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Tobit
- Because of King Sennacherib's blasphemy, God slaughtered lots of Israelites, which Tobias promptly buried.
When the king found out about it (Tobias burying the dead bodies), he commanded Tobias to be killed and confiscated all his stuff.
But Tobias ran away naked. 1:21-23
- God blinded Tobias Sr. by having a swallow's nest fall on his eyes, as a Job-like example. 2:11-12
- Raguel gave Tobias Jr. his daughter, along with half of his slaves and other possessions. 10:10
- The angel Raphael tells Tobias Jr. to take along the gall of a fish. When he got home, Junior rubbed the rotten fish gall in his dad's eyes for a half hour or so. Then a white skin peeled off of his eyes, "like the skin of an egg." As soon as Tobias Sr.
peeled the egg skin off of his eyeballs, he could see just fine. 11:4-15
- Raphael, the amazing archangel, arranged Tobias Jr.'s marriage with Sara, after chasing away the evil spirit that was hanging out in her body. He also saved
Tobias from being eaten by "a monstrous fish." 12:3
- Raphael was on a mission from God to deliver Sara from the devil. 12:14
- "They fell ... on their face."
Everyone "fell on their face" when they found out about Raphael. (Bible characters do that a lot.) 12:16
- Angels eat invisible meat and drink invisible fluids. 12:19
- Trying to set a new biblical record, the Tobias family kept their faces on the ground for three hours after Raphael beamed up to heaven.
12:22
- "Thou art great, O Lord ... For thou ... leadest down to hell." 13:1-2
Judith
- King Arphaxad made the walls of Ecbatana 32 meters wide and 14 meters tall. 1:2
- Holofernes had an infinite supply of camels and sheep. 2:8
- The army ... covered the face of the earth, like locusts." 2:11
- "Nabuchodonosor the king had commanded him to destroy all the gods of the earth, that he only might be called God."
3:13
- "The priests put on haircloths, and they caused the little children to lie prostrate before the temple of the Lord, and the altar of the
Lord they covered with haircloth." 4:8
- "All the people fell upon their faces." 6:14
- Judith wore haircloth on her loins. (She was an especially virtuous woman.) 8:6
- God, the great beautician, made Judith more beautiful. Then she and her slave took a
bottle of wine and left to visit Holofernes. On the way she passed by the Hebrew old men, who "admired her beauty exceedingly."
10:4-7
- Holofernes gets drunk and falls in lust with Judith. 12:17-20
- Judith shows off the head of Holofernes, assuring everyone that no sex was involved in the
performance of the murderous deed. 13:17-20
- For cutting off the head of a drunken man as he slept, Judith is blessed by God "above all
woman." (Even more blessed than Jael and Mary?) 13:23-25
- Judith tells the Israelite army that the Assyrian captains will freak out when the see the headless Holofernes
wallowing about in his own blood. That's when, she says, the Israelites should attack, knowing that God will kill the
Assyrians for them. 14:4-5
- When Achior (the leader of the Ammonites) saw what God had done (helped Judith cut off a drunken man's head)
he immediately converted to Judaism and cut off his own foreskin. 14:6
- The Israelites hang Holfernes head on the wall, gathered their weapons, and set out "with a great noise and shouting."
14:7
- When the Assyrian army sees the headless body of Hofernes "sweltering in his blood," they all screamed
and "rent their garments." 14:13-18
- The Assyrian army ran away after hearing about the headless Holfernes, and the Israelites (with God's help)
slaughtered them as they ran, taking all their stuff and giving it to Judith -- the forever blessed, glory of Jerusalem and joy of Israel.
(God gave Judith the strength to behead a sleeping man to reward her for not having sex after her husband died.)
15:1-15
- Judith sings a song of praise to herself for cutting off a sleeping man's head. 16:1-28
Additions to the Book of Esther
- Modecai's dream
"The little fountain which grew into a river ... is Esther ... The two dragons are I and Aman." 10:6-10
- Esther prayed to God, after pulling out her hair and covering her head with dung. 14:1-2
- I ... abhor the bed of the uncircumcised." 14:15
- "I ... detest it as a menstruous rag." 14:16
- Esther calls upon God and God softens the king's heart (so that he'd murder thousands of non-Jews). 15:3-11
- The king decrees that Haman and his family shall hang; that everyone in the kingdom who wanted to kill the Jews shall be killed; that whoever refuses
to kill the people that wanted to kill Jews will be killed by sword and fire; and that everyone will celebrate the killing of the wannabe Jew killers forever. 16:10-18
Wisdom
- The wisest words in the book of Wisdom are condemned by the book of Wisdom. 2:1-9
- You can tell who is the real son of God by what happens to him. God will
not permit any harm to come to his true sons. (Therefore Jesus is not God's son.) 2:13-18
- "By the envy of the devil, death came into the world." 2:24
- Just people don't die. They just smell that way. 3:1-2
- Virgins, eunuchs, and infertile women are especially blessed by God. (God hates sex.) 3:13b-14
- "O how beautiful is the chaste generation." 4:1
- God gave humans dominion over all other living things. 9:2
- Sodom and Gomorrah are still smoking today, with trees that don't bear fruit, and a pillar of salt that looks just like Lot's wife.
10:7
- "Water was given them out of the high rock, and a refreshment of their thirst out of the hard stone." (Numbers 20:11)
11:4
- Instead of a fountain of an ever running river, thou gavest human blood to the unjust. (Exodus 17:17-24)
11:7
- God sent bears, lions, and unknown fire-breathing beasts, sending out stinking smoke or shooting sparks from their eyes.
11:16-20
- All non-believers are vain. They try to understand the world through science, ignoring the god who supposedly created it.
13:1
- There's just no excuse for non-believers. If they're so damned smart, how come they don't believe in the Jewish God? 13:8-9
- "That which is made, together with him that made it, shall suffer torments."
God will somehow torment the art along with the artist. 14:10
Ecclesiastes
Baruch
- Baruch (the son of Neias, the son of Maasias, the son of Sedicias, the son of Sedei, the son of Helcias) read a horrendously boring
book to all the people. "And when they heard it they wept."1:1-22
- "And when they heard it they wept." 1:5
- "And they made a collection of money." 1:6
- "And they said: Behold we have sent you money, buy with it holocausts, and frankincense, and make meat offerings,
and offerings for sin at the altar of the Lord our God." 1:10
- "And read ye this book." 1:14
- "And you shall say: To the Lord our God belongeth justice, but to us confusion of our face." 1:15
- Justice belongs to God, everyone else gets "confusion of face." 2:6
- God sends us evil, "for the Lord is just in all his works." 2:7-9
- God commands the Israelites to serve the king of Babylon. 2:21
- Despite the prayers of dead people, God curses the living for the sins of their ancestors. 3:4-8
- Israel is defiled with the dead and damned to hell for forsaking the fountain of wisdom. If they would have obeyed God, they would
have dwelt in peace forever. 3:10-13
- Princes that rule over beasts, play with birds, and hoard silver and gold, will be cut off and damned to hell. 3:10-13
- The giants died because they lacked wisdom. 3:26-28
- Stars rejoice while talking with God. 3:34-35
- After the stars rejoiced, God was seen on earth and talked to people. 3:38
- God will bring down mountains and fill valleys to make walking easier for Israelites. 5:7
Additions to the Book of Daniel
1 Machabees
- When Antiochus attacked Jerusalem and desecrated the temple, "the beauty of the women was changed." 1:27
- "Mathathias and his sons rent their garments, and they covered themselves with haircloth." 2:14
- Matthathias and his friends gathered an army, slew the sinners, threw down altars, and valiantly circumcised all the uncircumcised
children they could find. "And they yielded not the horn to the sinner." 2:39-48
- Before he dies, Mathathias praises some of the nastiest characters in the Bible: Abraham,
Phineas,
David,
Joshua (Jesus) and
Elijah (Elias). 2:52-58
- "He was renowned even to the utmost part of the earth."
OK. That's a bit of an exaggeration. 3:9
- Seron, the captain of the Syrian army, heard about Judas (as had everyone on earth). He collected a large army of wicked
men to fight Judas. When Judas' smaller army saw the Syrians, they were frightened. But Judas told them not to worry. Because
success in war depends not on numbers, but on God. "The Lord himself will overthrow them." 3:13
- "As soon as he had made an end of speaking, he rushed suddenly upon them: and Seron and his host were overthrown before him ...
and there fell of them eight hundred men." 3:23-24
- The entire world was afraid of Judas! 3:25-26
- Judas and the Israelites prepare for war by putting on haircloth, putting ashes on their
heads, rending their garments, blowing a trumpet, and crying together with a loud, long, boring prayer to heaven. 3:47-54
- Judas and his completely unarmed valiant men defeat 5000 well-armed soldiers. Judas told his men not to do anything; God would do
the killing for them. And he did. God killed 3000 Gentile soldiers, and Judas and his men enriched themselves with the booty.
4:1-24
- After God "discomfited" the Gentiles, Judas and his brethren went to clean up the Temple in Jerusalem. They found it
a bit of a mess. So they did the usual things that Jews do when they get upset: they rent their garments, put ashes
on their heads, and fell on their faces. 4:36-40
- "And all the people fell upon their faces." 4:55
- Judas and his brothers killed some animals for God to thank him for helping them slaughter the Gentiles. 5:54
- When Joseph and Azarias hear about the Maccabees brothers' killings, they decide to "get themselves a name" killing Gentiles.
But it doesn't work out so well. 2000 Israelites died because Joseph and Azarias didn't hearken to Judas and "were not of the seed of
those men by whom salvation was brought to Israel." 5:56-62
- The Greek army had 100,000 footmen and 20,000 horsemen, along with 32 elephants. Each elephant was accompanied by 1000 soldiers and
500 horsemen. There was a tower on top of each elephant with an engine on top of the tower and 32 valiant men fighting on top of the tower.
6:30-37
- "And they shewed the elephants the blood of grapes, and mulberries to provoke them to fight."
If you want to make an elephant really mad, show him the blood of grapes and mulberries. 6:34
- Eleazar saw an elephant that was bigger than all the others. Since it was so big, he figured the
king ought to be on it. So he ran up to the elephant, killing soldiers left and right, going between the feet of the big elephant and killing
it. Whereupon the elephant fell on him and killed him too. But at least he got himself an everlasting name. (It was probably a lot like
this.) 6:43-46
- Judas Machabeus goes to Rome and makes a treaty with the Romans, who are perfect in every way. 8:1-26
- "This is the copy of the writing that they wrote back again,
graven in tables of brass."
(Just like in the Book of Mormon!)
8:22
- "Jonathan rent his garments, and cast earth upon his head." 11:71
- "We rejoice at your glory."
The Jews rejoiced at the glory of the Roman Empire. 12:12
- "We have had help from heaven, and we have been delivered, and our enemies are humbled."
God helped the Jews kill their enemies. 12:15
- Isn't it amazing how everyone in Israel speaks with a single voice at the same time?
"The people ... answered with a loud voice, saying: Thou art our leader in the place of Judas, and Jonathan thy brother.
Fight thou our battles, and we will do whatsoever thou shalt say to us." 13:7-9
- "They that were in the city went up with their wives and children upon the wall,
with their garments rent." 13:45
- "Every man sat under his vine, and under his fig tree." 14:12
- "They wrote to him in tables of brass." (Just like in the Book of Mormon!) 14:18
- "A great shield of gold the weight of a thousand pounds" 14:24
- "It should not be lawful for any of the people ... to be clothed with purple, or to wear a buckle of gold." 14:44
- "And they commanded that this writing should be put in tables of brass." 14:48
- "And they brought also a shield of gold of a thousand pounds." 15:18
2 Machabees
- The amazing rock-burning "thick water" that spontaneously bursts into flame! 1:20-32
- "It is a foolish thing to make a long prologue, and to be short in the story itself."
Seems like a strange thing to say after making a long prologue. 2:33
- God sent a horse, a terrible rider, and two beautiful young men in comely
attire to deal with Heliodorus. The horse kicked him,
the young men scourged him, and God struck him speechless. Heliodorus's friends begged the high priest Onias to ask God to undo the damage.
So Onias offered a sacrifice and the young men told him to thank God he didn't kill him. 3:24-33
- When the wicked, impious, and abominable wretch, Jason, became the Jewish high priest he set up brothel houses and
(horrors!) places of exercise. 4:7-12
- "The priests ... hastened to be partakers of the games, and ... the exercise of the discus ... They esteemed the Grecian glories."
4:14-15
- "Jason ... having the mind of a cruel tyrant, and the rage of a savage beast." 4:24-25
- When King Antiochus (who according to 2 Machabees 1:16 was already dead) heard about Onias's death, he was "moved to pity,
shed tears, remembering the sobriety ad modesty of the deceased." 4:37
- Horses and soldiers appear in the sky above Jerusalem, and stay there for forty days. 5:2-3
- The evil, wicked Greeks send an old man to Jerusalem with one important mission: destroy the faith of the Jews.
He defiles the temple, causes the Jewish women to go wild in the holy places, and forces an old Jew to eat pork. When he refuses,
he is killed (after his Jewish friends try to save him through "wicked pity"). 6:1-31
- A mother and her seven sons are tortured to death for refusing to eat pork. The mother watches
and encourages her sons to "die manfully" as, one by one, their flesh is ripped off and they are fried in the king's frying pan.
Finally, the king finished the torture fest off with the mother.
God enjoyed the tortured death of the seven sons just as much as their mother. After all, they deserved what they got.
Still God will torment the tormentor (and all of his descendants) even more. 7:1-42
- Antiochus drives his chariot non-stop to Jerusalem. But before he gets there, God gives him "an incurable and invisible
plague" that caused "a dreadful pain in his bowels ... and bitter torments of the inner parts." 9:1-5
- "And indeed very justly, seeing he had tormented the bowels of others."
(If you torment the bowels of others, God will torment your bowels as well.) 9:6
While Antiochus suffered from his God-given bowel disease, worms swarmed out of his body, "his flesh fell
off, and the filthiness of his smell was noisome." No one could get near him because of the "intolerable stench." 9:9-12
- Antiochus becomes a Jew and prays to God for mercy. But God ignored his prayers and killed him
anyway. (See verse 28.) 9:13-17, 10:4
- "They besought the Lord, lying prostrate on the ground, that they … not be delivered up to barbarians and blasphemous men."
10:4
- Judas and his companions sprinkled dirt on their heads, gird their loins with haircloth, and begged God to help them kill
some more Gentiles. 10:25-26
- When the Jews attacked the Gentiles they had God on their side. To prove it, God sent from heaven
five men on horses, who cast darts and fireballs at the Gentiles, confounding them with blindness and filling them with trouble, and killing
20,500 soldiers and 600 horsemen. 10:28-31
- Timotheus fled to a strong hold, where he and his companions "blasphemed exceedingly, and cast forth abominable words.
Twenty of Judas's young men were especially offended by their bad language, so they burned the blasphemers alive. After that,
they blessed the Lord who helped them burn Gentiles alive. 10:32-38
- When Lysias heard about the slaughter of the Greeks by Judas Machabeus (see the last chapter), he gathered
80,000 men and 80 elephants to fight the Jews. 11:1-4
- "Machabeus and ... all the people besought the Lord with lamentations
and tears, that he would send a good angel to save Israel." 11:6
- God sent an angel from heaven (a horseman "in white clothing, with golden armour, shaking a spear"). 11:8-10
- The Jews attacked like lions, killing 11,000 footmen and 1,600 horsemen. The Greek survivors ran away naked, including Lysias.
11:11-12
- Lysias figured out why he couldn't defeat the Jews: they had God on their side. So he agreed to
persuade the king to be their friend.
11:13-14
- God ("the King of Kings") inspired Antiochus and Lysias to kill Menelaus (the "sinner", "transgressor",
and "sacrilegious wretch") by throwing him off a 75-foot tower. 13:4-8
- Judas commanded the people to pray day and night, lying prostrate on the ground for three days continually." 13:10-12
- "So committing all to God ... having exhorted his people to fight manfully" using the watchword "the victory of God", Judas killed 4000 men and
"the greatest of the elephants." "All this was done ... by the protection and help of the Lord." 13:14-17
- The chief priest (Alcimus) defiled himself by "mingling with the heathens." He (correctly) accused Judas and his followers of causing wars and
seditions against Antiochus. 14:3-10
- When Nicanor "the comander over the elephants" came, the Jews threw dirt on their heads. 14:12-15
- When Razias, the father of the Jews, was about to be captured, he tried to kill himself with his sword. As he
was dying, he prayed to God while grabbing his bowels with both hands and throwing them at the crowd -- thereby showing for Catholics everywhere that God
approves of suicide. 14:37-46
- Nicanor decided to attack the Jews on the Sabbath day, denying the existence of a God who commanded the Sabbath day to be kept.
15:1-3
- But Judas trusted in God, telling the people "a dream worthy to be believed." 15:7-11
- After Onias prayed for the people, Jeremiah the prophet showed up, delivering to Judas a gift from God: a holy, golden, gentile-killing sword.
15:12-16
- The people were inspired by Judas to fight -- not to protect their families and friends, but for the sake of "the holiness of the temple."
15:17-18
- Judas reminds the people of how good God is at killing people. After all, didn't he send an angel to
kill
185,000 sleeping soldiers? Maybe, if they ask him nicely, he'll send another "good angel" to terrorize and kill blasphemers again.
15:21-24
- So the Jews prayed with their hearts and fought with their hands, killing 35,000, while "being greatly cheered with the presence of God."
15:26-27
- When the Jews found out that Nicanor had been killed, "they made a great noise and Blessed the Almighty Lord." 15:28-29
- Judas showed everyone Nicanor's head and "wicked hand." Then he had his tongue cut out and fed, piece by piece, to the birds. Finally, he hung his hand
and head over the temple and castle, respectively, as "an evident and manifest sign of the help of God." 15:32-35
- The author of 2 Machabees claims neither to be inspired by God nor inerrant. 15:39
- It is hurtful to drink always wine, or always water, but pleasant to use sometimes the one, and sometimes the other." 15:40
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