Oddbean

So, after reading the last few chapters of the Book of Judges, It starts going off the rails after Samson. By the end of Judges, there is a whackadoodle story of man and his "concubine" visiting a city in the land of the tribe of Benjamin. At night, there are men from the city that knock on the door and call for the man to come outside to presumably have sex with them. The man doesn't go out but sends his "concubine" out. She ends up dead on the street in the morning, and the husband chops her in pieces and sends her out among the "Tribes of Israel". The rest of the tribes get together, sack the city and kill much of "Benjamin". Then when they realize that no one will survive from Benjamin, and no one will allow their daughters to marry into the tribe of Benjamin, they decide to go invade yet another city of men who had skipped out on the killing campaign, and kill those men, and give the women to the remaining men of Benjamin. I might be summarizing some of this incorrectly. The general thought is: it was bloody. It sounds like a lot of genetic culling. Humans being treated like herds of animals. I kinda just want to walk away from the whole story and say, these people and this religion have nothing to do with me. It was the first time that I had second thoughts about trying to be "follower of Jesus" whose story came from this story. It also gives me second thoughts on the whole genetic heritage thing. There have been couple times in as I age into my thirties where I have the uncomfortable feeling like I have offended my ancestors. part of me is like, modern humans are so far removed from these stories of bloodthirsty genetic culling. part of me thinks, maybe bloodshed, revenge, honor is actually more human than peace and prosperity. or maybe it's just the stories about bloodshed and honor survive. either way, it's gory. Thankfully, Ruth is up next and from the first chapter, I feel like I can hear grasshoppers in farm fields as Ruth picks up some grain that harvesters left behind.

there's one in genesis a bit like this, but the city was Sodom iirc... the detail of that part of the history is much richer in Jasher, it wasn't just the homo pervert rapists it was kooky laws and judges that seemed to be insane and people treating visitors extremely badly oh and another one involving where the daughter of one of - iirc, Israel (Jacob) where one dude from this town seduced and deflowered one of his daughters, and they confronted the family and township (it was a prominent figure in the town) and they made a deal where the daughter could marry into the family from this town if everyone in the town got circumcised of course, a vocal minority refused this, and started up a fight about it and because the majority of the towns men were recovering from their surgery they all were slaughtered and all their stuff was taken i read through this story in three different versions and the one in Genesis was probably the most pleasant.... but yeah, crazy stuff, i mean, crazy like Isaac and Jacob and Esau story, in two versions it paints it like Jacob and his mother Rebecca are some kind of conniving bastards or something and it made me wonder about how much Rebecca liked her man... he was in his last days and was charmed by the dapper and brutal redheaded Esau and his venison but fell for a ruse where Jacob just fed him bbq goat and accepted this and did some stupid blessing ritual, and out of all this, Esau goes full jealous psycho and wants to kill his brother over this the themes repeat over and over again, and it's often hard to tell who is actually the bad guys in the story That stuff about Samson, this involves a weird jewish sect called the Nazirites, and one of their things is they have to never cut their hair, or God will curse them in the background of many of the stories is sects and cults and all sorts of weirdness, and to be honest, i'm not fond of much of the Old Testament, there is more to the stories but the catholics seemed to pick out much of the worst versions of everything even though there were often dozens of different versions with more details, different focus, and so on like, on my first reading of Daniel i couldn't get past the seeming treacherousness of Daniel but on teh other hand, Nebuchanezzar was an outright psycho piece of shit... and the Watchers appear in this one, and i'm reading the bible now in a large part for the parts where angels are in the story, because this is an aspect of them that most christians and jews pay little attention to, and i think they are more important

Yeah,there are some bizarre stories in there. I think they all sound a little similar to Sodom and Gomorrah, but this is another time period with slightly different story line. At the outset of the book of Judges, I had the voice of my 4 year old niece in my head when she asked me who Noah's wife was. So I was more aware of roles of men and women. I was surprised how many women protagonists and antagonists there were. It doesn't seem like God favored one or the other really. Both sexes had the ability to be honorable and reap rewards. In the worse situations, men just get slaughtered and women get married off or raped. I think I would prefer being slaughtered. I'm know for livestock, the males all get slaughtered after a year of growth, except for a chosen few which become bulls. they are chosen for good genetics and tractability. Not too docile (no lazy bulls, 40 cows!) but not too mean either with the calves or the humans. I'm sipping coffee thinking if I probably should have been slaughtered a while ago But this modern hedonistic life goes on.

haha, no, that's the thing about humans... more than 90% of the population is of some value to the rest... markets are the heart of what makes this possible... without it, it really is the law of the jungle and all men must go through a meatgrinder and all women must submit to the most chad of the men... and yeah, sodom and gomorrah are prototypes of all forms of decaying, collapsing society in this world... most of the large cities are now some kind of Sodom corrupt government, corrupt judges, corrupt culture, with institutionalised violence and depravity been reading about this growing trend of high density housing being taken over by foreign gangsters in the USA at the moment... just another point in the constellation of arguments against ever living in a city in these times, just get out of there, i can't say this without undue emphasis don't wait for an Angel to come and tell you to pack your bags and leave now or be happy to burn

yeah, so get a mountain bike lol it's so damn hilly here i mostly just walk but i try to get out on the bike at least once a week... it's been very pleasing to note that i'm getting up the hills faster than when i first got this bike 2 months ago... most places are nowhere near as hilly as this, and i'm ok, also no shoulders, and really very little foot traffic because everything is so slopy when i get out of here and go to the next place i'm planning on getting myself a motorcycle, because i want to be somewhere that far that it's even a workout to ride that around

I suppose you don't understand the context for all this happening. It's not obvious because we've lost the context for all these stories as written, as the people for who this is written for knew the context without being told because it was part of the culture. For example, even if someone isn't super familiar with all the rules of American football, everyone knows enough about it through cultural exposure to have a context for teams and leagues and whatnot. The context for these stories is that there are actual humans (descended from Noah and then you have the Isrealites that came from Abraham) vs. the corrupted contingent of human-spiritual being hybrids that were compromised in their worship of false gods via their practices which were all canabalistic and perverted. So, all the tribes that God calls the Isrealites to eliminate are all cannibalistic, child-sacrificing groups. And I would agree with God that they should be eradicated.

I understand that feeling. I resolve it by ignoring the idolotrous Zionism rampant among supposed followers of Christ, and recognize the apparent nature of Jews - they suck. I'm not hating ; in some ways I like them. Jesus chose to enter the world from the lowest point. God chose the absolute worst people on earth to build an ark out of. That makes the story even more powerful. It reminds me of something I heard a real follower of Christ say once : "Christians go low."

I never thought of it like that... Could it be this is the story of the most barbaric people of their time? That's a fascinating story inversion. I always just assumed they were the best of the time and everyone else around them would have been worse.

IMO (gotta recognize the chance I'm wrong) people in churches want to believe their tradition is the best, so that means the Jews must be the best people. Its pride. And pride is the foundation of idolatry. That's the same motivation for believing everything the bible says is literally true. Its definitely not... Almost any part you look at, there is clearly symbolic meaning. To insist on literalism is like giving yourself a lobotomy. IMO. When Jesus said he'd return with the sword, the sword is symbolic. If it was literally true, he wouldn't need a sword, there's an infinite number of ways an omnipotent god can punish people. So what's the symbol? A sword divides this from that. Its the rational mind. A person who denies the rational is denying the world God made. But the repeated lesson the Jews were supposed to learn was, you need both rationality and humility. The two are not opposed - they are actually codependent. Just like how God is both merciful and just - for most people, mercy and justice are opposites and irreconcilable. But there's a better way of seeing it, which is that they're codependent. Here's an example : king David orders a census to find out how many men he can round up and send to war. God punishes him by sending an angel to Jerusalem and blow up buildings. Basically God takes the other side in the war. Why? Sending men to die in a war isn't justice or mercy. Justice is leaving the innocent alone, not going to war, seeking nonviolent means to resolve a dispute. Killing people sure isn't merciful. Its also not rational or humble. The whole affair was just a fit of pride. Me me me me me... David was an egotistical asshole. He was a brigand before winning his throne, and then continued to act like a brigand. He has a story arc of character development and he grows into a man with perspective, and wrote the Psalms. So... If you're humble, you can be rational. If you're rational, you can be just. If you're just, you can be merciful. All of these are opposites to the initiate, but one to the experienced person. So yeah, what I see in the history the Bible presents is the worst people slowly learning not to be so bad. They wrote the stories down, and I think that's a sign of humility, maybe the beginning of a recognition that they did wrong. But that's at odds with an apparent pride, which I see mirrored in Christianity. And look now at what they are doing to Palestinians. Those people haven't gotten to the humility lesson, despite 3k years of learning it. But the Jews that didn't go to Israel are Zionism's biggest critics. Maybe they learned.

I like this very much. David is especially one that I struggled with. I was always on Jonathans side, who basically sidelined himself into death for David's ascendance. David was Such a horrible person in so many ways, but also one of "God's favorite". It made me realize that I can't judge people. it also gave me hope, if David was so bad and he was still able to apologize and be forgiven, maybe I can run around and cut up a bit more... No I'm kidding.

As I understand it many or most of the old testament stories are metaphors that are very difficult to understand intellectually, but are meant to impart a lesson. The book of judges may have an underlying spiritual meaning, but the interpretation I was given is that it's an example of what a culture is like without a proper implementation of justice. My personal opinion is that many Christians get far too absorbed in the old testament to the point where it overrides universal truths spoken by Christ. Especially in the context of supporting Zionism.

the last half of Judges and first part of Samuel do seem kinda whackadoodle. 50 thousand 3 score and 10 men getting "smoted" for touching the Ark irreverently when it was being toted back from the Philistines. it's like God just saw Israel as cattle. i do understand there are lessons (the strong men-->good times-->weak men -->bad times) cycle over and over. there's just a couple of times when it's kinda outrageous.

and yet in chapter 8 of samuel God warns the israelites they would suffer slavery if they took a king sorta almost seems like a progression from something more hidden to more obvious, direct tyranny like, the writers or the characters don't really seem to understand some of these Lord guys are not actually ok it's that apparent schizophrenia that makes me wonder about christians who believe the "word of god" doctrine like, read Song of Songs, and tell me that isn't soft core porn... and really, David, Solomon, these guys are absolute trash, sorry not sorry

This is one of the prime examples of “just because it’s in the Bible doesn’t mean God approved; to the contrary.” It doesn’t always say “and this angered the Lord” because we are supposed to understand that without being told. Having a concubine, let alone abandoning her to be abused, is so far removed from “she is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” and the Love that God Is that it is supposed to stand out as starkly as it does to us. I don’t think modern people are removed from this behavior at all. Even in nations that are “at peace” internally, you have cruel criminals and crueler politicians perpetuating horrific evils every day.

i think it was the catholic orthodoxy who invented the "word of god" meme and it was always before that understood that humans wrote it, from their own experiences or what they heard from someone this meme of authority totally poisons the whole thing, it makes nonbelievers justifiably incredulous

Reading through the Bible definitely requires guidance. I am doing “The Bible Recap” program where there’s a daily reading accompanying a mini podcast episode on the reading. It’s very helpful. I am now in the New Testament and everything comes full circle when Jesus Christ shows up. The Old Testament is definitely a grind, but getting through it and into the New Testament makes it all worth it. IMO the Old Testament is a constant reminder of how flawed humans are. We are all sinners. Some worse than others, but sinners all the same. And through it all, Jesus loves all of us. I hope the brutality of the Old Testament doesn’t dissuade you from sticking through. God Bless. 🙏🏻