Once there was a rich man and a poor man. The poor man had nothing but one lamb, but he loved it much more than the rich man loved any of the many sheep he had. When a traveler came and stayed with the rich man, the rich man needed a sheep to make a meal for the traveler. But instead of using one of his own sheep, the rich man stole the poor man’s lamb. King David said the rich man should be killed, and be forced to give the poor man four new lambs.
Continue reading The Parable of the Rich ThiefTag Archives: scapegoating
The Story of the Crucifixion of Jesus—
Jesus Goes Back Home for the Weekend
Mad, bad, or God?
Jesus spent a lot of time with disreputable people. He violated the sabbath law, and encouraged others to do the same. When he saw people trying to enforce God’s law, Jesus got in the way. He told his followers to further break God’s laws by refusing to take oaths, eating unclean food, drinking blood, and hating their parents.
Jesus would go on long rants against the Jewish religious leaders. He acted like he thought he was God. He cured some people’s disabilities, only to give them to others. Jesus rudely discriminated against foreigners when they begged him to heal their children. He performed exorcisms despite knowing that it would make people worse off in the end. He sent a legion of demons to massacre someone’s livestock, just because the demons asked him to. This made everyone in that town want Jesus to go away. So he did.
Jesus said he was there to save the world, but he really just wanted to watch the world burn. He went into the temple and wrecked everything and chased the people out with a whip. He promised that those who followed him would not be excessively burdened, but then he required people to do completely pointless and unreasonably unpleasant things.
Jesus insisted on talking in confusing parables, and then got mad when no one understood him. The more he talked to people, the more they hated him. But he couldn’t figure out why. He offered people a reward, but said they could only get it if they didn’t expect a reward. People thought he was demon-possessed. Even his own family thought he was crazy.
God betrays Jesus
But there were also a lot of people who were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, which the Jewish leaders were worried would get the Jews in big trouble with their Roman overlords. God inspired the high priest to point out that it would be better for one man to die than for the whole Jewish nation to be destroyed over the treasonous claim that Jesus was their king. So the Jewish religious leaders that Jesus had so often disparaged plotted to get him killed. Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, agreed to get paid to hand Jesus over to them.
Jesus knew what they were planning, and he didn’t want to die. He repeatedly asked God to prevent his death if that was possible. But even though it was possible, God chose not to save him, because he wanted to see him suffer. God wanted to strike Jesus with a sword. How else could God demonstrate his righteousness and justice, if not by getting his innocent son killed instead of punishing all the actual evil people? Unless Jesus let himself be killed, God wouldn’t love him anymore.
Judas “betrays” Jesus
The religious leaders sent soldiers to arrest Jesus. Judas had arranged to let them know who they were after by kissing Jesus. But Jesus told them who he was himself, so Judas didn’t actually have to do anything. But he kissed Jesus and got paid for betraying him anyway. Later, Judas decided he didn’t want that money, and gave it back to the religious leaders, and he also used it to buy a field.
The soldiers took Jesus to the high priest. After he was questioned by the high priest, Jesus was sent off to the high priest, who for some reason wanted to know if Jesus was the son of God. When Jesus replied that he was, the high priest was shocked that Jesus would say such a thing, and the Jewish religious leaders said Jesus should be put to death for blasphemy. But though the Jewish law said Jesus had to be killed, the Jews didn’t have the right to execute anyone under Roman law.
So they handed him over to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, who for some reason thought Jesus was the king of the Jews. Even though no one but those astrologers had ever called him the “king of the Jews” before. And even though the Jews didn’t recognize him as their king. And even though Jesus had refused to become king of the Jews. And even though Jesus, being a descendant of Jehoiachin (AKA Jeconiah), wasn’t even eligible to be king of the Jews.
Pilate didn’t think Jesus had done anything wrong, and he wanted to release him. But the crowd insisted that he should be executed, because the Jewish leaders had somehow gotten all their people to suddenly stop liking Jesus.
So Pilate handed Jesus over to his soldiers to be crucified, while blaming the Jewish people for his decision and proclaiming himself to be innocent, as if he couldn’t overrule the commoners. (It was really God’s fault, though.) The soldiers stripped Jesus, stole his underwear for themselves, beat him, mocked him, and nailed him to a cross. He died, and was put in a tomb.
The totally convincing account of the resurrection
Continue reading The Story of the Crucifixion of Jesus—Jesus Goes Back Home for the Weekend
The Story of Queen Esther—
A Leisurely-Delivered Urgent Message
An ineffective feminist, a beauty queen, and a genocidal anti-Semite
Xerxes king of Persia (the grandson of Cyrus) held a banquet. He showed off his vast wealth to his nobles and officials and subjects there. He wanted to show off his beautiful wife Vashti too, but she refused to come. The king consulted seven wise men, and they said he should divorce Vashti. That way, all the women in his kingdom wouldn’t think they could get away with disobeying their husbands. So he divorced her.
Now the king needed to find a new wife. So he had lots of beautiful young women from all over the kingdom brought into his harem, so he could try them out. After four years of this, the king found that a girl named Esther was the most attractive. And he made her his new queen.
King Xerxes’ top official was Haman, a descendant of Agag the Amalekite and enemy of the Jews. The king commanded everyone to kneel before Haman, but Esther’s cousin, Mordecai the Jew, refused to do so. This made Haman very angry. So he convinced the king to have all the Jews in the kingdom killed at the end of the year. The king was happy to issue this decree. (He didn’t realize that his wife Esther was Jewish, since she had never told him.)
Esther tries to waste her opportunities
When Mordecai heard about what was happening, he told Esther she should talk to her husband about it. But Esther said no one was allowed to approach the king without being summoned. Anyone who did was usually killed. And the king hadn’t called for her in a month. But Mordecai said if Esther didn’t go to the king, she would be killed anyway, because she was Jewish. So Esther decided to go ask the king for help.
The king was happy to see his beautiful wife, and decided not to kill her for entering his presence. He asked her what she wanted. But instead of telling him, she asked him and Haman to attend a banquet with her. At the banquet, the king asked Esther what she wanted again. But instead of telling him, she asked him and Haman to attend another banquet with her the next day.
Continue reading The Story of Queen Esther—A Leisurely-Delivered Urgent Message
The Story of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel—
Daniel in the Lions' Den
Fake fortune tellers exposed
After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon captured Jehoiakim (the third-to-last king of Judah), the four smartest aristocratic young men in Judah were brought to Babylon to be Nebuchadnezzar’s advisers. Their names were Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and Daniel, but king Nebuchadnezzar renamed them Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Belteshazzar. (Apparently one of those new names wasn’t so catchy.)
Nebuchadnezzar had a troubling dream about a big statue being smashed by a rock, which then became a huge mountain. He decided to see if his magicians could tell him what it meant. To make sure they were really capable of interpreting it, instead of telling them what he had dreamed about, he demanded that they tell him first. The magicians said that was impossible; only a god could do that. Since they couldn’t read his mind, the king decided to have all the wise men in Babylon killed for being frauds.
But the king’s wise adviser Daniel said that wouldn’t be necessary, because his God could help him do what the king demanded. Daniel described the dream and said it was a prediction about the kingdoms that would come after Nebuchadnezzar’s. The king was very impressed, and he promoted Daniel and his friends to high positions.
Daniel obeys the king
After he had a dream about a huge statue, Nebuchadnezzar decided to make a huge statue. He decreed that everyone had to worship the statue or die. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to worship it, so the king had them tied up and thrown into a furnace. Daniel didn’t get thrown into the furnace, so apparently he was willing to worship the king’s idol.
God sent an angel to protect Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they came out of the furnace unharmed. The king was very impressed, and he promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to high positions.
God continues to communicate badly
Continue reading The Story of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel—Daniel in the Lions’ Den
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
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.
Continue reading The Story of the Exile of Israel and Judah—The End of the Independent Hebrew Kingdoms
The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—
The Kingdom Splits in Two
God wanted to punish King Solomon for worshiping other gods. But he liked Solomon’s dead father too much to do that. So he decided to wait until Solomon was dead and punish his son instead.
A prophet announced that God was going to let most of Israel be taken over by Jeroboam, one of Solomon’s officials. Solomon wisely attempted to hinder God’s plan by killing Jeroboam. But before he could, Jeroboam fled to Egypt, where he waited for Solomon to die. Solomon was succeeded by his son Rehoboam.
The people of Israel told Rehoboam they would serve him, but only if he didn’t make them work as hard as his father had. Rehoboam wasn’t sure how to answer them, so he asked for advice. The elders he asked said he should give the people what they wanted. But the young men he asked said he should make the people work even harder. While torturing them with scorpions.
To punish Rehoboam for what his dead father had done, God made Rehoboam decide to follow the bad advice of the young men. This caused most of the Israelites to turn against him. Israel made Jeroboam their king instead of Rehoboam, but the tribes of Judah and Benjamin seceded from Israel. They became the kingdom of Judah, and kept Rehoboam as their king.
Continue reading The Story of Rehoboam and Jeroboam—The Kingdom Splits in Two
The Story of David’s Census—
Morning by Morning He Dispenses With Justice
God was feeling angry at his people, and needed an excuse to punish them. So he told David to take a census of Israel.2 David’s commander Joab thought God’s idea was repulsive for some reason, but he helped David count the Israelites anyway.
After taking the census, David decided that Joab was right, that what he had done was foolish and sinful, and God agreed. God sent a prophet to ask David how he would like to be punished for obeying God. David didn’t fear God as much as he feared men, so he said he would prefer God to punish him himself, rather than sending David’s enemies to punish him.
Continue reading The Story of David’s Census—Morning by Morning He Dispenses With Justice
The Story of the House of Saul—
The Children's Teeth Are Set on Edge
During David’s reign, there was a famine in Israel. After it had gone on for three years, David asked God why there was a famine. God explained that he was punishing dead king Saul for trying to kill all the Gibeonites after Joshua had promised they wouldn’t be killed.
King David asked the remaining Gibeonites how he could make amends. They said they would like it if he helped them kill seven descendants of Saul. (Whose whole family had already been killed off.)
Continue reading The Story of the House of Saul—The Children’s Teeth Are Set on Edge
The Story of David and Bathsheba—
The Only Thing David Ever Did That God Didn't Approve of
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.
Continue reading The Story of David and Bathsheba—The Only Thing David Ever Did That God Didn’t Approve of
The Story of King Ish-Bosheth—
The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It's Not God's Doing for a Change
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.
Continue reading The Story of King Ish-Bosheth—The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It’s Not God’s Doing for a Change