Rate My Camel Toe

See what I mean? These chapters are so boring, you have to have an enormous amount of momentum in order to slog through, because it is going to grind you down. I had every intention of finishing this chapter by tomorrow! But I got mired down; now each day is going to be an unbearable grind. I can only hope Deuteronomy picks up again, that is if I ever get through Leviticus! I must! I can't let myself get stuck here again! One must ask, how can the world's most brilliant writer write so badly?


Old Testament
Book Three: Leviticus
The hallowing and installation of the priests (cont'd)
Chapter 9: The priests start work
Chapter 10: What happens if you don't follow the rules
Laws of purification and atonement
Chapter 11: Clean and unclean animals
Chapter 12: Dirty dirty childbirth!


Well, chapters 9 and 10 are painfully boring, but 11 and 12 are actually a little more interesting.

Chapters 11 to 16 are about uncleanness, which means they are at least a little bit salacious. Chapter 11 is interesting simply because it's an other chapter that proves that the book was written by humans 3000 years ago, not God. God would surely know, no matter when he wrote, whether bats are birds or not, right? (And you know what? Even if this book was written by humans leaving some room for error, still this section is spoken by God--at least God should be able to influence the author to quote him correctly, oughtn't he?) Well, God includes a section on birds, and guess what is an example of an unclean bird: that's right, bats. Lev. 11:19.

God likewise says that hares are not clean because while they do chew their cud, they do not have cloven hooves. Only problem with that? Hares do not chew their cud! It fascinates me that for a religious person a passage like this is not a big deal. They are able to shrug it off as the basest form of nitpicking. To me exactly the opposite is true. How could God not get these simple, obvious details right? It seems to me to be insulting bordering on blasphemy to suggest that God is too stupid to know that rabbits don't chew their cud, or indeed that God is not powerful enough to influence a writer to write the message God wants, without translational error. Remember this is the same god that is capable of manipulating the very atoms that comprise DNA, atom by atom, to rewrite strands into new species. That same guy can't manage to write down that rabbits don't chew their cud.

Now, I am sure religious people have some painfully strained explanation for this, but I don't see how it matters. Little things like this don't pass the "smell test" or the "laugh test" or whichever test you feel like throwing at it. It's just so obviously, empirically untrue, no further explanation is necessary.

One more interesting part about the animals concerns camels. It says that while they chew their cud, they do not have parted toes or cloven hooves. (The rule is that in order to be clean, the animal must be both--a cud-chewer, and a cloven hoofer. Lev. 11:3) Now as any red-blooded heterosexual male knows, where would the current state of the pussy be without camels? Without their suggestive feet, would we have the same appreciation of the girl version? I'm not sure if Wicked Weasel was in business 3000 years ago, but that's no excuse for God not knowing that camels have split toes!

The interesting thing about it is that they do not have cloven hooves, but do have split toes (but only have one big pad that goes across two toes). I don't think this technically can be considered a mistake, but it is certainly not clear. Why leave open whether camels count as clean or not, or what exactly it means by "parted toe"? (Notice I'm avoiding the infinitely more obvious question of WHY?!)

Oh, chapter 12 isn't the fun chapter. It's a very short chapter stating that childbirth is unclean, and the mother must remain isolated for 7 days afterward, etc. The more interesting chapter about spilling seed is a little later. (I've been reading a little ahead.)

That's about it. Only 15 chapters to go. Still not half way done, still not to my farthest point yet!


--bibletoenail