Between Barak and a Tent Stake
You got any friends that are just perpetual screw-ups? The kind of person that just can’t get it right, no matter how many times they try? That was the Israelites. Somewhere between Wiley Coyote, Lindsay Lohan, and Michael Vick. The Israelites were perfecting the concept of being their own worst enemy far before that awesome Lit song inspired Charlie Sheen to try to dig a hole in his life to China with hookers and nose candy.
The Old Testament pretty much reads like this: God loves Israel. Israel loves God. Israel turns back on God, goes off the deep end, and becomes the inspiration for the show Skins. God gets mad and punishes Israel. Israel repents. God blesses Israel. Repeat until Jesus is born. Continue reading »
Stealing From The Offering Plate: The Story of Achan
Back when the Israelites were romping across Canaan like Ben Roethlisberger across a piano bar there was this bro-meister in camp named Achan. Remember that rapper, Akon, who got yelled at by FoxNews a couple years back for grinding up on that 14 year-old girl? Yeah, that’s not who I’m talking about. But it might as well be ‘cause there are some weird parallels between rapper Akon and Old Testament Achan. Just replace “freaked on a 14 year-old” with “stole from God” and “yelled at by FoxNews” with “stoned and set on fire” and you’ve pretty much got it. Continue reading »
Hey There Delilah: The Story of Samson, Part 2
Click here for Part 1.
Several decades after the Donkey-bone Beatdown, Samson was creeping around the Gaza strip looking for some tail. Now Samson was getting up there in years by this point and his body wasn’t quite what it used to be. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the dude could still throw a pigskin a quarter mile if you asked him to. He just didn’t have the same figure he did back in the day when he was walking around clubs, lifting up his shirts and saying, “looks like we’ve got a situation here, ladies.” He was old, that’s all. His six-pack had turned into more of a mini-keg and his barbed wire tats kind of looked like ingrown hairs. Continue reading »
You and What Army: The Story of Samson, Part I
Back in the day there was this righteous dude named Samson. No doubt about it: Samson was a baller, and by “baller” I don’t mean “good at basketball” but rather “able to kill several dozen people with a basketball.” Samson was huge in a way that few people not named Jose Conseco can imagine. In fact, he was so huge that he was elected ruler of Israel for, like, twenty years. Some people think it’s dumb to put a guy in charge just because he’s jacked out of his mind. Others, like the residents of California, are apparently cool with it since they once made the star of Jingle All The Way their Governator for the same exact reason. Continue reading »
Gods, Grills, and Girly-Men
This story is about a dude named Elijah. For three years before this all went down, Elijah, had been kickin it solo in the wilderness east of the Jordan River. Picture it like Arizona or like the episode of Man vs. Wild where Bear Grylls goes to the Mojave Desert except if instead of drinking his own urine, Bear had super-smart ravens that would bring him bread and meat and whatnot. That’s pretty much what it was like for ole E-Jay. Apart from the occasional miraculous resurrection, it was pretty lame. Continue reading »
Offing The Blob: The Story of Ehud The Assassin
Dudes. Dudes. Dudes. Jason Bourne is in the Bible. Stop calling me gay, I’m freakin serious. There’s a badass assassin in The Bible. If you’ll shut up about how gay you wish I was, I’d tell you about it. Yeah you see what I did there? Turned that one right around on you. Continue reading »
A Bad Day for a Bath
Remember David? Sure you do. He’s the dude who played the harp and tamed lions and killed Goliath and got a shout out in that one Jeff Buckley song. You remember, right? Good. That’ll save us some time. So anyway, this was after the whole Goliath thing when David had already been named king of Israel. Now being king of Israel in 1200 BC was a lot like being president of America in 1992-2010. You spent most of your time doing two things: getting tail and marauding across the Middle East. And by all accounts David was a freaking champ at both. Continue reading »