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SAB: Numbers

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-The Woman's Bible, Numbers By Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Numbers: Absurdity

  1. The Israelite population went from seventy (Ex.1:5) to several million (over 600,000 adult males) in 400 years. 1:45-46, 26:51

  2. The Law of Jealousies. If a man suspects his wife of being unfaithful, he reports it to the priest. The priest then makes her drink some "bitter water." If she is guilty, the water makes her thigh rot and her belly swell. If innocent, no harm done -- the woman is free and will "conceive seed." In any case, "the man shall be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity." 5:11-31

  3. "And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it." (He had his hearing aid on.) He then burned the complainers alive. That'll teach them. 11:1

  4. The people begin to whine about not having any meat. So God says he'll give them meat, alright. He'll give them "flesh to eat," not for just a few days, but "for a whole month, until it come out of [their] nostrils, and it be loathsome to [them]." Yuck. 11:4, 19-20

  5. "As a nursing father beareth the suckling child...." 11:12

  6. God promises to give them "flesh to eat," not for just a few days, but "for a whole month, until it come out of your nostrils, and it be loathsome to you." Yuck. 11:20

  7. God sends quails to feed his people until they were "two cubits [about a meter] high upon the face of the earth." Taking the "face of the earth" to be a circle with a radius of say 30 kilometers (an approximate day's journey), this would amount to 3 trillion (3x1012) liters of quails. At 2 quails per liter, this would provide a couple million quails for each of several million people. 11:31

  8. "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth." This is a strange way to describe on of the cruelest men to have ever lived (If he ever did live, which he probably didn't). Moses, as he is described in the Bible, is anything but meek (See Num.31:14-18 for an example of his "meekness"). 12:3

  9. "If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will ... speak unto him in a dream." Now there's a reliable way to communicate with someone! 12:6

  10. "And the Lord said unto Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? 12:14

  11. "And there we saw the giants ... And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." This statement may have been figurative, hyperbole, typical biblical exaggeration, or an actual description of the sons of Anak, in which case they must have been about 100 meters tall. These are the same giants (the Nephilium) that resulted when the "sons of God" mated with "the daughters of men in Gen.6:4 Of course, these superhuman god-men should have been destroyed in the flood. So what are they doing still alive? 13:33

  12. It took the Israelites 40 years to travel from Egypt to Canaan, yet such a journey, even at that time, would have taken no more than ten days. 14:33, 32:13

  13. God gives more instructions for the ritualistic killing of animals. The smell of burning flesh is "a sweet savour unto the Lord." 15:3, 13-14, 24

  14. "If any soul sin through ignorance ..." but how can someone sin through ignorance? Don't you have to know that an action is wrong for it to be sinful? Oh well, if you do happen to sin through ignorance, you can be forgiven by God if you kill some animals. 15:27-30

  15. Immediately after ordering the execution of the sabbath breaker, God gets down to some more important business -- like instructing the people on how to make fringes on their garments. 15:38-39

  16. Aaron is getting better at his magic tricks. He has rod bud, bloom, and yield almonds. 17:8

  17. Stay away from holy things and places -- like churches. God might have to kill you if you get too close.18:3, 22, 32

  18. God describes once again the procedure for ritualistic animal sacrifices. such rituals must be extremely important to God, since he makes their performance a "statute" and "covenant" forever. Why, then don't Bible-believers perform these sacrifices anymore? Don't they realize how God must miss the "sweet savour" of burning flesh? Don't they believe God when he says "forever"? 18:17-19

  19. The purification of the unclean. These absurd rituals, cruel sacrifices, and unjust punishments are vitally important to God. They are to be "a perpetual statute" for all humankind. 19:1-22

  20. The Red Heifer. Some fundamentalists believe that when a red heifer is born, Armageddon will soon follow. Well, a red heifer was born in March 2002 and has been declared ritually acceptable by the rabbis. So in a few years it can be sacrificed, ushering in, so they say, the end of the world. You can read all about it here in the National Review. 19:2

  21. God give instructions for burning the "dung" of sacrificial animals. This is something that everyone needs to know about (that's why it's in the Bible!). 19:5

  22. Moses is punished for hitting the rock with his staff (like he did before in Ex.17:6) to get water, rather than just speaking to the rock (as God asked him to do this time). For messing up the magic trick, Moses will never get to the promised land. 20:8-12

  23. Moses hits a rock with his rod and Presto! -- water comes out. 20:11

  24. God sends "fiery serpents" to bite his chosen people, and many of them die. 21:6

  25. To save the people from God's snakes, Moses makes a graven image in the form of a snake (breaking the second commandment) and puts it on a pole. Those who look at Moses' magic snake to not die -- even if they were previously bit by God's snakes. 21:8

  26. "The Book of the wars of the Lord"
    (One of the lost books of the Bible) 21:14

  27. "And the ass saw the angel of the LORD." 22:23

  28. God asks Balaam the non-rhetorical question, "What men are these with thee?" 22:9

  29. God says to Balaam, "If men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them." Men come, and Balaam goes with them, just as cog had commanded." And God's anger was kindled because he went" -- but he was just following God's instructions! 22:20-22

  30. Balaam has a nice little chat with his ass. 22:28-30

  31. God meets Balaam and "put a word in his mouth." 23:15-16

  32. God has "the strength of a unicorn." Oh heck, I bet he's even stronger than a unicorn. 23:22

  33. Balaam says "his king shall be higher than Agag." But Balaam couldn't have known about Agag since Agag didn't live until the time of King Saul. (See 1Sam.15:33 where Samuel hacks king Agag into pieces.) 24:7

  34. God, who is as strong as a unicorn, will eat up the nations, break their bones, and then pierce them through with his arrows. What a guy! 24:8

  35. God's magical Urim and Thummim 27:21

  36. In these chapters, God provides ridiculously detailed instructions for the ritualistic sacrifice of animals. The burning of their dead bodies smells great to God. Eleven times in these two chapters God says that they are to him a "sweet savour." 28-29
Bible: Absurdity
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