Back in Canaan, Israel/Jacob heard there was grain for sale in Egypt, so he sent all his sons except Benjamin to go buy some. Joseph was now governor of Egypt and he was the one who met with all the hungry folks who came to buy grain. He recognized his jackass brothers when they showed up, but they didn’t recognize him. Joe decided to fuck with them, so he accused them of being spies. They insisted they were brothers come to buy food and that all but two of them were there; the youngest brother was at home and the other was dead. Joseph told them he was just going to go ahead and keep thinking they were spies unless someone went home and brought back the youngest brother.

Joe put the fuckwads in prison to think it over, and then he sent all of them except Simeon home with food. Simeon had to stay behind as collateral so they’d have to come back with Benjamin. The jerkface brothers loaded up and headed out, but along the way one of them opened his sack and saw that someone had put his grain-buying money back in the bag. They started worrying that they were being set up.

Israel said no when the boys got home and told him they needed to take Benjamin to Egypt to get Simeon out of prison. I guess Benjamin was his favorite son now that Joseph was gone, and he couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him. Reuben even said Israel could kill Reuben’s own two sons if Benjamin wasn’t returned safely to him (another Father of the Year award, please), but Israel still said no. So I guess poor Simeon is stuck in jail in Egypt. Way to foster the sibling rivalry there, Jake (I mean Israel).

Original text

Two years later, the Pharaoh dreamed he was standing near the Nile when out of the water there appeared seven fat cows who came and fed on the reed grass. Then seven ugly, skinny cows came and ate up the nice fat cows. Another night, he dreamed about seven gross and thin ears of corn swallowing up seven good ears of corn.  The Pharaoh called everyone he could think of to help him interpret the dreams, but nobody could do it. I guess folks back then didn’t just dream about nonsense like we do, so the Pharaoh was convinced his dreams meant something.

The guy who had been in prison with Joseph mentioned Joe to the Pharaoh. Joseph was sent for, and he told the Pharaoh the dreams meant that Egypt would see seven years of great harvest and plenty of food, but then there would be seven years of famine. And since there were two such dreams, it meant that God was really going to get moving on this soon. Joseph suggested the Pharaoh appoint overseers to take one fifth of the land’s produce for the next seven years and store it for use during the famine years. Pharaoh thought that was a great idea and put Joseph in charge. He gave him fine clothes and a ring and made him his equal in all things except the throne. Pharaoh also gave him a wife named Asenath, daughter of a priest.

Joseph was thirty at the time, and he stored up tons of food over the next seven years. During that time, he had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. When the famine came, people from all over started coming to Egypt to buy food.

Original text

A couple of other prisoners started having dreams and Joseph offered to interpret them. In one, there was something about grapes and three branches and Joseph told the guy it meant the Pharaoh would pardon him in three days and let him back in his house. The other guy’s dream was about three cake baskets and a bunch of birds eating food meant for the Pharaoh. Joseph said it meant the Pharaoh would order him to be hanged in three days and birds would eat his flesh. Ew. Both things happened just as Joseph said they would.

Original text

Joseph had been bought by Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh in Egypt. Joseph did pretty well for himself, being blessed by God as he was. Potiphar made Joseph overseer of his household.

Joe was a handsome guy, and Potiphar’s wife developed a bit of a crush on him. She used all manner of seductive methods to try to get him into bed, but Joseph refused to betray his master in such a way. One day, she grabbed his robe and got a little aggressive, so Joseph shrugged out of the garment and ran away. The bitch called everyone to her and said Joseph had tried to rape her, and she held up the robe as proof. So Potiphar threw Joe in prison, but it was all good because Joe was blessed by God and shit so the warden liked him and put him in charge of all the other prisoners.

Original text

Today is Atheist Solidarity Day! If you’re an atheist, get out there with your ribbons and be awesome! If you’re not an atheist, this post probably does nothing for you. Back to regular Bible recaps later today!

At about this time, Judah went and had sex with some chick whose father was named Shua. The woman herself has no name, but she had three sons: Er, Onan and Shelah. When Er was old enough to get married, Judah found a wife for him named Tamar. But God didn’t like Er so he killed him. Judah told Onan it was his duty to have sex with Tamar so she could raise offspring for Er. But Onan didn’t like the idea of his own kid being thought of as Er’s kid, so whenever he had sex with Tamar, he used the pull out method to keep from getting her pregnant. Well, God didn’t like that, so he killed Onan. Judah figured Tamar was bad luck so he told her to just remain a widow.

After Judah’s wife died, he went up to Timnah to shear his sheep. Tamar, sick of not being able to have any children just because God didn’t like her husbands, disguised herself as a prostitute and went to meet Judah on the road to Timnah. Since her face was covered, he didn’t recognize her. So they had sex and then she went home and he went about his business with the sheep shearing. About three months later, someone told Judah that Tamar had cheated on her husbands’ memories and was pregnant. Judah ordered her to be burned, but Tamar said, “Hey, remember that prostitute? That was me.” Judah said, “Damn, I should have let Shelah have her.” Tamar gave birth to twins, Perez and Zerah.

Original text

Anyway, back to Israel and his kids.

When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was kind of a snitch. He was out in the pastures one day with some of Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s kids, and I guess they did something bad, so he tattled to his father. Strike one, Joe.

Israel loved Joseph more than all his other kids, so he made him a robe of many colors that made all the other kids jealous. Strike two.

Joseph started having dreams. In the first, he and his brothers were binding sheaves in the field, and suddenly Joseph’s sheaf stood upright while all his brothers’ sheaves bowed down to it. In another dream, the sun, the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him. Joseph told his brothers all about his dreams, and I believe we can officially rule that as strike three.

One day, Israel sent Joseph to check on his brothers, who were pasturing a flock near Shechem. The brothers saw him coming and they conspired to kill him. Reuben told them that was a little much; they should just take his robe and throw Joseph into this nearby pit. So that’s what they did and then they all sat down to eat. They looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead on the way to Egypt. Judah said, “I have an idea! Let’s sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites!” So they sold their brother for twenty shekels of silver. I guess Reuben was taking a nap or something while all this was going on because when he got to the pit and saw Joseph gone, he kind of freaked out.  But he went along with his brothers while they slaughtered a goat and dipped Joe’s technicolor dreamcoat in the blood. When they gave their father the robe, Israel went a little crazy, tearing his clothes and putting a sackcloth on his loins (because that’s what you do when you’re upset).

Meanwhile, Joseph had been sold to an officer of the Pharaoh in Egypt.

I'm using Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Joseph because he's awesome.

Original text

After Isaac’s death, Esau took his family and went and settled in the hill country of Seir.

Esau’s descendants:

Wife Adah had Eliphaz, wife Oholibamah had Jeush, Jalam and Korah, wife Basemath had Reuel. I guess there were some daughters as well, but of course we don’t know their names.

• Eliphaz had Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam and Kenaz. With his concubine, Timna, Eliphaz also had Amalek.
• Reuel had Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah.

All that information is repeated in the next paragraph, but now they’re being called chiefs instead of sons.

And these are the sons of Seir the Horite (who?):

Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah, Dishon, Ezer and Dishan.

• The sons of Lotan: Hori and Hemam. Lotan’s sister was Timna (Eliphaz’s concubine?).
• The sons of Shobal: Alvan, Manahath, Ebal, Shepho and Onam.
• The sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. Anah, I’m told, found the hot springs in the wilderness as he pastured the donkeys of his father.
• The sons of Anah: Oholibamah and Dishon.
• The sons of Dishon: Hemdan, Eshban, Ithran and Cheran.
• The sons of Ezer: Bilhan, Zaavan and Akan.
• The sons of Dishan: Uz and Aran.

The kings who reigned in the land:

Bela, son of Beor, reigned in Edom and the name of his city was Dinhabah. When Bela died, Jobab, son of Zerah of Bozrah, took his place. When Jobab died, Husham took his place, then Bedad, then Samlah, then Shaul, then Baal-hanan, then Hadar. Who cares? Who are these people?

Original text

God told Jacob to go live in Bethel and try not to screw things up this time. So off he went with his brood, and in every city they passed, the inhabitants feared the wrath of God and didn’t mess with them. When they got to Bethel, where Jacob had once had a vision of a stairway to heaven, he built an altar and called it a day. And by the way, Rebekah’s nurse, Deborah, died and was buried in Bethel. In case you were wondering. (I know I sure was.)

God came to Jacob and blessed him again and said, “Hey, the angel wasn’t kidding that one time. You’re supposed to be calling yourself Israel now.” So I guess I’ll be calling him that from now on.

It looks like the clan was still journeying to somewhere because they hit the road again. Rachel, who apparently was pregnant, suddenly went into labor about two hours outside Ephrath. The labor was pretty bad, and Rachel died after her son, Benjamin, was born. Jacob buried her and set up a pillar in her honor, and then they all moved on to Eder. While they lived there, Reuben had sex with Bilhah. What the hell?

Isaac died at 180 years old. Esau and Jacob buried him. Wow, I thought he died a long time ago.

Original text

Jacob and the clan were now living in a city called Shechem. Shechem was also apparently the name of some guy whose father, Hamor the Hivite, was the “prince of the land.” This guy Shechem caught a glimpse of Dinah, Leah’s daughter, and decided he just had to have her. So he raped her (because he loved her so much) and then told his father he wanted Dinah to be his wife.

When Dinah’s brothers found out, they went home to complain to their father. When they got there, Hamor was talking to Jacob. He assured them all that Shechem loved Dinah and told Jacob their two clans should intermarry. Any of Hamor’s daughters could marry any of Jacob’s sons and they could all be a big happy incestuous family. Jacob and his sons said the only way they’d allow such a thing would be if Hamor and his whole clan got circumcised. Shechem was more than happy to get circumcised. And since Shechem and his father were pretty popular guys, pretty soon everyone in town was circumcised, too.

And while all the men in town were in bed recovering from what had to have been a pretty horrible procedure back then, two of Dinah’s brothers, Levi and Simeon, went and killed every male they could find, including Hamor and Shechem. They plundered the city and took everything they could get their hands on. Jacob was not amused. He scolded them, but they insisted it wasn’t right that Dinah had been treated “like a prostitute.” I’m glad at least a couple of folks had some sense.

Original text