonder what
genus and species the bible is referring to when it mentions
dragons. 32:33
"Her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon
the wall."
Since Rahab's house was built on the wall, how did she
and her family survive when the wall fell down? (See Joshua 6:20) 2:15
The priests were able to cross the Jordan without
getting their feet wet. Glory!
3:8-17
At God's command, Joshua makes some knives and
circumcises "again the children of Israel the second time"
(ouch!) at the "hill of the foreskins." 5:2-3
It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to
Canaan, yet such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more
than ten days. 5:6
"Loose thy shoe from off thy foot."
The "captain of the Lord's host" visits Joshua and
delivers the all-important message: "Take your shoes off." 5:13-15
God's plan for the destruction of Jericho: Have seven
priests go before the ark with seven trumpets of ram's horns.
Then on the seventh day, they go around the city seven times. Finally,
the priests blow a long blast from the ram's horns, all
the people shout, and the walls will fall down. 6:3-5
Keep yourselves from "the accursed thing". Whatever
that
is. But be sure to save all the silver and gold for God! 6:18-19
Joshua and all the elders tear their clothes, fall on
their faces, and put dust on their heads. They perform this tantrum
because the Israelites lost a battle (God was punishing them because
one man (Achan) "took of the accursed thing"). I
wonder what "the accursed thing" was? Knowledge, tolerance, kindness
perhaps? 7:1-13
And Joshua ... fell to the earth upon his face." 7:6
"And the LORD discomfited them before Israel, and slew
them with a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way."
God slaughters the Amorites and even chases them along
the way. 10:10
"The LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them
... and they died."
As the Amorites try to escape, God sends down huge
hailstones and kills even more of them. 10:11
In a divine type of daylight savings time, God makes
the
sun stand still so that Joshua can get all his killing done
before dark. 10:12-13
"The Lord fought for Israel." I wonder what kind of
weapon he used. Probably the jawbone of an ass. 10:14, 10:42
"And the coast of Og king of Bashan, which as of the
remnant of the giants...." 12:4,
18:16
One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the LORD
your
God, he it is that fighteth for you." 23:10
God sent hornets to fight for the Israelites. 24:12
Poor Joshua must have had trouble with math. He says
there are 29 cities in verse 32, but he lists 38 in verses
21-32. Then he says there were 14 cities in verse 36, but lists 15 in
verses 33-36. 15:32, 36
Adonibezek fed 70 kings (with their thumbs and big toes
cut off) under his table. 1:7
"The Lord ... could not drive out the
inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." 1:19
God promised many times that he would drive out all the
inhabitants of the lands they encountered. But
these verses show that God failed to keep his promise since he was
unable to driver out the Canaanites. 1:21,
27-30
An angel drops by to rebuke the Israelites for being
too
tolerant of the religious beliefs of the people they have been
massacring. He tells them that since they didn't complete their job (of
killing everyone), God will not completely drive them out (like he
promised to do). Instead he'll keep some of them around so that the
Israelites will be ensnared by their false gods. 2:1-3
God anger "was hot against Israel, and he sold them."
Well, I hope he got a good price. 2:14,
4:2
"Surely he covereth his feet in his summer chamber."
"Covering his feet" is the biblical equivalent of
"going to the bathroom." 3:24
Shamgar kills 600 Philistines with an ox goad. Praise
God. 3:31
"The children of Israel cried unto the LORD: for he
[Sisera, not God] had nine hundred chariots of
iron." Yet just a few verses ago (Jg.1:19)
God was overpowered by chariots of iron. 4:3
"The stars in their courses fought against Sisera."
Unless astrology is true, how can the stars affect the outcome of a
battle? 5:20
"The children of Israel did evil in the sight of the
LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years."
God forces the Israelites to be slaves to the
Midianites for seven years. 6:1
"They (the Midianites) came as grasshoppers for
multitude; for both they and their camels were without number."
Every male Midianite was killed during the time of
Moses (Numbers 31:7),
and yet 200 years later they flourish like grasshoppers "without
number." 6:6
"The children of Israel cried unto the LORD."
This is always step three in God's four-step
slavery/slaughter plan. 1: The Israelites do evil in the site of the
Lord; 2: God sells them into slavery; 3: The Israelites cry unto the
Lord; and 4: God kills the people he sold the Israelites to. 6:7
"There came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak
... And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The
LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." 6:11-12
"And the LORD looked upon him, and said..."
God joins in the conversation with Gideon and the
angel.
6:14
To prove he's for real, the angel makes fire come out
of
a rock, burning the flesh and cakes. 6:20-21
"The Spirit of the LORD came upon Gideon, and he blew a
trumpet." 6:34
Gideon needs some (more) signs to convince him that God
isn't lying to him. (The buring flesh sign from 6:20-21 didn't satisfy him.) So
he puts down some wool on the
ground and asks God to make it wet, while keeping the surrounding
ground dry. And God does it, no sweat. But
Gideon is still not sure he can trust God, so he asks him to reverse
the trick, and make the ground wet and the wool
dry. "And God did so ..." Gideon must have been impressed by a God that
could do such great things. 6:36-40
"The people that are with thee are too many."
God tells Gideon to reduce the size of his army so that
they couldn't claim to have killed all the Midianites without him. God
doesn't like to share credit for his killings. 7:2
God picks the men to fight in Gideon's army by the way
they drink water. Only those that lap water with their
tongues, "as a dog lappeth," shall fight. 7:4-7
"And the LORD said unto Gideon, By the three hundred
men
that lapped will I save you." 7:7
The Midianites and Amalekites had an infinite number
of
camels -- well, maybe not quite, but at least as many
"as the sand by the sea shore." 7:12
Some guy had a dream about barley cakes and tents. The
barley cake smote the tent and -- well, anyway, it was a sign from God
that he and Gideon would massacre the Midianites. 7:13-14
Gideon's men break three hundren picthers while holding
lamps, blowing trumpets, and yelling "The sword of the Lord and of
Gideon." 7:16-20
"Gideon made an ephod ... and all Israel went thither a
whoring after it." 8:27
Abimelech kills 69 brothers "upon one stone." (He was
trying to get in the Guinness Book of World Records.) 9:5
And now for something completely different: Talking
Trees 9:8-15
"Wine ... cheereth God and man." So God drinks wine and
it makes him happy. 9:13
God sends evil spirits that cause humans to deal
treacherously with each other. 9:23-24
Abimelech and his men burned to death 1000 men and
women who were trapped in a tower.
(They had really big towers back then.) 9:49
"Jair ... had thirty sons that rode on thirty ass
colts,
and they had thirty cities." 10:3-4
God was angry at Israel so he sold them to the
Philistines. (He had previously sold them to the kings of
Mesopotamia (3:8) and
Canaan (4:2).) 10:7
"And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD." 10:10
"And the LORD said unto the children of Israel ... I
will deliver you no more ... Go and cry unto the gods which ye have
chosen." 10:11-14
"And the children of Israel said unto the LORD, We have
sinned ... And they put away the strange gods from among them, and
served the LORD: and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel." 10:15-16
42,000 Ephraimites fail the "shibboleth" test and are
killed by Jephthah's army. 12:6
"Ibzan ... had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom
he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters." 12:8-9
Abdon had 70 sons and nephews that rode on 70 ass
colts.
12:13-14
"The children of Israel did evil again in the sight of
the LORD; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines
forty years." 13:1
"And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and
said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou
shalt conceive, and bear a son." 13:2-3
"The child shall be a Nazarite from the womb."
According to Numbers
6:6
Nazarites are not to touch any dead bodies. But Samson was a mass
murderer. He must have touched hundreds of dead bodies. (Or did he just
kill his victims, being careful not to touch them after they were
dead?) 13:5
A man of God came unto me [Samson's mom]."
She didn't ask him any questions and he didn't tell her
his name. 13:6
"The angel of God came again unto the woman as she sat
in the field: but Manoah her husband was not with her."
Husbands are never around when angels come unto women
and make them pregnant. 13:9
"Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is
secret?"
The angel had a secret name. (Clarence?, 007?, agent
99?) 13:18
"The angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the
altar. And Manoah and his wife ... fell on their faces." 13:20
"But the angel of the LORD did no more appear to Manoah
and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the LORD."
Manoah and his wife knew the angel was from God
because
they never saw him again. 13:21
"And the child [Samson] grew, and the Lord blessed
him."
Samson was one of the vilest of all the vile Bible
heroes; Yet he was especially blessed by God. 13:24
Samson's lust for the Philistine woman was "of the
Lord." It was all a part of God's plan for killing Philistines. 14:4
Samson rips up a young lion when "the spirit of the
Lord came mightily upon him." Later, when going to "take"
his Philistine wife he notices a swarm of bees and honey in the lion's
carcass (a Divine miracle -- or just rotting flesh, flies, and
maggots?). 14:5-8
"I will now put forth a riddle unto you ... Out of the
eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."
That's the riddle. Whoever can figure it out before the
week of partying is over will get 30 sheets and 30 garments. But
whoever can't will have to give Samuel 30 sheets and 30 garments. 14:12-13
"Entice thy husband, that he may declare unto us the
riddle, lest we burn thee and thy father's house with fire."
Samson's party buddies are taking the riddle seriously. They tell
Samson's new Philistine wife to tell them the answer to the riddle or
they'll burn her house down. 14:15
"And she wept before him the seven days ... and ... on
the seventh day ... he told her ... and she told the riddle to ... her
people." 14:17
Samson catches 300 foxes, ties their tails together,
and
sets them on fire. 15:4
"The spirit of the Lord came mightily upon" Samson and
"he found a new jawbone of an ass ... and took it,
and slew 1000 men therewith." 15:14-15
After Samson killed 1000 men with the jawbone of an
ass,
he was thirsty. So God created and filled a hollow in the very same
jawbone and put water in it for Samson to drink. 15:17-19
Samson, after "going in unto" a harlot, takes the
doors,
gate, and posts of the city and carries them to the top of a
hill. Why did he do this? Did God make him do it or was he just showing
off? The Bible doesn't say. 16:3
Delilah
is paid by the Philistines to find out the magical source of Samson's
strength and how he could be restrained. She asks Samson three times.
He says he'd become as week as any other man if he were tied up with
bowstrings. So she does that, but he breaks the bow strings. She askes
again and he says to use ropes. So she uses ropes, but he breaks the
ropes. Next he says to weave his braids into a cloth. So she does that,
but he breaks out of that one too. 6:6-14
Samson reveals the secret of his strength to Delilah:
"If I be shaven, then my strength will go from me." (And I
thought his strength was from God.) 16:17
After taking in a traveling Levite, the host offers his
virgin daughter and his guest's concubine to a mob of
perverts (who want to have sex with his guest). The mob refuses the
daughter, but accepts the concubine and they
"abuse her all night." The next morning she crawls back to the doorstep
and dies. The Levite puts her dead body on an
ass and takes her home. Then he chops her body up into twelve pieces
and sends them to each of the twelve tribes of
Israel. 19:22-30
"The children of Israel ... gathered together as one
man
[along with] four hundred thousand footmen that drew sword."
After receiving the Levite's
rotting-concubine-body-part-message (see the last chapter for the gory
details), the entire population of Israel along with 400,000 soldiers
gathered together to decide what to do about it. 20:1
"I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent
her throughout all the country."
The Levite tells everyone his story (leaving out the
part about how he gave
his concubine to the mob to do with as they pleased),
explaining the mysterious rotting body part messages that brought
everyone in Israel together. 20:4-6
"And all the people arose as one man, saying...."
Can't you just picture it? After hearing the Levite's
story, the entire
population of Israel spoke in unison, saying "We will not any of us go
to his tent, neither will we any of us turn into his house." 20:8
The Benjamites had 700 left-handed men who could sling
a
stone at a hair and not miss.
20:16
After the Benjamites refuse to turn over the men from
Gibeah (the town that wanted to have sex with the Levite but settled
for his concubine instead), the Israelites asked God which tribe should
go to war with them. God said the tribe of Judah should go first. So
Judah goes to war, but the Benjamites with their sharp shooting lefties
kill 22,000 Israelites. 20:18-21
After 22,000 Israelites were killed by the Benjamites,
they cry all day before the Lord. Then they ask God (again) if they
should go to war against Benjamin. God said yes, so they try it again,
and another 18,000 Israelites are killed. 20:23-25
Once again all of the Israelites sit and weep before
God, and ask again (for the third time) if they should attack the
Benjamites. God give them his usual answer: Attack. This time he
promises (he was just kidding the last couple times) that he "will
deliver them into thine hand." 20:26-28
God tells Phinehas to fight against the Benjamites,
saying he will deliver them into his hand. So the Israelites kill some
more people for God. 20:38-41
After the Israelites heard the Levite's story (about
chopping up his dead concubine and sending her body parts to each tribe
of Israel) they vowed not to "give" their daughters to the Benjamites.
So now they had a problem: they just finished killing all the Benjamite
women and children (Jg 20:48)
so there were no women for the surviving Benjamite men to marry. [There
were 600 Benjamite men that survived the war with the Israelites. (Jg 20:47)] 21:1-7
But they find a great solution. They check their
records
and find that no one from Jabeshgilead came to the rotting-concubine-
body-part meeting. So they'll go and steal their women and give them to
the 600 surviving Benjamites. 21:8
Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we
do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out
of Benjamin?" 21:16
"We may not give them wives of our daughters: for the
children of Israel have sworn, saying, Cursed be he that giveth a wife
to Benjamin." 21:18
So they come up with another brilliant plan. Have the
Benjamites hide in the bushes and then catch the daughters of Shiloh
when they come out to dance. So that's what they did and everyone lived
happily ever after. 21:19-23
"And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the Lord
remembered her." (He probably said something like, "Oh yeah, she's the
one whose womb I shut up.") And Hannah conceived and "bare a son [Oh
boy, another boy!], and called his name Samuel." 1:19-20
"And the Lord visited Hannah [again], so that she
conceived." Did he get her pregnant in the usual way? 2:21
A disembodied voice calls to the child Samuel three
times. The first two times, Samuel thought it was Eli that called him.
But Eli figured it that the voice must be God's. So the third time that
God called, he was able to deliver his message to Samuel. 3:4-10
God will do something that will cause everyone's ears
to
tingle. 3:11
Samuel tells Eli that God will punish his descendants
forever (3:12-13) and Eli says, "Okay, whatever God wants is fine with
me." 3:18
When the Israelites saw the ark of the covenant, they
shouted so loud that the ground shook. 4:5
The Philistines set the ark of God next to the god
Dagon, and the next morning Dagon had mysteriously (miraculously?)
fallen on his face. The same thing happened the next night, only this
time his head and hands were cut off, too! After that, no one ever
entered the house of Dagon again. 5:2-5
God smites the people of Ashdod with hemorrhoids "in
their secret parts." 5:6-12
To see if it was God who killed the Philistine people,
the ark of the Lord and the five golden hemorrhoids were put into a
cart pulled by two cows. Then the cows were let go. If the cows went
directly to Bethshemesh, then God killed the people. And that is the
way the cows went. So by this superstitious method we know that it was
God who killed the Philistines by giving them hemorrhoids "in their
secret parts." 6:7-12
After striking the Philistines with hemorrhoids "in
their secret parts," he demands that they send him
five golden hemorrhoids as a "trespass offering." 6:4-5, 11, 17
The LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day
upon
the Philistines, and discomfited them." 7:10-11
After God helped the Israelites slaughter the
Philistines, Samuel erected a monument saying, "So far God has helped
us." 7:12
Saul was the best looking guy in Israel and stood head
and shoulders above everyone else. 9:2
God tells Samuel that Saul is the man he has chosen to
be King. 9:17
Samuel found Saul's missing asses without even looking
for them. You see, he's a seer -- just like Joseph Smith! 9:19-20
When the people couldn't find Saul (who was selected to
be king by drawing lots), they "enquired of the Lord ... and the Lord
answered, Behold he hath hid himself among the stuff." 10:22
"But the children of Belial said, How shall this man
save us? And they despised him, and brought no presents." 10:27
Everyone (except the virgin women) in Jabeshgilead was
killed by the non-Benjamite Israelites (see Judges 21:10-14), yet here
just a few years later "all the men" are negotiating a treaty with the
Ammonites. Do dead men make treaties? I guess in the Bible they do! 11:1
"I make a covenant with your, that I may thrust out all
your right eyes." Deals like this can only be found in the
Bible. 11:2
"And the spirit of God came upon Saul ... and he took a
yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them
throughout all the coast of Israel." People do the darnedest
things when the spirit of God comes upon them! 11:6-7
"Saul ... slew the Ammorites unto the heat of the day."
Then he took a little break. After all, killing is
hard work. 11:11
"So Samuel called unto the LORD; and the LORD sent
thunder and rain." 12:18
"Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two
years over Israel...." Huh? 13:1
"Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines ... And
Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews
hear."
After his son Jonathan killed some Philistines, Saul
went around throughout Israel blowing a trumpet and saying, "Let the
Hebrew hear." It is strange to read in the next chapter that Jonathan's
God-assisted slaughter of 20 Philistines was "his first slaughter."
Didn't this slaughter count, or what? 13:3
"The Philistines gathered ... as the sand which is on
the sea shore."
"The LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart."
Samuel tells Saul that he's just not good enough for
God. So God has chosen someone else to replace him as king. Who is this
guy, this "man after his own heart" that God has chosen? David!13:14
"In the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor
spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and
Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found."
There were only two swords in the entire Israelite
army,
Saul's and Jonathan's. 13:22
After Jonathan's first slaughter (20 men in one half
acre), God showed his approval with "a very great trembling." 14:15
"I did but taste a little honey ... and, lo, I must
die."
Saul tells his soldiers not to eat anything until he
kills all of his
enemies, saying that anyone who eats anything is cursed. But his son
Jonathan didn't hear about his fathers curse and he ate a bit of honey.
So he Saul says his son is cursed and must die. 14:24-43
"Samuel ... laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, and
it rent."
Samuel was so upset that Saul left one Amalekite alive
(instead of
killing everyone like God commanded) that he tore his skirt. 15:27
"The LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn
for
Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?"
God tells Samuel to quit moping around about Saul and
get out and find another king. 16:1-3
"An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him." but if God
is good, then how could he have an evil spirit? 16:14-16, 23
Goliath was ten feet tall ("six cubits and a span"). 17:4
David caught a lion (and a bear?) "by his beard" and
then killed him. 17:34-35
"David ... behaved himself wisely."
Like when he buys his first wife with 200 Philistine
foreskins a little later in this chapter. 18:5
"The evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he
prophesied." 18:10
"Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with
him, and was departed from Saul."
Saul was afraid of David because "the Lord was with
him." I suppose the
Lord even tagged along with David when he cut off the 200 Philistine
foreskins in v.27. Did God hold the penises as David cut them off or
vice versa. 18:12
"And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and
the LORD was with him."
Read the story below (18:25-28) to see an example of
David's wise behavior when God is with him. 18:14
"All Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out
and came in before them." 18:16
David kills 200 Philistines and brings their foreskins
to Saul to buy his first wife (Saul's daughter Michal).
Saul had only asked for 100 foreskins, but David was feeling generous. 18:25-27
"And Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David."
(How else could David get so many foreskins?) 18:28
And the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul." Poor
guy, he just can't keep away from God's damned evil spirit. 19:9
"Saul sent messengers to take David: and when they saw
the company of the prophets prophesying ... the Spirit of God was upon
the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied."
Saul sent messengers to kill David. But when they
messengers arrived and saw everyone prophesying, the spirit of the Lord
came upon them too and they began prophesying. 19:20
"And when it was told Saul, he sent other messengers,
and they prophesied likewise." 19:21a
"And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and
they
prophesied also." 19:21b
"He [Saul] went thither to Naioth in Ramah: and the
Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on, and prophesied."
Finally, Saul comes to see what's going on and the
Spirit of God comes on him too and he prophesies. 19:23
Saul gets a bit carried away with his prophesying "and
he stripped off his clothes ... and lay down naked all that day and
night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets?" 19:24
David acts like he's crazy, scribbles on the gates of
Gath, and lets spit run down his beard. All this he did in
front of Israel's enemies in the hopes that they would take him in and
protect him from Saul. 21:12
"Saul went in to cover his feet." (Saul took a leak.) 24:3
"Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe
privily."
David snuck in and cut off a piece of Saul's skirt
while
he was relieving himself. Saul was so busy with his business that he
didn't even see David or notice that his skirt was being cut. 24:4
"If I leave ... any that pisseth against the wall."
David vows to will kill Nabal and all his men (or as he
put it, "any that pisseth against the wall".) 25:22
When Abigail saw David, she ... fell ... on her face." 25:23
"Except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely
there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that
pisseth against the wall."
If Abigail hadn't come and paid him off, David would
have killed Nabal and any of his people "that pisseth against the
wall". 25:34
They were all asleep; because a deep sleep from the
LORD
was fallen upon them."
David and Abishai sneak into Saul's tent and steal his
spear and water jug without anyone noticing "because a deep sleep from
the LORD was fallen upon them." 26:12
"And David smote the land and left neither man nor
woman alive." (No wonder God liked David so much!)
Among those that David exterminated were the Amalekites. But there
couldn't have been any Amalekites to kill since
Saul killed them all (1
Sam.15:7-8) just a little while before. 27:8-11
"And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the
Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by
prophets." 28:6
Saul visits a woman with a "familiar spirit" and she
brings Samuel back from the dead. Samuel once again
explains that God is angry at Saul for not killing all of the
Amalekites. He says God is going to deliver all of Israel
into the hands of the Philistines. (Since Saul refused to slaughter
innocent people, God will slaughter the Israelites.
Fair is fair.) 28:8-19
"Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee?
And he said, Bring me up Samuel." 28:11
"An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle.
And Saul perceived that it was Samuel." 28:14
"And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me,
to bring me up?" 28:15
"David said unto Achish, But what have I done ... that
I
may not go fight against the enemies of my lord the king?"
David was disappointed. He wanted to go kill Israelites
with the Philistines. 29:8
The Amalekites are a tough tribe. Twice they were
"utterly destroyed": first by Saul (1
Sam.15:7-8) and then by David (1
Sam.27:9-11). Yet here they are, just a few years later,
fighting the Philistines! 30:1
"The Amalekites ... slew not any, either great or
small,
but carried them away, and went on their way."
Believers like to say that the Amalekites were so evil that God had to
kill them all, even their women and children. Yet here the Amalekites
behave far better than the Israelites by not killing their captives.
(Compare these verses with God's command to Saul in 1 Sam.15:3.) 30:1-2
"David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of
stoning him." 30:6
"And David enquired at the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue
after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue:
for thou shalt surely overtake them." 30:8
"David smote them from the twilight even unto the
evening of the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save four
hundred young men."
David spends the day killing more of those pesky
Amalekites. He kills all of them except for 400 that escaped on camels.
(See 1 Sam.15:7-8
and 27:8-9 for the
last two times
they were exterminated.) 30:17
According to these verses, Saul was killed by an
Amalekite. But Saul killed all the Amalekites (except for Agag who
Samuel hacked to death) as God commanded in 1 Sam.15:3, so how could
he later be killed by one? 1:8-10
Then David took hold on his clothes, and rent them; and
likewise all the men that were with him."
When Bible characters get upset, they tear their
clothes. 1:11
"David enquired of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up into
any of the cities of Judah? And the LORD said unto him, Go up. And
David said, Whither shall I go up? And he said, Unto Hebron." 2:1
(It seems that in 2 Samuel this is the preferred place
to get smitten. 3:27,
4:6, 20:10)
David says, "deliver me my wife Michal, which I
espoused
to me for a hundred foreskins of the Philistines."
Well, he actually paid with two hundred foreskins (see 1 Sam.18:27). 3:14
"David said to Joab, and to all the people that were
with him, Rend your clothes."
Why do people in the Bible always they tear their
clothes when they get upset? 3:31
"When David enquired of the LORD, he said ... come upon
them over against the mulberry trees." 5:23
"When thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of
the mulberry trees ... then shall the LORD go out before thee, to smite
the host of the Philistines." 5:24
"The Lord of Hosts ... dwelleth between the cherubims."
6:2
After Bathsheba's baby is killed by God, David comforts
her by going "in unto her." She conceives and bears
another son (Solomon). 12:24
"The Lord loved him ... and called his his name
Jedidiah."
After God killed Bathsheba's baby boy, David got her
pregnant again. God loved this baby (and so he decided not to kill it)
and he called him Jedidiah, but everyone else called him Solomon. 12:24-25
"In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as
Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of
his head there was no blemish in him."
Absolom was the best looking guy in all of Israel. He
didn't have a blemish on his whole body. 14:25
"He weighed the hair of his head at two hundred
shekels."
Since a shekel is about 11.5 grams, Absolom's hair
weighed 2.3 kilograms! 14:25-26
"And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel
of Ahithophel into foolishness." 15:31
"Shimei ... cursed still as he came ... and he cast
stones at David ... And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come
out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial."
Good for Shimei! It's about time David got what he
deserved. 16:5-7
"The LORD hath returned upon thee all the blood of the
house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the LORD hath
delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold,
thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man." 16:8
"The king said ... let him curse, because the LORD
hath
said unto him, Curse David ... let him curse; for the LORD hath bidden
him." 16:10-11
"As David and his men went by the way, Shimei went
along
on the hill's side over against him, and cursed as he went, and threw
stones at him, and cast dust." 16:13
"The wood [forest] devoured more people that day than
the sword devoured." It must have been spooky forest to have devoured
more than 20,000 soldiers. 18:8
Amasa is viciously slaughtered by Joab by smiting him
"in the fifth rib", of course. 20:10
"Then cried a wise woman out of the city ... Behold,
his
head shall be thrown to thee over the wall ... And they cut off the
head of Sheba ... and cast it out to Joab." 20:16-22
A famine is sent on David's kingdom for three years.
When David asks God why, God answers: "It is for Saul, and his bloody
house, because he slew the Gibeonites." So God sent a famine to punish
a kingdom for something that a former king had done. 21:1
To appease God and end the famine that was caused by
his
predecessor (Saul), David agrees to have two of Saul's sons and five of
his grandsons killed and hung up "unto the Lord." 21:6-9
"They gathered the bones of them that were hanged ...
And after that God was intreated for the land."
God stopped the famine after Saul's two sons and five
grandsons were killed and hung up for him. 21:13-14
"Ishbibenob, which was of the sons of the giant" 21:16
There ... was a man of great stature, that had on every
hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in
number; and he also was born to the giant." 21:20
"These four were born to the giant in Gath." 21:22
"The earth shook and trembled; the foundations of
heaven
moved and shook, because he was wroth." 22:8
"There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire
out
of his mouth." 22:9
"He ... came down; and darkness was under his feet." 22:10
"The LORD thundered from heaven, and the most High
(who?) uttered his voice." 22:14
"The foundations of the world were discovered ... at
the
blast of the breath of his nostrils." 22:16
"I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not
wickedly
departed from my God."
David is one of the most despicable characters in all
fiction, yet here
he brags about how perfect he is. (And God agrees with him! 22:22-24
The chief of David's captains killed with his own spear
800 guys at one time. 23:8
Eleazar the son of Dodo killed so many Philistines that
his hand stuck to his sword. 23:9-10
David was thirsty, so he asked someone to get him some
water from the Bethlehem well, which was controlled by the Philistines.
Three of his men broke through the enemy lines, got the water from the
well, and brought it back to David. But he refused to drink it and
poured it on the ground. 23:15-17
"Abishai ... lifted up his spear against three hundred,
and slew them." 23:18
"Benaiah the son of Jehoiada ... slew two lionlike men
of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in
time of snow. And he slew an Egyptian, a goodly man: and the Egyptian
had a spear in his hand." 23:20-21
"Thrity and seven in all."
How come only 31 are listed in verses 24-39? 23:39
God tempts David to take census, though 1 Chr.21:1 says
that Satan tempted David, and Jas.1:13
says that
God never tempts anyone. Why did God or Satan tempt David to take the
census? And what the heck is wrong with a census anyway? 24:1
Israel had 1,300,000 fighting men in this battle. Of
course, this is a ridiculously high number for a battle between two
tribal armies in 1000 BCE. (The United States had about
1.37
million active duty soldiers in 2001.) 24:9
God offers David a choice of punishments for having
conducted the census: 1) seven
years of famine (1 Chr.21:12
says three years), 2) three months fleeing from enemies, or 3) three
days of pestilence. David can't decide, so God chooses for him and
sends a pestilence, killing 70,000 men
(and probably around 200,000 women and children). 24:13
After God threatens to kill hundreds of thousands of
innocent people for a census that he inspired, David says, "let us fall
now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great." 24:14
Finally, when an angel is about to destroy Jerusalem,
"the Lord repented." That's nice, but why would a good God have to
repent of the evil that he planned to do? 24:16
When Solomon was annointed king the people sang and
shouted so loudly that it caused an earthquake! 1:39-40
"The LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and
God said, Ask what I shall give thee."
God appeared to Solomon in a dream and offered him
whatever he wanted. 3:5
God grants Solomon's' request and makes him the wisest
of all men. (He was wiser even than Jesus.) He also
promises to "lengthen Solomon's days" if he will only "walk in my ways,
... as thy father David did walk." 3:12-14
And Solomon awoke; and, behold, it was a dream."
It was only a dream. None of it every happened. God
didn't appear to
Solomon and God didn't make him the wisest person on earth. It was just
a silly dream like we all have now and then. 3:15
How could Solomon be "wiser than all men" and yet have
his heart "turned away ... after other gods?" (1 Kg.11:4) 4:29-31
The house that "Solomon built for the Lord" was tiny
compared to the one he built for himself. According
to 7:1-2
, God's house had less than one-quarter the floor space of Solomon's. 6:2, 7:1-2
When the priests brought the ark into the temple, a
"cloud filled the house of the LORD So that the priests" could no see. 8:10-11
God creates droughts by causing "heaven to shut up" as
a
punishment for sin. 8:35
When dedicating the temple, Solomon kills 22,000 oxen
and 120,000 sheep. 8:63
The LORD appeared to Solomon the second time ... and
the
LORD said unto him...."
God and Solomon have a long face to face talk. 9:2-3
"They came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four
hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to king Solomon."
420 talents would be about 31,500 pounds of gold, which
would be worth more than one half billion U.S. dollars today. 9:28
"She gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of
gold."
Since a talent was about 75 pounds, the Queen of Sheba
gave Solomon
9000 pounds of gold, which would be worth around 144 million U.S.
dollars today. 10:10
"The weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year
was
six hundred threescore and six talents of gold."
Every year, Solomon received 666 talents of gold,
which
sounds a bit satanic to me. (666 talents of gold would weigh about
50,000 pounds and would be worth nearly 800 million U.S. dollars
today.) 10:14
"And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones."
When Solomon was king, silver was as common as stones
in Jerusalem. 10:27
"King Solomon loved many strange women."
God didn't mind the number so much; it was their
"strangeness" that he objected to. 11:1
"He had seven hundred wives ... and three hundred
concubines." 11:3
His wives turned away his heart after other gods: and
his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God."
The wisest man that ever lived (1 Kings 4:31) was misled
by his wives into worshipping other gods. 11:4
His heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was
the heart of David his father ... Solomon did evil in the sight of the
LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father."
David was one of the most disgusting characters in all fiction, yet
"his heart was perfect with the Lord." 11:4,
6
"Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the
abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for
Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon."
Solomon (the wisest man that ever lived) worshipped
many
gods, including Ashtoreth, Micom, Chemosh, and Molech. 11:7
"The LORD stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad
the Edomite."
To punish Solomon for his strange wives and strange
gods, God "stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite." 11:14
"Joab ... had smitten every male in Edom."
Joab (David's captain) spent six months killing every male in Edom. Yet
a few years later Edom revolted. (2
Kings 8:22) 11:15-16
"And God stirred him up another adversary, Rezon." 11:23
"Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and
rent
it in twelve pieces ... for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel,
Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon." 11:30-31
"They ... have not walked in my ways, to do that which
is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did
David his father." 11:33
"David my servant ... whom I chose, because he kept my
commandments and my statutes." 11:34
"Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen."
God likes Jerusalem better than any other city. 11:36
"If thou wilt ... walk in my ways, and do that is right
in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my
servant did...." 11:38
"I [king Rehoboam] will chastise you with scorpions." 12:11, 14
"The king took counsel, and made two calves of gold,
and
said unto them ... behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out
of the land of Egypt." 12:28
"There came a man of God out of Judah by the word of
the LORD ... and he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD,
and said, O altar, altar...." 13:1-2
This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold,
the
altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out
... The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar,
according to the sign which the man of God had given by the word of the
LORD." 13:3-5
"And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up
... And the man of God besought the LORD, and the king's hand was
restored him again."
Ever the playful spirit, God withers, and then
restores,
the hand of king Jeroboam. 13:4-6
"A lion met him by the way, and slew him."
So there were these two prophets. The first prophet
lied
to the second. To the punish the second for believing the first's lie,
God sent a lion to kill him. Get it? 13:11-24
After killing the "man of God" for God, the lion hung
around with the ass and the carcass on the side of the road for a few
days. 13:24-25, 28
"When the prophet ... heard thereof, he said, It is the
man of God, who was disobedient unto the word of the LORD: therefore
the LORD hath delivered him unto the lion, which hath torn him, and
slain him, according to the word of the LORD." 13:26
Everything that David did was right in the eyes of the
Lord. (See here
for a sample of what God considers "right".) 14:8
"But [Jeroboam] hast done evil above all that were
before thee."
Jeroboam did more evil than everyone who has ever
lived. 14:9
Killing everyone "that pisseth against the wall." 14:10, 16:11, 21:21
During Rehoboam's reign, every tree had a shrine with a
sacred stone and every hill an Asherah pole. 14:23
"And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God,
as
was the heart of David his father." 15:3
"For David's sake"
God has a hard-on for David. He'll do just about
anything for David's sake. 15:4
"David did that which was right in the eyes of the
LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the
days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite."
David never sinned, "save only in the matter of Uriah
the Hittite." 15:5
Did Abijam marry his own mother?
Since Asa's father was Abijam and they had the same
mother (Maachah), Abijam was both father and brother to Asa. 15:9-10
"Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, As did
David his
father." 15:11
"Omri ... did worse than all that were before him."
Omni was the worst person that ever existed (up to that
time, anyway). 16:25
"Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD
above all that were before him."
Ahab was the worst person that ever existed. He
replaced
his father Omri as the worst person in the world. 16:30
"Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to
anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him." 16:33
Ravens bring Elijah bread and flesh for breakfast and
dinner. 17:6
"He arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the
strength of that meat forty days and forty nights."
Elijah went forty days on two (angel food cake) meals. 19:8
God passes by and causes a great wind, earthquake,
fire, and a little voice. (God was in the little voice.) 19:11-12
"The servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their
gods are gods of the hills."
God killed 127,000 Syrians because they called him a
"God of the hills." (See verses 28-30)
20:23
God delivers the Syrians into the Israelites hands, and
100,000 were killed in one day. Of those that escaped,
27,000 were crushed by a falling wall. (It was a really big wall.) 20:28-30
"A man of God ... said, Thus saith the LORD, Because
the
Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of
the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into
thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD."
God kills 127,000 Syrians because they said he was God
of the hills but not God of the valleys. 20:28
"The children of Israel slew of the Syrians an hundred
thousand footmen in one day." 20:29
"There a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of
the
men that were left." 20:30
There was this son of a prophet that said to his
neighbor, "Smite me." But the neighbor refused. So God sent a lion to
devour him. True story. 20:35-36
"A certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto
his
neighbour in the word of the LORD, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man
refused to smite him." 20:35
Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the
voice of the
LORD, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay
thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and
slew him." 20:36
"When Ahab heard those words, that he rent his
clothes."
21:27
"And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab?"
God asks for volunteer among the guys hanging out with
him. He wants one of them to lie for him so that he can get Ahab
kiiled. 22:19-22
"He took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two
pieces." 2:12
Elisha repeats Elijah's trick of parting the waters of
the Jordan by smiting them with his mantle. 2:14
Elisha "heals" the waters by adding a pinch of salt. 2:20-22
God sends two bears to rip up 42 little children for
making fun of Elisha's bald head. 2:23-24
Elisha restores the life of a dead child, but only
after
laying on him a couple of times, putting his mouth on the child's
mouth, his eyes on the child's eyes, and
his hands on the child's hands. Finally, the child responds by sneezing
seven
times. 4:32-35
Elisha put some meal (flour) in a pot to counteract the
poison in a pot of stew. 4:40-41
"When the king of Israel had read the letter ... he
rent
his clothes." 5:7
"When Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of
Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying,
Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes?" 5:8
Elisha can do all the tricks of Jesus (raise the dead,
heal the sick, etc.). Here he cures a leper, but only after the
leper dips himself seven times in the Jordan. 5:14
Elisha makes an iron ax head swim. Neat trick, not even
Jesus did that one! 6:6
"Elisha ... telleth the king of Israel the words that
thou speakest in thy bedchamber."
Elisha is clairaudient
(acquires psychic knowledge by auditory means). 6:12
Elisha prayed and "behold, the mountain was full of
horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 6:17
With God's help, Elisha first blinds the Syrians and
then restores their sight. 6:18-20
"An ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver,
and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver."
6:25
When the king heard the words of the woman ... he rent
his clothes." 6:30
God forcasts the commodities market: Tommorow about
this
time, flour with sell for this and barley for that. 7:1
God made noises to scare the Syrians. He's such a
clever
guy! 7:6
The Edomites revolt. But how could they have fought
when
all of their males had just recently been killed? (1 Kg.11:16) 8:22
Elisha the prophet called one of the children of the
prophets, and said unto him, Gird up thy loins." 9:1
"Wherefore came this mad fellow to thee?"
One of Jehu's officers called Elisha a madman (which,
of
course, he was). 9:11
"He driveth furiously."
Jehu is the patron saint of reckless drivers. 9:20
Elisha tells Joash to shoot an arrow out the window.
Joash shoots the magic arrow out the window, which guarantees that he
will "smite the Syrians" until he "consumes them." 13:15-17
Elisha tells Joash to hit the ground with his arrow. So
he smacks the ground three times. Elisha then yells at him,
saying he should have struck the ground five or six times. If he had,
then he would have completely wiped out Syria, but now
since he only struck the ground three times, he'll only get to smite
Syria three times. Shucks! 13:18-19
A dead body is brought to life when it accidentally
touches the bones of Elisha. 13:21
According to this verse, Ahaz was 36 years old when he
completed his reign. And 18:1-2 says that he was
succeeded by a 25 year old son, Hezekiah. This means that Ahaz fathered
Hezakiah when he was only eleven years
old! 16:2
Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, began to reign when he was
25
years old. His father was 36 years old when
Hezekiah took over (16:2).
So Ahaz was only eleven years old when he fathered Hezekiah! 18:1-2
While Hezekiah was busy doing things that were "right
in
the sight of the Lord," he broke the brazen serpent that God told Moses
to make in Num.21:8.
18:3-4
"Shebna ... and Joah with their clothes rent."
People either tear their clothes or fall on their face
when they get upset in the Bible. 18:37
"When king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his
clothes."
19:1
An "angel of the Lord" kills 185,000 men while they
sleep. "And when they arose early in the morning, behold,
they were all dead corpses." I guess they all woke up and said,
"Shucks, I'm dead." 19:35
Take a lump of figs. And they took and laid it on the
boil, and he recovered." 20:7
Isaiah, with a little help from God, makes the sun move
backwards ten degrees. Now that's quite a trick. All at
once, the earth stopped spinning and then reversed its direction of
rotation. Or maybe the sun traveled around the
earth in those days! 20:11
God plans to "bring such evil upon
Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall
tingle." 21:12
"I [God] will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish,
wiping it, and turning it upside down." 21:13
"When the king had heard the words of the book of the
law, that he rent his clothes." 22:11
The first nine chapters of First Chronicles are good
examples of the "endless genealogies" that Paul tells us to avoid
(see 1 Tim.1:4 and Tit.3:9). Chapters 1-9
Seven sons of Zerubbabel are listed, not five as is
said
in this verse. 3:20
Five sons of Shemiah are listed, not six as is said in
this verse. 3:22
As if it wasn't boring enough the first time, ten
verses
from Saul's genealogy are repeated in consecutive chapters. 8:29-38, 9:35-44
"So David waxed greater and greater: for the LORD of
hosts was with him."
It would be hard to find a more disgusting character
in
all fiction than David, but "the Lord of hosts was with him." 11:9
The chief of David's captains killed with his own spear
300 guys at one time. 11:11
Eleazar the son of Dodo ... one of the three mighties
... slew the Philistines; and the LORD saved them by a great
deliverance." 11:12-14
David was thirsty, so he asked someone to get him some
water from the Bethlehem well, which was controlled by the Philistines.
Three of his men broke through the enemy lines, got the water from the
well, and brought it back to David. But he refused to drink it and
poured it on the ground. 11:17-19
"Benaiah ... slew two lionlike men of Moab: also he
went
down and slew a lion." 11:22
The Gadites had faces like lions and could run as fast
as deer on the mountains. 12:8
"The LORD said unto him, Go up; for I will deliver them
into thine hand."
God tells David to go to war with the Philistines,
promising to deliver them into his hand. 14:10
"David enquired again of God; and God said unto him, Go
not up after them; turn away from them, and come upon them over against
the mulberry trees." (How stupid can a Bible story get?) 14:14
God tells David to listen for a sound in the mulberry
trees. That sound will mean that God has already killed the
Philistines. 14:15
David gave every man and woman in Israel a large bottle
of wine. 16:3
According to this verse David's army had 1,100,000 men
from Israel and 470,000 men from Judah, Of course, this numbers is
ridiculously high for a battle between two tribal armies in 1000 BCE.
(The United States had about 1.37
million active duty soldiers in 2001.) 21:5
"David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the
LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in
his hand stretched out over Jerusalem." 21:16a
"Then David and the elders ... fell on their faces." 21:16b
David provides Solomon with a fantastically large
amount
of gold and silver with which to build the temple: 100,000 talents of
gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver. Since a talent was about 60
pounds, this would be about 3,000 tons of gold and 30,000 tons of
silver. 22:14
"The sons of Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and
Jeshaiah,
Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six." But only five are listed. 25:3
King David collects ten thousand drams (or
darics) for the construction of the temple in Jerusalem. This is
especially interesting since darics were coins named after King Darius
I who lived some five hundred years after David. 29:7
As usual, the reported amounts of gold, silver, and
iron
are grossly exaggerated. (5000 talents of gold, for example, would be
about 150,000 kilograms, which would be worth about 4.2 billion US
dollars in today's market.) 29:7
"And the fame of David went out into all lands; and the
LORD brought the fear of him upon all nations."
(Even the Native Americans, Polynesians, and Chinese emperors feared
David!) 14:17
Solomon enlists a huge workforce (over 150,000 men) to
construct a small chapel. (See 1
Kg.6:2 where the dimensions of the building are given as
approximately 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high.) 2:2
"When Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came
down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices." 7:1
Solomon, when dedicating the temple, killed 22,000 oxen
and 120,000 sheep. 7:5
God sent Shishak, the king of Egypt, to attack
Jerusalem
because Rehoboam "and all Israel trangressed against the Lord." Shishak
had 1200 chariots, 60,000 horsement and "people without number" and he
attacked Judah and "took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah."
When Shishak's army came to Jerusalem, "the princes of Israel and the
king humbled themselves" and said, "The Lord is righteous." So God
decided not to destroy Jerusalem, but just make them Shishak's slaves
instead. 12:2-12
Abijah spoke to 1,200,000 soldiers at one time. (He had
a really loud voice.) 13:3-4
A half million soldiers die in a single God-assisted
slaughter. 13:16-17
In the largest single God-assisted massacre in the
bible, Asa, with God's help, kills one million Ethiopians. 14:8-14
Everybody loved Asa and wanted to follow him because
they could see that God was with him. 15:9
According to this verse, Baasha fought with Judah in
the
36th year of Asa's reign, yet 1
Kg.16:6-8 says that Baasha died in the 26th year of Asa's
reign. So if both stories are true, Baasha was still fighting 10 years
after his death! 16:1
Asa, when he had a foot disease, went to physicians
instead of seeking the Lord. (God disapproves
of those who seek medical help rather than "seeking the Lord.") 16:12
God puts lies into the mouths of his prophets and
speaks
evil about people. 18:21-22
The spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel (the son of
Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattanaiah)
and told the people of Judah that they didn't have to fight against the
Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites. God would fight for them. And he
did. God fought for them by forcing the members of the opposing army to
kill each other. Then the people of Judah spent three days stripping
the jewels and other valuables from the dead bodies. 20:14-25
Jeroham "caused the inhabitants of Jerusalem to commit
fornication." 21:11
"There came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet."
Jehoram began to reign after Elijah went to heaven (2 Kg.2:11, 8:16), so how could King
Jehoram receive a letter from him? 21:12
Jehoram was 32 years old when he began to reign and he
reigned for eight years and then died (a 40
years old). After his death, his youngest son Ahaziah began to reign at
the age of 42 (22:1-2).
So the son (Ahaziah) was two years older than his father! 21:20, 22:1-2
"Jehoiada ... was full ... an hundred and thirty years
old was he when he died." 24:15
"The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that
was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there
passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trode down the
thistle." 25:18
God makes Uzziah a leper for burning incense without a
license. 26:19-21
"He (Ahaz) ... burnt incense ... under every green
tree." 28:4
"All Israel ... went out to the cities of Judah, and
brake the images in pieces, and cut down the groves, and threw down the
high places and the altars out of all Judah ... until they had utterly
destroyed them all." 31:1
An eight year-old king (Jehoiachin) did "evil in the
sight of the Lord." 36:9
"The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up." Now
how's that for a strange ending? Actually, the last
two verses from 2 Chronicles are taken from the first few verses of Ezra. It just happens that
whoever decided to tack these verses on (for whatever reason) forgot to
finish the sentence! 36:22-23
"The whole congregation together was forty and two
thousand tree hundred and threescore
[42,360]." Yet if we count up all of the numbers in the list just given
in
Ezra 2:3-62 we obtain a different number: 29,818. 2:65
When Ezra hears of the intermarriages, he tears up his
clothes, plucks out his hair and beard, and sits down astonished. 9:3
Here we are told that the whole congregation
totaled 42,360. But if we just total up the numbers given in Neh.7:8-62
we come
up with only 31,089. 7:66
The Israelites clothing didn't wear out while wandering
around in the desert for 40 years. (God made the childrens' shoes grow
with their feet so they wouldn't need new ones!) 9:21
Nehemiah rebukes the men for marrying "strange wives."
To punish them he "contended with them, and
cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair." 13:25-27
At Esther's request, the king orders a preemptive
strike on all 127 provinces from Egypt to Ethiopia. Everyone who
planned to kill Jews shall be killed by Jews, along with their wives
and children. And all this killing is to take place on a single day.
(How are the Jews to figure out who planned to kill
them
and who
didn't? Were they supposed to just kill them all and let God sort it
out? And why did they need to kill the women and children?) 8:9-11
God asks where Satan has been lately (apparently God
didn't know), and Satan answered
saying, "From walking to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and
down on it." This verse inspired Mark Twain's Letters
From the Earth.. 1:7,
2:2
God gives Satan power over all that Job possesses. 1:12
God kills (or allows Satan to kill) Job's children,
but
Job doesn't "foolishly" blame God. Since God was responsible, why would
it be foolish to blame God? 1:22
God and Satan play a little game with Job. God allows
Satan to torment Job, just to see how he will react. 2:3-6
"So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and
smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown." 2:7
Job asks the important question: "Is there any taste
in
the white of an egg?" 6:6
Does God pervert Justice? Well, if you believe the
Bible
he sure as hell does! 8:3
Job says "my breath is strange to my wife." Mine too. 19:17
"Who can stay the bottles of heaven?" Gosh, I don't
know. I didn't even know there were any bottles in
heaven. 38:37
"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee?" The
unicorn referred to here is probably not the single-horned mythical
creature, but rather a wild ox that was mistranslated in the KJV. 39:9-10
Bible believers have identified the behemoth as a
hippopotamus, dinosaur, wildebeest, or crocodile. But my favorite is
the way these verses are translated
by Stephen Mitchell: "Look now: the Beast that I made: he
eats grass like a bull. Look: the power in his thighs, the pulsing
sinews of his belly. His penis stiffens like a pine; his testicles
bulge with vigor." 40:15-16
"Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his
tongue with a cord?" 41:1-34
After God (or Satan) kills Job's first set of kids (1:19), he is given an even
better set -- with even prettier daughters! 42:13-15
The earth shakes whenever God really gets mad. 18:7
Smoke comes out of God's nose and fire comes out of his
mouth. 18:8
God curved the heavens and came down to earth with
darkness under his feet. 18:9
God rides upon cherubs and flies through the sky. 18:10
"The foundations of the world were
discovered ... at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." (The earth
is set on firm foundations and does not move -- unless God blows his
nose.) 18:15
Those "that seek the LORD shall not want any good
thing." (Those who are poor or hungry just aren't seeking God enough.) 34:10
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the
LORD
delivereth him out of them all."
Nothing bad ever happens to righteous folks. 34:19
Those who trust in God and do good, will never be
hungry. (Those who starve to death didn't trust him or did bad things.)
37:3
If you delight yourself in God, he'll give you whatever
you want. 37:4
The meek shall inherit the earth." Will they really? In
nature they inherit nothing, but die painful deaths from
disease, starvation, and predation. 37:11
The author of this psalm allegedly is David. If so, then
it's not surprising that his "loins" would be "filled with a loathsome
disease." After all, his promiscuity was legendary, and he probably
didn't practice safe sex. 38:5,
7
"And he [God] smote his enemies in the hinder parts."
(He kicked their ass.) 78:66
"I have said, Ye are gods." Jesus quotes this verse in John 10:34 to get out of a
tough spot. (He was
claiming to be God for which the Jews accused him of blasphemy.) 82:6
"I will make mention of Rahab"
Rahab is a sea-demon or dragon from ancient Jewish
folklore. 87:4
"Thou hast broken Rahab [the sea monster] in pieces." 89:10
The psalmist has a horn that he'd like God to erect --
"like the horn of a unicorn." 92:10
"They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they
shall be fat and flourishing."
Being fat is is sure sign of righteousnous. (Wicked people are skinny
and hungry.) 02:12-14
"A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies
round about." 97:3
"The Lord ... who healeth all thy diseases." God heals
all diseases. Medical science is unnecessary. 103:2-3
"Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his
saints." 116:15
Proud people have hearts that are "fat as grease." 119:69-70
"The LORD is thy keeper.... The sun shall not smite
thee
by day, nor the moon by night." So believers don't have to bother with
sunscreen. God will protect them from sunburn, and moonburn too. 121:5-6
"Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain
that build it."
God doesn't build houses or watch over cities; people
do. 127:1
"He giveth his beloved sleep."
Don't bother getting up early and working hard. If God
loves you, you can sleep in and let God take care you. 127:2
"To him that smote Egypt in their first born: for his
mercy endures forever." 136:10
God "overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea: for
his mercy endureth for ever." 136:15
God "smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for
ever." 136:17-18
(Earthquakes happen when God gets angry.) 2:19, 21
After God "washed away the filth" from the women and
killed the men, he set up "a cloud and smoke by day" and a "flaming
fire by night." 4:4-5
"He has stretched forth his hand against them ... and
the hills did tremble." 5:25
God "will hiss unto then from the end of the earth." 5:26
An angel touches Isaiah's lips with a live coal. 6:6-7
"The Lord shall hiss for the fly ... and for the bee." 7:18
God will shave men's feet, where "feet" and "hair" are
biblical euphemisms for males sexual organs and pubic hair,
respectively. 7:20
Isaiah has sex with a prophetess who conceives and
bears
a son. (You weren't expecting a daughter, were you?) God then
tells Isaiah to call his name Mathershalalhashbaz. (It has a nice ring
to it, doesn't it?) 8:3
God will "smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and
with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked." God must
have some pretty bad breath! 11:4
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb...." I wonder
what will become of the spiders. Will they be more friendly toward
flies? And will the parasitic wasps find another way to feed their
larvae? Or will they continue to feed off the living bodies of
caterpillars? 11:6, 65:25
"And the weaned child shall put his hand on
the cockatrice' den." A cockatrice is a serpent, hatched from a
cock's egg, that can kill with a glance. They are rare
nowadays. 11:8
When God gets really angry, he causes earthquakes. 13:13
Dragons will live in Babylonian palaces and satyrs will
dance there. 13:21-22
Out of the serpent's root shall come forth a
cockatrice,
and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent." What ever happened
to these fascinating biblical creatures? 14:29
"Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab,
and mine inward parts for Kirharesh." 16:11
God tells Isaiah to take off all his clothes and to
wander about completely naked for three years as a "sign and a wonder."
In this way he will be just like the Egyptian captives who will walk
about naked "with their buttocks uncovered." 20:2-5
While walking around naked for three years, Isaiah's
loins were filled with pain. 21:3
"The Lord will ... toss thee like a ball." 22:17-18
Tyre "shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of
the world," and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord." 23:17-18
God will turn the earth upside down, knock it off of
its
foundations, and then shake and bake it until it "reels to and fro like
a drunkard." 24:1, 18-20
"The foundations of the earth do shake ... The earth
shall reel to and fro like a drunkard."
(Earthquakes are all a part of God's wondrous plan.) 24:18-20
God will punish the leviathan ("that crooked serpent")
with his own sword and will kill the sea dragon. 27:1
God performs a "marvelous work and a wonder" by
destroying wisdom and understanding. 29:14
Natural disasters (earthquakes, storms, fires,
tsunamis)
are caused by, and are a sign of, God's wrath. 29:7
Among the many strange creatures mentioned in the Bible
that no longer seem to exist is the "fiery flying serpent." 30:6
"The light of the moon shall be as the light of the
sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold." Well, this is one
prophecy that will never come true. Since the moon has no light of its
own, but only reflects that of the sun, it could never shine like the
sun. And the sun will not, at least not while there are humans to see
it, shine 7 times as bright as it does now. 30:26
God's lips, tongue, and breath are described for us. 30:27-28
"The LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard,
and shall shew the lighting down of his arm." 30:30
God has bad breath, "like a stream of brimstone.
Sometimes he even kindles a fire with it. 30:33
God is furious at everyone and is ready to kill them
all. Or as Isaiah so delicately puts it: "Their stink shall come up
out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their
blood." 34:2-3
"The host of heaven shall be dissolved ... and ...
shall
fall down."
The stars will dissolve and fall from the sky. 34:4
"And the unicorns shall come down with them." 34:7
"The cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the
owl
also and the raven shall dwell in it."
"When king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his
clothes."
37:1
An angel of God kills 185,000 men. "And when they
[those
killed by the angel?] arose early in the morning, behold,
they were all dead men." 37:36
God makes the sun move backwards 10 degrees. Now that's
a neat trick! 38:8
The grass and the flowers die when God blows on them.
The same happens with people. 40:7
"The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith
spreadeth it over with gold, and casteth silver chains. He ... chooseth
a tree ... to prepare a graven image."
God will "go forth as a mighty man" who cries and
roars,
and "will cry like a travailing woman." After he tires of
roaring and crying he'll "destroy and devour." What a guy. 42:13
Dragons and owls will thank God for irrigation. 43:20
"He heweth him down cedars ... among the trees of the
forest ... yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread ... he maketh it a
graven image ... he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth
himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire."
God is angered by children who gather wood, fathers who
make fires, and women that make bread for the "queen of heaven" and
other gods. 7:18
"I will send serpents,
cockatrices among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite
you."
A cockatrice is a serpent, hatched from a
cock's egg, that can kill with a glance. They are rare nowadays. 8:17
Don't just circumcise your penis. Circumcise you heart
as well. 9:26
"For the customs of the people are vain: for one
cutteth
a tree out of the forest ... with the axe. They deck it with silver and
with gold." (
God
hates Christmas trees.) 10:3-4
When God gets angry, the earth trembles. (That's what
causes earthquakes.) 10:10
Judah will become a desolate den of dragons. 10:22
"O LORD of hosts ... that triest the reins and the
heart"
God gives Jeremiah some divine instructions about a
girdle. He tells him not to wash it, but to hide it in a rock. Jeremiah
does as he's told. But, alas, when he goes to retrieve it, it was
ruined. Darn! 13:1-7
Apparently, the point of the girdle story (13:1-7) was
to say that worshipping other gods "is good for nothing." 13:10
God plans to expose Jerusalem's private parts to the
world by lifting her skirt over her head, so to speak. He's seen
her commit whoredoms and abominations and whatnot on the hills, and
he's getting darned sick of it! 13:26-27
The wild asses "snuffed up the wind like dragons." 14:6
God is weary of repenting. (It does get tiring after a
while, doesn't it?) 15:6
God tells us not to trust anyone, not even our family
or friends, by saying: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man." 17:5
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked."
"The other basket had very naughty figs, which could
not
be eaten, they were so bad." God
hates figs, at least the "very naughty" kind. 24:2-3
God is really getting into all of this killing. He
roars, he mightily roars, and he shouts. 25:30
God enslaved entire nations and forced them to serve
Nebuchadnezzar, "his servant". He even gave him all the wild animals
and forced them to serve him. 27:6,
28:14
God will send his usual blessings upon his people: "the
sword, the famine, and the pestilence." He "will make
them like vile figs, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil." (God hates figs.) 29:17-18
There will come a time when all men will have the pains
of childbirth. 30:6
Baruch read the words of Jeremiah and all of the people
heard him. (He had a very loud voice.) 36:10
It took thirty men to lift Jeremiah out of the dungeon.
(He was a very big man.) 38:10
"I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you."
(It's about time!) 42:10
"O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou
be quiet?" Good question. Someone needs to take the sword away from the
big guy. 47:6
God will send such marvelous plagues on Edom that
everyone will hiss in astonishment. 49:17
Jeremiah predicts that humans will never again live in
Hazor, but will be replaced by dragons. But people still live there and
dragons have never been seen. 49:33
Jeremiah gave a copy of the book he had written to
Seraiah and told him to read it and then tie a rock to it and throw it
in the river. 51:61-63
Ezekiel begins by telling us what day it is. It's the
13th year, 4th month, and 5th day. But the 13th year etc. of what
exactly? 1:1, 8:1, 20:1, 24:1, 26:1, 29:1, 30:20, 32:1,
32:17
Ezekiel experiences what some say is the first
recorded
UFO sighting. 1:4
Ezekiel sees creatures that have four faces (human,
lion, ox, and eagle), four wings, and straight feet with calf's soles.
Well, maybe he'll feel better in the morning.1:5-10
God tells Ezekiel to eat a scroll and to "fill his
bowels" with it. He does, and finds it to be as sweet as honey. 2:9, 3:1-3
The spirit lifted Ezekiel into the air and transported
him to the river of Chebar, where he sat astonished for seven days. 3:14-15
"Behold, the glory of the Lord stood there ... and I
fell on my face." 3:23
The spirit (of God?) enters Ezekiel, ties him up, and
makes his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth so that he could no
longer speak. 3:24-26
God makes Ezekiel lay on his right side for 390 days,
and then on his left side for another 40 days. "And thou shalt not turn
thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days." I'll bet
he had some killer bed sores after that! 4:4-9
God tells Ezekiel to eat barley cakes that are made
with "the dung that cometh out of man." (Yum!) 4:12
God tells Ezekiel to shave his head and beard, divide
the cut hair into thirds, burn one portion, smite the second portion
about with a knife, and scatter the third in the wind. 5:1-3
God tells Ezekiel to clap his hands and stamp his feet
while saying, "they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the
pestilence." 6:11
Ezekiel proclaims that the world (which is flat and
has
four corners) is ending. 7:2, 6
Ezekiel gets to see God's loins again. (See 1:27 for the first time.)
8:2
Ezekiel sees God's hand come down and pluck out a hair
from his head. 8:3
"While they were slaying them ... I fell on my face." 9:8
A sapphire stone that looked like a throne appears in
the firmament, and a man clothed with linen is told by God to scatter
coals over the city. 10:1-2
Ezekiel sees bodies, backs, hands, wings, and wheels
that were "full of eyes round about."10:12
Each cherub has four faces, four wings, and four human
hands. 10:20-21
God gets mad at a wall and destroys it, along with
those who worked on it. 13:14-15
"Woe to the woman that sew pillows ... Behold, I am
against your pillows." (God likes neither woman nor pillows.) 13:18-21
Nebuchadrezzar, "king of kings" -- so that's
who that movie is about! 26:7
"And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have
set
a fire in Egypt." (The Divine Pyromaniac) 30:8, 30:14, 30:16
Ezekiel brings dry bones to life to make "an exceeding
great army." 37:7-10
"Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will
open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and
bring you into the land of Israel." 37:12
God shows Ezekiel how to join two sticks together. 37:15-17
God will get so darned angry that his fury will come
up in his face so that even the fish, birds, beasts, and bugs will
shake when they see him. God will throw a tantrum, toppling every
wall and mountain. 38:18-20
"Behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the
LORD: and I fell upon my face." 44:4
Priests must wear linen when they are in the sanctuary.
No wool is permitted. And whatever they wear, it must not cause them to
sweat. God hates sweat! 44:17-18
In all matters of wisdom and understanding ... the king
... found them [Daniel and his friends] ten times better than all the
magicians and astrologers in his realm. 1:20
"King Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped
Daniel." 2:46
Nebuchadnezzar built a statue of gold sixty cubits high
and six cubits wide. Taking a cubit to be 18 inches and assuming the
depth to also be six cubits, this would give a total volume of 270
cubic yards -- which would have probably been more than all of the gold
in all of the kingdoms of the world at that time. 3:1
Daniel's three friends were cast into a fiery furnace,
but were totally unaffected -- not even a hair was singed. And they
were joined by the Son of God (Jesus?), himself! At least that's who
Nebuchadnezzar thought it looked like. 3:25-27
This part of the Bible was written by Nebuchadnezzar. 4:1-18
Nebuchadnezzar eats grass, his hair becomes like eagle
feathers and his nails like bird claws. 4:32-33
A detached hand writes upon the wall, and when the king
sees it "the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one
against the other." 5:5-6
Daniel was cast into the lions' den, but they didn't
hurt him since God sent angel to shut the lions' mouths. 6:16-22
God's hair is white (but you already knew that!). 7:9
"I was astonished at the vision, but none understood
it." (If Daniel couldn't understand his visions, then how could anyone
else?) This is the one true prophecy in the book of Daniel: "none
understood it." 8:27
God tells Hosea to commit adultery, saying "take ... a
wife of whoredoms and
children of whoredoms" because the land has "committed great
whoredom." So Hosea did as God commanded and "took" a wife named Gomer.
1:2-3
The animals are perplexed and cry out to God after he
torments
them by burning their food and drying up the rivers. 1:18-20
"The day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand." 1:15, 2:1, 3:14
"A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds
and of thick darkness"
"The day of the Lord" will be dark and gloomy -- like
a
northern Idaho spring day. 2:2
On "the Lord's day", God's magical soldiers will not
die
when mortally wounded. 2:8
On "the day of the Lord" there will be earthquakes, the
sun and the moon will be dark, and the stars will no longer shine.
2:10
God says he will repay Israel for the damage the
locusts
caused -- which he sent! And they will "praise the
name of the Lord." 2:25-26
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon
into blood." These "signs" were a lot more impressive before the causes
of solar and lunar eclipses were understood. 2:31
The Lord will roar and the heavens and earth will
shake. 3:16
The divine pyromaniac threatens to "send fire unto"
Hazael, Gaza, Tyrus, Teman, Rabbah, Moab, and Judah. 1:4, 7, 10, 12, 14; 2:2, 5
It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to
Canaan, yet such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more
than ten days. 2:10
God says there are three or four reasons for him to
punish Moab. But he only mentions one: "because he burned the bones of
the king of Edom." So God burned Moab because they burned some bones. 2:12
God destroyed the Amorites who were a race of giants as
tall as cedars and as strong as oaks. 2:9
On the day of God's wrath, brave men "shall flee away
naked." 2:16
God afflicts the Israelites with "cleanness of teeth"
(famine) and drought. And then he wonders why they don't turn to him. 4:6-9
God sends the pestilence, kills young men with the
sword, and makes t1e "stink of your camps to come up unto your
nostrils." 4:10
Many Christians look forward to the "day of the Lord,"
but according to these verses, they shouldn't. 5:18-20
"Wo to them ... that chant to the sound of the viol,
and invent to themselves instruments of musick."
"Woe to them ... that drink wine in bowls." 6:1, 6
"The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself ... I abhor the
excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up
the city."
God swears to himself that he hates Jacob's palaces, so he will deliver
up the city (and kill everyone in it). 6:8
"Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention
of the name of the LORD."
(If God hears you, he'll probably kill you, too.) 6:10
God stands on a wall holding a plumb line while he
talks to Amos. 7:7
God will "slay the last of them with the sword." Any
that try to escape by diving to the bottom of the sea will be bitten,
at God's command, by a sea-serpent. 9:1-4
God "will punish ... all such as are clothed with
strange apparel" or "leap on the threshold." 1:8-9
God doesn't have night-vision, so he needs candles when
he comes to punish the people that say, "The LORD will not do good,
neither will he do evil." 1:12
God "cut off" three shepherds in one month. God's soul
and the soul of the shepherds loath one another. (I didn't even know
God had a soul.) 11:8
God will "go forth and fight" for Jerusalem with "his
feet" on the mount of Olives. (After he forces all the nations of the
world to fight against Jerusalem.) 14:3
The book of Malachi is anonymous; Malachi is just a
transliteration of the Hebrew words for "my messenger." 1:1
"Wherein hast thou loved us?" Malachi was addressing
the
skeptics of his day who questioned God's love for them. Malachi
explains that God must love them since he loved Jacob, hated Esau, and
will be angry with the Edomites forever. 1:2-4
God hated Esau and gave his inheritance to the dragons.
1:3
"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon
your
faces." 2:3
The gospel of Matthew begins with a boring
genealogy like that we are told to avoid in 1 Tim.1:4
("Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies") and Tit.3:9 ("Avoid foolish
questions and
genealogies"). 1:1-17
Judah "went in unto" his
daughter-in-law, Tamar, who was disguised as a prostitute. She
conceived and
bore Pharez, an ancestor of Jesus. (Gen.38:2-29)
1:3
There are 29 generations listed from David to
Jesus in Matthew's genealogy, while Luke's (3:23-31)
has 43. Except for David at one end and Jesus at the other, there are only three names
in the
two lists that are the same. 1:6-16
John has a good point in v.14. If Jesus is the sinless
Son of God, then shouldn't Jesus be baptizing John instead of the
reverse? Isn't baptism supposed to forgive sins and be a sign of
repentance? If so, then why would Jesus need to be baptized? And what
the heck is "it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" supposed to
mean? 3:14-15
The Son of God is led by the Spirit of God to be
tempted
by the devil. 4:1
Jesus forbids the taking of any kind of
oath. Yet Christians in courtrooms throughout the United States place
their right hand on the Bible swear to tell the truth. 5:34-37
"But if thine eye be evil...." There's nothing worse
than an evil eye. 6:23
"Behold the fowls of the air...." Jesus says that God
feeds them. But, if so, he does one hell of a lousy job at it. Most
birds die before leaving the nest, and the few who manage to fly soon
die painful deaths of starvation, predation, or disease.
If God is caring for them, pray that he stays away from you. 6:26
Ask, and it shall be given you."
Mark
Twain said there are "upwards of a thousand lies" in the
Bible. But this is probably the biggest. How many desperate,
frightened, broken-hearted parents have watched their children die
while begging God to help? 7:7-8
The devils confess that Jesus is the Son of
God. According to 1 Jn.4:15
("Whosoever
shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he
in
God"), then, God dwells in the devils and the devils in God. 8:29
After Jesus kills the herd of pigs by sending devils
into them, the "whole city" asks him to leave. I don't blame them. 8:34
"Thy faith hath made thee whole."
If you have enough faith, you will never get sick.
(Illness is caused by sin and lack of faith. Medical
science is unnecessary.) 9:22
Jesus gives his disciples "power against unclean
spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness." 10:1
Jesus tells his disciples to perform all the usual
tricks: "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast
out devils." 10:8
Families will be torn apart because of Jesus (this is
one of the few "prophecies" in the Bible that has actually come
true). "Brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father
the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents,
and cause them to be put to death." 10:21
God is involved in the death of every sparrow. He sees
to it that they each die painful deaths of starvation, predation, or
disease. But don't worry. God will do the same for you. (He thinks that
humans are worth much more than sparrows.) 10:29. 31
"Whosoever shall deny me before men,
him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." According to
the
gospels (Mt.26:69-75,
Mk.14:66-72,
Lk.22:55-62, Jn.15:18-27),
Peter denied Jesus three times before men. Therefore Jesus must have
denied
Peter before God. 10:33
John the Baptist is still not sure about Jesus (he's in
prison and is soon to die). He sends his disciples to ask, "Art thou he
that should come, or do we look for another?" Well, if he isn't sure
after seeing and hearing the events at Jesus' baptism, then
how can anyone else be? 11:3
John the Baptist was the greatest man ever to live
(even
greater than Jesus), but "he that is least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he." 11:11
"And from the days of John the Baptist until
now...." Until when? (John the Baptist was still
alive when this
verse was supposedly uttered.) Jesus continues to bewilder his poor
disciples by
saying, "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take
it
by force." 11:12
Jesus believed in the literal truth of the fish story
in
Jonah. 12:40
Jesus predicts that he will be "in the heart of the
earth" for three days and
three nights. If by this he meant that he would be in the tomb for
three days and three nights, then either he was mistaken or
the gospels are in error. Because according to the gospels (this is one
of the few things they all seem to agree on), Jesus
was in the tomb for only one day and two nights. 12:40
When an unclean spirit (whatever that may be) leaves a
person's body, he goes out to find another. Not finding
any, he comes back with seven other spirits more wicked than himself
and repossesses the person. 12:43-45
Jesus is rejected by those who know him the best -- the
people of his home town of Nazareth. 13:55-57
Herod thought Jesus was a resurrected John the
Baptist. Apparently, it was a common opinion at the time (See Mt.16.13-14, Mk.6:14-15, 8:27-28, Lk.9:7-8, 18-19). If so many of
Jesus' contemporaries could be
so easily fooled regarding John the Baptist, what does this do to the
credibility of Jesus' resurrection? 14:1-2
"Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea."
Jesus and Peter walk on water. You can too, if you
have
more than a little faith. 14:25
The disciples wonder where they will get the
bread to feed four thousand. But they should know by now, since Jesus
just did
the same trick in 14:14-21.
These stories are probably
the result of two oral versions of the same fictitious story. 15:33
Opinions were divided regarding the identity of Jesus,
but many thought that he was the risen John the Baptist.
The fact that people could be so easily fooled regarding the Baptist's
"resurrection" casts doubt on the resurrection of
Jesus. 16:14
When Peter expressed his dismay when Jesus announced
his
coming death, Jesus said to him "Get thee behind me,
Satan" -- a fine way to address his holiness, the first pope! 16:23
"Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and
whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
If you want to stay alive, you must lose your life
(kill yourself?) for Jesus' sake. 16:25
"Behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a
voice out of the cloud .. said" 17:5
"And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their
face." 17:6
Jesus says that Elijah, whom he believes is John the
Baptist, will come and "restore all things." But what things did
John the Baptist restore? 17:11
If your faith is great enough, you can move mountains
around. 17:20
Jesus tells Peter to pay his taxes with a coin that
he'll find in the mouth of the first fish that he catches from the sea.
17:27
"There be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs
for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let
him receive it." Dangerous words from a guy who recommends
cutting of body parts if they cause you to sin (Mt.5:29-30,
Mt.18:8-9, Mk.9:43-48). It
might make someone castrate himself so that he could be one of the
144,000 male
virgins, who alone will make it to heaven (Rev.14:3-4).
19:12
Jesus lists the "ten commandments," but his list has
only six, and the sixth is not one of the ten. The
commandments given by Jesus are secular, not religious, in nature. 19:18
Rich people don't go to heaven. For as Jesus says, "It
is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God. 19:23
Jesus tells his apostles, "ye shall sit upon the twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." I wonder which
tribe Judas is judging? 19:28
Matthew has Jesus ride into Jerusalem sitting on both
an
ass and a colt (must have taken some practice!). 21:2-7
Jesus curses a fig tree and the tree dies immediately
(showing the world how much God
Hates Figs). But in Mark's
gospel (11:14, 20-21)
the cursed fig tree doesn't
die until the next morning. 21:19-20
If your faith is great enough, you can not only kill
fig
trees but move mountains around, too. Whatever you ask for you will
receive. (O Lord, won't ya buy me a Mercedes-Benz?) 21:21-22
"What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end
of the world? ... Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes."
The end of the world will be signaled by wars,
famines,
disease, and earthquakes. 24:3,
7
If you see the abomination of desolation in the holy
place, try to understand. God is trying to say something. 24:15
"Let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains."
Why? Can't God find and kill them there, too? 24:16
Jesus says there will be "false
Christs" that will "show great signs and wonders." Well, Jesus
himself according to Acts 2:2224:24
fits this
description.
Jesus tells his disciples to eat his body and drink his
blood. 26:26-28
"I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine,
until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
WooHoo! There will be wine to drink in heaven. 26:29
"And he went a little farther, and fell on his face." 26:39
The phrase "unto this day" shows that the gospel of
Matthew was written long after the events it describes. 27:8, 28:15
When Jesus died,
"the graves were opened; and
many bodies of the saints" arose. But they stayed in their graves until
Jesus rose from the dead, when they began to walk around, appearing to
many in
Jerusalem. 27:53-54
"Unclean spirits" confess that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh. If 1 Jn.4:2
is true, then these "unclean spirits" are of
God. 1:23-24
Jesus rebukes the "unclean spirit" for saying that
Jesus
is "the holy one of God." 1:25
Jesus casts out more devils and tells them not to
reveal
who he is. 1:32-34
More "unclean spirits" confess that Jesus is "the son
of God." 1 Jn.4:2
says that all such spirits are of God. 3:11
Although the disciples weren't sure about Jesus even
after his alleged resurrection, the "unclean spirits" knew that
he was "the son of God." But Jesus told them not to tell anyone. 3:11-12
Jesus gives his apostles the power to heal sickness and
"cast out devils." 3:15
The scribes think that Jesus casts out devils by the
power of the p
rince of devils, Beelzebub. 3:22
A man possessed with "an unclean spirit" recognizes
Jesus as the son of God. According to 1
Jn.4:2, 15, this man must have been "of God." 5:7
Jesus sends devils into 2000 pigs, causing them to jump
off a cliff and be drowned in the sea. When the people
hear about it, they beg Jesus to leave. 5:12-13
"A certain woman ... had an issue of blood twelve
years...."
So this is where all those phony faith-healing stories
came from!
Notice that the doctors made her condition worse, but she was instantly
cured by faith. 5:25-29
"Virtue had gone out of him."
Jesus loses some virtue whenever sick women touch him.
5:30
"Thy faith hath made thee whole." If you have enough
faith, you will never get sick. (Illness is caused by sin and lack of
faith. Medical science is unnecessary.) 5:34
Jesus is rejected by those who knew him the best, the
people from his home town of Nazareth. 6:3
Jesus sends out his apostles, two by two, to cast out
"unclean spirits." 6:7
"And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil
many that were sick, and healed them." 6:13
There was much disagreement and confusion about Jesus'
identity. Some thought he was Elijah or one of the
prophets. And some (like Herod in this verse) thought he was the risen
John the Baptist, even though John had just recently
died and the people must have known what he looked like. 6:14-15
Jesus puts his fingers in a deaf man's ears, then spits
and touches the deaf man's tongue. 7:33
The disciples ought to know by now where they can get
enough food to feed a few thousand. After all, Jesus had just done it
before (6:34-44). This
"doublet" was probably
the result of two oral traditions of the same event. 8:4
Jesus' spit did not completely cure the blind. So Jesus
tried again. He put his hands on the man's eyes and, this time, the
blind man "saw every man clearly." 8:24-25
There were various opinions about the identity of
Jesus.
Some thought he was Elijah or one of the prophets. And
many thought he was a risen John the Baptist. With credulity like that
just about anyone could later be passed off as the
risen Christ. 8:27-28
"Get thee behind me, Satan." When Peter expressed his
dismay about Jesus' coming death, Jesus said to him "Get thee behind
me,
Satan" -- a fine way to address his holiness, the first pope! 8:33
Jesus heals a boy with "a dumb spirit" by saying, "Thou
dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him and enter no more
into him." (Sounds like a script from Monty Python, doesn't it?) But
how could a deaf spirit hear the words spoken to it? And how could a
dumb spirit cry out? 9:17, 25-26
"All things are possible to him that believeth." 9:23
The disciples saw some others that they didn't
know "casting out devils" in Jesus' name. (It was a popular sport back
in those days.) 9:38
Immortal worms: "Where their worm dieth not" 9:44, 46, 48
Jesus implies that he is neither good nor God. 10:18
When Jesus lists the Ten Commandments, he only mentions
five -- the humanistic ones that make no mention
of God. He also gives one that is not included in the so-called Ten
Commandments: "defraud not." 10:19
Jesus says that rich people cannot go to heaven. For
"it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. 10:25
Jesus kills a fig tree for not bearing figs, even
though
it was out of season. He did this to show the world how much God hates figs. 11:13-14
If you do "not doubt in your heart" you can cast a
mountain into the sea (or kill a fig tree, or whatever). 11:23-24
"The beginnings of sorrows."
The end of the world will be marked with wars, famines,
and earthquakes. (Thank God for that helpful hint!)
13:8
"In those days ... the moon shall not give her light,
and the stars of heaven shall fall." Of course this is nonsense. The
billions of stars will never fall to earth and the moon does not
produce its own light. 13:24-25
There are some things that Jesus doesn't know -- like
when the end of the world will come. 13:32
Jesus tells his disciples to eat his body and drink his
blood. 14:22-24
One of the followers of Jesus was a young, nearly naked
man who dropped his linen cloth and "fled from them
naked" when the priests came to arrest Jesus. 14:51-52
"He is risen."
Jesus came back to life after being dead for a while. 16:6
"After that he appeared in another form."
Jesus transformed himself into a different form,
appearing as a completely different person. (Maybe the disciples saw
another person and assumed it was Jesus.) 16:12
The true followers of Christ routinely perform the
following tricks: 1) cast out devils, 2)speak in tongues, 3) take up
serpents, 4) drink poisons without harm, and 5) cure the sick by
touching them. 16:17-18
"He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his
mother's womb."
John the Baptist was "filled with the Holy Ghost" even
as a fetus! 1:15
God strikes Zacharias dumb for doubting the angel
Gabriel's words. 1:20
John the Baptist, while still a fetus, leaped for joy
when he heard the voice of Mary. 1:44
How could an omniscient being "increase in wisdom"? And
how could God increase "in favour with God."? 2:52
In Luke's gospel, God addresses Jesus directly saying,
"Thou art my beloved son." But Matthew (3:17) has God
speak to those witnessing Jesus' baptism, by saying: "This is my
beloved son." Whatever the exact wording, it is
strange that after witnessing this even, John the Baptist is still
unsure about Jesus (Mt.11:2-3,
Lk.7:19). 3:22
The devil takes Jesus to the top of a mountain and
shows
him "all the kingdoms of the world." I guess the world
was flat in those days. 4:5
Devils crawl out of people proclaiming that Jesus is
"Christ the Son of God." According to 1
Jn.4:2, 15, these devils were "of God." 4:41
"A man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his
face" 5:12
Jesus heals people that are "vexed with unclean
spirits." 6:18
Invite someone that has hit you to do it again, and if
someone steals from you offer them something additional. Don't turn
down any borrowers (Do Christian bankers follow this one?), and when
you loan something don't ask for it back. 6:29-30
"And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak." 7:12-15
John the Baptist, who is about to die, is still unsure
about Jesus. He sends his disciples to Jesus asking: "Art
thou he that should come? or look we for another?" Well, if he's not
sure, how can anyone else be? 7:19
Jesus removes seven devils from the body of Mary
Magdalene. 8:2
"Thy faith hath made thee whole."
If you have enough faith, you will never get sick.
(Illness is caused by sin and lack of faith. Medical
science is unnecessary.) 8:48
Jesus gives his disciples "power and authority over all
devils." 9:1
There were various opinions about the identity of
Jesus.
Some thought he was Elijah or one of the prophets;
others that he was the risen John the Baptist. With such a credulous
populace, is it surprising that some people would
later claim, and probably even believe, that they had seen the risen
Christ? 9:7-8
Jesus falsely predicts that some of his listeners would
live to see him return and establish the kingdom of God. 9:27
Jesus raises Moses and Elijah from the dead and has a
conversation with them. 9:30
James and John ask Jesus if they can call down
fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans who didn't much care for
Jesus'
teaching. They'd like to kill people the way Elijah did. But shucks,
Jesus won't
let them. 9:54
The disciples are thrilled that "even the devils are
subject" to them. 10:17-18
"I give unto you power to tread on serpents and
scorpions ... and nothing shall by
any means hurt you." 10:19
Jesus thanks God that only the ignorant and foolish
will
listen to him. 10:21
People who cannot speak are possessed with devils. 11:14
Jesus says it is impossible to get rid of unclean
spirits. If you manage to evict one, he'll soon return with
seven others "more wicked than himself" and you'll be worse off than
you were before. So just learn to live with
whatever unclean spirits that are currently possessing you. 11:24-26
Jesus calls his critics fools, thus making himself, by
his own standards (Mt.5:22),
worthy of "hell fire." 11:40
Jesus tells his followers to sell everything they own
and give the money to the poor.
12:33
"That which is highly esteemed among men [love, wisdom,
honesty, courage, truth, beauty, etc.] is an abomination in the sight
of God." 16:15
Those with little faith can pluck trees up by their
roots and cast them into the sea. 17:6
Jesus believes the story of Noah's ark. I guess you
should too. 17:27
Jesus also believes the story about Noah's flood and
Sodom's destruction. He says, "even thus shall it be in
the day the son of man is revealed ... Remember Lot's wife." This tells
us about Jesus' knowledge of science and
history. 17:29-32
"Thou knowest the commandments." But apparently Jesus
didn't, since he only named five of the Ten Commandments. (Notice that
the five on Jesus' list are the secular ones that make no mention of
God.) 18:20
Rich people cannot go to heaven. "For it is easier for
a
camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of God." 18:25
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and
buy one." (Have you bought your Jesus sword yet?) 22:36
Jesus tells the "good thief" that they will both be in
heaven "today." But how can that be since it's only Friday
and, according to the gospels, Jesus lay dead in the tomb Friday night
and all day Saturday. 23:43
"He ... is risen."
Jesus came back to life after being dead for a while. 24:6
When Mary Magdalene and the other women gave their
account of the resurrection to the apostles "their words
seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." 24:11
Two of Jesus' disciples failed to recognize him after
his supposed resurrection. Maybe that was because the
person they saw wasn't really Jesus. 24:16
John baptizes Jesus and declares him to be "the Son of
God." But later, as he is about to be beheaded, John
is no longer sure what to think about Jesus. So he sends his own
disciples to ask, "Art thou he that should come, or do
we look for another?" (Mt.11:3)
Well, if he isn't sure after seeing and hearing the events at Jesus'
baptism, then how
can anyone else be? 1:29-35
Jesus' first miracle was to turn water into wine. 2:9
Jesus believed the stupid and vicious story from Numbers
21. (God sent snakes to bite the people for complaining about
the lack of foood and water, and then God told Moses to make a brass
snake to cure them from the bites.) 3:14
Whoever enters a pool after it is stirred up by angels
will be cured of "whatsoever disease he had." 5:4
Jesus believes people are crippled by God as a
punishment for sin. He tells a crippled man, after healing him, to
"sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." 5:14
"All that are in the graves shall hear his voice." 5:28
Jesus claims that Moses wrote about him. Where? It's a
shame he didn't give us chapter and verse. 5:46
The people of Nazareth, who knew Jesus well, did not
believe in him. 6:42
Jesus says we must eat his flesh and drink his blood if
we want to have eternal life. This idea was just too gross for "many of
his disciples" and "walked no more with him." 6:53-66
Jesus chose "a devil" for an apostle. Oh well, everyone
makes mistakes. 6:70
Those who heard the apostles speaking in tongues
thought
they were drunk. 2:13
Peter says that their strange behavior (speaking in
tongues, etc.) was to be expected since they were living in
"the last days." 2:17
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon
into blood."
It happens with every solar or lunar eclipse. 2:20
Jesus did a little time in hell. I'm not sure what for.
2:31
The early Christians were the first communists, living
a
life that was the exact opposite of George Bush's "ownership
society." 2:44-45
"Peter and John ... were unlearned and ignorant men." 4:13
"When they had prayed, the place was shaken." 4:31
The sick were healed just by touching the shadow of
Peter. 5:15-16
A group of Christian communists were released from jail
by an angel. 5:19
It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to
Canaan, yet such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more
than ten days. 7:36,
13:18
Philip made "unclean spirits" scream as they left the
bodies of the people they possessed. 8:7
The Spirit caught Philip and transported him to a city
miles away. 8:39-40
Peter describes the vision that he had in the last
chapter (10:10-13).
All kinds of beasts, creeping things, and fowls drop down from the sky
in a big sheet, and a voice (God's, Satan's?) tells him to "Arise,
Peter; slay and eat." 11:5-6
Open Sesame: An angel magically breaks Peter out of
prison. 12:7-10
"It is his angel."
The Christians pray for Peter, but when he shows up,
they don't believe it. They think he was "his angel" instead. (Everyone
has an angel that looks just like them.) 12:12-15
"And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice
of
a god, and not of a man."
When Herod gave his speech the people shouted, "It is
the voice of God, and not a man." 12:20
"Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed."
When the deputy saw that God could (through Paul) make
people blind, he believed. (Who else shows off their power by blinding
people?) 13:12
The author of Acts talks about the "sure mercies of
David." But David was anything but merciful. For an example of his
behavior see 2 Sam.12:31
and 1 Chr.20:3,
where he saws, hacks, and burns to death the inhabitants of several
cities. 13:34
The people of Lystra thought Paul and Barnabas were the
gods, Jupiter and Mercurius. 14:11-12
Paul "was forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the
word
in Asia." 16:6
Paul and the newly circumcised Timothy tried to go to
Bithynia, but the Spirit wouldn't let them. 16:7
Paul meets "a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of
divination." 16:16
Paul and Silas were rescued by an earthquake that
opened
all the doors of the prison. The same thing happens in The
Da Vinci Code where the character involved even receives a
new name (Silas) to commemorate the event. 16:26
If a husband believes, his whole family is
automatically
saved. 16:31
The philosophers in Athens considered Paul a "babbler"
who worshipped strange gods. 17:18
Paul, a guy who converted to Christianity because he
heard voices, calls the Greeks too darned superstitious. Talk about the
pot calling the kettle black! 17:22
"Paul ... having shorn his head ... for he had a vow." 18:18
"The school of Tyrannus" is the only school that is
ever
mentioned in the Bible. 19:9
After only two years of preaching, everyone in Asia
had
heard the word of the Lord! 19:10
Sick people were cured by touching the handkerchief or
apron of Paul. And the evil spirits when out of them." 19:12
Evil spirits know Jesus and Paul. They also jump on
people and strip them of their clothes. 19:15-16
A great multitude cry out "all with one voice" for two
hours saying, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." 19:34
Eutychus was the first casualty of many long boring
sermons. But Paul raised him back to life by falling on and embracing
him. 20:9-12
"A certain prophet, named Agabus ... took Paul's
girdle,
and bound his own hands an feet." 21:10-11
Paul, that "pestilent fellow," is described as a
"ringleader of the sect of Nazarenes." 24:5
Paul is bitten by a poisonous snake and yet lives. The
"barbarians" who were shipwrecked with him thought
he must be a murderer since he was bitten; but then they changed their
minds and thought him to be a god since he
didn't die. 28:3-6
By praying and touching the sick people of Malta, Paul
cures them of their diseases. 28:8-9
The Jews of Rome refer to Paul's religion as a sect. 28:22
"If thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is
made uncircumcision."
If you are circumcised and you break the law, your
foreskin will grow back. 2:25
Paul asks the very good question: "Is there
unrighteousness who taketh vengeance [upon innocent people]?" The
obvious answer to this is, yes. Paul then quickly adds, "I speak as a
man." What else could he speak as? A donkey or a
god, perhaps? 3:5
Paul says that Abraham needed God's help to father
Isaac
when he was 100 years old. But Abraham, when he was
even older, managed to father six more children with a new wife without
any divine assistance (Gen.21:2,
25:1-2). 4:19
The guilty are "justified" and "saved from wrath" by
the
blood of an innocent victim. 5:9
God punishes everyone for someone else's sin; then he
saves them by killing an innocent victim. 5:12
God gave the law so "that the offence might abound." 5:20
Poor Paul is confused. First he says that he baptized
no one. Well, except for Crispus and Gaius. And maybe
Stephanus and his household. He can't remember if he did it to anyone
else. 1:14-16
God saves fools and is pleased with their foolishness.
1:21
God has "chosen the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise." 1:27
If you are to be a good Christian you must try to know
nothing (except for Jesus, of course). 2:2-5
Paul establishes his own cult (Christianity) by telling
others to follow him. 4:16
A believer should not sue another believer in court. 6:6-7
Paul asks if he should "take the members of Christ, and
make them members of an harlot?" He further asks,
"Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body?" 6:15-16
"But to the rest speak I, not the Lord." Really? So
this
stuff is in scripture but is not inspired by God? 7:12
"Else were your children unclean; but now are they
holy."
The children of nonbelievers are unclean. (But
believers' kids are holy.) 7:14
Paul says those who are circumcised should "not become
uncircumcised." (It's pretty hard to undo.) 7:18
Slaves should not desire their freedom. Yet they should
not be the servants of men. 7:21,
23
"Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the
Lord: yet I give my judgment." So this is just Paul's opinion
and is not divinely inspired scripture? 7:25
Paul, like Jesus and the other New Testament writers,
expects the end to come soon. "The time is short." So there's
no time for sex or marriage since the world will be ending soon. 7:29
"If any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth
nothing."
Anyone that thinks they know something knows nothing. 8:2
Don't be an idolater. If you become one, God will make
you sit down to eat and then rise up to play. 10:7
If you tempt Christ (How could you tempt Christ?),
you'll will die from snake bites. 10:9
If you murmur, you'll be destroyed by the destroyer
(God). 10:10
Gentiles sacrifice to devils. If you have gentile
friends, then you are friends with devils. 10:20
In Galatians (1:10)
Paul says, "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of
Christ." In this verse he says, "I
please all men in all things." Therefore Paul is not the servant of
Christ. 10:33
Paul says that everyone should follow him
-- not Jesus. He'll take care of all that for you. 11:1
Every man who prays or prophesies while wearing a hat
dishonors his head. 11:4
God likes short hair on men and long hair on women. 11:13-15
Those who eat and drink unworthily often get sick and
die. 11:30
"Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail."
Paul prophesies that all prophecies will fail. But
since
this itself is a prophecy, it also will fail (if the prophecy is
correct), making it a
false prophecy. 13:8
"But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant." 14:38
"He was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve."
But Judas hanged himself (Matthew
27:3-5) and Matthias was not elected (Acts 1:9-26) until after
the ascension. 15:5
This is the verse that the Mormons use to justify their
belief in the baptism
of the dead. 15:29
Paul shows his ignorance (and God's) of biology by
saying that only dead seeds will germinate. Actually, a seed
must be alive to germinate. 15:36
There were these guys that Paul once knew, but he just
can't remember whether it was in or out of the body. It was sort of an
out of body experience. Anyway, one of these guys was way up in the
third heaven and the other guy was in paradise. Cool, eh? 12:2-3
"I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me."
12:11
"Being crafty, I [Paul] caught you with guile." 12:16
Are you a reprobate? Here's the test: if you know for
sure that Jesus is in you, you're not a reprobate. Otherwise you are. 13:5
"I would they were even cut off which trouble
you."
Gosh, that doesn't sound very nice. But I wonder what
Paul meant by "cut off". The New Revised Standard Version translates
this verse as: "I wish those who unsettle you would castrate
themselves!" 5:12
"See how large a letter I have written unto you with
mine own hand."
"The gospel ... was preached to every creature under
heaven." 1:23
"Rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that
which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh."
The suffering Jesus was not sufficient to satisfy God's
wrath, so the Paul (or whoever wrote Colossians) had to make up for
what as lacking with his own sufferings. 1:24
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy." 2:8
"Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies."
If we follow this advice we would ignore most of the Bible --
especially the genealogies found in Gen.10,
1 Chr.1-9, Mt.1, and Lk.3. 1:4
"Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto
Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme." Apparently (see 2 Tim.2:16-18 and 4:14-15) their
"blasphemy" was disagreeing with Paul. 1:20
"A bishop must be ... the husband of one wife."
Apparently, it's OK for laymen to have several. 3:2
"In the latter times some shall depart from the faith"
by becoming vegetarians. 4:1-4
The people of Crete are "always liars, evil beasts,
slow
bellies." 1:12
Disregard "Jewish fables and commandments of men, that
turn from the truth." Like most of the bible, maybe? 1:14
"The grace of God ... hath appeared to all men." At the
time this statement was written, only a very small minority had seen or
heard about Jesus. And still today there are those who have never heard
his name. 2:11
The "angels that sinned" are the sons of God that had
sex with human females to produce a race of giants. (See Gen.6:4) 2:4
Noah was the first drunken preacher (Gen.9:20). 2:5
Lot, who in Gen.19:8
offers his two virgin daughters to a crowd of angel rapers and later(19:30-38) impregnates
them, was a "righteous man." 2:8
The author of 2 Peter believes the story in Numbers (22:28-30) about the
talking ass. 2:16
The author of 2 Peter is aware of the failed
expectations of early believers. He knows that Jesus, who was to come
soon, didn't come
at all. Many have begun to ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?"
He tries to cover for Jesus by claiming that "one day
with the Lord is as a thousand years." 3:4
Paul's epistles are hard to understand. And that those
who try to understand them, as with the other
scriptures, do so "unto their own destruction." 3:16
John thinks he is living in "the last times." He
"knows"
this because he sees so many antichrists around. 2:18
Whoever denies "that Jesus is the Christ" is a liar and
an antichrist. If so, then there are about four billion
antichrists now living. 2:22
John says that whoever sins is "of the devil." But if
what he said in 1:8, 10 is true, then everyone
is "of the devil." 3:8
How's this for a big lie? "Whatsoever we ask, we
receive
of him." 3:22
John says that all spirits that say Jesus is the Christ
are of God. If so, then the "unclean spirits" in Mark's gospel
(1:23-24, 3:11, 5:7) must have been of God. 4:2, 4:15, 5:1
John says that the antichrist was already present at
the
time 1 John was written. So Pat Robertson must be wrong
when he says the antichrist is a Jewish man that is alive today. 4:3
"God is love." See 1
Sam.15:2-3 for an example of what this type of love can do. 4:8, 16
"He that doeth good is of God: but he that doeth evil
hath not seen God." Of course it's not nearly this simple. There are
many good atheists and bad theists. Take Moses, for example. Moses
supposedly spoke to God face to face (Ex.33:11), yet look what he did in Numbers 31.
11
The angels that Jude refers to here are the "sons of
God" that had sex with human females to produce a race of giants. 6
Michael the Archangel argued with the devil about the
body of Moses. 9
"To convince all that are ungodly
among them of all their ungodly deeds which they
have ungodly committed, and of all their hard
speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against
him."
(Ungodly was the author of Jude's favorite word.) 16
God gives someone on a white horse a bow and sends him
out to conquer people. 6:2
The sixth seal is opened and there is a great
earthquake, the sun becomes black, and the moon red, the stars fall
from heaven, and mountains and islands move around. 6:12-14
God tells his murderous angels to "hurt not the earth,
neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants
of your God on their foreheads." This verse is one that Christians like
to use to show God's loving concern for the
environment. But the previous verse (7:2)
makes it clear that it was their God-given job to "hurt the earth and
the sea"
just as soon as they finished their forehead marking job. 7:3
144,000 Jews will be going to heaven; everyone else is
going to hell. 7:4
"All the angels ... and the four beasts ... fell before
the throne on their faces." 7:11
Those that survive the great tribulation will get to
wash their clothes in the blood of the lamb. 7:14
An angel threw the censer down to earth, causing
thunder, lightning, and earthquakes.
8:5
"And there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it
were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers,
and upon the fountains of waters." In the bible, stars are just little
lights that can fall to t
he ground from the sky. 8:10
The fourth trumpet smites one third of the sun, moon,
and stars. 8:12
An angel flies through heaven screaming, "Woe, woe, woe
to the inhabiters of the earth." 8:13
The fifth trumpet sounds and another star falls from
heaven. The angel is given the key to a bottomless pit, containing
smoke and powerful locusts. 9:1
God makes some horse-like locusts with human heads,
women's hair, lion's teeth, and scorpion's tails. They
sting people and hurt them for five months. 9:7-10
Four angels, with an army of 200 million, killed a
third
of the earth's population. 9:15-19
An angel tells John to eat a book. He does, and it
tastes good, but it makes his belly bitter. 10:10
Anyone that messes with God's two olive trees and two
candlesticks (God's witnesses) will be burned to death by fire that
comes out of their mouths. 11:3-5
God's witnesses have special powers. They can shut up
heaven so that it cannot rain, turn rivers into blood, and smite the
earth with plagues "as often as they will." 11:6
After God's witnesses "have finished their testimony,"
they are killed in a war with a beast from a bottomless pit. 11:7
Their dead bodies lie unburied for three and a half
days. People will "rejoice over them and make merry, and shall send
gifts to one another." After another three and half days God brings his
witnesses back to life and they ascend into heaven. 11:8-12
"The four and twenty elders ... fell upon their faces."
11:16
"There were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings,
and
an earthquake, and great hail." 11:19
The dragon's tail smacks down to earth one third of
the
stars. To the author of Revelation,
the stars are just little lights that can fall to the ground from the
sky. 12:4
"And there was a war in heaven: Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon." So even in heaven, one can't
be safe from war or dragons. 12:7
John sees a sea monster with 7 heads and 10 horns, and
with "blasphemy" written on on each head. It looked like a leopard,
except its feet were like a bear, and its mouth like a lion. 13:1-2
"All the world" worshiped the dragon and the beast. 13:3-4
The beast goes to war against the "saints". He is given
power (by God?) over all nations, and all non-Christians worship him. 13:7-8
"The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world"
God planned to kill Jesus before he created the world. 13:8
John sees another beast coming out of the earth with
horns like a lamb and a voice like a dragon. He could do "great
wonders," like make fire come down from the sky. 13:11-13
The people make an image of the beast that can speak.
Anyone who refuses to worship the image is killed. 13:13-15
John says that wisdom is knowing that the
mark of the beast is 666. Everyone will be marked on their right hand
or their
forehead with this number. 13:16-18
Only 144,000 celibate men will be saved. (Those who
were
not "defiled with women.") 14:1-4
Jesus
sits on a white cloud with a sharp sickle in his hand. When the angel
tells him to reap, he kills all the people with his sickle. 14:14-18
"One of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels
seven
golden vials full of the wrath of God." 15:7
The angel says God is righteous for turning rivers into
blood. Well, it's an interesting point of view. But I'd say he's a
raving lunatic. 16:5
Another angel tells God how righteous he is because he
gives saints blood to drink. 16:7
Those who were being burned to death by God didn't
repent "to give him glory." 16:9
Even after being burned alive, those nasty people
wouldn't repent! 16:11
Three frog-like unclean spirits come out of the mouths
of the dragon, beast, and false prophet. They are miracle-working
devils that gather kings to fight in God's upcoming war. 16:13-14
"Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments,
lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." 16:15
The seventh vial: voices, thunders, lightnings,
earthquakes, hail. 16:17-21
God destroyed every island and mountain (just for the
hell of it). 16:20
"A great hall out of heaven, every stone about the
weight of a talent"
The great whore has "committed fornication" with all
the kings on earth. Everyone else is "drunk with the wine of her
fornication." She sits on a scarlet colored beast with the usual 7
heads and 10 horns. She carries a cup full of the "filthiness of her
abominations" and has a big sign on her forehead saying: "Mystery,
Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the
Earth." You'll know her when you see her. 17:1-5
"The beast that was, and is not, and yet is." 17:8
"And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven
heads
are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth..." 17:9-13
"And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest,
where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and
tongues." 17:15
"They shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire." (Are
they going to eat her first and then burn her?) 17:16-17
"The four beasts fell down and worshipped God ...
saying, Amen; Alleluia." 19:4
Jesus has eyes of fire and many crowns on his head. But
no one knows his name except for Jesus himself, and he's not telling
(well until the next verse, that is). 19:12
Jesus's clothes are dipped in blood and his secret name
("that no man knew") is "The Word of God". (I bet you thought it was
Jesus!) 19:13
With eyes aflame, many crowns on his head, clothes
dripping with blood, a sword sticking out of his mouth, and a secret
name, Jesus leads the faithful in heaven into holy war on earth. 19:14-15
"And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name
written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."
Oh Goodie. Jesus has another secret name. He even has
it written on his thigh. (Some sort of tattoo maybe?) 19:16
"The first resurrection" Those who don't worship the
beast will become priests and reign with Christ for 1000 years. The
rest of the dead will remain dead until the 1000 years is over. 20:4-6
In heaven there will be a tree that has 12 kinds of
fruit with leaves that will heal nations. And there will be horses of
different colors, singing munchkins, and a great and powerful wizard. 22:2
"His name shall be in their foreheads."
WTF? His name will be in their foreheads? Which of
Jesus's many secret names with that be? Will beleivers have "King of Kings and Lord of Lords"
branded on their foreheads like Jesus has tattooed to his thigh? Or "The Word of God" or "Jealous"?
And why does God have to mark is followers on their foreheads? Can't he
tell the ones that are stupid enough to believe this kind of stuff? 22:4
This verse refers to Jesus as the "bright and morning
star", as is Lucifer in Isaiah
14:12. So is Jesus Lucifer? 22:16
Anyone who adds to the words in Revelation (or to the
rest of the Bible?) will be struck with plagues, and
anyone that tries to remove anything from it will have his name removed
from the book of life. 22:18-19