God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (33 page)

There is no reference to time of writing for this prophecy but we do know that Edom was destroyed by the Babylonian army in 150 BC.

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The monotony of the prophets passing on the same predictable message from God is briefly interrupted by this marvelous piece of literary fiction. Further, it is one of a select few stories of the Bible that you can tell your children before they fall asleep peacefully at night without inflicting lifelong trauma on their pliable young minds.

God had now selected Jonah, seemingly at random, to add to his growing stable of prophets. God called from the skies commanding that Jonah go to the capital city of Assyria, the nation that would eventually conquer the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The Lord called:

Jonah heard God speak, but instead of obeying he fled to hide from God, which seems as profitable as throwing rocks at the sun, considering God is everywhere if you believe him true. Nevertheless, Jonah makes it to a town called Joppa to board a fishing boat to Tarshish. Jonah paid his fare, boarded the yacht and hid below deck so that he could dupe God into believing he really wasn’t there at all.

Well, God did see him and soon after the boat had begun its sea crossing, God whipped up a huge storm that rocked the small vessel so violently that it threatened to rip it apart sending its occupants to an early and watery grave. The men aboard were so terrified that they did what religiously terrified men do, they prayed to their individual and respective gods, seeking protection. They prayed to all types of gods except for ‘
The
’ God and the storm increased its intensity. Jonah was summoned to the deck by the other passengers and asked to join in a panic stricken version of drawing straws to see who was responsible for this storm, because it was assumed that that person must have pissed off his god so much so that they were all being collectively punished. Jonah drew the short straw and they asked him two questions: what god he worshipped and what had he done wrong to bring this terror upon all of them? Jonah answered:

Jonah also added that he had heard God speak to him but he failed to acknowledge him and instead this boat trip was his attempt to flee God’s calling.

This news made the others even more terrified than before, because they could see that this god had powers that that their gods didn’t. Jonah was wracked with guilt and came to the conclusion that the only way to save his fellow sailor’s lives was to throw himself into the sea to appease God for his wrongdoing. This idea seemed ok to the others and they tossed Jonah into the wild ocean and immediately the water became so still that it looked like a sheet of glass. The men felt a little pang of grief that they had to sacrifice Jonah’s life to save their own, but after a moment’s memorial they sailed off on their merry way.

But Jonah was not dead. How could he possibly survive alone without a raft in the middle of the sea, I hear you ask? Well, God had that all covered, as written in the book:

Now, not only was he swallowed by a huge fish, presumably a whale, but this is where the Bible becomes a matter of your own interpretation. I don’t care much for semantics, fish or whale, he is now living inside a creature for three full days, which would smell more than two hobos having sex in a sauna.

Even more impressive though, is the fact that not only did he manage to survive in the fish’s belly but he spent that entire time in prayer.

I would argue that salvation came in a much better form for the other passengers who made it safely back to port without having to spend three days cooped up in a whale’s gut. I am sure they were just as thankful to their own respective gods as was Jonah, but without the bullshit story to relay to their friends.

Jonah, now convinced of God’s glory, goes to Nineveh as ordered and tells the Assyrians there:

The Assyrian king believed in God, and in trembling fear, ordered a nationwide fast as an appeal for clemency:

God was mightily impressed with this display of repentance and worship and thus did a little dance of joy before deciding not to bring the destruction he had threatened. Though, not everyone was happy! Jonah was pissed because he wanted God to carry out his threat to destroy the Assyrians. In his rage against God, he asked to be killed and thus put out of his misery. Yes, this is all odd to me too. God refused Jonah’s request and the young prophet stormed off and sat alone in a desolate place outside of the city. Whilst Jonah waited, God made a vine grow overnight so that it would give Jonah shelter from the sun, but in a game of cat and mouse, God made the vine wither away and die the very next morning. What followed was a ferociously hot desert wind upon Jonah, who was now suffering sunburn and dehydration. Jonah’s anger towards God grew and he asked to be euthanized immediately. But God replied that he had no right to be angry, claiming that he should’ve attended to the vine whilst he was still alive, adding:

The above passage is the final verse of the Book of Jonah, and we therefore, do not enjoy Jonah’s reply to God’s question, but I will assume it was removed intentionally to make things sound a little nicer. I believe Jonah’s answer to God’s question would have gone something along the lines of, “Fuck the Assyrians! Nuke the city, so that they don’t come and invade us and take us into exile within the next few years.”

Old Yiddish Proverb

The prophet Micah wrote during the period around 720 BC, during the reigns of King Ahaz and King Hezekiah. Like Amos, he was a farmer from the countryside and wrote during the same period as his contemporaries Isaiah and Jeremiah.

His writings are limited to a modest seven chapters and are an echo of the prophets before and after him, that being to denounce the social sins of the day: the primary sin being the worship of other gods; and the forecast of approaching doom for Jerusalem (Judah) and Samaria (Israel); and then finally deliverance from captivity.

His opening verse begins with the familiar cry:

Micah is told by God that he will come to their rescue at a time that he believes that his people have atoned for their sins:

Jonathan Swift

The Book of Nahum includes just three chapters and tells of a vision given by God to his prophet Nahum of the fall of the Assyrian empire, which had taken the Southern Kingdom of the Israelites (Judah) into captivity. Whilst the Israelites are in captivity he writes this book to forewarn them that God will soon avenge the Assyrians for holding his people in slavery, even though, ironically, it was God who sent them there in the first place. Weird!

Nahum opens with a reminder to the Assyrians that God is always up for a fight and will not hesitate to use his celestial powers to protect his chosen people. Nahum also draws an accurate caricature of God when he writes:

Possibly realizing that he had over steered to the right in making God seem like the utter bastard that he is, Nahum attempts to add some of God’s nicer personality traits:

God promises Nahum that the end of their slavery is near and that he will break the chains of their bondage that he had ordained for them, believing now that the Israelites were truly sorry for their worshipping of other pagan gods prior to their exile. Nahum’s vision describes what the battlefield will look like when God comes to their rescue:

Assyria was eventually conquered more than 150 years after Nahum wrote of this vision, but it did not fall to God, it was acquired, rather than conquered, by the expansion of the Persian Empire.

George Bernard Shaw

There is no biographical information on the prophet Habakkuk; in fact, less is known about him than any other writer of the Bible. What is unique about Habakkuk, however, is that he called on God before God called on him. The book is written at the time of Babylonia’s growing empire and its threat posed on Jerusalem. The Israelites, God fearing or otherwise, had become anxious that it would not be long before Babylon decided to annex the kingdom of Judah. In a prayer that is a combination of fear and anger Habakkuk lodges a complaint to the man upstairs and asks:

God happened to be sitting near the phone that day and answered Habakkuk’s cry:

God describes to his self-appointed prophet that he will make the Babylonian army strong, so as to rip apart Israel because of their sins towards him. But in the same breath God denounces the Babylonians for their wickedness, but has yet made them strong. It’s all Yiddish logic, really!