I had meant to use an Easter theme for today’s blog, but since my viewpoint on the season is decidedly far from the “Jesus died for my sins”, instead of the “Messianic restoration of Jerusalem to its former glory and to bring in the Kingdom of God”, I’ve decided to use the following. . .
GENESIS 30:26 through 43
If trickery was not thievery,
and voodoo had Yahweh’s approval
when he became
Jacob’s Co-conspirator:
and Nature’s sole Competitor,
then who am I to file complaint?
‘Tis written Jacob took a knife
and peeled some saplings of their bark:
fragrant almond, poplar, plane,
and all to gain a second wife.
There are those who claim it’s true
because the Bible says it’s so:
but I am one who says it ain’t!
Rods of poplar, almond, plane,
spotted, striped and speckled wood
placed before a snow-white pair
of mating sheep or goats, ne’re could
produce the speckled, spotted, striped,
the varied offspring Jacob claimed.
Yet none the less, he left for home
a full-fledged Semite millionaire.
I think that God should be ashamed—
at least I’m certain that he would—
if obeah truly proved to be
a Biblical reality.
I’m more than thankful when I’m faced
with the Bible, interlaced,
with tales that I just can’t believe,
that I finally came to see
that doubt is what our brains are for.
And doubting led me to perceive
such tales are legends—nothing more.
well you know mary,, there are things in the word that need be accepted on faith alone!!!!!!
has everyone gone mad???? why is it they who study this dang book like their very lives depend on it cant see the forest for the trees???????
i love this.. so perposfully and “respectfully” done!!
Paisley, thanks for the smile: I like irony, such as . . . “there are things in the world we need to accept on faith”. I’m with you. I don’t understand those with a proclivity for accepting as truth anything and everything they may read for no other reason than it can be found in the Bible. To believe that Jacob caused sheep and goats to produce spotted and striped offspring because they did their breeding before some saplings stripped of their bark, is to believe in voodoo. Like, begets like, no matter what is found to the contrary in the Bible
It helps to come from a perspective of anthropology in studying this literature. The definition of a “god” concept is that of an ideal. And as you can see, we most often idolize a bigger version of ourselves as just as lacking when it comes to substance of character, such as Compassion and Understanding.
Well, Sue, since a great deal of my writing is directed to, and written for, those readers who believe that all one needs to know can be found in a book they call the “Holy Bible”—and would not have the slightest understanding of what you mean by “a perspective of anthopology”or “we most often idolize a bigger version of ourselves”—I do my best to write in a manner that needs no explanation to get my viewpoint across.