Men with Vaginae

I'm back! After a nine-month period of convalescence to recover from the extreme boredom of the last four chapters, I am ready to dig my way through four more. And these are much better than the last several, because we are back to sex and murder. God should just stick with sex and murder, he is much better with those topics than with mould and fungus.

Old Testament
Book Three: Leviticus
The Law of Holiness
Chapter 17: Don't eat the blood!
Chapter 18: Don't have sex with your sister! (Or your mom.)
Chapter 19: The Ten Commandments Redux
Chapter 20: Whom to kill, and when

With chapter 17 begins the "Holiness Code," and parts of it are actually pretty interesting and useful, almost Christian. First, though, chapter 18 is all the sex prohibitions. Somewhere in Israel's history God made a terrible, unfun, anti-perverted turn that really put a damper on the whole party. Chapter 18 is a long list of the people you're not allowed to have sex with. It really boils down to two rules: no incest, and no adultery. But it lists every possible person--your father's wife, your mother's sister, your son's wife, on and on and on. Now, some of these regulations are okay--the rule against adultery, while antiquated, isn't bad, if recast: if you promise someone you'll be faithful, then do so. But a rule against having sex with a woman and her sister?! Against a woman and her daughter?! Come on, be fair! Entire issues of Playboy would have to be removed without the pictorials of mom and daughter! As we speak Hugh Hefner is auditioning a pair of twins to be his new girlfriends. I understand not having sex with your own sister, but someone else's sister? Come on! Especially when apparently even at this late date, having sex with a slave girl is still allowed. So the prohibition on adultery already is elastic, why eliminate the hot sister?

No, a girl and her sister is not a point on the purity test that I have yet managed to score, but I am still young and there is always hope. But that's not my complaint. So much of Genesis revolved around exactly these incestuous relationships. The three best sex stories in the bible are Lot and his daughters, Jacob and the sisters, and Judah and the wife of his son. Every one of them is now prohibited, but was not in Genesis. First of all it belies the complete arbitrariness of this idea of "God."

You know, I have now read about 130 pages of the old testament. The book is so obviously just a collection of myths, it's not even very interesting to consider the "debate" between believers and atheists. It's just so obviously not true. Why is it that every other fantasy is so easily rejected? Why is it that in third or fourth grade when someone pulls you aside on the playground to let you know that Santa doesn't really exist, it's just your parents, why is that claim IMMEDIATELY believed, without a second thought, followed by anger at your parents for tricking you. The truth is you know it 's not true by the time you are told, and once others tell you so, the belief just flies out the window. Why is the same not true with God? I find that very puzzling.

Chapter 18 is like commandment 7, don't commit adultery, exploded into an entire chapter. (Brief interruption: wow. I'm at home right now, so I was reading from the "New American Standard Bible" online. They are shameless about rewriting the text! My bible has Chapter 18 all about sex--don't have sex with your mom, your sister, etc. This version says it's all about "nakedness"--don't uncover the nakedness of your mom, your sister, etc. In a way, by trying to hide what the chapter's about, they have made something far more sexy and perverted: all this undressing is quite titillating. But nevertheless, clearly the "NASB" is not to be trusted, I'm going to try a different one.) (Well, I just tried the "English Standard Version." It's the same, about "uncovering nakedness." Maybe I'm naïve, and I know the New English Bible has been criticized for its translation, but for whatever reason it seems more trustworthy to me. It's more scholarly, and doesn't try so hard to hide what was really written. "Don't uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife"? What does that even mean?)

Anyway, almost everything in this chapter was done by the protagonists of Genesis. For instance, Lev. 18.18, you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister. Well, that's the entire story of Jacob and his four competing wives. We wouldn't have the twelve tribes of Israel without that rivalry.

Now comes one of the more widely scrutinized passages of the bible these days, the putative prohibition on homosexuality. What it says is "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman." Well, most of us lie with a woman by sliding our penes into their vaginae. Men don't have vaginae. This rule is nugatory. What else can "as with a woman" mean? In other words, how could you "lie with a man" that is not "as with a woman," unless "as with a woman" means vaginally? If you're not convinced, look at these other passages: Lev. 20.15, "If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death"; Lev. 20.16, "If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal"; Exod. 22.19, "Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death." In no case do they say "whoever lies with an animal as with a woman." Why the omission? Clearly any kind of sex at all is wrong with an animal, while only vaginal sex with a man is wrong. Oral and anal sex with a man are both okay.

Chapter 19 is the first passage of the bible that is actually instructional or inspiring in the slightest way. The advice in this chapter is so good I actually think it bears repeating. Now, the following is also in the bible: why do we concentrate on the dumb ten commandments, when these are so much more useful?

1. "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest." In other words, don't be gluttonous. Interestingly this is the opposite of "waste not, want not."

2. "And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner." I think this is wonderful advice. Don't be selfish and niggardly: take what you need, but don't take every bit, leave some for the poor.

3. "You shall not steal."

4. "You shall not deal falsely."

5. "You shall not lie to one another." These last two are especially important, and are glaringly absent from the ten commandments.

6. Blah blah don't take the lord's name in vain.

7. "You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him."

8. "The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning." I find this one to be particularly interesting. By extension, this is how banks make money. You make a payment, it doesn't show up on your account for 7 to 10 days, and guess who makes interest off your money in the mean time?

9. "You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind."

10. "You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor." I am of course guilty of being partial to the poor (any moral person is), but this isn't a bad admonishment: be fair.

11. "You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor."

12. "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him."

13. "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself." This, of course, it the golden rule.

Look at how VASTLY superior these rules are to the ten commandments! It says something interesting about religious leaders who would privilege them over these. I split them up, but these could easily be boiled down to ten as well.


--bibletoenail


Chapter 20 is also important. It gives the punishments for the various crimes. The important thing is that God says that you shall kill the offender, but "their blood shall be on them." In other words, you will not be responsible for killing them, they will be responsible for it. This unfortunate passage, arguably, justifies atrocities such as killing abortion doctors. It is important to note, however, that this chapter is precise: it defines the punishment for specific crimes, it is not a general admonishment to kill sinners.