This little set of Bible verses caught me off guard the first time I read the book. It's quite glaring, and I feel like if anyone were to read the book diligently, they would see this. Genesis 30:31-43 reads as follows:
31. "What wages do you want?" Laban asked again (to Jacob).
Jacob replied, "Don't give me anything at all. Just do one thing, and I'll go back to work for you. 32. Let me go out among your flocks today and remove all the sheep and goats that are speckled or spotted, along with all the dark colored sheep. Give them to me as my wages. 33. This will make it easy for you to see whether or not I have been honest. If you find in my flock any white sheep or goats that are not speckled, you will know that I have stolen them from you."
34. "All right," Laban replied. "It will be as you have said." 35. But that very day Laban went out and removed all the male goats that were speckled and spotted, the females that were speckled and spotted with any white patches, and all the dark colored sheep. He placed them in the care of his sons, 36. and they took them three days' distance from where Jacob was. Meanwhile, Jacob stayed and cared for Laban's flock.
37. Now Jacob took fresh shoots from poplar, almond, and plane trees and peeled off strips of the bark to make white streaks on them. 38. Then he set up these peeled branches beside the watering troughs so Laban's flocks would see them as they came to drink, for that was when they mated. 39. So when the flocks mated in front of the white-streaked branches, all of their offspring were streaked, speckled, and spotted. 40. Jacob added them to his own flock, thus separating the lambs from Laban's flock. Then at mating time, he turned the flocks toward the streaked and dark colored rams in Laban's flock. This is how he built his flock from Laban's. 41. Whenever the stronger females were ready to mate, Jacob set up the peeled branches in front of them. 42. But he didn't do this with the weaker ones, so the weaker lambs belonged to Laban, and the stronger ones were Jacob's. 43. As a result, Jacob's flocks increased rapidly, and he became very wealthy, with many servants, camels, and donkeys.
Okay, I feel like any commentary is extraneous at this point. No amount of ridicule could possibly broach what this passage did for itself. But what the hell, why not try? Sounds fun. I might start posting other stuff like this as I read further into the Bible. Any comedic gold will surely be posted, though I know no funnier verses than this at the moment.
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The kicker is that Jacob was practicing witchcraft in that passage. Later on he would have been killed for doing what he did. The main characters in the Bible are real scumbags. All of them, except Job, fit the definition of evil.
Job was certainly not evil. Just a boot licking dumbass!
chimp3,
If you think about Job as just one individual guy who had a ton of problems you can certainly make that case. But after thinking about the story for a long time and from different views I see the Job story as a metaphor for all of the Israelites/Hebrews/Jews. It's basically a story about the importance of following the First and Second of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 34:11-17.
It illustrates the difference in obedience between the people who insisted on creating a golden calf idol ten minutes after Moses took a vacation on the mountain. At that time they didn't have any adversity, they had seen the various miracles, and yet they lost faith. Job, on the other hand, had all kinds of misfortunes. He lost everything except his faith. He didn't seek the easy way out by searching for a new god because his previous one seemed to have abandoned him. He stayed loyal. And in the end he got twice what he had lost.
Jesus repeats that idea in Matthew 19:27-30 when Peter questions Jesus what they would get for following him. Jesus said that the would get to judge the twelve tribes of Israel, a hundred times what they had given up, and eternal life. Job got twice what he had lost and, while he didn't live forever, he did make it to 140 years.
Of course you can put any spin you want to on the various stories but remember, the Bible is about the Israelites/Hebrew/Jews as a group. The various individuals in the stories are merely meant to personalize the stories. The Bible has nothing to do with non-Jews. It's about how the Jews will rule the world and enslave everyone else. That's all it is.
Jacob's also the crook who tricked his blind father into giving him his elder brother's birthright. Another fine biblical role model.
Actually everything they did serves as example of evil behavior. Esau was a saint. He should have gutted all of them. But he's the only person in the Bible that God hates by name.
The holy babble contains the rantings of iron age peasants.
There's definitely cover-to-cover gems in that book but, with some 1400+ years in the hands of theologians you'd think they would have ponied up enough dedication to get it right. Ah, well, there must have been a union involved.