genesis, chapter 41

Well, there's lots more crazy dreams and poor management decisions in this chapter. In other news, God is a sadistic prick. But you already knew that, didn't you?

So we start off with the Pharoah having a restless night of sleep. He's dreaming about skinny cows eating fat cows and scraggly stalks of wheat eating healthy stalks of wheat, and he's all upset because he doesn't know what this means, and neither do any of his magicians. I think maybe Pharoah is concentrating too much on meaning. Maybe he should start keeping a dream journal. It has helped me have more vivid dreams. I still don't know what it means when I see my yoga teacher beating up two hoodlums outside the Verizon store before playing a winner-takes-all game of Sonic the Hedgehog, but I've been able to enjoy this kind of dream more since I started recording all of my dreams.

Anyway, all of a sudden the cupbearer's like, "Ooh, I totally forgot this promise I made to this guy in prison who interpreted my dream and got me released from prison." Like, it's only probably the most important thing that has happened to you in the last two years, guy. Did you just forget that you were in prison? Or did you maybe think you were still in prison?

The best part is that this guy is telling the Pharoah about how he got imprisoned and freed, and how the baker was imprisoned and then killed, as though the Pharoah had nothing to do with it. Like, I don't expect the Pharoah to remember every servant he's had imprisoned or killed, but I just love that the cupbearer tiptoes around it while at the same time making it blatant:

"I was restored to my position, and the other man was hanged [or impaled]." (41:13)

Like he was somehow restored to his position organically, without the interference of any person, and like maybe the baker just sort of got hanged (or impaled), without anyone actually performing the hanging (or impaling). I mean, I guess he's trying to be diplomatic, but why mention the baker at all? It seems like it's kind of in bad taste, is all.

Joseph is summoned, and he pulls his old "Only God can interpret your dreams. I'll interpret your dreams" routine. He explains that the dreams mean that Egypt will have seven years of prosperity, followed by seven years of famine. The dreams were God's way of telling Pharoah about the famine, but it's kind of unclear why He bothered. As Joseph says, God has already decided to cause a famine that will "ravage the land" (41:30), but then he also apparently decided to tell Pharoah about it.

Well, it seems to me that there are only two reasons why God would want the Pharoah to know about the famine. The first is that He wants to warn Pharoah so that Pharoah can take early action to lessen the ill effects of the famine. Pharoah operates with this assumption in mind, and takes action to store food during the period of abundance so they will have plenty during the famine.

But if God were really concerned about Pharoah and the Egyptians he could just not cause a famine. It isn't like when I warn someone that their kid is about to run onto the subway tracks. God is causing the famine. He can stop it from happening, so there is no point in warning someone about it. If You're worried about them, God, just don't cause a famine.

So, obviously God isn't trying to warn them, which brings us to the other reason Someone would tell someone else about something bad that is going to happen: God is a dick. Not only is He's causing a famine, He's telling Pharoah about it ahead of time, so that Pharoah has seven years to worry about the inevitable, while simultaneously knowing that nothing he could ever do will prevent it. God is inciting fear and desperation, not to gain obedience or respect or power, but just because he can. I guess what I'm saying is that God is a terrorist.

The Pharoah, seeing how wise Joseph is (based on a five-minute interaction during which all Joseph did was interpret Pharoah's dreams), decides to put him in charge of Egypt. Yeah, you read that right. Joseph is in charge of Egypt. Just like that. How did this guy ever get to be Pharoah if he makes important management decisions like this so rashly? I mean, it turns out okay, but does this guy make all his hiring decisions this way? Actually, now that I think about it, I think this is how Tony Snow got hired: Bush was like, "I had this kooky dream," and then Karl Rove said, "That reminds me: this guy I was in prison with was really good at interpreting dreams." And the rest is history. Even so, Tony Snow is just a spokesperson. Joseph basically became president of Egypt based on a split-second decision.

Anyway, Joseph spends the seven years of abundance collecting grain (and cows, I guess?) from the towns in Egypt and storing it away somewhere. Now, I don't know a lot about storing and eating grain, but would it really last in storage for fourteen years? I find it hard to believe that the grain wasn't ravaged by mold and bacteria by the time the famine happened. But, like I said, I'm clearly not as knowledgeable about grain as Joseph is. So when the famine arrives, everyone's hungry, and the Pharoah sends the people to Joseph who sells the food to the people. Now, unless Joseph grew all of this food by himself on his own land, I don't see how it's exactly fair to sell it to the people. They grew it, and donated it to this government famine relief program, and now they have to pay in order to get their own food back? I mean, if they were going to just have to buy it back anyway, why couldn't they have kept all the food and stored it themselves?

Also, where are these people supposed to get money during the famine? This is an agriculture-based economy, Joseph. God, what a dick.

genesis, chapter 40

Man, Whoever wrote this chapter needs a lesson in economy of words. Like, I realize the copy I have now is an updated version of a translated version of the original text, but it really reads like the Author was just trying to fill out His word count, but didn't really have much to say. Maybe He was writing on a deadline, and this was His last chapter to finish and He was just really tired or something. I don't know, but I do know that it would be a journalism professor's worst nightmare:

...the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. (40:1)

Okay. So the cupbearer and the baker made their boss, the king of Egypt mad. Got it.

Pharoah was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker (40:2)

Erm...all right. He's, uh...still mad at those same guys.

and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. (40:3)

Right. Okay. The Pharoah put them in prison. What happened next?

After they had been in custody for some time, each of the two men--the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison--(40:4-5)

Dude! We got it. Two guys, a cupbearer and a baker, who work for the king, made him mad and got sent to prison! You already said it, like, eight times in the first paragraph of this chapter. Message received, okay?

Then again, "cupbearer" has nine letters, and "chief cupbearer" has fourteen letters (fifteen if you count the space), and when you're just looking to fill up space with drivel, long words always help.

Anyway, Joseph meets these guys and they look sad:

So he asked Pharoah's officials who were in custody with him in his master's house

Wait, wait, wait. Who was in prison? The Pharoah's...? Huh? I am totally lost here.

I mean, I have to admit that I am one of those people who can never remember characters' names in books and movies, and I'm always trying to figure out who the hell the characters are talking about when they refer to other characters. But come on. This is a little excessive. We aren't stupid. At least, I'm not stupid. I think we've pretty well established that people in biblical times were very stupid. I mean, they didn't even have toaster ovens. God! Get with the times, guys.

After all this unnecessary clarification the two dudes tell Joe that they each had a dream, but they are sad that no one can interpret them. In one breath, Joseph says that only God can make such interpretations, and then offers to interpret the dreams himself. Or maybe he just meant that the guys should tell him their dreams, and then he can tell God (because God is with him in prison, remember?), and then God will interpret them and he can tell the interpretation to the guys. Or maybe Joseph is just a crazy idiot.

The cupbearer has a dream about vines and grapes, which isn't surprising, considering his whole life is spent serving wine. Based on some rudimentary internet dream interpretation, I would say that the dream means the the cupguy will be healthy for a long time to come and will regain favor in the king's eyes, after which he will become prosperous, but that his only ambition will be to be true to his master, which is actually pretty close to what Joseph predicts, although he says this will all happen within three days. Cupguy is happy about this, and Joseph asks Cupguy to promise that when he gets out of prison he will tell his master, the Pharoah, who is the king of Egypt and master of the two men in jail, the cupbearer and the baker, that Joseph was good and should be let out of prison, where he, Joseph, is right now (in prison, that is). The cupbearer, who is in prison with Joseph, promises to tell the Pharoah about Joseph.

The baker dreams about (surprise!) bread in baskets, and birds that keep eating the bread. My interpretation of this is that the baker will be miserable after being cast out and treated inhumanely by someone in a position of power. Of course, if this dream were occurring in the 21st century, that could mean lots of things. If a prisoner had this dream, it might mean that he would be put in solitary confinement or tortured in some other way. But if a co-worker were telling me this dream (and if I believed that dreams could predict events in a person's life), I might think that the boss would publicly humiliate and then fire the person. The one thing I would probably never come up with from this interpretation would be that the person would be hanged or impaled on a pole, because those are things that don't often happen in 21st century America. But that is exactly what Joseph predicts.

This is not too different from "hot" psychic readings. Joseph already has some information about this guy before he even hears the dream: he works for the king and he's in prison for doing something bad to the king. Joseph also knows the standard contemporary forms of punishment. If Joseph had told the baker that he was going to be fried in the electric chair, that really would have been an astounding prediction. But I guess people interpret dreams based on the current social customs and mores, kind of like the way people interpret the Bible.

Before the existence of venture capital, for example, no one would have thought to interpret the Parable of the Talents as an endorsement of venture capitalism, but now some do interpret it that way. For that very reason, we can not help but admit that the Bible does not have all the answers. I mean, come on; that's a tall order for any book. The only way The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy could accomplish this feat was to take up several buildings' worth of space. There are lots of things that exist now that the Bible doesn't mention at all, and that's because a lot has changed between 5000 B.C.E. and 2007 C.E., both in terms of technology and morality. In moderns societies, we don't impale people on stakes, because it's seen as cruel and immoral. But Biblical people didn't have much of a problem with it, did they?

But I digress.

Joseph's predictions do indeed come true. Three days later, both dudes are released, the cupebearer is restored to his original position, and the baker is either hanged or impaled on a stake. My translation isn't sure which.

And then comes the most flagrant unnecessary clarification of the chapter, which reads like a middle schooler's attempt to be poignant or poetic:

The chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.(40:23)

Man, You could have made the chapter a whole lot longer if You used this technique throughout:

Joseph did not ignore the dreams; he interpreted them.
Joseph was not free; he was in prison.
Joseph did not say, "My brothers sold me into slavery because I liked to dream, and then my dad tore his clothes because they told him I died. Also, God is with me"; he said, "Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams."

I guess I should just be happy that He used the semicolon properly.

genesis, chapter 39

Wow. I've read some boring Bible passages, but this one was one of the worst. The only good thing I can say about Genesis 39 is that it's short. Short and stupid.

Ostensibly, the lesson of this chapter is that if someone is with the LORD (whatever that means), he will do well in all of his endeavors. Whether that means being head slave for the Egyptian ruler or being in charge of the other inmates in prison, God helps his own. I mean, sure, I suppose he could free Joseph from slavery or from prison, but, I mean, well...why the crap doesn't God just free Joseph? If my best friend were the all-powerful creator of the universe, I would be pretty pissed that he can't even spring me from the joint after I was wrongly accused of attempting to "know" (in the Biblical sense) my boss's wife.

When [Joseph's] master saw that the LORD was with [Joseph] and that the LORD gave [Joseph] success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. (39:2-4)

But while Joseph was there in the prison, the LORD was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. (39:21)

Gee, thanks, LORD. This is another of those instances where God's either impotent or mean. Like, if he's so buddy-buddy with Joseph, why doesn't He just make him ruler or Egypt or something? Why doesn't He, like, give him magical powers and, I don't know, make him not a slave? Unless He can't. Maybe God just doesn't have the same influence here that he had back in Dothan and Edom. Like, the Egyptians obviously respect him, and they respect his opinion of Joseph, but they aren't willing to overturn their local laws just because God said so.

What I want to know is, where are the floods? Where are the plagues? And I think Joseph ought to be asking the same questions. I mean, if God isn't willing to pull out the big guns in Joseph's defense, why should Joseph stay friends with this Guy?

Also in this chapter, Joseph comes so close to making an actual moral decision, but mucks it up by bringing God into it. What happens is that Joe, as noted above, finds favor in Potiphar's eyes, so Pot brings Joseph into his home and basically puts him in charge of the place. He's still a slave, mind you, but he is fed, and looked after, and treated with respect and kindness. And then one day, Potiphar's wife invites Joe to bed. He refuses:

"With me in charge," he told her, "my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing...?" (39:8-9)

Wow. Someone in the Bible is showing actual compassion for another human being? Seriously? Maybe I had these guys all wrong. Maybe Joseph recognizes the pain he would cause by sleeping with his master's wife. Maybe he can sympathize with the pain Potiphar would feel when he realized that both his closest confidant and his wife betrayed his trust. Maybe he's not such a bad--oh, wait. There's more to that last line: "'How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?'" (Emphasis mine.)

I guess this is why modern sexual ethics are so fucked up. According to the Bible, having sex with your friend's wife isn't wrong because it hurts your friend, but because it makes God cry. I guess, concievably, if you belived that God was encouraging you to steal your friend's wife, that would make it okay, right? No matter what the real world consequences are, as long as you believe God approves, you think you're acting morally. Well, guess what? Morality isn't that simple. Actual morality relflects an obligation to other persons, not to an abstract entity with moral standards we can all agree are shaky at best. Not that I expected anything else from the Bible.

One last thing: presumably the Egyptians are less sexist than the Wherever-the-heck-Joseph's-from-ians, since they accepted Potiphan's wife's word over Joe's. I sure hope Joseph subjugates them and teaches them the way to treat their women properly, i.e., like property.

genesis, chapter 38

I get accused of being naïve quite a lot, usually because I am. I tend to be kind of slow realizing the implications of a lot of the hipocrisy and institutionalized discrimination in the world. Like, I'll say something like, "What in the hell is Bush talking about all the time when he says we need to 'win' in Iraq? What does that mean? Win what?" And then all the people standing around me, usally complete strangers on the subway platform, will look at me, like, "Duh. We've been saying that for years, guy."

So, maybe I just don't pay close enough attention to the news as it's happening, which is also probably why I get all these great ideas for articles, like, two news cycles after the fact. I just need to be alone to process all this to a point of understandingness.

What, exactly, does any of this have to do with the Bible, you might be asking yourself? Well, I've been reading it for a while, and noticing that it's pretty blatantly sexist, and how all these sexist passages have been responsible for a lot of the sexism in the world. Just like Biblical "justifications" for homophobia and greed, passages that refer to women as men's property are often pointed to as justification for sexism in the real world.

But then, all of a sudden, in the middle of this chapter, I just started thinking about the dudes who actually wrote the Bible, and wondering about where their sexism came from. Like, where did people ever get this idea that women are inferior to men? Seriously. I know this is one of those questions that will undoubtedly inspire a "duh" response, but I feel like most people don't actually think about the causes of this deep-seated hatred that most of the world has for women. Where did it come from? Could things have just as easily gone the other way, or was men's generally greater physical strength the determining factor?

What would a world ruled by women who discriminate against men look like? This is the kind of question that the excellent TV show Sliders was not afraid to examine in its first two, excellent seasons. After that, it pretty much turned into typical, crappy sci-fi fare. Maybe someday someone will reboot the series with some clever retconning. I know people have tried, but fanfic does not a new series make.

Anyway, I'm getting off track here. The reason this chapter really got me thinking about sexism was not that Judah keeps marrying off his dead son's wife as though she is his property, but that he seems to think that buying the services of a prostitute is perfectly fine and normal, but being a prostitute is punishable by death. This is, like, the definition of a double standard.

The story is, Judah has a son named Er, which has to be the worst name ever. I think maybe Judah jumped the gun on this one:

"Hey, Shua. What should we name our son?"

"Oh, I hadn't really thought about it. Hmm. Um, er..."

"That's it! Er! His name is Er!"

"Uh..."

"Nope. It's too late to change it now. We already decided on Er."

Anyway, Er married Tamar, and then did...something...that made him wicked in God's eyes (the actual God's eyes, not those yarn things you made in elementary school). It is never specified how, exactly, Er was wicked, but whatever it is, he is put to death for it. Judah decides to make his second son, Onan, marry Tamar, so that Er can have children. I'm not sure exactly how this would work, but it's just further proof of the sexism in the Bible. Even though Er is dead, any children his widow has are his children, even if his sperm is not involved at all, and even though he's, you know, dead.

Speaking of sperm, Onan turns out to be just as wicked as his older brother, but at least this time we know what he's done that makes God so angry: he spills his semen after having sex with Tamar. He didn't want to produce children for his brother, so he pulled out and spilled his semen on the ground. Weird. Maybe he should have just not had sex with his brother's widow.

Also, someone should tell him that coitus interruptus is not an effective method of birth control. Apparently, however, it is the one form of birth control approved by the Church. Oh, wait. No it isn't. God kills Onan for pulling out. Ouch. Guy can't even not have sex with his brother's widow without being smote.

So, Judah wisely decides to not sacrifice his last son by marrying him off to Tamar, even though he tells her he's going to. Well, apparently, Tamar wants to have a baby as badly as Judah wants her to have a baby, so one day, when Judah goes into the city, she changes into prostitute clothes and sneaks out to the city, also. Judah sees her, but doesn't recognize her, because her face is covered (again, are Bible people completely incapable of recognizing other identifying features of their family members, like maybe body language and voice?)

Not realizing she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, "Come now, let me sleep with you." (38:16)

So, I guess we finally know the provenance of the well-known Canadian slang, "roadside." Anyway:

About three months later Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant." (38:24)

Oops.

So, I'm taking bets: who thinks Judah's response was a critique about how the ills and unfairness of modern society have forced some women, who have been cast out of their households, to resort to prostitution to support themselves, and how this practice of prostitution could not thrive if there were not a market for it, and thus, everyone is little to blame for forcing people to stoop to this level, but he, Judah, is especially to blame because he actually recently went to a prostitute, for no real reason except that she was there, and rather than censuring this woman or punishing her, the town should work together to heal their society and address the root causes that led to this depravity?

Anyone? I'm giving a billion to one odds on this. You stand to make a lot of money. Anyone? No? Well, that's smart of you, because what Judah actually says is, "Bring her out and have her burned to death." Nice. You didn't seem to have any problem with prostitutes when you were nailing one, guy. But now that she's your daughter, the whole situation's a little more real, isn't it? Well, guess what? Every woman is someone's daughter. Think about that.

Fortunately, Tamar is tricky, and she manages to let Judah know that she was the prostitute he slept with without telling everyone else, so he suddenly does a 180, like, "Oh my god, you guys. I just realized: we can't hate prostitutes. Oh, man, it's so clear to me now. She's actually righteous."

So, then Tamar gives birth to twins and there's some nonsense with red string and which one is born first, which will probably come up later, but right now seems pretty stupid, like just about everything else these people do.

One last thought: Imagine what life would be like if we still used goats as currency. Like, your wallet would have to be huge.

genesis, chapter 37

It seems to me that whenever anyone talks about the book of Genesis, they only ever mention Noah's ark or Adam and Steve. The fact of the matter is, these terse, boring stories only last about a page or two each. Even the Cain and Abel story, which I always assumed would be rich and multi-layered and full of hatred and jealousy and barely-disguised rage, lasts a grand total of 630 words. The wacky travails and adventures of Jacob/Israel go on and on, ad infinitum. Here we are, ten chapters after we first met young Jacob, and he's still going strong.

Incidentally, I never realized that the name of the state of Israel came from the name of a person in the Bible. It's certainly a fitting name for the war-torn country, though: according to my Bible, the name means "struggles with God," (though "struggles with Muslims" would have been even more fitting). That name is much better than "he grasps the heel," which is what Jacob means. (Apparently, this expression meant "to decieve," which was an apt description of Jacob before he became Israel, and was also a literal description of how he was born, grasping his brother's heel.)

I hope Jacob/Israel sticks around. Between his many wives, his crazy goats, and his sadistic sons (who sell their brother Joseph to some Egyptian merchants because he dared to dream of a day when they would all serve him), Jacob is by far the most entertaining character in this storybook so far. It's no wonder the Jews named their country after him.

Quote of the chapter:

"Here comes that dreamer!" they said to each other. "Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams." (37:19-20)

Ouch. That is harsh. Like, it's not bad enough that they're planning to kill their brother. They have to make a snide, cutting remark about his dreams while they're doing it. It's like the verbal equivalent of killing someone and then pissing on their corpse. Also, the text doesn't specify who spoke these words. It just says that all of Jacob's sons saw Joseph in the distance, and then they said this in unison, I guess?

Also in this chapter, both Jacob and Reuben (his oldest son, who must be at least forty years older than Joseph) tear their clothes when they are tricked into thinking that Joseph has been killed. (37:29, 34). I suppose this is meant to be metaphorical or hyperbolical, but it is a very funny image: "Joseph's dead? Rrrrghar! Jacob smash!"

genesis, chapters 27, 29, and 30

So, a disturbing turn of events in Jacob's life. For those who are keeping track, Jacob is the younger son of Isaac. He usurped Isaac's dying blessing by pretending to be his older brother, Esau (apparently each blessing can only be given once, and Jacob got all the good stuff), meaning that Esau got the left-over blessings: "Your dwelling will be away from earth's richness ... You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke off your neck." (27:39-40). Man, that barely qualifies as advice.

But then—oh, snap!—Jacob is hoisted by his own petard by his future father-in-law, Laban, who sends his ugly daughter, Leah, to bed with Jacob. Jacob has sex with her because he thinks she's Rachel, the pretty one. Daaaaamn!

Anyway, Jacob is justifiably upset, considering he spent seven years working for Laban for free so that he could earn the right to bang Rachel. And then, out of nowhere, Laban pulls the old, "Eldest daughters have to marry first" trick, and tricks Jacob into sleeping with his ugly daughter. He certainly knows how to boost his daughters' self-esteem. After Jacob "finish[es] the week with Leah," (finishes doing what, exactly?) he gets to marry Rachel, too, (29:29) illustrating once again Biblical contempt for marriage between one man and one woman.

Also in this chapter, the origin of another sacred ritual: having children to compensate for a loveless marriage. Since Leah is sad and ugly and unloved, God impregnates her and makes Rachel "barren" (29:31). Leah's reaction to the birth of her son? "Surely my husband will love me now." (29:32) But, alas: "She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Because the LORD heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too." (29:33). She eventually gives birth to a total of seven kids, and each time is convinced that having kids will cause her husband to love her. Oh, and it totally works, just like it does today.

Lots of other crazy shit happens in chapter 30, inlcuding both wives pimping out their servants to Jacob so he can have more kids, Leah buying sex with mandrake root (and Rachel pimping Jacob for mandrake root), and Jacob getting normal goats to give birth to speckled goats by making them have sex in front of branches (what?). Also, Jacob is kind of a jerk?

Furthermore, is everyone stupid? How could you not recognize your own son/wife? People in Biblical times sure were easily fooled.

genesis, chapters 17 and 28

One of the main things I was interested in when I started this project was religious rituals. I don't claim to know everything about specific rituals performed in every denomination of Christianity and Judaism, but I am familiar with some, and I was curious about their origins. Well, circumcision is a pretty big ritual, one that's become so commonplace that it's peculiar to not have a baby boy circumcised. This ritual is established in Genesis 17:10, when God tells Abraham that this is the covenant Abraham and his descendents must keep in exchange for having the land of Canaan as their home. God gives no explanation for this strange request, but makes it clear that "Any uncircumcised male ... will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant." (17:14) I suspect that the real reasons circumcision became standard practice were hygienic, not divine. I mean, this is weirdly specific mythology, but it's really no different from any other myth that gives and ancient explanation for a current practice.

Anyway, I've come up with my own ritual, derived from Genesis 28:18. Whenever I'm sleeping somewhere new, or somewhere I haven't slept for a while, I'll put a stone under my head (or my pillow) for the night. Then, in the morning, I'll "set it up as a pillar and [pour] oil on top of it." (28:18). The book doesn't specify what type of oil to use, but I'm sure EVOO will work fine. Doing this will mean that the place I have slept is a "House of God" (28:19), and will be blessed. Maybe I'll even carry a particular stone with me, a Jacob Stone, and a small bottle of EVOO, everywhere I go, just in case. Nice. This has all the makings of a sweet religious ritual. I can't wait for my next sleep-over!

genesis, chapter 10

There are some great, oft-overlooked Biblical names in this book. Stand-outs include Gomer, Kittim, Put, Ham, Peleg, Eber, and, of course, the great warrior Nimrod. I was actually curious how Nimrod went from great hunter to bumbling idiot, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. According to them, the lexicological leap is thanks to Bugs Bunny, who once called Elmer Fudd a "poor little Nimrod." Several other sites seem to confirm this etymology, proving once again that Looney Tunes is the greater cultural influence.

It is interesting to note that Gomer had a similar transformation, though it is less clear where this one came from.

genesis, chapters 3 and 5

So far, my major impression of the book of Genesis is that it reads like a much more boring version of One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Parts of it, like the ages of Adam's descendants, seem like they were written by a child just learning about adding big numbers:

"When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son ... and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years ... . Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died." (5:3–5)

"When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. And after he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years ... . Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died." (5:9–11)

"When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. And after he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years ... . Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and then he died." (5:18–20)

Other sections engage in obvious retconning, like when part of Eve's punishment for eating from the tree of knowledge is that God "will greatly increase [her] pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children." (3:16) So, now you know why child birth is so painful. Women just brought it upon themselves. Yeah, try telling that to a woman in labor. This bit is immediately followed by a nice throwaway line that seems to justify patriarchy and misogyny: "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." (3:16, emphasis added)

Genesis also explains why people wear clothes: it isn't because they got cold and needed a way to keep warm. No, far from it. It's because they had knowledge. Knowledge of their nakedness, which resulted in shame and a need to cover their private parts. Also, snakes apparently eat dust. (3:14)

More than anything, however, I'm struck by the fact that The Bible is in no way an instruction book. The reader is never addressed personally and told to behave in the ways that Noah, or Abraham, or Lot behaved. At least not so far. I'm curious to find out whether this will change. Maybe Genesis is like the preamble. Like at the end of Genesis, it'll go, "and so-and-so begot you, so listen up, because everything else in this book is instructional and tells you exactly how to live your life, right now, in the present, in the year 2006 C.E." I doubt it, though.

Also of note is that God made Marquez (among others) a much better writer than Himself. You'd think the definitive literary work of...ever would be a bit more compelling and a bit more evocative than this. I'm not sure if He's still working on Bible III, but if He is, He really ought to inject it with a little more zazz.