Genesis Chapters 25-28

With chapter 25 we reach the halfway mark for the book of Genesis.  However, this does not mean that the incest and genocide are anywhere near an end as there are many more examples of God’s special types of love to come.

In this post:  Abraham gets remarried then dies; Brotherly love Bible style; Isaac tries his hand at the family con; Rebekah teaches Jacob how to lie and swindle his father; More incest;

Chapter 25

This chapter starts by telling us that Abraham remarried after Sarah’s death and had several children with his second wife (no blood relation this time) and that he also had some children with mistresses.  Though none of these children were allowed to stay around, and everything Abraham had went to Isaac. (25:1-6)

Then in 1863 BC at the age of 175 Abraham dies and is buried next to Sarah. (25:7-10)

After Abraham dies God gives his blessing to Isaac who is still living in Lahairoi. (25:11)

We then learn that Ishmael had several children and died in 1815 BC at the age of 137.  He wasn’t buried in the family plot. (25:12-18)

We then backtrack a little and learn that Isaac eventually made an honest woman of Rebekah after their first-date night of sex.  They were married in 1898 BC when Isaac was 40, and they soon discovered that Rebekah is barren (possibly a result of inbreeding), but God takes care of it and she gets pregnant. (25:19-21)

Rebekah has a hard time with the pregnancy and talks to God about it.  God tells her that there are two different people in her, one stronger than the other and that the older and stronger of the two will serve the younger. And, sure enough, in 1878 when she gives birth, it is twins:  the first out is a hairy red-head they named Esau, and the other comes out holding his brother’s foot; they name him Jacob. (25:22-26)

Esau, we learn, becomes a great hunter and “man of the field” who feeds his family and is the favorite of Isaac, while Jacob becomes a momma’s boy who hangs out at home all the time. (25:27-28)

To end the chapter we are told a little story of brotherly love Bible style.  It seems that one day when Esau returned home famished from actually working to feed the family, he found that Jacob had made some bean soup, with what was apparently the last of the food Esau had worked so hard for.  Esau asked Jacob for some soup since he was so hungry he felt faint.  Jacob says that Esau can have some soup if he gives up his birthright as firstborn. Esau, who is half-starved, agrees.  It seems that Jacob had been well-trained in the art of extortion by his grandfather/great-uncle/great-great-uncle.  (25:29-34)

Chapter 26

This chapter starts with a famine similar to that which Abraham had experienced.  Isaac, unlike his father, does as God tells him and goes to Gerar (the same Gerar where Abe and Sarah last pulled their sister/wife scam) and not Egypt.  In return, God makes all the same promises to Isaac that he had made to Abraham who had done everything that God told him to do. (26:1-6)

Isaac tries to pull his father/uncle’s old routine of “she’s not my wife she’s my sister,” but the king had already fallen for this trick before with Abraham and Sarah, and calls Isaac out on it, and puts out a decree saying that anyone who touches Isaac or Rebekah would be put to death. (26:7-11)

So, Isaac and Rebekah stick around in Gerar growing wealthy, making deals with the king’s men when he isn’t around, and digging wells.  Isaac even renames Beersheba:  he calls it Shebah, so everyone calls it Beersheba.  I know, it’s confusing, but that’s what it says. (26:12-33)

Then we’re told that Esau gets a couple of wives (not blood relatives) that Isaac and Rebekah don’t like. (26:34-35)

Chapter 27

Fade in on an old blind Isaac who believes that he’s going to die soon.

Isaac calls in Esau and says that if he will bring him some savory venison that he will grant him his blessing before he dies. (27:1-4)

Rebekah overhears the conversation and when Esau heads out, she tells Jacob to get some goats and they will use them to think Isaac into blessing Jacob instead. (27:5-10) Gotta love this family.

Jacob points out to Rebekah that Esau is hairy and if Isaac touches him he will know that he isn’t Esau.  But, Rebekah has that covered and tells Jacob to do as he’s told.  So they get the goat meat, Rebekah makes it so it will taste like Isaac’s favorite venison, and she has Jacob wear Esau’s clothes and she wraps goatskin around his hands and neck. (27:11-16)

So Jacob takes the meat to Isaac, who falls for the stunt like a moron, even though he notices that the voice is wrong, and gives Jacob the blessing meant for Esau. (27:17-29)

No sooner than Jacob leaves with his stolen blessing, in walks Esau.  They quickly figure out what has happened and Isaac says that because of the blessing, Esau must serve his brother, but that in time he will be free from that service. Esau leaves swearing that when his father dies he will kill Jacob. (27:30-41)

Rebekah finds out about Esau said and has Jacob run and hide at her brother’s house in Haran, until Esau calms down. (27:42-45)  Then she goes to Isaac and says she’s worried that Isaac might marry some local girl, and she doesn’t want that to happen. (27:46) She doesn’t mention her role in swindling him earlier.

Chapter 28

Isaac then calls Jacob in, blesses him and tells him to go look for a wife at his uncle’s place. (28:1-5)

Esau overhears Isaac talking to Jacob, and decides to beat him to marrying a cousin by marrying one of Ishmael’s daughters, so he now not only beat Jacob to the incest punch, but has three wives. (28:6-9)

While Jacob is on his way to get a wife from his uncle, he spends the night in Luz.  While asleep he has a dream that the place he’s in is the stairway to heaven (Jacob’s Ladder) and that God blesses him as he had blessed Abraham and Isaac.  When he wakes up, Jacob renames the place Bethel, and vows that if God will give him everything he wants then he will give ten percent back.  (28:10-22) Quite a deal.

Since Esau dragged poor Ishmael into the Abrahamic tradition of incest I have included an updated family tree at right.

So now:

• Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, is Esau’s wife/cousin, Isaac’s niece/daughter-in-law, Rebekah’s cousin/daughter-in-law, and Jacob’s cousin/sister-in-law
• Jacob is Esau’s cousin by marriage/brother
• Ishmael is Esau’s uncle/father-in-law

Fortunately, Ishmael didn’t live to see his child dragged into the family tradition of incest.

Next time:  Jacob has sex with a lot of sisters and maids, and rips off his uncle then runs away; some rape and war; brothers make up; and Isaac dies.

Genesis Chapters 8-11

Genesis Chapter 8-11

In this post: The flood comes to an end, I explain where the water went, more divine senility, Noah the Drunk, God gives away the first slave, Tower of Babel, Noah’s family line to Abraham

Chapter 8:

When we last saw our heroes they were floating around on a small boat with millions of animals and a few thousand tons of manure.

We pick up our story in Gen 8:1 when God recovers from another bout of senility and “…remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark… .”  Then God causes a wind to stop the rain, and the other water coming from the sky as well as the water shooting up from the bottom of the ocean (Gen 8:2-3).

The water starts slowly receding.  Where did all the water go?  Well literalists will tell you that God lowered the ocean floor and raised the land so the water is still here.  Aside from there being no basis for that in this story or in any geological record, and its being an ignorance-based version of plate tectonics, it’s just plain stupid.  I find it much easier to believe that it all went down a drain at the bottom of the ocean, next to the spigot that it was coming out of in 8:2-3.  The spigot and drain are as of now undiscovered, but that in no way definitively proves that they aren’t there.  Then God put a stopper (also undiscovered…yet)  in it which left us with the water we have.  My version has just as much evidence as theirs and is better written.  Na Nanna, Boo, Boo.

Mt. Ararat

Anyway, after 150 days it had gone down about 13,000 feet to around 16,850 ft, so that on July 17th 2348 BC the Ark settles on Mt. Ararat, and by the first of October the mountain tops could all be seen.(Gen 8:3-5)  Actually the story says “mountains of Ararat” so it could have landed on any peak in the Armenian Highlands, but Mt. Ararat is a good choice because it is a volcano, and many early cultures loved their volcano gods.

After forty days of sitting on top of a mountain in a boat full of 10s of millions of pounds of manure, Noah opens the little window on top of his boat, and lets out a raven and a dove.  The raven flew around in circles for the next few months landing on the stinking boat, nevermore, while the dove flew around for a while and came back. (Gen 8:6-9)

After a week, Noah let the dove out again, and this time it came back with a newly sprouted olive leaf, which told Noah that the water was “abated from off the earth”,  or at least the hill that the olive tree was growing on. (Gen 8:10-11)  How an olive tree had survived almost six months under water is never explained, though I guess it could have been growing in one of the many empires that survived the flood intact with no water damage.

Noah waits another week and lets the dove go again, and the dove doesn’t come back. (Gen 8:12)  He probably got sick of the smell like the raven had.

8:13 tells us that on New Year’s Day “in the six hundredth and first year” Noah opens the Ark to reveal dryland.  Now obviously this isn’t the 601st year because the World had been around over twice that long, we can only assume that it means Noah’s 601st year, which would mesh with the rest of the story.  What doesn’t mesh is why Noah waited 37 days to open the boat if the land was already dry.  You would think he would want to air the place out as soon as possible.

Anyway, 8:14 says that the Earth wasn’t dry until the 27th of February which means 8:13 lied, or the author forgot.

Whenever the drying out happened, God told Noah to get his family and all the animals out of the boat, and Noah happily complied. (Gen 8:15-19) I’m sure everybody was getting tired of the piles of manure that by now were surrounding the boat.

It wasn’t to be a happy day for all involved because Noah immediately took one of every “clean” animal and bird, and set them on fire. (Gen 8:20)  We can’t be sure if this means that these animals had babies before they were put to death, or if this offering led to the extinction of these animals whose significant other was left without a mate.

Anyway, God catches a whiff of burning flesh and seems to like it.  It was probably a welcome smell since the millions of dead bloated people, and the 10s of millions of dead bloated animals that surely littered the ground, along with the heaping piles of manure surrounding the Ark, were most likely quite smelly.  Because of Noah’s animal scent-candle, God vows to never again kill everything on the planet: (Gen 8:21-22) I would just like to thank Noah for his flood-stopping Bar-B-Que.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 starts with God telling Noah and his boys to go make babies, lots of babies. (Gen 9:1)

Not the Least Bit Scared of People

Then God tells the guys that every animal on the planet will now be scared of them.  (Gen 9:2)  It would have been nice if that fear had passed down through the generations, but alas, it hasn’t. It would seem that God cared more for Noah than he does for 13 year old admirers.  God then goes on to explain that animals should be scared of them because “every” animal is now to be considered food.  The one caveat is that they can’t eat hearts or blood. (Gen 9:3-4)

Verses 5-6 re-establish capital punishment, but this time for murderers instead of for killers of murderers.

God tells them to have babies again, in case they didn’t hear him the first time. (Gen 9:7)  And, this isn’t the end of his repeating himself:

In verses 8-13 Gods promises to never kill everything with a flood again and creates rainbows as a reminder of this.

In verses 14-17 God promises to never kill everything with a flood again and creates rainbows as a reminder of this.

Is God repeating things because he thinks Noah and his sons are thick-headed?  Is divine senility rearing its ugly head again?  Were there multiple authors?  You decide.  My money is on senility.

Gen 9:18 starts a rather odd side story.  In this story, Noah plants a vineyard, makes some wine from the grapes, gets blackout drunk, and passes out naked in his tent.  His son Ham stumbles upon his drunk, naked father and tells his two brothers, Shem and Japheth about it.  Shem and Japheth go to great lengths to cover their drunkard of a dad with a blanket without looking at him. (Gen 9:18-23) There is no mention of where Mrs. Noah is during this.

When Noah wakes up from his drunken coma, does he apologize to his family for getting blind drunk and passing out naked in a tent?  No, he gets mad at his son Ham for stumbling onto the sight of his alcoholic naked father, and curses Ham’s son Canaan to be a servant to his uncles. (Gen 9:24-27)

Then we are told that the drunk lived for 350 years after the flood and dies (liver cirrhosis) at the age of 950 in 1998 BC. (Gen 9:28-29)   Did you see the math error?  According to Gen 7:6 and 11 Noah was 600 when the flood started.  According to Gen 8:13 Noah was 601 when the flood ended, and 8:14 reiterates that the flood lasted for a year.  601 + 350=951, not 950.  God’s divinely guided messenger isn’t very good at math, or maybe God isn’t.  Either way a big mistake.

Chapter 10

This chapter is a series of begats.

Nimrod’s Nemisis

First we get  Noah’s oldest son Japheth’s family tree. (Gen 10:1-5) Then Ham’s. (Gen 10:6-20) Then Shem’s. (Gen 10:21-31)  Chapter 10 ends by telling us that this  was how the Earth was repopulated (Gen 10:32)  The only name of any interest is Nimrod the Hunter (Grandson of Ham) who rules Babel, and then goes on to fight the X-Men.

Chapter 11

Our final chapter for this post starts by telling us that everyone was speaking one language (Gen 11:1)  This should have been obvious since everyone at this point is descended from one family.

Then we are told that all of these people got together and started to build a huge tower toward the heavens as a way to unite them as a people.  (Gen 11:2-4)

So, God wonders out from where ever he had been hanging out since completing his first genocide and sees the tower (Gen 11:5)

When God sees the tower he tells his female companion that it is a sign that people have become smart, and full of ingenuity, and that if they can do such a wonderous thing then there is nothing that they can’t do if they put there minds to it (Gen 11:6)  Generally, such words spoken about children by a parent would be considered a good thing.  Not so to humanity’s kind and loving father.  Instead of congratulating his children, he and his female companion make it so the children can’t understand each other thereby creating the different languages and scattering the people all over the planet. Which is why the tower came to be called Babel. (Gen 11:7-9)

What God didn’t know was that there were at least four recorded languages before this: Sumerian , Egyptian, Akkadian, and Eblaite.  But, since these languages were different from Noahnese God probably didn’t understand them and ignored them, especially since speakers of these languages had all managed to survive the flood.

Then the chapter starts another begat list. This time just from Noah’s son Shem to Abram (Abraham born 2038 BC) and Abram’s nephew Lot. (Gen 11:10-27)  All the men mentioned in this list live longer than God’s set lifespan for humans.  It seems that God forgot again and let these guys live too long.

11:29 tells us that Abram marries a woman named Sarai, and that Abram’s brother Nahor marries their niece, Lot’s sister, Milcah.  It aint love if it aint in the fam’ly.

Then God gets a little personal and lets us know that Abram’s wife was barren. (Gen 11:30)

Then Abram’s dad takes Abram, Sarai, and lot from Ur where they had been living to live in a city named after Abram’s brother, and Abrams’ brother’s father-in-law, and lot’s father, Haran, in Canaan. (Gen 11:31)  Where Abram’s father dies in 1903 BC (probably from shame about his son marrying his granddaughter) (Gen 11:32)

Why they moved from a city that had survived the flood to a place designated as bad, we are not told.

Next time:  Abram, Sarai, and Lot wander around the Middle East making money.

See you then, Ron