The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)
15:2 - Azariah's mother's name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.
15:16 - Menahem sacked Tiphsah, all who were in it and its territory from Tirzah on. Because the city did not open to him he sacked it and he ripped open the pregnant women in it.
15:33 - Jotham's mother's name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok.
2 Kings 16 - No mention of any women.
17:17 - God's people would not listen to God and made their sons and daughters pass through fire; they used divination and augury; and they sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord.
My Comments
I'm not sure why the Bible loves to randomly add in horrific depictions of female death, but it is getting really annoying and terrible to read. The pregnant women being ripped open was added as an after thought, it seemed. Why add them there at all? Was saying, "The city got sacked" not enough? And why only mention pregnant women? Why not the other members of the city? I'm not sure if this is some sort of literary devise, whether it's supposed to invoke some sort of feeling or whether it's just a factoid the author thought he'd add in, but whatever it's supposed to be I wish the Bible would stop singling out women like that.
And it seems the people of Israel are starting to catch on to what I was saying in my last post about God being such a horrible deity, full of punishment and wrath and not much else. These entire two chapters are basically about how the people of Israel would not stop worshiping other gods. Did not matter what God did, they kept leaving him and going back to Baal or even just gods they made up themselves. Honestly they had good reason to leave God, he wasn't doing shit for them other than making their lives harder. And seriously, 2 Kings 17:35-36 still has God harping on how he saved the Israelites from Egypt and this is why they should worship him. That was GENERATIONS ago, God. You cannot expect people to keep following you for something you did for their great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfathers. It's just ridiculous.
It's like that asshole who did that one really good thing years ago and won't shut up about it. "Hey, asshole, why the hell did you shave my dog?" "Aw, come on, man. Remember how I saved those orphans from that fire?" "That was DECADES ago!" "Yeah, but it was awesome so shut the hell up and do what I say!" One good deed does not make it okay for someone to be a complete tool in everything else they do. We wouldn't accept this behavior from our best friends so why do we allow this behavior in our deities?
I'm glad the people of Israel are growing wise to God's bullshit. Unfortunately they all pretty much suffer and die because of it, but it's good to see them noticing what I've been seeing all along.
Wednesday: 2 Kings 18-20
The reason why horrific female death is depicted is because it would be considered the ultimate insult for women to be killed in such a fashion, but to say that only women die in horrible ways is not true. Judas hung himself. James and Paul were decapitated. John was boiled alive, and lived. Stephen was stoned. It's obvious that you are looking for ways to rip the bible, but if you approach it from a more objective viewpoint you would see that a lot of people die horrible deaths in the bible.
ReplyDeleteMy point wasn't that it's only women who die horrible deaths in the Bible. My point was why does the Bible need to specifically mention the pregnant women here? And in a previous post I was wondering why, so far, women's deaths, while no more horrific than some men's deaths, are described in much more horrific detail then men's deaths. A question which only applied to the stories I've read so far and if I missed a horrifically detailed death scene (which could happen) I did ask for corrections.
ReplyDeleteI also address the difference between the way the Bible treats woman and men in a comment on the Genesis 38-42 post. A quick summary of the comment goes, "Yes, men are killed and punished in the Bible too, but men are far more frequently also the heroes of the tale, while women get all the bad and none of the hero status."
And I am looking at the Bible from a feminist viewpoint, something I state right up front. So my focus in this blog will, of course, be on the women and their treatment. If you want a look at the men in the Bible you can pretty much pick up any book that is about the Bible and you get the man's stories. This blog does require a basic knowledge of feminism 101, so I don't really expect someone who isn't informed on feminist matters to really understand where I am coming from. When you have time Google feminism 101 or just "What about teh menz?" and I'm sure something there would help you a lot in this matter as well.