The Bible III

"what a load of shit. i burned it with gas right away after sterilizing it with urine."


I RESERVED THIS POST FOR SNARKY YOUNG MEN WRITING COMEDY REVIEWS OF THE BIBLE AND GETTING DOZENS OF BASIC FACTS AND READINGS WRONG. THE BIBLE IS AN IMMENSELY COMPLEX BOOK THAT DEMANDS AN IMMENSELY COMPLEX RESPONSE. IT IS SELF-REFERENTIAL TO THE EXTENT THAT IT CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD UNTIL EVERY PAGE IS READ, FROM FRONT TO BACK.

OF COURSE THIS TAKES SOME WORK, SO MOST CUNTS FIND IT MORE CONVENIENT TO TAKE WHATEVER THEY'VE LEARNED BY OSMOSIS (ALL WRONG) AND EITHER PRETEND THE BIBLE IS A "PERFECT" (WHATEVER THAT WOULD MEAN) SET OF "INSTRUCTIONS" FOR "LIFE ON EARTH" OR, IF THEY ARE HOSTILE TO CHRISTIANITY, TO PRETEND IT'S AN "IMPERFECT" SET OF INSTRUCTIONS. ON THE HOSTILE SIDE YOU END UP WITH SELF-SATISFIED SMUGGERY OVER THE PROHIBITIONS IN EXODUS AND LEVITICUS, EVEN THOUGH IT'S TOTALLY EXPLICIT WITHIN THE PENTATEUCH THAT THEY'RE DIALOGUE, PRESENTED BY A LITERARY CHARACTER, TO OTHER LITERARY CHARACTERS. (AND LATER, A VERY IMPORTANT CHARACTER ACTUALLY DENIES THEIR UNIVERSALITY AND RELEVANCE.)

FOR NO OTHER BOOK WOULD IT BE ACCEPTABLE TO MAKE JUDGMENTS BY TAKING SINGLE LINES OF TEN OR TWENTY WORDS OUT OF CONTEXT AND ARRANGING THEM HOWEVER ONE PLEASES. THIS KIND OF BULLSHIT HAS RESULTED IN AN ALMOST TOTAL CULTURAL IGNORANCE OF WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IN THE BIBLE, ON THE PART OF RELIGIOUS PEOPLE QUITE AS MUCH AS NONRELIGIOUS. IT IS SOMETIMES A SURPRISE TO THE FIRST-TIME READER THAT THE FIRST THIRD OF THE BIBLE, THE SIXTEEN BOOKS FROM GENESIS TO NEHEMIAH, ARE A SINGLE CONTINUOUS DRAMATIC NARRATIVE -- A FACT COMPLETELY OVERLOOKED WHEN ONE READS SELECTIONS, OR READS EXPECTING A LIST OF COMMANDS. THERE ARE VERY FEW INSTRUCTIONS TO THE READER IN THE BIBLE. THERE ARE A LOT OF STATEMENTS AND IMPERATIVES MADE BY CHARACTERS TO OTHER CHARACTERS. BUT EVEN THE EPISTLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ARE ADDRESSED TO SPECIFIC AUDIENCES, AND MUCH OF THEIR ADVICE, ESPECIALLY THAT OF PAUL, IS UNDERCUT BY WHAT CHRIST SAYS IN THE GOSPELS, OR WHAT OTHER APOSTLES SAY IN THEIR BOOKS.

IT IS, OF COURSE, A MISTAKE TO IMAGINE THAT ALL THIS WEAKENS THE WORK INSTEAD OF STRENGTHENING IT, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU'RE SOME TWAT SAYING "NYAH THE BIBLE HAS CONTRADICTIONS WHAT AN AWFUL BOOK," ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CLUE FOR WHAT HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REASON THEY MIGHT EXIST OR WHAT LITERARY PURPOSE THEY MIGHT SERVE. WITTGENSTEIN, FOR EXAMPLE, SUGGESTED THAT THE GOSPELS DIFFER IN SO MANY DETAILS IN ORDER TO PREVENT READERS FROM FIXATING ON BULLSHIT LIKE WHETHER JESUS HEALED THE LEPER BEFORE OR AFTER VISITING SIMON PETER'S HOUSE, AND TO KEEP PEOPLE FOCUSED ON THE CENTRAL STORY: THAT JESUS HEALED A LEPER.

FOR A UNIFIED SET OF RULES FOR FOUNDING A SOCIAL ORDER, WE CAN READ THE KORAN. THE BIBLE IS SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT. SELF-COMMENTARY, CONTRADICTION, MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES: ALL ARE PART OF THE GRAND SCHEME OF THE BOOK, AND ALL MAKE IT SO MUCH MORE VALUABLE AND INTERESTING THAN THE BIBLE AS IMAGINED BY PEOPLE WHO CAN'T BE BOTHERED READING THE DAMNED THING.

SO THIS POST IS FOR, AND DEDICATED TO, EVERY STOMPY SNIDE FUCK WHO THINKS WILLFUL IGNORANCE OF THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK IN THE WESTERN WORLD IS ACERBIC AND HILARIOUS; I HOPE IT'S ALL TRUE AND I GET TO WATCH YOU WEEPING AND GNASHING YOUR TEETH BESIDE ME IN HELL


"This book was terrible. The characters are two dimensional, the plot is all over the place and the author can't keep his story straight. Then halfway through they just introduce a new protagonist out of nowhere who dies within 4 chapters and they spend the rest of the book trying to work out what his deal was.

Genesis and Numbers are a huge yawn fest, I'm not even sure what the lengthy genealogies and census information had to do with the fisherman because everybody dies in the end anyway."


"I had great expectations for this book based on other readers' reviews, but the work suffers from several flaws. First of all, it seems the author couldn't decide what kind of book he or she (no author name or bio is provided) wanted to write. The end result of this indecision is a book that is part history, part poetry, part self-improvement manual, part science fiction, part children's fable, and so on. Also, the narrative doesn't really hold together very well; it actually seems like a whole bunch of different stories that have little connection to one another all thrown together haphazardly. There is no clear plot that links the different sections together, character development is uneven, and some of the chapters that ostensibly describe the same historical events contradict one another, which I found confusing. All in all, this book has several enjoyable chapters, some of which even rise to the level of literature, but as a whole it's simply too long and poorly organized."


"I was very disappointed in this. I don't understand why the God character is so involved in punishing everyone in the first 'book', and then in the second, 'HE' sends his son (Himself?) to Earth, to be born as a human, only to die for the 'sins', or mistakes, of all of humankind. I just think it's a very confusing message to send to people, that says they will be destroyed with floods, and all sorts of tortures, only to decide later that you should send yourself as a relative of yourself, and as some ghost/spirit, so that all of those sins can be forgiven. Isn't that kind of weird?

There is lots of violence, war, a passing reference to the rape of a man's own female relatives in place of a male stranger as fair, slavery is condoned, and it just seems really sexist...

I don't know. It's such a dated and vague story. I'm surprised it's so popular."


"what mostly gets me is the blatant plagiarism and how the author doesn't even cite his sources."


"This is one of those bad fiction novels that is so bad that it develops this cult classic status. Just as too many cooks in the kitchen ruin a meal, too many authors ruin a book. The authors constantly contradict the main murderous story line. Probably more than 31 million murders in this over the top book. To make it worse, the mysogony is way over the top and the glorification of owning slaves makes this an unbearable travisty. Skip this one! You will be happy you did."


"I often get the impression that this book was written by a series of people just coming out of pre-history. They seem to know so little about the world around them and how it works. It's as if they weren't aware that the earth revolves around the sun and our planet exists in a solar system that orbits the center of our galaxy! Where's the mention of dinosaurs? It's missing presumably because they didn't have the intellectual know how to dig for fossils. Often problems are solved in this book by sacrificial slaughter when a simple scientific test would have shown that the local well was infected with germs!"


"Marx said religion was the opiate of the masses, it's more like religion is the skirts feebleminded people hide behind to flee from personal responsibility and thought.

Sad this bunch of dross inspired so much violence and hatred through the centuries and still does.

ETA: Had to read this again for summer 2009 class - it's even more unbelievable to me after a refresher that anyone could believe one word of this and think it's the word of anything but humans bent on building a power base. the Old Testament doesn't even pretend there aren't 'other gods' at the time of Jehovah's attack on every poor soul who happened to live where he wanted the tribes of Israel to settle. It's basically a chronicle of how some bumpkins who had the attention span of a fly were bullied and forced into mass murder so one 'god' could become famous and powerful."