Now, Moses was born a Hebrew...in fact, he was born to one of Jacob's many sons, one of the brothers of Joseph whose interpretation of dreams led first to his betrayal by his own brothers and then his success in governance and then an Andrew Lloyd Weber pastiche musical. Although Joseph was well regarded in the Egyptian royalty a new Pharaoh had risen to power who didn't care for Joseph's opinions or family*. The father of Moses was Levi. Moses was smuggled into the river by his mother because the Pharaoh sentenced all infant sons of Hebrews to death. But irony knows no limit as the Pharaoh's daughter finds Moses and brings him home and the Pharaoh raises him. (Dreamworks made a good animated movie of this book called Prince of Egypt,...it's one of the few animated films that does not sugar-coat the slavery and Holocaust in Egypt. Thousands die in the book and thousands die in the movie. And it's got some good musical numbers.)
Then God** visits Moses and tells him to tell the Pharaoh to ask for some time off for the Hebrew slaves to worship their God. Why God could not go directly to the Pharaoh is a minor detail omitted from this story. No, Moses would be God's secretary. This reminds me of the time my boss told me to make sure everyone else cooperated in picking up trash at the end of the day and I said, "There will be a big difference in results between me telling them to pick up trash and you telling them to pick up trash."
So, Moses asks for time off and the Pharaoh goes on the counter-attack because he thinks that he's been too easy on the slaves since they have time to think about asking for time off. So he doubles their labor...which is the breaking point and Moses say, "Let my people go!" and The Pharaoh said, "No Way." and I want to point out that the inequity of ancient Egypt is being repeated daily at Walmart and Subway where wage slaves offer forced smiles for minimum wage THAT HAS NO JUSTIFICATION TO BE 10-50x LESS THAN PROFESSIONALS.***
What happens after that is something that I think should be verified by today's scientists because it's nothing less than divine holocaust of not only the first born of Egypt's human families but also the first born donkeys and horses and goats. They are all smote down by God. Hundreds of thousands of corpses with mysterious fatal symptoms are buried somewhere in Egypt. There must be a way to confirm that.
But it doesn't stop there. Moses then leads all the slaves toward the Red Sea and the vengeful Pharaoh is hot on his tail. God empowers Moses to actually part the waters of the Red Sea long enough for the Hebrew slaves to walk 20-30 miles along the dry sea floor to what is now Saudi Arabia. Pharaoh's troops follow and at the last minute the sea reunites and they all drown. The chosen people have arrived in the future state of Israel.
This is the basic outline of how God chose Hebrew slaves to populate that area of the Middle East.
P.S. I defy anyone to read the Book of Leviticus straight through without scratching their heads. It reads like something J.K Rowling wrote on acid. This particular book is cited by many when a biblical interpretation of homosexuality, abortion, racism, etc. gets repulsively literal and people want to start cherry picking sentences out of a bible. Ok, so you want to isolate specific passages in which God prohibits homosexuality? Ok, that's fine, AS LONG AS YOU HAVE A NEVER ENDING SUPPLY OF PREMIUM GOAT FAT TO BURN ON AN ALTAR BECAUSE YOU TOUCHED A DEAD OWL. BECAUSE GOD ALSO SAYS THAT YOU ARE UNCLEAN AND HAVE SINNED IF YOU EAT ANY CRAWLING ANIMAL. I looked and looked for evidence that ducks are forbidden because Louisiana is in an uproar lately because one of our own duck hunters has been casual with ignorant words...but touching ducks is permitted; however, "These you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves." I guess that's why Denny's doesn't have Camel Burgers on their menu. And no Rock Hyrax.
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| Forget being a sinner, you are a fucking asshole if you eat one of these rock hyraxs. |
God: "Whoever touches the carcass of any of them shall be unclean until evening."
Also...the mole, mouse, lizard and gecko are, according to God, abominations.
Leviticus is the book that makes me think this can not be Moses quoting God, but rather Moses collecting all the quasi-folk wisdom for future reference. There is no chance that the best advice for leprosy that the creator of the universe could provide is to study the color of the spots on the afflicted's skin and sacrifice a turtledove or young pigeon on the north side of the altar. ARE YOU JOKING? What kind of shit advice is that? Were you paying any attention when you created Adam and Eve? Hey, God, I've got an idea...Keep your shit advice and HOW ABOUT CURING LEPROSY! It's your fuck up, so fix it. Christ!
But no, "Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering."
Was God a dope-smoking Druid? The victim is going to still have leprosy but is also going to miss his goat and two lambs...so he'll be hungry too. A hungry leper. Nice going, God.
I'm really thankful Jonas Salk paid no attention to the counter-constructive, mystic Book of Leviticus. And I don't even want to mention what God says of women who have recently given birth but God's prescriptions make abortion seem humane.
*Joseph was actually dead by this time, for some reason, having died long before his older brother Levi.
** Yes, God, the creator of the universe, picked this moment in human history to step in.
***This topic is something that deserves an exclusive essay because the arrogance and snobbery of "professionals" is not going to be toppled by anything less than a total change in principle definitions...because, while Levi had his progeny, so too did the Pharaoh. Basically, your financial investment in your career IS IMMATERIAL to your value to a society. It's a fabrication, a myth, a fraud. There is either equity or there is slavery.
