God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (18 page)

We will soon learn that the Philistines pay an enormous price for foolishly allowing Samson to re-grow his hair, as shortly after his imprisonment, the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon, one of their most important gods, for having delivered Samson into their hands. They summon Samson so that he may entertain them. Three thousand Philistines gathered under the roof to enjoy the carnival like atmosphere. However, now inside the temple, Samson, with his hair grown long again, asks the servant who is leading him to the temple’s central pillars if he may lean against one of them.

After his death, Samson’s family recovered his from the rubble and buried him near the tomb of his father Manoah.

The fate of Delilah is never mentioned.

This story is a duplication of that which is told of Lot and his daughters, in the Book of Genesis, which further illustrates how mythology perpetuates and morphs throughout the ages, slightly tweaked along its whispered journey.

The author of Judges tells of an Israelite from the tribe of Levi whose concubine ran off because she had been unfaithful to him. It’s only in the Bible where a concubine, aka ‘booty call’, can be guilty of being unfaithful. The concubine fled to her father’s home in Bethlehem. But before long, her Master followed in hope that he may convince her to return to his harem. Who says there is no romance in the Old Testament?

The Master located her family home and with hat in hand he pleaded with her father to release her back into his custody. The father and the Master became instant buddies and thus the young girl’s fate was sealed, as her father agreed unconditionally to his new friend’s request. They two men ate, drank, laughed and slept for the next five days before the Master departed with his concubine and two donkeys in tow.

The shortest journey home meant travelling through the city of Jebus (Jerusalem), but the Master was reluctant to stay there because the city was filled with Jebusites rather than Israelites. Therefore, he opted to rest for the evening in Gibeah. As was custom in the day, travellers would stand in the city square hoping that a welcoming host would offer accommodation for the evening. As fate would have it, an old man from the hill country of Ephraim would be the gracious and generous hotelier for this particular night and the master and his concubine followed him to his house.

Whilst the three of them were enjoying dinner, a loud knock at the door interrupted their pleasantries. A rabble of men had congregated in front of the entrance to the house. The men yelled out:

The host replied in the same incomprehensible and unforgivable manner that Lot had, as told earlier in the Bible:

Further reinforcement for how lowly women rated on man’s balance sheet, in the eyes of God.

Judges Count: 6,500

Massacre of the Caanites = 2,000.

God sees to the slaughter of the Ammonites to Jephthah = 2,000.

Solomon kills 1,000 men with a donkey’s bone.

Solomon kills at least 1,500 men with the destruction of the temple.

Cumulative Count: 31,736,532

Gypsy Rose Lee

As you may well guess, Ruth is the leading character in this rather short book consisting of only four chapters. Four chapters too long in my estimation, as this is a book of little comedic or intellectual value. Thus, I will keep my synopsis succinctly brief.

In Hebrew, Ruth means ‘mercy’ and thus the story shows that God’s grace, salvation and mercy extend beyond Israel to include all peoples. Which may be a blatant piece of God ‘spin’ propaganda to show his more compassionate side after he has performed genocide and barbaric acts of ethnic cleansing to any individual, tribe, city or nation that stood in the path of his beloved people to get what they need or want.

During the time of the Judges there was a famine across all the land. The narrative jumps straight into the story of an Israelite family from Bethlehem, the husband named Elimelech and his wife Naomi. They had two sons, Mahlon and Kilion and relocated their lives to Moab.

Once settled in Moab, both sons marry two Moabite women. Kilion marries Oprah. (Until now I never realized Oprah was a biblical name.) And Mahlon married Ruth. After ten years of residing in Moab, both Mahlon and Kilion die. The circumstances relating to their deaths are not recorded.

Naomi, the mother of Mahlon and Kilion, returns to Bethlehem with her two widowed daughter-in-laws, but soon after returning she urges Ruth and Oprah to head back to their own family under the care of their respective mothers. Oprah heeds Naomi’s advice, but Ruth is adamant that she wants to stay in Bethlehem with Naomi:

No matter how hard you try, you just can’t get rid of some guests, and Naomi reluctantly agrees to take Ruth under her care.

It is now the barley harvest season in Bethlehem and in order to support her mother-in-law and herself, Ruth goes to work in the fields. A field that is owned by a man named Boaz, a man who treats Ruth with grace and kindness because he has learnt of her loyalty to Naomi. As it turns out, Boaz is a near relative of Naomi’s husband’s family and according to the local law he is required to marry Ruth, so that the family lineage can continue. Ruth doesn’t really get a say in any of this, but in the final days leading up to the proposed union with Boaz, it is discovered that another man has the right of first option to marry Ruth. We don’t learn the identity of this second fella, but whoever he is we do know that upon him test-driving the human ‘livestock’ that is Ruth, he decides to exercise his right of first refusal and thus Boaz is given the all clear to marry her.

Boaz and Ruth exchange vows, which judging by the aforementioned text, seems to be little more than a patriarchal ceremony to brand your personal stamp of ownership upon your new live possession. Shortly after, the newlyweds give birth to a son named Obed.

In the genealogy that concludes the story, it is made clear that Obed is the descendant of Perez the son of Judah and the grandfather of David.

As you can see, the Book of Ruth is not the most enlightening or thrilling book of the Old Testament and accordingly we move forward.

Ruth Count: 0

Cumulative Count: 31,736,532

Pablo Picasso

The Book of Samuel gets us back to the journey of fanciful fiction full of dramatic suspense that includes the story of Samuel’s birth and rise to power. His abdication of the throne to Saul, who turns out to be a complete dud and failure, then onto the ascent of David, beginning with his against-all-odds conquest over the giant Goliath. So, let’s begin.

A man from the country of Ephraim, by the name Elkanah, was married to two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Possibly, this is where the Mormons got their inspiration from! Who knows? Anyway, Peninnah had given birth to a number of children for Elkanah, but Hannah had produced none. To Elkanah’s credit he did not favor Penninah over Hannah, and in fact, he would provide more food for his childless wife as an act of compensatory empathy. This, however, obviously irked Penninah, as it is stated:

Again notice how it is the woman’s fault. Maybe, old Elkanah had the sperm count of a small garden pond and was therefore firing blanks. This is the Bible, however, and in this book - history was written by the penile sex, therefore blame befalls the ladies.

Hannah prayed continuously to God, directly and through a priest named Eli. At the conclusion of one of Hannah’s prayers, Eli having overheard her plea for a child, replied:

The following morning it was said that Hannah no longer felt downcast, but did not know why. Later that night it was her turn on the bedroom roster to share the bed with her polygamous husband. After a quick romp, she successfully conceived a child and nine months later gave birth to a son. Together they named him Samuel.

As a boy, Samuel ministered the word of the God under the tutelage of the priest Eli. It was said that during these times the direct word of God was a rare occurrence and fewer and fewer men were experiencing him in dreams or visions. Hah, they think it was rare back then? It is even far rarer these days, with the exception of when Presidents want to go to war of course.

God’s period of silence was broken, however, when he called out repeatedly to Samuel whilst he slept. Three times he was awoken by God’s thunderous voice from the clouds, but unsure if he was imagining things or not, he went back to sleep. Never being one to walk away from a challenge God tries a fourth time to get Samuel’s attention and on this attempt does so successfully:

God continued to look over Samuel, guiding him through adolescence until he was fit, ready and capable to lead his Israelite nation.

The Israelites and Philistines continue their tit-for-tat violence against one another. If you change just a couple of letters of the word Philistines, you get Palestine and 2000 years later we still have this quid pro quo shit fight from both sides.

On this occasion, however, the Israelites were handed a heavy defeat on the battlefield, with the loss of more than 4,000 of their men. Upon return from battle, the Israelite soldiers began questioning why it was that God had left them, to bring defeat upon his people. It was decided that during the next phase of fighting they would bring the Ark of the Covenant to the battlefield, as this would surely get their celestial coach juiced up and ready for a conquest.

The Philistines received advanced counter intelligence that the Israelites were planning to bring the Ark to battle the next morning and they duly began to shit themselves, which seems odd that they would be scared of a God they didn’t believe in: