Old Testament oddities
From RationalWiki
Religious fundamentalists, especially those of the late-20th and early-21st century American Protestant Evangelical variety, rely heavily on the Old Testament of the Bible. Whatever the specific reason for that might be, the Old Testament contains a great number of oddities.
[edit] The oddities. [1]
- The Garden of Eden
- Simply put - why is that friggin' tree even in there!
- Adam and someone
- All of the other animals go boy, girl, boy, girl. Why does Adam get jerked around? And, all of the other animals were POOFed into existence by God, why does Adam have to go through an invasive body-cavity search?[2]
- Cain and Abel
- God shows a remarkable lack of omniscience when he asks Cain for directions. Notably the whereabouts of Cain's brother Abel. This is all the more odd considering that there are appearently only four humans on Earth to keep track of.
- Job
- The whole thing seems like a pretty sick joke with God and Satan in cahoots for a few lulz.
- The plague of the firstborn
- Another lack of omniscience. God needs a reminder as to which firstborn children are Hebrew and which are not. A slap of lamb's blood on the front door does the trick.
- Mt. Sinai
- Moses turns his back for two seconds and the Hebrews devolve into crazy pagan idol-worshipers. These are people who have quite likely personally witnessed up to eleven miracles, some with significant SFX (Special effects). One would think they'd give Moses at least a few minutes.
- An eye for an eye
- Grammy Flash always used to say that "the trouble with an eye for an eye is that everyone ends up blind."[3] One would think that a sacred religious text would have more wisdom than the grandmother of a fictional comic book superhero. Go figure.
- YHWH - the Chatty Cathy of the ancient near-east
- Long ago, God would seemingly talk to anyone who would listen. You couldn't shut the guy up. He doesn't seem to do that too much anymore, nor for a long time. Many would say that he does indeed speak to a great many people. It is fairly certain that those people did hear him. This is called mental illness or drug abuse now-a-days though. However, the Old Testament's implication is the very deep, very "James Earl Jones" bellowing associated with speaking out-loud.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ I guess the main reference would be the Bible
- ↑ This oddly inspired people to think that men have one less rib than women, even until the modern day. Despite over 400 years of medical evidence pointing to a wealth of dead-bodies showing otherwise.
- ↑ This is, more-or-less, a quote from an episode of the first season (series) of Justice League Unlimited.
