David Kills All the Amalekites - Again (1 Samuel, Chapter 27)

David slaughtering Amalekites.  From Bible Encyclopedia.

In this chapter, David is still worried about King Saul, and is essentially scared that Saul is going to kill him.  That's right.  He's still paranoid about Saul even after sparing Saul's life and Saul admitting that David is favored by their god Yahweh.

So, David fled with his 600 men, went into Philistine and - as usual - embarked on a campaign of slaughtering other tribes.  Among these tribes that were slaughtered were the Amalekites, whom if  you remember were already slaughtered by Saul just a few chapters back.

And that got me to thinking - why all this animosity toward the Amalekites?!? Who were they?  Well, after some research it seems they were from the same ethnic group as the Hebrews, but their tribe was probably much more ancient.  However, the animosity apparently comes from the legends surrounding the Israelites return from slavery under the Egyptians.  While on their Exodus, the Amalekites attacked them, and ever since then the Amalekites have been vilified by the Israelites.

I guess this animosity towards the Amalekites keeps manifesting in Israelite writing in the form of them being utterly annihilated - again and again and again.  I suspect there will be more Amalekite slaughtering in the chapters and books ahead, even though it says quite clearly here "And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive ..."

If you remember from previous chapters, the same thing is always said about the Israelite's massacres and genocides.

Israelites Demand a King (1 Samuel, Chapter 8)

King Saul, from Wikimedia Commons

While Samuel was a good judge, his two sons were apparently a couple of crooks; caring mostly about money, taking bribes, and having bad judgment in general.  So, the Israelites didn't want these two guys running the show.  Instead, they wanted to have a king to judge them.

Samuel was a little butthurt about this and consulted old Yahweh.  Yahweh said by wanting a king, they are rejecting Me, and this is made most abundantly clear by the fact that they are still worshiping other gods!  

Yes, the Israelites are still worshiping other gods!  It's almost like this one isn't obvious enough for them.

Yahweh instructs Samuel to let the people know what a king entails, and Samuel does as he is told.

Sammy boy let's the Israelites know that a king will take all their firstborn sons and use them to ride his chariots in battle, or as foot soldiers; and that a tenth of everything they own will belong to the king.

The Israelites didn't mind that all, and still wanted to have a king to rule over them.  Samuel reports this to the Creator of the Universe, and so He instructs Samuel to appoint a king.  The chapter ends with Samuel calling out to the men of the city, "Go ye every man unto his city."

Photo by Robert Bejil Photography, Creative Commons

The ancient story of Thelma and Louise (Ruth, Chapter 1) - Who are the two hotties shown above, and why did I choose their photo?  Because I can't put photos from the movie Thelma and Louise, for copyright reasons.  But the two women pictured tell the story, a story about an intense friendship between two women.  That is the story that is being told in the Book of Ruth.

Ruth is a Moabite; a tribe of people disdained by the Israelites.  Deuteronomy 23:3 even says, "That no Moabite shall enter the congregation of the Lord."  Her husband was the son of another widow named Naomi, who is an Israelite hailing originally from Bethlehemjudah.

After Ruth's husband died, she chose to stay with her mother-in-law Naomi, while the other sister-in-law decided to separate from them.

Ruth's vow to Naomi was this (Ruth 1:16 -17):  "Do not ask me to leave you, or to return.  For where you go, I will go; and you lodge, I will lodge.  Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.  Where you die, I will die and there will I be buried.  The LORD do so to me, and more also, only death will part you and I."

With this oath, Naomi saw that Ruth was now her lifelong companion.  I know there's a few people out there who think these two are lesbians, but I don't see any reason to go down that route.  They're B.F.F.'s.  Obviously, Ruth loved her mother-in-law a lot, and enjoyed her companionship.

Together, they set out for Bethlehem.

If the Commandments were in order of importance, this would be the second most immoral thing you could do.

Deuteronomy, Chapter 4 - once again Yahweh brings up the Second Commandment. "When thou ... make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and do evil in the sight of the Lord, you shall perish upon the land and be utterly destroyed."

I'm trying to understand this irrational paranoia about the graven image. While I'm convinced the punishment is ridiculous, I kind of understand what the authors were trying to get at. A graven image isn't the thing itself, or the 'ding an sich'. It's merely a representation of something.

So, a drawing of a bird, for example, is nothing more than a manmade representation of a bird. It's obviously not the real thing. Apparently, to the ancient Hebrews, this was a problem.

Since they were the descendents of Sumerians and Canaanites, it's quite likely that a lot of Israelites still held on to the beliefs in other gods within the Sumerian/Canaanite pantheon. And they probably had a lot of idols to represent each of these gods. The Israelite priesthood, who was really trying to get this Yahweh thing off the ground, decided that the best way to deal with this was to ban graven images entirely.

The Catholic Church, a 1000 years later, approached the subject with a different strategy. Instead of banning idols, they simply incorporated their own images to substitute the idols of various barbarian tribes. The Catholic saints are usually the replacement of various pagan gods. For example, St. Nicholas replaces the Greek god Poseidon.

I'm inclined to believe that the Catholic Church's tactic was a little more successful. It incorporated more people, and it didn't alienate them at all.

Above: A favorite piece of 'evidence' from conspiracy theorists. A Photoshopped picture of an alleged giant, whom are supposed to have been descended from the Nephilim.

Remember in Start Trek, or Star Wars for that matter, when the captain and all of his highest ranking officers would be the FIRST people to explore a new planet? Well, that's what the Israelites kinda did with Canaan, as of Numbers, Chapter 13.

Of course, in Star Trek, Captain Kirk joined them. Moses, a little wiser then Kirk, stayed behind. He lined up the chiefs of the 12 tribes of Israel, and told them to go and explore the land of Canaan which lies just beyond.

"Go south, and up the mountain. Scout out what type of people live there, what sorts of cities they live in, whether the land is good, and bring back the fruits of the land," said Moses to the chiefs.

And so they went. Deep into the wilderness, and they found a huge cluster of grapes, so big it took two men to carry it.

After 40 days, they returned to Moses, with an interesting report.

One of the chiefs said, "Yea, the land definitely flows with milk and honey, but the people are strong there."

Another chief, a man named Caleb, quieted down the excitement at the news, and like any good opportunist, said, "Let's go there right now and take the land. It'll be easy for us kick their butts!"

But Caleb was quickly rebutted. "We can't fight the people there. They're friggin' humongous! We are like grasshoppers compared to them."

At this news, the Israelites suddenly start crying. Maybe they were scared? They start getting angry at Moses again. What a bunch of whiners these people are!

"Why did we follow Moses out of Egypt? Now we're going to die by a bunch of humongous giants!" they'd yell. "Maybe we should find a new leader to return to Egypt."

Didn't these motherf**kers learn? Yahweh lit a bunch of these whining maggots on fire, and then besot them with plagues just for whining. That should've been the first commandment. "No f**king whining!"

Sure enough, Yahweh gets wind of these complaints and once more must show these guys who's boss. Right before the Israelites decide to stone Joshua (one of Moses' supporters), Yahweh shows up at the Tabernacle, all smoke and fire. Yahweh threatens to kill every single Israelite and make an even greater nation from their ashes.

Moses, who is apparently much more reasonable then Yahweh, who is supposedly the all-knowing Creator of the Universe, according to most religionists. He actually persuades Yahweh.

"Don't kill them," said Moses. "If you do that, then the Egyptians will hear about it and laugh because You weren't able to lead them successfully."

And so they strike a deal. Yahweh compromises and agrees not to kill everyone. The key word, of course, is 'everyone'. Instead, He's just going to kill everyone over the age of 20. "The carcasses of the rest will fall in the wilderness," He said.

In addition, Yahweh makes it so that the Israelites will be forced to wander the wilderness for 40 years! Imagine that, a trip that would probably only take a few weeks - and they have to do it for 40 years!

Yahweh even killed the men who went scouting the land, apparently because it was their report that started this rebellion. Numbers 14:36 says they 'slandered' the land, and that leads me to think that maybe there were no giants.

Next time, the Israelites stone a man who was collecting sticks on the Sabbath!

Numbers, Chapter 8 is about the Levites (pictured above). The Levites were the priestly class, designated by Yahweh to run the day-to-day activities of the Tabernacle. If the Israelites are Yahweh's favorite people, then the Levites are the favorites of the Israelites.

They had to be clean-shaven (except for the face), and that means they had to shave their pubes too! They (the males) went into the service of The Tabernacle at the age of 25 until 50 years old, when they were relieved of service.

They also had a lot of work cut out for them. As mentioned in a previous entry, the Levites were fairly busy people. They tore down and built up their portable temple (aka The Tabernacle), protected its holy relics, performed executions for breaking certain laws (or at least sentenced people to execution), performed animal sacrifices, purified the Israelites of their sins in elaborate rituals, followed very strict laws, and interpreted their scriptures, wrote them down, and ministered to the Israelites.

One might argue, from hindsight of course, that they weren't necessary to the function of society. But they were hardworking individuals, and they did serve some sort of function. They were kind of like the social glue that kept their tribes together.

Plus, without them, we wouldn't have these interesting historical documents from a 1000-plus years BCE to tell us about how weird and wacky and how utterly alien their culture was.

I'm just going to plow through 22 and 23. They cover subjects already discussed, with a few minor alterations. Basically, if you're a slave-owner, a priest, a priest's daughter or slave, and you're routinely sacrificing TONS of animals - you have nothing to worry about. If you're a leper, a guy with a "running issue", or had a wet dream - uh oh.

Chapter 24 is a slight change of pace. There's actually a descriptive story about a stoning. Some lady's half-Egyptian son gets into a fight with an Israelite and curses the Israelite's god. He probably said something like, "F*&% yo God, my God's waaaaay better."

God says, "You know what? This guy got me pissed off, and I order the entire community throw a bunch of heavy stones at him until he's a pile of mush and bone."

Maybe He didn't say it like that, but He basically told Moses, and Moses told the Israelites. Yahweh really does sound like a Roman god or goddess - quick to anger, jealous, and very moody.

A famous quote also comes out of Chapter 24: Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. The chapter suddenly jumps subject to justice. Isn't that ironic? They're talking about equal punishment here, RIGHT AFTER they killed a guy who said a few choice words against their schizophrenic invisible friend.