That Bible thing

You know that big thick book that is probably lying around in your house gathering dust? The one that seems to follow you to every hotel room? The thing that apparently contains ultimate truth, as long as you ignore all the contradictions, factually incorrect statements and immoral rules?

Well I decided to try and read the whole thing, I am currently in Exodus (second book), and I thought I would talk about the bits that never seemed to make it to the first school assemblies. From the obvious ones, Cain killing Abel because God didn't like his carrots, to the obscure ones, Noah condemning his grandson because his dad (Noah's son) saw him naked (accidentally because Noah passed out in his tent after drinking too much wine).

So I though I would quickly list the assholes so far.

1. God - For apparently punishing EVERYONE, because someone once ate the wrong fruit.
2. Cain - For killing his brother because God preferred meat over vegetables.
3. Lot - For offering his daughters to an angry mob who wanted to rape angels.
4. God - For destroying two cities because some of the inhabitants were "sinful".
5. God - For killing Lot's wife because she thought "don't look back was metaphorical".
6. Lot daughters - For raping their dad.
7. Abraham - For being willing to kill his son for God.
8. Jacob - When his brother came to his house, dying of hunger, he refused to feed him unless his brother traded his birthright. (All he gave him was lentil soup and bread!)
9. Jacob - Because he tricked his blind father into giving him his brothers blessing. (Bit of a bastard thing to do, even if the blessing is worthless!)
10. Simeon and Levi - For killing an entire city, because the king's son had slept with their sister. (He didn't run off, he had asked to marry her, he had been circumcised for her, his dad (the king) had been circumcised for her, even everyone else in the city had been circumcised! But they still killed them all.)
11. Joseph - Famous for being the nice guy who saved Egypt from the famine, but he didn't do it out of kindness. He and the Pharaoh used the 7 years of good harvest to cheaply buy all the excess grain, waited till the famine and sold it to the poor farmers for inflated prices. By the time the famine ended, everyone in Egypt was bankrupt except Joseph and the Pharaoh.
12. God - He caused the famine in the first place.
13. Moses - For killing an Egyptian who beat one of the Hebrews.
14. God - Who remembers the story of the plagues of Egypt where the Pharaoh was too stubborn to let the Hebrews go, and waited until thousands, maybe even millions had been killed in the plagues? Well that is actually not what really happened. Actually every time the Pharaoh tried to let them go God used his mind control magic to change his mind. So really he was just doing the plagues for fun, because the Israelites had been free to go after the first 2 or 3.
15. God - For changing the Pharaoh's mind yet again, so he sent his army after the Israelites.
16. God - For convincing the Pharaoh's army to follow Moses into the Red Sea, so he could drown them all.

Well that is all I can think of off the top of my head. As you can see God by far wins on the being an asshole count, even if we take in to account his advantage of being alive the longest.

Stay tuned for more bible stories as I get further through the book. Currently I am at a boring bit where it just lists rules, and gives instructions for how to build God a tent with a gold table, made out of everyone gold.

Until then, goodbye!