I recently came across a post called, "10 Crazy and Unbelievable Bible Stories You May Not Know" by darlenebee on Enki Village.
The author's stance on religion is explained in a subsequent article in which she explains her definition and understanding of religion:
"In ancient times the word religion was linked to mythology, but it really has more to do with how the world was created, what exactly a human’s place in this world is, what happens after death, and how you get through this experience and the next life without having to suffer. No matter what the religion, the people who follow it have created a god that reflects their own image and likeness. But which is the oldest religion?"
What Is the most Ancient Religion? (with Pictures) by Darlenebee
Perhaps the inability to correctly define religion was the reason why the article regarding the "Crazy" Bible stories had so many mistakes it wouldn't have been accepted at nursery, I really have no idea but the reason I found the article about Crazy Bible Stories quite annoying was not because the individual finds the stories "crazy" (no definition of that btw) but rather because the author was made aware by other readers that her article contained mistakes and yet failed to edit it, preferring to leave her article as it was. This means that her mistakes were malicious and since the entire aim of this blog is to combat anti-Christian bigotry, this is my response.
The Sons of Noah
Genesis 9:18-28
In her "Crazy" article, Darlenebee is unable to get the passages for the story right and apparently, having not bothered to look up the original source material she doesn't even name the story nor recount it correctly.
The Story:
After spending over a year in the ark, Noah who had previously been a farmer planted a vineyard for himself and one day when the fruits were ripe and he had produced some wine, he decided to get a little drunk. Noah overdid it on the wine and fell asleep naked in his tent.
Ham, Noah's middle son who was supposedly at least 100 years old at the time, happened to see Noah naked and looking ridiculous and he went and told his two equally aged brothers about it. The two brothers didn't find their dad's disgrace amusing and walked backwards into the tent to cover their father so that he wouldn't be embarrassed when he woke up.
When Noah woke up and found out what had happened he was outraged and cursed Ham's son, Canaan saying that he would always be a slave. He then blessed his two respectful sons to have Canaan as their servant.
The Problem
The trouble with Darlenebee's misrepresentation of the story is that it undermines the meaning of it. There are no random stories in the bible and there has been much speculation as to the meaning of this story. Most people who read the story and have knowledge of the bible or the region in which the history contained in it takes place, will recognise the names of Ham and Canaan as regions in the locality.
Ham refers to the land of Egypt and Canaan is literally that. Unfortunately when taking any story in the bible out of context, one will remove the meaning. In the next chapter on the descendants of Noah, the bible mentions the division of the area to Noah's three sons and we quickly see that Ham's sons were Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan and they founded the nations of with these names. Now the key to this story is that all of these races are black and the story of Noah's disgrace and cursing of Ham can be seen as explaining why the descendants of Shem (that would be the Jews) ended up with their promised land in the land that had been allocated to Ham.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/7116-ham
It seems that in her effort to make the bible seem ridiculous and imply child abuse of a 100 year old man, Darlenebee missed an opportunity to question a passage that has been used to justify xenophobia and racism but that's what happens when you haven't read the book you're trying to critique.
Jacob's Flocks Increase
Genesis 30:25-43
Yet again the scriptures quoted are incorrect, the story is taken out of context and the ignorance of the author is displayed with impunity.
The Story:
Having stolen his brother's birth right by tricking his aged, blind father with some tasty meat and a bit of bronze age roleplay, Jacob had run off to live with his maternal uncle Laban. Now Laban had two daughters, the elder was called Leah and she had weak eyesight and the younger and more beautiful daughter whom Jacob fancied was called Rachel.
Back in those days kissing cousins wasn't an issue so Jacob asked his uncle to let him marry Rachel. Uncle Laban said words to the effect of: "Sure thing Jakey boy!" and arranged for Jacob to work for him for seven years in order to marry the lovely Rachel, but when the seven years were up Laban pulled a fast one and switched the brides on the wedding day. Jacob only realised when it was time to consummate the marriage.
After an angry confrontation, Laban convinced Jacob that he only did it because he couldn't let Leah be disgraced by her younger sister marrying first and blah, blah, blah, long story short he was an idol worshipping trickster and liar.
Somehow Uncle Laban was able to trick Jacob into working another seven years for him so that he could have Rachel too, but God was gracious to Leah the unloved, unattractive, weak eyed wife and gave her lots of children whilst Rachel remained barren for many years. After a baby arms-race in which women were even bringing in their handmaidens to have children for them, Rachel finally had her own baby and Jacob thought that with 11 sons and at least one daughter, it was probably time to move away from his nasty minded, Uncle/Father-in-law so he asked to leave with his wives and children, but Uncle Laban didn't want them to leave because Jacob was his best worker and he certainly didn't want to give Jacob his back wages, so just like his previous trick, old Uncle Laban pulled a fast one and ran off with the sheep and goats he had promised to give to Jacob.
So Jacob got the fresh branches of the poplar, almond and plane trees and exposed the inner wood of the branches to act as an aphrodisiac that caused the animals to mate. The offspring of the animals were all born with the particular markings that Laban had promised to give to Jacob and he made sure to breed the stronger females in this way to get the type of animals he wanted. He then ran off with his wives, children and livestock.
The Problem:
Apparently getting animals to breed certain traits isn't possible in some people's minds.
I thought this was called selective breeding and animal husbandry. I had no idea that breeding a specific type of animal to get desirable traits was "crazy and unbelievable". How do we happen to have so many varieties of dog or cow or any domesticated animal? Random chance?
Aphrodisiacs don't exist either? The inner bark of a tree is called the Phloem and it transports the plants hormones as well as other things within the plant. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5655956/
It is questionable what impact if any the phloem of a plant has on animals but I think we can all agree that the ancient peoples of the world were far from stupid even if they did not describe things in the way we do now, so who is to say what an observant goat herd might notice and make use of.
Part Two
Comments
Post a Comment