This is part of an ongoing series that will be posted each Monday. You can read the introduction to this series by clicking here.

Monday! (¡El lunes!) Time once again for Monday School! (¡Tiempo otra vez para Escuela del lunes!) It’s STILL “The Rational Corrective To All That Nonsense They Tried To Teach You Yesterday” (Es TODAVÍA “el Correctivo Racional a Todo Que Tonterías Ellos Intentado Para Enseñarle Ayer”) and it will continue to be, too, until an Internet translation service allows you to type in a Bible passage and get it back with all the errors and inanities spelled out (y esto seguirá siendo, también, hasta que un servicio de traducción de Internet permita que usted teclee un paso de Biblia y lo recupere con todos los errores e inanidad explicada detalladamente). Wooo-hoooo! (¡Wooo-hoooo!)

Today’s Lesson: We’ve Finally Made It Through All The Absurdities Contained In The Bible – Right?

Au contraire, mon frere. It seems we have barely begun to scratch the surface of Biblical absurdity.

Here are just a few of the silly passages we have not yet given the attention they deserve:

1) “And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them…. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. And God’s anger was kindled because he went….” (Num. 22:20-22) Kinda reminiscent of the way gOd hardened Pharaoh’s heart and then punished Pharaoh for having a hard heart, isn’t it?

2) “And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee. And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? And he said, Nay.” (Num. 22:28-30) Kinda reminiscent of that talking snake in Genesis, isn’t it? Not to mention Aesop. Fortunately, I don’t know anybody over the age of about 6 who believes Aesop was merely passing along an accurate record of actual events.

If the writers of the Bible really wanted us to take these passages seriously, they could at least have had Balaam and Eve express a bit of surprise when confronted with a talking animal. As things stand, they come across as cartoon figures – or insane.

3) “When you are encamped against your enemies, keep away from everything impure. If one of your men is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp and stay there. But as evening approaches he is to wash himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp.” (Deut. 23:9-11 NIV) Gee, if nocturnal emissions are so awful, why did gOd make them a regular part of life in the first place?

Did the ancient Hebrews ever really try to enforce this rule?

Do officers in the modern Israeli military??

The mind reels….

4) “Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.” (Deut. 23:12-14 NIV) Guess we just can’t trust gOd to watch where he’s stepping instead.

Note to sinners: If you don’t want gOd to see your transgressions, be sure to commit them under cover of dirt!

5) “If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.” (Deut. 25:11-12) Was this really such a big problem that the ancient Hebrews had to have gOd himself explicitly forbid it?? Wow… Guess I was a fool to ever think that peacemakers are actually blessed per Matt. 5:9!

6) “Is not this written in the book of Jasher?” (Joshua 10:13) “Behold, it is written in the book of Jasher” (1 Sam. 1:18) Alas, this book seems to have utterly disappeared. How could gOd have allowed this to happen? How could his “Chosen People” have so thoroughly misplaced it? What else might they have misplaced? If they’re capable of losing whole books, how can we trust that the books they managed to save weren’t less drastically messed up along the way?

7) “And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.” (Judges 1:19) Hee! I think this is my all-time favorite Bible passage. Just imagine: If the Tower of Babel had been defended by a few of those chariots, its builders might have easily routed gOd and successfully invaded heaven. (Maybe this explains why gOd wasn’t able to protect his “Chosen People” from Hitler?)

8) “And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines…. Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king’s son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.” (1 Sam. 18:25, 27)

Pop Quiz: Who’s sicker? A) Saul, for making such an obscene request; B) David, for eagerly agreeing to Saul’s request; C) David, for giving Saul twice as many foreskins as he requested; D) gOd, for allegedly believing that David didn’t break any of the commandments here (1 Kings 15:5); E) Michal, for agreeing to marry a mass murderer; E) The authors of the Bible, for yet again using other people as disposable pawns in their own self-centered stories; or F) Theists who believe this story is true and that gOd and David are praiseworthy?

9) “And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.” (2 Sam. 6-7) This is probably my second favorite Bible passage, just because I’m such a fan of black humor and irony. Just think: Uzzah was killed by gOd for trying to be helpful while the same gOd allegedly protected Cain after he murdered his brother and lied about it. And what was in the ark that Uzzah was trying to steady? The tablets with the Ten Commandments – one of which says “Thou shalt not kill.” It’s like something from the Theater of the Absurd. Or maybe David Letterman on an off night.

10) 1 Kings 6:2 tells us that Solomon’s Temple measured about 96 feet long, 32 feet wide, and 48 feet high. 1 Kings 5:15-16 tells us that this modest structure required the efforts of more than 150,000 men to build. 1 Kings 6:38 says it took them 7 years. Have so many ever labored so long to achieve so little?

As Magnus Magnusson puts it in his book Archaeology of the Bible (Simon and Schuster: 1977), “The Temple was a relatively small structure; yet it apparently required a work force of 30,000 men to hew the timber in Lebanon, 80,000 men to quarry the stone and 70,000 men to haul it home, and 3300 foremen to supervise the work (I Kings 5). There is no way in which these extravagant figures can be justified, except in terms of a later romanticisation of the importance of Solomon to Israel’s image of its past and the significance of the Temple” (p. 148).

According to Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman’s The Bible Unearthed (Simon and Schuster: 2001), no trace of Solomon’s Temple has ever been found (p. 135). Indeed, archeological excavations seem to show that the Bible has drastically misrepresented the reigns of David and Solomon.

11) “The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.” (Psalms 145:8-9) HA! Tell that to Uzzah. Or those two hundred Philistines David killed for their foreskins. Or the people and animals who were allegedly wiped out by Noah’s flood. Or the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Or the first-born children in Egypt. Or Onan. Or the many, many thousands of men, women, and children the LORD allegedly ordered the Hebrews to slaughter. Or the thousands of children who die every single day from hunger and disease. Or the vast majority of the world’s people who are allegedly destined for hell just because they refuse to believe in the absurd, unproven claims of a silly book.

Just don’t act all surprised and insulted by what they tell you in return.