The Books of Samuel/Kings
Sep. 4th, 2006 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaOn Saturday, I read through both books of Samuel and the first book of Kings, or the first 3 books of Kings, depending on what you label them. (I'm sure they have a different name in the Torah just to add more confusion)
God becomes smaller, sulkier, grumpier. He lives in his box and makes vague predictions about what will happen to people if they don't obey him and often doesn't follow through on these threats.
One thing I find really interesting about these books is that God is no more brutal to people that go off and worship 'pagan gods' than he is to people who stay and worship him. The faithful Samuel and David really fair a bit worse than Saul and Solomon who go off and worship other gods. Solomon in particular has a huge kingdom with lots of money and luxury, 700 wives, and he outright builds temples to other gods and worships them pretty openly. God makes some vague threat that he'll punish Solomon's childen but doesn't specify which ones and says they'll still have a kingdom. Oh... No... I mean so far in the book, no one family has really had their power last beyond one generation.
So yesterday, taking a cue from Solomon and most of the rest of the hebrew in the book of kings, I cast the bible aside and went and hung out with Ashtoreth instead and it was way more fun. She didn't even ask me to set any goats on fire. We bought some 'strong drink' and watched The Aviator and V for Vendetta. Quite a fair bit more fun than this book. Though I suppose, I'll get back to it now and see what other tediums it has in store for me.
God becomes smaller, sulkier, grumpier. He lives in his box and makes vague predictions about what will happen to people if they don't obey him and often doesn't follow through on these threats.
One thing I find really interesting about these books is that God is no more brutal to people that go off and worship 'pagan gods' than he is to people who stay and worship him. The faithful Samuel and David really fair a bit worse than Saul and Solomon who go off and worship other gods. Solomon in particular has a huge kingdom with lots of money and luxury, 700 wives, and he outright builds temples to other gods and worships them pretty openly. God makes some vague threat that he'll punish Solomon's childen but doesn't specify which ones and says they'll still have a kingdom. Oh... No... I mean so far in the book, no one family has really had their power last beyond one generation.
So yesterday, taking a cue from Solomon and most of the rest of the hebrew in the book of kings, I cast the bible aside and went and hung out with Ashtoreth instead and it was way more fun. She didn't even ask me to set any goats on fire. We bought some 'strong drink' and watched The Aviator and V for Vendetta. Quite a fair bit more fun than this book. Though I suppose, I'll get back to it now and see what other tediums it has in store for me.
