I've been trying to read through the Bible in its entirety for forever, mainly because as a Christian I am EMBARRASSED that I cannot check it off those Books I've Read lists. No. Forget that noise.
Over the years, I've made it up to 2 Samuel, which is the tenth book of the Old Testament. NOT IMPRESSIVE, YOU SAY? Try reading the parts of Exodus that're like "Wait, let me give you exact sewing instructions; these are important for your spiritual growth."
You have to be interactive with the text, or it's impossible to get through. I posted here years ago about a bit in Exodus where Moses's brother Aaron's sons are killed by God because they "offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command," and when Moses basically says "Yeah, well, they should've been not doing that," Aaron says nothing. The text specifically points out he says nothing. Because yeah, God's justice, etc, and maybe Aaron's sons were tools, but we're still humans and we still love our families.
What I have to report about Joshua through 2 Samuel is there is SO MUCH ASSASSINATING. I'm totally going to do a post about Judges because it is probably the best book of the entire Bible and people need to know this (and it has the best assassination stories), but even in 2 Samuel, the commander of King David's army (who of course is Joab; who doesn't know Joab?) is all "Oh hey, I'm just talking to you in a normal way and being super-normal" to this other guy David had put in charge of his army and then Joab's all "STAB STAB" and "his intestines spilled out on the ground."
Most Protestants don't really...spend a lot of time on the Old Testament because it makes us feel weird and uncomfortable. There's a whole lot of stuff that seems completely contrary to how we're supposed to act, and MOST of it you can be like "Oh, that was the Israelites being dicks; it wasn't sanctioned by God" but then it's like "God commanded Saul to slay the Amalekites EVEN THEIR SHEEP because their sheep were assholes" and you're like
I'm pretty sure there's an explanation here, but that explanation is either buried 3000 years in the past, or that the Israelites said God told them to kill the Amalekites because they just really hated the Amalekites. There's a whole lot in the Old Testament about the importance of land ownership, and as someone who's rented her entire adult life, I'm super-not relating. Maybe it's like with the Puritans where they wanted to just do their Thing and everyone else was like "BOO YOUR THING" so they were like "We'll build our own country! With blackjack! And God."
But to get that country they had to kill a lot of people like we killed Native Americans oh hey look parallels. "Um, excuse me, but we need this land. For GOD. So you can just scoot or you can have this totally safe blanket that is not swarming with disease at all."
LOOK FORWARD TO JUDGES there are people slain with a donkey's jawbone in it.
Over the years, I've made it up to 2 Samuel, which is the tenth book of the Old Testament. NOT IMPRESSIVE, YOU SAY? Try reading the parts of Exodus that're like "Wait, let me give you exact sewing instructions; these are important for your spiritual growth."
You have to be interactive with the text, or it's impossible to get through. I posted here years ago about a bit in Exodus where Moses's brother Aaron's sons are killed by God because they "offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command," and when Moses basically says "Yeah, well, they should've been not doing that," Aaron says nothing. The text specifically points out he says nothing. Because yeah, God's justice, etc, and maybe Aaron's sons were tools, but we're still humans and we still love our families.
What I have to report about Joshua through 2 Samuel is there is SO MUCH ASSASSINATING. I'm totally going to do a post about Judges because it is probably the best book of the entire Bible and people need to know this (and it has the best assassination stories), but even in 2 Samuel, the commander of King David's army (who of course is Joab; who doesn't know Joab?) is all "Oh hey, I'm just talking to you in a normal way and being super-normal" to this other guy David had put in charge of his army and then Joab's all "STAB STAB" and "his intestines spilled out on the ground."
Most Protestants don't really...spend a lot of time on the Old Testament because it makes us feel weird and uncomfortable. There's a whole lot of stuff that seems completely contrary to how we're supposed to act, and MOST of it you can be like "Oh, that was the Israelites being dicks; it wasn't sanctioned by God" but then it's like "God commanded Saul to slay the Amalekites EVEN THEIR SHEEP because their sheep were assholes" and you're like
I'm pretty sure there's an explanation here, but that explanation is either buried 3000 years in the past, or that the Israelites said God told them to kill the Amalekites because they just really hated the Amalekites. There's a whole lot in the Old Testament about the importance of land ownership, and as someone who's rented her entire adult life, I'm super-not relating. Maybe it's like with the Puritans where they wanted to just do their Thing and everyone else was like "BOO YOUR THING" so they were like "We'll build our own country! With blackjack! And God."
But to get that country they had to kill a lot of people like we killed Native Americans oh hey look parallels. "Um, excuse me, but we need this land. For GOD. So you can just scoot or you can have this totally safe blanket that is not swarming with disease at all."
LOOK FORWARD TO JUDGES there are people slain with a donkey's jawbone in it.
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