Channel Surfing the Bible
I broke my kneecap and spent weeks in bed trolling the TV channels. Little wonder the major networks are in trouble – there’s only so much reality any sane person can stomach.
So in a classic moment of bargaining I picked up the Bible and started reading it. I think there was a definite element of “I’ll read your book if you’ll fix my knee,” at least in the beginning.
I kind of had the gist of it -- 45 years of church gets you a fairly decent grounding in the main points -- but really reading it – without napping – from the first words -- uncovers some real surprises.
Things that don’t seem Bibl-ish at all. For example, in Genesis they mention that (I paraphrase) “The sons of God liked the women of Earth and started mating with them – which begat the race of Giants known as the Anakim.” I’m not making this up.
But once you get past these oddities, the whole book of Genesis is action packed. Most of the stories you know – Noah, Sodom and Gommorrah, Lot, Isaac, Abraham, Jacob and Esau . We’re well into Moses before the chapter’s up.
Which makes Genesis easily the best book of the Bible. It’s like HBO – all of It’s quality, It changes all the time to a new story, and It moves right along. Excellent! I finish Genesis, and I’m thinking, this is great, why didn’t I read this sooner? And then I hit Exodus.
Which starts out okay, but quickly devolves into something closer to the Home Decorating channel, interrupted by Jerry Springer.
Chapter after chapter the family conflict repeats: The Israelites bitch and moan about the accommodations in the desert –“why did you bring us out here to wander around, we could’ve stayed nice safe slaves in Egypt. It’s manna day in and manna day out.” Can you believe it? Bread from heaven and they complain? You know what God does about that? Pelts them with doves. Seriously. He says, “You want meat? I’ll give you so much meat you’ll puke.” And this is him in his good mood.
Moses, the negotiator, gets sick of them all and says to God, Why did you put me in charge of these whiners? So God says, fine, I’ll kill 12,000 or so. To which Moses replies, no, no, don’t do that, I was just tired. They’re fine, really. Great people. Your people. Let’s don’t kill them. How about we build you a temple instead?
And God gets all like, “Well, if you insist,”, and then gets REALLY SPECIFIC about the décor. 12 cubits hung with purple cloth trimmed in gold with an eagle affixed to the top and swags of gold in between the columns, and yada yada yada. For pages and pages. It’s all about the curtains. Did the weavers and dyers union underwrite this one? Because it’s product placement for days.
I almost quit reading. But I slog on and get to Leviticus. I’m thinking at least the temple’s built, we can move on to bigger issues. No such luck.
If Exodus is the Decorating channel, Leviticus is the Food Channel. Or more specifically, the Barbeque channel. It’s a guide to what to burn to gain forgiveness of each of your sins. Sin by sin, animal by animal, entrail by entrail. No wonder Orthodox Jews don’t consume any blood. They need it to sprinkle around and burn. It’s gory, repetitive, and kind of creepy. You just have to ask yourself why God would need people to do this. Having never gored a Bull and poured its blood on my head, I’m fuzzy on the intended effect, and rather grateful John the Baptist switched to water. All I can think is, I hope they have good shampoo.
27 chapters of this and I’ve finally gotten to Numbers. True to its title, Numbers is the Census Channel. It names the 12 tribes and divvies up the goods for each. Oh, and God gets mad and wipes a few thousand of the chosen off the planet. That was one time Moses couldn’t talk him down. Bummer.
Deuteronomy is where I am now. It’s a lot of summation, repeating the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) twice, and yammering on about traditions and holding on through the generations. Definitely the History Channel, and not that interesting, but you know what? My knee is better. Who knows how I’ll be by the time Joshua Judges Ruth?
So in a classic moment of bargaining I picked up the Bible and started reading it. I think there was a definite element of “I’ll read your book if you’ll fix my knee,” at least in the beginning.
I kind of had the gist of it -- 45 years of church gets you a fairly decent grounding in the main points -- but really reading it – without napping – from the first words -- uncovers some real surprises.
Things that don’t seem Bibl-ish at all. For example, in Genesis they mention that (I paraphrase) “The sons of God liked the women of Earth and started mating with them – which begat the race of Giants known as the Anakim.” I’m not making this up.
But once you get past these oddities, the whole book of Genesis is action packed. Most of the stories you know – Noah, Sodom and Gommorrah, Lot, Isaac, Abraham, Jacob and Esau . We’re well into Moses before the chapter’s up.
Which makes Genesis easily the best book of the Bible. It’s like HBO – all of It’s quality, It changes all the time to a new story, and It moves right along. Excellent! I finish Genesis, and I’m thinking, this is great, why didn’t I read this sooner? And then I hit Exodus.
Which starts out okay, but quickly devolves into something closer to the Home Decorating channel, interrupted by Jerry Springer.
Chapter after chapter the family conflict repeats: The Israelites bitch and moan about the accommodations in the desert –“why did you bring us out here to wander around, we could’ve stayed nice safe slaves in Egypt. It’s manna day in and manna day out.” Can you believe it? Bread from heaven and they complain? You know what God does about that? Pelts them with doves. Seriously. He says, “You want meat? I’ll give you so much meat you’ll puke.” And this is him in his good mood.
Moses, the negotiator, gets sick of them all and says to God, Why did you put me in charge of these whiners? So God says, fine, I’ll kill 12,000 or so. To which Moses replies, no, no, don’t do that, I was just tired. They’re fine, really. Great people. Your people. Let’s don’t kill them. How about we build you a temple instead?
And God gets all like, “Well, if you insist,”, and then gets REALLY SPECIFIC about the décor. 12 cubits hung with purple cloth trimmed in gold with an eagle affixed to the top and swags of gold in between the columns, and yada yada yada. For pages and pages. It’s all about the curtains. Did the weavers and dyers union underwrite this one? Because it’s product placement for days.
I almost quit reading. But I slog on and get to Leviticus. I’m thinking at least the temple’s built, we can move on to bigger issues. No such luck.
If Exodus is the Decorating channel, Leviticus is the Food Channel. Or more specifically, the Barbeque channel. It’s a guide to what to burn to gain forgiveness of each of your sins. Sin by sin, animal by animal, entrail by entrail. No wonder Orthodox Jews don’t consume any blood. They need it to sprinkle around and burn. It’s gory, repetitive, and kind of creepy. You just have to ask yourself why God would need people to do this. Having never gored a Bull and poured its blood on my head, I’m fuzzy on the intended effect, and rather grateful John the Baptist switched to water. All I can think is, I hope they have good shampoo.
27 chapters of this and I’ve finally gotten to Numbers. True to its title, Numbers is the Census Channel. It names the 12 tribes and divvies up the goods for each. Oh, and God gets mad and wipes a few thousand of the chosen off the planet. That was one time Moses couldn’t talk him down. Bummer.
Deuteronomy is where I am now. It’s a lot of summation, repeating the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) twice, and yammering on about traditions and holding on through the generations. Definitely the History Channel, and not that interesting, but you know what? My knee is better. Who knows how I’ll be by the time Joshua Judges Ruth?
posted by Whoopla at
7:22 AM
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