No Bullshit Bible Lesson #6: God Makes a Promise

Genesis, Chapters 14-15:

Abram and Lot went their separate ways. Abram to the plain of Mamre in Hebron and Lot to Sodom. And shortly after, a huge war started in the vale of Siddim between just about every nation in the area, including Gomorrah and Sodom, where Lot lived. Why they were fighting doesn’t matter. Seriously. So don’t ask. All that matters was that they were fighting, and that there were slime pits in the Vale of Siddim.

So, the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah fell into these slime pits, and some of the people that were with them managed not to, and took off for the mountains. Then they looted Sodom and Gomorrah for anything they could carry, including Lot and all his stuff. But someone survived and went and told Abram what had happened.

When Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his bred-in-captivity force of 318 ninjas and went after them. Which was odd, really, because his brother had died long before and it was his nephew that had been taken captive. There is no doubt, however, that it was his brother he received word of, because these words were written by an infallible God.

So he and his Ninja squad killed all the captors under cover of night (which is the ninja way) and retrieved all the stuff that was taken, as well as Lot, all the people that were taken, and all the women that were taken, who do not count as “people”, clearly. The King of Sodom somehow got word of this and, apparently having escaped the slime pits, went out to meet Abram, bringing Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God with him. And Melchizedek blessed Abram who, being good pals with God, thought was nice but wasn’t too impressed by.

The king of Sodom said to Abram:
         “Turn my people over to me, and you can keep all their stuff as reward.”
        “Thanks, but I told God I wouldn’t take anything he didn’t say I could take. Just let my ninja squad take their fair share, eh?”

Later, God came to Abram in a vision, now too busy for a face-to-face, and said to him,
        “Hey, you didn’t need that stuff. I’m your reward!”
        “That’s dandy, God, really. Here’s the thing though...you keep saying that my kids are going to inherit this land but you haven’t deigned to un-barren my wife’s womb. Now, I named one of my servants my heir, but it’s not the same, you know?”
        “Dude, that kid is not gonna be your heir. You heir will come forth from your own bowels.”
        “ ... ”
        “Look to the stars,” the teleconferencing God continued, “that is how many kids you’ll have.”

And Abram believed him, but he had to ask, “How do I know?”
        “Okay,” God said, “Go get me a cow, a female goat and a ram -- all three years old. Oh, and a young pigeon and a turtledove.”

Abram did as he was asked, chopping up big-ass animals and lying their bits in a pile, waving away carrion birds all the while. The turtledove and pigeon, however, he didn’t bother chopping up. By the time the sun set, he was mighty tired and weary from a day spend chopping up livestock, and he fell into a deep sleep. In his sleep, he had terrible nightmares, and God came to him and said,
        “Okay, about your kids, they will be strangers in a land that is not theirs and they will be made to serve the people of that land and be oppressed by them for 400 years. But then I’ll judge that nation and then your kids will come out ahead, so it’ll be okay. Oh, and you’ll die in peace, a nice old man. And then, the fourth generation of your kids will come and inherit this land, because right about that time, I expect to be just about fed up with the Amorites who currently live here. And I am sure that there won’t be hundreds of years of bloody wars well into the 21st century over who has a rightful claim to this land. Never happen, seriously.”

When Abram woke, God said,
        “So, to recap: your descendants will, eventually, get everything from the Nile to the Euphrates? Good? Good.”