Number of times Pharaoh hardens his heart: 3
Number of times God hardens Pharaoh's heart: 8
I guess once upon a time free will was not the philosophical and moral sticky widget it is nowadays? By modern standards, this part of Exodus is super sketchy! Also it is super formulaic, it is just plague, repentant Pharaoh, end of plague, hardened hearted Pharaoh, repeat.
You really think for a second that after God kills all those firstborns it'll be over, or at least that Pharaoh will be hardening his own heart from now on, but no! Imagine being Moses, you're a very nervous public speaker but you keep going head to head with Pharaoh as the people you grew up with become more and more beset by plagues because the disembodied voice of a burning bush keeps bossing you around and occasionally trying to kill you, and it's very clear this disembodied voice could just make Pharaoh DECIDE to let everyone go immediately but instead goes through this whole rigmarole of intentionally making Pharaoh LESS compliant, just so he can torture Egyptians and murder their children, but finally, FINALLY, Pharaoh is letting you all go. The bags are packed, the cattle rounded up, the bread unleavened, the goats sacrificed, the penises circumcised, everything is SET, you are OUT of Egypt and in the desert, and after all that God says to you, "Hey, Moses, I've got this great idea: I'm gonna harden Pharaoh's heart again! It'll be great!"
I guess on some level I always knew this, but I am really getting now that the point of God was not always to have an all-loving all-powerful being who would care about you and listen to all your problems and forgive you no matter what and be like the nicest Dad ever. The point used to be to be fucking TERRIFIED.
On that note, I don't think the Israelites are terrified enough. Seriously, whenever anything goes wrong they are all, "Ugh, why did you even BOTHER freeing us? If we'd known food would be hard to find in the DESERT we just would have stayed HOME." To be fair, God always lets things get to the point just before everyone is about to die, and then he steps in and fixes everything while yelling at Moses for the people not having faith. I'm not a business student, but I bet there is a part in Managing 101 about not doing exactly that. Anyway, soon they are eating delicious quail and bread that tastes like honey wafers. But it appears on "the desert floor" which I think means SAND. Honestly, was I the only child who wondered if the manna got covered in sand? Have you ever dropped food on the beach? That shit is DONE FOR.
If you are interested, the amount of manna each person requires is one omer. If you don't know how much an omer is, don't worry! Chapter 16 ends with a delightful clarifying conversion:
Exodus 16:36: Now an omer is the tenth part of an ephah.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Why is God only slightly better than an Egyptian magician?
Real Analysis and Set Theory homework keeps piling up, I've got a midterm on Friday about imaginary numbers and darn it all, but those Heroic dungeons in WoW aren't going to run themselves. So, delays! However, I have been reading Exodus, and even though updates will be more sparse and probably less witty, I would be remiss if I didn't record my current thoughts.
Probably everyone reading this has seen either The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt, so I'll assume we all know the basic plot. The main problem with the story, which is left out of most movie versions but with which most people are still familiar, is that God deliberately hardens Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh will be unwilling to grant God's and Moses' requests. This is mentioned repeatedly, and mostly it comes off like God really REALLY wants to visit all manner of plagues and unpleasantnesses upon the Egyptians, and is just itching for an excuse. Really, God? The generations of slavery(that you twiddled your thumbs during, presumably) aren't enough justification? And who is God worried about justifying himself to, anyways? Maybe that older, more rational brother he has who I'm now sure exists. Still, the whole thing feels like very heavy-handed puppeteering on God's part.
One problem which has troubled me since I was a child, and to which I've never gotten a satisfactory answer, is why can Pharaoh's magicians pull off the same tricks Moses does? It's not like Moses does miracles nobody can replicate, it's that he does miracles which ARE replicated, but not quite as well. Both Moses and the Pharaoh's magicians can turn rods into snakes, but Moses' snake is a little more badass and eats the magicians' snakes. Both can turn water into blood, but the magicians can't turn it back into water (can Moses do this? Probably not). Where is this magic coming from? Is there a source of magic OTHER than God? Can you somehow go over God's head and turn your staff into a snake without his approval? I guess Satan might be doing it, though he hasn't been mentioned at all yet and you'd think for a power display God would step in and put a stop do it. So what gives?
My favorite passage:
Probably everyone reading this has seen either The Ten Commandments or The Prince of Egypt, so I'll assume we all know the basic plot. The main problem with the story, which is left out of most movie versions but with which most people are still familiar, is that God deliberately hardens Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh will be unwilling to grant God's and Moses' requests. This is mentioned repeatedly, and mostly it comes off like God really REALLY wants to visit all manner of plagues and unpleasantnesses upon the Egyptians, and is just itching for an excuse. Really, God? The generations of slavery(that you twiddled your thumbs during, presumably) aren't enough justification? And who is God worried about justifying himself to, anyways? Maybe that older, more rational brother he has who I'm now sure exists. Still, the whole thing feels like very heavy-handed puppeteering on God's part.
One problem which has troubled me since I was a child, and to which I've never gotten a satisfactory answer, is why can Pharaoh's magicians pull off the same tricks Moses does? It's not like Moses does miracles nobody can replicate, it's that he does miracles which ARE replicated, but not quite as well. Both Moses and the Pharaoh's magicians can turn rods into snakes, but Moses' snake is a little more badass and eats the magicians' snakes. Both can turn water into blood, but the magicians can't turn it back into water (can Moses do this? Probably not). Where is this magic coming from? Is there a source of magic OTHER than God? Can you somehow go over God's head and turn your staff into a snake without his approval? I guess Satan might be doing it, though he hasn't been mentioned at all yet and you'd think for a power display God would step in and put a stop do it. So what gives?
My favorite passage:
[9:24]So there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievousGrievous, but impressive! I would think those two things would cancel out; nice show, God!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Uncircumcised Lips and Yet More Incest
School has started! I am chronically behind on homework! Updates will be less frequent, but I will have my Kindle back TOMORROW, so that should help. In the meantime, thoughts on the next two chapters of Exodus!
Did You Know Moses' first request to Pharaoh was NOT for freedom forever, it was for a three day vacation so they could go into the desert and make sacrifices to the Lord? However, unlike the US public school system, Pharaoh does NOT hold with giving extra time off for Jewish holidays. Instead, he takes away their straw and punishes them for making less bricks. So the slaves whine at Moses, who whines at the Lord, who spends the next half chapter saying, yes, he is GETTING to the whole freedom Promised Land thing he promised generations ago.
We also get another family tree recap; it may interest you to know that Moses is NOT a direct descendant of Joseph, even though Joseph was the Good Guy. Moses is the great grandson of Levi, whom you dear readers know as one of the two brothers who defended Dinah's honor through mass murder.
It may also interest you that Moses' mother is also his great aunt, but after a certain point the incest angle just gets too repetitive to be very funny.
Chapter 6 ends with more Moses whining:
Did You Know Moses' first request to Pharaoh was NOT for freedom forever, it was for a three day vacation so they could go into the desert and make sacrifices to the Lord? However, unlike the US public school system, Pharaoh does NOT hold with giving extra time off for Jewish holidays. Instead, he takes away their straw and punishes them for making less bricks. So the slaves whine at Moses, who whines at the Lord, who spends the next half chapter saying, yes, he is GETTING to the whole freedom Promised Land thing he promised generations ago.
We also get another family tree recap; it may interest you to know that Moses is NOT a direct descendant of Joseph, even though Joseph was the Good Guy. Moses is the great grandson of Levi, whom you dear readers know as one of the two brothers who defended Dinah's honor through mass murder.
It may also interest you that Moses' mother is also his great aunt, but after a certain point the incest angle just gets too repetitive to be very funny.
Chapter 6 ends with more Moses whining:
Behold, I am of uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh hearken unto me?They circumcised their LIPS back then? HARDCORE. It seems to me this would, if anything, impede good public speaking. Unless everyone spoke with a heavy lisp EXCEPT for Moses and not having a lisp was considered weird, like that stupid Twilight Zone episode with the pig people.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Exodus: So God and Moses Walk Into A Bar...
Updates may be less frequent for a while, because I left my Kindle at my boyfriend's place so I have to read Exodus online, unless someone in Chicago wants to lend me a bible, and I tend to read slowly online. But I did manage to knock back the first few chapters!
I am a bit concerned; four chapters in and we are definitely over halfway through the plot of The Prince of Egypt. I'm starting to think Exodus is going to be 10 chapters of awesome plot, 30 chapters of people whining in the desert and listing boring and outdated rules for society.
Still, let's enjoy the awesome plot for as long as it lasts! First off, the Pharaoh of Egypt is not super great at thinking things through: "Uh oh, the Jews outnumber us and might one day decide to conquer us! Let's preemptively strike by enslaving them and giving them a really good reason to hate us!" Also, I love that he's ruthless enough to want to kill all the baby boys, but mostly just politely asks the two Hebrew midwives to do it for him, and when they're like, "Sorry, no can do," he's all, "Oh, okay".
Also, the Jews vastly outnumber the Egyptians, who were pretty numerous, but they only have two midwives?
In the Bible version, baby Moses is not surrendered upon the treacherous Nile, but instead hidden on the shore-much less dramatic! I hear in the Qu'ran it is different and more exciting, though. And then Moses' older sister is like, "Hey, I noticed you found a Hebrew baby just this second, want my mom who literally just lost her baby to nurse him?" and nobody puts two and two together, it's great.
Moses grows up in all of two verses, and kills an Egyptian in defense of a Hebrew slave. But then the next day he tells two Hebrews to stop fighting and they're like, "What're you gonna do, murder us like you did yesterday?" Jeez, ungrateful much? I guess, though, if I were part of an enslaved demographic and there was ONE member of the demographic who got to be ROYALTY that would kind of get to me, too.
At the end of Chapter 2, God remembers that promise he made about ten times in Genesis, and how all those descendants he promised don't mean much if they're all enslaved, and how maybe he should be doing something for those people he Chose. It's weird to think that this is the God people credit with constantly watching and caring about every little thing that happens, because here it reads like he spaced out for a few generations. This kind of neglect spells Child Protective Services for us ordinary humans, but God naturally is held to a different, lower standard.
GUYS did you know the phrase Stranger in a Strange Land comes from Exodus 2: 22? It does! It is Moses' self-description, and his explanation for why he names his firstborn son Gershom. Go figure.
In Chapter 2 Moses' father-in-law's name is Reuel, but in Chapter 3 it's Jethro. Go figure again.
God deliberately hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he won't let the Hebrews go. What the hell, God? I mean, seriously, he explicitly says he will make sure Pharaoh is non-compliant. Why?
But everyone's complained about this. What is more confusing, and what is left out of every telling of Moses's story even though it's AMAZING, is this:
What the hell? Moses runs into God in an inn. Clearly the way God interacts with the world is not the way he used to interact with the world. And he wants to kill Moses, in the middle of Moses' journey to do his bidding? Why? And then Moses' wife steps up to the plate, which is awesome, and realizes that God wants what God always wants, which is baby penis skin. The whole incident is very confusing, and entirely ignored. I suppose God was mad that Moses' son wasn't already circumcised, but you'd think it would have come up earlier. Also, why isn't Moses' son circumcised? I guess when you are doing it as part of a deal with God and God clearly isn't holding up his end of the agreement, you stop mutilating penises after a few generations. That's reasonable. But God's back now, and he wants his foreskins!
I am a bit concerned; four chapters in and we are definitely over halfway through the plot of The Prince of Egypt. I'm starting to think Exodus is going to be 10 chapters of awesome plot, 30 chapters of people whining in the desert and listing boring and outdated rules for society.
Still, let's enjoy the awesome plot for as long as it lasts! First off, the Pharaoh of Egypt is not super great at thinking things through: "Uh oh, the Jews outnumber us and might one day decide to conquer us! Let's preemptively strike by enslaving them and giving them a really good reason to hate us!" Also, I love that he's ruthless enough to want to kill all the baby boys, but mostly just politely asks the two Hebrew midwives to do it for him, and when they're like, "Sorry, no can do," he's all, "Oh, okay".
Also, the Jews vastly outnumber the Egyptians, who were pretty numerous, but they only have two midwives?
In the Bible version, baby Moses is not surrendered upon the treacherous Nile, but instead hidden on the shore-much less dramatic! I hear in the Qu'ran it is different and more exciting, though. And then Moses' older sister is like, "Hey, I noticed you found a Hebrew baby just this second, want my mom who literally just lost her baby to nurse him?" and nobody puts two and two together, it's great.
Moses grows up in all of two verses, and kills an Egyptian in defense of a Hebrew slave. But then the next day he tells two Hebrews to stop fighting and they're like, "What're you gonna do, murder us like you did yesterday?" Jeez, ungrateful much? I guess, though, if I were part of an enslaved demographic and there was ONE member of the demographic who got to be ROYALTY that would kind of get to me, too.
At the end of Chapter 2, God remembers that promise he made about ten times in Genesis, and how all those descendants he promised don't mean much if they're all enslaved, and how maybe he should be doing something for those people he Chose. It's weird to think that this is the God people credit with constantly watching and caring about every little thing that happens, because here it reads like he spaced out for a few generations. This kind of neglect spells Child Protective Services for us ordinary humans, but God naturally is held to a different, lower standard.
GUYS did you know the phrase Stranger in a Strange Land comes from Exodus 2: 22? It does! It is Moses' self-description, and his explanation for why he names his firstborn son Gershom. Go figure.
In Chapter 2 Moses' father-in-law's name is Reuel, but in Chapter 3 it's Jethro. Go figure again.
God deliberately hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he won't let the Hebrews go. What the hell, God? I mean, seriously, he explicitly says he will make sure Pharaoh is non-compliant. Why?
But everyone's complained about this. What is more confusing, and what is left out of every telling of Moses's story even though it's AMAZING, is this:
24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.
25 Then 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.
26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband [thou art], because of the circumcision.
What the hell? Moses runs into God in an inn. Clearly the way God interacts with the world is not the way he used to interact with the world. And he wants to kill Moses, in the middle of Moses' journey to do his bidding? Why? And then Moses' wife steps up to the plate, which is awesome, and realizes that God wants what God always wants, which is baby penis skin. The whole incident is very confusing, and entirely ignored. I suppose God was mad that Moses' son wasn't already circumcised, but you'd think it would have come up earlier. Also, why isn't Moses' son circumcised? I guess when you are doing it as part of a deal with God and God clearly isn't holding up his end of the agreement, you stop mutilating penises after a few generations. That's reasonable. But God's back now, and he wants his foreskins!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Retrospective: Genesis!
Things we learn from Genesis
Why children leave their parents and get married and have sex (2:24).
Why snakes don't have legs (3:14).
Why women hate snakes (3:15).
Why childbirth is painful (3:16).
Why there are weeds (3:17).
Why there are rainbows (9:13).
Why people speak different languages (11:7).
Why the hell anyone would ever perform a circumcision (17:10).
Why Jews don't eat of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh (32:32).
I was going to include Why Men Have One Less Rib, which is a common misconception, but then I looked it up and it turns out RIBS GROW BACK, which is a much more awesome biological legitimazation of the creation of Eve.
Things we don't learn from Genesis
Why God has the hots for Abraham, or any of his kids.
Things endorsed by Genesis
Slavery
Incest
Genocide
Staying in an abusive relationship
Tricking old blind men
Impregnating yourwife's wives' servants
Famine profiteering
Numerical SMACKDOWN
Number of times God promises either Abraham or his descendants numerous progeny: 10
Metaphors:
..."as the stars of heaven" : 3
..."as the sand of the sea" : 2
..."the dust of the earth" : 1
Relevant facts
Number of stars: 200 billion in this galaxy alone
...that can be seen by the naked eye: 5770
Number of grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth: 1 million billion billion
...on an average beach: about a billion, give or take...a lot.
Number of dust particles in the world: I can't even. Google and I are both at a loss.
Number of people who have ever lived: about 106 billion as of 2002
Number of descendants of Abraham who have ever lived: No clue, but a lot less than a hundred billion.
So, depending on how you interpret God's covenant, he's either nowhere near fulfilling it, or it was fulfilled centuries ago and also wasn't that impressive of a promise. Either way, it is basically all the same promise and he makes it about ten times, and it's still not fulfilled by the end of Genesis.
Family Troubles
Number of older siblings inexplicably passed over in favor of a younger brother or sister, with unfortunate results for all parties: 14 (10 of which belong to Jacob)
You know, since nearly every main patriarch falls in the "younger child favored for no reason despite social convention" camp, and considering just how many stories in Genesis have the moral of, "Suck it up, sometimes the youngest kid is just better," I'm beginning to wonder if God isn't a passed-over younger child himself. Maybe God has an older brother, who made a wildly successful world, fair and harmonious and peaceful, and their parents always mentioned how good it was, and God got fed up with it and decided to make his OWN world which would be EVEN BETTER and the YOUNGER sons would be the favorites, so take THAT. I mean, it would explain a lot.
Incidentally, a cursory Google search reveals child favoritism does indeed have serious psychological ramifications, both for the out-of-favor children and, counter-intuitively, for the favored child as well. Just a thought.
Number of times a patriarch marries a woman more distantly related than first cousin: 1 (and he was in Egypt, where there were no first cousins to be found)
Number of times a woman tricks her father or father-in-law into bed so she can have a baby: 3
Number of times God punishes a main patriarch for his actions: 0
Number of times God punishes someone else for the actions of a main patriarch: 3
Via infertility: 3
Of an entire country: 2
Writing Style
A good chunk of Genesis is devoted to blandly detailing Abraham's tangled family tree; the word "begat" occurs 67 times, and "bare" 56 times.
Percentage of verses which begin with "And" or "But"
1163/1533 = 76%
To be fair, not all of these are the beginnings of sentences, but a lot of sentences which don't begin with "and" or "but" still begin with inappropriate connectives, so I figure this is a pretty good estimate.
Okay, so that's Genesis. It contains some of the most well-known stories in the Bible, and was one of my favorite parts of my children's comic book bible as a kid. The stories were mostly fragmented, incomprehensible, and stuck between great big chunks of family tree descriptions.
Next up, Exodus! I am looking forward to Exodus-it is one big story instead of a dozen tiny ones, so hopefully it will more closely resemble a proper story.
Bonus Fun fact: Noah's ark was made of gopher wood!
Another fun fact: No one knows what the hell gopher wood is.
Why children leave their parents and get married and have sex (2:24).
Why snakes don't have legs (3:14).
Why women hate snakes (3:15).
Why childbirth is painful (3:16).
Why there are weeds (3:17).
Why there are rainbows (9:13).
Why people speak different languages (11:7).
Why the hell anyone would ever perform a circumcision (17:10).
Why Jews don't eat of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh (32:32).
I was going to include Why Men Have One Less Rib, which is a common misconception, but then I looked it up and it turns out RIBS GROW BACK, which is a much more awesome biological legitimazation of the creation of Eve.
Things we don't learn from Genesis
Why God has the hots for Abraham, or any of his kids.
Things endorsed by Genesis
Slavery
Incest
Genocide
Staying in an abusive relationship
Tricking old blind men
Impregnating your
Famine profiteering
Numerical SMACKDOWN
Number of times God promises either Abraham or his descendants numerous progeny: 10
Metaphors:
..."as the stars of heaven" : 3
..."as the sand of the sea" : 2
..."the dust of the earth" : 1
Relevant facts
Number of stars: 200 billion in this galaxy alone
...that can be seen by the naked eye: 5770
Number of grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth: 1 million billion billion
...on an average beach: about a billion, give or take...a lot.
Number of dust particles in the world: I can't even. Google and I are both at a loss.
Number of people who have ever lived: about 106 billion as of 2002
Number of descendants of Abraham who have ever lived: No clue, but a lot less than a hundred billion.
So, depending on how you interpret God's covenant, he's either nowhere near fulfilling it, or it was fulfilled centuries ago and also wasn't that impressive of a promise. Either way, it is basically all the same promise and he makes it about ten times, and it's still not fulfilled by the end of Genesis.
Family Troubles
Number of older siblings inexplicably passed over in favor of a younger brother or sister, with unfortunate results for all parties: 14 (10 of which belong to Jacob)
You know, since nearly every main patriarch falls in the "younger child favored for no reason despite social convention" camp, and considering just how many stories in Genesis have the moral of, "Suck it up, sometimes the youngest kid is just better," I'm beginning to wonder if God isn't a passed-over younger child himself. Maybe God has an older brother, who made a wildly successful world, fair and harmonious and peaceful, and their parents always mentioned how good it was, and God got fed up with it and decided to make his OWN world which would be EVEN BETTER and the YOUNGER sons would be the favorites, so take THAT. I mean, it would explain a lot.
Incidentally, a cursory Google search reveals child favoritism does indeed have serious psychological ramifications, both for the out-of-favor children and, counter-intuitively, for the favored child as well. Just a thought.
Number of times a patriarch marries a woman more distantly related than first cousin: 1 (and he was in Egypt, where there were no first cousins to be found)
Number of times a woman tricks her father or father-in-law into bed so she can have a baby: 3
Number of times God punishes a main patriarch for his actions: 0
Number of times God punishes someone else for the actions of a main patriarch: 3
Via infertility: 3
Of an entire country: 2
Writing Style
A good chunk of Genesis is devoted to blandly detailing Abraham's tangled family tree; the word "begat" occurs 67 times, and "bare" 56 times.
Percentage of verses which begin with "And" or "But"
1163/1533 = 76%
To be fair, not all of these are the beginnings of sentences, but a lot of sentences which don't begin with "and" or "but" still begin with inappropriate connectives, so I figure this is a pretty good estimate.
Okay, so that's Genesis. It contains some of the most well-known stories in the Bible, and was one of my favorite parts of my children's comic book bible as a kid. The stories were mostly fragmented, incomprehensible, and stuck between great big chunks of family tree descriptions.
Next up, Exodus! I am looking forward to Exodus-it is one big story instead of a dozen tiny ones, so hopefully it will more closely resemble a proper story.
Bonus Fun fact: Noah's ark was made of gopher wood!
Another fun fact: No one knows what the hell gopher wood is.
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