Bible Abridged

Bible Abridged

Monday, February 23, 2015

Job (Job & His Shitty Life)

As we start out this story, we have to realize that god was kind of an asshole back in the Old Testament. He slaughtered people by the thousand for complaining, he killed tens of thousands of infants just because their leader pissed him off, and he turned a lady into a pillar of salt for watching him destroy her hometown, thus forcing her daughters to have drunken sex with their father. He even invented complex language differences, just because humans tried to join together and build a tower. This, however, might be the ultimate example of god’s dickishness. This is the story of Job.

Job lived in a land called Uz, similar to Oz in name, but in no other ways. He was doing pretty good for himself, he had 10 kids, 7 boys and 3 girls. He also had thousands of camels and sheep, hundreds of oxen and donkeys, and a fuckload of slaves. God loved him some slave owners back then. Occasionally his sons and daughters would get drunk and Job was pretty sure they were all fucking each other; so he burned innocent animals to death just in case. God loves animals burning more than he hates potential incest. 

Apparently, god and Satan had the occasional conversation. Kind of a breakfast club type situation. One day Satan just showed up to chat and god asked, “Where you coming from?” Satan was like, “Oh just roaming around the earth. Checking shit out.” And out of nowhere god asked Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There’s no one on earth like him. He apparently has never sinned and he worships me all the time and burns animals which I fucking love. Also he fears the shit out of me. Which he totally fucking should.” Satan was just like, “Yeah dude, he loves you because you made his life fucking awesome. But I bet if you fucked with him and gave him the shitty life you’ve given to… I don’t know… most of the fucking planet or his slaves for that matter, he’d fucking hate you.” God just replied, “Hey! Good point. Why don’t you fuck with everything in his life and I bet you he’ll still like me. Just don’t kill him. Whatever else you wanna do is fine. Just don’t kill him.” 

Satan got to work. One time all of Job’s kids were partying together (and possibly banging but we’re not sure about that) when a messenger showed up to Job to announce that all his donkeys and oxen got stolen. Before he could even react another messenger showed up to say that a firestorm had killed all of Job’s sheep and slaves. (And yes. The bible does list them in that order.) Before this guy was done talking a third messenger showed up and said that the house all his kids were partying (and possibly banging) in just collapsed from a windstorm and all of them died. Job tore off his clothes and shaved his head for some reason. But then he proclaimed, “Well I didn’t have any of this shit when I was born, and now i don’t. I don’t care. I still like god.” 

So later on god and Satan were hanging out and they greeted each other the exact same way they had previously. Then god brought up Job again for some reason. Satan said, “Check it. I’m going to fuck with his skin and make him crazy sick and rashy. Then he’ll hate you.” God just said, “Fucking go for it, Just don’t kill him.”

So Job got covered in fleshy gross sores completely covering his body. it was so bad he was smashing his stuff just to have a thing to scratch with. His wife tried to get him to “curse god and die.” Which is weird. Like how did she know about this at all? Was she hanging out near the table that god and satan were discussing their wager? If my wife had chicken pox or shingles or whatever, my first thought would be how to help her; not tell her to curse god and fucking die. Job called her and idiot and refused for some reason. 

Three of Job’s friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) came to check on him, cuz they heard he was having a bad time. They saw how fucked his life was and decided to tear their clothes off and cover their heads with dust for some reason. After seven days of not talking, Job finally just announced to his friends, “I am not happy that I was born. That was a bad choice on my end. If I had just not been born. None of this shit would’ve happened. I just want to fucking die.” 

Eliphaz very longwindedly told him that he should try to atone for whatever he did to piss god off so bad. Job retorted with poetic gems like, “If you could weigh my misery on a scale, I bet it would weigh more than the whole fucking outer crust of this planet” (that’s not exactly what he said. I’m just summarizing it.) and “I don’t eat egg whites because they make me sick.” (That’s just about a direct quote.) Then he just started rambling on about all the ways he’s totally a great guy and doesn’t deserve this shit happening to him and again how he hopes he dies soon. 

Bildad jumped in saying, “Shut up, Job. Your kids died because they were probably fucking each other and god started hating that shit at some point after Abraham and Sarah. Also, I bet you totally fucked up on of the hundreds of ridiculous laws set before us. God wouldn’t be fucking with you if you hadn’t. But if you really didn’t do anything wrong, I bet god’s gonna make all this shit worth your while.” Job was just like, “God is the reason the sun sets and he tells the stars to stop shining in the daytime. (We know now that that’s just the earth’s rotation on its axis.) He made all the constellations that I use to navigate. He is fucking terrifying! I’m not gonna fuck with him just because he made my life suck all of a sudden! He kills people all the time just for fun! So I basically just hope I’m going to die soon. I wish I had been a fucking miscarriage.” 

Zophar chimed in, “If you just say some shit about god, I’m not gonna judge you. God is definitely fucking with you for some reason. Also, a donkey can’t have a human baby. So repent for your sins and burn some innocent animals! Then god will leave you alone, and your life can go back to normal.” Job kept trying to convince them that he didn’t do anything wrong, and was still not pissed off that god was fucking with him so hard, but he just wanted to die. This goes on for pages and pages. Eventually his three friends got mad and stopped talking to Job. 

One guy named Elihu, didn’t like that they had started giving Job the silent treatment. So he went up to Job and said, “I’m young and you’re old. But my life sucks ass, too. And I didn’t do anything wrong. That’s just how god works sometimes.” Then he turned to Job’s friends and was like, “Fuck you guys. He’s been saying for pages and pages that he didn’t do anything wrong. So I bet he didn’t. If he had, don’t you think he’d have slaughtered something and set it on fire by now?” Then Elihu went on a long long rant about god. 

Finally god chimed in and said, “Hey Job. Got anything to say to me?” Job was just like, “Nah dude. You just keep doing what you’re doing. I was pretty upset for a minute there. Now I’m fine.” God said, “Brace yourself like a man. I’m way more powerful than you and I have a lot on my plate. Can you fucking do what I do? Seriously, go wipe out a city by yourself. Do it. I’ll wait. Oh you can’t? You know why you can’t? Because I’m god and you’re fucking not. Shit, I made the Behemoth And the Behemoth is badass. You can’t even fuck with a Behemoth and pierce its nose. But I did. Also, I bet you can’t catch a Leviathan with a fishhook and make him your pet. Because you don’t even know what the fuck that is.” Then god went on to describe a Leviathan monster and a Behemoth for a while. 

Apparently a Behemoth is a giant animal that eats grass like an ox, is very muscular, has literal bronze bones and figurative iron flesh. The Leviathan has shield sized scales that are firmly pressed together, breathes fire, and can tear through iron like it’s straw. No human weapon at the time could kill it. To be fair some biblical scholars think god was talking about the dinosaurs here. But why would he? Humankind wouldn’t discover that dinosaurs existed until thousands of years later and as far as we can tell, none of them breathed fire or had bronze bones.

So to Job, god was starting to sound like Napoleon Dynamite. 

Job said, “Yeah. I know you can fuck with everything. Sorry I even asked.” This made god happy, but the fact that Job’s friends didn’t believe that he would just fucking ruin someone’s life for no reason pissed him off. So he made them slaughter 7 animals (because god loves the number 7) and set them on fire. Then he gave Job a new family (which still kind of sucks, because he lost his old family. And having a new family doesn’t quite make that pain of loss go away) and livestock. And Job lived to be 140 years old somehow.


SO that’s the story of Job! Check back this weekend. I’m skipping Psalms and Proverbs because there isn’t really a story to follow, just a bunch of songs and proverbs… 

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