So I Google searched “New King James Bible” and found a bunch of sites that pretty much said it was written by Satan himself. Ends up, there’s like a group out there that hates every Bible other than the King James Version.
What a bunch of spazzes.
Oh, and for the concerned Catholics, I have a regular Catholic Bible too; it’s just soft-cover and getting kinda ratty. I’ll get a new one later. Can never have too many Bibles (except for that Living Bible I have… ugh). Ends up that the Catholics were slow to having an English Bible because many didn’t think that the laymen should try to interpret scripture by themselves. That’s crazy.
Now my interpretation of scripture:
Anyhoo, chapter 4 of Genesis is all about the famous story of Cain and Abel and I found enough in it to do one post devoted to the subject. At first glance, there’s nothing special to it: an older brother gets jealous of a younger sibling and tries to kill him (my older brother tried to kill me the first time I got straight A’s). It has my all time favorite Bible quote, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” I use that all the time. Like if SarahK ask where the big mixing bowl is, I’ll reply, “Am I the mixing bowl’s keeper?” I love that.
But it makes a horrible defense. If you ever saw anyone use that line on a police drama, you’d be like, “That guy it totally guilty! …And he needs to update his prose.” Using that lame a defense against God, Who is smarter than that average Joe, is particularly short-sighted. Maybe Cain couldn’t think of any other defense; he certainly couldn’t claim an alibi since the only other people in the world are Adam and Eve who know very well not to get on God’s bad side. Being a defiant punk still didn’t help, though.
Here’s what he should have done:
GOD: “Where is your brother Abel.”
CAIN: (very nonchalantly) “I bashed in his head. Why? Is that bad or something?”
GOD: “You committed murder!”
CAIN: “Is that what it’s called? I didn’t know. If You’re upset, you should have put out a commandment out or something not to do that.”
GOD: “Well… uh… yeah, I guess so. Then, for future reference, don’t murder people. Now run along, you little scamp.”
Instead, Cain pisses off God and gets banished. Then Cain worries that others will kill him on sight.
What “others”? I thought it was just him and Adam and Eve now?
Anyway, God gives Cain a mark so no one will kill him (what’s that look like, and can I get it as a cool tat?), and Cain heads into the land of Nod and finds a wife.
Hello? Where are these other people coming from? I thought it was just Adam and Eve, or did God suddenly populate the world (meaning not everyone is traced back to Adam and Eve)? That sounds like that needs an explanation, but, the author, Moses, seems to have neglected it. I know it’s a little late for criticism, but it would nice if Moses’ best friend (what was his name? Ed, I think) had pointed out this seeming plot hole.
ED: “Uh, Mo, this just doesn’t make any sense.”
MOSES: “It’s God’s word!”
ED: “Well, yeah, but maybe you should ask God for a few more words for the point of clarification.”
Back to the story, the next part is a bunch of begatting going on, if you know what I mean (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more, say no more). Finally, Adam and Eve have another child, Seth, and you can bet Eve is secretly thinking, “I really wanted a girl – a non-murderous one.”
Anyway, I guess the point of this chapter is, if God accuses you of murder, you better have a really well thought out defense. If not, you get a cool tat, though.
LOL Frank!
LOL! I love it, you should have a contest to determine what kind of ink Cain gets from God, I think it’s all glowy.
Boy my memory is rusty. I didn’t even remember that Seth guy.
Or that Cain got married.
IMAO sure is educational.
Could God create a burritto so hot that He himself could not eat it?
I’m wondering when the monkeys showed up.
What do you mean where did the other people come from??
Obviously they came from the creation down the block.
Duh.
I think Cain was jealous because before Abel he was the only one in the whole world with a belly button.
Why couldn’t Cain please God?
Because he just wasn’t Abel.
Supposedly Adam (maybe Eve) lived for like 1000 years. That equals out to a lot of “begatting.” Those that were begat are also going to begat, so Cain, married either a sister, or a niece. Abviously this practice continues today in West Virginia.
Were the other people the monkey people?
Hey, maybe the people that voted for Kerry are the monkey people’s descendents… I sure thought I was living on the planet of the apes during that last election.
Frank, you might have something with this evil monkey theory.
Ok, new campaign slogan for 2008: FREE BANANAS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS – Don’t tell Hillary…
The monkey people came later, when there were enough scientists around to punish them for “normal self-grooming”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1407818,00.html
Well Frnak, you know just because the Bible only mentions Cain, Abel, and Seth as Adam & Eve’s kids, doesn’t mean that’s all they had, ya know. You can betchur bottom dollar that those boys were hookin’ up with sisters and nieces that went unnamed. After all, people lived to be hundreds of years old back then – how many kiddos could you beget if you lived to be 900 years old and put your mind to crankin’ ’em out? After all, that was God’s commission to A&E – “fill the earth and subdue it.” Now that’s gotta be a fun command to receive!
i don’t think cool tats are part of the deal anymore. what with the commandments now and all.
“Run along now, you little scamp”
Heh heh. That crafty Cain.
“And then there was begatting
and it was good.
And then people began begatting by themselves and it was also good, though not as good as the regular begatting and did make them blind.
And Hallowed was angry by the bad blind begatters and said that because begatting by yourself begat blindness, there would be no more begatting by yourself and only begatting between multiple begatters.
And the begatters did run with this idea of multiple begatters and began begatting in big begatter groups. And this did also anger Hallowed.
So, beginning to wish he had not began the begatting, He did command that the bad begatters would cease begatting in big begatter groups and begin begatting only in begatter pairs.”
It is a common theory among biblical scholars that the others were not, in fact, monkey people. New research shows they were the earliest ninja tribe on earth.
Oh yeah, Frank, I think you’re in the early stages of turning Protestant just as my best friend did a couple of years ago. Reading that King James Bible will do it.
If you’re into a wild translation try “the Message”-unfortunately only in the New testament at the moment.
Jesus sounds almost Yuppie in it.
The plural of spaz is actually spelled “spazzes.”
I had a teacher correct me on that once.
Natalie,
Thanks. It did seem to me the way I originally wrote it didn’t look right.
I told you guys yesterday. Adam and Eve were FIRST(!!) not ONLY. Anyway, this is the funniest stuff yet. And I say that as a Free Methodist.
We got school off today because of snow! Yay!! Now I can go and read IMAO whenever I want!
“Ends up that the Catholics were slow to having an English Bible because many didn’t think that the laymen should try to interpret scripture by themselves.”
Yeah, if by slow, you mean “burned the men who translated the Bible into the vernacular at the stake.”
When my little girl was 3 I helped her memorize The Lord’s Prayer but instead of saying “Our Father, Who art in Heaven” she would say “Our Father, Who farts in Heaven”. We wouldn’t let her say it in front of the church until she fixed that part!!
Man…frank reading the bible..how long before he’s not Catholic anymore? 5 chapters? 6?
Adam
Bah! It’s the Bible that gives us Catholics the authority to be all Catholicy.
I am an amateur demographer. The “problem” of Cain’s wife and the city he builds are easy to explain.
It doesn’t say when Cain killed Abel.
Depending on how old he was there could have been thousands to millions of people.
This of course implies that if we go far enough back we all are West Virginians.
Oooooo…been there, done that with all the “King James only” arguments! (Went to Bible college with lots of “KJV only” types.) If you have any questions, email me. There’s a cool story about Shakespeare and Psalm 46 in the KJV that’s just nifty, but a little long for leaving in the comments here.
Anyway, hopefully God won’t smite you for your insolence and whatnot in interpreting all this Scripture–and that’s not counting what SarahK may do…
“And then there was begatting
and it was good.
And then people began begatting by themselves and it was also good, though not as good as the regular begatting and did make them blind.
And Hallowed was angry by the bad blind begatters and said that because begatting by yourself begat blindness, there would be no more begatting by yourself and only begatting between multiple begatters.
And the begatters did run with this idea of multiple begatters and began begatting in big begatter groups. And this did also anger Hallowed.
So, beginning to wish he had not began the begatting, He did command that the bad begatters would cease begatting in big begatter groups and begin begatting only in begatter pairs.”
ROFLMAO
Frank I think Natalie is wrong. The plural of spaz is spazzi. Its an Italian word to describe the unwashed, cheese eating, surrender prone, monkey loving people who live to the northwest of them.
Tan put out a very nice leather Duay-Rhiems bible, which you can find with Froogle. It’s a literal translation of the Vulgate and predates the KJV. I loved it in Latin in high school. We’d have to translate Matthew for Christmas. Stupid kids copied the verses out of the New American. Smart ones copied the DR. I only used it to check my translations. Really.
Why not put it into the “Dialectizer” that exists on so many web pages?
love it…thank you for reading the bible Frank.
MMMmmmmmAAAuuurgghghh funny
more please
“”Ends up that the Catholics were slow to having an English Bible because many didn’t think that the laymen should try to interpret scripture by themselves.”
Yeah, if by slow, you mean “burned the men who translated the Bible into the vernacular at the stake.””
From what I understand there were many vernacular translations before the Protestants came along. In English, the Douay version predates the King James Version, and in fact was a source for it.
It is true that many Protestant vernacular Bibles were burned, because they were thought to contain errors in doctrine or in translation. As for translators being burned I’m not sure…burning was sometimes a penalty for heresy (administered by the state and not by the Church). Merely translating the Bible I don’t think would be considered heresy…what specific incident do you mean? I’m not an expert on the period of the reformation, but I would be interested in looking it up…
From a (not so much) lurker –
Here is a link for some KJV Only debates: http://www.aomin.org
Questions to ask WRT Cain’s wife…
How much time took place between the great divorce (CS Lewis term) and the murder of Able?
Did Adam and Eve have other kids not listed?
What was Cain’s wife like? Did she have a problem with the mark?
Who gave her away at the alter? Did he like his son in law? Did she have a bunch of sisters who went “whew” after Cain picked her?
Frank, why are we still typing these annoying 6 digits to post? Are we our evil spam-bots’ keepers?
Re: Mark of Cain
According to Cecil B. DeMille, it looks like a leafless tree,possibly the tree, y’know, of the “knowledge of good and evil” that Mom wasn’t supposed to make pies from.
This whole KJV, vs. whatever debate. I will use the Mormon’s version of the KJV (They added that nifty cross reference at the bottom of the page) and my Russian translation of the Greek translation of the bible. According to that book, when the Holy Ghost decended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, the Russian version reads pigeon.
You really got in trouble for kicking the “holy” bird over there! >)
Sheaksphere wrote psalm 46 on his 46th birthday, etc.
The DR predated the KJV, but only by a couple of years–not long enough to be used as a source (even if the English Church would use a Catholic Bible). The Bishops Bible was the main source for the KJV, other than the Greek and Hebrew. There were several people who were burned for translating the scripture into English. The most prominant of these was William Tyndale. John Wycliff had to be dug up and burned.
i like the lillith theory to explain the other folks over there. although there is no proof whatsoever of her existance, not even her name in the bible, but i dont like loose ends like that either. thats not to say that the holy inspired word of God has a loose end, just that i dont know all the facts.
On the subject of Lillith; it depends on which version of the Bible. Some versions mention her, while in some verisons, she is omitted.
Lillith, of course, married Adam, then, later, God granted them a divorce, and she left the Garden of Eden. After all of this, God created Eve.
(The ones who recognize Lillith are usually the ones who have allowed divorce all along.)
Personally, I think it’s pretty smart of God to keep us all guessing about all the specifics. Otherwise it would be BORING….Catholics wouldn’t be able to laugh at the Protestants, who wouldn’t be able to laugh at the Jews, etc, etc. It’s like the joke where God calls the Pope and tells him he’s got Good News and Bad News. The good news: that He’s tired of all the fighting and is on earth endorsing and enabling just ONE religion to end all fighting and poverty, etc. The Pope says “That’s great, what could be the bad news?” God replies, “I’m calling from Salt Lake City.”
We’d have to translate Matthew for Christmas.
Worst. Present. Ever.
dixiedarlin – i like that alot, never heard that one before.
Random Bible fact…
Only in the King James version can the word “pisseth” be found…and there only about 6 times. Don’t quote me on this, as I’m relating secondhand. I was just thinking Frank would probably have fun with that.
“Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall…” -1 Kings 14:10 KJV
Another interesting Bible fact: The Catholic and Protestant Bibles have different 10 Commandments.
You don’t know what the mark was?
It was an earlier more primitive version of this.
Egad…does that mean we have 20 commandments to follow!!!
“…many didn’t think that the laymen should try to interpret Scripture by themselves.”
Because the early church knew that once the laity began interpreting Scripture on their own, they would start coming up with all kinds of crazy shit. Like the Rapture, for one example…
Y’know, if Adam & Eve (and their offspring) were the only people on Earth….
….all that begatting amounts to a lot of incest.
Now I know where the Garden of Eden is…
Kentucky.
More like West Virginia.
Also I learned from the people that hates all but the KJV that the NIV was written by a bunch of Satan-worshipping lesbian monkeys.
The midrash adds some other happy little things to the story.
Like the mark of Cain being a pair of super-huge antlers.
This results in the first hunting accident in history where Cain’s nephew (I think) Nimrod shoots him with an arrow, thinking he’s a deer.
And no, I’m not kidding.
I agree that the “My brother’s keeper” line is lame, but Cain came up with it. I mean, it wasn’t lame then.
When Odysesus said, “Hey, Agamemnon, let’s build a big horse, hide inside it, and let the Trojans take it into their city,” Agamemnon didn’t say, “Ulysses or Odysesus, dude, it’s a lame idea to copy the Trojan Horse,” because he didn’t know it was the Trojan Horse yet.
I thought Lilith married Frazier? Was their kid named Nimrod?
Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode (The Red Dot) where George got a job from Elaine’s boss, Mr. Lippman.
Lippman: “It’s come to my attention that you’ve been having sex with the cleaning woman on the desk in your cubicle…”
George(acting surprised): “Who told you that?”
Lippman: “She did.”
dramatic pause…
George: “Was that wrong?”
Can’t wait for the Deluge according to Frank. Betcha that’s when we hear about the monkeys.
re the different 10 commandments; How many have to do with fish, babymaking, or guys wearing dresses? And is one, “Thou shalt have no graven images, accepting those placed in a half-burried washing basin.”
Serrano- “Ahh, Jesus, I like him very much, but He no help with curveball.”
Harris – “Are you trying to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?”
– from Major League
classic
Some Jewish experts believe that Adam and Eve were the first Jews (ie “chosen people”) and thus not really the first humans on earth. Genesis does have two accounts of everything being created, first a general account of creation and then the more specific account with Adam naming animals and such. Anyway, that’s one way to get around the “who did Cain marry?” question.
I like the Oxford Study Bible. I don’t care about the specific language too much, I just want lots of notes. (Although the KJV is the prettiest translation by far).
Then there’s the old joke with a redneck explaining why he uses the King James Version, “If King James English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.”