Genesis 28: The Ladder to Heaven that didn’t make Jacob drink Kool-Aid

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Genesis: Chapter Twenty-Eight

The ladder to heaven that didn’t make Jacob drink Kool-Aid

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1. So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman.” This sudden switch in top nearly gave Jacob whiplash of course, but this became a Jewish tradition even to the present day… I love you, my child, but marry a Jew or else! Jacob of course was just glad he hadn’t been caught eating a Baconator. 
2. “Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Make sure to pack a few towels because his linens are always so itchy. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. Please don’t just pick the one with big boobs, or use the eenie meenie miney mo method.
3. May God Almighty* bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples that all sleep with their own sisters and relatives.
4. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, which is, let’s not forget, a chopped up penis, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham, which will involve one day killing everyone that’s here because God is loving and all that stuff.”
5. Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he took advantage of his alone time with some hand lotion and a copy of Canaanite Cootchie. Jacob went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau, and who had no faith left that Jacob would ever marry a woman after that incident with her dresses and false eyelashes.
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6. Now Esau, who had finished a body-hair grooming class, learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,”
7. and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram.
8. Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac, and, to be honest, began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t a hot piece of forbidden fruit there to be had… like maybe a furry red woman who’d match him and with whom he could have a family of baby mogwai people;
9. but instead he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had. This is apparently more pleasing to God, because incest and racial separatism is holy as fuck.
   
   Jacob’s Dream at Bethel
10. Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran but forgot to turn the coffeepot off, so Beersheba burned down.
11. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. And that certain place is one where what happens there stays there, if you know what I mean. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. That stone, he didn’t realize, was covered with mushroom dust, which explains what happened after.
12. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. At the top was a Bloomingdales and everything was on sale except underwear, for some odd reason he’d later have to discuss with his psychiatrist.
13. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.”
    
    And beside him, someone looking like Keanu Reeves said, “And I’m Ted Theodore Logan! And we are…” he then looked at the Lord, but the Lord didn’t look like he wished to finish the gimmick, so he felt awkward and left.
    
    The Lord said to Jacob, “I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. I know it kind of sucks and that you’re not allowed to bang the women, but I still want you to be excited about it anyway.
14. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth (and I don’t mean dirty, although I think we all know they’re tigers in the sheets, am I right?), and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south, to the northeast and the northwest, to the southwest and the southeast, although I recommend avoiding a place called Germany. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. Except, I guess, for everyone I don’t like. Oh, and your own descendents at certain points. And don’t even get me started about this one guy called Woody Allen, who’s just going to be one major mess.
15. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, mostly using motion activated cameras (but lately they’re a little rusty, so please make sure you flail a lot) and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
    
    Jacob realized that the only way he’ll ever enjoy a Baconator again is if he found a way to get a restraining order against God.
    
16. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it. Oh shit! There went my whole drug ring prospects.”
17. He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place!” (For he knew He was listening and had to pretend to actually enjoy this craptastic parcel of land.) “This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven. And I didn’t even remember to hit the gift shop! Silly me!”
    
18. Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He pondered about peeing on it but didn’t want to take the chance. He damned sure didn’t want to sleep on it again.
19. He called that place Bethel, (which means place where I tripped balls) though the city used to be called Luz (which, in Canaanite, meant place where I tripped balls, because that rock really got around).
    
20. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear
21. so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God
22. and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.” And yet under his breath he muttered, But so help me, the second I think he’s not watching anymore, I’m gonna hump the hell out of all the Canaanite bitches and have myself a whole pork roast that I hump before I eat!

NOTES:

3 – Now the NIV has a footnote here letting you know, for some reason, that the God Almighty is translated from the words, El Shaddai. This has even made a praise song hilariously video-illustrated with people freaked out by a flaming tornado, and other wacky imagery. The reason this is astonishing is that… well fuck it, no way I’m gonna do all this in a goddamned footnote. Here…

 

About El Shaddai, the Daddy of the Bad God
El is a really odd way to refer to the God of Abraham (who we’re led to believe is named YHWH later on) considering who El actually is. El is the Canaanite God. And is the father of Baal! Here people sing about El as though it just means God in general, but that would be absurd. That’d be like if they were to sing a song called Zeus Almighty and then pretend that Zeus isn’t a real god, but theirs is. And this analogy isn’t even sufficient because Zeus wasn’t the father of a different God particularly hated in the Bible! In fact, so much of the pre-YHWH Old Testament text is littered with non-condemned references to Canaanite deities! And then… condemnation:

 

In Numbers 25 people started worshipping Baal and it angered Yahweh enough to have them killed by Moses. Again in Judges 2 they started dancing around Astheroth poles and worshipping Baal again, and it angered God, who’d have their altars to Baal destroyed later in Judges 6. In 1 Kings 16 King Ahab was denounced as a horrible king for setting up worship to Baal, which was way worse than the “sins of Jeroboam” (and t here’s chapters and chapters wailing against those), and two chapters later, the most memorable moment being Elijah’s fight against the priests of Baal on top of Mount Carmel. That ended with Elijah, the oh so loving priest of a loving God, taunting the priests of Baal because apparently they were that horrible to not even require respect. They were later killed of course (v. 40).

 

But what is absolutely fascinating is that if he’s so hated, by El is so loved, clearly the people later rewriting these stories to make Abraham’s actual God the YHWH who hates Baal, rather than the El of Canaan (and it is obviously a rewrite according to scholars who aren’t blinders-wearing-fundies), then you’d think they’d have not kept the references to El at all. After all, in Canaanite religion, El’s favorite son is Baal. He even has his previous favorite son, Mot, killed because of his roll in having Baal murdered, and celebrated when Baal’s sister was capable of resurrecting Baal from the dead.

 

Clearly the idea that there’s only one God, that he hates all other gods, and that even those who worship his son (oh wait, let’s change His name so they’re no longer related… yeah, that’s better) would be hated and murdered.

 

But then, you’re probably expecting reason in religion.

 

Don’t do that.