Genesis 30 to 31: Handmaids, Catfights and Good Fences

Genesis 30

Catfight between the sisters! Rachel, the one Jacob wanted from the get go, can't get going with the pregnancy thing.

Verse 3 “And she said, Behold my maid Billah, go in unto her,and she shall bear upon my knees that I may also have children by her.”

Yup, I remember Faye Dunaway lying down so Robert Duvall could schtupp Natasha Richardson in the film of The Handmaid's Tale , which was nowhere near as good as Margaret Atwood's book.

So, there's a lot of boring bearing, as Rachel and Leah compete for Jacob's favours.

And Reuben (Leah's oldest) went

Verse 14-5 “in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.
And she said unto her. Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? And wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he [Jacob] shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes.”

The pimping backfires, cos somehow Leah goes from post-menopausal to spitting out MORE brats. Then God, who seems forgetful (huh?)

Verse 22 “And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.”

And she spits out Joseph

And Jacob wants to leave his host (Crikey, it must have been at least 20 years, and you'd think Laban would be glad to see the back of him). But no, they haggle and in lieu of a severance payment for work rendered, Jacob says

Verse 32 “I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from thene all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goatts: and of such shall be my hire.”

And Jacob has some sneaky selective breeding/genetic engineering scam afoot, involving rods of green poplar etc, and ends up with a bigger stronger load of animals than Laban.

A fine way to repay Laban for his hospitality. These Old Testament blighters aren't very Christian...

Genesis 31

Laban ain't happy. Jacob tells his wives Rachel and Leah “your ded ripped me off for wages.”
This is why you need to be in a union.

Anyway, Rachel and Leah leg it with Jacob.

Verse 19 “And Laban went to shear his sheep: and Rachel had stolen the images that were her father's.”

So there's a hot pursuit (a sheep chase rather than a car chase?)

Verse 25 “And then he took his brethren with him, and pursued him seven days' journey: and they overtook him in the mount Gilead.”

God does a cameo in one of Laban's dreams, telling him to play nice or else.

Laban tells Jacob that he is protected, but that he wants his gods (i.e. the images Rachel half-inched), back. Jacob doesn't know Rachel did this. Laban looks everywhere, but Rachel is sitting on them, and says she's on the blob.

Verse 35 “And she said to her farther, Let it not displease my lord that Icannot rise up before thee; for the custom of women is upon me. And he searched but found nto the images.”

Jacob gets angry and “chode” with Laban.

Verse 37 “Whereas thou hast searched all my stuff, what hast though found of all thy household stuff?"

So they argue some more, pile some stones like a cairn and from what I can gather agree that that is the boundary between them, but if Jacob beats Leah or Rachel or takes more wives There Will Be Trouble, God or no God.

You know what they say- good fences make good neighbours... Presumably all this obsessing about whose sheep is whose and where boundaries between tribes will be is a reflection of the shrinking wilderness as populations increased and/or environmental degradation kicked in? Dunno.

Genesis 27- 29: The Soap Opera continues.

Genesis 27

Isaac is counting the days, wants some venison, which is quite dear.

[What do you call Bambi with his eyes poked out? No idea. What do you call Bambi with his eyes poked out and his legs chopped off? Still no idea.]

Esau heads off to get some while his mum, Rebekkah, overhearing, decides to play favourites.

She gets Jacob into drag (he ain't hairy, he's Esau's brother) and he feeds Isaac, pretending to be Esau. Isaac supplies an apparently non-revocable and Once Only blessing on Jacob.

Esau was mighty sore he saw what Jacob had done.

Er, is this a repeat of the Cain and Abel thing, with the honest horny handed son of soil being shafted by the untrustworthy “knowledge worker”

Anyhow, this is another of those iconic stories that I used to hear in my youth, that used to be part of our collective heritage (I shan't say memepool ) that seems to be fading? Or was it ever thus? How would you prove it?

Rebekkah tells Jacob to get the fuck outa Compton

Verse43-4 “Now, therefore, my son, obey my voice: and arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran. And tarry with him a few days, until thy borther's fury turns away.”

A few days?? I thought the pre-TV version of human was abel to hold a grudge a bit longer than that!

Chapter 28

At Rebekkah's inistence, Isaac tells Jacob that he can't have a wife from Canaan, and that he should head off to Padan-aram. Esau takes some wives also not from Canaan to keep on his dad's good side (Stockholm syndrome is my diagnosis).

Jacob has his dream, the one with the ladder.

Verses 13-14 “And behold, the LORD stood above it and said I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest to thee will I give it, and to thy see:
And thy seed shall be s the dust of the earth and though shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: an d in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.”

Oh dear. The hallucination of a Bearded Sky Man telling you everything you see is yours is no basis for territorial claims in the 21^st century. Grow up.

Jacob wakes up, presumably has the three eshes, then finds some sheep and a stone and a well.

Chapter 29

Jacob hooks up with his mum's family, and fancies Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother. (So, er, his cousin)

Verse 11 “And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept.”

Jacob, who don't forget has had to leg it cos brother Esau Wants Him Dead, then sticks around for seven years in order to marry Rachel who was “beautiful and well favoured.” I am under strict instructions from t'wife not to speculate that well-favoured might be a euphemism for incapable-of-breaking-her-nose-if-she-fell-forwards...

But come the big day, seven years later, Laban does a bait and switch on Jacob.

Verse 23 "And it came to pass, that in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her into him; and he went in unto her."

Jacob is peeved, Laban says

Verse 26 “...It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the first born.”

Gee, you think Laban would have explained that at some point in the last seven years, or found someone to take Leah off his hands. She probably had a lovely personality.

So another seven years until he can get his, er, hands, on Rachel. Who God makes barren.

As philosophy prof John Clark says “If you just keep in mind God was a Jewish comedian it all makes perfect sense.”

Anyhow, Leah pops out four of the little brats- Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah.

People ask me if I like children, and my standard response is “Yeah, but I couldn't eat a whole one.”

Genesis 25 and 26- Abraham dies, famines, water sports, in-law trouble

Apologies for getting the chapters muddled. Must Be More Careful...

Chapter 25

Abraham takes another wife, and shagged some concubines. Isaac stays his favourite-

Verse 6 “Unto the sons of the concubines which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward unto the east country.”

And then Abraham “gives up the ghost” aged 185. Isaac and Ishmael (Hagar's kid) bury him.

A modicum of begatting.

Rebekah gets up the duff with some IVF (Invisible Vengifier Fertilisation) but “her children struggled within her.”

“Whassup with this kicking, God?” she asks.

Verse 23 “And the LORD said unto her, “Two nations are in thy womb and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people and the elder shall serve the younger.”

There may be trouble ahead...

Out pops red and hairy Esau, and from the description he's a bit like Groundskeeper Willie
Out pops Jacob “and his hand took hold on Esau's heel.”

Esau was a cunning hunter (or, as the spoonerism would have it, a German Casanova?)

Jacob was a “plain man” and dwelling intense. Or in tents.

Verse 28-34 "Isaac loved Esau because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.
And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:
And Esau said to Jacob, Fee me I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore his name called Edom.
And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright
And Esau said, “Behold I am at the point to die; and what profit shall this birthright do to me.
And Jacob said Swear to me this day: and eh sware unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob [for a mess of pottage]."

So, Jacob is a capitalist scumbag, waiting till the poor are desperate in order to hoover up their assets. (cf famines)

Chapter 26

There's a famine, Isaac is going to emigrate to Egypt, but God tells him to stay put.

Then Isaac passes his wife Rebekah off as his sister. (Just Like His Dad...)

But then the local king, Abimelech (the same as with Abraham? We're not told) is sitting in his palace one day...

Verse 8 “And it came to pass when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife.”

I wonder if Isaac's defense to shagging his “sister” will be “no, it's ok, she's my wife”, a la Abraham?.... Yep, history repeats. Abimelech lets him off, shouts out a “don't fuck Rebekah” law and

Verse 12 “Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundred fold: and the LORD blessed him.”

Hmm, returns like that would make even the most trusting investor wondering if this was a Ponzi scheme...

Isaac gets rich and the king says “Go from us for thou art much mightier than we.”

So Isaac leaves and there are some water wars between his lot and the herdsmen of Gerar.

But Abimelech sees God is on Isaac's side and wisely makes peace, and so doesn't get smited (smote?)... yet.

And Esau, purveyor of birthrights, makes a match his parents disapprove of.

Verse 34 “Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite. Which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekkah.”

It seems the parents-in-law aren't going to Hittite off...

Genesis 22 to 24: death, marriage and sacrifice

Chapter 22, in which Isaac nearly gets sacrificed. Given this rather unpleasant and bloody scene (at least for the Ram, and probably fairly traumatic for the kid too), it seems somewhat appropriate that at least some Jewish and Muslim traditions place the situation of the near-sacrifice as the top of Mount Moriah in Jerusalem and therefore one of the sites within the much-disputed Temple Mount. It seems a fitting start for this extraordinarily beautiful and disturbed city.
Other scholars put the site of the sacrifice at Moreh, near Nablus (Biblical Shechem), another beautiful and bloody city where the Israeli army spends a fair amount of its time executing people and stifling the economy with checkpoints, when they're not committing mass butchery in Gaza.
A brief outline of the reasons behind the various theories can be found here.
Immediately following God's intervention in the sacrifice of Issac, Sarah dies. It's not made clear if the two incidents are related... but she is buried in Hebron, at what becomes the Tomb of the Patriarchs or the Cave of the Double Tombs. This is said to be the site of the burials of Adam and Eve (although some traditions put Adam in Jerusalem, under the site of Golgotha), Abraham alongside Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob and Leah. It is, like so mnay of the ancient sites in Palestine, Israel and surrounding countries, tremendouly sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, and has therefore of course been the object of innumerable battles for ownership, including capture by Saladin from the Crusaders and a massacre of 67 members of the local Jewish community in 1929. The current uneasy situation is that the building is divided into two, one section each for Jews and Muslims. All visitors, including the very, very occasional tourist, have to pass through a number of security gates and checks, staffed by Israeli military.



In February 1994 the Tomb was the site of a massacre by a right-wing Zionist settler from the (frankly rabid) community which has established itself in Hebron, where local Palestinians are regularly physically attacked and have rubbish and toilet water poured onto them and their market by settlers who have occupied the upper floors of their buildings. Baruch Goldstein, an off-duty Israeli army reservist from Brooklyn, entered the mosque side of the Tomb during Friday prayers and shot dead between 29 (from Israeli accounts) and 52 Palestinians, wounding 150 more. He is now venerated by some right-wing Israeli settler groups and political parties as a hero.
In chapter 25 Abraham orders Isaac to find a wife from outside the land of Canaan; this is ringing major bells from the compulsory course on kinship I had to do as part of my social anthropology degree. This is exogamy, marriage outside the group, a practice which is attributed to many needs from the genetic (bringing new genes to maintain diversity and prevent hereditary diseases) to the political (marrying into new families, dynasties etc to form alliances which might be useful in power struggles, times of economic need and so on. Early Twentieth century anthropologists used to spend entire careers drawing complicated diagrams and classifying entire societies according to who they allowed to marry whom.



In pleasant contrast to much of Genesis so far, the resulting bride, Rebekah, is selected on the basis of her kindness and generosity, qualities notably lacking in some of the family she's marrying into. Although maybe it's only the ladies who are supposed to be nice to people. In any case, much of Chapter 25 (perhaps verses 8-32 and 43-46), though repetitive, has a serenely poetic quality, talking about the camels which the messenger of Abraham brings with him and the water which Rebekah fetches for them - a reminder of the complete necessity of water to the desert and arid-country societies amongst which the Bible is set.
Interestingly, given the alarm which Muslim veiling seems to inspire in the modern age, Rebekah's response to seeing the man she is going to marry is:

"she took a vail, and covered herself."

There is something calm and dignified in Rebekah's choice and her stately generosity that is a welcome antidote to the bloodshed and bitterness of the Flood, Cain and Abel, Lot and the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, the Tower of Babel, and Abraham and Sarah's exploitation of Hagar.

Genesis 23 and 24- Sarah snuffs it, Isaac gets a wife

Chapter 23

Sarah is cruelly snatched in the first flush of youth, a mere 127.
Abraham insists on paying the local yokels for a decent burial site, haggling them upwards from nothing to 400 smackeroos.. Why she(ke)lling out was so important, symbolically, I dunno (or care).

Chapter 24

Abraham sends his top servant on a mission- to find a wife of suitable ethnicity for his son, Isaac. (the locals are OK, but you wouldn't want one for a daughter-in-law, apparently).

[Silly butler joke: “My sister has a butler who is missing his left arm. Serves her right.”]

It's not reported what sort of counselling Isaac received to help him over the trauma of his dad almost chopping his head off.

So the servant (un-named)

Verse 10 "...arose and went to Mesopotamia, unto the city of Nahor."

There he performs a Camel test.

Verse 14 "And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give they camels drink also; let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isac: and thereby shall I know that thou hast shewed kindness unto my master."

Anyway, some wee virginal lass called Rebekah rocks up and blow me if she hasn't gone and

verse 18-9 "said, Drink, my lord: annd she hasted, and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink. And when she had done giving him drink, she said, I will draw water for thy camels also, until they have done drinking."

Now, that's a big favour, cos camels can drink a LOT (check how much here)

So, this Rebekah bint; you can be sure the kids she spits out are yours. She is self-effacing and works hard to meet your desires. What more could a real man (not one of these namby-pamby Politically Correct eunuchs) want in a help-meet?

So there's some repetition, as per an oral poem written down. But basically the servant and Rebekah's brother, Laban, agree to her future. After she is asked "Wilt thou go with this man?" (it's unclear whether her answer matters or is just a formality) the servant and Rebekah and their retinues head off to where Isaac is waiting, presumably with a raging case of blue balls.

Verse 67 "And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent and took Rebekah and she became his wife and he loved her and Isac was comforted after his mother's death."

Relationships on the rebound rarely work out. As for Isaac, I reckon 'e'd 'a pulled any warm body, no need to send off to Egypt.

Oh, and "took"? Are we going to need a tag "euphemism for (forced) sex"?

Genesis 7-21: women get a raw deal

Yes, I know this may be a bit of a recurring theme, but it does stand out quite remarkably here. Perhaps because I've been slacking a bit so I'm having to have a catch-up session, reading 3 days' worth of chapters in one go.
So, from chapters seven to nine we have the Flood, Noah and the aftermath of these events. The Flood and Noah's Ark are another of those iconic tales, with references to one bit or another appearing throughout popular culture. I also remember a particularly bizarre pseudo-archaeology documentary, screened years ago, which featured some weirdos running around Mount Ararat in Turkey, finding a big stone shape (metamorphic in sedimentary rock, perhaps?) which they'd managed to convince themselves was the petrified remains of the Ark, where it settled on the mountain. There seem to be quite a lot of people doing this sort of thing, like these and these.
Whatever.
I think the dove which Noah sends out from the Ark to find land, and which returns from its second journey with an olive leaf in its bill, is the first reference to olives in connection with peace. Ironic, given the habit of Israeli settlers and soldiers of cutting down and mutilating Palestinian olive trees. Fortunately there are also some great organisations replanting them...
But apparently its ok because God again confirms that man gets to be boss of everything, which is just such a depressing prospect anyway:

"Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things."

As well as being speciesist, we also of course get into some nice stuff which in millenia to come will get used as textual justification for slavery, since apparently Ham getting a full-frontal of Daddy warrants his hapless sons getting used as servants by their cousins from time immemorial.
Although amidst all this rather depressing and disturbing stuff, we at least get some wonderfully resonant and mellifluous placenames to conjure with: Nineveh, Rehoboth, Sidon.
And, of course, the name Gaza makes its first appearance. Which seems apt, what with the origins of so much racism, bloodshed, prejudice, violence and racially justified land grabbing apparently being laid down on these very pages. And meanwhile in the modern world... racism, bloodshed, prejudice etc etc etc. The Israeli army is busy butchering woman and children in Gaza as I write, ambulance medics are apparently fair game in Jabaliya, and the spineless bastards at places like CNN and the BBC continue to peddle Israeli propaganda under the title of news.



Oddly, in the middle of all the Biblical violence and general badness, the Tower of Babel, another of those highly resonant phrases, only actually gets a couple of lines in Ch10, verses 7-9:

"7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of the earth: and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there counfound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroard upon the face of all the earth."

After this, we get onto Abraham, Sarah, Lot and some other big Biblical names. In Chapters 12 and 20 Abraham seems to hand his wife over - ie not once but twice - to various kings, because he's afraid that he's going to get killed so that they can kidnap her. There seems to be little indication of how Sarai feels about being farmed out to strange men at the drop of a hat, but Abraham seems to do quite well out of it on the sheep, cattle, gold and silver front.
Hagar, Sarai/Sarah's servant, also comes out pretty badly. She also gets handed over to a random male - in this case, Abraham himself - in order to bear Sarai a child, but then the mistress changes her mind and Hagar ultimately gets turfed out into the desert. Being a slave (presumably therefore a descendent of Ham?) she doesn't get asked if she wants to be knocked up by the geriatric Abraham. And, again, given that we are dealing with the stories which establish the concept of God's Chosen People as being superior to anyone else, it is unpleasantly prophetic that Ishmael, viewed by some traditions as the father of the Arab peoples, is descibed as dwelling "in the presence of all his brethren" and yet as an outcast and a 'wild man.'
The wonderful novelist and short story writer Sara Maitland has a deeply moving and disturbing short story called Triptych in the Book of Spells collection. It tells the tale of Genesis 16-21, first from the perspective of the abused Hagar, then from a bitter and miserable Sarah, and then it refuses to tell it from Abraham's perspective since, since, as she notes, "almost everyone knows it already." And, as she observes:

"Father Abraham is, frankly, a real bastard. Among other things, he lives off his wife's immoral earnings (cf Capter 12 verses 10-20 et al), he is prepared to bump off his suposedly beloved son in order to please his boss and gain material advantages (Chapter 22). He is almost certainly insane and demonstrably selfish, autocratic, lecherous, cowardly, violent and megalomaniacal. all of these things are renamed 'virtue.' This is called Patriarchy."

Maitland's writing on the women in the story is much more uplifting, in a beautiful and savage kind of way that is typical of her best writing:

"To understand all is to forgive all. And I do not want to forgive. I cannot forgive. I am Hagar who is driven into the desert. I am Sarah who betrays her friend. This nasty cynicism which destroys joy, hope, transformation, magic, truth, love, it is still necessary, still - as always - a useful mutation, an adaptation vital to the survival of the species. As we dance, dance on the hot sands and rejoice, as we laugh, laugh in the cool tents and weep, we must remember and give thanks for that too, alas."

And in between the various stories of Abraham's efforts to breed, we also have the story of destruction of Sodom and Gomarrah, and the turning of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt in Ch19, v26:

"But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

This particular incident follows the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, due to the wickedness of their inhabitants. It's likely that this does actually record some kind of seismic event - the Dead Sea is the northernmost end of the Great Rift Valley and therefore a volcanically active area, and naturally-occurring bitumen was exported from the area from hundreds, or thousands, of years BCE. This is also evidence of thousands of graves at the southern end of the Dead Sea, some of which have been revealed by the shrinkage of the Sea due to Jordan River water being drawn off for Israeli and Jordanian agriculture, and it's thought that these graves date back to Biblical times and the era of the Cities of the Plain.
The wickedness of the inhabitants of these Cities (including some homosexual activity, what the Bible being so liberal on sexual preferences and all that) is contrasted with Lot's virtue, which is apparently demonstrated by the fact that he's willing to hand his virgin daughters over to a baying mob to:

"do ye to them as is good in your eyes,"

just so long as they don't lay a finger on his two male guests.
Great.
I really didn't start reading this version of the Bible seeking to be hostile. I'm busy telling myself that somewhere ahead we've got Ruth and Naomi and Boaz demonstrating some kindness and generosity, and Esther showing that women can be brave and intelligent. But really, I'm not doing so well here on finding much that's admirable or virtuous in the lives of the patriarchs.

Genesis 19 to 23- Attempted gang rape, nukes, incest, wife-swapping, conspiracy to child murder.

Before we get going, an observation. I knew that this “Bible equals 'family values'” was nonsense, but the behaviour of God's favourites is just appalling.

As Roddy McDowall, playing “Benjamin Fischer” said in the The Legend of Hell House (1973)-

Ann: "What did Belasco do to make this house so evil?"
Benjamin: "Drug addiction, alcoholism, sadism, beastiality, mutilation, murder, vampirism, necrophilia, cannibalism, not to mention a gamut of sexual goodies. Shall I go on?"

As the title of this posting says- Attempted gang rape, nukes, incest, wife-swapping, conspiracy to child murder.

Remind me to post the DR and Quinch Go Straight front page one day where the judge finishes a charge sheet with the line "32 crimes so unusual and horrible they do not have names"

Is there a sin these lot haven't committed yet? Or were these things not sins until the Ten Commandments? Answers to these Theological Conundra welcome, via the comments box.

Chapter 19

Lot's tooling around at the gates of Sodom when two angelic guys turn up. First they want to cruise around the town, but he insists- as later the Romans do of Jesus- on putting them up. But the Sodomites, who infamously punt from the Cambridge end, have other ideas

Verse 4-5 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know [translation: “fuck”] them.

Lot says nope (good hosts don't let any forced sex take place, regardless of what bits of genitalia are going where. Surely as long there is informed consent between adults it's nobody's fucking business, eh?). The whole sorry mess becomes a bit like one of those siege scenes in a zombie movie. The angels do some blinding and smiting and tell Lot to get outa Dodge...

Verse 13 “For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

Lot legs it with his wife and two unmarried daughters, (his sons-in-law telling him to piss off.)

More zombie analogies though- there's always that scene where zombie arms burst through windows/doors and start groping the hardy band of survivors!

Verse 16 “And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters: the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city."

The angels (or the Lord?) tell Lot to literally head for the hills, but Lot demures (i.e. disobeys) and heads to a city called Zoar.

Sodom (and Gomorrah) gets nuked. Not that I am a von Danikenian, but it does sound a bit like a nuclear bomb that the angels don't know how to dismantle and they've lost the timer for. The Fourth Protocol of the Elders of Zion, maybe?

And Lot's wife ignores what the Gallaghites told her. And suffers the consequences. And you can imagine one of the daughters saying “Leave her dad, she's NaCled...”

So Lot leaves Zoar, and does go the mountains. And his daughters... gentle reader, you may not want to read it... take turns to get him drunk and shag him to get themselves knocked up.

Huh? WTF? One, if he was so drunk he didn't know what was going on, how did he stay the course? Two, Founder Effect. Three, this is grim grim grim.

Chapter 20

Back to the aged Abram/Abraham. He travels, with family to the kingdom of Abimelech, and... bloody hell, passes his wife off as his sister AGAIN and king Abimelech marries here.

They never told me in Divinity class (I got an A and endured parental teasing) that Abraham was into the wife swap thing- I mean this kind of wife swap, not the tv show. These sorts of allegations should be dogging his good name.

So God tells Abimelech in a dream to knock it off or else

Verse 3 “thou art but a dead man”

And Abimelech says Abraham never effing told him, and anyhow he didn't touch her. God takes the credit for that (so what is the point of the whole effing, or rather, non-effing story, if God already fixed it?) Abimelech is understandably pissed at Abraham for dropping him in it with the Bearded Sky Man.

And Abraham's defence? “It's OK, my wife's actually my half-sister.” Huh? WTF??

So Abimelech's family gets its fertility back.

NB This Sarah must be one hot GILF...(this kind, not this)

Chapter 21

Sarah at a mere 80-something spits out a kid, Isaac.

Hagar, the Handmaid and her son get exiled and “she wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba." Typical, it's the men what get the pleasure, the women who get the pain. But God bails Hagar out, and her kid by Abraham gets an Egyptian wife. So that's alright then.

Meanwhile, Abraham and Abimelech are having more carrying capacity problems.

Chapter 22

Another doozy. Abraham is tested by the Lord, sorry “LORD”, who gets him to take Isaac up a mountain in order to slit his throat.

At the last minute the LORD allows for a switch-hitter sacrifice, (there's a burning bush etc).

But how's the kid gonna feel, knowing his dad was gonna slit his throat cos the voices in his head told him to?

Joseph Heller, author of the hilarious but horrifically misogynistic “Catch-22” I think covered this in his novel “God Knows”, which I may get round to reading some day.

Oh, bugger, Chapter 18 got lost in the mix.

The LORD does a house call to Abraham and Sarah, tells her she will get up the duff, and doesn't strike her dead for disbelieving him.
Then the LORD reveals his plan to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham demures about killing the righteous along with the wicked (aka "collateral damage") and God lets himself get haggled down to Ten Righteous Men will ensure the city's salvation. Generous chap, that God.

Genesis 13 to 17- smiting, land grabs, inconceivable fertility

Chapter 13

Abram and his brother's kid Lot are big and rich

Ch 13 verse 6 And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together: for their substance was great,so that they could not dwell together.

So, here we could talk about carrying capacity, and critiques of Hardin's tragedy of the commons. But we won't.

So Lot lights out for the territory (Sodom, where the men were wicked), which you can't do nowadays that the world ain't empty.

And Abram heads for Hebron. Sigh.

Chapter 14

Kings smiting each other. Or rather, kings getting their underlings to smite each other.
What's a bayonet- a weapon with a worker at both ends...

And Abram goes behind enemy lines to rescue his nephew Lot, and then refuses the booty the King of Sodom offers him.

Chapter 15

So God rewards Abram with a kind of whack fertility programme

verse 9 Take me a heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and turtledove, and a young pigeon. And some slugs, snails and puppy dogs' tails while you're at it.

Crikey, Abram nods off and then...

Verse 18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying. “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates...

There may be trouble ahead... God's no better at real estate than he is at terra-forming...

Chapter 16

Sarai can't get up the duff. She gives Abe her Handmaid, Hagar, to knock up.

It works, but be careful what you wish for

Ch 16 verse 3 And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.

Abram gives Sarai permission to be a cow to Hagar. Sarai is a cow, thus Hagar legs it. She gets skiptraced and brought back by one of gods angels acting as a bailbondsmanangel, who says the kid, “Ismael” is going to be a proper psycho. Which should be no hassle for an 86 year old dad to cope with, eh?

Chapter 17

Abram gets a deed poll from God as a 99^th birthday present- now “Abraham” and Sarai becomes “Sarah.”

And here's the deal. In exchange for the real estate previously mentioned ("all the land of Canaan”) then Abe's lot

Verse 10 Every man child among you shall be circumcised

So, what's the materialist anthropological take on this? Enquiring minds would like to know.
[Tacky joke- “What's the biggest drawback?” “An elephant's foreskin.”]

And Abraham actually laughs in the face of God

Verse 17 Then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed and said in his heart. Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?

God says 'yup, and he'll be called Isaac. And chill, Ishmael the psycho will not be forsaken.'

And Ismael will not be foreskinned either.

Abraham, Ishmael and all the blokes are then circumcised. These verses are basically repeated, which I'll be has made congregations through the ages wince and cross their legs repeatedly when they hear them.