The Israelites discover an interesting way to qwell a rebellion: give 'em what they want.

A few significant things happen in Numbers, Chapter 20. Miriam dies, Aaron dies, another rebellion occurs, and the Kingdom of Edom refuse to give the Israelites passage through their kingdom.

To sum it up, on the way to the land of milk and honey (aka "the Promised Land"), the Israelites have pass through the desert of Zin. There is no water, and so the people begin complaining again. This time, they know what's going to happen, but in their words, they'd rather die by Yahweh's hand then to die of thirst.

After consulting with Yahweh, Moses comes back with an interesting tactic to qwell the rebellion; give 'em what they want. Yahweh told him to gather the congregation and basically impress them by making water come from a rock.

Moses gathers the congregation and yells out, " Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?" And then he taps the rock twice and a fountain of water shoots out. Everyone is happy; except Yahweh. Yahweh is pissed! You see, Yahweh told Moses to simply speak to the rock; not hit it.

And for this transgression, Yahweh tells Moses and Aaron that they won't be able to see the promised land. Sucks for them. But still, the people didn't get slaughtered off, and that's a good thing.

Well, they continue on their journey and find they have to cross the kingdom of Edom. Edom does not allow them to pass, even after some reasonable bartering on the part of the Israelites. In fact, Edom sends out his army to make sure the Israelites don't pass. And so the Israelites have to go around.

The Israelites come across Mount Hor. At this mountain, Yahweh says that Aaron will die here. He tells Aaron to go up the mountain a ways, and Moses is to take off Aaron's clothing, and put the clothing on Aaron's son. They take off Aaron's clothes, put them on his son, and Aaron dies, presumably butt naked, on the mountain.

As we can see, this is starting to sound like Greek mythology, of sorts. Yahweh is acts like a Greek god or goddess. Sure, He's one god, as opposed to many. But in this one god, we have the traits that stand out in any god at that period of time. Yahweh isn't a vague mysterious deity; He's personal and He's very emotional, and He's definitely got some MAJOR character flaws. Talk about touchy!

Next time, the Israelites massacre two cities and have yet another rebellion, and this time Yahweh qwells the rebellion with snakes.

"And they stoned him with stones until he was dead, as Yahweh had ordered them." - Numbers 15:36

Imagine you're out gathering firewood for the family on a Sunday morning, and then your neighbors see you, apprehend you, and then bring you to your church pastor, who sentences you to death. Would that suck?

Well, that's how people rolled back then, and they were only following the 4th Commandment: "Keep the Sabbath holy."

Back then, the Israelites had their Sabbath on Saturdays (Jews still do), but it's the same concept - one mandatory day off. Have you noticed that no one follows this anymore? Plenty of people work on Sundays - lawn maintenance, shopping, working, auto care, gardening, etc. If the 10 Commandments were still in effect, there's be a lot of killin'. Christians say it's because Jesus nullified the Old Testament law. Then why the big fuss about the 10 Commandments?

Well, Jesus didn't. In fact, he said that not one jot or scribble of the law shall pass until he returns. Is it moral to follow the 4th Commandment?

There's two responses that usually arise when questioning the 10 Commandments. First, "It was okay in that time and that cultural context," and "Come on, Andy. A guy getting executed for picking up sticks is a little bit extreme."

Well, Numbers Chapter 15, Verses 32 through 36 has an interesting story about a young man who was picking up sticks one fine Sabbath day.

They "caught" him, which kind of sounds like the guy even took off and ran, and then brought him before Moses, Aaron, and the rest of the community. They put him into custody, while Moses talked with the Almighty (Yahweh), asking Him what to do with the evil stick-gatherer.

Yahweh Himself says, "The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp."

And so they took the guy outside the camp, and the entire community threw stones at him until he died.

Again, I ask: Is it moral to follow the 4th Commandment?

Numbers, Chapter 12 proves that Moses did not author the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament), as many Christian fundamentalists would suggest. It also shows Yahweh's obvious sexism and favoritism.

First, those who say that Moses authored the Pentateuch are dismayed when they read this verse: "Now the man Moses was very meek; above all the men which were on the face of the Earth."

Moses, had he authored the Pentateuch, would be at pains to explain how any meek man could write such arrogant words about himself. It's bad enough that he was referring to himself in the third person. Unlike Christian fundies, I don't think Moses authored these books. Actually, I question whether Moses even existed. The things Moses does reads more like Hercules or some superhero. And, recent Biblical scholarship is lending support to what is called the 'documentary hypothesis', which is a school of thought that thinks there were at least four authors of the Pentateuch.

The documentary hypothesis is probably the best explanation why the Pentateuch is so full of contradictions. The Book of Genesis, as I've mentioned when I first started this journal (obviously), is the most problematic. That's because the authors were at pains to explain things that happened before they decided to start writing stuff down. So, they used elements of stories that they knew from their old cultures, the Sumerians and Canaanites. That's why the Sumerian stories of the Enuma elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh resemble the creation story, and the flood, respectively.

As for Yahweh's sexism, in Chapter 12, Moses marries an Ethiopian woman. Aaron (Moses' homeboy) and Miriam (Moses's older sister), complain and then criticize Moses for his choice in women (it had something to do with marrying outsiders). Yahweh became angry that they would criticize Moses (who was God's homeboy), and punished them, by giving leprosy to Miriam.

That sucks! Two people complain about God's BFF and ONE person (the chick) gets punished - with LEPROSY no less!

Next time, we're going to meet the favorite characters of Christian conspiracy theorists; a race of giants called the Nephilim.

So ... what's that about the 10 Commandments?

In a nutshell, this is what I discuss:

• God gives Moses two stone tablets
• Moses breaks the tablets when he sees the Israelites worshipping a Golden Calf.
• There is no mention what these first tablets say
• Moses gets a second copy of the first tablets
• The commandments on the tablets are NOT what we claim is "The 10 Commandments"
• Scroll to the bottom if you'd want to see what they say

I ofcourse encourage you to read the entire story.

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Exodus Chapter 24 opens up with a little bit of some good old-fashioned animal sacrifice! Moses burns some oxen, sprinkles the blood on his fellow Israelites, and MAN does God love it! Well, despite its context, I'd imagine it smelled like a decent little barbecue.

A bit later, Moses, Aaron, and two other guys go up the mountain and they see God, and I guess they thought He was pretty awesome because they noticed that Almighty Creator was wearing some sapphire rocks under His feet! Interesting shoes, no doubt, but still odd that these rough men would be so keen on divine footwear! To be honest, I would probably look at God's feet, too. I'd imagine they would look strange.

Well, Mr. YHWH tells Moses and his friends that He's going to write something on stone, and that Moses must show it to the Israelites. God creates a cloud on top of Mt. Sinai, and Moses joins Him in the cloud. Moses and God hang out in the cloud for 40 days and 40 nights.

During this time, the Israelites get restless. They apparently NEED to worship SOMETHING! I must admit I have no idea what that must feel like. Or at least, I don't remember having that need. So, someone (Aaron of all people!) has the bright idea of making a golden calf.

In a nutshell, the Israelites pool all their gold jewelry and melt it down, and then they create an idol of a golden calf. Then they go off the deep end and start dancing, drinking, and having a rather crazy orgy-ish time.

Chapters 25 to 31 is just a list of instructions on how to create the Ark of the Covenant, of which Moses will later put the stone tablets that He will give; and it also talks about how to make a myriad of other things: candles, curtains made of goat hair, holy garments, a special breastplate for Aaron, special pants for the priests (if they don't wear them, they'll die!).

What? A breastplate for Aaron? Yea, it's a special one, too. Apparently, Aaron's breastplate will bear the names of the children of Israel, and also attached to the breastplaste is this weird coin thing-a-ma-jig called the Urim and the Thummim. The Urim and the Thummim is basically a coin that one flips to make decisions. "Should I kill this guy? Let me consult the Urim and Thummim. Oh, sorry. Urim, you lose."

Anyways, a lot of this stuff is obscure, but I invite you to read it. It doesn't really come across as a spiritual message, though, so I just sort of browsed through them. Anyways, as we all should know, God gives Moses the two stone tablets and tells Moses, "You better go back down, 'cause your peeps are going crazy!"

Notice that at this point, there is no mention about what is on the stone tablets!!!

When Moses sees the orgy going on, he throws the stone tablets down, thus destroying the only thing that the Israelite God had ever written down in His own hand, up to that point.

There's a huge argument, and Moses and his followers kill at least 3,000 people who still wanted to worship the Golden Calf.

Finally, after all the hubbub, Moses goes BACK up Mt. Sinai and God hooks Moses up with a second copy of the stone tablets. During their conversation up on Mt. Sinai, God is a little shy to show His face, and instead shows him "His Backside". This is known in some circles as "The Divine Mooning".

God says the stone tablets have the exact same wording as the first tablets (Exodus 34:1), and these second tablets say:

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.

THAT'S what's on the stone tablets, and that is what God Himself called the 10 Commandments!

God teaches Moses magic tricks

Day 15 - Moses starts off Chapter 4 by teaching Moses a series of magic tricks: 1) turning a staff into a snake, 2) the leprous hand healing trick, and 3) turning water into blood.

What an odd collection of tricks to exhibit, especially when the desired outcome is to free an entire culture from slavery. Moses was still a little nervous, even with these handy dandy magic tricks up his sleeve. "Um, God. I'm not a very good speaker also."

God admits something very odd in response. "Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?"

Does this mean that God makes retarded people on purpose? Yes! Apparently. I always thought that, theologically speaking, Down's Syndrome and other birth defects were derived from the Original Sin. But in Exodus 4:11 God's saying that He makes them dumb. Well, that answers a lot of questions! Except for, "Why?"

Well anyways, God arranges to have Moses's well-spoken brother Aaron speak on behalf of him.

Amazingly, God tells Moses that after the magic tricks, He (God) will harden the heart of the Pharoah so that he will still not free the Israelites. This hardening of the heart eventually leads to the slaughter of first-born sons, and eventually the plagues, locusts, etc. Personally, I think the big Y.H.W.H. just wants to use his omnipotence on the Egyptians. Y'know? Just for the hell of it! I would.

I think it's a horrible thing, but that's because I'm speaking from a human perspective. But from an all-knowing and all-powerful standpoint, it would be kind of like burning ants with a magnifying class, except on a much vaster scale. Yes, I was one of those boys who did that. That's why there's no doubt that the God of the Bible is definitely an immature man - maybe even a boy! An all-knowing, all-powerful pre-pubescent male.

Putting foreskin on Moses' feet

Before Moses reaches Egypt, God ruffles Moses up a little. He actually tries to kill Moses because his son hasn't been circumcised yet! Perhaps at the last moment, Moses' wife slices the offending extra skin off and throws it at Moses's feet, and the all-powerful Lord of the Universe stops trying to kill Moses. In the words of instant messagers and bloggers around the world: WTF!!!

I guess it's a good idea to have a foreskin handy next time God attacks you!

First visit to the Big P

The Big P is the Pharoah, in case you were wondering. Chapter 5 is about Moses, Aaron, and God's first meeting with the king of Egypt. It didn't work out too well. Actually, I think it pissed the Pharoah off.

The Pharoah ordered that no more straw be given to the Israelites to help them in their brickmaking, but they still had the same quota of bricks to make. Yea, the Pharoah is a complete asshole. The Israelites inability to produce gets them in trouble and they are treated even worse. So, the Israelites blame Moses and then Moses complains to God.

God says, "Hey Moses, this is all part of the plan. Now you're going to see what I can do, bub."

The Second Visit

After Moses whines to God, God reveals His "other name" to Moses - Jehovah. Big whoop. Moses is asking why God doesn't do anything, and the best God can do is tell Moses another one of his multiple names?

God reassures Moses that this is all part of His divine plan. Moses again approaches the pharoah. Remember when he complained to God about being a bad speaker? Well, he complains again, saying, "how then shall Pharaoh hear me, who am of uncircumcised lips?"

Uncircumcised lips? Wow, that's kind of a strange thing to blurt out. Moses really does have a problem; it's called Tourette's.

After another long and boring bloodline, Moses finally visits the Pharoah and sparks a very odd (and ridiculous) magical show. Moses and Aaron throw down their rods, and the Pharoah brings his magicians into the fray. The Pharoah's magicians were able to replicate the serpentine rod experiment, but their serpents were eaten by Moses's. Next, Moses and Aaron place their staffs into the Nile, and it turns to blood and stinks up the place.

What's funny is that the magicians do the same thing, making the river even worse!

Then Moses, with the help of God, create an invasion of frogs. And of course, the magicians do so too! Stupid magicians.

The magicians fail with the next magic trick - LICE! Yep, Moses and Aaron create lice all throughout the land, but the magicians couldn't pull that one off. It was impressive they were able to do the other stuff, though, I'll give them that.

Then, Moses, Aaron, and God send a swarm of FLIES! Holy crap! But that didn't work, so Team Jehovah kill off all of Egypt's cows! Nope. Didn't work. The Pharoah won't budge.

Team Jehovah launches another divine attack, this time with boils on the skin of Egyptians. But still, the Pharoah would not budge. This is one tough Pharoah, mind you. Another attack by Moses and Aaron and God - HAIL AND FIRE to destroy Egypt's crops!

But still, the Pharoah would not budge. He would not free the Israelites. In retaliation, God (and Moses and Aaron) send locusts to eat the crops even more. No dice.

God and company do another plague - DARKNESS!!! The land was dark for three days (except for wherever an Israelite happened to stay. But still the Pharoah wouldn't change his stance.

It takes one final plague to change the Pharoah's mind long enough to free the Israelites. God sends out an angel to slaughter the firstborn of Egypt. After experiencing the death of his son, the Pharoah finally lets them go.