Eric Reads The Bible Part 3: Go-go-go Joseph! (far, far away)
"And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass" - Genesis 22:3
Have you ever wanted to know something about someone's true feelings or motives, but you can't ask them directly because you know they'll lie? To solve this, you might pretend to go along with it to lure them into a sense of comfort in the conversation where they may be broken down to confessing, afterwhich you can jump out and tell them how sick and twisted they are. For instance, you might say, "Hey bf/gf, want to go to that orgy down the street?" and if they say, "Of course not!" then you can proudly say, "Good, I was just testing you." Congratulations! You have the same manipulation tactics as God. How lucky.
God wants to know if Abraham is the real deal, and you would too if you were selecting the leader of your brand new tribe of humans that don't suck as much as the last batch. And what better way to test someone's faith than to have him nearly burn his son alive on the top of a deserted mountain? (God is actually particular about which mountain it is, too ... maybe he just wants a good view or something) If I were Isaac, I'd give my father a second thought every time he asked if I wanted to get ice cream with him henceforth. Basically, Abraham leads his son Isaac on top of a mountain under the impression that they'll be sacrificing a goat or something (a perfectly normal father-son bonding activity), and when Isaac asks what animal they're going to light on fire, Abraham is just like "Oh here, have a seat on this pile of spindle while I inconspicuously light this torch." Seriously Abraham? And Isaac doesn't even realise he's the sacrifice. Way to walk into that one. But Abraham is the hero in this story. Why? Because God told him to do something and he did it. He was willing to let his son be collateral damage just to prove to God that he believes real hard. What kind of world would we live in if we blindly did what God told us, regardless of the consequences? But this is The Bible, and people seem to love their Yahweh.
Anyway, Abraham later dies old and happy. Isaac marries Rebekah and they have two children: Esau and Jacob. It's important to note that, even at birth, Esau was like super hairy, like a garment, apparently. We can now conclude that within the Canaan bloodline, there is just a touch of Wookie. The Bible basically says that Jacob is dull, as he is "a plain man, dwelling in tents" (Genesis 25:27). Can you say underachiever? Because of the this, Isaac has a higher affinity for his eldest furball Esau rather than his boringly hairless other son. Esau becomes the hunter of the family and is generally in charge of finding food--maybe it's the Wookie in him. One day, Esau is hungry to point of near death and he begs Jacob for food. Jacob is like, "Oh sure, sure. Just give me your inheritance." So ... his brother is basically dying on his stoop, and Jacob uses this as leverage to get Esau's inheritance. Interesting.
It turns out that their mother, Rebekah, was more into Jacob than she was Esau, and damn it she wants to make sure both her sons get blessed equally. One day, when Isaac is all old, blind, and dumb, he decides he wants to bless his eldest son (the Wookie). Isaac is blind and all but hey, what could go wrong? Well basically, Rebekah decides that Jacob is really more deserving of Isaac's blessing so naturally she tries to trick her husband into thinking that Jacob is really Esau. There is a problem, however: Esau is part Wookie, and how does a regular hairless human impersonate a Wookie? The clear answer, and the one that Rebekah and Jacob concluded, is to put on a hairy disguise. Now, where this hair came from is a little unclear and when Isaac felt his son's hairy arms, I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted to know where it came from either. So Isaac accidentally blesses the wrong son, and as everybody knows, blessings cannot be undone. So even when Isaac finds out his little shit of a son pretended to be the eldest Wookie, he's like "Oops no takesies-backsies." Jacob essentially stole his brother's blessing, which is a really shitty thing to do. I mean, it is a little unfair that Isaac was going to pass along God's Holy covenant and all exclusively to his older brother ... but that's no excuse for lying! Esau later comes home, finds out about the stolen blessing and gets pissed--and you should never upset a Wookie ... They've been known to rip people's arms right out of their sockets. Jacob, like the courageous and noble spirit he is, flees, taking his father's blessing with him. It is again unclear if he ever took the hair off of his arms.
Things get a little boring for a while after Jacob runs away. He's apparently a hot commodity, as two women fight over him (later giving birth to a whole ton of children, so that's great). His daughter gets raped by some random dude, so he of course says he will allow their marriage so long as the rapist and all the members of his tribe get circumcised, which, okay, in that time was a pretty good punishment when you consider their age and what surgical tools and techniques were available to them. But even so, Jacob's sons kill them all. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes you rape, sometimes you get circumcised, and sometimes you kill an entire village for one man raping one woman.
Among Jacob's many sons is Joseph. If you're familiar with Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic musical, then you're already set for the story. If not, Joseph is basically Jacob's favourite. Jacob gives Joseph this super bright and colourful coat (definitely not gay tho). The brothers get jealous, and like any rational sibling, they sell him into slavery and tell their father that he's dead. Maybe the coat was Gucci or something, I dunno. Even as a slave, Joseph is a charming fellow and eventually gets on the Pharaoh's good side. Joseph begins having dreams and becomes known as an interpreter/fortune teller. The Pharaoh elects him to a higher position. Joseph predicts a major famine, which--surprise!--comes along. But then his brothers, unbeknownst to them, come begging for food. There's an epic Pretty Woman moment when Joseph finally reveals to his grovelling brothers that he's all famous and all! Ah, revenge.
So, it turns out that the fathers of Abrahamic religions are kind of assholes. And once again The Bible just can't stop talking about rape. What a rape-y time, these Biblical days. If I could pick a theme for Genesis, I think it would be Obedience, Wrath, Incest and Rape. Really, I'm just so excited to get to all those Levitical Laws. I promise I'll provide a nice summary of those so that you, too, can adequately present your animal sacrifice in such a way that the Lord is pleased with its smell. Honestly, at this point I don't even have to try. Religion mocks itself. It is truly the antithesis of all that humanity has ever achieved.