Unless The 700 Club, Sunday School, and Mel Gibson have taught us wrong, it should be pretty clear by now that the Bible has more than its fair share of zany parts.
Surprisingly, this is one of its normal sections.
Just how weird and messed-up, however, is a completely different story. After all, if someone told us that the world’s most popular religion was based on a book which contained the following monsters and acts of violence, we’d probably think they were talking about Game of Thrones.
Somehow, this guy managed to cover more incest than the entire Book of Genesis.
After all, imagine how much more interesting Bible camp would have been if it included…
6. GIANTS
Yes, there are giants in the Bible. The crazy-big kind. Also, if you think we’re talking about Goliath when we say that, think again. Before the King James Bible came out, that so-called giant was pegged at a not-at-all impossible 6’ 7”.
They’d have to stand him in front of a bunch of Hobbits to look this tall.
However, if you want giants “the height of the cedars” and “as strong as the oaks,” the Old Testament is full of them. Not only do they appear throughout the books more frequently than they did in the Harry Potter series, but some of these giants, the Nephilim, even get lucky with human females in Genesis 6.
At least that explains where these two came from.
5. SEA MONSTERS
Make no mistake about it: the Bible puts Moby-Dick to shame. For starters, there’s the “great fish” which swallowed Jonah, which if you haven’t realized by now was basically the Shark Attack 3: Megalodon of the Old Testament.
Sadly, this book is not nearly as famous today as Sharknado.
However, even this beast pails in comparison to the Leviathan, the Old Testament sea monster which was more or less the Cthulhu before Cthulhu. Check out how he’s described in Job 41:
His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together;
each is so close to the next that no air can pass between.
They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted.
His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn.
Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out.
Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds.
His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth…
Nothing on earth is his equal—a creature without fear.
He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.
Go on. Just try reading that without picturing an electric guitar playing in the background.
If only opening hymns during Sunday mass were this badass.
4. DRAGONS
Are there dinosaurs in the Bible? No, but there sure as hell are dragons. Specifically, the one in Revelation 12, which is more badass than anything Peter Jackson has in store for us in The Hobbit trilogy.
Not pictured: Lots of walking.
Ask yourself: What could be more intimidating than a dragon with a head like that? How about a dragon with so many heads that he could wear them as a collar, because that’s precisely what happens in Revelation 12. Check it out:
An enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.
Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.
[Artist’s depiction.]
Pretty cool, isn’t it? It looks like a boss from a Ghouls ‘n Ghosts level. Oh, and the craziest part? That dragon shows up so it can eat a baby, or at the very least try to.
One of many weird-ass way the Bible handles childbirth.
3. UNICORNS
Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?
Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
The word of the Lord, apparently.
Who would have guessed it? All this time, God was a brony. Or at the very least the authors of the King James Bible were, since the word “unicorn” appears in there nine times. The term has since been changed to lesser animals, we’re guessing because having unicorns in the Bible today would jump the shark with modern audiences.
And again, that’s without counting Jonah.
2. SAUL’S TOTALLY FUCKED UP FAMILY HISTORY
Saul was the first king of the unified Kingdom of Israel, which sort of makes him the George Washington of old Judea. As such, it may be surprising to know that his family history in the Book of Judges is more or less the most violent story ever committed to paper.
More or less, the Book of Judges.
Saul is a descendant from the men of the Tribe of Benjamin, who in Judges surrounded a visitor to their region and threatened to rape him. To save his own skin, the traveler instead offered his concubine to the mob, whom the crowd subsequently raped to death. The traveler then chopped his dead concubine to 12 pieces and sent a chunk of her to every tribe in Israel to let them know how utterly messed up things were in Benjamin.
Apparently, dismemberment was an acceptable way to draft an op-ed then.
The tribes went to war with Benjamin and considered exterminating its whole population, but instead decided to kill all the men in a nearby town called Jabesh Gilead, whose inhabitants refused to join the fight against Benjamin. The daughters of these slain men where then married to the few remaining rapist assholes in Benjamin, and Saul is their descendant.
Seriously, just try selling a story like that to any publishing house. Never mind to the people who print the Bible.
We’re pretty sure teaching that part in Sunday School would be child abuse.
1. JESUS’ CIRCUMCISION
We all know that Jesus was Jewish after that whole “king of the Jews” thing. However, it turns out that doesn’t even scratch the surface about how seriously the Bible takes his Jewish heritage.
Wait, what the…
According to Luke 2:21, Jesus was circumcised, which was a bit of a big deal not only for his Jewish street-credit but because it marked the moment that he was officially named “Jesus” in his lifetime. As a result, artistic depictions of this event have become the stuff that we can’t share on The Smoking Jacket without some kind of warning. And here it is:
Thanks for the nightmares, Bible.
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