History In Bible News
posted by on February 4 at 9:31 AM
This post is not about Obama vs. Clinton. It’s not about Olympia. It’s not about Sound Transit. It’s not about the civil rights movement. It’s not about cloning. It’s not about Dr. J. And it’s not about Ahmet Ertegun.
It’s about the Bible! Check out this list of the top-10 bizarro Bible stories.
For example, there’s (Matthew 21:19; Mark 11:13-14) the time Jesus gets mad at a tree (#4 on the top-10 list)
… and (1 Kings 18:25-27) the time David goes on a murderous spree, killing 200 men and collecting their foreskins as booty (#6).
that just makes me love jesus more.
anyway, my fig tree only bears one crop, so fuck fig trees.
haters.
There's a reason why they don't teach these ones in Sunday school. I wonder how many of them are covered in The Sins of Scripture.
Ok, so it wasn't about all those things but it did have a bit of religion bashing.
But religion deserves it. Nice post Josh.
eh, they taught those in my sunday school.
GOD HATES FIGS!
Now I know if I'm ever in a pinch with my father-in-law I can use my massive foreskin collection as a get out of jail free card. I knew I kept those things for something.
if you think the stories by themselves are strange, you should hear the poor sunday school teacher's attempt to make those passages relevant to modern life.
For more biblical nonsense, check out The Skeptic's Annotated Bible for an even larger assortment.
@8 they also have a Q'uran and book of Mormon
These are leaving out my favorite story. Dinah, Jacob's daughter, is raped by Shechem. He decides he likes it so much that he asks Jacob to marry her. He says, "Sure thing, but I can't allow my daughter to marry into an uncircumcised people." Shechem obliges, and all the men of his city get circumcised. On the third day after, which is supposed to be the most painful day, his two sons go into town and slaughter all the men, who are too weakened to fight back.
Um. Wow. TMI. What's next, Inquisition Pr0n?
touche @5! excellent.
Ken's Guide to the Bible will save any believer's (and soothe any non-believer's) soul.
i see they included my favorite, the talking jackass. why doesn't ken hutcherson ever bring that one up?
John Shelby Spong's book on the Resurrection hypothesizes that the fig tree (and the triumphal entry/Palm Sunday) stories actually probably took place near Sukkot, not Passover --- figs are in season near Sukkot, which makes Jesus's anger more understandable, and cutting down palm branches is, of course, widely done at Sukkoth time (to build the shelters).
Under this hypothesis, the story would have to have been moved to Passover time, probably to line up with Jesus's crucifixion, but this presents the problem that figs are out of season, which Mark points out but doesn't bother to explain (possibly because he couldn't).
Awesome! I love this stuff...
Wow, story 9 is soooo demeaning to People of Size. At last, a Bible story for Dan!
Now you know what they did before television.
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