Saturday 3 November 2007

Genesis: 26 - 50

I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself. My copy of the bible is 2000 pages long, and I’m at page 30. It’s really small print.

Ah well, here goes.

It’s at least a 5 minute read, so maybe go make a cuppa first.

Note: ‘PQT’ is Perseus Q Translation of the Bible.

Chapter 26

There is a famine, and Isaac, being blessed of the Lord, gets a tip from the Lord on where to go for some decent water supplies. I ask myself, why didn’t God just send down some rain? Playing favourites again. Mongrel.

So Isaac takes his family (his wife Rebekah and his two kids, Esau the venison-eater and Jacob the tent-dwelling slacker) to Gerar.

Isaac does the old “she’s not my wife she’s my sister” trick, which he must have learnt from his father Abraham. This is the third time this ‘sting’ has been pulled in Genesis. So of course, everyone in Gerar tries to have sex with Rebekah and then they all get damned because they were trying to have sex with someone’s wife. Even though they were told it was his sister.

Oh fucking hell, I don’t get it. This book is hopeless.

Anyway, Isaac gets very rich, because everywhere he goes God gives him water so he can feed his cattle and grow his crops. This naturally pisses off all the locals who have to, you know, actually do some work, and struggle. This must be where Amway get the idea that if you are a good Christian then God can make you rich.

Chapter 27

When we left Chapter 25, Jacob was being a cunt to Esau. This continues. Isaac is old and dying and he asks Esau to bring him some venison with savoury topping. Esau is promised a blessing if he does this. But, Rebekah overhears the promise, so she runs to her favourite son, mummy’s boy Jacob, and says (PQT), “Quick, go get some goat, I’ll make it savoury, and the old bat will never know the difference. That way you’ll get the blessing because he’ll think you’re Esau!”

Jacob replies:

“Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man”
– Genesis 27: 11

Rebekah concocts a plan to put him in a hairy costume.

So Jacob goes and kills a goat, Rebekah turns it into a savoury dish, puts some fake hair on Jacob and sends him in to the dying Isaac. It’s like something out of The Three Stooges.

Isaac, blind, partially deaf, decayed taste buds that can’t taste the difference between goat and venison and with a terrible sense of touch, falls for the con. Jacob gets the blessing for all eternity, all the family riches and promises of everlasting greatness.

Poor Esau, who was still out gathering venison, gets nothing.

After Isaac finds out he was conned he’s a bit pissed off, but he at least promises Esau that
”...thy dwelling will be the fatness of the Earth, and the dew of the heaven above.”
- Genesis 27: 39

I would have preferred the everlasting greatness myself.

Esau plots to kill Jacob in revenge, so Jacob plots to clear out of town.

Chapter 28

Isaac, who is still not dead, says to Jacob (PQT), “Get the fuck out of here you cunt of a son. You have the blessing of all eternity by tricking me, so at least grant me this final wish: Don’t marry a Canaanite.”

You may recall Canaanites are the unlucky ones related to Ham, who accidentally saw Noah naked. These people are otherwise known to fundamentalist Baptists as ‘the blacks’.

Esau overhears, and still being a good son, goes and marries some chick called Mahalath, who is his cousin anyway. Incest? Yep, but at least she isn’t a filthy Canaanite.

Jacob goes wandering looking for a wife. He sleeps on the rocks. God comes to him in a dream and promises him, you know, fucking everything, including,
“...in thy seed shall all the families of the Earth be blessed”
- Genesis 28:14.

Jacob gets that promise from God because a) he is the one Isaac (accidentally) blessed, and b) God is a racist. But I ask: Why doesn’t God over-rule Jacob’s savoury meat deception? Because he’s a tyrant, is my answer.

Jacob promises to build a temple at the place God came to him in the dream, and give a tenth of everything he earns to God.

God takes commissions, you see.

Chapter 29

Brace yourself. Forget everything you’ve ever heard about the church and about ‘good Christians’ and the bible, and let me explain Chapter 29 of Genesis to you. I’ll put the whole thing in my words, but let me assure you, I’ll stick to the storyline like chewy on a thong.

Jacob goes looking for a wife. He comes across a chick called Rachel, who is his cousin, and pretty hot. They snog. He moves in with her family for a month and works for Rachel’s dad – his uncle. After a month the uncle says, (PQT) “Well, you’ve worked for me for a month and you haven’t asked for anything in return. Is there any payment you want?”

Jacob says, (PQT) “Yeah, I want to marry your daughter.”

The uncle says, (PQT) “Leah? Righto then.”

Jacob says, (PQT)“No, not Leah. She’s ugly. Rachel, the better looking one. The younger one.”

Although the Uncle would prefer to marry off the older, ugly one, he agrees to let Jacob marry Rachel, but they come to an agreement whereby Jacob will work for the Uncle for seven years without pay, and only after that will he marry Rachel.
Seven years pass. He finally gets to marry Rachel. A big wedding piss-up is organised. And at the moment that the marriage is about to take place, the Uncle does a switcheroo and hands over Leah, the ugly one.

Jacob says, (PQT) “Oi! Wrong one! I wanted the hot one.”

(PQT) “No deal,” says the uncle, “In these parts, the older one has to marry first. I tell you what though. If you marry the ugly one and fuck her, then you can fuck Rachel as well anyway, and then if you work for me for another seven years for no pay, you can marry Rachel.”

(PQT) “Righto,” says Jacob.

So he marries the ugly one, fucks her for a week, then works another seven years during which time he gets to fuck Rachel and finally marry her.

So now he’s got two wives. And they’re sisters. And both are his cousins.

The Bible: Incest porn, disguised.

Even though he hates Leah, it turns out he has to keep fucking her because she can have kids but Rachel is ‘barren’.

Leah has four kids to Jacob, but Rachel gets his love.

I know I’m jumping ahead, but I can now understand why God sent Jesus down to the world. He was probably up there thinking, “I’m not very good at this. Better send someone down to clean up the mess.”

A Seventh Day Adventist Pastor I recently came across explained away all the sexual misdemeanours by claiming that because the population of Earth was so small, shagging one's own family, maids and concubines was appropriate in those days. What he fails to acknowledge is that we evolved. You see, his argument only holds true if we assume Creation is a scientific fact. Which it isn’t. It’s a myth. A nice one, but a myth nonetheless. By 2000BC, the gene pool of the human species was wide and varied and there was no reason to fuck one’s cousins, maids and concubines other than for the pursuit of sexual pleasure.

Chapter 30

Gold. Rachel gets pissed off because she can’t have babies, so she tells Jacob to fuck her maid and get her pregnant so she can have the baby. Just like Grandpa did with his maid.

Rachel’s exact words were,
“Give me children, or else I will die.”
- Genesis 30: 1.

The poor maid gets shagged, and has to hand the kid over. His name is Dan.

The surrogate mother thing works so well, it is repeated. The maid has a second child.

So now the kid score is: Rachel 2 (by surrogate), Leah 4 (by conception). Rachel must struggle with biology and mathematics, because she declares,
“With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed”
- Genesis 30: 8

Rachel may be the hot one, but she’s obviously the stupid one.

Then it just gets stupider, because Leah panics that Rachel is catching up on the amount of kids, so she gets Jacob to fuck her maid and have children.

Jacob must be having a ball. He gets to fuck the sisters, and their maids. Hot.

Typing one0handed.

And now here comes my favourite line of Genesis so far... Reuben, who is one of Leah’s kids goes out and collects some mandrakes. Rachel sees him and says, (PQT) “Hey, give me your mandrakes.” Leah finds out, and confronts Rachel.

“Is it a small matter that thou has taken my husband? And wouldst thou take away my son’s mandrakes as well?”
- Genesis 30: 15

The reply is pretty good. Rachel says (PQT), “Well, if I get the mandrakes, you can fuck Jacob tonight. Deal?”

The deal is made. Jacob comes home from work and Leah says, (PQT) “You have to fuck me tonight because Rachel got Reuben’s mandrakes”

(PQT) “Righto,” says Jacob. They fuck. She gets pregnant. Natural baby number 5 on the way for Leah.

But then, just like in the days of Abraham and Sarah, God takes pity on Rachel and fixes things so that she can have babies herself. God: The first gynaecologist.

She has a kid and calls him Joseph, later to be portrayed with much artistry by Jason Donovan on the West End in an Andrew Lloyd-Weber musical. Is there a sarcasm symbol I can use?

Jacob finally quits his job and takes his wives and kids away. As a departing gift, the Uncle lets Jacob take the ring-streaked goats and he gets to keep the spotted ones.

Jacob moves just down the road and starts his own house with,
“...much cattle, and maidservants, and menservants, and camels, and asses.”
- Genesis 30:43

Chapter 31

Trouble. Turns out Jacob’s cattle is healthier than his Uncle’s. The people talk. (PQT) “He took the good ones when he left,” they say, even though it’s only because he looks after them better. And besides, the Uncle has since become a cantankerous bastard and a thief.

God intervenes and tells Jacob to move far away.

He takes his wives etc. on camels and heads back to Canaan, where he grew up ‘dwelling in tents’.

But the Uncle finds out and decides to chase him. He catches up to the train at Mount Gilead.

He confronts Jacob and says, (PQT) “Oi! Why did you piss off with my daughters, all the maids, all your cattle? You cunt! I was a good uncle! / father in-law. And by the way, one of you stole all my images”. By ‘images’ I think he means family photos, except they were probably paintings because cameras weren’t invented yet.

Turns out he had a point. Rachel had stolen the pictures, but she hides them from her father.

But, they finally agree to part ways, and they build a little mound and agree to never cross it on the condition that Jacob is nice to the Uncle’s daughters. A happy ending for once.

Chapter 32

Jacob returns to his homeland but he’s shitting himself because his brother Esau is there. You may recall, Esau had vowed to kill Jacob for stealing his birthright and his blessing for all eternity.

He sends a messenger forward to tell Esau that he’s coming back.

The messenger comes back and says (PQT), “I saw Esau and told him you were on your way. He’s waiting for you, with 400 men.”

Jacob panics and asks God to protect him. Coward.

Jacob decides to buy off Esau’s anger, so sends him a gift of heaps of cattle.

Jacob goes to sleep, but in the middle of the night somebody starts a fight with him.

They punch the shit out of each other for hours, in the dark. After a few hours of argey-bargey, Jacob has to give up because his thigh comes out of its joint. Turns out it was God just coming down for a bit of Fight Club action.

How’s that, hey? You’re sound asleep in the middle of the night, someone attacks you in the dark, you’re forced into fisticuffs and wrestling and when the lights come up, turns out it’s the Creator of life and the universe punching the shit out of you.






God changes Jacob’s name to ‘Israel’ and forbids him and his descendants from eating the sinew from the hollow of a thigh (must be some kosher thing), in honour of their punch up in the dark.

Chapter 33

Jacob, after a night of ju-jitsu with God, gets up to discover Esau is bearing down upon him with 400 men. But it turns out he was just pleased to see him. The bribe of cattle worked. They reconcile their differences, and are loving brothers once again.

Chapter 34

One of Jacob and Leah’s daughters, Dinah, fucks a bloke called Sechem.

Let me pause a sec. This chapter is sick (not ‘sick’ as in ‘gnarly’, ‘sick’ as in ‘totally fucked’) so I did some research. Some claim that Dinah is abducted and raped by Sechem. In fact, it seems to be the accepted story, but here’s how the KJV has it:

Sechem
“...saw her, and lay with her, and defiled her. And his soul cleaved unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel...”
- Genesis 34: 2-3

I argue the accepted interpretation. There is no evidence that she was unwilling to fuck him. In other parts of the Bible, husbands ‘lay with’ wives and there’s no mention of impropriety.

So, as far as I’m concerned, Dinah has walked into town and got a root, like normal people.

Anyway, so Dinah fucks Sechem.

Everyone’s a bit agro about it because nobody in the family likes this Sechem fellow. Sechem wants to marry Dinah, and the two families agree that the marriage can only take place if all of Sechem’s family, and indeed, everybody from his home town go and get themselves circumcised.

So, Sechem and his father get circumcised, and organise for every male in the city to also be circumcised. So far so good, but three days later, two sons of Jacob (Simeon and Levi) go into the city and kill every man there... on the grounds that they had defiled their sister Dinah. They also steal all the babies from the city and imprison all the women.

Jacob’s not happy about his sons committing mass slaughter, and worries about people taking revenge. He tells his boys off, saying (PQT) “You idiots. Now all the Canaanites and Perizzites will come and kill us!” but the murderous boys’ opinion is unchanged, as they say,
“Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot?”
- Genesis 34: 31

The moral of this chapter is that if anybody has sex with your sister that you don’t like, go on a murderous rampage; kill the bloke, his father and every single man from his home town. But wait until they are circumcised. Oh, and don’t forget to steal the babies and imprison the women.

Chapter 35

God helps the family escape. God’s morality is at best questionable, at worst, absent.

Jacob (hereinafter sometimes also known as Israel) and his family build a temple, as instructed by God.

Rachel has another child (Benjamin) but she dies during childbirth.

One of the sons, Reuben, fuck’s Israel’s concubine. Israel listens to them fucking.

Isaac dies. I kind of forgot about him. I thought he died ages ago.

Chapter 36

Briefly to Esau, Jacob’s hairy brother that ate venison.

Esau has a few wives, and they all have kids. He’s wealthy, and he chooses to live a fair distance from his wealthy brother Jacob, just so there’s no competing.

Chapter 37

Joseph is Jacob’s favourite son. They all have favourites in this book. Anyway, Jacob makes him a coat of many colours, and Joseph likes it. Personally, I prefer single-colour coats, but nobody in the Bible is known for their fashion mien, except maybe Jezebel.

Because Joseph is the favoured son everyone else in the clan hates him. Especially when he tells them of a dream he had where he ruled over them all. His hubris makes them despise him even more. His dreams get even crazier and more megalomaniacal (I spelt that word correctly first time, in a rush, figuring spellchecker would work it out for me. It was a fluke.)
“Behold, I have dreamed a dream more: and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me”
- Genesis 37:9.

His Dad, Jacob, pulls him aside and cautions him about his stupid dreams. But too late, all his siblings decide to split. They run away to a town called Dothan, but Joseph, who was ordered by Jacob to go and look for them and to be a bit more humble, traces them to this Dothan joint. The siblings see him coming and they say:

“’Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, “Some evil beast hath devoured him”: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”
- Genesis 37: 19-20

One of the brothers, Reuben, comes up with the plan of merely throwing him into a pit but not killing him. Nice brother.

The others steal his multi-coloured coat, and throw him into a dry pit. They eat bread. Then they see some travelling merchants on their way to Egypt and decide to get Joseph out of the pit and sell him to the merchants. They get 20 pieces of silver for him. Not a bad price.

They all kill a goat, and dip Joseph’s coat in the blood. They take the bloodied coat to their Dad, Jacob, and he falls for the con, believing that his favourite son Joseph was killed by an evil beast. He mourns.

But little does he know, Joseph is really alive and well in Egypt, having being sold to an officer of the Pharoah.

Stay tuned for next week’s exciting instalment of Genesis, The Ancient Melodrama.

Chapter 38

Another of the sons of Jacob, Judah, fucks a chick called Shuah, a dirty Canaanite, and she has a son to him which they name Er. What a fucking awful name. “Hi, I’m Er.” They have some more sons. They all grow up.

But,
“...Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD slew him.”
- Genesis 38:7

Then the Lord says to Er’s brother Onan, (PQT) “I killed your brother Er because I didn’t like him. So you can fuck his wife Tamar, now.”

Onan fucks his dead brother’s wife, Tamar, but when he ejaculates he lets the spoof spill to the ground instead of inside her.

God didn’t like Onan letting the sperm fall, so he kills him.

Remember that boys: If instead of coming inside your lover, you come on the floor, God may slay you. Maybe if you come in her mouth it’ll be okay in the eyes of the Lord. I must ask a Rabbi.

Oh fuck. This is really a bizarre fucking book. I had to take a walk after reading Genesis 38: 1-11. Next time a Mormon or a JW comes a-knockin’ at your door and asks you about God and the Bible, say to them, “Yes, I am very interested in what you have to say. Tell me about Genesis 38.”

Judah says to Tamar, (PQT) “Ah, stay at my place and wait for the younger brother to be old enough to marry you. I’m worried God’s going to kill him as well.”




A few years later, Tamar goes wandering to look for Judah who is at work. She goes in disguise, dressed as a temple prostitute. She’s hot and horny, wanting to fuck Shelah, the younger brother, but Judah hasn’t approved of it yet. She finds Judah up in the hills. Judah sees her, thinks she’s a real harlot, and fucks her in return for some presents.

So now this Tamar chick has fucked Er the wicked, his brother Onan the sperm-dropper, and their father Judah, and plans to marry Shelah, the youngest son.

She falls pregnant to Judah.

Judah hears that his daughter-in-law has been dressing like a whore and is pregnant. He decides to burn her. But then, he discovers that it was he who had fucked her and got her up the duff. He lets her live because he realises he should have just given her to his young son Shelah in the first place, and that she was more noble than he was.

She has twins. A happy ending for Judah, who was the ring-leader in throwing Joseph into a pit and dipping his coat into goat’s blood, and then selling him to travelling merchants. What a terrific fella he was, even if he did marry a black woman, which is despised by the Lord.


Chapter 39

Back to Joseph, who is in the employ of an officer of the Pharaoh in Egypt, after he was sold-off by his own brothers and sisters.

The LORD likes Joseph.

Of course he does.

The officer likes him too, because he can see that Joseph is well-loved by God, and because of that, God looks after his house and the field. Win/win.

But guess who else likes Joseph? The officer’s wife. (PQT) “Fuck me,” she says. He says no, on the grounds that her husband, his boss, has been very kind. But she persists day after day, trying to get him into the sack. He still says no.

So she falsely accuses him of rape. Her husband puts him in jail.

In jail, the LORD makes it easy for him, and He gets all the prisoners to be Joseph’s servants.

Chapter 40

A butler and a baker who previously worked for the Pharaoh get chucked in jail. Joseph makes friends with them.

The butler has a strange dream involving grape vines and handing the Pharaoh a cup of wine. Joseph reckons the dream means he’ll get his job back. He asks the Butler to put in a good word with the Pharaoh if he he’s right.

The baker has a dream involving baskets of bread on his head that birds eat from,
and Joseph reckons it’s because the Pharaoh will have him beheaded.

Joseph was right on both accounts. But, the cunt of a butler forgets all about Joseph, never mentions him to the Pharaoh, and so Joseph languishes in jail.

Chapter 41

Two years pass. The Pharaoh has a weird dream about kine (cows, oxes). Then he has another dream about corn.

He asks all the wise men in the area, but nobody can interpret his weird dreams.
The butler says, (PQT), “Oh, there’s this Hebrew I met in jail that’s pretty good at this shit.”

The Pharaoh calls Joseph in. Joseph interprets the dream as meaning that there will be seven good years in the land, followed by seven years of famine, and so he should spend the next seven years stocking up on food.

The Pharaoh likes Joseph, and makes him a ruler of Egypt, to be outranked only by the Pharaoh himself. He even gives him some bling, and scores him a hot chick to marry.

Joseph travels Egypt, warning everyone to conserve their food in preparation for the famine. Sort of like an ancient-era Al Gore, or David Suzuki.

Seven years later, the famine hits, and everyone in Egypt is cool because they stored food. The rest of the world starves and comes to Egypt begging for food. Egyptians charge top dollar for the food, and thus become quite rich, all thanks to Joseph.

Chapter 42

So of course, back in Israel’s lands, they’re all starving, so Jacob says to his kids,
“...I have heard that there is corn in Egypt; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence, that we may live, and not die.”
- Genesis 42:2

Ah, it’s like a good old fashioned soap plot. They are going to get to Egypt to discover their brother, who they left for dead all those years ago, and who they tricked their own father into believing was dead, is in fact now a ruler of Egypt. And who says the Bible is just great tales? This plot is so believable! It has to be true, just like creation.

Sorry for my sarcasm. As an aside though, I can’t help but admire the Bible for its clever plot twists on the grounds that to this day these sorts of plot twists are used in movies and TV Shows, and yet, Genesis was written 2,600 years ago. Just goes to show how 'stories' are timeless. But really, Word of God my anus. It’s just bloody good yarns, so can’t we just appreciate them for what they are rather than trying to claim they are historical facts, or the word of an actual God?

So the sons of Israel go to Egypt to buy some corn. Joseph is the boss of the sales. They bow to him, not recognising him to be their brother. He recognised them though. He asks if they are spies (reminds me of Apocalypse Now, “Are you an assassin?”). They deny they are spies, they are just sons of a great man come to buy corn.

All sorts of weird bribes and riddles ensue, and it’s all a bit boring really.

Chapter 43

They have to go and buy more corn. More haggling and jejune riddles. Joseph still doesn’t reveal himself, but he cries a lot. He invites them to dinner. They all get drunk. Benjamin, the youngest, is a messy eater. Yes, that is mentioned.

Chapter 44

Joseph tricks them into letting him keep Benjamin as a servant. Judah begs him to change his mind, because old Jacob would simply die if he never saw Benjamin again. It was bad enough when Joseph went missing, but if his next favourite Benjamin went missing he’d surely die.

Chapter 45

(PQT) “Ha! I am Joseph! Yes, it was me all along! Bwahahahaha! Don’t feel bad about selling me to some dirty merchants after chucking me in a pit. Look how rich I’ve become! Must’ve been God’s master plan to make me rich and be able to look after you all in the time of famine. Say, why don’t you bring Dad and all the girls down here to Egypt. I’m fucking loaded, it’ll all be cool.”

Chapter 46

God tells Jacob that all will be cool if he packs up and heads to Egypt. All 66 members of the extended family move. Jacob and Joseph have a teary reunion, and Jacob indicates that he will die happy now.

Chapter 47

The Pharaoh welcomes all 66 of them and says it’s okay to spread their cattle about anywhere they want, in return for looking after the Pharaoh’s cattle as well. Deal made.

They get given all the best land.

Then Joseph turns into a capitalist cunt. Because everybody is starving and can’t afford to buy food, but the coffers of the Pharaoh are well-stocked, he buys all the cattle off the people, and their land. This then gives them money, which they use to buy food... from the Pharaoh. So now the Pharaoh owns the whole country, and is just as rich as he ever was. Joseph master-minded this piece of cuntery. But then, he turns a bit nice, and hands everybody seeds, and says, (PQT) “Here, have some seeds. Go plant them. You can keep four-fifths of the produce, and you can plant them anywhere you want on the Pharaoh’s land, but give a fifth to the Pharaoh. Now fuck off.”

Chapter 48

Jacob’s last blessing is to Joseph’s twin boys. He also gives the younger one a better blessing, even though Joseph reckons the older one, by rights, should get the best blessing. I guess that’s because Jacob himself was a younger twin and ended up getting all the good blessings. Cunt.

Chapter 49

Jacob’s dying words / blessings: (PQT) Reuben, you’re a cunt because you shagged my concubine. You’ll never amount to anything. Simeon and Levi (the two mass murderers) youse two can get fucked. Judah, you’re okay, so you can have white teeth. Zevelun, you can go live by the sea in peace. Issachar, you’re okay. Whatever. Dan, you can be some sort of crooked judge. Gad, you’ll die in war, but you’ll be the last to die, so that’s something I suppose. Asher, you can have heaps of food. Naphtali, you can be a good talker. Joseph, you’re the best by far and you get whatever you want because you’re fantastic. Benjamin, you’re my second favourite son, so you can be a good hunter.”

They then become the 12 tribes of Israel.

The daughters aren’t mentioned.

Chapter 50

Jacob is buried in Jordan.

Years later, Joseph dies and is buried in Egypt.

The End

Thoughts:

Still no mention of an after-life. Heaven is for God and the angels. We return to dust.

They are great stories, but blow me if I can work out how anyone can believe they are ‘fact’. Sure, many are obviously based on actual incidents, but their similarity to Greek mythology and Norse mythology and so on merely proves that they were the great stories going around at the time. There probably was a Hebrew called Joseph who did well in Egypt in the time of famine. There probably was a nephew of a great Hebrew who got his daughters pregnant. But the details, as presented here in Genesis, are legend... myth, yarn-spinning. How did it become ‘fact’ while the others became ‘myth’? It is no more or less believable than Dreamtime mythology, for instance.

The whole of Genesis, when you strip it away of its religiosity, is about sex and death. The whole book is a disguised tome of fucking and a record of man’s struggle with the idea of death. Freud had a point. So did Battaille. It is all that spurs me on in my life as well. Oh, I like my books, and I like to drink a cup of tea and warm my feet by the fire. I like wearing nice suits, and listening to music, but really, what spurs me on? Fear of death. Sex. Genesis is no different, and the writer of it (allegedly Moses, but in reality, some poet / journalist of the time) is just like me, you, and everyone else.

Next review will be Murakami’s latest, and I’m thinking of taking on Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ as well before moving on to Exodus.

Please leave a comment, even if it’s one word, just so I feel a bit more important than I actually am.

5 comments:

Cath said...

A quality review as always PQ - Genesis really does have all the best bits of the bible - although I think there is a call for the bible to be rewritten all in PQT. Might even make me read the bible..... hmmm... nah, but fuck it'd be funny.

(That was more than one word - how important does that make you?)

Anonymous said...

You might be the first one to have actually read all those Chapters... ever!

Perseus said...

Well I'm pretty sure that most Christians haven't.

'God is Love'?

Rubbish.

James said...

Hi Perseus,

I don't think I've ever seen Genesis reviewed, let alone in a style such as that. It's an odd juxtaposition; Genesis and reality. ;-)

Please consider Exodus 4:24, and its context. It doesn't make sense on several levels, and it is a stern of forebearance on the part of the reader.

Thanks!

Perseus said...

Au contraire... It makes perfect sense on a few levels.

He wasn't circumsized, so God was angry, because, God is insane. I'm circumsized myself, so I must have a few brownie points with the big guy.

It also made perfect sense on another level: Exodus is bloody weird and makes no moral, ethical, narrative, social, intellectual or emotional sense. 4:24 is no more bizarre than any other part of it. A burning bush? Sigh. And it's not long after that that God sends in an army of frogs to invade Egypt. Yes, frogs.

Whoever wrote Exodus (and philology tells us there were a few 'hands') was not a particulalrly good writer.

No wonder the Bible is open to 'interpretation'.