Ever thought you should know more about what's in the Bible, not because you believe in any religion, but because it's the most read book in history? Before you dust off the family Bible, or reach into the hotel bed stand, The Nonbeliever's Guide to Bible Stories will save you a lot of time and trouble. Coupling an editor's pen with a skeptic's commentary and humorist's wit, it offers the highlights of each book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and distills them into quick, entertaining, bite-sized chunks. It's all here: the characters, famous quotes, tall tales, and references often heard in film, music, art, literature, and conversation. You'll also learn about all the sex, murder, harlotry, intrigue, magic tricks, ghosts, and sin that help fill sermons on Sunday mornings.
Ever thought you should know more about what's in the Bible, not because you believe in any religion, but because it's the most read book in history? Before you dust off the family Bible, or reach into the hotel bed stand, The Nonbeliever's Guide to Bible Stories will save you a lot of time and trouble. Coupling an editor's pen with a skeptic's commentary and humorist's wit, it offers the highlights of each book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and distills them into quick, entertaining, bite-sized chunks. It's all here: the characters, famous quotes, tall tales, and references often heard in film, music, art, literature, and conversation. You'll also learn about all the sex, murder, harlotry, intrigue, magic tricks, ghosts, and sin that help fill sermons on Sunday mornings.
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Overview
Ever thought you should know more about what's in the Bible, not because you believe in any religion, but because it's the most read book in history? Before you dust off the family Bible, or reach into the hotel bed stand, The Nonbeliever's Guide to Bible Stories will save you a lot of time and trouble. Coupling an editor's pen with a skeptic's commentary and humorist's wit, it offers the highlights of each book of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, and distills them into quick, entertaining, bite-sized chunks. It's all here: the characters, famous quotes, tall tales, and references often heard in film, music, art, literature, and conversation. You'll also learn about all the sex, murder, harlotry, intrigue, magic tricks, ghosts, and sin that help fill sermons on Sunday mornings.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781634310628 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pitchstone Publishing |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 128 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Nonbeliever's Guide to Bible Stories
By C. B. Brooks
Pitchstone Publishing
Copyright © 2015 C. B. Brooks, M.D.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63431-062-8
CHAPTER 1
Book of Genesis
The Creation Story
Famous quote alert: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This project took seven days.
On day one God said, "'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good." So he went ahead and made day and night.
On day two He made heaven and earth. Day three, dry land and water. Day four, the sun, moon, and stars. Day five, fish, birds, and sea monsters, which he told to "Be fruitful and multiply."
On day six, God created land beasts, cattle, and "man in His own image and likeness." God put man in charge of all the animals. "You da Man" (not actual Bible quote).
Then came day seven. It had been a pretty busy week, so God rested. That's why religions of the Judeo-Christian tradition make a big deal either about Sunday or the Jewish Sabbath (which overlaps Friday and Saturday — go figure).
The Garden of Eden
Some more details on man's story are provided. In case you were wondering, God scooped up some dust from the ground and breathed life into it from His own nostrils and it became man. That evening, God planted a garden and told man to work there. It was paradise with plenty to eat, but there was one condition: Don't eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why not? Just because. No really, why? "If you do you shall die." So there.
The first man was named Adam. God let Adam give names to all the animals. Before long, Adam got lonely and was tired of farming all by himself. So God decided to make him a female helper, Eve. Here's how that went down. God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, then took out, like surgically removed, one of Adam's ribs and used it to make Eve.
Once Adam recovered from his rib-ectomy, life in the Garden of Eden couldn't have been better. Adam and his woman were even "naked and not ashamed."
Then, one day, along comes a serpent (snake) who starts talking to Eve. The snake asks her about the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and Eve explains the one condition. The crafty snake responds by telling her that's a load of bull and she can eat the fruit. So airheaded Eve does it and then brings Adam an apple and lets him eat it too!
This is the beginning of the recurrent Bible theme that women are trouble, and that man continually breaks the rules of God.
That afternoon, God is strolling through the Garden of Eden and gets wind of what's happened. He has the first of many major temper tantrums of biblical proportions! He confronts Adam, who blames Eve, who blames the snake. God says something to the effect of, "Okay beotches, you're all going down!"
He tells the snake it will be forced to crawl on its belly in the dirt forever and people will hate it. Eve and all women are cursed with severe pain during childbirth. As for Adam and all of mankind? You will work your butts off and have lousy farming land and then die. "You are dust and to dust you shall return." Then God basically says, "Now, everybody get the hell out of the Garden of Eden. You're all banished. Oh and by the way, from now on you'll have to make clothes because you're embarrassed to be naked. Ha!"
Cain and Abel
The bad reality show continues. The couple moves East of Eden. Eve gives birth to two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain is the first born, grows crops, and is sort of a jerk. Abel is nice and raises sheep. One day it's time to bring offerings to God. Cain brings Him a fruit platter from his farm. Abel brings a plump sheep. God the Lord happens to really like sheep and is impressed with Abel. Not so much with Cain's gift. God's like, "Oh man, not fruit again. I had a bad experience with that apple in the not-so-distant past."
Cain is jealous and ticked off at Abel. Later, he invites Abel out into a field. Cain then hits Abel in the head with a rock, killing him dead right there! The world's first homicide.
God comes by and asks Cain, "Where's your bro Abel?" To which Cain responds, "I don't know, what am I my brother's keeper or something?" It doesn't take God long to figure things out, and He has another conniption fit. Cain is cursed and the land is made even less fertile. Cain wanders the earth, surprisingly finds a wife, and they start squirting out kids.
Adam and Eve eventually have another son (Seth) and start producing generations. Adam ends up living 930 years before dying. Everyone seems to have exceptionally long lifespans. Methuselah breaks the record at 969 years! Finally God intervenes and puts a limit at 120 years.
Noah and the Great Flood
Humans are taking over the earth and behaving badly. Trying to manage them is a full-time job for God. He starts to have second thoughts about ever creating man. When He looks down on earth, He only sees one righteous person, Noah. Bumming out, God cooks up a plan.
God decides to destroy almost all living things with a torrential flood. He tells Noah to start making a big boat out of gopherwood. It's called an ark. God gives very specific instructions for the ark, which is to be three levels, have doors and a roof, and be 300 cubits long. Other dimensions are given in cubits too. (A cubit is about a yard or meter.) God feels he has to micromanage these disappointing humans.
He tells Noah the flood is coming and makes a deal (known as a covenant). Noah can bring his whole extended family, food, seven pairs of all clean animals (not specified which), and a male and female pair of every other animal, including birds. (But not fish because they should be fine.) Noah agrees.
God then sends rain upon the world for 40 days and 40 nights, causing the Great Flood. No tsunami warning is given. Noah's ark floats perfectly, while all creatures not on board are drowned. The waters recede and Noah's passengers exit the ark. Noah promptly builds an altar and sacrifices all the clean animals as burnt offerings to God. (Maybe not the best idea given the recent extinction?) But God likes the gesture and tells everyone once again to "Be fruitful and multiply" and repopulate the earth. The aroma of the burnt offerings makes God doubt His actions and He gets mildly depressed. So God makes another covenant promising never to destroy everything again and creates the rainbow as a future reminder to make the rain stop at a reasonable time.
Trouble starts up again pretty soon with Noah's sons. The youngest one, Japeth, and the whole land of Canaan are cursed to become slaves to the other brothers.
Noah, who was 601 years old at the time of the flood, lives until age 950. (I guess the set limit was lifted for him.)
Tower of Babel
Tribes are growing and settling different areas. Back then, everyone spoke the same language and there weren't many words available anyway.
Soon enough, one tribe (probably the Babylonians) invented bricks and decided to build a tall tower to reach the heavens. "Everyone will think we're so cool! We can put it on YouTube and Facebook someday."
God is not amused at all by this project. So He comes down to check out the tower. He decides that man is getting a little too uppity and could use a smackdown.
He halts construction, scatters the misbehaving tribe all across the planet, and confuses their speech into many different languages so they can't communicate and start another disrespectful project like this again.
God says, "Hah, now I have a name for your stupid tower, the Tower of Babel! Buwah ha hah!"
Lot and His Dysfunctional Family
The Bible then cranks out lists of boring genealogies about people you don't know. Arpachshad begat Shelah, Peleg fathered Reu', etc. Until we get to two brothers, Abraham and Lot.
Both brothers are rich with slaves, herds of animals, wives, and bling. God tells them to pack everything up and He'll show them some real estate and they'll become great nations. The brothers jump at the chance.
Unfortunately, their entourages aren't getting along, so Lot relocates his group over to the wicked towns of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the city dwellers are practicing homosexuals.
Unknown to Lot, God has sent two badass angels to prepare Sodom and Gomorrah for destruction. The two handsome angels show up at Lot's place on the outskirts of Sodom. Lot invites them in for dinner and drinks.
The out-of-control gay guys of Sodom surround Lot's house and demand he give them the two hot angels for a wild homosexual orgy.
Lot, being a reasonable dude, instead offers the gay crowd his two virgin daughters, "Do with them what you please, just leave my handsome dinner guests alone."
The angry gays scream, "You idiot, we don't want your daughters. We're gay, we want the beefy calendar boys. Don't you know, this town invented sodomy!"
Lot is befuddled. Finally the angels take control. They pull Lot inside and say, "Get your family out of here. Flee for your lives. We are going to kick some ass here. Just don't look back. It's going to get ugly fast!"
Lot resists but eventually runs away with his family.
The angels of the Lord rain down fire and brimstone, annihilating everything and everybody in Sodom and its sister city Gomorrah. This may have been the origin of the term "Flaming queens."
On the way out of town, Lot's disobedient wife just has to not follow directions. She turns around to look at the action and is instantly turned into a pillar of salt! Some girls never learn.
In a weird postscript, Lot brings his remaining family to live in a cave. His two daughters complain, "We'll never meet any decent guys here. And that last town certainly didn't have any prospects." So they get Lot drunk on wine two nights in a row and "lay with him." That's Bible-speak for have sex. (Same as "he knew them.") As a result, they both have sons who then start different tribes. Kinky.
Abraham
Lot's brother Abraham fared even better. God had big plans for Abe — if he proved worthy. Abraham would become the father of the Jewish nation.
God sent Abraham and his wagon train on a few wild goose chases. First to Egypt where he had some run-ins with the king (Pharaoh). Then to a bunch of other places in the Middle East, always promising him land and many descendants. God is quoted as promising Abraham and his clan all the land between the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Iraq. (This is still the source of much controversy in present-day Israel and surrounding areas.)
God made a covenant guaranteeing these things to Abraham and the Jews. They would be God's Chosen People. But Abraham had to jump through many hoops. For example, every male, including the slaves, would have to be circumcised as a sign of the bargain. Abraham said, "No problem," and started cutting off foreskins that same day. Plus there'd be a lot of wandering through the desert, sacrifices, rules, and tests.
Isaac
Abraham was performing well and God rewarded him and his previously childless wife, Sarah, with a son named Isaac.
The most dramatic test comes when Isaac is a young lad. God tells Abraham to take Isaac on a field trip into the mountains, where Abraham must make an altar, kill Isaac, and barbecue him as a burnt offering to God. Straightforward enough.
Remarkably, Abraham starts the three-day donkey trip, gets everything prepared at the altar, starts a fire, ties up Isaac, and puts him on the grill. Isaac starts to ask some basic questions. Abraham responds by raising up a knife to slaughter Isaac! At the last second, an angel of God yells to Abraham to stop, saying he has passed the test of faith and has proven that he truly "Fears God." Abe is so happy he grabs a goat and burns it instead of Issac. Praise the Lord!
For this display, God gives Abraham "more descendants than stars in the sky and sand on the beach" (and of course the previously promised real estate in Palestine).
Isaac gets years of therapy.
Esau and Jacob
Isaac grows up and marries Rebekah, who turns out to be barren, which is Bible-speak for unable to have children. God felt a little bad for Isaac, so He threw him a bone and let Rebekah conceive and deliver twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Esau was slightly older, very hairy, and a good hunter. Jacob was more of a nerd who mostly stayed inside tents.
There is some family drama when Rebekah and her favorite son, Jacob, trick the aging and blind Isaac into giving his blessing to Jacob, instead of the eldest son, Esau. Jacob impersonates the hairy Esau by wearing animal skins, thus stealing the blessing.
Jacob goes off and becomes successful, gets married, rips off his father-in-law's animal herds, talks with God all the time, and sojourns around the territories.
God meets with Jacob and promises him the land of his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham. God then changes Jacob's name to Israel. Today, this provides more "evidence" that the land of the ancient Hebrews clearly belongs to Israel.
Joseph and the 12 Tribes of Israel
This story was the basis of the Broadway play, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.
Jacob, now named Israel, had 12 sons. His favorite was the youngest, Joseph. Joseph's eleven brothers noticed this and were highly jealous. Instead of playing it cool, Joseph really started to rub it in. When he was 17, he began to tell the others about dreams he had where all the brothers and even his parents would bow down to him, and Joseph would reign over them.
This is not the way to win friends. The brothers concocted a plan to kill Joseph, throw him in a pit, and tell their dad that a wild beast had eaten him.
One brother, Reuben (whose name will eventually become associated with a sandwich), convinces them not to kill Joseph, "Let's just throw him in the pit." The others agree and toss Joseph in. Then they tell Israel the wild beast story.
Some foreigners happen by, find Joseph, pull him out of the hole, and sell him to some other travelers.
Joseph ends up in Egypt, where he is sold again, but he becomes successful as a house manager for his new owner. Some domestic canoodling occurs with the owner's wife, and Joe is sent to prison. In jail, he gains acclaim as a dream interpreter and luckily gets a chance to interpret the Pharaoh's dream. Joseph nails it and the Pharoah appoints him manager of Egypt. Joseph stockpiles grain because he predicts a famine is coming and saves the day. During the famine, his father, Israel, sends the eleven brothers to Egypt to get grain. When they arrive they don't realize the bossman is their brother. Joseph recognizes them and tools them around for a while, locking them in prison. Then he sends them home with food and money. Eventually, Joseph reveals his identity and has the brothers bring dad to Egypt, where he sets them all up with good land.
Joseph then enslaves the Egyptians and makes them pay a 20 percent tax. Israel dies and the brothers scatter to become the 12 tribes of Israel.
CHAPTER 2Book of Exodus
Our story picks up with the 12 sons of Israel (Jacob) being fruitful and multiplying. In time, Joseph and his brothers die and a new Pharoah takes over in Egypt. (No explanation of how the Egyptians got out of slavery and took over again is given.) The new Pharaoh doesn't like all these Hebrew tribes breeding, so he decides to enslave them. The Pharaoh also decrees that all Hebrew newborn boys shall be thrown into the Nile River. (The girls can live because nobody cares about girls anyway.)
Moses
Instead of throwing her baby boy in the river, one Jewish mother decides to hide her son in a basket made of bullrushes down by the river bank. The Pharoah's daughter finds the baby, adopts him, and names him Moses. When Moses grows up he kills an Egyptian who was beating up a Hebrew. When word gets around, Moses flees Egypt and marries into a good family with livestock, but he is still distressed at the plight of his fellow Hebrews working as slaves back in Egypt.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Nonbeliever's Guide to Bible Stories by C. B. Brooks. Copyright © 2015 C. B. Brooks, M.D.. Excerpted by permission of Pitchstone Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,Section I: The Old Testament,
1. Book of Genesis,
2. Book of Exodus,
3. Book of Leviticus,
4. Book of Numbers,
5. Book of Deuteronomy,
6. Book of Joshua,
7. Books of Judges 1 and 2,
8. Book of Ruth,
9. Books of Samuel 1 and 2,
10. Books of Kings 1 and 2,
11. Books of Chronicles 1 and 2,
12. Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther,
13. Book of Job,
14. Book of Psalms,
15. Book of Proverbs,
16. Book of Ecclesiastes,
17. Book of Solomon,
18. Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel,
19. Book of Daniel,
20. Book of Jonah,
21. Books of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi,
Section II: The New Testament,
22. The Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
23. Acts of the Apostles,
24. The Letter of Paul to the Romans,
25. The First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians,
26. The Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians,
27. The Letter of Paul to the Galatians,
28. The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians,
29. The Letter of Paul to the Philippians,
30. The Letter of Paul to the Colossians,
31. The First and Second Letters of Paul to the Thessalonians,
32. The First and Second Letters of Paul to Timothy,
33. The Letter of Paul to Titus,
34. The Letter of Paul to Philemon,
35. The Letter to the Hebrews,
36. The Letter of James, First and Second Letters of Peter,
37. First, Second, and Third Letters of John and the Letter of Jude,
38. Book of Revelation,
Epilogue: Final Thoughts,