Friday, October 29, 2010

Ezra 1-3

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

Ezra 1 - No mention of any women.

2:61 - Of the descendants of the priests: the descendants of Habaiah, Hakkoz and Barzillai (who had married one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called by their name).
2:65 - The male and female servants, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty-seven; and the had two hundred male and female singers.

Ezra 3 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

And still nothing. -_- How boring. Guess I'll have to go back to just reading till I hopefully hit something interesting.

Monday: Ezra ?-?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

2 Chronicles 25-36

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

25:18 - King Jehoash of Israel sent work to King Amaziah of Judah, "A thornbush of Lebanon sent to a cedar on Lebanon, saying, 'Give your daughter to my son for a wife'; but a wild animal of Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thornbush."

26:3 - Uzziah's mother's name was Jecoliah of Jerusalem.

27:1 - Jotham's mother's name was Jerushah daughter of Zadok.

28:8 - The people of Israel took captive from Judah 200,000 of their kin, women, sons, and daughters; they also took much booty from them and brought the booty to Samaria.
28:10 - Odem, a prophet, chastises the Israelites for killing Judah with such rage, asking if they now plan to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as their slaves? He then tells them to let the captives go since the wrath of the Lord is upon them.

29:1 - Hezekiah's mother's name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.
29:9 - Judah's fathers have fallen by the sword and its sons and daughters and wives taken.

2 Chronicles 30 - No mention of any women.

31:18 - The priests were enrolled with all their little children, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, the whole multitude; for their were faithful in keeping themselves holy.

2 Chronicles 32 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 33 - No mention of any women.

34:22-28 - The priest Hilkiah, Ahikem, Achbor, Saphan and Asiah went to the prophetess Huldah the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; she resided in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter, where they consulted her. She told the men that the Lord was indeed going to bring disaster onto this place as the king had read because the people had abandoned him and made offerings to other gods. The people had provoked God's anger so His wrath will not be quenched. But because the king of Judah, who sent the men, was penitent and his humbled himself before the Lord God will allow the king to be gathered to his ancestors and you shall go to your grave in peace and not see the disaster that God has planned for this place. So the men took this message to the king.

2 Chronicles 35 - No mention of any women.

36:17 - God brought up the king of the Chaldeans against Jerusalem. The king killed their youths with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or young woman, the aged or the feeble; God gave them all into the kings hand.

My Comments

The weird thornbush bit is a verbatim retelling of 2 Kings 12:14.

The prophet Huldah story is also a repeat from 2 Kings 22:14-20.

And for 2 Chronicles 36:17 I only have three words. What. A. Dick. Seriously, just because some people don't want to listen to you is not a good reason to slaughter them all. Especially not the children. Like small children know any better than to follow those who raise them. -_-

We're finally done with the Chronicles! Everyone do a dance of joy! :D We're finally going on to something new!

Friday: Ezra 1-3

Monday, October 25, 2010

2 Chronicles 20-24

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

20:13 - Meanwhile all Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives, and their children.
20:31 - Jehoshaphat's mother's name was Azubah daughter of Shilhi.

21:6 - Jehoram walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done; for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.
21:14 - Because Jehoram displeased the Lord, God will bring a great plague on himself, his people, his children, his wives and his possessions.

22:2-3 - Ahaziah's mother's name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counselor in doing wickedly.
22:10-12 - Now when Athaliah, Ahaziah's mother, saw that her son was dead, she set about to destroy all the royal family of the house of Judah. But Jehoshabeath, the king's daughter, took Joash son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king's children who were about to be killed. She put him and his nurse in a bedroom. thus Jehoshabeath, daughter of King Jehoram and wife of the priest Jehoiada - because she was a sister of Ahaziah - hid him from Athaliah, so that she did not kill him; he remained with them six years, hidden in the house of god, while Athaliah reigned over the land.

23:12-15 - Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the people and went into the house of the Lord. When she looked there was the king standing by the pillar, as is custom, with the captain and the trumpeters and all the people of the land rejoicing and blowing trumpets. Athaliah tore her clothes and cried, "Treason! Treason!" The priest Jehoiada commanded the captains to bring her out between the ranks and kill anyone who followed her, for she shall not be killed in the house of the Lord. So they took her and went through the horses' entrance to the king's house and she was put to death.

24:3 - Jehoiada got two wives for Joash, and he became the father of sons and daughters.
24:7 - The children of Athaliah, that wicked woman, had broken into the house of God and had used all the dedicated things of the house of the Lord for the Baals.

My Comments

WHYYYYYYYYY are the women the reason these kings were wicked?!?!?! Women have no power and yet they get all the blame because despite them having no power they can control KINGS into doing wicked things.

Seriously, Bible, you can't have it both ways. Either women are subservient are powerless or they are controlling and powerful! So choose already! D: Or maybe these men strayed from God simply because they allowed women to gain control over them. God commands women to be subservient so it would seem that when a man does not control his women he becomes wicked in God's eyes.

All questions which I believe I have asked before. We still have no definitive answer here, but we do know that women are bad. So the best thing to do is stay away from women at all costs unless you are making babies. And women, we are just screwed.

Also note: the Athaliah passages are verbatim from 2 Kings 11:1-3 and 2 Kings 11:13-16. Just ridiculous. Still don't understand why the Chronicle books exists at all.

Wednesday: 2 Chronicles ?-?

Friday, October 22, 2010

2 Chronicles 12-19

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

12:13 - Rehoboam's mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite.

13:2 - Abijah's mother's name was Micaiah daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.
13:21 - Abijah took fourteen wives, and become the father of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

2 Chronicles 14 - No mention of any women.

15:13 - Whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.
15:16 - King Asa even removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the Wadi Kidron.

2 Chronicles 16 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 17 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 18 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 19 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

What is with the Chronicles being word for word copies of previous passages? What kind of sense does this make? I can understand revisiting older stories and retelling them with a bit more information added here or there, but again we have another copy paste story. Seriously, 15:16 is word for word the same as 1 Kings 15:13. Same thing that happened Wednesday with the Queen of Sheba story. It's all verbatim. So what's the point of retelling the story if you're just going to say it the exact same way? And these stories are from 1 and 2 Kings which makes it even more ridiculous because these were the books we JUST finished. It'd be like if a show did a flashback episode of the episode they just showed. We remember what happened, we don't need a recap.

That nonsense is only allowed if Clerks the Animated Series does it, and only because when they do it it's hilarious.

Monday: More 2 Chronicles

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

2 Chronicles 3-11

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

2 Chronicles 3 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 4 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 5 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 6 - No mention of any women.

2 Chronicles 7 - No mention of any women.

8:11 - Solomon brought Pharaoh's daughter from the city of David to the house that he had built for her, for he said, "My wife shall not live in the house of King David of Israel for the places to which the ark of the Lord have come are holy."

9:1-9 - The Queen of Sheba heard of Solomon and his infinite wisdom so she went to Solomon to test him with hard questions. She came to Jerusalem with many gifts for him and once she was with him she told him all that was on her mind. Solomon answered all of her questions and there was nothing he could not answer. When the queen had observed all of Solomon's wisdom, the house he'd built, his food, the seating of his officials and his burnt offerings there was no more spirit in her. So she said to the king, "The report was true that I heard in my own land of your accomplishments and of your wisdom, but I did not believe it until I came and my own eyes had seen it. Not even half had been told to me; your wisdom and prosperity far surpass the report that I have heard. Happy are your wives! Happy are these your servants, who continually attend you and hear your wisdom. Blessed be the Lord your God who set you on the throne of Israel. Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness." The queen of Sheba gave Solomon many great treasures, and Solomon gave to the queen every desire that she expressed as well as things out of Solomon's royal bounty. Then she returned to her own land with her servants.

2 Chronicles 10 - No mention of any women.

11:18-22 - Rehoboam took as his wife Mahalath daughter of Jerimoth son of David, and of Abigail daughter of Eliab son of Jesse. She bore him sons: Jeush, Shemariah and Zaham. After he took Maacah daughter of Absalom, who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza and Shelomith. Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than his other wives and concubines (he took eighteen wives and sixty concubines and became the father of twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters). Rehoboam appointed Abijah son of Maacah as chief prince among his brothers, for he intended to make him king.

My Comments

Holy crap! Finally some women! Something to talk about! Even if two of the three are basically repeats it's still something.

There is a bit more detail added to the bit about pharaoh's daughter which answers a lot of the questions I had about it the first time around. Originally we didn't get any information as to WHY Solomon put pharaoh's daughter in her own house, but now we know it was because for some reason she couldn't be in a place made holy by the ark of Lord. So, yeah, much more insulting than it originally looked. Did he have to move all his wives out of the city then? Or was it just pharaoh's daughter for some reason? Was she too unclean to be around a holy place because she was a women or because she was foreign? Maybe a bit of both?

Either way, bet it was totally awesome to know that the reason you had to live outside the city and away from the guy you married because you would profane a holy place.

And by totally awesome I mean not totally awesome at all.

And then we get another bit of the competition that seems inherent in polygamous marriages in the Bible. Rehoboam had all these wives but favored one over all the others, so much so that he put her son above all the rest. It isn't stated up front whether Abijah was the first born of his sons, so there is a good chance that Abijah was put in front of the line to be king disregarding the actual order of the sons. Bet it made all of his other wives feel really special to have their sons pushed aside like that.

Also note: 18 wives and 60 concubines?!?! WTF?!

Friday: 2 Chronicles ?-?

Monday, October 18, 2010

2 Chronicles 1-2

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

2 Chronicles 1 - No mention of any women.

2:14 - Huram-abi was the son of one of the Danite women and his father was a Tyrian.

My Comments

2 Chronicles is already starting off as 1 Chronicles left off. No women to be seen.

Sorry about the short post today. I was out late last night and didn't get a chance to do the post before I went to work this morning. It also seems the stomach ache I had yesterday afternoon is still around today, so I'm pretty much gonna be laying down the rest of the night. But Wednesday's post should be back on schedule.

Wednesday: 2 Chronicles ?-?

Friday, October 15, 2010

1 Chronicles 23-29

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

23:22 - Eleazar had no sons, only daughters. Their kindred, the sons of Kish, married them.

1 Chronicles 24 - No mention of any women.

25:5 - God had given Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.

1 Chronicles 26 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 27 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 28 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 29 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Okay, seriously, this is ridiculous. The entire Chronicles so far has almost been nothing but a solid block of names. And yet, there are no women mentioned past the few mothers that were mentioned earlier on. It's just page after page of sons this and father's that and king this and leaders that. All of these chapters I've gone through and the only real bulk of women is in only the first 4 chapters. Oddly enough, the Bible seems to think naming the mothers serves no purpose and basically stops completely after that, even though every chapter after is still massive amounts of genealogy.

I... I honestly just don't understand. It really looks like women just stop existing. It's a world overrun by men. I imagine it would be like the planet of men in Saber Marionette J, minus the badass chick robots and lacking the entertainment value. Actually, now that I think about it, the two are actually very similar. A world filled with men who view women simply as objects and status symbols or as laborers.

But I would pick watching Saber Marionette J over reading the Bible any day.

So it looks like we're heading into 2 Chronicles. I hope it's not as disappointing as 1 Chronicles.

Friday; 2 Chronicles ?-?

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

1 Chronicles 16-22

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

16:3 - David distributed to every man and women in Israel a loaf of bread, a portion of meat and a cake of raisins.

1 Chronicles 17 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 18 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 19 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 20 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 21 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 22 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

...

*sigh*

Friday: 1 Chronicles ?-?

Monday, October 11, 2010

1 Chronicles 9-15

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

9:35 - In Gideon lived the father of Gibeon, Jeiel, and the name of his wife was Maacah.

1 Chronicles 10 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 11 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 12 - No mention of any women.

1 Chronicles 13 - No mention of any women.

14:3 - David took more wives in Jerusalem, and David became the father of even more sons and daughters.

15:29 - As the ark of the covenant of the Lord came to the city of David, Michal daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw king David leaping and dancing; and she despised him in her heart.

My Comments

Well, I read far more than my normal amount of chapters in hopes that I may come upon something even vaguely interesting to talk about. And yet, 7 chapters and nothing interesting. That's about a weeks worth of reading right there. Maybe I'll start speeding up my reading if this is gonna be the case.

I mean, before I started this project I figured there weren't a lot of women in the Bible but really, this is a bit on the ridiculous side. This project is becoming easier and easier since women in the Bible are becoming scarcer and scarcer.

But Chronicles seems to be the flashback episode of the Old Testament, so even the reference to Michal is just a flash back to 2 Samuel 6. So that bit isn't even interesting since I've already written about it.

Guess we'll see how many chapters I end up doing for Wednesday.

Wednesday: 1 Chronicles ?-?

Friday, October 8, 2010

1 Chronicles 6-8

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1 Chronicles 6 : No mention of any women.

7:4 - Along with the chiefs were units of the fighting force, 36,000, for that had many wives and sons.
7:14-16 - The sons of Manasseh: Asriel, whom his Aramean concubine bore; she bore Machir the father of Gilead. And Michir took a wife for Huppim and for Shuppim. The name of his sister was Maacah. And the name of the second was Zelophehad; and Zelophehad had daughters, Maacah the wife of Michir bore a son, and she named him Peresh; the name of his brother was Sheresh; and his sons were Ulam and Rekem.
7:18 - And Machir's sister Hammolecheth bore Ishod, Abiezer and Mahlah.
7:23-24 - Ephraim went in to his wife, and she conceived and bore a son; and he named him Beriah because disaster had befallen his house. His daughter was Sheerah, who built both Lower and Upper Beth-horon and Uzzen-sheerah.

8:9 - Shaharaim had sons by his wife Hodesh; Jobab, Zibia, Mesha, Malcam.
8:29 - Jeiel the father of Gibeon lived in Gabeon, and the name of his wife was Maacah.

My Comments

My spell check also hates the Chronicles. This is gonna be a long boring book.

Monday: 1 Chronicles 9-15

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

1Chronicles 3-5

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

3:1-3 - These are the sons of David who were born to him in Hebron: thefirstborn Amnon, by Abinoam the jezreelite; the second daniel, by Abigail the Carmelite; the third Absalom, son of maacah, daughter of King Talmai of Geshur; the fourth Adonijah, son of Haggith; the fifth Shephatiah, by Abital; the sixth Ithream by his wife Eglah.
3:5 - These were born to him in Jerusalem: shimae, shobab, Nathan, and Solomon, four by bath-shua, daughter of Ammiel.
3:9 - All these were David's sons, besides the sons of the concubines; and Tmar was their sister.

4:3 - These were the sons of Etam: Jezreel, Ishma, and Idbash; and the name of their sister was Hazzelelponi.
4:5-7 - Ashhur father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah; Naarah bore him Ahuzzam, Hepher, Temeni, and Haahashtari. These were the sons of Naarah. The sons of Helah: Zereth, Izhr, and Ethnan.
4:9 - Jabez was honored more tat his brothers; and his mother named him Jabez saying, "Because I bore him in pain."
4:17-19 - These are the sons of Bithiah, daughter of Pharoah, whom Mered married; and she conceived and bore Miriam, Shammai and Ishbah father of Eshtemoa. And his Judean wife bore Jered father of Gedor, Heber father of Soco, and Jekuthiel father of Zanoah. The sons of the wife of Hodiah, the sister of Naham, were the fathers of Keilahthe Garmite and Eshteoa the Maacathite.
4:27 - Shiemei had sixteen sons and sixteen daughters.

1 Chronicles 5 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Again, more boring genealogies.

Also, all the polygamy reminds me of a Wiki article I read about the Lost Boys typical in fundamentalist Mormonism who are pressured to leave a community because there aren't enough women to take as wives. So I guess that is a possibility I never really thought of when looking at the polygamy in the Bible. Instead of a world population of 1/4 men and 3/4 women maybe they are just casting men out of tribes so that other men can have more than one wife. Which sounds horribly selfish.

You'd think they'd realize this was a douche move and maybe they should just stick to one wife so that everyone gets one.

But what do I know.

Friday: 1 Chronicles 6-8

Monday, October 4, 2010

2 Chronicles 1-2

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:32 - The sons of Keturah, Abraham's concubine: she bore Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah.
1:50 - When Baal-hanan dies, Hadad succeeded him; the name of his city was Pai and his wife's name Mehetabel daughter of Matred, daughter of Ma-zahab.

2:3 - The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, and Shelah; these three the Canaanite woman Bath-shua bore to him.
2:4-His daughter in law Tamar alos bore him Perez and Zerah, Judah had five sons in all.
2:21 - Hezron went in to the daughter of Machir father of Gilead, whom he married when he was sixty years old; she bore him Segub.
2:26 - Jameel also had another wife, whose name was Atarah; she was the mother of Onam.
2:29 - The name of Abishur's wife was Abihail, and she bore him Ahban and Molid.
2:34-35 - Now Sheshan had no sons, only daughters; but Sheshan had an Egyptian slave whose name was Jarha. So Sheshan gave his daughter in marriage to his slave Jarha; and she bore him Attai.

My Comments

Man, the genealogies are just so mind numbingly boring. -_-

Wednesday: 2 Chronicles 3-5

Friday, October 1, 2010

2 Kings 21-25

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

21:1 - Manasseh's mother's name was Hephzibah.
21:19 - Amon's mother's name was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz of Jothan.

22:1 - Josiah's mother's name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath.
22:14-20 - The priest Hilkiah, Ahikem, Achbor, Saphan and Asiah went to the prophetess Huldah the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe; she resided in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter, where they consulted her. She told the men that the Lord was indeed going to bring disaster onto this place as the king had read because the people had abandoned him and made offerings to other gods. The people had provoked God's anger so His wrath will not be quenched. But because the king of Judah, who sent the men, was penitent and his humbled himself before the Lord God will allow the king to be gathered to his ancestors and you shall go to your grave in peace and not see the disaster that God has planned for this place. So the men took this message to the king.

23:7 - Josiah broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord, where the women did weaving for Asherah.
23:10 - Josiah defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech.
23:31 - Jehoahaz's mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
23:36 - Jehoiakim's mother's name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

24:9 - Jehoiachin's mother's name was Nehusha daughter of Elnathan of Jerisalem.
24:15 - The King of Babylon carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon: the king's mother, the king's wives, his officials, and the elite of the land, he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
24:18 - Zedekiah's mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

2 Kings 25 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Awesome, one more female prophet to add to the list. Very cool. Nice to see that at least every once in a while God allows a woman to be in a position of some power.

I do wonder how some churches/denominations defend their claims that women are not allowed to be leaders in a church or, sometimes, even allowed to teach or hold authority over boys/men. Especially when you do have women leaders in the Bible. Even women who are prophets, which would imply that God himself chose them to lead in some respect. There was Miriam who praised God after the Israelites were saved from Egypt, then Deborah who served as a judge over Israel, and now Huldah who passes along the word of God to the king. All three of there women (with maybe the exception of Miriam) held great power over men and were sought to learn what God's wishes were or what God's plans were. So how do some churches reconcile this with their current beliefs that women cannot hold positions of power? Do they pretend these women don't exist? Do they downplay their roles in the Bible, regarding them more like a telephone for God than a person who held power and sway over men? Granted, there is MUCH more evidence that women are supposed to be submissive and listen to men to tell them what to do and how to act, so I can't say I blame the churches for believing that women need to be dominated instead of that women can hold positions of great importance and power. Maybe these few women who are prophets for God is the reason some denominations are more woman friendly than others.

Either way, for once the God of the old testament actually looks progressive compared to some churches/denominations, which should honestly make some of these churches think twice about their rules and doctrines.

Monday: 1 Chronicles 1-2