More Animals - More Bible

Now, I’ve already talked about the bad start of the animal kingdom, but I actually missed something prior. It appears that animals were screwed, even before the snake incident. You see, animals were created directly by God, and everything he does is perfect.

They have no original sin, yet they age, get sick, and die, just like humans. But humans deserve to age and die, because they ate some fruit. Animals don’t have an original sin, so their problems must have been intentionally created by God. Animals must have been created defective. Worst of all, they have no Messiah, so they have no hope of ever escaping their mortal fate.

Now let’s fastforward a couple thousand years. Some horny angels have come to earth and botched things up for everyone. So, God decides to clean house. The troublemaking angels dematerialize and go back to heaven, while God floods the earth, killing almost all of the humans and animals. Once again, the animals find themselves caught up and punished for something that they were not involved in. And, if that’s not bad enough, as soon as Noah gets out of the ark, what does he do with these precious and rare animals? I mean, think about this for a second. The entire world population of animals has dwindled to two of each type, and seven of some special ones. Noah has just spent the last century carefully preparing and caring for them. So, he finally gets out into the squeaky clean earth, and what does he do? That’s right. He butchers a few of them.

Moving forward to the Exodus, we find that Pharaoh and God are involved in a bit of a spitting match. God decides to teach Pharaoh a lesson, so he sends him a bunch of problems. Have you ever stopped to think how many of the plagues affected the animals? Obviously, plague five was devastating to them, because it killed all of the Egyptians livestock, and, of course, plague ten was bad because it killed all firstborn, including the already-dead livestock. But plague two (frogs), three (lice), four (flies), and eight (locusts) made use of members of the animal kingdom to make humans uncomfortable. I don’t expect the lice or the locusts to garner much sympathy, but think of the wee frogs. Even the first plague, turning all water to blood, would have affected animals at least as much as humans. The fish, particularly, would have suffered.

While we’re on the subject of using animal overpopulation to get back at humans, what about the billions of quail that were heaped upon the camp of Israel? Not only were the birds crushingly overpopulated, but they soon died, raising a hell of a stink.

After the flood, God gave all animals to Noah to use as food. He also allowed humans to use animals as slaves, beasts of burden. To top it all off, a bunch of animals got insulted as “unclean”. Of course, being considered unclean exempted them from sacrifice duty, and prevented them from being used as food, so I don’t imagine they minded.

Finally, my mind turns back to my dog and his good fortune for not being God’s dog. There is probably no animal that gets treated by the Bible as poorly as dogs. They are mentioned 25 times in the scriptures, and invariably, they get insulted. They are associated with sinners, they lick up the blood of sinners, they hang out with bad people, they symbolize greed and lack of restraint, and they are used as a euphemism for vicious men and men who mutilate flesh.

So, there you have it folks. If you thought that you have it rough as a human, just be thankful you’re not a dog!

The Bible and Animal Husbandry

My dog just got back from the vet. The bill for checkup, antibiotics, dental work, and minor surgery will be over $600, bringing my total investment into this little doggy to around $1,200. That’s about $300 per pound. But, he is a member of the family. He’s pretty lucky that he’s my family’s dog and not God’s dog. You see, God doesn’t take very good care of his animals, and he certainly would never go to these lengths to see to their well being.

Let’s consider the Bible’s record when it comes to animal husbandry.

Animals get off to a really bad start. Right off the bat, a snake is possessed by Satan in the Garden of Eden, then cursed by God. Now, this doesn’t seem right. The snake in Eden was an innocent party, used by Satan to trick Eve. Yet, Satan continued to live in heaven for thousands of years, with no seeming punishment. The snake, who really had no idea what was going on, was cursed – made to eat dust, and could no longer walk. Well, no sooner did the snakes get cursed, when they looked around and discovered that the cattle were already there. For some reason, cows had already been cursed. They must have pissed off God right after being created. I suspect that they looked down at their clumsy body right after rolling off the creative assembly line and exclaimed, “Yeah…good one.” Then bam! – cursed.

Well, the human race is just getting into gear, when Cain and Abel decide to give a gift to God. One son offers up some grain. This seems like a pretty good gift, since he had worked hard to get it. The other son, Hanibal Lechter, slices up a sheep and burns the fatty pieces, likely laughing maniacally the whole time. For some reason, God decides that the butcher is the better son, thereby sentencing animals to a long future of being killed for no good reason other than to appease God for something that someone else has done. And, of course, some joker will always take things to an extreme, like King Solomon for example. He killed 142,000 animals during a one week sacrificing spree. He must have been one hell of a sinner to require that much carnage to compensate for it.

The Holy Bible and Science - Part 3

This is how the teachers report on behalf of God currently reads.

Thus far, God has failed in his Astronomy and Biology lessons.

He cannot seem to grasp the simple fact that the earth is a sphere and that it is not flat.

He cannot understand the easy factors of biology either.

If God flunks Physics and Mathematics, he won't be accepted into university and it looks as though he'll be working within the window cleaning business (Jehovah's Witness gag).

Physics according to God

And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stood still and did not hurry to set for about a whole day. - Joshua 10:13

The apparent motion of the sun in our sky is actually caused by the rotation of the earth. Do you realise what would happen if the sun "stood still"? The surface of the earth is moving at the rate of just over 1,000 miles per hour at the equator. In order for the sun to appear motionless, we would need to come to a screeching halt, then accelerate rapidly to get back into motion.

The implications of this would be huge. First of all, the laptop on my desk would fly off and crash against the wall or ceiling and it would be while before I could write all these fascinating articles.

Thing is, my broken laptop would be the least of our worries. Imagine that the earth stopped moving. The atmosphere would continue to move, at least until it died down. Visualise the effect of 1,000 mph (1,609 km) winds. By way of comparison, the strongest hurricane ever recorded was Hurricane Camille of 1969, with wind speeds reaching 190 mph (305 km). A tornado can peak at over 300 mph (482 km). Wind speeds of 1,000 mph would have scoured the earth clean of Joshua’s army. In addition to wind, there would certainly be many other implications as well, but it wouldn’t matter, since we’d all be dead, and none of you would have sampled my fine work, which, let's be frank, would be the biggest disaster to have stemmed from God making the sun stand still.

On the subject of physics, God appears to have no understanding of the implications of scale when it comes to surface area and mass (I'll discuss this in more detail in a future article, or you could email me some facts and figures).

Now, the Jehovah's Witness in me has an answer to all of the above. In fact, I can give you a perfect answer as to how God did all things.

Magic!

Now that we've got that monkey off our backs, I'd like to welcome back all the logical readers to their screens so that we can have a proper conversation.

I will say this once and once only. If you believe that God does everything using magic, ergo, not keeping to the laws of physics, biology and the like, that he apparently created in the first place, please leave and don't bother coming back.

Ricky Gervais, whilst speaking to Karl Pilkington, made the following assumption. "The world is full of stupid people". I don't want it to look as though I am poking fun at you, but if you fall into the category of people that believe God could do everything via his Holy Spirit (magic), you fall into the majority group of people unfortunately.

What did God get in his physics examination?

First Name: Jehovah
Last Name: God
Lesson: Physics
Mark: F

Mathematics according to God

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about. - 1 Kings 7:23

According to God, the value of pi was 3. God really should have been working with the Greeks, because they knew the real value of pi long before he did.

Every now and then, I go and watch my football team, Tottenham Hotspur, play. White Hart Lane, the stadium in which Spurs (Tottenham Hotspur's nickname) play, draws around 36,000 mad fans to it each and every home game.

Now, imagine if I stood up in the middle of one of these games and made an announcement, do you thing anyone would hear me? Well, it seemed to have worked for Abijah. This guy apparently spoke to 1.2 million people (2 Chronicles 13:3, 4). That’s roughly the population of the state of Hawaii (all islands combined). But, God figured that Abijah could be heard by all those people.

In conclusion, I should mention that the Bible also makes numerous statements that are scientifically correct. For example, it correctly classifies many different types of animals. But then, why shouldn’t it?

The Hebrews were not stupid. My point is that the scientific knowledge displayed in the Bible was right on par with what you would expect from a group of ancient farmers and herdsmen. If anything, God’s scientific knowledge was lower than that of the ancient Greeks, or of my own daughter's.

If the Bible is considered inspired because of its scientific content, then so must the writing of Homer, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien and especially those of Douglas Adams.

What did God get in his Mathematics examination?

First Name: Jehovah
Last Name: God
Lesson: Mathematics
Mark: F

Expect God Holdings Ltd to make a move in the window cleaner stocks....

The Holy Bible and Science - Part 2

In last weeks article, I discussed if God actually realised that the earth wasn't flat, but instead, spherical.

In this weeks article, I would like to look at some other gaffs this God fellow has made.

You would think that the guy who created life, the universe, and everything in it, would have a pretty good knowledge of how things work. But God managed to display the scientific knowledge typical of a bronze-age nomadic sheep-herder. Let’s spend a day in Gods classroom.

The Universe According to God.

"Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places... and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it." – Genesis 1:6,7

In the above passage, we see that God put up a dome over the earth, to keep out the water that was in the upper "firmament". This is where he got the water for the flood, obviously.

"You stretch the heavens out like a tent, you build your palace on the waters above.... You water the mountains from your palace." - Psalm 104:3,13

God lives up above the upper firmament, and turns taps on and off. The heavens are thin, like a tent canvas.

All the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll all the starry host will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like shrivelled figs from the fig tree. – Isaiah 34:4

Therefore, the sky is thin and can be rolled up. Stars are also small and can fall to earth, presumably when the glue gets old.

Can you join him in spreading out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze? – Job 37:18

I could go on like this for a long time, but I assume you get the point. For instance, there are references to the "foundations" and "pillars" of the earth, and its "socket pedestals". But, the point is made; God really didn’t have a clue that the earth was spherical, revolved around the sun, and that stars are actually distant suns.

Biology according to God

Well, I would expect God to do a little better in this field of study. After all, he created plants, animals, and humans. Let’s take a look:

And the hare, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. – Leviticus 11:6

God actually thought that hares chewed their cud. It was an easy mistake to make, because if you put a rabbit in a cage without food, before long, you will notice it chewing something. Like many animals, it will eat its own faeces in order to gain nutrients from undigested material. It’s the type of mistake that a casual observer might make.

All winged insects that go upon all fours are an abomination to you. Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those which have legs above their feet, with which to leap on the earth. – Leviticus 1:20,21

Has anyone seen a winged insect that goes on all fours? And, what’s up with "legs above their feet"?

And these you shall have in abomination among the birds, they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey... the stork, the heron according to its kind, the hoopoe, and the bat. – Leviticus 11:13,19

Here is another mistake that a casual observer would make. The bat flies like a bird, but is actually a mammal.

As well, God seems to think that dragons (Isa 13:22), satyrs (Isa 13:21), and unicorns (Isa 34:7) actually existed. Please note that some translations have removed those words so as to save themselves from shame, which is a shame, because up till now, I thought the Bible was a library of comedy.

I won’t take a detailed look into the creation account, since that was covered in earlier articles and you can view them by reviewing the archive. However, don’t forget that God made plants before the sun. He also created the various types of animals in the wrong order; even though the fossil record shows otherwise.

What did God get in his biology examination?

First Name: Jehovah
Last Name: God
Lesson: Biology
Mark: F

Oh well, at least God gets a chance to redeem himself in next weeks concluding part of The Holy Bible and Science, when he gets tested on Physics and Mathematics.

The Holy Bible and Science - Part 1

In the UK, there's a TV show called QI and it's hosted by our British gem, Stephen Fry.

Where am I going with all of this?

Recently, some TV channels have been showing repeats of the QI show and not so long ago, Stephen mentioned the following exchange between an elderly lady and William James:

After a lecture on science, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "what is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

When I was young, I was told that we know the Bible to be correct, because of the uncanny accuracy of its scientific knowledge. This conclusion was based on eight words. Here they are:

"The circle of the earth" – Isaiah 40:22 and "Hanging upon nothing" – Job 26:7

If you ignore the prepositions and articles, you come down to two significant words, which are, "circle" and "nothing". That’s not much to base a life on, but did the Bible display scientific foreknowledge by indicating that the earth was spherical and suspended in space?

Well, first of all, we need to determine if the Bible really meant what we thought it said. Secondly, is this knowledge remarkable enough to require divine guidance? And finally, is the Bible scientifically accurate in all of the other things it said?

The Circle of the Earth

If you look at a pizza from a distance, it looks like a circle. Therefore, when the Bible speaks of "the circle of the earth", did it mean that the earth was spherical, or just round?

Well, the evidence seems to indicate that God thought the earth was flat and round, like a pizza. Here is why I and a great many others (including Stephen Fry) say that:

"I saw a tree of great height at the centre of the world. It was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen from the ends of the earth." – Daniel 4:7, 8

Therefore, God inspired Daniel to write that the earth’s surface has a centre, and that a tree could be tall enough to be seen everywhere on the planet. But, the surface of a sphere has no centre, and no matter how tall a tree is, it will not be visible from a large part of that sphere.

Jesus and the Devil make a similar mistake:

"The devil took him (Jesus) to a very high mountain and displayed before him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence...." - Matthew 4:8

Now, you could argue that the Devil used a vision to show Jesus the kingdoms, but the scripture implies that the purpose of going up the mountain was to make it possible to see the ends of the earth.

A similar concept regarding height shows up in Genesis 11:4. In this story, the people are trying to build a tower that would reach right up to heaven. This was very threatening to God, because heaven was his realm. Therefore, he confused their languages and scattered them. I wonder why he hasn’t put a stop to modern sky scrapers. Surely the height of a ziggurat could not compare to the Empire State Building.

Therefore, when the Bible talks about "the circle of the earth", it appears to be talking about a flat, round surface, not a sphere.

The Hebrew word (חוג - chwg) refers to a circle, and to the action of circling. It does not refer to a sphere, or a ball, although it is often claimed by fundamentalist writers that the Hebrew word chwg "circle", which appears in Isaiah 40:22 can also mean "sphere," but I haven't seen any textual evidence to support this claim.

Another word meaning "circle" or "to encircle", dwr (as in Isaiah 29:3) was used to refer to spheres, as it is in Isaiah 22:18 (where it has the sense of "ball"), but 40:22 does not say that God resides above the "ball (dwr) of the earth".

I could go on an tell you that Ibn Ezra's commentary of Isaiah did not take chwg as referring to a three-dimensional sphere but simply noted that the expression implies that the earth is "not square" (also two-dimensional), but that would bore you.

But, let’s give God the benefit of the doubt and overlook this mistake. Let’s assume that he really did know the shape of the earth. Would that be evidence of divine inspiration?

Everyone who grew up watching Bugs Bunny knows that common knowledge held the earth to be flat until Christopher Columbus (not the guy who messed up the first two Harry Potter films) proved them wrong. Except, of course, for a bunch of Greek fellows. In 240 BC, Eratosthenes not only figured out that the earth was spherical, but he even managed to devise a brilliant method of calculating its diameter using trigonometry. Aristarchus built on this information to calculate the diameter of the sun. He was a little off, but he realised that the earth and sun were both spherical, and that the sun was many times larger than the earth. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the spherical shape of the earth was common knowledge among the Egyptians and Greeks as far back as 2550 BC.

Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) believed in heliocentrism, which basically means that the sun (helios in Greek) is at the centre. Unfortunately, God disagreed with the theory of heliocentrism.

Biblical references Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 state (depending on the translation) that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place" etc.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Okay, that's enough of History 101. What I can't understand is that even if God had actually thought that the earth was spherical, it really wasn’t that remarkable of a conclusion. Other people, you know, the ones he had created, had figured it out all by themselves.

Stay tuned for next Thursday's article when I will discuss Gods other scientific mishaps.

The World's Worst Jobs - Part 2

In last weeks article, we discussed the fact that the Bible is riddled with jobs that you or I wouldn't want to disclose on our CV's.

In this concluding part to the World's Worst Jobs, we take a look at two more professions that only God could dish out.

Haemorrhoid Curator

A truly bizarre story is told in the 1st book of Samuel. Apparently, the ark of the covenant, which was a sacred relic of the Israelites and was also believed to contain God’s presence (imagine that, God in a box!), was stolen by the Philistines. They brought it back to their land and set it before their God, Dagon. The Philistines kept the ark for seven months. However, unfortunately for the Philistines, keeping the ark had a rather nasty side effect:

And it was so that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction; and He smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had haemorrhoids in their secret parts... And the men who died not were smitten with the haemorrhoids; and the cry of the city went up to heaven. - 1 Samuel 5:9,12

The Bible writer(s) seems to be a master of restating the obvious. For example, the reference to "secret parts" seems to be redundant. Where else would you get haemorrhoids? Likewise, it doesn’t seem necessary to mention that the dead bodies were not afflicted. I think that could have been assumed.

The following question also arises: If the God of Israel had enough power to plague the Philistines with such a terrible ailment, and at the same time saw shares in doughnut pillow manufacturing companies soar, why couldn’t he just have prevented the ark from being stolen and desecrated for seven months? That would have saved a lot of effort for everyone, unless of course, God Holdings Ltd bought stock in a few cushion companies at just the right time?

Now, in every primitive culture, there is a reasonable remedy for every problem. And of course, they found the solution that I’m sure any modern doctor would recommend:

Then said they, "What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him?" They answered, "Five golden haemorrhoids and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was on you all and on your lords. Therefore ye shall make images of your haemorrhoids and images of your mice that mar the land, and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from you and from your gods and from your land. - 1 Samuel 6:4,5 (21 Century King James Version)

The obvious solution to the problem was of course, to sculpt images of the offending haemorrhoids. They also threw in a few golden mice, just for good measure. The intended result? Giving glory to the God of Israel.

Now I’m not sure how they came to the conclusion that God would be honoured by this gift, but to their credit, it seemed to work.

Just so that I know I've completely understood this story, let's recap. There were haemorrhoids. Someone had to sculpt these haemorrhoids and presumably, someone had to model for them, unless they used Plaster of Paris moulds. Wow, that must have been painful for the model.

What about the haemorrhoid artist? I can picture it now:

Fal-eohim: If you are accepted as our new curator, you do realise just how big of a responsibility it will be? The Museum of Reuben prides itself on being the finest in all of the 12 tribes. I also see from your portfolio that you worked on the Philistine Haemorrhoid Collection? Tell me a bit about that.

Picassoshizar: Yes, that was some of my best work, although the models were a pain in the arse to work with.

Temple Testicle Inspector

In the Bible’s judicial code, there are several laws that must have required some
specialised enforcement procedures. For example:

• Entrance into the assembly of the Lord was granted only to those with complete testicles, as stated in Deuteronomy 23:1. I’m not sure what purpose this served, but that is a discussion for another time. For the moment, let us consider the enforcement issue. If you encountered a person on the street whose testicles were not in complete working order, how would you know? Most people do not publicise this information, unless you're from Brighton, England. The only possible way would be through either voluntary disclosure, which would surely be abused, or some sort of inspection process. Maybe the Vatican took note of this law and decided to act upon it?

• If a couple has sex during the woman’s period, the two are to be cut off from their people, as Leviticus 20:18 so brilliantly puts it. Once again, how would anyone know that this had happened? They certainly aren’t going to tell anyone, surely?

Brad-Mediohim: Levi, is it true that you had a go on Mythilia whilst she was being visited by little red riding hood?

Levi: Yes, it's true. It's so embarrassing mate, for all I wanted was a quickie. Now I'm going to have to be stuck with her while they cut us off.

Brad-Mediohim: You should have known the bollocks inspector would have caught you. Nothing gets past that todger.

Depending on your inclination, this may or may not be a good job.

This also raises the question of consistency. In order for all testicle inspectors to be objective, yet discriminating, it would be necessary for a code of standards to be developed, and testicle inspectors to be accredited and licensed. Undoubtedly, the venerated "TTI" designation would be greatly sought after.

So, here they are folks, the unsung heroes of the Bible, the people who slice off the foreskins, sculpt the hemorrhoids, and handle the unmentionables. These are truly the heroes of the Bible!

The World's Worst Jobs - Part 1

Better than harvesting skin, right?

Have you ever watched the television show called The World’s 10 Worst Jobs? This show basically ranks the worst jobs known to man and to be honest, some of the jobs on there are rather disgusting.

For instance, the clear and uncontested winner was a man with the unenviable profession of "Septic Tank Diver". Apparently, this fellow dresses in a sealed wet suit, attaches a mask and oxygen tank and then dives into huge pools of poop. I guess when you think about it, someone has to perform repairs on the interior of huge urban sewage treatment facilities. You just never think it will happen to you, and if it does, you expect to be paid more than €10.00 per hour (C$13.32, A$13.40, £8.50 and $13.25) for that luxury.

Now, a person naturally has to wonder how a worker gets recruited to this job. I don’t imagine that any young person grows up with the aspiration of someday becoming a septic tank diver. I would also think that running an ad in your local Classifieds section wouldn’t have many takers either. It must be more of a conscription process. Possibly, the workers in the plant sit around looking at each other, asking who will do the job. Finally, someone breaks and accepts it. Maybe straws of varying lengths are involved. More likely, the management of the plant searches out a semi-skilled diver and makes him an offer he can’t refuse, with one of the perks being the €10.00 per hour remuneration.

Either way, I’ll take sitting at a computer and debunking the Bible and other religious texts any day. You see, having launched AtheistsWeekly.com, I thought it would have been tiresome, but in fact, it's so easy!

As many of you know, I was brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, and the Jehovah's Witness Organisation keeps drumming it into you to "read the Bible daily". Well, I decided to take up their advice. After reading the first few pages in Genesis, I couldn't believe they would actually ask anyone to "read the Bible daily", for it's one of the funniest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading, which then led me to start exposing the rubbish found within it. If you've been following the articles and have been reading along with me from your own Bible, you'll understand why I used the word "rubbish".

Anyway, let's get back to my topic.

The Bible mentions several unsavoury activities, focusing primarily on the purpose and effect of the action, without any attention given to the persons who performed it. Like our septic tank diver, these people found themselves in some of the worst professions known to mankind. I think it’s time they got the recognition they deserved. Let’s visit some of them.

Foreskin Harvester

Consider this account from the life and times of King David:

David arose and went, along with his men, and killed two hundred of the Philistines; and David brought their foreskins, which were given in full number to the king, that he might become the king's son-in-law. And Saul gave him his daughter Michal for a wife. - 1 Samuel 18:27

The story, as told in the Bible, hits the major high points. Wannabe king David, kills some of his enemies, brings the evidence to the king, and is richly rewarded. Unfortunately, it glosses over the logistics of the situation that we all know are necessary.

These foreskins didn’t just jump into a bucket for David. Someone had to slice these puppies off of the cadavers, and perform general inventory functions such as counting, storing, transporting, etc. I don’t imagine it was done by the incoming king, either. Likely, the distasteful job fell to the staff person or persons with the least seniority. I can picture it now:

David: Bep-hasal, who is the lowest paid employee on my payroll?

Bep-hasal: Oh, that would be Palihoikim.

David: Hmm. I need this Palihoikim fellow to do a job for me.

Bep-hasal: I was under the impression that Jonathan took care of all your needs?

David: No, not that. I need a certain job done that requires the skills of this Palihoikim fellow. Go and call for him will you.

Next week, we'll look at what skills one needs if they are to apply for the Haemorrhoid Clerk position and the Testicle Inspector position respectively.

Death and some other Minor Ailments - Part 2

Last Thursday, we saw God's love bestowed on the Midianites. This week, we'll get a bit juicier!

Jabin; The King of Hazor

Another example of someone whose death didn’t quite "take", was Jabin, the King of Hazor.

In Joshua, chapter 11, the story is told of several tribes who tried to stop the bloodthirsty reign of terror of the Israelites.

Jabin, the King of Hazor, sends word to several other kings. So, they muster their forces. "And they came out, with all their troops, a great host, in number like the sand that is upon the seashore, with very many horses and chariots." (vs 4)

Joshua asks Jehovah what to do. In response, God issues his standard death order. So Joshua goes forth killing in the name of God. "And the Lord gave them into the hand of Israel, who smote them, and chased them as far as great Sidon and Misrephothmaim, and eastward as far as the valley of Mizpeh; and they smote them until they left none remaining." (vs 8)

Just so that there is no doubt, the bible specifically mentions Jabin. "And Joshua turned back at that time, and took Hazor, and smote its king with the sword; for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms." (vs 10)

Therefore, the armies of these kingdoms were destroyed, Jabin was killed, and then Joshua went one step further. He left the army dead on the field of battle, and turned his attention to the city itself. "And they put to the sword all who were in it, utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed, and he burned Hazor with fire." (vs 11)

Just to summarize: the army of Hazor was destroyed; Jabin, the king, was killed; the city was burned; and every breathing person in it was killed. That’s pretty final.

But, not long after, they were back. Judges chapter 4 begins by saying that the Israelites were doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord. So, as punishment, "the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, who ruled in Hazor..." (vs 2)

Not only did Jabin and the people of Hazor come back to life, but they were so numerous and strong that they could purchase the Israelites as slaves. This may have something to do with their secret weapon. "Then the people of Israel cried to the Lord for help; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron and oppressed the people of Israel cruelly for twenty years." (vs 3)

There appears to be a bit of a mixed review on the effectiveness of iron chariots. On the one hand God tells the Israelites in Joshua 17:18:

For you shall drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.

On the other hand, Judges 1:19 tells us:

The Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.

Almighty God must not have realized just how tough those iron chariots were, when he made his initial boast. It appears that a little technology, and I do mean a little, can defeat an army that has God’s backing.

Death and some other Minor Ailments - Part 1

When I die (Spagmon forbid), I certainly hope that it’s not from anything serious. In Bible times, it appears that very few things were ever serious. People seemed to be able to recover from just about anything.

Taken from The Brick Testament

In these next two articles, we will explore together some of the Bible characters who survived that most serious of all maladies - death.

On numerous occasions, a Bible character is killed off, only to reappear in a later chapter or book (see the Kill Them Again! articles). Either these were an extremely hardy group of individuals, or someone's fact checker was in the bar when he should have been checking facts.

The Midianites

The Midianites engaged in a great sin. They allowed some of the Israelites to have sex with them. As a result, they had to be punished.

Moses, the meekest (humble in spirit or manner; suggesting retiring mildness or even cowed submissiveness - Moses was anything but any of those things, but hey ho) of all men, issued the order to kill all of the Midianites.

Numbers 31:7 tells us that the obedient Israelites "slew every male". When Moses found out about this, he was furious, and rightly so, because the Israelites had let the women and evil children live. What follows next is one of the most bloodthirsty genocides recorded in the Bible. This meek man issues the command (vs 17) to "kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him." Mercifully, though, he decrees that the young girls could just be raped. Verse 18 says "But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves". All together, 32,000 virgins are taken as "booty" (vs 35).

As an aside, it should be mentioned that the Midianites were being punished for fornication. Part of the remedy for that great sin is to take 32,000 young virgins as booty. Does anyone see a bit of a double standard, here?

I suppose I could pause for a moment and comment on the development of the modern expression "booty", but that hardly seems necessary.

So, the Midianites are completely wiped out. Every man, every boy, and every woman has been killed. The young girls have been individually assimilated into the Hebrew camp. The Midianite race hereby ceases to exist.

But, not for long. Judges 6:1,2 tells us:

The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed over Israel; and because of Midian, the people of Israel made for themselves the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves and the strongholds.

Therefore, after complete annihilation, the Midianites soon are not only back, but are numerous enough to dominate the multi-million (according to the bible) population of the Israelites. Just how numerous were they? Well according to Judges 8:10, there were 135,000 warriors, indicating a total population of at least 400,000. I guess genocide and mass murder aren’t all that serious after all.

The moral of this story is: never pick up an Israelite in a bar.

Kill Them Again! - Part 4

Judas Gets It Twice!

You Judas!

One of the prime laws governing any story character is: Don't mess with the author. Killing the author tends to be a career limiting move for a character.

Now, no one denies that Judas Iscariot was a bad dude. Killing the son of God is bad enough, but as a character in a book, he should know that the author always has the last word. So, it’s not too surprising that Judas gets nailed twice. What makes this even more remarkable is that in both cases, he does it himself.

The first suicide of Judas is recorded in Matthew 27:5.

And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself.

Now, in all fairness, the Bible does not say that Judas died from the hanging. Although, I think most people would assume that he did. In fact, if the hanging was not fatal, why bother mentioning it at all?

Acts 1:18 couldn’t leave this story alone. The writer of this book had to come up with an even better story - and it really is better, filled with gory details:

Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.

Apparently, the writer of Acts couldn’t resist finding a prophecy fulfilment in Judas' death, so he found an obscure scripture in Psalms and made the events fit the reference. As a bit of speculation, I wonder if this is where we get the expression, "bought the farm".

Some people have put forward the hypothesis that he hanged himself on a tree that had a branch overhanging a cliff. When he jumped off, the branch broke, and he fell, splitting himself open. This isn’t a bad story, except that it is pure speculation - there is nothing in the bible to indicate that it happened. As well, under this scenario, he would not "fall headlong". He would have fallen feet first.

Also, did you notice that he threw the silver pieces into the temple, but then he bought a field with the same silver pieces? That must have been rather embarrassing – making a big scene in the temple, and then having to go back and collect the silver pieces from the floor.

However this really happened, it is clear that God’s inerrant word of truth is a little confused.

What have we learned from the last four articles? Well, we have seen that no matter what kind of death a character suffers, there's a chance that they can come back and suffer another horrific death.

Above all, we mustn't question the Bible, for it is God's word. Who are we to question that?

Kill Them Again! - Part 3

King Saul - The Original Highlander

King Saul - The first known account of MDS (Multiple Death Syndrome

One of the worst cases of MDS (currently not covered by the NHS) that is recorded in the Bible is that of King Saul.

He was not a very popular man. It seemed that everyone wanted him dead - himself, the Philistines, his attendant, and even God. Let's take a look at some of his deaths.

Please open your Bibles with me to 1 Samuel 31:4:

Therefore, Saul took his own sword and fell upon it.

This is a pretty straight forward, definitive statement of how Saul died. A bit too much Samurai in it for me, but I suppose it will do for now.

Well, this is the Holey Bible we're talking about here. Nothing is ever so simple when death is involved.

Please turn with me to 2 Samuel 1:10:

So I stood beside him, and I slew him...

Hmm. Confused? I know I am. Basically, a young Amalekite takes credit for Saul's murder. You can hardly blame him. After being killed three times himself, he probably just wanted to be on the giving end of one of these deaths.

Therefore, when verse 10 claims: "So I stood beside him, and I slew him..." technically, this isn't a problem in the Bible. It is understood that the young man was lying. It's really just an interesting aspect in the chain of events.

But wait! In 2 Samuel 21:12, we find another definitive statement regarding Saul’s death:

David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-Gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-Shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa.

Come on now, you're pulling my leg? So Saul didn't kill himself and it's obvious that the Amalekite was lying, for it was the Philistines that killed Saul!

But, we’re not done, yet. In 1 Chronicles, chapter 10, another person takes credit for Saul’s death, and we have to assume that this one isn’t lying. Verses 13 and 14:

So Saul died for his unfaithfulness... Therefore, the Lord slew him, and turned the kingdom over to David, the son of Jesse.

Let's recap. Saul committed suicide, was killed in war, and was executed by God. I guess the Bible writers really wanted him dead.

Have you ever been called a "Judas"? I know I have by the Elders (don't know what I mean? Take a look at my other site, Jehovah's Witness Blog.com). Well, seeing that I have been likened to him, next week, I discuss how this sick and twisted individual dies....twice!

Kill Them Again! - Part 2

Why won't you just die?

The Amalekites - Three Time Losers

The Amalekites caught the brunt of God's anger several times. Their first death was recorded in 1 Samuel 15:7,8:

And Saul defeated the Amalekites from Havilah as far as Shur, which is East of Egypt. And he took Agag, the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

So, no more Amalekites, right? Wrong! Shortly after, while Saul was still King and David was a military leader, they return. Not bad for a tribe that was utterly destroyed. 1 Samuel 27:8,9 says:

Now David and his men went up, and made raids upon the Geshurites, the Girzites, and the Amalekites, for these were the inhabitants of the land from of old, as far as Shur, to the land of Egypt. And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive...

Well, that should just about finish them off. They were "utterly destroyed", followed by a good smiting. Since neither man nor woman was left alive, that should pretty much do it for the Amalekites.

Not quite. In 1 Samuel 30:1, they’re back, and stronger than ever:

Now when David and his men came to Ziklag, on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid upon the Negeb, and upon Ziklag.

They seem pretty feisty for a group that has just been killed twice. What’s a righteous king to do with people like this? You guessed it, kill them again.

Let's turn to 1 Samuel 30:17:

And David smote them from twilight until the evening of the next day, and not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who mounted camels and fled. David recovered all that the Amalekites had taken, and David rescued his two wives.

Smiting is apparently rather time consuming. I also find it amusing that "not a man of them escaped", except for four hundred men.

Well, that pretty well wraps it up for the Amalekites. But wait. In Esther 3:1, a reference is made to "Haman, the Agagite". If you look in 1 Samuel 15:7,8, which is quoted above, you will find that Agag was the King of Amalek. So, when the events recorded in Esther took place, around 484 B.C., there were still Amalekites alive and well.

God certainly had it in for the Amalekites. Not only did he entirely wipe them out three times, but he even intended to destroy the memory of them. Exodus 17:14 says:

And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

Now, that’s good thinking. If God wanted to blot out the memory of Amalek, why would he set up a memorial in the most widely published book in history? Apparently he didn’t do a very good job of blotting out Amalek. Not only can we still read about him, but his ancestors survived for about another 800 years. For all we know, there might still be some around.

Found this article profusely boring? Come back next week and see for yourself just how many times King Saul can die without actually dying!

Kill Them Again! - Part 1

Dead x3

There’s nothing that the Bible likes better than a good, old fashioned, smiting. In fact, the Bible writers liked killing so much, that sometimes, they couldn’t restrain themselves from killing the same people several times over.

This undoubtedly felt so good at the time that they didn’t worry about the apologetic problems that would arise later. Over the next few Thursday's, I will discuss some of the more obvious kill-me-agains that are mentioned in the Holey Bible.

Pharaoh's Remarkable Horses

Going Once....

In response to Pharaoh's hard heartedness in not letting the Israelites leave, God sent ten plagues upon Egypt. The fifth plague consisted of pestilence. In Exodus 9:6, the New English Bible describes it like this:

And Jehovah did this thing the next day, and all the Egyptians stock died, but of the stock that belonged to the sons of Israel, not one died.

So, there they go. All of the Egyptians livestock are now dead.

Going Twice.....

Unfortunately, the dead animals haven’t learned their lesson, therefore, when plague 10 rolls around, they get targeted again. Exodus 12:29 informs us:

And at midnight, Jehovah struck every first-born in Egypt, from the Pharaoh's first-born, who was to sit on his throne, to the first-born of the prisoners of war in the dungeon, and all the first-born of cattle.

Notice that "every first-born in Egypt" is killed. This would mean every first-born of every family of humans and animals, right? For cattle are specifically listed, which means that the animals are included in God's loving provision.

I wonder what the cattle did to deserve this ill fame? They always seem so unassuming. Damn cows. They must be plotting something.

Now, how is it that the first-born of animals are killed, when all of the animals had already been killed in plague 5? Please note that if every first-born is killed, that would also include horses. I bring this up because it becomes important in just a minute.

Going Three Times? Surely not?

Well, stubborn Pharaoh still hasn't learned his lesson. After a momentary lapse where he lets the Israelites go, he changes his mind and chases after them. Exodus 14:9 points out:

And the Egyptians pursued them, and overtook them camping by the sea, all the Pharaoh's chariot-ponies and cavalry horses and his troops, by Pi-Hahiroth, in front of Baal-Sephan.

The Israelites must have been moving slowly indeed, especially as Pharaoh overtook them on twice-dead ponies. In spite of the remarkable accomplishments of these dead steeds (Resident Evil beware!), they get it one more time. In Exodus 14:23, the Red Sea washes over the Egyptians, killing them, their ponies, and their cavalry horses.

It’s too bad these horses were so thoroughly killed. These remarkable animals would surely have made valuable breeding stock.

Stay tuned for next Thursday's article, where we look at The Amalekites!

Busy Midwives in Bible Times

Hobbit's in Egypt?

When the Israelites were in captivity in Egypt, Pharaoh made an unusual request. He called the Israelite midwives before him, and commanded them to kill all Hebrew male children as they were born.

Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiph'rah and the other Pu'ah, "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live." But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. - Exodus 1:15-17

Did you notice that there were only two midwives, and they are mentioned by name? They must have been pretty busy women.

How busy were they? Well, Exodus 12:37 numbers the Israelites who left Egypt at 600,000 men, plus women and children. According to the Bible, the total population of the group would have been around 1.8 million in total. If we assume that the Israelites lived for an average of 80 years, and that their birth rate was stable, that means that there would be an average of 22,500 births per year, or 61 per day. If these two women worked 12 hours per day, seven days per week, each one of them would deliver a baby every 23 minutes.

But, actually, the birth rate must have been much higher than this. It could not have been stable. According to the Exodus 12:40, the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years. During this time, 70 immigrants multiplied to 1.8 million. So, the birthrate must have been accelerating. The number of births by the time that Pharaoh gave his command would be much higher than my original forecast.

There is yet another problem with this story. According to Exodus 6:16-20, Moses was the great grandson of Levi. Moses’ grandfather came to Egypt as a child with his father. So, this population of 1.8 million arose from a mere 70 immigrants over only three generations. Even if we ignore the fact that the combined ages of the generations listed only comes to 352*, not 430, we are still faced by a huge problem. By my calculations**, each woman would need to have 320 babies, with zero mortality rate.

I don’t know who I pity more - the women, or the midwives?

*These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merar'i, the years of the life of Levi being a hundred and thirty-seven years. The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shim'e-i, by their families. The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uz'ziel, the years of the life of Kohath being a hundred and thirty-three years. The sons of Merar'i: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their generations. Amram took to wife Joch'ebed his father's sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses, the years of the life of Amram being one hundred and thirty-seven years. - Exodus 6:16-20

These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,... All the offspring of Jacob were seventy persons - Exodus 1:1,2,5

The time that the people of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. - Exodus 12:40

So, Levi came to Egypt with his son Kohath, among others. Kohath lived to be 133 years old. His son Amram, who lived to be 137 years old, became father to Moses. Moses was 80 years old when the events of the Exodus took place.

If we give the Bible the benefit of every doubt, and assume that Kohath was a newborn baby when he came to Egypt, and that each man fathered a child on the day of his death, we come to the following calculation:

Entered Egypt, Kohath is a baby - Year 0
Amram is born Add 133 = Year 133
Moses is born Add 137 = Year 270
Exodus begins Add 80 = Year 350

Now, if we assume that Amram and Kohath fathered their children on the day of their death, and the children were born posthumously, then we can add another year and a half, giving an absolute maximum of 351.5 years in Egypt.

So, even if we accept the unbelievable life span of these men, and make ridiculous assumptions about their age when reproducing, the numbers still do not add up.

**Here is the calculation for the required birthrate.

Jacob’s generation (given) 12 persons
Kohath’s generation (given) 70 persons (35 females)
Amram’s generation 35 x 320 = 11,200 persons (5,600 females)
Moses generation 5,600 x 320 = 1,792,000 persons

Therefore, in order for the population to grow from 70 persons to 1.8 million in only three generations, a birthrate of over 320 children per family, with zero mortality would be required. This is rather curious since Moses ancestor’s (see above) only averaged three male children per family, so some woman must have had to make up the slack.

The Really Big Wall

The Great Wall of China is nothing compared to the wall of Aphek

"And the rest fled into the city of Aphek; and the wall fell upon twenty-seven thousand men that were left." 1 Kings 20:30

That must have been a pretty big wall. To calculate the precise way that this happened, we must first of all calculate the size of Aphek.

Other articles we've published, such as Just How Big Was Nineveh, outlined the sizes of various walled cities. Nineveh, a "great city", had a circumference of about seven miles (11.2 kilometres). Pompeii's was about two miles (3.2 kilometres). Aphek is barely mentioned in the Bible and is never referred to as being great, therefore, we can assume that it was likely much smaller than either of these two cities. That would give it a circumference of less than two miles (3.2 kilometres). Let's use 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) for this discussion. This size would be on the upper limit of what would be reasonable.

If these men were standing against the wall, shoulder to shoulder, they would each occupy about two linear feet (60 centimetres). That means that there would need to be seven concentric circles of men, standing against the wall when it fell. The entire wall must have fallen simultaneously, with none of the men getting out of the way, or shielding themselves. Also, the wall must have fallen outward in all places, as if there had been a great explosion, like the one that brought down the World Trade Center buildings.

Just How Big Was Nineveh?

The Largest Unknown City in the World

"So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now, Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breadth. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey." - Jonah 3:3,4

A day's journey in ancient times was approximately 20 miles, therefore, Nineveh would have been 60 miles, or so, in diameter. It would have occupied 2,826 square miles (4,548 square kilometres). That's one big city!

Let's make a few comparisons. New York City occupies only 304 square miles (489 square kilometres). In that area, approximately 8.3 million people are housed. This gives a population density of 27,300 people per square mile (16,973 per square kilometre). By contrast, I live in London, UK, another large city of 7,556,900 (population count in July 2009), which occupies approximately 659 square miles (1,060 square kilometres), with a density of 11,467 per square mile (7,129 square kilometres).

Most ancient cities were fairly dense, due to the logistical difficulties in feeding, watering and cleaning up after large numbers of people before the age of mass transportation systems, not to mention the cost of building the city walls. For example, ancient Pompeii had a population of 20,000, inside walls with a circumference of 2 miles (3.21 kilometres), for a density of 62,500 persons per square mile. If Nineveh had an average density of 50,000 people per square mile, it must have had a population of 141,300,000.

Since New York is considered to be a "great city" by most standards, Nineveh must have been stupendous, colossal, etc. It was 9 times larger than New York in land area, and 19 times larger in population.

But wait, the bible gives us the population of Nineveh:

"And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?" - Jonah 4:11

One hundred and twenty thousand persons, spread over 2,826 square miles (4,548 square kilometres) is only 42 persons per square mile - that's 15 acres per person, or 60 acres for a family of four. That's not a city, surely?

Realistically, we could expect Nineveh to have a walled circumference of approximately seven miles (11.2 kilometres), assuming that the population figures are accurate. Interestingly, archaeologists have found walls that likely were Nineveh, and they were about seven miles (11.2 kilometres) around.

Nineveh was not a three day journey in breadth, unless Jonah was a really slow walker. So slow, in fact, that he could have gotten a job working at King Solomon's temple!

Holy Quail!

Tea smoked quail with oriental coleslaw

An unusual account is recorded in Numbers 11. It begins with the Israelites short of food and looking for a little meat:

"Therefore the LORD will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month, until it omes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you." - Numbers 11:18-20

Therefore, as you can imagine, God, being the God of Love that he is, sends them a little meat:

"And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and it brought quails from the sea, and let them fall beside the camp, about a day's journey on this side, and a day's journey on the other side, round about the camp, and about two cubits above the face of the earth." - Numbers 11:31

Now, let's calculate just how many quail are involved here. Most bible dictionaries (see net.bible.org)consider a day's journey to be approximately 20 miles (32.1 kilometres). Therefore, a circle with a radius of 2 miles (3.2 kilometres) would have an area of 1,256 square miles (2,021 kilometres). The quail filled this area to a depth of 2 cubits, or 35 inches (88.9 centimetres).

This makes 102 billion cubic feet (31 billion cubic metres) of quail. The quail is a fairly small bird, averaging about a pound (453 grams) in weight, and 13 inches (33 centimetres) in height. Based on this size, each quail would occupy 0.72 cubit feet. Therefore, God must have blessed the Israelites with approximately 142 billion quail. Shiver me timbers! That's over 47,000 quail for every Israelite. It must have been like an early version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

Now, I'm not sure what the world population of quail is, however, the current world population of chickens is about 24 Billion (see Wikipedia - 24 billion chickens in 2003). Chickens likely outnumber quail by at least 100 to 1, since chickens are commonly raised in huge commercial quantities in our modern, crowded earth. When the Israelites asked God for a little meat, little did they suspect that he would respond with over 500 times the entire world population of quail.

Before I finish with the quail, I must point out the end result of the meat harvest.

"While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague." - Numbers 11:33

I thought God said that they would get to eat the quail for a whole month? This Jehovah fellow isn't a nice person at all, is he?

King Solomon's Labour Force

Solomon's Workers Put Their Feet Up

"King Solomon raised a levy of forced labour out of all Israel; and the levy numbered thirty thousand men. And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in relays; they would be a month in Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was incharge of the levy. Solomon also had seventy thousand burden bearers and eightythousand hewers of stone in the hill country, besides Solomon’s three thousandthree hundred chief officers who were over the work, who had charge of the peoplewho carried on the work." - 1 Kings 5:13-16

By my count, this comes to 183,300 persons who worked on this temple. To put this in perspective, it took 1,283,000 man-years to build the temple, or 503 man-years to build each square foot it.

If I apply this rate of construction to my living room, which is 20 feet x 12 feet, it would take over 120,000 man years to build it. To put it yet another way, if a construction team of 100 persons (which is too big to function on such a small job) worked on building my living room, it would take them 1,200 years to build it.

If 183,000 people really worked for seven years to build a 2,552 square foot temple, they must have worked at a snail's pace. Their progress could only be measured at the molecular level.

The Lumber

According to the above quote, 10,000 labourers brought lumber from Lebanon at a time. There were a total of 30,000 labourers rotating on three shifts. Assuming that each labourer brought back 100 pounds of lumber on each trip, that means that one million pounds of lumber arrived at the temple every month. Don't forget that the temple was only 2,552 square feet, and it was already piled with gold, silver, bronze, and iron.

That's almost 400 pounds of lumber per square foot, coming in every month. Every year, the equivalent of 240 semi-trailer loads would have arrived. Where did they put it all?

The Staff

When the temple was finished and put into operation, staff were obviously required. King David outlined the staffing requirements:

"Twenty four thousand of these, David said, shall have charge of the work in the house of the LORD, six thousand shall be officers and judges, four thousand gatekeepers, and four thousand shall offer praises to the LORD with the instruments which I have made for praise." - 1 Chronicles 23:4,5

Therefore, 24,000 persons were to work in the house of the Lord. This must have been a pretty slack job. Based on the size of the temple and courtyard, and considering that access to certain parts of the temple was restricted to the priests and high priest, there couldn't possibly be room for more than about 100 people at a time. This means that each Levite would have worked for only about one day per year. Where can I apply?

The Total Contents

Wow, this must have been some building. Consider what was inside its walls:

• 6,260 cubic feet of gold
• 120,146 cubic feet of silver
• 338,000 cubic feet of iron (minimum estimate)
• 321,000 cubic feet of bronze (minimum estimate)
• 600,000 cubic feet of Lebanese Cedar arrived every year
• Untold quantities of stone, brick, and local timbers
• 24,000 staff (not necessarily simultaneous)
• Assorted fixtures, the Ark of the Covenant, etc.

All of this was inside a building with a total volume of only 111,650 cubic feet. Let's not forget that buildings are essentially hollow. Again, all I can say is, "Wow".

King Solomon's Temple

Continuing on from last weeks opener, this article will delve deeper into bible myth and uselessness.

The Magnificent Temple

Solomon’s temple was a lot smaller than most people picture it. 1 Kings 6:2 tells us that it was 60 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. In a rare example of biblical precision, 2 Chronicles 3:3 gives exactly the same measurements.

A cubit is 17.5 inches, so the temple would have been 87.5' x 29', and about 4 stories high. It would total 2,552 square feet in area. To put this in perspective, it would be less than twice the size of my house, but four stories high. This number is very important, therefore, keep it in mind.

The total temple area was larger than simply the "house of the LORD". There was a
courtyard, a palace, and other buildings. However, as we will soon see, the contents and value are out by at least a factor of a thousand, so, a few extra buildings are hardly significant.

The Gold and Silver

"With great pains I have provided for the house of the LORD, a hundred thousand
talents of gold, a million talents of silver, and bronze and iron without weighing, for there is so much of it; timber and stone, too, I have provided." - 1 Chronicles 22:14

Since 1 talent = 75.5 pounds, this means that 7.55 million pounds of gold and 75.5
million pounds of silver went into the temple - a total of 83.05 million pounds of precious metal. Now, remember the size of the temple. To get this much gold and silver into the temple, there must have been 32,543 pounds of it per square foot. The priest must have had to crawl over the heaps of gold to get to the alter.

Here's another interesting tidbit. One cubic foot of silver weighs 628.4 pounds. This means that the silver of the temple occupied 120,146 cubic feet. The total gross size of the temple was only 111,650 cubic feet. Therefore, if the silver of the temple was formed into a solid block, it would be bigger than the temple itself - never mind the gold, iron, bronze, timber, and stone.

What makes this even more astounding, is that according to the World Gold Council, the entire world holdings of gold at the end of the 20th century was only 30,000 tons. That means that Solomon’s temple contained 12.5% of the current supply of gold. In all likelihood, there would not have been anywhere near 7.55 million pounds of gold that had been mined on the entire planet at the time.

In addition to the gold and silver, there was apparently so much bronze and iron that it could not even be weighed. Since the gold and silver weighed in at 83 million pounds, that means that the bronze and iron must have weighed considerably more (I will assume that it was double). We are now looking at somewhere in the range of 100,000 pounds of metal per square foot of the temple. That is the equivalent weight of 40 full size cars per square foot. We haven't even got to the rock and timber, yet!

The gold and silver equates to a dollar value of $54 Billion today. Even given the
inflated population figures of Israel that are recorded in the Bible, it still means that every man, woman, and child in the nation contributed almost $20,000, or 40 pounds of gold and silver. In all likelihood, the population of Israel was only about 1/10 of the Biblical figures, so the contribution per person would have been approximately 10 times higher. And, of course, we have not costed the iron, bronze, rock, timber, and labour. Not bad for a group of poor desert farmers!

In next weeks article, we will take a look at the labour force of this vast project, taken up by King Solly.

Sacrifices Go Aplenty

Indiana Jones Rip-Off

Every now and then, I run into someone who believes that every word in the Bible is literally true. If the Bible says that men lived for 900 years, and that 5 vertical miles of water fell on the earth, then it must have happened. There is really no way to prove that these events did not happen, since by definition, a "miracle" is something extra-ordinary.

However, sometimes the Bible writers slipped up. When they told a story, nothing but superlatives would do. More than anything else, the numbers that are tossed around in the bible show this to be true. Apparently, mathematics was not their strong point, because on numerous occasions, the bible writers made statements that simply could not have happened.

Over the next few weeks, I will attempt to cover the many stories that involve numbers, quantities and downright impossibilities of the Bible.

Solomon and the Israelite Abattoir

King Solomon was a very devout man. He also liked to do things in big ways. Take, for example, the sacrifice that he offered up during a festival:

"Then the King and all the people offered sacrifice before the LORD. King Solomon offered as a sacrifice twenty-two thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep." - 2 Chronicles 7:4,5

Now, let's pause for a moment and let these numbers sink in. According to verse 9, this festival lasted seven days. That means that one animal was killed every 4.3 seconds, day and night, for a week.

Let's look at it another way. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, an adult sheep would weigh between 80 and 400 pounds. Let's take an average size of 200 pounds. Oxen come it at around 900 pounds. This means that Solomon slaughtered 43.8 million pounds of animals.

This would be a pretty big pile of animal. If the animal carcasses were stacked, with no wasted space, it would make a pile of 3.9 million cubic feet, or, a pile 5 feet high, covering 18 acres.

And what did he do with this meat? Well according to verse 7, he tried to put it on the alter, along with a cereal grain offering.

"For there he offered the burnt offering and the fat of the peace offerings, because the bronze alter Solomon had made could not hold the burnt offering and the cereal offering and the fat." - 2 Chronicles 7:7

Talk about an understatement. I could picture Solomon, looking at that mountain of meat, and saying to his attendant, "Gee, do you think that's too much to put on the alter?"

The sheer volume of meat involved is enough to convince anyone that this passage is grossly exaggerated. I will not even attempt to calculate the economic impact of this slaughter on a relatively poor group of desert farmers.

More amazing facts and figures from various biblical accounts will be here next Thursday.