This thread is a blatant ripoff of my 2010 opus, Telegram Sam Skims the Mahabharata.

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

Paul C. Hartley did a humorous reading of Genesis, which can be viewed in its entirety here.

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You can't see me because of internet.

The landowner effectively owns part shares in millions of part-time slaves called, "taxpayers." -Roy L
A Personal Relationship with Jesus?

Deuteronomy.

Moses re-reads all the rules yet again before they get to the land of milk and honey. It's boring to read through over and over again but seeing as how the Israelites were such whiners and non believers, it makes sense that Moses had to repeat himself 100 times. God even makes Moses teach them a song about they will eventually screw up and he will have to send plagues against them in the future. I'd like to call God a little rude for not having faith in them but they deserve not getting the benefit of the doubt. Moses even says at one point 'You guys are screwing up left and right while I'm around. What are you going to do once I'm gone??'

God calls Moses up to the mountain so he can see the land but not set foot on it and then he dies. Tough break for old Moses. One of the more petty things God did so far in the book. I bet if he could do it all over again, God would take it easy on Moses and let him enjoy himself and put his feet up.

One of the more unfair rules they laid out was that if a woman is raped in the city and doesnt cry out for help she and the guy get put to death but if she is raped out in the wilderness where no one can see or hear only the guy is put to death.

I'd like to get to something that isnt the same rules time and time again. Getting a little old.

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Joshua.

This was much better. It detailed the Israelites crossing the Jordan into Canaan and kicking the everloving shit out of everyone who lived there. Just battle after battle and they went thru lilke a hot knife thru butter. It reminded me of a game of Risk. You know how you plan out your attack to take out a person so you get their cards and then you have to trade in and start rolling through the whole map. Their takeover was just like that, just total domination.

After they killed most everyone Joshua divided up the land for the tribes and everyone went on their way. Joshua was much more straightforward and assertive than Moses was. I think that might be the real reason that God kept Moses out and put Joshua in charge. It was like in the Godfather when Michael replaced Tom Hagen because he wasnt a wartime consigliere.

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The people living there had no crime greater than not worshiping the same god as the Israelites. They were living there happily worshipping as they pleased and then God decided the Israelites should live there instead and he commanded them to not just beat them in battle but to wholesale slaughter them.

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The fact that you're having an anonymous person named after a Simpsons character translate the Bible for you is what gives me great pause about your faith.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I didnt make that up FF.

My name is acutally Hank Scorpio by the way.... It's a curse.

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like I said earlier this documented genocide rarely gets brought up during the 3,000 years of persecution parties.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Judges.

Seriously Israel?!? How the hell this group of people survived so long is the real miracle of the bible so far. This book explains how Israel didnt have a king so everyone sort of just did what they thought was right. Of course this led to them turning against God and worshipping other gods. So God has to punish them by letting other people take them over and defeat them in battle. This goes on and on for years. A 'judge' arises who delivers them from their oppressors and when the judge dies they go right back to the other gods until the next judge arises to save them. Rinse and repeat. So f'n stupid... Learn your lesson people!

Most famous judge was probably Samson. That guy was a beast but was way too whipped. Delilah showed that she was going to betray him but he still told her about his hair anyway. What a moron... He went out OK though, he knocked down a house with his bare hands and killed a bunch of enemy leaders.

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I'm very much enjoying your synopses of these books, Hank. I can't wait till you get to Ecclesiastes. That's my personal favorite book in the Bible.

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"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

Love me my Bible Cliffs Notes.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Ruth.

This was a really quick book. Just sets the stage for King David I suppose. This would have been like his great great grandmother. She was a foreigner that married an Israelite. Her husband died so she went to live with her mother in law. Then she married a new guy and popped out some kids. That's about it...

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Thanks. I cant wait to go back and read them all when I am finished.

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Books of Samuel.

These were broken into 2 but tell a connected story. Israel is still without a king and the prophet Samuel comes along and god tells him to make Saul the first King of Israel. Everything is going great until God tells Saul to kill everyone and he doesnt do it so God says that someone else is going to take his place. Enter David (of Goliath killing fame). He becomes a favorite of Saul's but eventually God's favor turns to David and he is intended to become King. Well Saul and David go back and forth for some time. Saul tells David he loves him like a son and then a page later wants to kill him again. Back and forth it goes until eventually David is king.

So at first everything is gravy with David. No worries for him, he has a few wives and some concubines and is generally enjoying life until he sees a woman and wants to have sex with her. Which he does and he knocks her up. No problem you say, until you realize she is married (this kid ends up being Solomon by the way). No issue for David though he sends the lady's husband in the front lines ensuring he dies. In a wacky turn of fate god doesnt like this for some reason and David has to live the remainder of his days in conflict on the throne.

His kids end up being wacked out. One son rapes one of his daughter. In retaliation another son kills the rapist. One kid ends up being a rebel and wants to take over. It's a mess.

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As I was typing my update, a new Pope was being chosen. Coincidence? Yes, yes it was.

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This is great. Just out of curiousity, what edition/version are you reading?

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

English Standard Version.

No free time lately, I havent read anything in the last 2 weeks or so. I promise I havent given up.

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I think more Christians and Jews should read the Bible cover to cover. It would most likely result in there being less Christians and Jews.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

Kings I and II

David dies and Solomon takes over as king. Everything is goign great at first, Solomon builds a temple in Jerusalem, people are happy, good king... Then in a recurring theme of the Bible, Solomon starts to slip and lets people worship other gods and carry on with more foolishness. Just mind boggling that these people keep turning their backs on God after the miracles they supposedly have witnessed. If I saw 1% of the things that these people have I would be in church 7 days a week praying to god.

So since Solomon didnt follow in the Lord's path, the kingdom is split into 2. The Kingdom of Israel and Judah. Both of them are messed up. The kings get worse and worse and people are sacrificing their kids and worshipping whatever they please. So god starts to send in other kingdoms to start wiping them out. The Assyrians come and wipe out the Kingdom of Israel and then a king comes to Judah that starts to reverse the process. He follows god's way and you think, FINALLY! these morons have figured it out.... Nope that guy's son picks up right where the bad kings left off. Fucking crazy, they cant wait to screw up again. They trip over themselves in their haste to offend God.

So God sends the Babylonians to take them all prisoner and destroy Jerusalem. I mean I cant believe it took him that long. He showed like 400 years of restraint.

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Chronicles I and II

Thanks Bible! I just read the full story of David, Solomon and his heirs. What do I get for the next two books? The story of David, Solomon and his heirs. Now that is good storytelling. David did this. Oh you dont believe us, well the next book will rehash the entire story again for you. You liked getting confused by all the weird names? Here they are again telling in some cases the exact same story word for word.

My advice is to read the two books of Samuel and then skip Kings and go right to Chronicles. I felt that Chronicles was a little better organized. Either way there is no reason IMO to read both books of Kings and then read both books of Chronicles.

And if I'm Moses, I'm a little pissed about how things went down. Moses questions the Lord once and doesnt get to go to Israel. These Kings of Judah and Israel were given 400 years of screwing up and not following the rules before God gave them the boot.

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keep in mind that these are collections of works, not a linear narrative from beginning to end. there were 2 canons, and the old testament is a bit of a frankenbook of various ancient jewish texts and other texts from the area.

i still recommend reading the gnostic gospels sometime as well.

This was a great read Hank.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Ezra

This was a quick book. It tells of the exiled Jews being released from Persia and allowed to go back and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The first group gets the OK from King Cyrus and then later on some people rat out the Jews for rebuilding the temple and Ezra has to step in and talk to King Darius to confirm the earlier King's decree. Ezra goes to Jerusalem and starts purifying people.

God didnt really care for interfaith marriages apparently. Ezra flipped out when he got there and saw all of the people had married outside of the Jews. That seems a little bigoted... Just marry them and convert them over and you have more followers. Lamb dinner...BOOM!

I also felt like a child because as I was reading I was giggling because whenever the Persian Kings were being talked about I just pictured Xerxes from '300'. I couldnt help it... I could however stop from making up some lame pun using the band name Better than Ezra.

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Thanks Nas!

WZ--yeah this old testament is rough. You want to try to follow it as a story but you are right it is a hodgepodge of events.

I almost wish someone would release a version where all the names were current mainstream western culture names. Its hard reading about Azaiah, Gaz, Jekohaniz and keeping them all straight. Although I love that regular names are still mixed in there. You'll be reading about Joab and Hezziah and then someone named Nathan pops up and you are waiting to read about a DeLorian.

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Nehemiah

Nehemiah was a Jew that the King of Persia liked so when Nehemiah found out that Jerusalem was in rough shape still, he talked to the King and was made the Governor of Judah. He goes there and makes everyone start to rebuild the walls and the gates and start to follow the rules of God as Moses put forth hundreds of years ago. People are happy everything is going well so Nehemiah leaves to go hang out with the King again. Guess what happens? These freaking people go right back to breaking the rules again.

It's beyond belief, every single book has the same thing happen. People are sinning, some guy shows up and fixes everything. That guy leaves or dies and they decide to ignore all the good things that happened when they followed the Lord's rules.

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That's the point. The entire Old Testament is to show that man even at his best cannot accomplish it. Moses couldn't. David couldn't. Solomon couldn't.

Thus they need someone to step into their place and do it for them.

Thus the gospel of the New Testament. Man cannot do it. Jesus did it for man.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Yeah but God sort of picks his moments. Moses and Aaron have one small slip in 40+ years and they are kept out of Israel. David has a guy killed so he can bang his wife and his punishment is having to keep fighting wars... Real tough punishment since David won all his battles because of God.

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Esther

Esther was a Jewish orphan being raised by her uncle. They lived in the capital of Persia and the Queen blew off a summons from the King so he kicked her out and made all the young hotties line up so he could pick a new one. He picks Esther but she doesnt tell him she's a Jew. Her uncle Mordecai meanwhile exposes a plot to assassinate the King. He just hangs around the gate all day and eventually one of the King's advisers gets pissed because Mordecai doesnt bow down to him.

In retaliation to that the adviser goes to the King and says instead of killing just that guy, why dont we kill all the Jews??? Great idea I guess!

The queen ends up going to the king and appealing and admitting she is a Jew and that her uncle who stopped the plot on his life is a Jew as well. The king flips his decision and tells Mordecai that he gets to kill the advisor and his sons and go live in his house.

Moral to the story: Dont suggest genocide if the Queen is a member of the group you want to kill.

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It keeps calling her a nut , I love that.

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2018
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