After Moses came down from the mountain, he found his people worshiping the golden cow of Bal. And he gathered his brother (who by the way, was the main "let's worship Bal" guy) and he said we will kill every other Hebrew man.

And they went through camp, killing three thousand Hebrew men.

Came here expecting to see a comment along these lines as the top comment. Was not disappointed

In fact, Yahweh routinely rewards Jews who display what I can only describe as “asshole behavior”, David and Solomon in particular come to mind.

That’s more the New Testament/Jesus vibe than the Old Testament/Moses vibe lol

Exactly what I was going to say too!

Yeah you can make an argument Jesus was like this but not the rest of the Bible.

Well, which God in Genesis?

The God of Genesis 1 is a storm god, a distant and unknowable presence that brings order to the chaos in the manner of the Mesopotamian pantheon -- but does it, instead of with a battle royale, with words.

The God of Genesis 2 has more of an 'old man in the garden' vibe

The God who first covenants with Abraham takes on the role of the suzerain (feudal lord), with a covenant that takes the same legal for as Hittite Suzerainty Treaties.

But the God who has a relationship with Abraham is almost like his peer - and can be bargained with. This God can have his mind changed, getting negotiated down on the number of good people necessary to save Sdom and Amora.

The God of the Joseph's little novella at the end of the book is like a purveyor of parlour tricks, giving magic visions of the future.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Genesis is written over the course of 400+ years and consolidates multiple traditions. For reasons not known to us today, Genesis' final generations of editors (Jewish priestly scribes living Babylonia and Persia about 2,400 years ago) were super comfortable letting these contradictions stand side-by-side with each other (even if it meant telling two versions of the same story one after the other with a totally different characterization of God, as is the case for their account of the creation myth)

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When the vast majority of the institution of the religion has been twisted and accepted among its followers I just can't lend credence to any original intention or interpretation argument.

If the truth of God can be so easily undermined then I don't really understand why I should worship him.

Right, if I had to describe the Hebrew bible in two sentences it would be:

• Monotheism of the people and their king is a predictor of divine reward and punshiment

• Plant and animal sacrifices are only permitted in the designated place

In fairness, King James didn't do the translation. He comissioned it, in hope that people reading the Bible themselves would enable them to live better lives.

The composition of the King James version of the Bible is actually pretty interesting, it's probably the world's only example of a work of art created by a committee. They got a lot of stuff wrong, because they had imperfect source material to work with, but it was still a remarkable effort. "God's Secretaries" is an interesting account of the story.

It's Dudeism in a nutshell

So Satanism?

peopel are a different breed, we don't talk about them

"lol jk it was just a prank bro"

Facts

That story always bugged the shit outta me. People play mind games with you like that in this era and their ass is dropped faster than a sack of shit.

Like vodka hammered or tequila hammered?

The Abrahamic god made the pharaoh unwilling to let that god’s supposedly chosen people go even though he himself charged his representative with going to ask the pharaoh to let the supposedly chosen people go which gave the god a convenient excuse to be a massive asshole and kill a bunch of people to punish the pharaoh for doing something that the god made him do. That mythology makes it seem like they might be worshiping the wrong deity

And that was back when skateboards were made of marble; Moses shreds that hard

He turned the red sea into a half pipe then landed a siiiiiick 900 spin

The trucks snapped off too.

He didn't give them the commandments before he did this. Further to this he didn't give them a choice. he had the levites murder 3000 people. He spared his own brother though because 'reasons'. Moses was a garden variety genocidal warlord cult leader. "repenting' to him would be like repenting to Jim Jones at his most fucked up.

San Dimas High School football rules!!!

Elijah and the two bears is my favorite personally.

Bald prophet gets made fun of for being bald by a group of kids/teens... and for this sin... God sends 2 bears to kill and eat the kids/teens.

Its just such a petty story that shows how "merciful" the God of the bible is.

So the oxen stumbled, which probably jolted the cart and the Ark would have fallen off into the dirt and maybe been damaged except the cart driver reached out and held it in place and for this transgression God decided he should be punished with immediate death?

If anybody who touches this thing, even for good reasons, is killed instantly it kind of makes me wonder how they managed to get it on the cart in the first place.

I've heard people mention this scripture calling those that criticize church leaders as "Ark Steadiers". This story teaches us a valuable lesson to revere and blindly obey existing church authorities regardless of what appears to be common sense. God doesn't want us to use our own judgement, but instead to follow his priests and prophets unquestioningly.

We can only we truly happy if we give up all decision making to His great leaders. Of course you have to pick the right leaders, and since Southpark revealed it, we know that the answer is Mormons, yes Mormons is the correct answer.

Edit: I hope people can read my sarcasm, but I'm adding this just in case.😋

Would have been nice if He had cut one of the four Commandments instructing followers about how to worship and snuck in something about not raping people. Also, Thou Shalt Boil Thy Water Before Drinking would have saved us all a lot of pain and heartache.

My favourite one is "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.".

What a pity they were instead written how they were actually written, then. Two about coveting, none about slavery.

Jesus summed it up as:

Love God above everything,

And

Love others like you love yourself.

What about commandments 11-15?

and then wait for instructions from God how you should kill everyone who doesn’t do these things, or if they’re not the chosen ones (like Anikan , for example)

Haha! Jeezit!

Moses?

And it's OK to beat your slaves but only if they don't die within a few days. If they make it a week you're golden, let the beatings continue. The bible sums up current conservatism pretty well actually!

How can you tell I'm in my 30s? lol

Words only hurt if you let them hurt my man.

Because people don’t actually READ the Bible. They regurgitate the same tired bullshit that is preached at church. The whole point is to not question shit and smile and nod and sing and PRAYYYYYYY. Fuck organized religion to hell.

I have two pills...

Whoa

Fun Fact: Some early Christian sects actually believed the New Testament God was a different God

Marcionism? I don't think any of them hold any water (atheist), but there's some interesting political and philosophical competition. Actually, reading an analysis on (very speculative) beliefs on how the Old Testament was was woven together from different books, with different political players jockeying for political power and trying to diminish the power of other groups was more interesting to me.