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). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the
first day if there was no sun to mark them? 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 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 chance 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
Adam finally dies -- 930 years after eating from the tree of knowledge, contrary to God's
false prophecy that Adam would die the day that he ate the forbidden fruit (2:17). 5:5
Enoch doesn't die he just ascends into heaven. 5:21-24
Enoch lived 365 years before he was taken (alive?) by God.
5:23
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
Methuselah lived 969 years. (World record holder.) 5:27
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 was a just man and perfect."
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
God tells Noah to make one small window (18 inches square) in the 450
foot ark for ventilation. 6:14-16
"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
"I do set my bow in the cloud."
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.").
But rainbows are caused by the nature of light, the refractive index of water, and the shape of raindrops. There were rainbows
billions of years before humans existed. 9:13
The "just and righteous" Noah (6:9, 7:1) plants a vineyard, gets drunk, and lies
around naked in his tent. His son, Ham, happens to see his father in this condition. When Noah
sobers up and hears "what his young son had done unto him" (what did he do besides look at
him?), he curses not Ham, who "saw the nakedness of his father," but Ham's son, Canaan. "A
servant of servants shall he [Canaan] be unto his brethren." This is a typical case of biblical
justice, and is one of many Bible passages that have been used to justify slavery. 9:20-25
"All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years." 9:29
"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 Timothy 1:4 and Titus 3:9. ("Avoid foolish questions and
genealogies.") Also note the ridiculously long lives of the patriarchs. 11:10-32
And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years. 11:32
"I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee."
God will bless you if you bless Abraham and curse you if you curse Abraham. Fuck Abraham. 12:3
The Amalekites were smitten before Amalek (from whom they descended) was born.
Amalek was the grandson of Esau (Genesis 36:12). 14:7
"They speedily took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack ...
and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they rent their clothes." 14:12-13
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 was 99 years old when he circumcised himself, along with his 13 year old son,
Ishmael, and his 318 slaves -- all in one very busy (and painful) day.
17:23-27
"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 refuses to give up his angels to the perverted mob, offering his two "virgin daughters"
instead. He tells the bunch of angel rapers to "do unto them [his daughters] as is good in your
eyes." This is the same man that is called "just" and "righteous" in
2 Peter 2:7-8. 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
After the water ran out, Hagar left Ishmael alone to die. But God heard the infant crying, so he had an angel cry to
Hagar from heaven, telling her not to worry. God heard the child's cry and opened Hagar's eyes so she could see a well,
filled with water. God said he'd make Ishmael a great nation, and the child became an archer. 21:14-20
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
"Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old ... And Sarah died."
Sarah was lived longer than any other woman in the Bible: 127 years. 23:2
Abraham makes his servant put his hand under his thigh while swearing to God.
Weird. Of course "putting his hand under his thigh" is just a polite euphemism for "holding his
testicles in his hand." Come to think of it, maybe it isn't so weird at all -- coming as it does
from a god that is completely obsessed with male genitalia. (See
Exodus 4:25, Leviticus 15:16-18,
32, and Deuteronomy 23:1) for
just a few examples.) I guess it's sort of like swearing on the bible.
24:2-9
Abraham needed God's help to father Isaac when he was 100 years old
(Genesis 21:1-2,
Romans 4:19, Hebrews 11:12).
But here, when he is even older, he manages to have six more children
without any help from God. 25:2
"She was barren."
In the Bible it's always the women 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 twice used so effectively. (Once on the same King Abimelech)
(see 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 came
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
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 a good reason!)
32:32
"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
Chapter 36 presents another boring genealogy that we are told to avoid in
1 Timothy 1:4 and Titus 3:9 ("Avoid foolish
questions and genealogies.") 36:1-43
Amalek was born many years after his descendants were "smitten." (14:7)
36:12
"And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins." 37:34
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
Tamar bore twins after she was impregnated by her father-in-law (Judah), one of which was Pharez, an ancestor of Jesus.
(Matthew 1:3, Luke 3:33) 38:27-29
Pharaoh's first dream.
There were these seven fat, good-looking cows that came out of the Nile, followed by seven skinny, ugly cows.
The skinny cows ate the fat ones. 41:1-4
Pharaoh's second dream. This time seven skinny heads of grain at seven fat ones. 41:5-7
None of the Pharaoh's magicians or wise men could interpret his dreams, so they called Joseph. Joseph said it was simple.
God was going to send seven good years followed by seven years of famine.
And the famine would be world-wide and "very grievous." 41:8-32
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 Genesis 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
The fifth plague: all cattle in Egypt die. But a
little later (9:19-20, 12:29), God
kills them again a couple more times. 9:6
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 a few weeks. 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
"Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the
mountain." So God is a talking mountain? 19:3
God's got it all planned out. He will cover himself with a cloud, so that the people can hear him speak, so they'll believe whatever the hell
Moses tells them forever. 19:9
God tells Moses to get ready for the third day, when he'll come down the mountain and stand in front of all the people. (Never happened.)
19:11
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
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
"Moreover the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels,
and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels ... And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying,
This shall be an holy anointing oil unto me throughout your generations. Upon man's flesh shall it not be poured."
30:22-32
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 earrings 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, "whose name is Jealous", will not tolerate the worship of any other god. 34:14
One of the commandments of God is "Thou shalt not seeth a kid in its mother's milk." 34:26
Moses goes without food or water for 40 days and 40 nights. 34:28
After meeting God on mount Sinai, Moses had to cover his face with a veil to avoid frightening the
Israelites. 34:30-35
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
"All the fat is the Lord's."
When you do your burnt offerings, remember that "all the fat is the Lord's." (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 you 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."
And Aaron's sons get all the meat and oil. 7:10
"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 sacrificial 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 sacrificed 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 sacrificed 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
forever. 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
If you upset God, he'll cause the land to vomit you out.
18:25
"Keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations ... that the land spue not you out also,
when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." 18:26-28
"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."
Don't get an tatoos. 19:28
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!), 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, or female animials for him. 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 (Exodus 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.) .... and his
anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them."
God burned the complainers alive. That'll teach them! 11:1-2
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 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 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
God tells Moses to send 12 men, one from each tribe of Israel, to "spy out the land of Canaan." When the spies return,
they give Moses two reports. Caleb and Joshua (Oshea the son of Nun) say it'd be easy to take over the land. The other ten say
it would be hard, since the people that live there are giants. (The scouts were like grasshoppers in comparison.)
13:1-28
"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
Genesis 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
God threatens to kill those who murmur. To which the people reply, "Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish ....
Shall we be consumed with dying?" 17:12-13
"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
"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 Exodus 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
"The Book of the wars of the Lord" (One of the lost books of the Bible) 21:14
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 God 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 1Samuel 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 (28, 29), 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
"The LORD's anger was kindled ... and he sware."
Even God gets angry and swears sometimes. 32:10
"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
"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 (Genesis 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
"Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were
fiery serpents? ... Who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint?" 8:15
"A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims."
More giants! 9:2
"When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone ... I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water." 9:9
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 and vice versa -- 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 -- whether she likes him or
not, and whether she wants to or not. 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 "thine eye
shall not pity her." 25:11-12
"I have not ... given ought thereof for the dead.
Don't feed the 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." How does
having sex with the father's wife uncover the father's skirt? Well, I guess it's
because the father owns his wife. The offense is against him, not her. 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." 28:27
"The Lord will smite thee with madness, and , and astonishment of heart." 28:28
"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 a few weeks. 5:6
Joshua meets a man with a sword in his hand who claims to be the captain of God's army. Joshua
seemed to think the strange man was God himself, as he bowed down to worship him. Apparently God's
captain agreed, telling Joshua to take off his shoe, since he was standing on holy ground (as Moses was
told to do in Exodus 3:5). But whoever was, he disappeared, never to return again. 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").
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
"And the coast of Og king of Bashan, which as of the remnant of the giants."
12:4, 13:12
God's plan for accidental killings: Establish some cities of refuge that accidental killers can
flee to so they won't be killed by "the avenger of blood." 20:1-9
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
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 (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
burning 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 hundred pitchers 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 70 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; the Philistines
burn Samson's ex-wife and father-in-law; and Samson smites them "hip and thigh with a great
slaughter." 15:4-8
"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 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; and they were smitten before Israel."
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 was a foot taller than 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
"When he stood among the people, he was higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upward."
Saul literally stood head and shoulders above any other person in Israel. (He was also the best looking.)
10:23
"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."
OK. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. 13:5
"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
"But the spirit of the Lord
departed from Saul [since he was not murderous enough for God], and 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
Jonathan's fortune-telling arrow shots.
Jonathan shoots three arrows and then sends a boy to fetch them. If the arrows go farther than the boy ran, then God will send David away.
The arrows went over the boys head, so God forced David and Jonathan to part. 20:20-39
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
Among those that David exterminated were the Amalekites. But there couldn't have been any Amalekites to kill since
Saul killed them all (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
(15:7-8) and then by David (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 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
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 Samuel 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
Abner smites Asahel "under the fifth rib." (It seems that in 2
Samuel this is the preferred place to get smitten. 3:27, 4:6,
20:10) 2:23
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 Samuel 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 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
"Then said David, I will shew kindness unto Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father shewed kindness unto me."
Nahash gouged out the eyes of Israelite messengers (or at least threatened to) in 1 Samuel 11.
That's a strange way to show kindness! 10:2
"Hanun ... shaved off the one half of their beards, and cutt off their garments ... even to their
buttocks."
That'll teach them! 10:4
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
"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
Joab smites Amasa "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 ... smote the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword:
and the LORD wrought a great victory that day." 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 Chronicles 21:1 says
that Satan tempted David, and James 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
1.43 million active duty soldiers in 2010.) 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
"God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore."
4:29
How could Solomon be "wiser than all men" and yet have his heart "turned away ... after other gods?"
(1 Kings 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 not 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 killed 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 [Solomon] 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
"The fire of the Lord fell, and consumed ... stones." 18:38
"And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces." 18:39
When the hand of the Lord comes on Elijah, he girded up his loins and ran to Jezreel,
running so fast that he arrived before Ahab who was on horseback! 18:46
"An angel touched him."
Elijah was touched by an angel. 19:5
"Behold, there was a cake ... and he did eat."
Elijah ate some angel food cake. 19:6
"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
"Let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads ...
So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads." 20:31-32
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
"When Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh,
and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly." 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
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.
Was this a miraculous healing or artificial respiration? 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 ... and, behold, he had sackcloth within on his flesh." 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 Kings 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
"When he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab … coming to meet him …
and said to him, Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? And Jehonadab answered, It is. If it be, give me thine hand. And he
gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot."
After meeting with Ahaziah’s family (and killing them all), Jehu got into his chariot and drove away furiously toward Samaria. On his way,
he ran across his old friend, Jehonadab. Jehu asked him, “Is your heart true to mine as mine is to yours?” And Jehonadab said, “It is.”
(They were very good friends.) 10:15
Jehu shows off his zeal for the Lord by murdering "all that remained unto Ahab in Samaria, till he had
destroyed him according to the word of the Lord." 10:16-17
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 Numbers 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 Timothy 1:4 and Titus 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
A talkative spirit (The Holy Spirit?) comes upon Amasai and says, "Thine are we, David and on thy side...." 12:19
"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." 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
"Michal, the daughter of Saul looking out at a window saw
king David dancing and playing: and she despised him in her heart." Michal looks out her window and
sees David dancing nearly naked in front of God and everybody. And she is rightly disgusted by it.
15:29
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
"And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he repented him of the evil,
and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand." 21:15
"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
Everyone in Israel, "a people like the dust of the earth in multitude," gathered at one place to hear Solomon speak.
1:2-3, 9
God tells Solomon that he likes him so darned much (he likes murderers and polygamists) that
he's going to make him the richest man who has ever lived. 1:11-12
"The king [Solomon] made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones." 1:15
Solomon enlists a huge workforce (over 150,000 men) to construct a small chapel. (See
1 Kings 6:2 where the dimensions of the building are given as approximately 90 feet long,
30 feet wide, and 45 feet high.) 2:2
"All the men of Israel assembled themselves unto the king."
(OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration.) 5:3
"The house was filled with a cloud ...
So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud:
for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God." 5:13-14
"The whole congregation of
Israel: and all the congregation of Israel stood ... And he [Solomon] said...."
Another long, boring speech from Solomon that every man in Israel had to listen to while standing up. 6:3-41
"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
"Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred
and threescore and six talents of gold."
Solomon collected 666 talents of gold in one year. (666 talents!) 9:13
After Solomon died, his son Rehoboam became king, and everyone in Israel came to talk to him, begging him to
not be the jerk his father was. Rehoboam said that he'd be even nastier. His dad laid heavy burdens upon them and tortured
them with whips; he would torture them with scorpions. If Solomon had a big dick, Rehoboam has an even bigger one.
"My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins." 10:3-11
Rehoboam prepares for war against Israel, who rebelled against him in the last chapter. But
the word of the LORD comes to a man of God telling him to tell Rehoboam not to fight against Israel. 11:1-4
"And begat twenty and eight sons, and threescore daughters."
Rehoboam had 88 children (28 sons and 60 daughters) and wins
the Bible's
Quiverfull prize. 11:21c
"Rehoboam ... dealt wisely ... and desired many wives." 11:22-23
God sent Shishak, the king of Egypt, to attack Jerusalem because Rehoboam "and all Israel transgressed against the Lord."
Shishak had 1200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen 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 Kings 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
Pekah killed 120,000 people in one day and enslaves 200,000 women and children
"because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers." 28:6-8
"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
"Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God ... and humbledst thyself before me,
and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD." 34:27
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
God gave "all the kingdoms of the earth" to King Cyrus. (OK, that might be a bit of an exaggeration.) 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 threw all of Tobiah's stuff out of the room. 13:8
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
"Ahasuerus ... made a feast ... even an hundred and fourscore days."
Woohoo! A 180 day party! 1:2-4
Because Mordecai (who was a Jew) refused to bow to Haman, Haman decides to kill every Jew in the Persian Empire, offering to pay
10,000 talents of silver (~300,000 kg) to get the job done. 3:2-9
The king sends out a decree to all the provinces declaring a kingdom-wide Kill-the-Jews day. It was to take place on the 13th
day of the 12th month. 3:13
"And in every province ... many lay in sackcloth and ashes." 4:3
Haman's wife and friends tell Haman to have a 25 meter high gallows be made to hang Mordecai on. So they did that in a single day.
5:14
The king couldn't sleep so he asked someone to read to him the book of Chronicles.
That ought to do it! 1 Chornicles is probably the most boring book ever written. No one can read
it without falling asleep. 6:1
The king had completely forgotten that he had ordered the genocide of the Jews back in chapter 3.
7:5
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?) 8:9-13
On the day when all Jew-haters (and their families) were killed by Jews, "the Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour
... a feast and a good day." 8:16-17
Job was a perfect man, the richest in all the east. He had 7 sons and 3 daughters that liked to party. The sons often
invited their sister over to party with them. 1:1-4
"There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect."
Nobody's perfect. Well, except for Job (and Noah). 1:1
God makes a bet with his son, Satan. God tells Satan to do nasty things to Job to see if he can get him to curse God to his face.
1:6-12
The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them."
Satan is the son of God -- the only one that God ever seems to talk to. 1:6, 2:1
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? 1:20-22
God and Satan play a little game with Job. God allows Satan to torment Job, just to see how he will react.
2:3-7
"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
"They rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads." 2:12
The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." 38:7
God could (if he wanted to) pick up the earth by its ends and shake all the wicked people off of it. 38:13
God has snow and hail stored up to use later in time of trouble and war. 38:22
"Out of whose womb came the ice?"
Gosh, I don't know. Was it Glinda, the Good Witch of the North? 38:29
"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
After God and Satan get done tormenting Job, God gave Job even more stuff than he had before, including
children. God gave Job another set of 10 kids, 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
God's clothes smell like myrrh, aloes, and cassia. 45:8
Wicked people are wicked from birth -- God made them that way. They tell lies immediately after birth
(before they can even talk!). 58:3
According to the psalmist, snails melt. But they don't, of course, they simply leave a slimy trail as they move
along. 58:8
They [the heathen] make a noise like a dog .... Behold, they belch out with their mouths." These are good
reasons for God to kill them. 59:6-7, 14
"The God of mercy" will let the psalmist see his enemies tormented. 59:10
God divides the world into those countries that he likes and those that he doesn't.
Those he doesn't like he calls names (like "washpot") and says that he will throw his shoe at them. 60:7-8
"The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even
Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God." 68:8
God has 20,000 chariots and thousands of angels. "The Lord is among them."
68:17
The psalmist prays that his enemies be tormented and blinded by God. He asks God to "make their loins
continually to shake." 69:23-28
God rides on the heavens of heavens, he sends out his mighty voice, his strength is in the clouds,
and he is terrible in his holy places. 68:33-35
"I made sackcloth also my garment; and I became a proverb to them." 69:11
"He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea."
See Numbers 11:20-32, where God sends quails to feed the Israelites until it literally came out their
noses. 78:27
"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 righteousness. (Wicked people are skinny and hungry.) 92:12-14
"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
"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy."
Is this the same guy who demanded that peoples' heads be hung up before him to appease his fierce anger
(Numbers 25:4), and who
ordered the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women, children
(1 Samuel 15:2-3)? 103:8
"He smote ... their fig trees." (God hates figs) 105:33
"The waters stood above the mountains."
Noah's flood covered the highest mountains, just like it says in Genesis 7:20. 104:6-7
"God ... turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters." 114:7-8
"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
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee."
Jews, Christians, and Muslims all love Jerusalem, and fight each other for the holy city, exclusively given to them by God. None of them prosper.
122:6
"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
a
"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." 137:5-6
God "smote great kings: for his mercy endureth for ever." 136:17-18
"The proverbs of Solomon"
The book of Proverbs was written several centuries after Solomon supposedly lived. So it wasn't written by Solomon.
It was forged by someone who claimed to be Solomon. 1:1, 10:1
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge." 1:7
"Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil."
Whoever listens to God (or wisdom, or whoever is talking here) will always be safe. 1:33
"The LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding." 2:6
If you keep the commandments, you'll have a long and peacful life. 3:1-2
"Lean not unto thine own understanding." Don't try to understand things; just accept whatever
the bible and your religious leaders tell you. 3:5
If you give money to God, he will make you rich and you'll have lots of wine. 3:9-10
"A naughty person, a wicked man ... winketh with his eyes."
Naughty, wicked people wink. (Like
Sarah Palin) 6:12-13, 10:10
God never allows good people to go hungry or the wicked to become wealthy.
10:3
"The lips of the righteous feed many."
Righteous people feed the hungry just by talking. 10:21
"The desire of the righteous shall be granted."
Righteous people get whatever they want. 10:24
"In the light of the king's countenance is life; and his favour is as a cloud of the latter rain." 16:15
"The hoary head [gray hair] is a crown of glory." 16:31
All games of chance (gambling) are controlled by God. 16:33
If you're afraid of God, nothing bad will ever happen to you. 19:23
"A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again"
I'm not sure what this means exactly, but I like to quote it to my son. 19:24
"The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul."
It's a sin to make a king angry. 20:2
A king that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes." 20:8
"How can a man ... understand his own way?"
Humans can't figure things out on their own. 20:24
"The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly." 20:27
"The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem ... I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem ... I am come to great
estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me."
The author of Ecclesiastes claims to be the wise, rich son of King David, which is to say, Solomon. He isn't. Ecclesiastes was written
(forged) about six hundred years after Solomon died (if he ever lived, that is). 1:1, 12, 16
"He hath made every thing beautiful."
Everything is beautiful in its own way. Parasitic worms, cancer cells, bubonic plague. You just have to look at it from God's eyes.
3:11a
"No man can find out the work that God maketh."
Science is impossible. We can learn nothing at all about the natural world. 3:11b
"I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living
which are yet alive." 4:2
"The fool foldeth his hands together, and eateth his own flesh." 4:5
"If two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?" 4:11
"Neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at
thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?"
Don't admit making an error to an angel or God will get angry and destroy your work. 5:6
"The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but
the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep."
Hungry people always sleep well; rich people never do. 5:12
"That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?"
Who can find out? We can by using science! The earth, ocean, solar system, galaxy, and universe -- nothing is too deep or far away for
science to discover and explore. 7:24
"Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work
that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet
he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet
shall he not be able to find it."
Oh, I think science has done a pretty good job of finding things out over the last four centuries or so. 8:16
"Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment." 9:8
"A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left." 10:2
"He that is a fool walketh by the way ... he saith to every one that he is a fool."
You can tell a fool by the way he walks. 10:3
"Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days." 11:1
"Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil
shall be upon the earth." 11:2
"In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." 11:3
"He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap." 11:4
"The song of songs, which is Solomon's."
The author claims to be Solomon. He isn't. The Song of Solomon (aka "The Song of Songs") was written (forged) several hundred
years after Solomon died (if he ever lived, that is). 1:1
"Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up
from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among
them." 4:2
"Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armoury, whereon there
hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men." 4:14
Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof
every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them. 6:6
"Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus." 7:4
"And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak."
7:9
"O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea,
I should not be despised." 8:1
"We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts ... But my breasts [are] like towers." 8:8-10
"Ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen." (God hates gardeners.) 1:29
"When he ariseth to shake terribly the earth."
(Earthquakes happen when God gets angry.) 2:19, 21
"Instead of a sweet smell there shall be stink ...
instead of well set hair baldness ... and burning instead of beauty." 3:24
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." (God makes earthquakes when he gets angry.)
5:25
"He [God] ... will hiss unto them from the end of the earth."(The earth is flat and has an end.) 5:26
"I [Isaiah] saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne." 6:1
Isaiah sees angels with six wings. Two to cover his face, two to cover his feet, and two to fly with. 6:2
When the angels (or God?) cry, the door posts move and the house fills with smoke. 6:4
"Woe is me! ... because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." 6:5
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
9/11 was a divine act of terrorism. If we rebuild, God will force us to eat our own arms. (Or something like that.)
(See WND for the exciting details)
9:10-20
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
God will girdle his loins with righteousness and his kidneys ("reins" in the KJV) with faithfulness.
11:5
"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
The moon produces its own light and the earth does not move (except
when God gets angry and shakes the heavens). 13:10-13
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
Every head will be bald, every beard will be shaved, and everyone will howl and weep abundantly. 15:2-3
"Therefore shall Moab howl for Moab, every one shall howl." 16:7
"Wherefore my bowels shall sound like an harp for Moab, and mine inward
parts for Kirharesh." 16:11
"Within three years ... the glory of Moab shall be contemned, with all that great multitude; and the remnant
shall be very small and feeble." 16:14
God will ride in on a cloud and scare the hell out of the Egyptians. 19:1
Egypt will become weakened and frightened "like unto women" when God shakes his hand over it.
19:16
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
"In that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call ... to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth." 22:12
"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
"For the Lord shall rise up ... that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring
to pass his act, his strange act." 28:21
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
"Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not
of me." 30:1
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 armwith the indignation of his anger, and with
the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones." 30:30
"Through the voice of the LORD shall the Assyrian be beaten down." 30:31
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
Dragons and satyrs may not seem real to you, but they did to the author of these verses.
34:13-14
"And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness."
Pat Robertson and other whacked out Christians believe "the highway of holiness" is I-35. 700 Club: I-35 Can Stop Homosexuality35:8
"When king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth." 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 hates
Christmas trees40:19-20
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
"When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned." 43:2
"I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour."
Not even Jesus? 43:11
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 hates
Christmas trees44:14-16
God makes diviners mad, turns wise men backwards, makes knowledge foolish, and dries up the oceans and rivers. King Cyrus is God's shepherd.
44:25-28
"I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for
thirst."
God brags about the strangest things. 50:2
God cut Rahab (the sea
monster) to pieces, wounded the dragon, and dried up the sea. 51:9-10
"The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations." 52:10
"The sure mercies of David"
See here for some of David's sure mercies. 55:3
"Thou ... didst increase thy perfumes ... and didst debase thyself even unto hell." (God hates perfume.)
57:9
Bad people hatch poisonous cockatrice eggs. Whoever eats the eggs will die, and
when the eggs are crushed a viper hatches out of them. 59:5
Nations that do not serve Israel will perish. 60:12
"The LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said
unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth."
God puts words in Jeremiah's mouth. 1:9
God plays a few silly "What do you see now?" games with Jeremiah. 1:11-13
"They were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall."
Blush, dammit! Or God will have to kill you. 6:15
"Gird thee with sackcloth, and wallow thyself in ashes." 6:26
God is angered by children who gather wood, fathers who make fires,
and women that make bread for the "queen of heaven" (Mary?) and other gods. 7:18
"Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh."
Eat your own goddamned burnt offerings. I am sick of them, saith the Lord. 7:21
"The LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath." 7:29
Bring out your bones!
"At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes,
and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves:
And they shall spread them before the sun." 8:1-2
When they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore
shall they fall among them that fall."
When you commit an abomination, be sure to blush. Otherwise God will trip you and make you fall. 8:12
"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
God will make Jerusalem an uninhabited "den of dragons." 9:11
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
"Thy name is great in might."
Shoot! I thought it was Jealous. 10:6
When God gets angry, the earth trembles. (That's what causes earthquakes.)
10:10
Judah will become a desolate den of dragons. 10:22
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
"As the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man,
so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith the LORD." 13:11
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
"I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The LORD."
16:21
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."
Everyone is a wicked liar. 17:9
Jeremiah curses the day he was born. He even curses the man who told his father he was having a son. "Let him be as the cities which
the Lord overthrew." (Let him be dead.) Because he didn't abort him when he had the chance. 20:14-17
God himself will fight and kill everyone in fury "with an outstretched hand and
with a strong arm." 21:5
"All my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the LORD,
and because of the words of his holiness."
Jeremiah is drunk on God's holiness. 23:9
"The land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land
mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up."
The land dried up because of swearing adulterers. 23:10
God's priest and prophets are profane, wicked, adulterous, lying sodomites. 23:11-14
Two baskets of figs, some naughty and some nice 24:1-3
God will force "all the kingdoms of the world" to drink "and be
drunken." Then he'll kill "all the inhabitants of the earth" with a sword. 25:15-29
God is really getting into all of this killing. He roars, he mightily roars, and shouts. He "pleads with all flesh"
while an whirlwind roars and a noise can be heard everywhere on earth. 25:30-32
God tells Jeremiah to make a yoke, put it on his neck, and show it off to a long list of kings. The yoke was supposed to
demonstrate how God wants them all to serve Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon. Only God could come up with a plan like that.
27:2-12
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
"Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah's neck, and brake it." 28:10
Then God (if you are foolish enough to believe Jeremiah) steps in and settles the matter. He is going to force
every nation on earth to serve Nebuchadnezzar, along with all of the animals. 28:12-14
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." 29:17-18
Jeremiah asks the important question: "Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins." 30:6
God told Jeremiah to bring the Rechabites to the house of the Lord and
make them drink wine. So he got them to Lord's house, put pots of wine in front of them, and told them to start drinking. But they
refused, since they were the descendants of Jonadab (the guy who showed off his "zeal for the Lord" by helping Jehu murder
Ahab's family in Samaria), who told them never to drink wine, plant a garden, or live in a house. 35:1-7
It took thirty men to lift Jeremiah out of the dungeon. (He was a very
big man.) 38:10
"There came certain from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even fourscore men, having their beards shaven,
and their clothes rent, and having cut themselves, with offerings and incense in their hand, to bring them to the house of the LORD."
41:5
"I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you." (It's about time!)
42:10
God swears by his own "great name" that no one from Judah will know his name anymore in Egypt. 44:26
"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
"Every head shall be bald, and every beard clipped: upon all the hands
shall be cuttings, and upon the loins sackcloth." 48:37
"Gird you with sackcloth; lament, and run to and fro by the hedges." 49:3
"For I have sworn by myself, saith the LORD." 49:13
God will send such marvelous plagues on Edom that everyone will hiss in astonishment.
49:17
"The city of praise ... The city of my joy!"
The city of God's joy is not Jerusalem, Mecca, Rome, or Salt Lake City. It is Damascus. 49:25
God will kill the young men of Damascus and set the city on fire. (Some
Christians believe this prophecy is being fulfulled today in Syrian civil war.) 49:26-27
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
"Every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues." 50:13
God, the pyromaniac, will personally set the fires that will
burn to death the inhabitants of entire cities. 50:32
"Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine;
therefore the nations are mad." 51:7
"Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which
destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and
roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain." 51:25
"Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an
hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions: they shall yell as lions' whelps." 51:37
"I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her
rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not
wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts."
God will force the Babylonians to get so drunk that they die from alcohol poisoning. 51:57
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
"They have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth:
the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground." 2:10
"All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head." 2:15
"All thine enemies have opened their mouth against thee: they hiss and
gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed her up."
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, 29:17, 30:20, 31:1, 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
When Ezekiel saw God's loins ("the glory of the Lord"), which
were on fire, he fell on his face. 1:27
After Ezekiel saw God's loins ("the glory of the Lord"), he fell on his face.
(1:27-28) Then God tells him to stand up and get ready to tell the Israelites how awful they are.
2:1-7
But first, God wants Ezekiel to eat a scroll. And sure enough, a detached hand shows up from out of nowhere with a scroll for Ezekiel to eat.
2:8-9
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
After Ezekiel eats the scroll, God sends him off to preach to the Israelites, though God knows they won't listen to him. 3:4-7
A spirit takes Ezekiel to places where he hears voices, wings, wheels, and whatnot. 3:12-14
"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 tells Ezekiel to make a clay model of Jerusalem, complete with a fort, camp, and battering ram, and an iron pan for a wall around the city.
Ezekiel's clay model and iron pan will be a sign to everyone in Israel. 4:1-3
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." 4:4-8
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, except for a few strands that Ezekiel is supposed to put in his skirt and then burn later in a fire.
5:1-3
"Thus saith the Lord GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the
valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you." 6:3
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
God sent down a detached hand that grabbed Ezekiel's hair and raised him up between heaven and earth. 8:3
God brings Ezekiel to a hole in the wall and tells him to dig. So Ezekiel digs and finds a door. Ezekiel looks through the door
and sees all kinds of abominable bugs and animals, along with some pictures of other gods. 8:7-10
God screams in Ezekiel's ears, telling him to round up the six angels ("men") that are going to do God's dirty work. 9:1-2
"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
The glory of the Lord filled a house with a clouldlike brightness and the beating of angel wings sounded just like God's voice.
10:4-5
A human hand appears under the wings of the cherubim, each of which has its own wheel, or a wheel within a wheel, or whatever.
10:8-10
Ezekiel's wheels and angels are covered with eyes; God screams at the wheels, saying, "O wheel";
and every angel has four faces, those of an angel, man, lion, and eagle. 10:12-14
When the show was over, the glory of the Lord, the cherubim (with detached human hands under their wings),
and the wheels took off, after hanging out over the house for a while. 10:18-19
A spirit lifts up Ezekiel and transports him to the Lord's house, where he sees 25 men. God tells Ezekiel that he doesn't like these guys
because they said things like, "It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron and we be the flesh." 11:1-3
So the spirit of the Lord falls on Ezekiel and tells him to to prophesy against them. 11:4-5
After promising to kill the 24 remaining men, the cherubim, wheels, and glory of the Lord left Jerusalem and hovered over a mountain.
Then the spirit transported Ezekiel to Chaldea (Babylon). 11:22-24
God tells Ezekiel to move his stuff. He tells him to move it in the daylight; to dig through a wall with his hand and carry his stuff out;
and to move his stuff in the twilight, with his face covered so he can't see the ground. So that's what he did. 12:3-7
After Ezekiel moved his stuff, God asked if anyone asked him what he was doing? If they do ask, God told him to say that they will soon be moving their stuff,
too, when God forces them into captivity. 12:9-12
God has Ezekiel do another clever demonstration: eat and drink carefully while shaking. That way, when the people see him doing that, they will know that God
is going to starve them to death, which will teach them that God is the Lord. 12:18-20
"Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood ... This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation." 19:10-14
God threatens three times to kill all the Israelites for disobeying him, but
after thinking about it a bit, he decided not to. 20:8, 13, 21
"Ah Lord GOD! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?" (Roughly translated, "Is he fucking crazy?") 20:49
Two sisters were guilty of "committing whoredoms" by pressing their breasts and
bruising "the teats of their virginity." As a punishment, one sister's nakedness was
discovered, her children were taken from her, and she was killed by the sword. And the fate of the
surviving sister was even worse: Her nose and ears were cut off, she was made to "pluck off"
her own breasts, and then after being raped and mutilated, she is stoned to death.
23:1-49
God will kill everyone that claps his hands or stamps his feet "against the land of Israel."
When he's done with the killing everyone will know that he is the Lord. 25:6-7
Nebuchadrezzar, "king of kings" -- so that's who that movie is
about! 26:7
"They ... shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes." 27:29-30
"They shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with
sackcloth." 27:31
Watch out or God will make you "die the deaths of the uncircumcised," which is,
no doubt, a most unpleasant death. 28:10
"The day of the LORD is near ... it shall be the time of the heathen." 30:3
"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
When God is getting ready to kill people with the sword, it's the watchman's duty to warn them about it by
blowing a trumpet. If the people hear the trumpet but don't "take warning," then God will kill the people but not the watchman. But if the watchman doesn't
blow the trumpet when he sees God coming, then God will kill the people and the watchman. 33:2-6
God tells Ezekiel that he is the watchman. So the usual watchman rules apply to him. 33:7-9
At God's request, Ezekiel prophesies to the mountains. 36:1-14
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
"And David my servant shall be king over them."
How's that supposed to happen? David had been dead (if he ever lived) for more than 400 years when these words were written. 37:24
God will get so 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
"Son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog." 39:1
The Israelites spend seven yearts burning Gog's weapons. 39:9
After spending seven years burning the weapons of Gog's soldiers, the Israelites spend another seven years burying the dead bodies.
39:11-12
The hand of the Lord takes Ezekiel on a trip to Israel and sets him on a mountain top, where a brass man measures a building with a rod.
(I'd skip this chapter unless you are interested in the dimensions of the brass man's imaginary building.) 40:1-49
The brass man provides more exciting measurements of Ezekiel's imaginary temple. (I'd skip it, if I were you.) 41:1-22
The brass man takes even more measurements of Ezekiel's imaginary buildings. 42:2-20
We get to take a little break from building dimensions to learn about God. His glory can fill a house and cause people to fall on their faces,
his voice sounds like "many waters," and the soles of his feet will dwell with Israel forever. 43:2-7
But the dimension break is over. God himself (in all this glory) takes over the measurements from the bronze man, telling us all about the fashion,
form, law, and the dimensions of the house. 43:10-17
The gate is shut because God entered by it. The only other person that can use the gate is the prince who eats bread in front of God.
44:2-3
"Behold, the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD: and I fell upon my face." 44:4
Don't bring any strangers or people with uncircumcised hearts or flesh to God's sanctuary when your offering him fat and blood.
44:7-9
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
The prince (whoever he is) is the only other person that can enter through God's gate. (See 44:2.) 46:2
"When the people of the land shall come before the LORD in the solemn feasts, he that entereth in by the way of the north gate to worship shall go
out by the way of the south gate; and he that entereth by the way of the south gate shall go forth by the way of the north gate." 46:9
Water starts to flow from under the door of the house. At first it was just a trickle, but soon it got up to the ankles, knees,
and finally the loins. The bronze man measured it to be a thousand cubits and it became too deep for wading anymore.
The water that got to the ocean would be healed, but not the marshes, "they will be given to salt." 47:1-11
In the exciting conclusion of the book of Ezekiel, we learn who is going to get what and what the city is
going to be named. I'm not going to spoil it for you, though. You have to read it yourself. 48:8-35
"God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs." 1:9
Melzar was worried that he'd get in trouble with the king if Daniel and his companions ate only pulse and water.
So Daniel proposed a test: try it and see how they looked compared to the meat eaters. After only ten days, the vegans were way
"fairer and fatter." 1:11-16
The king found Daniel and his companions to be ten times wiser than "all the magicians and astrologers in the realm." 1:20
Nebuchadnezzar has a disturbing dream. He commands his astrologers and magicians to interpret it for him,
but none of them could do it. So he threatens to cut them to pieces. Then Daniel shows up and interprets the dream. 2:1-26
Nebuchadnezzar's dream
He saw a gold headed image with silver chest and arms, brass belly and thighs, iron legs with feet part iron and part clay.
A stone smashed the image, scattering the gold, silver, brass, and iron in the wind. The stone became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.
2:28-35
Daniel's interpretation
The image's gold head is Nebuchadnezzar. He will be replaced by another kingdom (silver chest and arms), which will be replaced by a third kingdom
(brass belly and thighs), and a fourth kingdom (iron legs). This last kingdom with be both
strong and weak (feet of iron and clay). Then God will raise
up one final kingdom, which will destroy the other kingdoms and last forever. 2:36-44
"Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory."
(I didn't know that Nebuchadnezzar was the "king of kings." I always that that was Jesus!) 2:37
King Nebuchadnezzar was so impressed by Daniel's interpretation that he fell on his face and worships him. He commands everyone else to worship him, too,
and makes Daniel the most powerful person in the empire. 2:46-48
"Your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings."
Nebuchadnezzar became a Jew (a believer in Daniel's God) the moment he heard Daniel's interpretation of his dream. 2:47
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
Nebuchadnezzar invited all the officials in his kingdom to come to the dedication of the gold statue. Whoever refuses to worship the statue
will be thrown into a fiery furnace. So they all came and worshiped the golden image. 3:2-7
But some noticed that Daniel's friends (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) didn't worship the gold statue. So they told
Nebuchadnezzar about it, who commanded that they be thrown into a fiery furnace that was seven times as hot as usual. The furnace was so
hot ("exceeding hot") that it burned to death the soldiers who threw in Daniel's friends. 3:8-23
"Nebuchadnezzar ... commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated." 3:19
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. 3:24-27
Nebuchadnezzar converts again to Judaism (see 2:47 for his first conversion) and decrees that anyone who says anything against the Hebrew
god "shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill." 3:28-30
This part of the Bible was written by Nebuchadnezzar. 4:1-18
Nebuchadnezzar expresses his new-found, born-again, Judeo-Christian faith. 4:2-3
Nebuchadnezzar's second dream
Nebuchadnezzar dreams about a tree that was so tall that it could be seen "from the end of the earth." (Only on a flat earth would this be possible.)
A "holy watcher" came down from heaven and began screaming, saying that someone should chop down the tree. But he said the stump should be left and a
band of iron and brass put around it. Then have the banded stump hang out with the beasts and the grass, change the stump's heart from a man's heart to a
beast's heart, and "let seven times pass over him." 4:10-16
Daniel's interpretation
The tree in Nebuchadnezzar's dream is Nebuchadnezzar himself, who will soon be eating grass and living with animals until seven times passes over him.
4:25
And it all happened just like Daniel said it would. Nebuchadnezzar lived with the animals and ate grass like an ox. His hair was like
eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws. 4:28-33
While Nebuchadnezzar is busy eating grass, a "voice from heaven" falls from the sky repeating the same shit that Daniel said.
4:31-32
After going through a rather bizarre ordeal, inflicted upon him by God, Nebuchadnezzar heaps praise upon God -- in whose eyes
"all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing." 4:34-37
Belshazzar was partying with his princes, wives, and concubines when a detached hand starts writing on the wall. When the king sees it
"the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against the other." 5:5-6
Belshazzar asked his wise men to read and interpret the writing, but none of them could. So his wife tells him to ask Daniel to do it.
And Daniel does, after insulting Belshazzar and his "father" Nebuchadnezzar. It's a message from God (he's the one who sent the hand down),
saying that God hates Belshazzar and will soon take his kingdom away from him and give it to the Medes and Persians. 5:8-28
After Daniel gave Belshazzar the bad news, Belshazzar rewarded him by making him the "third ruler in the kindgdom." Later that night
Belshazzar died. (Did God kill him?) 5:29-30
The king preferred Daniel above everyone else in his kingdom because Daniel was such a perfect (and modest) guy. The other administrators
tried to find something wrong with him, but they couldn't. So they came up with another plan: attack his religion. Have the king sign a decree
saying that anyone who asked any god or man (other than the king) for anything in the next thirty days will be fed to the lions. 6:3-9
When Daniel heard about the new decree, he immediately broke it by going to his room to pray. The conspirators caught him in the act and told the king,
who cast Daniel into the lion den saying, "Don't worry. God will deliver you." 6:10-16
The next morning the king went to see how Daniel and the lions were doing. Daniel told him that God sent an angel to shut the lions' mouths.
God saved him because he was such a perfect (and modest) guy and he believed in God. (Nothing bad ever happens to good, religious people.)
6:23
Daniel's dream: "Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed." 7:1-28
"I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me." 7:15
"Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me." 7:28
Daniel's vision; "A vision appeared to me, even unto me Daniel." 8:1-27
"I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, and sought for the meaning." 8:15
"As he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground." 8:18
"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
"I set my face unto the Lord God ... with ... sackcloth, and ashes." 9:3
A man named Gabriel flies by and touches Daniel. After landing, he talks complete gibberish to Daniel about seventy weeks,
sixty-two weeks, destroyed cities, floods, and abominations.. 9:21-27
"A thing was revealed unto Daniel ... and the thing was true." 10:1
"I ate no pleasant bread, neither came flesh nor wine in my mouth, neither did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were fulfilled."
What happened to Daniel the vegetarian of chapter 1? 10:3
Daniel is visited by a man whose loins were girded with gold, face that looked like lightning, eyes of fire, arms and feet made of brass.
Jesus!10:5-6
"I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves."
10:7
"I was left alone, and saw this great vision ... my comeliness was turned in me into corruption." 10:8
"Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground."
10:9
"An hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands." 10:10
"And when he had spoken such words unto me, I set my face toward the ground, and I became dumb." 10:15
"Behold, one like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips." 10:16
"Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man." 10:18
"I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince."
10:21
"But thou, O Daniel,shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end." 12:4
"Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two ... And one said to the man clothed in linen ... How long shall it be to the
end of these wonders?" 12:5-6
"It shall be for a time, times, and an half; and when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people,
all these things shall be finished." 12:7
"I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things?" 12:8
"He said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end." 12:9
Many shall be purified, and made white."
So is everyone in heaven white? 12:10
"From the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up,
there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days." 12:11
"Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." 12:12
"But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." 12:13
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
"I will destroy ... her fig trees." (God hates figs.) 2:12
"She decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD." 2:13
"Fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days."
Why would anyone fear goodness? 3:5
Because of the Israelites' disobedience, the land mourns, and all the animals are dying. 4:3
Because of the Israelites' disobedience, the land mourns, and all the animals are dying. 4:3
"Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth." 1:8
"Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth." 1:13
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
There will be earthquakes, the sun and the moon will be dark, and the stars will no longer shine.
2:10
"Therefore also now, saith the LORD ... rend your hearts, and not your garments." 2:12-13
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
God says there are three or four reasons for him to punish various people, he just can't remember which it is.
1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 2:1, 4, 6
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
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's creative ways of kiilling people and breaking things. 3:12-15
God afflicted the Israelites with "cleanness of teeth" (famine,) drought, blasting, and mildew. He killed them with pestilence,
slaughtered them with the sword, and "made the stink of their camps come up into their noses." Destroyed them like they were from Sodom
and Gomorrah. And yet they still didn't return to him. What is wrong with people? 4:6-11
Many Christians look forward to the "day of the Lord," but according to
these verses, they shouldn't. 5:18-20
"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
Amos' first vision: God makes grass-eating grasshoppers, then repents. 7:1-3
Amos' second vision: God burned up the earth and sea, then repents. 7:4-6
God stands on a wall holding a plumb line while he talks to Amos. 7:7-8
God shows Amos a basket of summer fruit and tells him that the end has come. 8:1-2
God will "cut them in the head" and "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. God will set his "eyes upon them for evil, not for good." 9:1-4
Jonah fled "from the presence of the Lord." (There are some places where God can't find you.)
1:3, 10
The sailors cast lots to see who was causing the storm. And it worked, too (casting lots always does),
since the lot fell on Jonah. 1:7
Jonah believes that by throwing himself into the sea, the storm will die down.
And it worked! 1:12-15
God makes "a great fish" to swallow Jonah. And Jonah stayed in the
fish's belly for three days and three nights. 1:17
Jonah says a little prayer from the fish's belly. 2:1
God talks to the fish, and it vomits out Jonah upon dry land. 2:10
"Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days'
journey." That would make it about 60 miles in diameter -- larger than Los Angeles!
3:3
Everyone in Nineveh (pop. 120,000) turned to God? Jonah must be one hell of a preacher!
3:5
Even the animals converted when they heard Jonah preach! 3:8
Jonah was angry when his preaching converted a city. 4:1
God prepared a gourd to shade Jonah's head, a worm to destroy the gourd,
and then a drying wind and baking sun that made Jonah wish he was dead. 4:6-8
God asks Jonah why he is angry about the gourd. What about the 120,000 people that God planned to kill
(along with their animals)? Shouldn't he be angry about that, too? 4:9-11
"The LORD ... will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth." 1:3
"The mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft ... and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley."
(Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are caused by God's anger.) 1:4-6
"I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls."
1:8
"Roll thyself in the dust ... having thy shame naked." 1:10-11
Micah says "woe" to those that devise evil , but only two verses later,
he devises evil against "this family." Woe is God. 2:1, 3
Watch out for lying prophets that bite (with their teeth). 3:5
"The prophets thereof divine for money." Some things never change. 3:11
In the last days God will put "the mountain of the house of the Lord" on "top of the mountains." 4:1
"Woe is me! ... there is no cluster to eat: my soul desired the firstripe fruit." 7:1
There is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net." 7:2
"Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors
of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom."
Advice like this is only found in the Bible. 7:5
Whirlwinds, tornadoes, earthquakes, and fires are caused by God and are signs of his anger. He dries up oceans and rivers, melts mountains, and throws stones. 1:3-6
"Knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins." 2:10
"Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her
chariots." 2:13
God will "discover thy skirts upon thy face, ... show the nations thy nakedness"
and "will cast abominable filth upon thee." 3:4-6
God will punish the princes, the king's children, the merchant people, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel,
leap on the threshold, or bear silver. 1:8-11
God doesn't have good night-vision, so he needs candles when he comes to rob people of their houses, goods, and wine.
1:12-13
It sounds so much more prophet-like when we are told the year, month, and day of some prophetic nonsense.
1:1, 15, 2:1, 10, 18, 20
God wanted a nice, fancy house to take pleasure in and be glorified in. 1:8
But the Israelites repaired their own houses while ignoring the temple. So God huffed, and he puffed, and he blew on the land,
thereby bringing a drought to punish them. 1:9-11
A whole lot of shaking going on.
God will shake the heavens, the earth, sea, and dry land. He'll shake until "the desire of the nations" comes and his house is filled with glory.
2:6-7, 21
God will have more glory than ever when he is settled into his new house, and he might even give some peace. 2:9
God has a conversation with Haggai and the priests about holy flesh, skirts touching bread or wine, the cleanliness of dead bodies, and whatnot.
The main thing to remember here is this: Don't let your holy flesh touch any food or wine, because if you do your flesh won't be holy any more.
2:11-14
God sent blight and hail upon the Israelites, yet they still didn't return to him. What is wrong with people?
2:17
Consider this: "Consider now from this day and upward, from the four and twentieth day of the ninth month,
even from the day that the foundation of the LORD's temple was laid, consider it." 2:18
Because I know you'll want to know the year, month, and day that "the word of the LORD" repeatedly comes "unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah,
the son of Iddo the prophet." 1:1, 7, 7:1
Zechariah sees a man riding on a red horse and carries on an extended, multi-way conversation with an angel,
a man in a myrtle tree, some horses of different colors, and God. 1:8-15
Zechariah sees four horns that are sawed off by four carpenters. 1:18-21
Next Zechariah sees a man with a measuring line in his hand, who told him he was going to measure Jerusalem. Then an angel stopped by to chat,
and finally God shows up and says he'll build a wall of fire around Jerusalem. and he'll be the glory inside. 2:1-5
Zechariah sees Joshua in filthy clothes standing next to Satan, hanging out with God and an angel. The angel said to take off
Joshua's dirty clothes and Zechariah said to put a miter on his head. So that's what they did. 3:1-5
God said he would bring forth his servant BRANCH because the stone that God laid before Joshua had seven eyes. And anyway,
someday people will call their neighbors under fig trees. 3:7-10
The angel wakes up Zechariah and shows him a candlestick with a bowl on top, seven lamps on top of the bowl, and seven pipes on the top of the lamps,
with two olive trees next to the bowls. 4:1-3
Someday there will be a great talking mountain that will become a plain that will bring forth a headstone that will scream "Grace, grace unto it."
4:7
God has seven eyes that "run to and fro through the whole earth." 4:10
Zechariah asks about the two olive trees next to the candlesticks, and about the golden pipes, and the golden oil. The angel says they are they are the anointed
ones that stand next to God. 4:11-14
Zechariah sees a 30 foot flying scroll that burns down the houses of thieves and liars. 5:1-4
Two women with stork-like wings fly off with an ephah to the land of Shinar. 5:9-11
Zechariah sees four horses of different colors running to and fro between mountains of brass. They are the four spirits of the heavens.
6:1-7
The angel shows Zechariah a man named "BRANCH" who will build the temple of the Lord and bear the glory. 6:12-13
Zechariah asks all the important questions. Should we weep alone in the fifth month, as he has for so many years? How about the seventh month for seventy years? And should we eat and
drink for ourselves or for others? 7:3-6
"I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with
great fury." 8:2
"The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be ... feasts."
8:19
"Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... ten men ... shall take
hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew." 8:23
"The burden of the word of the LORD ... shall be the rest thereof." 9:1
God "cut off" three shepherds in one month. God's soul and the soul of the shepherds loath one another. 11:8
God cut his stick named "Beauty" into two pieces. 11:10
Then God cut his other stick (the one he named "Bands") into two pieces. 11:14
God plans to expel the prophets and unclean spirits. Sounds like a good plan to me. 13:2
"The prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision." 13:4
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
On the day of the Lord, the mount of Olives will be split in two and half the mountain will be removed. 14:4
Somday there will be a day that will have neither day nor night with a bright sunny evening. 14:7
"Living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea:
in summer and in winter shall it be." 14:8
"In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD." 14:20
Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts." 14:21
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. He 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
God continues to demand animal sacrifices. And not just any animals will do. He is insulted when blind, lame, or sick animals are killed for him.
1:7-14
"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your
faces." 2:3
"And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you." When God spreads dung upon your face, you'll know where it came from.
2:4
The gospel of Matthew begins with a boring
genealogy like that we are told to avoid in 1 Timothy 1:4
("Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies") and Titus 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
The devil kidnaps Jesus and takes him up to the top of the temple, and then to the top of "an exceedingly high
mountain," high enough to see "all the kingdoms of the world." I guess the earth was flat in those days.
4:8
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
Jesus says that we should not concern
ourselves with material things, But Paul (1 Timothy 5:8) says that anyone who behaves that way has
"denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." 6:31-34
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
"This is the law and the prophets." If, as Jesus said, the golden rule summarizes
the Old Testament's law and prophets, then why are these passages found in it? 7:12
Many people who used to cast out devils in Jesus' name are now in hell! 7:22-23
Peter's mother-in-law was sick with a fever. Jesus healed her by touching her hand, so she could get back to serving them.
(Peter's mother-in-law? The first pope was married?) 8:14-15
"They brought unto him many that were possessed
with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word." 8:16
Jesus and his disciples were crossing a lake in a boat when a storm came. Jesus was asleep, so his
chicken-shit disciples woke him up. Jesus rebuked them for having little faith and then calmed the winds and the waves. All of which was to show,
what? That weather is sent by God and can be controlled by faith? 8:24-26
The devils confess that Jesus is the Son of
God. According to 1 John 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 heals two blind men. (Or was it their blind faith that healed them?) 9:27-29
Jesus heals a "dumb man possessed by a devil." (Those who cannot speak are possessed by a devil.) 9:32-33
"Jesus went about all the cities and villages ... healing every sickness and every disease." 9:35
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
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 ... said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes." Wise and prudent people have always rejected Jesus. They still do today.
11:25
"Great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all." 12:15
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 ... saw a great multitude ... and he healed their sick." 14:14
Jesus fed 5000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fishes (with 12 baskets left over). 14:15-21
"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.
14:25-31
"They sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased ... and as
many as touched were made perfectly whole." 14:35-37
After the Canaanite woman grovels a bit more at Jesus' feet and admits to being "a dog," Jesus cast out her daughter's devil.
15:27-28
Jesus went up on a mountain and healed "a great multitude" of lame, blind, dumb, and maimed people.
15:29-30
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
Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain top, where his face began shining like the sun. Moses and Elijah show up,
a cloud came over them, and a voice came from the sky saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."
17:1-5
"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? 17:11-13
Jesus speaks harshly of his disciples when they fail to cast out the devil, saying "O faithless and
perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?" 17:17
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
If you can get two other believers to agree with you, and the three of you ask God for something, he will give it to you.
18:19
"Great multitudes followed him; and he healed them there." 19:2
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,
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
"Is thine eye evil, because I am good?" (What the fuck is that supposed to mean?) 20:15
"Jesus ... touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight." 20:34
Matthew has Jesus ride into Jerusalem sitting on both an ass and a colt (must have taken some
practice!). 21:2-7
"The blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them." 21:14
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
The end of the world will be signaled by wars, famines, disease, and earthquakes (6-7). And that's just
"the beginning of sorrows" (8). Next believers will be hated and killed by unbelievers (9), believers will hate and betray each other (10), false
prophets will fool people (11), iniquity will abound and love wax cold (12). But hey, if you make through all that, you'll be saved (13).
Only one more thing will happen before the end comes: the gospel will be preached throughout the world (14). Well, that and the abomination
of desolations will stand in the holy place (15), many false Christs and false prophets will show great signs and wonders (24), the sun and moon
will be darkened and the stars will fall (29), the sign of the son of Man will appear in the sky, everyone on earth will mourn, and then,
finally, the great and powerful son of Man will come in all his glory (30).
Oh, and all these things will happen within the lifespan of Jesus' contemporaries (34).
Or maybe not. Jesus was talking about things he knew nothing about (36). (See Mark 13:32.)
24:3-51
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 2:22 fits this
description. 24:24
The kingdom of heaven like ten virgins who went to meet their bridegroom. Five had oil for their lamps and five didn't.
When the bridegroom was ready for them, only the five well-oiled virgins got to have sex with him on their wedding night.
The bridegroom shunned the other five, saying "Get lost. I don't even know you." The moral to the story is this: watch out,
you never know when (or with whom) Jesus will come. 25:1-13
"Eat; this is my body."
Jesus tells his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. Did he mean this literally or
figuratively? The question has divided Christians since the Reformation, but it's impossible to
tell from the passage itself. If God inspired the Bible, shouldn't he have made its interpretation
clear? 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
"Jesus ... was baptized of John in Jordan. And ... heavens opened, and the Spirit like a
dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven." 1:9-11
"The spirit driveth him [Jesus] into the wilderness.
And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan." 1:12-13
"Unclean spirits" confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. If 1 John 4:2 is true,
then these "unclean spirits" are of God. 1:23-24
Peter's mother-in-law was sick with a fever. Jesus healed her by touching her hand, so she could get back to serving them. 1:30-31
Jesus casts out more devils and tells them not to reveal who he is. 1:32-34
Jesus heals a paralytic man by forgiving his sins. (Paralysis is caused by sinful behavior.) Notice that Jesus didn't just heal him,
he forgave his sins, which is something only God is supposed to be able to do. 2:3-12
More "unclean spirits" confess that Jesus is "the son of God."
1 John 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
"He [Jesus] ordained twelve, that they should ... have power to heal sicknesses,
and to cast out devils." 3:14-15
The scribes think that Jesus casts out devils by the power of the prince of devils, Beelzebub. 3:22
Jesus becomes angry at those who said that he had "an unclean spirit," so he announces the unforgivable sin:
"blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." 3:29
"He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm."
4:39
A man possessed with "an unclean spirit" recognizes Jesus as the son of God. According
to 1 John 4:2, 15, this man must have been "of God." 5:7
Jesus has a conversation with a godly unclean spirit named "Legion." 5:8-10
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 fed 5000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fishes
(with 12 baskets left over). 6:34-44
"Whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that
they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole." 6:56
Jesus puts his fingers in a deaf man's ears, then spits and touches his tongue. This immediately cured his deafness.
7:32-35
The disciples wonder where they'll get food for thousands of people.
But they ought to know by now, since Jesus did that trick in Mark 6:34-44. This "doublet" was probably
the result of two oral traditions of the same story. 8:1-9
Jesus cures a blind man by spitting in his eyes. 8:22-23
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
During the transfiguration, Jesus' clothes became whiter than white, while he chatted with Moses and Elijah.
Then a voice came out of a cloud saying, "This is my beloved Son: hear him."
9:3-7
Jesus told the disciples not to tell anyone about his mountain-top meeting with Moses and Elijah until after he rose from the dead.
But the disciples didn't know what he meant by "rising from the dead." 9:9-10
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 said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And
immediately he received his sight." 10:52
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
"Beware of the scribes, which ... make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation." 12:38-40
"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
"Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her."
OK, well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. I bet the gospel has been preached now and then without mentioning this incident. 14:9
Jesus tells his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. 14:22-24
Mark says that those who quoted Jesus were "false witnesses," yet according to John 2:19,
Jesus said what these witnesses said that he said. So how are they false witnesses?
Did Jesus say, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"? 14:57-58
"He is risen."
Jesus came back to life after being dead for a while. 16:6
"And they ... fled from the sepulchre ... neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid."
The women were afraid and didn't tell anyone. If so, how did the author of Mark find out about it? Or was he just making it all up?
16:8
"Jesus ... appeared first to Mary Magdalene ... And she went and
told them that had been with him .. And they ... believed not." 16:9
"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
Zacharias and Elizabeth were both getting old, too old to have kids. But Zach prayed, so an angel
appeared to tell him that God would take care of things for him. God would somehow get Liz pregnant and she'd have a son named John, who
would be filled with the Holy Ghost from the moment God, the angel, the Holy Ghost, or Zach (or maybe all of them working together) got
his mom pregnant. 1:7-15
"They had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren."
Oh God, another barren woman! It's always the woman's fault in the Bible. 1:7
"There appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar." 1:11
"The angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son,
and thou shalt call his name John."
Whoopie! Another miraculous birth! Did old Zach have sex with Elizabeth or did the angel take care of things for him? 1:13
"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
Zechariah asks the angel Gabriel how his wife Elizabeth could become pregnant, since she is "stricken with years."
Gabriel makes him "dumb" just for asking. 1:20
The angel Gabriel stopped by Nazareth to vist the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and say the rosary with her. OK, not really.
He stopped by to tell her that the Holy Ghost would soon be getting her pregnant the way he did her cousin Elizabeth. But
during his visit he did manage to come up with the first half of the "Hail Mary." 1:28
Gabriel tells Mary that the Holy Ghost will come upon her and she'll be covered by the power of God,
so "the holy thing" that she delivers will be the Son of God. 1:35
"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb [Jesus]."
When Elisabeth saw Mary, she completed the first half of the "Hail Mary" that the angel Gabriel started in verse 28. 1:42
John the Baptist, while still a fetus, leaped for joy when he heard the
voice of Mary. 1:41, 44
"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord
shone round about them and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them...."
I don't need to quote the whole thing, do I?
You saw "Charlie Brown Christmas." 2:8-10
How could an omniscient being "increase in wisdom"? And how could God increase "in favour with God."?
2:52
The soldiers [asked] what shall we do? And he said ... Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely."
Good advice, except maybe to soldiers. Soldiers are trained to "do violence" to people. 3:14
"The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven,
which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." 3:22
"Which was the son of Phares, which was the son of Juda."
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 38:27-29)
It's a good thing it was more than ten generations ago. Otherwise Jesus could not "enter into the congregation of the
Lord." (Dt.23:2) 3:33
Jesus was full of the Holy Ghost and was led by "the Spirit" (the Holy Ghost?) into the desert to be tempted by the devil for forty days.
4:1-2
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
The people of Jesus' hometown (Nazareth) were so upset at him that they tried to kill him by
pushing him off a cliff. But Jesus ran away. 4:28-30
Jesus cured Peter's mother-in-law (by "rebuking" her fever) so she could get back to work serving them. 4:38-39
The people brought all their sick people to Jesus, and he cured every one of them. 4:40
Devils crawl out of people proclaiming that Jesus is "Christ the Son of God." According to 1 John 4:2, 15, these devils were "of God." 4:41
Jesus, the master fisherman.
Jesus got on Simon Peter's boat and told him to put down his nets. Simon told him that he'd been fishing all night and caught nothing.
But he did as Jesus said. And they caught so many fish that it ripped the net and nearly sunk two boats. 5:4-7
Jesus cures a paralytic by forgiving his sins, thereby proving that he is God
(since only God can forgive sins) and paralysis is caused by sin. 5:18-25
"And it came to pass on the second Sabbath after the first...." Huh? 6:1
Jesus and his disciples break the Sabbath, and then make excuses for it. David ate stuff he wasn't
supposed to, too, and besides Jesus is "the Lord of the Sabaath." 6:1-5
Jesus heals people that are "vexed with unclean spirits." 6:18
"The whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all." 6:19
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
Within a single hour, Jesus cured people of various plagues, evil spirits, and blindness. 7:21
Jesus removes seven devils from the body of Mary Magdalene. 8:2
Jesus speaks in parables so that people won't understand him. 8:10
Jesus stops a storm by rebuking the wind and waves. 8:23-24
Jesus heals a woman "having an issue of blood." It's the usual story: none of
the doctors could cure her, but the faith hearer (Jesus, in this case) could. 8:43-44
Jesus felt virtue leave him when the woman with the issue of blood touched him. 8:45-47
"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 brings Jarius' dead daughter back to life. 8:49-55
Jesus gave his disciples authority of all devils and to cure diseases. 9:1-2
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
"He [Jesus] ... healed them that had need of healing." 9:11
Jesus fed 5000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fishes (with 12 baskets left over). 9:13-17
Jesus wonders who people think he is. His disciples say that some think he's John the Baptist, others
Elijah or one of the other prophets. 9:18-19
Jesus falsely predicts that some of his listeners would live to see him return and establish the kingdom of God.
9:27
Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a mountain top, where his clothes start shining. Moses and Elijah (Elias) show up and begin
talking to Jesus, a cloud covers them and a voice came out of the cloud saying, "This is my beloved son, hear him." 9:28-35
Jesus raises Moses and Elijah from the dead and has a conversation
with them. 9:30
Jesus cures an epiletic child by rebuking an unclean spirit. 9:42
"We saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him,
because he followeth not with us." The disciples saw people who were not followers of Jesus casting out devils in his name.
9:49
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
Jesus' instructions to his disciples: Take no money or shoes and don't say hello to anyone that you pass by. Enter
each house and eat whatever they feed you. Stay there; don't go from house to house. Heal the sick and say the kingdom
of heaven is here. 10:4-9
"He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me."
If you don't like what Pat Robertson says (or any other Christian), then you don't like Jesus, and if you don't like Jesus, you don't like God.
10:16
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
"Some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief
of the devils ... and others ... sought of him a sign from heaven."
A reasonable hypothesis (assuming devils exist) and a fair request (assuming a god exists). 11:15-16
"If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out?"
Jesus believed the Pharisees could cast out demons, too! 11:19
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 insults his mother (the Most Holy Blessed Virgin Mary). 11:27-28
Jesus calls his critics fools, thus making himself, by his own standards (Mt 5:22),
worthy of "hell fire." 11:40
"Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on." 12:22
Don't worry about food, God will take care of you. 12:29-31
Jesus tells his followers to sell everything they own and give the money to the poor.
12:33
Jesus heals a woman with "a spirit of infirmity" by casting out a devil. (All illness is caused by devils.)
13:11-16
When the Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod would try to kill him, Jesus tells them to tell
Herod that he casts out devils, will be perfected on the third day, and will walk around Jerusalem for another couple days or so.
13:31-33
"Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations." 16:9
"If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will
commit to your trust the true riches?" 16:11
"The Pharisees ... heard all these things: and they derided him." 16:14
"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
There will be nothing subtle about Jesus' return. It will be like lightning that flashes from one end of the heaven to the other.
Like the Wicked Witch of the West writing "Surrender Dorothy" in the sky. Like that. 17:24
Jesus believes the story of Noah's ark. I guess you should too. 17:27
Jesus also believes the story about 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, and his sense of justice. 17:29-32
"Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall
lose his life shall preserve it." 17:33
The parable of the avenging, lazy, unjust judge (God). 18:1-6
"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
Before the end of the world there will be many false Christs that claim the end of the world is near (Don't believe them) (8),
there will be "wars and commotions" (but ignore that) (9), along with earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and "fearful sights" and
"great signs from heaven" (11).
Believers will be arrested and persecuted by the Jews, who will throw them in prison (12), friends and family will betray each other and
some will be put to death (16), and believers will be hated by everyone (17). But don't worry. Not a single hair on your head will be
hurt (even if you are killed) (18).
When you see armies around Jerusalem, then you'll know desolation is near (20). Then it's time to head for the hills. Unless you're a
pregnant or nursing women, that is. (23) Then you're just fucked. Too bad for you.
God's wrath will be on everyone, with dead bodies all over the place,
Jerusalem will be trodden on by Gentiles until "the times of the
Gentiles be fulfilled." (24) There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars, with lots of waves in the sea. (25)
Everyone will be afraid of everything (26) and then they'll see the Son of Man coming in all his glory. (27)
Oh, and all these things will happen within the lifespan of Jesus' contemporaries (32). 21:8-27
Jesus tells his disciples to eat his body and drink his blood. 22:19-20
"That ye may ... sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."
Which tribe will Judas judge? 22:30
"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
When one of the disciples cuts off the ear of the high priest's slave, Jesus just puts the ear back. No problem.
22:50-51
"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. 24:13-16
The disciples spent the day talking to the mysterious man before finally recognizing him when "their hearts burned within them."
24:31-32
"And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them."
Jesus just appears out of nowhere! 24:36
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 falsely prophesied that Nathaniel would see heaven open and angels descend upon Jesus. Nathaniel never saw it;
neither has anyone else. 1:51
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 food and water.
Then God told Moses to make a brass snake to cure them from the bites.) 3:14
"God so loved the world, that he gave his His only begotten Son."
As an example to parents everywhere and to save the world (from himself), God had his own son tortured and killed.
3:16
"John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him
from heaven." 3:27
Jesus magically perceived that a Samaritan woman had been married and divorced five times previously.
(He could spot a divorced woman a mile away.) Since women weren't allowed to get a divorce, it was always the woman's fault
and divorced women were considered outcasts. This was a great opportunity for Jesus to explain why the Mosaic marriage laws
were unjust and correct them -- if he thought they were wrong, that is, which apparently he didn't. 4:7-18
"Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did."
Jesus didn't tell the Samaritan woman everything that had ever happened to her. He just used the same trick that successful
palm readers, astrologers, and fortune tellers use to make gullible people say to themselves,
"How could he have known that about me?" 4:29
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
"Jesus answered them, My Father worketh [on the Sabbath], and I work."
Jesus says he and his dad always work on the Sabbath. (So you can too!) 5:17
"As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the
Son quickeneth whom he will."
Jesus can make dead people live just like his dad does. 5:21
Jesus says that "the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear
the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." 5:25, 28
Jesus claims that Moses wrote about him. Where? It's a shame he didn't give us chapter and verse.
5:46
Jesus fed 5000 men (plus women and children) with five loaves and two fishes (with 12 baskets left over).
6:5-13
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." (They are called Protestants nowadays.) 6:53-66
Jesus knew who could stomach the idea of eating his flesh and drinking his blood (the
Catholics, who are going to heaven) and who couldn't (the Protestants, who are going to hell). It's all a part of God's plan
and we have nothing to do with it. 6:64-66
Jesus chose "a devil" for an apostle. Oh well, everyone makes mistakes. 6:70
Jesus accuses people of trying to kill him. But they say to him, "Thou hast a devil:
who goeth about to kill thee?" 7:19-20
"We be not born of fornication" -- implying that Jesus was. 8:41
After Jesus makes the foolish claim that those who believe in him will never die, his listeners reply, "now we
know that thou hast a devil." 8:52
Jesus spits on the ground, mixes his spit with the dirt, and rubs the muddy spit on (or in?) a blind man's eyes.
Then he told him to wash in the pool of Siloam. After that, the blind man could see again.
The Bible doesn't say whether it was the holy spit, holy mud, or holy water that did the trick. 9:6-7
"All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers."
Everyone that ever lived before Jesus was a thief and a robber. 10:8
"I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." Enter through the Jesus door. 10:9
Many of those who saw Jesus firsthand thought he was mad and possessed by a
devil. 10:20
Lararus must suffer and die (or pretend to die) so that Jesus can "be glorified" by raising
him from the dead. 11:4
Jesus prays in public just to show off in front of others, "that they may believe." 11:41-42
"Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth."
11:43
You must hate your life in order to keep it. (If you love your life, you'll go to hell after you die.)
12:25
"While Jesus was praying, a loud noise came from the sky. Some said it was thunder, others said
it was an angel yelling at Jesus." 12:28-29
"The devil ... put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him."
God put the devil in Judas' heart so that he could have his son (or himself, or whatever) killed. 13:2
Jesus takes off all his clothes, wraps a towel around himself, and then washes the feet of his disciples using the same towel.
13:3-5
"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
Love has hardly been a diagnostic feature of Christians. 13:35
Those who believe in Jesus will be able to perform even greater miracles
than he did! 14:12
Jesus says that whatever you ask either him or his father for you will receive. Now how's
that for a big lie? 14:13-14, 15:7,
15:16, 16:23
Now that Jesus has come, non-believers have no excuse for not believing in him. 15:22
He that hateth me hateth my Father also."
Oh, that's a good one. If you don't like Jesus, then you don't like God. (You're a damned God hater.)
On the Jews and Their Lies (Part 12)15:23
"Glorify ... me ... with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."
The ever-so-humble Jesus asks his dad to glorify him with the glory he and his dad had before the world was created. 17:5
"That they all may be one"
Jesus prays that believers might all be one, thereby proving, once and for all, that nothing fails like prayer.
17:21a
"That the world may believe that thou hast sent me."
Since Jesus's followers are divided, and have always been divided, into a legion of conflicting sects, there's no reason to believe that
his dad sent him -- according to Jesus's own test. 17:21b
"That they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."
Jesus asks his father to let all of his followers see the glory that his father gave him before the world was created. 17:24
"She [Mary Magdalene] ... knew not that it was Jesus." (Maybe it wasn't Jesus.) 20:14
"When the doors were shut ... came Jesus and stood in the midst."
After his resurrection, Jesus could walk through walls. 20:19, 26
"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Blessed are
they that believe stupid things without (or even contrary to) evidence? 20:29
"Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus."
Jesus was full of clever disguises! 21:4
While Jesus went up to heaven, two angels (men in white) stop by to tell the disciples that Jesus will return in the s
ame way he just left them (by beaming up/down via transporter). 1:10-11
A mighty wind comes, cloven tongues of fire sit on top of heads, everyone starts speaking in languages they don't
understand and act like they're drunk. 2:2-13
"There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation
under heaven." (Polynesians, Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, Japanese, you name it.) 2:5
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
In the last days (which Peter believes have already come) God will show great signs
and wonders -- things like "blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke." 2:19
"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 same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls."
The number of believers went from 120 (1:15) to 3120 in a single day. 2:41
"Fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the
apostles." 2:43
Cornelius gets a message from God: Go find Peter. 10:1-6
Peter has a dream in which God show him "wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls." The voice
(God's?) says, "Rise, Peter: kill and eat." 10:10-13
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." 11:5-10
The Spirit interrupts Peter's previous vision with an urgent message: "Three guys are looking for you.
Believe whatever they tell say." 10:19-20
"Behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing."
If you see a man in bright clothing, it's an angel! 10:30
"The Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word." 10:44
"They of the circumcision which believed were astonished ...
for they heard them speak with tongues." 10:45-46
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." 11:5-10
A bunch of strangers came to get Peter, who was told by the (holy?) spirit to go with them and do whatever they said. So he went with
them to another guy’s house who had seen an angel who told him to believe whatever Peter said so that he and his family would be saved. When
they arrived, Peter started talking, the Holy Ghost fell on everyone and they all lived happily ever after.
(Or something like that.) 11:12-15
Herod killed James the brother of John and imprisoned Peter "because he saw it pleased the Jews."
(Jews just love to see Christians killed with the sword.) 12:1-3
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. (Peter had an angel that looked just like him.) 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
"The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." 13:2
"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
"When the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes." 14:14
Some Jews convince the people (who think Paul is a god) to stone Paul. So they stone Paul and throw his body out of town,
thinking he was dead. 14:19
Can you get into heaven without a circumcised penis? Paul and Barnabas are sent to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles
to settle the matter once and for all. 15:1-2
God made choice among
us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe." 15:7
"It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us." 15:28
When they read the no-need-to-get-circumcised epistle, everyone rejoiced. I bet. 15:30-31
Paul said to Barnabas, "Let's go visit all the places we've preached at before and see how
they're doing." Barnabas said, "OK, but let's take John called Mark with us." Paul said that he wouldn't go anywhere with that John
called Mark guy. So they split up. Paul went with Silas and Barnabas with John called Mark. 15:36-41
Paul circumcised Timothy, thereby making it impossible for him to be saved, according to his own words in
Galatians 5:2. 16:1-3
Paul and the newly circumcised Timothy were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach in Asia. (God just doesn’t like Asians, I guess.)
Then they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit wouldn't let them do that either. Shucks! 16:7-8
A man appears to Paul in a dream telling him to go to Macedonia. So Paul, who was a big
believer in dreams, did as the dream-man requested. 16:9-12
Paul expels a soothsaying spirit of divination. 16:16-18
Paul and Silas were rescued by an earthquake that opened all the doors of the prison. 16:26
If you "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," then you and your whole family will be saved; otherwise, God
will send you all to hell. 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
The first vow-induced shaved head
"Paul ... having shorn his head ... for he had a vow." 18:18
Paul introduces the Corinthians to the Holy Ghost and immediately they begin to
speak in tongues and prophesy. 19:1-6
"The school of Tyrannus" is the only school 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
Jewish exorcists were so impressed by Paul's ability to cast out evil spirits that
they decided to give it a try, saying to a evil spirit in a possessed person, "We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches." But the evil spirit
said, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who the heck are you?" Then the possessed person jumped on the Jewish
exorcists, and stripped off all their clothes. 19:13-16
The first Christian book burning occurs when Paul's converts at Ephesus burn 50,000 silver pieces' worth of
books. (A silver piece was worth about a day's wage.) 19:19
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. 20:7-12
In one of the few times that Paul quotes Jesus, he attributes to him words that are not found in the gospels.
(It is better to give than to receive.") 20:35
The Holy Ghost's girdle message: "Agabus ... took Paul's girdle, and bound his own hands an feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy
Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles." 21:10-11
The Jews, once again, incite the people to kill poor old Paul. But he escapes
and delivers another long, boring speech. 21:27-40
Paul repeats the same stupid story that was told in chapter 9. (Well,
not quite the same. Some of the details were changed to make it more interesting.) 22:6-10
The people listened to Paul's speech, but didn't like it very much. After listening to it, they took off their clothes,
threw dust in the air, and told the soldiers to kill him. 22:22-23
"The night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul."
The Lord (Jesus?) stopped by to chat with Paul. 23:11
The Jews form a grand conspiracy to kill Paul. They vow not to eat or drink until the job is done. (The first hunger strike?)
23:12-15
Oh boy, we get to hear the Damascus road story for the third time! 26:13-15
Paul tells his sailing companions not to fear. He has an angel onboard that will protect them. 27:22-24
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. (The snake story is especially interesting since there
are no poisonous snakes on Malta, and there is no evidence of their existence in the past.)
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
"If ... we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son", then God is truly a monster. 5:10
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
God intercedes with God by talking to, and sometimes even arguing with, himself.
8:27
"All things work together for good to them that love God."
One of the greatest and most absurd lies in all of scripture. 8:28
If you are a child of the flesh, you are not the seed of God. Whatever that might be. 9:8
Paul says that everyone, even in his day, had the gospel preached to them. Even the Native Americans, Asians,
Pacific Islanders? 10:18
"Salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them [the Jews] to jealousy." 11:11
"This is my covenant unto them, [the Jews] when I shall take away their sins."
Someday God will take away all Jewish sins. 11:27
"As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election,
they are beloved for the father's sakes."
Jews are enemies to Christians, but God loves them for their ancestors' sake. 11:28
Gentiles used to be unbelievers, but now the Jews are the unbelievers and God saves gentiles through Jewish unbelief. It's all a part of
God's plan. 11:30
Non-believing Jews will obtain mercy through the mercy of believers. 11:31
"God hath concluded them [the Jews] all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." 11:32
"Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil."
If you behave yourself, no king or government will mistreat you. 13:3
"If there be any other commandment...."
Paul tries to list the Ten Commandments, but he only came up with five (the good secular humanist ones). Oh well, Jesus couldn’t list them all either.
(Mt 19:17-19) 13:9
