## Genesis 1-18 In the beginning of the bible, we see the Authors make a series of independent decisions in how they describe the God character, all of which suggest that he is not the omnipresent sui-generis deity we imagine. They never say this explicitly, but they say it many times through the decisions they make. Further, the Authors suggest that the universe and even the Earth already existed before creation begins, they just weren't ready yet, and needed to be prepared. As such, we the Authors believe it is not unrealistic to imagine that that the beginning of the bible may in fact be a form of satire. What follows are some suspiciously joke-shaped objects in the bible: Genesis 1 - Hebrew grammar about how stuff existed already. - Immediately after inventing the concept of day and night, it's suddenly day two. This parallels an older story about the god El, in which he creates the oceans and then washes up on shore in a boat, as if by creating the oceans he suddenly found himself neck deep in water before quickly creating a boat. In both cases, there's a subtle suggestion that the god character is affected physically by the things he's doing here. - God keeps checking if what he did is good, because apparently it isn't always. - He checks if his work is good once per day, but forgets a day, and checks twice the day after he forgot, as if God forgot to do something and then had to catch up on work. - Language choice is simple and unpretentious. When god creates the sun and moon, he's described as creating two sky balls, a Day Ball and a Night Ball. - "Let us make" is not the royal We. There seem to be several Authors of the universe here. It's not clear. - Rests on 7th day because apparently the God character gets tired. Genesis 2 - The God character creates a guy and calls him "Guy." (Adam is literally the Hebrew word for Man.) - Every character God types creates something: - A River, a Human, Dust from the ground. In Hebrew this is AD, ADM, ADMH. - The God character loves puns. - Genesis 2:13: Gihon as river and Gehon as snake. More puns. Genesis 3 - God doesn't just automatically know things, like "where people are." The world is literally a back yard at this point and God loses track of where the Guy he just made is. (And YHWH God called the human and said to him, "Where are you?") Genesis 4 - 4:17. Literally 4 people exist. Suddenly one gets a wife. Where did she come from?! - There are already an ungodly number of unexplained people running around. They seem to have already existed before whatever Genesis 1 was. Genesis 5 - This chapter is a big hilarious spreadsheet. - The "age" column contains numbers like 912, 905. Claims to be in "years." - The "age at birth of child" column has numbers like 105 and 90. Genesis 6 - God regrets giving humans the earth, because apparently God fucks up often. - God says everything is corrupted and sucks, not just humans, the animals suck too. - Genesis 6:13 is hilarious. "This Earth is full of violence, I'm gonna fix it by killing everyone." Genesis 7 - God to Noah: "Make a rectangle. Put a window on it. Make it three stories. I'm drowning everyone." Genesis 8 - As the world is draining from the flood, the ark comes to rest on top of a mountain roughly 3 months before the tops of the mountains appear. "And the ark rested in the seventh month, in the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. And the water went on receding until the tenth month. In the tenth month, in the first of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared." - 8:20. God told Noah to bring two of every animal so they can survive. Then when they land and the Earth drains, this absolute barbarian Noah says thank you by extincting a couple species by sacrificing them as a thank you to the guy who asked to please keep them alive. - 8:21. And God smelled the delicious smell of species extincting, and God said to himself, "I won’t do the flood thing again to try to improve thing, because humans are just born shitty anyway." Genesis 9 - Great, finally we've fixed the earth and only the pure humans are left. - Now Noah starts a wine farm, gets drunk and passes out with his dick exposed. - Ham goes to his brothers. "Dad's drunk and passed out naked again. I'm gonna put a blanket over him." - The brothers walk backwards so they don't have to see dad's dick, and they put a blanket over him. - Noah gets mad that his son covered his dick up, so he curses his grandson, who wasn't involved. Genesis 10 - Another spreadsheet. - 10:8. Nimrod means hunter here. Eventually Bugs Bunny will make it mean idiot. - Everybody's name is a city nearby. Genesis 11 - World version 2 is now up and running. The old world was violent so it needed it die. This time it's cooperative. Let's see what happens. - Everyone cooperates and it's working. No violence in earth version 2. - The one world culture with one language goes: Hey guys, let's cooperate and build a big thing together. - God checks in on them, and goes "Ew, they're cooperating." - God creates languages to confuse them and now they can't cooperate any more. Haha! - Genesis 11:10. Ok back to being a spreadsheet. - Abram shows up. Lives in Ur. He doesn't pray or do anything. He and his family decide to move to Canaan, general Israel area. They walk to Turkey instead, and then stop. Still no praying. Genesis 12 - This book begins with exactly zero praying. - God shows up, apropos of nothing, without being asked, and starts asking for Abram's help. - God seems stressed. He seems to have been assigned the task of writing a Bible or something. - While in Haran (Turkey), God asks Abram to walk from "Your birthplace" (Ur, where his currently is not) to Israel please, for unclear reasons. (Friedman: "The truth is that this is a case in which the contradiction is a result of the fact that the Torah was composed from several sources." Later: "And besides, Abraham later sends his servant to get a wife for Isaac, saying, “Go to my land and my birthplace” (24:4), and the servant goes to _Haran_") - In other words, while in Turkey, God shows up and asks Abram to walk from Iraq to Israel. What a weird guy. - Abram gets his infertile wife, some rando named Lot, and some stuff, and starts walking. - 12:5. The bible literally goes. "So they began the long walk from Turkey to Israel." Next line. "They got there." - 12:7. God shows up again, without being prayed to at all, and he's like "I'll give this land to your semen." So they build an altar to the place where he said that. - 12:8. In a city called "House of El," Abraham calls god YHWH for the first time. - 12:10. Abraham walks to Egypt in one sentence, because there's a famine either where he was or possibly in Egypt. Not clear. - 12:11. Sarah look, they're a little rapey here in Egypt and you're really hot. - 12:12-13. Abraham's like "Pretend you're my sister so they rape you instead of killing me." - 12:14. They get to Egypt. Stereotypes work. The Egyptians go "Damn she hot." And they take her to the king. - The king tries to fuck Sarai b/c he thinks she's single, and then God swoops in and saves her with diseases. - Pharaoh goes "Jesus why did you lie, I wouldn't have tried to fuck her if I knew she was married." - Then the evil king just lets them go. - Another win for the good guys. - Literally entrapment. Genesis 13 - They leave Egypt covered in bling with a bunch of free animals. - Abraham walks back to "House of El" and goes "Yahweh" again. - 13:5. Even Abram's friend lot got free cows and tents. - 13:6. Suddenly Lot and Abram decide that "outside" isn't big enough for the both of us, because we have too much free stuff from Pharaoh in exchange for calling off YHWH and his diseases, so now we have so much stuff we can't fit it outside. "And the land did not suffice them to live together, because their property was great, and they were not able to live together." - 13:8. Let's not fight, we're bros. - Abram and Lot break up. Go separate ways. - Abram goes to Canaan. Lot goes to Buttsex Town. (Sodom.) - Cut to Lot in Sodom: "The people are bad to YHWH." - Cut to Abram in Canaan: YHWH says "Look in every direction at once lol." (why?) - 13:15. This pussy is all your pussy, I'll cover all this to your semen. come come verywhere Yahmen. - "For all the land that you see, I’ll give it to you and to your seed forever. And I’ll make your seed like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the dust of the earth then your seed also could be counted." - 13:18: Abram rolls his eyes and builds another YHWH shrine. - Cut to immoral sex town: Genesis 14 - Back to Spreadsheet genre. - Battle of fifty random cities or countries or regions with too many names. Sodom and Gomorrah are two of them. "the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there; and those who were left fled to the mountain." - Some warlords raid the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and steal all their food and property. - They kidnap Lot from Sodom where he'd been living. - Someone escapes and tells "Abram the Hebrew." Aka, Abram is suddenly referred to as "Abram the Redsock", because this is the Yankee source writing probably. (Friedman: 14:13. the Hebrew. This is an unusual use of the word “Hebrew.” Elsewhere in biblical stories it is used to identify Israelites only when one is speaking among foreigners. It is not the standard term for the people, which is rather “Israelite” at first and “Jew” later. Perhaps it is used here because there are not yet any other Israelites around, and Abraham himself is the foreigner. (Regarding the term “Hebrew slave,” see the comment on Exod 21:2.) - Abram takes his personal army of 318 soldiers who were born in his house (oh, I see, Abram is rich as fuck and didn't actually walk all that distance, these guys carried him while he talked to god about all the places he wanted to cover in semen. - Abram attacks the kidnappers at night, steals the stuff back, puts Lot and the stuff back in Sodom, as well as "the women and the people." - King of Sodom says thanks. Other king ("a priest of El the Highest") brings bread and wine. It's established in a footnote that Abram was originally an El guy. (14:18. the Highest. Hebrew ‘elyImagen. This is how God is known at the end of the Torah also (Deut 32:8). There (and in Ps 82:6) this is the epithet that is used for God in connection with the formation of the nations of the earth. That makes it notable that here the priest who is associated with El the Highest is not from Abraham’s family but from another group. Abraham is not pictured as the only worshiper of this God on earth.) - "You sure are a good Yankee," says the Yankee priest to Abram, not knowing Abram has a rabit thundercock Redsock on a chain floating around with him, and he's been saying "Redsocks" in all the Yankee stadiums. (And he blessed him and said, “Blessed is Abram to El the Highest, creator of skies and earth.) - 14:20 "All this thanks to El," they say. - 14:22: And Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I’ve lifted my hand to YHWH, El the Highest, creator of skies and earth." - They gave Abram a bunch of stuff as thanks. Genesis 15 - YHWH shows up in Abram's dream and says "Don't worry about those assholes, I'll protect you from them." - Abram says to YHWH: "You haven't given me any of that pussy you promised me. I still have zero kids and my wife is infertile." - YHWH leads Abram outside and says "See all those stars? That's all the pussy you're gonna get." (And He brought him outside and said, “Look at the skies and count the stars—if you’ll be able to count them.” And He said to him, "That is how your seed will be.") - YHWH then says "I am YHWH, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees", neglecting that fact that Abram had already left by the time YHWH showed up. - Abram says to YHWH "How do I know you'll keep your promises?" - YHWH says "Take a bunch of animals and cut them in half. Cow, goat, ram, dove, pigeon. The first three should be 3yos. The other 2 can be whatever." - Abram got those specific five animals and started cutting them all in half. After three, he stops like "Wtf am I doing." He doesn't cut the birds in half. - Abram then falls asleep inside his already dream-situation or vision or whatever, starting inception level two. - Abram has a nightmare in inception two. - YHWH shows up in inception level two, stammering, and says something like "You know I'll keep my promise because you'll _know_ that your come will be foreign in a land that is not theirs (whose?), and they will serve them (who?), and they (who?) will degrade them (who?) four hundred years. I'll judge them and the country they work for. And they won't have much stuff. And when you die you'll be peaceful. You’ll be buried at a good old age." - And the sun was setting in inception two, and the sun was setting yet again, so it was dark, except for the smoke and a flame of fire representing our rabid pitbull thunder god. - On that day YHWH made a promise to Abram, saying, “I’ve given this land to your cum, from the river of Egypt to the big river, the river Euphrates, the Asians and the Indians and the Blacks and the Jews, you'll come inside them all my man." YHWH lists 10 different ethnicities that Abram will come in if he keeps helping YHWH. ![[abraham-and-yahweh.png|400]] Genesis 16 - Chapter 16. Still no pussy for our boy Abram. At this point the wife is getting sick of Abram's horn-dog behavior, and suggests that he fuck the hired help. - Abram cums in the cleaning lady and gets her pregnant. - Sarai sees that the maid is pregnant and realizes that the maid is now wifey as well. Sarai has mixed-feelings about this, even though it was her fucking idea in the first place. - Abram says "Ok wifey, do whatever you want with the maid," in a moment of post-nut clarity. - Sarah does some vague unspecified "degrading" shit to the handmaid. We don't know what it was. All we know is that she flees, pregnant, into the woods. What a great family. - Later the pregnant abused maid is found by a lake in the woods. - An "Angel of YHWH" finds her in the woods and says "Hey you're the maid. Where are you going?" - She says "I'm running away from Sarai, my mistress." - The angel says "Go back and keep doing the 'getting degraded thing'. (Go back to your mistress, and suffer the degradation under her hands.) - And the angel continued, to the pregnant girl: "I'll let you come on everything, so much. I’ll _multiply_ your seed, and it won’t be countable because of its great number." (This angel appears to be a shell script that just echoes strings about cum, unaware it's talking to a scared pregnant girl in the woods.) - The Angel then goes "Ahem nvm wait wrong cue cards. You'll have a son. He'll be awesome and here I already decided on the name for you. It's Ishmael." - And the Angel continues "And he’ll be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him, and he’ll tent among all his brothers." - 16:13: Wtf is this? "And she called the name of YHWH who spoke to her “You are El-roi,” for she said, “Have I also seen after the one who sees me here?" - 16:15: The maid gives birth, and she names it what YHWH's employee told her to. - 16:16: Abram finally had a kid, at the ripe young age of 86. Tl;dr: After all YHWH's promises of pussy, in the end, Abram rapes the maid. _(Narrator: 13 years later.)_ Genesis 17 - Abram was now 99. - YHWH shows up unannounced and says "I am El Shadday, translation: El, The One of the Mountain, The God Who is more than enough, walk before me and be unblemished." - (Friedman: 17:1. El Shadday. Meaning: El, the One of the Mountain. (The old translation “God Almighty” cannot be justified.) The association of gods in general, and YHWH in particular, with mountains is well known. And there are gods called _šadu rabu_ (“big mountains”) in Akkadian, and gods called _šdyn_ in the Deir ‘Alla text (an ancient plaster text found in Jordan in 1967).) - Abram falls on his face, startled from the chaos. - YHWH (now "El of the Mountain?") continues. "I'll spread your come, your seed, into all the pussies of every nation, virgins galore, you won't belie---" - Abram's like "Genie it's me, Abram, I know who you are. Also what's with the name change?" - 17:3. YHWH continues "I'll make you a promise! You’ll become a father of a mass of nations." - 17:5. YHWH continues. "I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll change your name. I'll give you a new name. Ha. Abraham. Extra ha. For free. Comes with the pussy which I promise is coming soon." - 17:6. YHWH keeps promising pussy. ("And I’ll make you very, very fruitful and make you into nations. And kings will come out of you.") - 17:7. And I'll make the same promise to your kids too see. I'll let your children come inside everyone too. Whoever they want. - 17:8. And you can have Canaan forever. And come in it. - 17:9. And in exchange you, you, you, you do whatever I say. And your family. Forever. - 17:10. This is my promise to you ok? You, you, you, you get to cut part of your dick off. The front part that keeps the come from coming more harder. - 17:12. Cut, just cut the dick off ok. Just the front. 8 days old, cut a little off the front. All your people do that too. People you make or people you buy. That's fine, buy em, just make sure the dick, cut, cut the dick. - 17:15: YHWH continues: "Your wife, she gets a new name too. Wtf kind of name is Sarai? It's like Sarah but wrong. She's Sarah from now on. It's easier." - 17:16: YHWH says "And I'll make her pussy work again too, so it can make people again. With your dick." - 17:17: Abraham laughs at YHWH and goes "She's a HUNDRED years old." (And Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, “Will he be born to someone who’s a hundred years old?! And will Sarah, who’s ninety years old, give birth?!”) - 17:18. YHWH says Abram's current actual son isn't his successor. YHWH says a pretend son who doesn't exist yet but I promise he will is gonna be the real guy. And he names that son now, in advance. It'll be Isaac. - 17:23. Abraham goes "Jesus Christ." And he gathers all his blood relatives and the ones he bought, and he says "Look guys, I've got good news and bad news. You've gotta cut part of your dicks off." (And Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all his homeborn and everyone purchased with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in that very day, as God had spoken with him.) --- ## Genesis 6 And the god character says: > _There's too much violence. I'm gonna kill everybody in the world._ ![[genesis-6-13-1.jpg]] ## Genesis 8 > _A fifth day, a sixth, Mt. Nimush held the boat, allowing no sway. When a seventh day arrived I sent forth a dove and released it. The dove went off, but came back to me; no perch was visible so it circled back to me. I sent forth a swallow and released it. The swallow went off, but came back to me; no perch was visible so it circled back to me. I sent forth a raven and released it. The raven went off, and saw the waters slither back. It eats, it scratches, it bobs, but does not circle back to me. Then I sent out everything in all directions and sacrificed (a sheep). > > I offered incense in front of the mountain-ziggurat. Seven and seven cult vessels I put in place, and into the fire underneath I poured reeds, cedar, and myrtle. The gods smelled the savor, the gods smelled the sweet savor, and collected like flies over a sheep sacrifice._ > > -Epic of Gilgamesh, circa 2100 BC Ok here we copy-paste from the Epic of Gilgamesh. ![[genesis-8-7-1.jpg]] Then finally Noah lands back on dry land. And naturally he's super grateful to be alive. So he takes some of the animals off the ark and sacrifices them as a thank you to god. Thus rendering entire species extinct, and sort of invalidating the whole "save two of each" thing. ![[genesis-8-20-1.jpg]] And the god character says "Hey, something smells delicious." So he goes over to see what smells so good, and then he sees Noah cooking the animals he just spent all that effort to save. Extincting various species as a "thank you." ![[genesis-8-21-1.jpg]] And the god character sighs and says: > _Note to self._ > > _Don't try to fix humans._ > > _The human heart is just inherently bad from birth._ > > _Don't do the flood thing again._ ## Genesis 9 Ok, now that we've finally got rid of all the bad immoral stuff on earth, Noah gets drunk and passes out and his dick falls out of his robe. ![[genesis-9-20-1.jpg]] And one of his sons sees him there blacked out drunk with his dick out. And that son tells the other sons "Hey, dad's in his tent passed out with his dick showing." ![[genesis-9-22-1.jpg]] So the other brothers grab something to cover up dad with, then they walk backward into dad's room so they don't have to see dad's dick. ![[genesis-9-23-1.jpg]] And it works, they don't see dad's dick, mission accomplished. ![[genesis-9-24-1.jpg]] When Noah wakes up, he's like "Why isn't my dick showing?" He immediately knows who to blame. (I mean there's only like 12 people left on Earth, ever since the god character killed everybody to stop the violence.) "It's that damned Ham," Noah says. So Noah curses his son Ham (who represents a place nearby called Canaan[^1]) for the crimes of seeing his dick and telling the others. [^1]: The etymology \[of Canaan\] is uncertain. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root _knʿ_, "to be low, humble, subjugated". -The Dynamic Read-Writable Free Encyclopedic Repository of the Modern State of Human Knowledge. ![[genesis-9-26-1.jpg]] And Noah writes Ham out of his will, in the weirdest form of anger ever recorded. ![[genesis-9-27-1.jpg]] And the earth was now much better than it was before the flood. ## Genesis 10 Ok time for some begats. There's a guy named Ashkenaz. ![[genesis-10-3-1.jpg]] A guy named Egypt. ![[genesis-10-6-1.jpg]] A guy named Nimrod. (Explain how Bugs Bunny changed the meaning of the term from "great hunter" to "moron.") ![[genesis-10-8-1.jpg]] ## Genesis 11 Babel goes here. ## Genesis 12 Ok so let's recap. First the god character made two people, then those two had kids, then some wives show up from nobody knows where, then gods have sex with human woman and make giants and stuff, then god gets sick of how much violence there is so he decides to kill everybody on earth to fix it, then after that (naturally) there's only like ten people, then they have a bunch of babies, so now lots of people exist but there's only one culture, so the god character creates languages and tribes to confuse the people and make them stop doing all this gross cooperation and kumbaya stuff, so now we have multiple cultures, praise the L||D. So now the god character picks a favorite guy based on totally unclear criteria and tries to _convince that guy_ to do what he wants by basically bribing him with the promise of infinite pussy. (Note: The guy he chooses doesn't seem to have been praying to the YHWH character beforehand. It's pretty clear that YHWH initiates the relationship with this guy, and that this story is a later retcon of a well known patriarch who was probably worshipping El at the time. In other words, here's the story of how George Washington became a modern Democrat, or Republican, or pick your favorite anachronism. Here's the story of how Jesus converted from being Catholic to Southern Baptist. Don't worry about it. Just be aware that it's funny, and the authors know it's funny.) ![[genesis-12-7-1.jpg]] ![[genesis-12-8-1.jpg]] ![[genesis-12-8-2.jpg]] ![[genesis-12-8-3.jpg]] ## The Rest of the Abraham Story goes here ## Genesis 19 Right after Sodom and Gomorrah, now that all the sexually immoral people are gone, two girls get their dad drunk and fuck him and get pregnant on purpose, then the incest babies are named "Those two places right next door with the people we don't like." Top-tier comedy. ## Isaac Era ## Genesis 25 Abraham dies, so we do two begat lists. One for Ishmael (Abraham's son with the help.) One for Isaac (Abraham's son with wifey after Yahweh re-fertilizes her.) Then Isaac gets Rebecca pregnant with twins. And we arrive at the Jacob / Esau story. Esau is competent and active. Jacob is simple and lives in tents. Esau is dad's favorite. Jacob is mom's favorite. Esau is hairy. Jacob is smooth. Esau is basically a joke throughout the story. Jacob is "the protagonist" but also sort of an anti-hero. Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright by giving him soup (literally: "that red stuff") when he's tired and hungry. Ok, it turns out this Esau character is also called Edom. Let's look at a map real quick. ![[map-of-israel-judah-ammon-moab-edom.png]] And Edom happens to be the name of the people down south on that map whose name in Hebrew (אדום) means _(drumroll)_ Red. ## Genesis 26 Isaac does the entrapment trick he learned from his dad, where you say your hot wife is your sister, then someone tries to fuck her, then that person says "Why didn't you tell me!?" and then gives him a bunch of free stuff as an apology. ## Genesis 27 Isaac is old and dying. He asks for some of that food he loves so much. They send Esau out to hunt for food because I guess they don't have any? Then once he's gone, the mom goes "Ok Jacob listen up, go out in the yard and get one of our goats because we already have a bunch of goats (lol what?) and I'll cook them, then you can pretend to be Esau and bring them to your dad. He won't know the difference. He's basically blind and senile." Then Jacob goes "Ma, c'mon, Esau is really hairy and I'm all smooth. Dad's gonna notice. And then his dying words are gonna be all like fuck you Jacob." So the mom goes "Whatever, tell him to blame me. Just follow my lead." Then she LITERALLY goes and takes hairy brother's clothes and puts them on Jacob, and then puts goat skin from the recently dead food-goats onto his hands and, I quote, "the smooth part of his neck," which is presumably all of it because as Jacob said twelve seconds ago "Ma, I'm all smooth." So mom goats out her smooth son because OBVIOUSLY this is normal motherly behavior and not at all a joke about Edom, the tribe right down South below Israel and Judah who Esau represents and this isn't some interpretation I'm making up. This is North Carolina literally saying word for word "And Esau was South Carolina." Ok. So mom dresses Jacob in goat skin like silence of the fucking lambs, and sends him to her senile husband like "Hey dad, it's me the hairy one. I goat (ahem) I mean got you some food." And dad's like "That was quick." Then just for the lols he's like "Is that you my son? Let me feel you." So the dad feels his smooth son who's currently dressed in a makeshift goat costume, and the dad goes: "The voice is the voice of Jacob, and the hands are the hands of Esau." _Tell me this isn't fucking satire._ ## Genesis 28 Isaac tells Jacob to go to his mom's dad's hometown (so, Rebecca's dad's town) and choose one of his mom's brother's daughters (Laban's daughters) and marry one. So basically go marry a cousin. So Jacob starts walking to Harran, and has a dream about a ladder along the way. ## Genesis 29 Jacob arrives in his mom's family's hometown and goes to hang out by a well, which is where you meet young girls. Side Note: Rachel shows up with a bunch of sheep, and it turns out her name means _(drumroll)_ sheep. This is the chapter where Jacob works seven years for Laban in hopes of marrying Rachel, then Laban tricks Jacob and swaps out the hot daughter for, well, a different one, who has _(checks notes)_ "tender eyes." Then Jacob is like "Can I work another seven years for the hot one?" and the dad says sure. So he works for seven more years and ends up with two wives. The less hot one who he doesn't love keeps having baby after baby. The hot one he loves has no babies. ![[genesis-29-34-1.png]] Leah keeps having babies, hoping husband will finally love her after just one more. ![[genesis-29-35-1.png]] That continues for a while. After four babies, Leah decides it's time to stop. ## Genesis 30 ### Or: Internal Affairs > _Internal affairs is when you fuck the housekeeper._ > -Anonymous Ok so, at this point, the two sisters - both married to Jacob - are done having babies. One is older and seems to no longer be fertile. Or maybe she's just tired. The younger hotter one was infertile all along. Ok so, Rachel's mad at Jacob for not giving her babies. ![[genesis-30-1-1.png]] Jacob's like "Woman are you really blaming me for this? I got your sister pregnant four damn times!" ![[genesis-30-2-1.png]] But Rachel's less concerned about being infertile, and more just feeling competitive with her sister. Natural sibling rivalry. So Rachel goes "Here hubby, fuck the help so we can outbreed my sister I mean build a family." > 3 Then she said, "Here is Bilhah, my servant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her." Husband thinks that sounds reasonable, and fucks the help. > 4 So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, So Jacob has three wifeys now. Or two plus one. He doesn't think too hard about it. He's busy. > 5 and she became pregnant and bore him a son. Naturally, hot wifey is super happy. > 6 Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son." Because of this she named him Dan. Translator's Note: Dan here means "he has vindicated." So she basically names the kid "Victor." Rachel says "Hey husband, keep it up!" > 7 Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Jacob naturally doesn't protest. > 8 Then Rachel said, "I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won." So she named him Naphtali. Translator's Note: Naphtali means "my struggle." So she basically names the kid "Mein Kamph." Now Leah starts to notice her sister gaining on her by proxy by breeding the maid. So Leah's like "I'm not gonna let her win," and gives husband a fourth wife. This one's on Leah's team. > 9 When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. Jacob's like "It wouldn't be fair to only fuck one wife's maid," and generously agrees to come in maid number two. > 10 Leah's servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. Leah's enjoying the competition. > 11 Then Leah said, "What good fortune!" So she named him Gad. Translator's Note: Gad means Lucky. The breeding competition continues. > 12 Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. 13 Then Leah said, "How happy I am! The women will call me happy." So she named him Asher. Translator's Note: Asher means Happy. Leah's less good at the name thing. So to summarize, so far in this chapter, after the two sisters/wives/sisterwives have some babies slash no babies, the two sisters/wives/sisterwives get some natural sibling rivalry going and start fighting with each other by adversarially breeding the help to see who can have more babies by proxy. And Jacob makes the executive decision not to resolve this dispute, and instead lets the wives work it out between themselves. "After all, it's not a husband's place," Jacob says, "to prefer one of his lovely wives over the other, nor is there anything wrong with a little healthy sisterly/wifely/sisterwifely competition of seeing who can beat the other in the age old game of seeing who can have the husband come inside more of their own personal young fertile maids?" Ok, back to the story. Now there's this weird thing with the mandrakes, which are those roots from Harry Potter that look like wrinkled up babies. This leads to more babies. Because obviously. And the competition continues. > 14 During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes." > 15 But she said to her, "Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?" > > "Very well," Rachel said, "he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes." > 16 So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. "You must sleep with me," she said. "I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes." So he slept with her that night. > 17 God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant and bore Jacob a fifth son. > 18 Then Leah said, "God has rewarded me for giving my servant to my husband." So she named him Issachar. Translator's Note: Apparently Issachar sounds like the Hebrew word for "Reward." > 19 Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son. > > 20 Then Leah said, "God has presented me with a precious gift. This time my husband will treat me with honor, because I have borne him six sons." So she named him Zebulun. Translator's Note: Zebulun probably means honor. > 21 Some time later she gave birth to a daughter and named her Dinah. Translator's Note: It's not clear what the pun is here. > 22 Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and enabled her to conceive. > > 23 She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, "God has taken away my disgrace." > > 24 She named him Joseph, and said, "May the Lord add to me another son." Translator's Note: Joseph means "may he add." TODO: Finish this chapter. > 25 After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, "Send me on my way so I can go back to my own homeland. 26 Give me my wives and children, for whom I have served you, and I will be on my way. You know how much work I’ve done for you." > 27 But Laban said to him, "If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you." 28 He added, "Name your wages, and I will pay them." > 29 Jacob said to him, "You know how I have worked for you and how your livestock has fared under my care. 30 The little you had before I came has increased greatly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I have been. But now, when may I do something for my own household?" > 31 "What shall I give you?" he asked. > "Don’t give me anything," Jacob replied. "But if you will do this one thing for me, I will go on tending your flocks and watching over them: 32 Let me go through all your flocks today and remove from them every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. They will be my wages. 33 And my honesty will testify for me in the future, whenever you check on the wages you have paid me. Any goat in my possession that is not speckled or spotted, or any lamb that is not dark-colored, will be considered stolen." > 34 "Agreed," said Laban. "Let it be as you have said." 35 That same day he removed all the male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs, and he placed them in the care of his sons. 36 Then he put a three-day journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to tend the rest of Laban’s flocks. > 37 Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. 38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves, but made the rest face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban. Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals. 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. 43 In this way the man grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, and female and male servants, and camels and donkeys. ## Genesis 31 This is the part where Jacob and the sisterwifeys leave their dad's house. Rachel steals stuff by putting it under her saddle. The dad says "I know you're stealing my stuff" and tries to get it back. He's like "Rachel, stand up." Rachel says "I can't. I'm, um, having my period." And the dad is like "Sure Rachel." (Rolls eyes.) ## Genesis 32 The scene where the god character shows up and wrestles with Jacob, literally. (It's not clear why, though perhaps the god character realized he'd rather be the Jacob character in this book, what with the breeding competition and the two sisterwifeys and all, especially now that their dad's not around.) Either way, this is the scene where Jacob finally gets his own place-name, which we learn is... _(drumroll)_ Israel. Mic-drop. TODO: Finish this chapter with the stuff below. > 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. > > 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. > > 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." > 27 The man asked him, "What is your name?" > > "Jacob," he answered. > 28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome." Translator's Note: Israel probably means "He struggles with God." > 29 Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." > > But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. > 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." Translator's Note: Peniel means Face of God. > 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. > 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.