Tag Archives: buildings

The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—
The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms

October 28, 2024Bible storiesahaz, babylon, betrayal, bible, blessings, bribes, buildings, death, deception, destruction, disasters, egypt, evil, failure, fire, god, hezekiah, hoshea, illness, imprisonment, injustice, israelites, jehoahaz, jehoiachin, jehoiakim, jews, josiah, kidnapping, law, massacres, money, moral influences, morality, murder, nebuchadnezzar, pagans, poverty, promises, prophecy, punishment, reward, samaritans, scapegoating, selfishness, temple, theft, violence, war, zedekiahR. A. Absalom

Where the Samaritans came from, according to the Jews

Jotham’s son Ahaz was an evil king of Judah, so God sent the kings of Israel and Aram to fight against him and defeat him after God had promised they wouldn’t defeat him.¹ After God predicted Assyria would destroy Judah, Ahaz got the king of Assyria to instead help him attack Israel, by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God.

Hoshea, the next king of Israel, was an evil traitor. When the king of Assyria found that out, he took Hoshea prisoner and conquered his country, putting an end to the kingdom of Israel. The people of Israel were exiled to Assyria, becoming the Ten Lost Tribes. The king of Assyria sent foreign pagans to settle in the former land of Israel, becoming Samaritans.

How Hezekiah used the gift of success

Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was the most righteous king Judah ever had. So God made him successful at everything. Hezekiah successfully convinced God to let his people break God’s law by celebrating the Passover in any way they wanted.

He successfully rebelled against the king of Assyria, so God told the king of Assyria to destroy Judah. But righteous Hezekiah kept the king of Assyria from conquering Judah by giving him all the gold and silver from the temple of God (which his father had already given to the king of Assyria). After Hezekiah successfully convinced the king of Assyria not to conquer Judah, the king of Assyria continued to try to conquer Judah, as God had commanded him, until God got him killed.

Hezekiah got sick, and God sent a prophet to tell him that he would never recover. But Hezekiah successfully convinced the never-changing God to change his mind, and so he recovered anyway.

Men from Babylon came to visit Hezekiah, and he showed them all the treasure and stuff he owned. The prophet told Hezekiah that now that the Babylonians knew about all that treasure, they were going to steal it all some day. And they would kidnap and castrate some of Hezekiah’s descendants. Righteous Hezekiah said he didn’t mind that, since he wouldn’t be around when it happened.

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Will the door be opened for everyone who knocks?

June 30, 2024Contradictionsbetrayal, buildings, deception, promisesR. A. Absalom

Jesus says you just have to knock, and the door will be opened for you. Because just as everyone who asks receives, the door will be opened to the one who knocks.

It worked for Peter… eventually. He had to knock an awfully long time, though. The servant who went to answer the door ran back without opening it, and tried to convince the others that Peter was there, but they couldn’t believe it because Peter was supposed to be in prison. But he kept knocking, and after a while they did open the door for him.

Jesus didn’t tell us it would take so long for the door to be opened. Why didn’t he specify how long you might have to knock, so people wouldn’t think he was wrong and give up? Because Jesus was wrong. He said so himself:

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The Story of King Solomon—
The Wisest Man in the World

December 30, 2023Bible storiesanimals, bathsheba, betrayal, blessings, buildings, creation, david, death, failure, false accusation, family, food, foolishness, god, heaven, idols, immortality, incest, infidelity, injustice, jealousy, marriage, money, murder, music, overreaction, pagans, pointlessness, polygamy, promises, prostitution, reputation, sacrifice, selfishness, slavery, solomon, temple, virginity, war, wealth, wisdomR. A. Absalom

When King David was old, he had trouble staying warm. His attendants solved that problem by finding a hot girl to lie next to him in bed. Her name was Abishag, but he didn’t shag her. One day, David’s wife Bathsheba came to his room with a complaint.

She said David had promised that her son Solomon would be the next king. But now another son of David, Adonijah, had made himself king. Then David had Bathsheba come to his room, and he declared Solomon to be the new king of Israel.

When Adonijah heard about that, he was afraid Solomon would kill him. Solomon decided not to kill his brother for trying to become king. But then when Adonijah tried to marry Abishag, Solomon did kill him, because he thought that meant Adonijah was trying to become king. After David died, Solomon also killed a man David had sworn would not be killed, because Solomon was a wise man.

One night, after Solomon sacrificed at an unauthorized altar, God offered to give him anything he wanted. Solomon asked for wisdom, because he was young and inexperienced and ignorant and didn’t know right from wrong. God was so pleased that Solomon hadn’t asked for money that he made Solomon the richest king of all time, and he also made him the wisest person of all time. Solomon later asked God to let him live as long as the sun and moon endured. But apparently God didn’t like that request as much.

After he became wise, Solomon suggested cutting a baby in half. Then he wisely decided not to let the baby be raised by a prostitute who thought his idea was a good one. (He gave the baby to a different prostitute instead.)

King Solomon ruled over many other kingdoms in addition to Israel. During his reign there was peace for Israel, except when there wasn’t. He wrote thousands of songs² and proverbs, and studied plants and animals. People came from all over the world to hear his wisdom. But wisdom was beyond him.

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The Story of David and Bathsheba—
The Only Thing David Ever Did That God Didn't Approve of

June 14, 2023Bible storiesbathsheba, buildings, david, deception, envy, evil, failure, family, hypocrisy, illness, infidelity, injustice, joab, judgment, marriage, mistakes, misunderstanding, mourning, murder, nudity, promises, punishment, scapegoating, secrets, sex, spying, uriah, warR. A. Absalom

King David heard that Nahash, the Ammonite king who had wanted to gouge out the eyes of all the Israelites, had died. So David sent diplomats to tell Nahash’s successor how sorry David was that such a kind man had died. But the Ammonites assumed that David’s men must be spies plotting to overthrow them. So they sent the diplomats away half naked, and started a war with Israel. David stayed home while he had his commander Joab go out and lead Israel in fighting the Ammonites (which God had commanded them not to do).

David was walking around on the roof of his palace one night, when he saw a beautiful woman taking a bath. He learned that her name was Bathsheba, and that she was the wife of Uriah, one of David’s chief warriors, who was away fighting in the war. David had Bathsheba brought to the palace, had sex with her, and sent her back home.

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The Story of the Lost Ark—
God Gives You Cancer

May 16, 2023Bible storiesanimals, ark of the covenant, blessings, buildings, curses, david, death, destruction, failure, god, idols, illness, ingratitude, injustice, israelites, jealousy, marriage, massacres, michal, mind control, miracles, murder, nudity, overreaction, philistines, punishment, reputation, self-defeating, sex, theft, warR. A. Absalom

Back when Israel was led by Samuel, there had been a war between the Israelites and the Philistines, and Israel was losing. The Israelites thought it might help if God was with them, so they brought out the ark of the covenant. When the Philistines heard that a mighty enemy god had arrived, they were afraid, and they knew they would have to fight hard to defeat Israel. So the Philistines fought hard, and defeated Israel.

They killed tens of thousands of Israelites, captured the ark of God, and took it to the temple of their god Dagon. But then Dagon started bowing down to the ark, and the Philistines started getting tumors. They tried moving the ark to different cities, but Philistines died wherever the ark went.

After seven months of this, the Philistines decided they should send the ark away. They put the ark on a cart and let two cows take it back to Israelite territory. When the Israelites saw that the cows had brought their ark back, they were so grateful that they… killed the cows.

But then when 70 Israelites looked inside the ark at the things that God had told Moses to put there so people could look at them, God killed them all. Now the people who had found the ark of God didn’t want to keep it, since it seemed to bring death everywhere it went. So they sent the ark to the house of some guy named Abinadab.

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The Story of King Ish-Bosheth—
The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It's Not God's Doing for a Change

April 16, 2023Bible storiesbetrayal, buildings, curses, david, death, evil, execution, failure, false accusation, family, fighting, foolishness, infidelity, ingratitude, injustice, insults, israelites, jealousy, joab, judgment, marriage, mistakes, misunderstanding, moral influences, murder, obedience, overreaction, pointlessness, polygamy, poverty, punishment, rebellion, revenge, saul, scapegoating, spying, theft, warR. A. Absalom

After Saul and his whole family died, his dead son Ish-Bosheth succeeded him as king of Israel. But David was made king of the tribe of Judah. The commander of the army of Israel was Saul’s cousin Abner, and the commander of the army of Judah was David’s nephew Joab.

These commanders thought it would be fun to see some men stab each other to death. So they made two dozen of their soldiers stab each other to death. But Joab’s brother Asahel didn’t like that, so he chased Abner. Abner didn’t like that, so he stabbed Asahel to death. Joab didn’t like that, so he chased Abner, too. But then Abner suggested not chasing him. So Joab stopped chasing him.

King Ish-Bosheth offended his commander Abner by accusing him of sleeping with Saul’s girlfriend. So Abner decided to desert Ish-Bosheth and help David take over Israel. When Abner offered to help David become king of all Israel, David agreed to let him do that… but only if he did David a favor first.

By this time David had married at least four women. But Saul had taken back his daughter Michal, David’s first wife, and given her to somebody else. David had Abner steal Michal back for him and make her other husband go away. After doing that, Abner went off to convince the Israelites to make David their king.

But David’s commander Joab didn’t like Abner, who had killed Joab’s brother. Joab thought Abner must have only come there to spy on David for Ish-Bosheth. So Joab found Abner and stabbed him to death. David didn’t like that (even though he had previously declared that Abner must die). So David put a curse on Joab’s family, and later had his son kill Joab.

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The Story of King Abimelek—
The King Who Wasn't Killed by a Woman

April 8, 2022Bible storiesbuildings, destruction, evil, failure, family, fire, food, foolishness, gender, god, idols, injustice, insults, israelites, massacres, murder, overreaction, punishment, rebellion, reputation, self-defeating, suicide, torture, warR. A. Absalom

Gideon was another judge of Israel. He destroyed a pagan object of worship that his father had made, and then he made his people a new one. He also tortured or killed anyone who wouldn’t give his men free food. The Israelites liked Gideon so much, they wanted him to become their king. But he refused. After Gideon died, his son Abimelek murdered his 70 brothers, and then he was made the first king of Israel.

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The Story of Samson and Delilah—
Brawn and No Brains

March 8, 2022Bible storiesbetrayal, blindness, bribes, buildings, coercion, deception, destruction, escape, failure, foolishness, fornication, god, hair, imprisonment, love, massacres, miracles, mistakes, nagging, philistines, revenge, samson, secrets, self-defeating, slavery, sleep, spying, suicideR. A. Absalom

Samson got a new girlfriend, named Delilah. Samson’s enemies, the Philistines, paid Delilah to figure out Samson’s secret weakness, so they could capture him. So Delilah asked Samson three times how such a strong man could be successfully tied up, and Samson gave her three false answers.

Each time, Delilah tied him up the way he suggested while he was sleeping, and then woke him up by telling him the Philistines had come for him, but Samson easily broke out of his restraints. Delilah kept nagging him every day, saying if he really loved her, he would tell her how to drain his strength and allow his enemies to capture him. So he did.

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Is Jesus the only foundation the church can have?

August 8, 2020Contradictionsbuildings, christians, jesusR. A. Absalom

It is written: Jesus Christ is the foundation that the church is built on, and no one can lay a foundation other than that one.

It is also written: Peter is the rock that Jesus built his church on.

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The Story of the Tower of Babel—
Babble Babble Babble

April 21, 2020Bible storiesanti-intellectualism, buildings, curses, god, jealousy, language, misunderstanding, omnipotence, sabotage, teamworkR. A. Absalom

When Noah’s flood had reduced the world population to 8, and while the population was recovering for a while after that, everyone in the world spoke the same language. People who had moved to the East started to build a great, unifying city with a huge tower that would reach to the heavens.

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Reductio Ad Absalom

For the message of the cross is foolishness.

Tag Archives: buildings

The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—
The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms

Where the Samaritans came from, according to the Jews

How Hezekiah used the gift of success

Will the door be opened for everyone who knocks?

The Story of King Solomon—
The Wisest Man in the World

The Story of David and Bathsheba—
The Only Thing David Ever Did That God Didn't Approve of

The Story of the Lost Ark—
God Gives You Cancer

The Story of King Ish-Bosheth—
The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It's Not God's Doing for a Change

The Story of King Abimelek—
The King Who Wasn't Killed by a Woman

The Story of Samson and Delilah—
Brawn and No Brains

Is Jesus the only foundation the church can have?

The Story of the Tower of Babel—
Babble Babble Babble