Welllll in this episode we finish GENESIS!

We’re 5% of the way through!

We learn about what happened to Jacob/Israel and Joseph (not much) and how Israel dealt with his scheming sons, aka the 12 Tribes of Israel.

This is where it all happens, baby!

Next episode – EXODUS!

Well I’m back with a new episode and here’s the good news – at the end of this episode, we are 4.56% of the way through the book! Only…. 28 years to go at this rate!

So, what will you learn in this episode?

• Having sex with your daughter-in-law is okay if she covers her face;
• Having sex with your recently widowed sister-in-law is okay unless you spill your “seed” on the ground – then God’s going to have to kill you;
• We do the whole “Joseph and this Technicolour Dreamcoat” story, where you’ll find out it’s a terrible LIE that his brothers sold him into slavery;
• God just loves to cause suffering and death for no apparent reason;
• Egyptian Pharaoh’s wives were slutty liars and, when roaming Hebrews said “God” to an Egyptian Pharaoh, apparently the Pharaoh immediately abandoned his own gods.

Oh and much, much more.

Today we learn some of the enduring principles of the Bible – God doesn’t care if you tell a lie; Women are evil; God will still bless you if you commit mass murder.

Most of this episode deals with Isaac’s son Jacob (he of “Jacob’s Ladder“, also later known as Israel) – who, on the instructions of his mother, lies to his father, pretends to be his brother Esau, then runs away, takes four wives (including two sisters), has a bunch of children, two of whom commit an act of mass murder against a town of innocent people, and that’s AFTER they convince the men of the town to circumcise themselves.

Oh and Jacob “wrestles” all night with a man who turns out to be God… and who touches him on the hollow of his thigh. WHAT??

In today’s episode of The Bible, we get lots of good stuff:

• God tells Abraham to murder his only son in cold blood and Abraham doesn’t even ask why;
• Lot’s daughters “force” him to drink wine, then they molest him and get themselves pregnant;
• Abraham continues to tell kings that Sarah is his sister instead of his wife, allowing them to get themselves into trouble with God;
• Abraham makes his servant promise not to marry Isaac (Abraham’s son) to anyone outside of Abraham’s immediate family.

So sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy! As Mark Twain said:

“Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.”

I appreciate all of the nice things people have said about the first episode. Apparently there’s at least a few of you out there who are enjoying being able to listen to the Bible.

In this episode, we have some more big events – Abraham lies about his wife to the Pharaoh and guess who gets punished by God?; God cooks up a weird way for Abraham to show his love; Lot’s wife gets a punishment that seems like something out of Twin Peaks… and we learn what to serve up if God and some of his angels come to visit you in your tent.

How many people have read the entire bible, cover to cover? Well…. I have. A few times. And now I’m about to do it again. This time, however, I’m going to record it. That’s right – the entire bible. Old and new testaments.

Why? Because it’s a fascinating, confusing, humorous and scary piece of literature. And everyone, Christian or not, should know what it says. Ninety-nine percent of all of the Christians I’ve ever asked have told me that they HAVE NOT read it cover to cover, even the people who actually think it is the literal word of GOD. Pretty amazing.

So anyway – now all of you lazy people don’t have to read it, because I’m going to do it for you. And I’ll even explain it as I go.

What will you learn from this episode?

1. That God lied to Adam and Eve.
2. That the Serpent told them the truth.
3. That God seems to be pretty random with whom he punishes and why.
4. That God seems pretty confused when it comes to maths (how many days did he send rain during the Great Flood?).

And much, much more.

Even though I’m an atheist, I’m going to try my hardest to read the book seriously and without judgment. Which, I’ll admit, is pretty hard to do. That’s not to say that I won’t provide any commentary at all – after all, you can’t read this stuff without, at time, scratching your head and what is going on. But I’m not reading it as a skeptic. I’m reading it as someone who is genuinely fascinated by the book.

Final disclaimer – I am *not* a biblical scholar. Although I have been interested in biblical history for most of my life, and I have interviewed quite a few biblical scholars on my No Illusions podcast, I am not a scholar and I am *not* treating this as a scholarly exercise. It’s a simple reading of the books, from start to finish, by a lay person.