God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (16 page)
Read God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible Online
Authors: CJ Werleman
Joshua carried out God’s bizarre pre-battle plan to its full extent and on the seventh day, the Israelite army got up at dawn and marched around the city seven times. On the seventh lap around the city, the priests blasted their trumpets and then on Joshua’s command they all shouted. The Bible doesn’t say what it was they shouted but I will assume it was most likely, “Raaaahhh!”
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When the soldiers gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so every man charged straight in and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it – men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” (Joshua 6:20-21 NIV)
It’s terrific that God inspires such barbarism and bloodshed that includes the slaughtering of young children and if there is a message of peaceful coexistence in the Bible, then we have not found any evidence of it so far. Oh well, they did save the lives of the prostitute, Rahab and her family, so that was a nice touch.
Victory at Jericho sealed the legitimacy of Joshua’s leadership:
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...and his fame spread throughout the land.” (Joshua 6:27 NIV)
After Jericho was successfully taken and its loot plundered, God becomes filled with rage when he learns that someone has taken some of the treasure that was set aside as offerings to him. And let it be known that no touches God’s bounty without dire consequence, and in retaliatory rage for the theft of his bling-bling, he punishes the entire Israelites by allowing their 3,000 man expedition force to get an ass-whipping in a city called Ai. Joshua asks God why he did not ensure victory for his chosen people against the Ai army. To which God replied:
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Israel has sinned; they have violated the covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. This is why Israel cannot stand against its enemies.” (Joshua 7:10-12 NIV)
Subsequently, Joshua commands that he who is caught red-handed with God’s silver and gold shall be destroyed by fire, along with everything that he owns.
Eventually, a guy named Achan from the tribe of Judah confesses to his treason and directs Joshua to his hidden stash. Whereby it is revealed that Achan had illegally procured a robe, two hundred shekels of silver and a piece of gold. But no weed.
Achan says he is sorry for his sins, but neither God nor Joshua are in any mood for forgiveness or acceptance of apologies, thus they take Achan together with his sons and daughters and his cattle and stone them to death before setting them all on fire. Tough justice. I guess sometimes sorry is never enough.
With the executions of Achan and his family, God is now pleased once more and he informs Joshua that he will help the Israelites destroy the city of Ai and all its inhabitants, based on a plan of ambush. God with a devilishly, sneaky strategy commands:
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Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered them into your hands the King Ai, his people, his city and his land. You shall do to Ai and its King as you did with Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city.” (Joshua 8:1-2 NIV)
Joshua took 30,000 of his best fighting men and sent them out with these orders:
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You are to set an ambush behind the city. I and all those with me will advance on the city and when the men (enemy) come out against us, we will flee from them. They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, then our army will rise up from ambush and take the city.” (Joshua 8:4-6 NIV)
What happens next is not atypical of any of the preceding atrocities, as the Israelite’s plan works to perfection and the city is taken. Except for the King of Ai, not a single Ai man, woman, or child is spared from a horrible death by the sword. 12,000 Ai residents were butchered on that day, which was not unlike a bad day on the Western Front of World War 1, but they had machine guns and hand grenades in 1916.
The captured King of Ai was brought handcuffed before Joshua. Joshua taking his cue from God drove a spear through the king and hung his from a tree until evening.
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At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take down his from the tree and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.” (Joshua 8:29 NIV)
The five Amorite Kings at the time included the Kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon. These kings bandied together to attack Gibeon, a city that had made a peace treaty with Joshua, as the Gibeonites feared the Israelites and did not want to fight them.
The Amorites set upon the Gibeonites. Outnumbered and outflanked, the Gibeonites sent a plea for help to Joshua, calling on him to honor their NATO like pact. Joshua mobilized his army and attacked the Amorites, taking them by complete surprise. The Amorites in panic and confusion fled:
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And as they fled before Israel on the road down from Beth Horon to Azekah, the Lord hurled down large hailstones down on them (Gibeonites) from the sky and more of them died from the hailstones than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.” (Joshua 10:11 NIV)
God now using hail stones as ancient Scud missiles and the mythological bullshit of the story gets better. With Joshua’s army dominating the battlefield and the Gibeonites forlornly defending hopelessly for their lives, Joshua is worried that with nightfall approaching he won’t be able to finish off the last remaining cornered enemy. With this in mind, Joshua calls out to God for assistance to finish his grisly task. He requests that God keep the sun in the sky to complete the annihilation. He asks God:
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O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” (Joshua 10:12 NIV)
And as was requested, was delivered:
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The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel.” (Joshua 10:13-14 NIV)
Joshua then tracked down the five Amorite Kings, who had fled the battlefield and were found hidden in a cave. In a cave! Christ, if only we had Commander Joshua as head of Afghanistan operations, we would have captured Osama Bin Laden by now.
Afterwards, the captured kings are brought to Joshua, who first humiliates them, then orders their death and has them impaled on long spears for public display. At sunset, the bodies are thrown back into the cave from which they hid and the entrance sealed.
With God’s divine will, Joshua murdered thirty-one kings of the following cities and all of their inhabitants, including the elderly, women and children, so as to make way for Israelite occupation:
1. The king of Jericho, 2. The king of Ai, 3. The king of Jerusalem, 4. The king of Hebron, 5. The king of Jarmuth, 6. The king of Lachish, 7. The king of Eglon, 8. The king of Gezer, 9. The king of Debir, 10. The king of Geder, 11. The king of Hormath, 12. The king of Arad, 13. The king Libnah, 14. The king of Adullam, 15. The king of Makkedah, 16. The king of Bethel, 17. The king of Tappuah, 18. The king of Hepher, 19. The king of Aphek, 20. The king of Lasharon, 21. The king of Madon, 22. The king of Hazor, 23. The king of Shimron, 24. The king of Acshaph, 25. The king of Taanach, 26. The king of Meggido, 27. The king of Kedesh, 28. The king of Jokneam in Carmel, 29. The king of Dor, 30. The king of Goyim in Gilgal, 31. The king of Tirzah
With the kingdoms of all of the aforementioned cities conquered and destroyed, it then became time to loot and pillage all property that remained and divide it amongst the victorious God’s army. Thus God provided Joshua with instructions as to how the newly procured lands were to be divided amongst the twelve tribes of Israel, whilst also reminding him that there were still plenty more lands to be taken.
The territory is divided by lot and each tribe’s boundaries are described in some detail.
Joshua died at the age of one hundred and ten and was buried in the land of his inheritance in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.
Joshua Count: 12,031
The siege of Jericho = 2,000.
God butchers the Amorites = 1,000.
The Massacre of seven cities = 7,000.
God sees to the slaughter of the Hazorites = 1,000.
Slaughter at Anakim = 1,000.
Murder of the thirty one kings = 31.
Cumulative Count: 31,730,032
“
I admire the Pope. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can tour without an album.”
Rita Rudner
The Book of Judges contains the history of Biblical judges (not to be confused with trial court judges), who helped rule and guide the ancient Israelites of their times. The main text discusses the five great judges, consisting of six stories, each concerning a major judge and his struggles against an oppressive foreign overlord.
The stories concern the following battles:
Othniel vs. the King of Aram
Ehud vs. Eglon of Moab
Gideon vs. Midian
Jephthah vs. the Ammonites
Samson vs. the Philistines
It is the story of Samson that has captured most of western civilization’s understanding of this book of the Bible, as the story of Samson is certainly one of fantastic fiction. Undoubtedly, one of the great ancient herculean heroes and one that would have featured as a star of Marvel Comics had they published 2000 years ago.
The story has it that Samson, through the intervention of God, is granted super-human strength and paranormal physical size to combat his enemies and perform heroic feats unachievable by ordinary men, as we will soon discover.
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The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the Lord blessed him and the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him while he was in Mehaneh Dan.” (Judges 13:24-25 NIV)
There is nothing written of Samson as a child, as the story of his life resumes with Samson expressing great lust and desire for a Philistine woman that he came across in his travels. Upon first laying eyes on her beauty, he tells his parents:
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I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.” (Judges 14:2 NIV)
Judging (pun) by the above verse it is obvious that whilst Samson may have had the Fabio like physique to adorn the cover of a Mills and Boon cheesy romance novel, he would’ve fallen well short as one of their writers.
Samson’s parents are appalled; given a selection of buxom Israelite beauties, all clean and worthy of an Israelite man, their son would willingly choose to take a dirty Philistine woman to be his bride. His father subsequently offering a terse response:
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Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” (Judges 14:3 NIV)
I’m not sure if this is a reference to this woman being a transvestite, Shebrew, or just another example of biblical bigotry. Regardless, Samson takes little notice of his father’s racist objection and drags his parents to the town of Timnah, to meet her and her family. But as they approached the vineyards on the outskirts of the town, a lion suddenly came roaring towards them:
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The Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat... Then he went down and talked with the woman and he liked her.” (Judges 14:6-7 NIV)
I love the beautiful simplicity of this passage. The Bible has just described an event so utterly physically improbable, such as a man ripping apart an attacking lion with nothing but his bare hands. I once watched a contestant on ‘World’s Strongest Man’ tear apart a telephone book, but not a bloody lion! Anyway, without any further elaboration of this super-human feat, the story promptly proceeds to say with comedic caveman-esque effect, “Me Samson, me like hot chick!”
Reading this story, one gets the sneaky suspicion that the book’s author may have found him or herself a nice little patch of psilocybin fungi (‘magic mushrooms’), look a unicorn, as the lion story concludes: