Dreams of the Quill

A week or so late, thanks to sick. Still catching up on stuff. Will be doing so (for various classes) for a week or so, at least. I missed way too much.

Exodus 1. Tsundere originates in the Bible.

Joseph died (flashback for those of us who’ve already forgotten G50) and all his brothers died (BAWWWWWW) and all that generation died. But because these people were the descendants of Abraham they just kept having kids and, in the end, became exceedingly numerous. Except that ‘in the end’ is not very apt because they keep multiplying, and ‘exceedingly numerous’ is not very final because they keep multiplying.

Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph—STOP! Stop right there, Exy! You’re out of your element, Exy. There was not a SINGLE Egyptian who did not know about Joseph. Not only was he a huge political figure but he was a national hero. He saved Egypt from seven years of famine (albeit by having its inhabitants sell themselves to him). How could ANYONE not know who he was, much less someone in the government?!

Then the new king expressed his fears regarding the Israelites—they might join with Egypt’s enemies in a war, fight against them, and leave the country. One always saves their strongest point for last in order to deliver the greatest impact. This is clearly Pharaoh’s strategy because even back then, rhetoric was important.

Unfortunately for Pharaoh, this last, strongest point is incredibly immature. His playmates will go away! Boohoo!!

So Egypt enslaved the Jews.

-Bzzzzt.-

The Jews already owned Egypt, and its livestock, and its granaries, and its people. Joseph had devised a robust system for the Israelite takeover of Egypt and it had been robust so it worked. Joseph owned Egypt; his family owns Egypt. It’s simple. There is absolutely no way that the group of people who collectively own a land and its natives could possibly be enslaved by said natives.

Doesn’t happen. The Bible is full of lies. Lies! :(

Then Pharaoh decides to have all Hebrew boys killed upon birth because slave labor wasn’t oppressing the Israelites enough. Midwives don’t make good baby-assassins and the Bible attributes this to God (which is ridiculous because actually, if you spend your life making a career of delivering babies, of course you’re not going to be able to turn around and start slaughtering them).

Pharaoh has a Plan B, though—any Egyptian can kill any Hebrew boy, just throw him into the Nile! I imagine that the grain fields prosper even more when there are bodies of little children in the silt. Pharaoh knew a trick or two about fertilization! :D

Exodus 2. In the end, a matter of fundamental nationalism—why are people so stupid?

Exodus 2:1 gives us more incest, hurrah.

I like how Moses has a sister for one verse and all she does is stand at a distance. Will she ever be mentioned at all?! Nobody knows (except for those of us who’ve read the Bible before).

Pharaoh’s daughter is clearly a humongous … uh, spoiled person. Slave, go do this! Hebrew woman, go do that! What? Nurse him myself? No way in hell.

Exodus 2:12 gives us Moses as a murderer already (and he’s only been Moses for two verses) and introduces to us the idea of hiding the body. ALSO, how does Moses know that he’s a Hebrew? Makes no sense.

Moses’s actions become known to the Pharaoh eventually so he has to run away. He runs away to a well, of course, thinking that he’ll encounter some women to take care of his troubles for him. Right on cue, enter seven girls. Moses saves them from some shepherds (daaaaaangerous shepherds, Chaaaaaarlie). And so, of course, their father gives one of his daughters to Moses. Actually, not ‘of course’—I was betting on Moses getting all seven of them.

Exodus 2:24 has God remembering the covenant. He’s an amazing character, this God fellow, his memory might even be better than Esau’s! Funny thing is, after remembering the covenant and noticing that his people were suffering, what’s God’s reaction? Doing something about it? No no no. That’s not the way he rolls.

God noticed that his people were suffering—and he remembered his covenant with their forefathers—and so he noticed that his people were suffering.

(Pssst—I don’t need a covenant {or divine powers} to notice that there are people suffering somewhere in the world; I just need the internet! Ah, the modern-day attempts at omniscience…)

And now we come to the main dilemma of the chapter. All the hatred and unnecessary strife thus far are… well, unnecessary, and kinda dumb. The Israelites in Egypt are Egyptians; maybe Egypt didn’t have cool immigration laws but as far as I can tell Moses etc. were born in Egypt and thus have as much right to Egyptianness as anyone else, Joseph’s slave trade aside. The problem here is that they’re trying to hold onto the name of a ghost nation (the “Hebrews,” “Israel,” etc.) and it’s not very becoming. We have genocide in countries around the world for centuries because of feelings of nationalism like these, and frankly, that makes such notions incredibly ill-advised.

“We can always play what-ifs,” said my third grade English teacher. But what if the Hebrews had just become Egyptians? It’s not like God would have cared—he only remembered the covenant when he saw that they were suffering. If they hadn’t suffered, and enjoyed being who they by all rights were (Egyptians) then they could have continued without exile, without strife, etc.

And stupid, stupid Egyptian king who thinks to oppress them, but he’s clearly a stellar ignoramus as evidenced by his lack of knowledge of Joseph and Joseph’s dreams and Joseph’s miserly economic policies.

You can’t really blame him for treating the Hebrews like crap. Someone that dumb doesn’t make conscious decisions, after all. An American lawyer would definitely excuse him.

Exodus 3. JETHROOOOOOOOOOO.

Jethro is not Reuel. Reuel is not Jethro. Why do we have different writers, and why can’t they agree on names? Better yet, why wasn’t there a better editor? Reading this ‘good book’ makes me want to write a better book. I promise I would do a better job.

Of course, maybe Moses’s wife Zipporah had two fathers. It’s a long shot, though, seeing as God doesn’t approve of that and all.

God calls to Moses, “Moses! Moses!” kinda like “Abraham! Abraham!” and Moses replies, “Here I am,” kinda like “Here I am.” Funny how these things repeat themselves word for word. Was there a book on etiquette for addressing God? Did Moses write Ms. Manners? I mean, is there some kind of protocol for these encounters? Why do they all end up the same?

Does the power of God compel people to answer, “here I am?”

(And now the next generation of network engineers set out to create the GP. And when we figure out how to share files out of his mindvaults of data, we can establish the GFP, and, once we’ve backwards-engineered his code, we can hack into him with other protocols and have GOIP. And I am very, very sorry for his digression.)

I think that E3:5 is the first mention of “holy ground” in the Bible. Kind of oxymoronic, no? What with “ground” being uh… cursed, was it?

Moses is afraid to look at God. Is this some remnant of Zeus I sense in the Torah? Moses is clearly not afraid OF God (the text is very explicit) so it must be that looking upon God is blinding. Mmm, bear with me for a moment: fire (burning bush) + air (there was a wind from God that swept [through a vacuum] {G1}) = lightning (Wheel of Time math). And, as everyone knows, lightning = Zeus (word association). So now we get, in our previews for the next episode, “GOD?!?!?!?!?!!!!?!?! ZEUS?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!” Yeeeeah.

Ex3:7 - God says that he has indeed seen the misery of his people in Egypt, that he has heard them crying out due to their slavery and oppression. From bored toddler to delusional old man in only a few hundred years? Earth to God! The Hebrews are not enslaved! The Pharaoh only thinks they are because he’s a stellar ignoramus! Don’t fall for his acting!

Ex3:8 - God likes milk and honey. I like milk and honey. I’m onto something here.

Moses is indeed the most humble man on Earth. *snort* He asks, ‘who am I, that I should [deliver my people from Pharaoh]?’ He sure doesn’t want to be assed to go back into Egypt. He likes his wife, his Midian life, and, above all else, his father-in-law’s flock (yummy!) and he most certainly HATES his mother and her father and everything they stand for. I can’t blame him. I wouldn’t go back either. Hell, I’d draw a bucket from the nearest well, and teach God’s shrubbery a lesson.

E3:14 - God teaches Moses bad grammar. The despair of my life, starting with the most widely-read book in existence.

E3:15 - after teaching Moses bad grammar in order to avoid telling Moses his name, God tells Moses his name—YHWH. The whole YHWH thing is a bit of a joke; anyone can just plug those letters into anything to make their writing DEEPER (OH MY GOD IT’S GOD). Hey, even I did it in one of my recent longer stories. The story had six characters; one ordinary human, four with supernatural powers (the first initials of their last names spelled YHWH), and the last character was referred to as ‘the dark god’ (but was really just a manifestation of my opinion of the God of the Bible—a bored eternal toddler). And I’m going waaaay off-topic.

Basically, I’m years ahead of having read the Bible. That’s all I can say because I knew about the YHWH thingy years before reading the Bible and I’m not exactly years before the Bible itself.

E3:20 gives me the first glimpse at Biblical writing I actually liked. The image of God STRIKING the Egyptians with the WONDERS he will PERFORM among them really struck me with its wonderful performance. Fortunately, God’s eloquence does not remain in my favor for long—E3:22’s “And so you will plunder the Egyptians” is kinda unabashedly terrible.

Exodus 4. The right people are no longer listening—they’re speaking.

It’s always reassuring to know that staves are important, that God can rot flesh “like snow,” and that every word out of my mouth is one that God bade me speak. After all, who is it that gave me a mouth? Who made me neither deaf nor mute?

I like how Moses is still trying to worm his way out of the Egypt deal some twenty verses later. It’s cute.

E4:21—”but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go” …

…

…

…

Is there ANY amount of whitespace that can do justice to this total asshole who goes by the monicker “God?” Why does he have people go through trials and tribulations when he can, with nary a thought, change the way they THINK?! This has gone beyond the ridiculous. He no longer intervenes in their sex lives, no longer demands that they sacrifice their children, none of that. That stuff was Easy Mode. Now we’re on Hard and he’s making his real moves.

God.

Is a psychic.

Who toys with us.

…

For fun.

And then God tries to kill Moses. And Zipporah saves Moses’s life with a charm made from their son’s foreskin. I thought G38 was ridiculous. I honestly did.

And now?

I really miss my old home’s fireplace.

Exodus 5. Pure nonsense.

Exodus 5 shows us Aaron and Moses meeting with Pharaoh, which was cool and all except that they ended up bickering about the INVISIBLE SLAVERY. The rest of the chapter is about the slavery which I refuse to accept exists. It’s simply impossible and “I’m not stoppin’ my train, rabbit.” The Bible can fold whenever it likes.

Exodus 6. God makes reasonable claims.

Having proven himself to be able to manipulate peoples’ thoughts, God tells Moses that with his mighty hand he will liberate the Israelites. This may seem reasonable, what with the furthering of his omnipotence (seriously, are there no checks or balances?), but upon closer inspection, he’s talking straight out his butt.

Sorry, God, but even this, even you cannot do. You speak of freeing a people that is not enslaved.

I guess it’s kind of retarded to continue insisting that the Israelites are not enslaved, but it’s so very true. Let’s put it aside for a moment to examine some of God’s words to Moses, since they may or may not be crack-addled (and thusly, may not be or may be of some meaning).

First, he tells Moses that Moses is the first one to whom he has told his name. This may or may not be true. I don’t think God’s memory is good enough to remember whether or not he told Abraham his name. Remember, “better than Esau’s,” etc. etc.

Second, he gave the Israelites the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens. I don’t get this part. Aliens once, aliens twice, aliens forever. Israel should not exist. Logic in the form of historical precedent rather than shaky scripture exists.

God then tells Moses to tell the Israelites, and I quote God, “‘I am the Lord…’” stop right there.

God. Tells Moses. To tell folks. That Moses is God.

Riiiiight.

Why is Moses so unconfident? “Why would anyone listen to me”—it’s not being humble, it’s an extreme of trolling. It’s self-deprecation in a search for reassurance of love and trust. It’s whorish.

E6 then goes on to barrage us with more names and wives and daughters and sons and families and clans and clan by clans and ages and none of that stuff really matters. Levi was a violent bastard etc. etc. Can we move on?

… apparently, we can’t: upon escaping the death trap of genealogy, we get a repetition of a line ALREADY spoken by Moses earlier in the chapter. “Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?” Your lips are not what falter, Moses. It is your mind that falters. And I don’t mean that in a Matrix way. I mean you’re a complete ‘tard.