When we did our “Tricks from the Bible” TV specials, as part of our research we both read The Bible. We both took copious notes whilst doing our reading (my copy now has the weirdest things scrawled in the margins) and here are a few things I came across when I read the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis.
For those of you not familiar with what is in this book, it is the one with the story of creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his animal saving ark, the tower of Babel and the pillar of salt. More happens in this book than would ever happen in 20 series of “The Walking Dead.”
Some of the things here are so unbelievable you will be convinced that I am just making it up. Therefore I implore you to go get a Bible (pretty much any version of it will do) and check these curious events out for yourself.
I’m sure you remember the story of God creating everything in six days and thus creating the six day work week? I’m sure you remember being told at school that the first woman on the planet, Eve, took a bite from a fruit and was imparted with the forbidden knowledge (the knowledge turned out to be the realisation that they were naked).
Most paintings of the scene depict the fruit as an apple but the Bible never actually states what kind of fruit Eve sank her teeth into. It could have been a bunch of grapes or a clementine (Genesis 3:1-6). I would love it if it were a pineapple! You would have to be pretty mental to bite into that as knives were not invented then.
These paintings often depict the serpent as a no legged lizard. After God hears of the serpent deceiving Eve he curses it to “crawl on its belly” which could possibly mean that he took away its legs, so these classical paintings maybe should show a snake with legs (Genesis 3:14). I wonder what worms did to deserve a similar appearance? They don’t even get any eyes!
Did anyone have a Bible teacher who told them about the “Son’s of God” who have sex with the Earth women and have babies that grow up to be giants? (Genesis 6:1-4)
One of Jacob’s son’s, Judah has sexual intercourse with his daughter in law Tamar. Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and sits at the side of the road. Judah sees her and says one of the best, and dirtiest chat up lines ever recorded “Here now, let me come in to you” and the deed is done, she even managed to get given a goat out of the deal. (Genesis 38:11-19)
Abraham marries Sarah, who is allegedly a bit of hot stuff, she is also his half sister. He then gains favour and riches from the Egyptian Pharaoh by allowing him to have sex with Sarah. (Genesis 12:10-20)
By far my personal favourite bit in the whole of the Bible occurs during the story of Noah. A drunkard who fathered his first child when he was 500 years old (Genesis 5:32) and lived until he was 950! (Genesis 9:29)
One day Noah gets so drunk that he passes out with his… erm… ‘masculine parts’ hanging out beneath his clothes. His son, Ham, sees his dad’s nakedness so decides to put a piece of cloth over it to cover it up. When Noah wakes up with a hangover later on, he sees the cloth and knows that his son must have seen his willy. As a punishment he makes Ham’s youngest son a slave. (Genesis 9:21-27) Of course nowadays you just know that he Ham would have snapped a picture with his iphone and that would have been all over twitter. “Noah’s Balls! #twobytwo”
I know that most of these are totally open to interpretation. Sadly I am unable to read the original text so though. Does anyone else remember strange stuff from the Bible?
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Graeme Sep 13 2012 - 11:50 am
I loved the bit where Jesus, Mary and Judas find the entry to the Chamber of Secrets.
Laurence Sep 13 2012 - 11:56 am
There’s always 2 Kings 2:23-24 (from the New International Version translation)-
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.
I had to double check for myself when I first heard about it.
Nathan Hogg Sep 13 2012 - 12:06 pm
Here’s a list of top 10 lists from one of my favourite websites Listverse.com.
Hope its what your looking for.
http://listverse.com/2008/01/31/top-10-bizarre-biblical-tales/
http://listverse.com/2008/05/26/top-6-incestuous-relationships-in-the-bible/
http://listverse.com/2011/10/13/15-bizarre-biblical-quotes/
Janey Lou Sep 15 2012 - 2:04 am
Laurence you saw that on Weeds.
Jenny Sep 15 2012 - 4:09 pm
I think there is a version where the serpent is the first woman on earth but she does something god doesn’t like… turns evil maybe?… so he transforms her into a serpent and makes a new woman, eve, for adam.
You should look up the lego bible, someone has acctually made lego figures to go with the (ruder and stranger) stories, but it really is brilliant. ^-^