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So, after reading the last few chapters of the Book of Judges, It starts going off the rails after Samson.

By the end of Judges, there is a whackadoodle story of man and his "concubine" visiting a city in the land of the tribe of Benjamin. At night, there are men from the city that knock on the door and call for the man to come outside to presumably have sex with them. The man doesn't go out but sends his "concubine" out.

She ends up dead on the street in the morning, and the husband chops her in pieces and sends her out among the "Tribes of Israel".

The rest of the tribes get together, sack the city and kill much of "Benjamin".

Then when they realize that no one will survive from Benjamin, and no one will allow their daughters to marry into the tribe of Benjamin, they decide to go invade yet another city of men who had skipped out on the killing campaign, and kill those men, and give the women to the remaining men of Benjamin.

I might be summarizing some of this incorrectly. The general thought is: it was bloody. It sounds like a lot of genetic culling. Humans being treated like herds of animals.

I kinda just want to walk away from the whole story and say, these people and this religion have nothing to do with me.

It was the first time that I had second thoughts about trying to be "follower of Jesus" whose story came from this story.

It also gives me second thoughts on the whole genetic heritage thing.

There have been couple times in as I age into my thirties where I have the uncomfortable feeling like I have offended my ancestors.

part of me is like, modern humans are so far removed from these stories of bloodthirsty genetic culling.

part of me thinks, maybe bloodshed, revenge, honor is actually more human than peace and prosperity.

or maybe it's just the stories about bloodshed and honor survive.

either way, it's gory.

Thankfully, Ruth is up next and from the first chapter, I feel like I can hear grasshoppers in farm fields as Ruth picks up some grain that harvesters left behind.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

there's one in genesis a bit like this, but the city was Sodom iirc... the detail of that part of the history is much richer in Jasher, it wasn't just the homo pervert rapists it was kooky laws and judges that seemed to be insane and people treating visitors extremely badly

oh and another one involving where the daughter of one of - iirc, Israel (Jacob) where one dude from this town seduced and deflowered one of his daughters, and they confronted the family and township (it was a prominent figure in the town) and they made a deal where the daughter could marry into the family from this town if everyone in the town got circumcised

of course, a vocal minority refused this, and started up a fight about it and because the majority of the towns men were recovering from their surgery they all were slaughtered and all their stuff was taken

i read through this story in three different versions and the one in Genesis was probably the most pleasant.... but yeah, crazy stuff, i mean, crazy

like Isaac and Jacob and Esau story, in two versions it paints it like Jacob and his mother Rebecca are some kind of conniving bastards or something and it made me wonder about how much Rebecca liked her man... he was in his last days and was charmed by the dapper and brutal redheaded Esau and his venison but fell for a ruse where Jacob just fed him bbq goat and accepted this and did some stupid blessing ritual, and out of all this, Esau goes full jealous psycho and wants to kill his brother over this

the themes repeat over and over again, and it's often hard to tell who is actually the bad guys in the story

That stuff about Samson, this involves a weird jewish sect called the Nazirites, and one of their things is they have to never cut their hair, or God will curse them

in the background of many of the stories is sects and cults and all sorts of weirdness, and to be honest, i'm not fond of much of the Old Testament, there is more to the stories but the catholics seemed to pick out much of the worst versions of everything even though there were often dozens of different versions with more details, different focus, and so on

like, on my first reading of Daniel i couldn't get past the seeming treacherousness of Daniel but on teh other hand, Nebuchanezzar was an outright psycho piece of shit... and the Watchers appear in this one, and i'm reading the bible now in a large part for the parts where angels are in the story, because this is an aspect of them that most christians and jews pay little attention to, and i think they are more important

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Discussion

gojiberra 1y ago

Yeah,there are some bizarre stories in there. I think they all sound a little similar to Sodom and Gomorrah, but this is another time period with slightly different story line.

At the outset of the book of Judges, I had the voice of my 4 year old niece in my head when she asked me who Noah's wife was.

So I was more aware of roles of men and women. I was surprised how many women protagonists and antagonists there were. It doesn't seem like God favored one or the other really. Both sexes had the ability to be honorable and reap rewards.

In the worse situations, men just get slaughtered and women get married off or raped. I think I would prefer being slaughtered.

I'm know for livestock, the males all get slaughtered after a year of growth, except for a chosen few which become bulls. they are chosen for good genetics and tractability. Not too docile (no lazy bulls, 40 cows!) but not too mean either with the calves or the humans.

I'm sipping coffee thinking if I probably should have been slaughtered a while ago

But this modern hedonistic life goes on.

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

haha, no, that's the thing about humans... more than 90% of the population is of some value to the rest... markets are the heart of what makes this possible... without it, it really is the law of the jungle and all men must go through a meatgrinder and all women must submit to the most chad of the men...

and yeah, sodom and gomorrah are prototypes of all forms of decaying, collapsing society in this world... most of the large cities are now some kind of Sodom

corrupt government, corrupt judges, corrupt culture, with institutionalised violence and depravity

been reading about this growing trend of high density housing being taken over by foreign gangsters in the USA at the moment... just another point in the constellation of arguments against ever living in a city in these times, just get out of there, i can't say this without undue emphasis

don't wait for an Angel to come and tell you to pack your bags and leave now or be happy to burn

gojiberra 1y ago

But country roads don't have bike shoulders!

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 1y ago

yeah, so get a mountain bike lol

it's so damn hilly here i mostly just walk but i try to get out on the bike at least once a week... it's been very pleasing to note that i'm getting up the hills faster than when i first got this bike 2 months ago... most places are nowhere near as hilly as this, and i'm ok, also no shoulders, and really very little foot traffic because everything is so slopy

when i get out of here and go to the next place i'm planning on getting myself a motorcycle, because i want to be somewhere that far that it's even a workout to ride that around