July 17, 2009, 8:01 am by dc-agape.

Exodus 21:12-36

This section is about personal property.  Mostly it is about slaves, but one section is about pregnancy and some of the other parts are about livestock.  The rest is about punishment for crimes.  These crimes include treatment of parents.  I will attempt to make this as organized as possible but these rules skip and jump from topic to topic.

The first section is about punishments that deserve being stoned to death.  This is very specific, they are not to be allowed to die in any other way except being stoned to death.  These crimes include: deliberate murder, attacking one’s own parents, kidnapping another person, selling another person into slavery, and cursing one’s own parents.  If an accident occurs that kills someone, then the person responsible for the accident is allowed a chance to make amends.

But the treatment of slaves is completely different.  An owner can beat his slaves with one limitation.  They must be able to get back to work in “a day or two”.  YHWH is perfectly fine with owners beating slaves.  He finds nothing wrong with this and does not even consider it a sin, unless the slave dies.  Even the punishment for killing a slave is not recorded.  We do not know if stoning is the appropriate punishment or if something less severe is acceptable.  We do know that when a slave owner beats his slave there are two conditions where the slave can go free.  These are if the owner damages the eye or the tooth of the slave.

The abortion rights groups love this one paragraph in this chapter.  In the case of a pregnant woman being hurt by a man, Hammurabi’s Code is invoked.  That is “eye for an eye, limb for limb, and life for life”.  So it would seem that YHWH does demand punishment for abortions.  What is so obviously overlooked from this chapter is all the other punishments!  How many children would be alive today if striking or cursing your parents was punished by stoning to death?  Why is slavery not still practiced, YHWH is perfectly accepting of this?  You have to take it all or none, one cannot pick and choice which Bible verse will be followed.

The rest of the chapter is about livestock.  Specifically three cases.  The first one is about bulls that gouge humans.  They must be stoned to death.  The owner is not responsible for the beast’s actions, unless he knows that this animal had a habit of attacking other creatures.  Guess what the punishment is in that case?  You guessed it, stone him to death.    Another case is about livestock and pits.  If livestock fall into a pit dug by someone else, the owner of the pit must pay for the injured/dead animal.  The pit owner does get to keep the animal.  The final case is about the death of a bull by another bull.  If this death occurs with no warnings, then both owners will split the profits from the living bull.  But, again, if one of the bulls is known to be aggressive, then ownership will switch.  The owner of the docile dead bull receives the aggressive bull in payment for the dead bull.  This does not seem quite as fair as it seems.  Now the owner must prevent the aggressive bull for doing harm!  And he had owned a bull that was completely docile.  Some of YHWH’s rules are not as logical or just as they may seem.   

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July 16, 2009, 9:37 am by dc-agape.

Exodus 21:1-11

YHWH does not only accept slavery of other nations, he allows Hebrews to be slaves as well.  But YHWH treats male slaves differently than female slaves.  Male slaves are only to be owned for 6 full years.  Then they are free.  There is a caveat, if the owner gives the slave a wife, the slave must choose between his wife and freedom.  If he chooses to stay with his new wife he will be a slave for the rest of his life.  Cute little trick there!  Because you see woman slaves are not allowed to go free unless certain conditions are met.

Female slaves are obviously for sexual purposes:

Exodus 21:10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing, or marital rights.

A number of conditions will free a female slave.  First, if the owner is not satisfied by her she can be redeemed.  The other way a female slave can be set free is by breach of contract.  This breach would occur if the owner did not provide the female slave with: food, clothing, or marital rights.  In other words, he has purchased a wife – a slave wife.

Not only does YHWH condone slavery he has set specific rules for freeing them.  In these rules YHWH is a misogynist.  It is obvious that women were only used for reproductive purposes.  And YHWH was clearly accepting of this practice.  Could YHWH have changed, of course not.  He is still the “god” of the Old Testament.  Could YHWH have been accepting of a practice that he found revolting, of course not.  No the image of YHWH is without doubt a misogynist.

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June 14, 2009, 6:54 am by dc-agape.

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Exodus Chapter 2:11-25

This is the story of a hideous crime, a cover up, and the murderer being blessed by YHWH.  But then Levi, Moses’ great-grandfather murdered an entire city of Shechem for a single suspected crime.  But of course, two things make this murder OK by YHWH.  First, the 10 commandments have not been written yet.  And second, Moses does kill an unbeliever.

Here again, the childhood of the story is missing.  He is born and then he is an adult.  Childhood is something that is either boring to the Israelites or not important.  Moses goes out, from his sheltered life in the palace, to gloat at the Israelite slaves.  In the process he saw the injustice of slavery – a master beating his slave.  Of course, this is not the moral of the story – Christians have approved of slavery until the United States Civil War.  So Moses premeditatedly kills the Egyptian:

Exodus 2:12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

This is not a murder in the heat of the moment, nor is it an accident.  Moses had to wait until the Egyptian was neither near Israelites nor any other Egyptian to accomplish this murder.  It was cold, it was calculated, and it was premeditated.  Worse is that he covered up the murder by hiding the body, which means that he had no remorse, and that he would have had to continue to plan how to keep the body out of sight until he could bury it. 

Well, as it turns out, he did not do a good job.  The very next day he interrupts a fight between two Israelite slaves, I guess the slave masters enjoyed watching this sort of thing.  In fact, you would think that the slave masters would break it up, due to slow down in work and possible loss of a laborer.  Well instead of being thankful that Moses stopped an abusive Egyptian, the Israelite asks Moses:

Exodus 2:14 The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”

The Israelite is more afraid of Moses than thankful.  Moses is more worried about himself than remorseful.  Worse the Pharaoh does find out and tries to kill Moses.  How unjust the Pharaoh is for wanting to punish a murderer!  Instead of facing his punishment, Moses flees the country.  Not only that but he goes to Midian about 200 miles away.

Midian it turns out is actually a monotheist country that worships YHWH.  When Moses gets to a well in the area he meets the daughters of one of YHWH’s priests.  Some men drove the Midianite daughter from the well, but Moses steps in and helps the woman.  He goes so far as to also water the women’s animals for them.  I wonder if he killed the shepherds.

Well the women when on their way and when they arrived at home their father was surprised at how quickly they had finished the task of watering the flocks.  Moses must have been a very strong man…he did the work of seven women in less time than they would have.  Reuel, their father, tells them to invite the Egyptian back to have dinner with them.  In the process, Moses marries one of the daughters and has a child that is half-Midian.   

Even though Moses was protected by a Midian who worshipped YHWH, and marries one of the daughters of the Midianites, YHWH was not going to let the Midianites live:

Numbers 31:1 The Lord said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites.  After that, you will be gathered to your people.”

Within Moses’ lifetime the Midianites (his wife’s nation and worshipper of YHWH) did nothing to the Israelites to deserve vengeance – try finding it in the Word of God!  In fact, what you will find is that after Balaam warns the Moabites not to fight the Israelites the Midianites are no longer part of the story!  They have done nothing to the Israelites.  You realize this means that Moses kills his father-in-law and his wife’s sisters, right?

This chapter ends with YHWH “remembering” the suffering that he put on the Israelites.  Two things should be blatantly obvious to the reader of this passage.  One is that it is YHWH plan to have the Israelites become slaves (Gen 15:13).  YHWH plans and orchestrates the enslavement of the Israelites.  Second, is YHWH so absent minded that he has to remember that his “chosen people” are suffering?  Even worse is that during this entire time that the Israelites were slaves, YHWH turned a blind eye to the suffering that he designed, but he finally becomes concerned:

Exodus 2:25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

Now isn’t odd that an omnipotent all-knowing YHWH would all of a sudden after decades of slavery (if not centuries) recognize what he had done to his “chosen people”?  But this is exactly how the Word of God is written.  YHWH ignores their suffering for at least 60, if not 100 years or more! 

As an Atheist I know I have heard the line “YHWH works at his own time frame” and “YHWH works in mysterious ways”.  But this takes the cake.  People were suffering, possibly for generations, and he just ignores that he planned their suffering!  Can you think of a less caring or a less loving act than this?  I see no reason to worship a  beast like this, thankfully YHWH is just a man-made image!

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May 7, 2009, 6:38 am by dc-agape.

The next “Last Words of…” will be from Naphtali.   You are correct; Naphtali was one of the least documented “tribes” of Israel.  In fact, I bet you neither know how to spell his name, nor is anything, place, or person using this name today!  Of course, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, and Gad have the same consideration.  What survives of this Tractate is a story that is not in the Old Testament.  It is the story of how Bilhah and Zilpah were given as handmaidens to Leah and Rachel.

Laban is well spoken of in this passage.  For Laban saved the grandfather of Naphtali from captivity.  In the process, Laban gave this unnamed man a wife who is named as Hannah.  Hannah has two children: Zilpah and Bilhah.  Then Laban chose these two daughters to be handmaidens for his own two daughters.

The passage ends with the return to the Book of Genesis.  The point of return is where Rachel continues to not bear children for Jacob.  It ends with the concept that both Dan and Naphtali were born to Bilhah as a result of Abraham having sex with his wife’s handmaiden (slave). 

From a gay Atheist point of view this is “Traditional Biblical Marriage”!  Abraham either has two wives and two concubines or he has two wives and two slave wives.  Love is only mentioned between Jacob and Rachel; the other three women are left in the cold.  The purpose of these three women is to “pop out babies” and nothing more.  Is this the “Traditional Biblical Marriage” that the Defenders of Marriage are trying to protect?  YHWH saw nothing wrong with this arrangement.  So does this not tell us that the original and correct “Traditional Biblical Marriage” is to have multiple wives without the emotion of love involved?

Posted in Dead Sea Scroll, The Last Words..., YHWH & slavery, Biblical Marriage, Family Values?, Readings | Print | 5 Comments »

February 14, 2009, 11:02 am by dc-agape.

Mark 10:1-12

Well this is certainly an interesting section of the Gospel of Mark.  It is Jesus’ teachings on the topic of divorce.  Jesus has only one thing to say, but he does have to answer a question with a question first.  Don’t you love it when someone does that to you?  Doesn’t make you think they are stalling or acting “all superior?  Either way Jesus response makes you think he is a tad bit arrogant.

On the topic of divorce in Deuteronomy it is written in chapter 24:1-4.  It says that a man can divorce his wife for any reason at any time.  But it also says that if she remarries, he can never marry her again.  For some reason Jesus extends this to woman having the same rights.  I guess woman’s lib had progressed from Deuteronomy to Jesus’ time. 

Of course this is the famous section that is used in almost every marriage ceremony and used by bigots to attempt to stop civil rights (both of blacks and homosexuals) – read Mark 10:7-9.  This is where the concept of “traditional biblical marriage” comes from.  But of course this is not traditional OT biblical marriage were slave marriage, polygamy, and levirate marriage were acceptable to YHWH.

But Jesus finishes this lesson with the most powerful and damning commandment in the Christian faith:

Mark 10:10-12 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.  And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

I am repeating these verses verbatim because I know of no “Christian” faith that obeys this teaching.  To live in adultery cannot be forgiven each day…that would cancel this verse:

Romans 8:13-14 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.

Living in the sin of adultery will kill you!  Jesus clearly states that remarriage is off the books.  But do christians follow this teaching of Jesus? It is an emphatic NO!  by ignoring this verse, christians ignore the teachings of Jesus and put their souls at risk.  You cannot be a part “christian”…it’s all or nothing!

I do love that by the time 1^st Corinthians was written by Paul around 55AD (22 years after Jesus taught about divorce) the rules were already changing.  Paul was already softening the teaching of Jesus in these verses 1^st Cor 7:12-16.  At least he admits that it is his saying and not the Jesus’:

1^st Cor 7:12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord); If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.

But notice this is Paul’s opinion not Jesus’.  Jesus makes it quite clear that divorce is OK but remarriage is not.  This is traditional NT biblical marriage!  Man I wish the rabid “TrueChristians™” would get this straight!  They don’t want gays to marry, but they will allow divorce and remarriage!  What a bunch of hypocrites.  That is why it is so difficult for any Christians to debate with an Atheist…your own “brothers and sisters in faith” sabotage you.

Posted in Inerrancy - My Ass, Gospel of Mark, YHWH & slavery, Biblical Marriage, Readings | Print | 6 Comments »

January 22, 2009, 2:07 pm by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 50:15 – 26

Here ends the exploits of YHWH in the Book of Genesis.  This is also the end of the Patriarchs of the Israelites.  Before I did into the Book of Exodus, I want to devote some time to the TrueChristianTM part of the Word of God as well.  My next posts will be in the Book of Matthew.  My plan is to continue flipping back and forth between the Old and New Testaments.  One reason for this is that I don’t want to get bored!  A second is that I don’t want you to get bored.  I also want to provide equal efforts to both Judaism and Christianity.  If I continue to poke holes in the Old Testament it might look as if I am focusing on Judaism, which is not the point of this experiment. 

But let me finish up with the last few verses of Genesis.  In these verses Joseph’s brothers come to him in a panic.  They are afraid he holds a grudge against them for his own slavery.  I can certainly see why they would be worried.  But Joseph reassures them that everything that has happen was because of YHWH and not his brothers.  Here is another example of YHWH interrupting our own freewill.  You see his brothers had to sell Joseph into slavery or none of this would have happened the way YHWH had planned!  So now we understand that YHWH made Joseph’s brothers jealous of him, YHWH gave Judah the idea to sell Joseph into slavery, YHWH made sure that the Ishmaelites where close by to purchase Joseph, and YHWH even made Potiphar purchase Joseph!  So how many people did YHWH take freewill away from in this story?  If we continue with this trend…even the sexual advances of Potiphar’s wife onto Joseph were controlled by YHWH.  YHWH made Potiphar’s wife sin!  How does this make YHWH a good god, loving god, or even a god to be worshipped?

The brothers of Joseph have another thing to worry about as well.  Joseph has sold all the peoples of Egypt and Canaan into slavery.  Does this include his brothers?  If so he is there master!  Not only can he take his grudge out on them as a powerful Egyptian second-in-command, but even worse he can take his grudge out on them as their slave owner!  Now this may not be the case, we know that the priests of Egypt were not sold into slavery, maybe Joseph provided free food to all his relatives.  But if this happened, it would only strengthen the case for the famine to be due to corruption and not to a natural occurring event!  Can you imagine living in during a famine as great as this seven year famine and know that certain people were being provided for without being sold into slavery?  We start to see why the Israelites were hated by the Egyptians.  Either Joseph sold his brothers into slavery or the people of Egypt forced slavery onto the Israelites for the corruption that Joseph perpetrated!

An interesting thing occurs is how his brothers approach Joseph about their fears.  They lie to him!  This is a great example of “godliness”!  The patriarchs of the Jewish and Christian religion cannot help themselves; they cannot “live righteously before the Lord”. Here is the lie:

Gen 50:16-17 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.  Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.”  When their message came to him, Joseph wept.

You can tell this is a lie for a number of reasons.  First, they do not go to Joseph, they send him a message.  You can always lie better is the person cannot see your face.  Second, Joseph was with his father during the “Blessing of Jacob” and at his death bed.  Israel had plenty of time to make the instructions directly to Joseph!  But it was a very effective lie, it caused Joseph to weep.  Joseph realized that he was negligent in his treatment of his entire family.  This is a Biblical family value?

Years later Joseph is preparing to die.  But before he dies he gets to see the great grandchildren: the sons of Makir, who is the son of Manasseh.  He pleads with his living relatives that when they leave Egypt to take his body and be buried in Canaan!  He does not request where his bones to be buried, he just does not want to be buried in Egypt. 

There is one thing that as a gay Atheist I cannot forget to bring up.  It is about the “christian” interpretation of a never-changing trust-worthy YHWH.  Joseph is the first character in the entire Word of God that fulfills YHWH decree that man’s life will be 120 years (Gen 6:3). After only 650 years YHWH has finally gotten around to being consistent.  This never changing, truthful god has been inconsistent and lying for 650 years!  I guess he gets better at those qualities as he matures.

Posted in YHWH & slavery, Joseph, Family Values?, Genesis, Freewill, Readings | Print | No Comments »

January 18, 2009, 10:19 am by dc-agape.

Genesis 47:13-31

Without a doubt, the famine of the Bible was man-made.  This is the story of how Joseph made all the people of Egypt (I wonder if that included his family) into slaves to the Pharaoh.  Now Joseph is forcing the people to buy back the stocks of food that Joseph forced the people to give to him.  Talk about corruption!  They paid a “tax” to Joseph to prepare for the famine and now they have to sell their livestock, land, and bodies to Joseph to get their food back from Joseph!  Have you ever seen such a scam?  So this is a Biblical value?  He did not prepare for the famine to help the people of Egypt; he did it knowing full well that if he charged a high enough price (for the grain the people grew themselves) he would force the people of Egypt into slavery!

I wonder if this verse is still true:

Gen 47:26 So Joseph established it as a law concerning land in Egypt – still in force today – that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh.  It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaoh’s.

It would seem that this law has been changed drastically since Joseph’s time!  So here is another case of the inerrancy of the Word of God is proven wrong.  For a purely literal interpretation of this verse…there is no Pharaoh at all.  So either translation of this verse proves that the Word of God is not inerrant.

In the last part of this story Jacob Israel makes Joseph promise not to bury him in Egypt.  Here YHWH has both forgotten that he changed Jacob’s name and that he had decreed that man’s life would be 120 years.  Israel was 147 years old when he forced Joseph to make the promise to bury Israel in Machpelah.

In doing a little research on the web, Google Book has an interesting tidbit on the authenticity of the first chapters of Genesis, which include Machpelah.  The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives, Chapter 10, p295 (by Thomas L Thompson, Continuum International Publishing, 2002) has a great look at the research that has gone into proving/disproving the Biblical inerrancy of the land sale of Machpelah.  The Traditions of Men claim this Machpelah as a holy site, but research cannot prove this point.  In fact, research cannot pin down the date of the Patriarchs.  This book by T L Thompson looks like a valuable read to me!

Posted in Joseph, YHWH & slavery, Genesis, Readings | Print | 2 Comments »

January 2, 2009, 10:22 am by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 34

This is a chapter about Dinah the daughter of Leah and Jacob.  Here again is a chapter where the Patriarchs of Israel do not have faith in YHWH and do not call upon his name.  The story starts out serine enough.  Dinah goes out among the women of Canaan (the descendants of Ham). 

While out with the girls, the son of a powerful man violates her.  Shechem was the name of the man that loved Dinah: 

^{Gen 34:3} His heart was drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and he spoke tenderly to her.

This might be very similar to date rape today or it could have been consensual.  As despicable as the act was, he was willing to do anything, pay any price for marriage to Dinah.  He wanted to correct his mistake!  How many men today will do that without a father’s shotgun?  Shechem’s father, Hamor, goes to Jacob to make the arrangements.

Jacob’s sons are filled with rage and flat out lie to Shechem and Hamor.  They demand genital mutilation before they will give consent to the marriage.  Shechem is so in love with Dinah that he and his father agree.  Even more they talk the all the men of the city into mutilating each individual’s genital.  The entire city is willing to take such a drastic action.  It might be true that they are thinking of their offspring with the sons of Israel, but is this not proof that they are willing to make a covenant with YHWH in the process?  Today, would an entire town mutilate their genitals just so one man could marry?  Jacob had 11 sons that needed wives; he has little choice about where those wives will come from.

The men of the city of Shechem followed through with the mutilation as required.  But instead of allowing Shechem to marry Dinah, Simeon and Levi attack the city!  They kill all the men, before the men recover from the genital mutilation.  To make things worse, they take all the possessions of the city, including the flocks, herds, and donkeys.  But they are not finished yet…no they take the women and children as well!

Let’s count the sins that were committed in this story.  The non-Israelite violates Dinah; we are not sure if this is rape, or if it is consensual.  The son’s of Israel on the other hand commit at least 5 sins.  First they have committed the sin of taking the place of YHWH as judge, truly arrogant.  Second, they have not called upon the name of YHWH during this episode; this was an act of man.  They bore false witness to the men of the town of Shechem.  They then murdered the men of the city, every single one, even the innocent ones!  Finally, they stole everything of value from the men they murdered without YHWH command.  Our society today would add one more sin to the list, even though it is not one of YHWH’s.  The women and children of Shechem are now slaves to the sons of Israel.  The women and children of Shechem have been denied freewill, and will be forced to either do manual labor or marry the sons of Israel!

To say the least, Jacob is troubled by the actions of Simeon and Levi.  He is worried that all of Canaan will turn against him and his family…for good reason!  All the sons can say is:

^{Gen 34:31} But they replied, “Should be have treated our sister like a prostitute?”

I sure am glad that we act a little more civilized today when premarital sex occurs!  Can you imagine the bloodshed if we acted in such a way today?

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December 21, 2008, 11:08 am by dc-agape.

Chapter 29:31-30:24

At this point Jacob has two wives, but he only loves one of them.  Being a good husband he has sex with both of them, even though it is obvious that he has neither respect nor love for Leah.  One of the possible problems of marrying first cousins is being barren but many other undesired effects can occur.  YHWH allows this type of sexual propagation of the offspring of Jacob with this knowledge. 

Leah is the first to have a son.  She names the boy “he has seen my misery” or more concisely Reuben.  Wouldn’t you love to grow up with that name?  She continues to bear children for Jacob, but Jacob does not love her more for each son born.  She has Simeon, Levi, and Judah.  Still Jacob only loves and respects Rachel. 

Rachel on the other hand, becomes jealous (do I hear “Satan”) over how her sister is popping out sons.  In desperation, she gives her slave to Jacob as a wife.  Bilhah does not have a choice in the matter, she is a slave.  This is equivalent to rape.  But in the process Bilhah has two sons: Dan and Naphtali.  At this point Jacob has three wives and 6 sons.

Leah recognizes that she has become barren and rushes to give Jacob another slave wife that he can rape.  Zilpah has two sons: Gad and Asher.  Now Jacob has four wives and 8 sons.  But two of these wives are slaves, with no freewill.

Rachel at this point is beyond desperate.  Without even calling on YHWH, she approaches Leah and wants a magical plant that Reuben has just collected.  Hmm, I wonder what ever Leah wanted with it?  To get the mandrake from Leah, Rachel allows Leah to have sex with Jacob.  When a wife must hire her husband:

^{Gen 30:16} So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrake.” So he slept with her that night.”

You really can tell that Jacob is an ass!  When Leah, his wife, has to buy his sexual favors like a prostitute, that’s just wrong!  It turns out that Leah gets pregnant from this episode, and names the son Issachar.  In fact, Leah has sex with Jacob at least two more times and gives birth to Zebulun and Dinah.

Finally, YHWH remembers that Rachel even exists, possibly because of the mandrake root, and Jacob’s last child is born, who is named Joseph.  In the end, Jacob has two wives, two slaves that he has sexual intercourse with, one daughter, and 12 sons, of which only one is his favorite.  What a man!  Here is a wonderful example of what YHWH wants each and every one of us men to be like.  You women out there are shit out of luck; YHWH just wants you to pop out babies.

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November 20, 2008, 7:45 am by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 16

This is the chapter where the Islamic and Judeo-christian faiths are split.  As we saw in the last chapter, Sarai lack of children has been a burden to Abram’s faith.  Sarah decides that her slave Hagar can change that.  Yes, that’s right, Hagar the slave girl, will be given to Abram as a “wife”.  So not only is this the first case of polygamy in the Word of God, but it is also the first case of sexual abuse of slaves.  Hagar has no choice in the matter, she is just property to be used, and boy does Abram “use” her.   Here is another sign that Abram is not faithful to YHWH.  Abram does not wait on YHWH, but takes matters into his own hands.  He goes ahead and has sex with his wife’s slave.  Abram is certainly not barren; in his 86th year of life he impregnates his slave wife Hagar.  Well this causes problems between Sarai and Hagar.  Now the problems between Sarai and Hagar are Abram’s fault.  If he had just not had sex with that slave his wife gave him, Sarai would still be a happy barren wife.  Well Abram again, just as in Lot’s case, does not make a choice.  Instead, he leaves the choice up to Sarai what to do with Hagar.  So Sarai mistreats the woman she gave to Abram as a sex slave wife.  Well as you would expect, Hagar runs away to end the punishment that she did not deserve.YHWH’s angel finds her and asks her a few questions.  Hagar tells the angel what has happened, because as only an angel he knows nothing about YHWH’s favorite family.  Here the angel promises Hagar that her children will be too numerous to count.  Again, as previously in chapter 13 and 15, this is an easy promise, since the human population is small.  Let’s take an example, if Abram has 1 child (Isaac), and Isaac has 2 children, then Jacob has 12 children, and then those 12 children become 12 tribes.  We see here exponential growth, if we continue this trend for another 2000 years…the results are your offspring will be as numerous as the stars (or dust, or sand, or too numerous to count).

The angel of the YHWH goes on to tell Hagar that her son’s offspring will be hostile towards the other sons of Abram.  Well, I guess, you have to admit that prophecy came true.  So Abram, the father of Israel, is responsible for all the troubles in the Mid-east.  Man it would have been great if YHWH’s man of the hour could have just kept his pants on!  So we end the chapter with Hagar returning to the abusive owner’s wife and the owner husband who will not do anything about his abusive wife.  Wow! Abram is almost as great as YHWH at doing nothing and still being a loving being.

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