The Antichristian Phenomenon

In the previous installment of this series I ended at the destruction of Sodom. The rest of Genesis contains some stories about the descendants of Abraham down to Jacob, father of twelve sons who would later become the fathers of the twelve Israeli tribes living in Egypt that would later find themselves enslaved: Prepair for the book of Exodus.

However, before we enter Moses, I’d like to write out some general conclusions I have made from reading Genesis. These mainly concern the biblical god (”God”). Although Christians often portray him as an altruist, the god I’ve read about is definitely not. He appoints Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as his servants and demands they act like it if they want the Lord to help them. We’ll see the same kind of egoism in Exodus, but that’s for later. The thing I was annoyed with the most in Genesis is that right in the first book it is made clear that one is not to question the Lord. The stories of the Flood and Abraham almost sacrificing his son illustrate this very well. Noach and Abraham never stop to think about the motives of this authority figure. Questioning authority is a cornerstone in skeptical freethinking. I will also note that God will make damn sure that he gets his fix of destruction while still upholding a forgiving and good-willed façade. God: “I will not utterly destroy a city if just ONE of its inhabitants is innocent of crimes I will not disclose! … Quick, Job, get out so I can destroy the city!”

Enter Moses
I’m sure you’ve heard the story. The pharao has commanded all first-borns to be killed, but Moses’ mother hides her baby in a basket along the bank of the Nile. The pharao’s daughter takes little Moses in and so he is able to grow up. After killing an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew he flees to Midian where he is taken in by Reuel/Jethro and is given Zipporah, one of Jethro’s daughters, as his wife. Some time passes before god has satisfied his sadistic needs and decided it’s time to free “his people” - meaning those unlucky enough to have born in one of the Israeli tribes, having to undergo genital mutilation after birth - and Moses is appointed his side-kick. Moses fears he lacks charismatic skills and God agrees and commends Aaron to join his brother Moses. Moses, his wife Zipporah and his children travel to Egypt. Along the way, the famous foreskin incident takes place, in which Moses is saved from God’s wrath by his son’s foreskin.

Exodus 4:24-26
At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met {Moses} and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched {Moses’} feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the LORD let him alone.

Magic and God’s sick hunger for death
Instead of sitting down and talking like adults, Moses and Aaron are sent by God to show off some magic in the hopes of impressing the pharaoh. It becomes clear freeing the Israeli slaves is not the main objective for God: He simply feel likes showing of his mad skillz (Exodus 6:3-4). And so the show begins. God starts off with his weak staff-into-snake routine the pharaoh’s sorcerers (yes, that’s what it says!) are able to replicate. The water-into-blood routine was likewise equalled by the pharaoh’s magicians. The same happens for the plague of frogs. Finally God brought something new into his act, and transformed the dust into gnats through his proxies Moses and Aaron. Still, the pharaoh didn’t let the Israeli people go. Flies ensued and boils that plagued men and cattle alike. The pharaoh began to understand he was no match for God, but God made sure he could continue his sadistic act until the very end by preventing the pharaoh let the people go (Exodus 9:12).

And so God enjoyed himself greatly, raining hail down on Egypt. “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.” God says in Exodus 10:1-2. The heavenly maniac hasn’t performed his biggest act yet, and among the locusts and darkness he makes sure the pharaoh doesn’t spoil it (Exodus 10:20, 10:27, 11:10). Having made sure it would get this far, God now feels it is time to bring out the fireworks, and kills off all the innocent people who happened to have been the first to leave the womb. God breaks his spell of the pharaoh’s mind and the Israelites are free to go.

God had one more trick up his sleeve, however. By making sure the pharaoh decides to hunt after the Israelites (Exodus 14:4), he can perform one more miracle for the world - a last violent encore to add to the slaughter already committed. He made sure the Israelites didn’t choose the shortest path to the promised land; hell, there wouldn’t be a sea to split along that way! And so, even after the Egyptian slaughter, god’s hunger for death was finally stilled when he drowned the Egyptians after making sure the Israelites were able to traverse the Red Sea.

And returning to my opening paragraph, Exodus accounts again for the fact that God is not altruist at all. As if the gratification of his hunger wasn’t enough, the price for freeing the Hebrew slaves from Egypt was high: God demanded all the firstborn male that would see the light of life thereafter, men and cattle alike, to be his property. This means sacrifice, people. But not to worry, God will make sure you’re kids are fine - for the right price, tha tis. “Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.” (Exodus 13:13)

Next up in Reading the Bible Part 3: Commandments and laws

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