Yahweh the Jerk, Noah the Drunk, Peoples of the Earth

Genesis 8  -  10

Yahweh told Noah to take seven pairs of every "clean" animal, two pairs of "unclean" animals and seven pairs of ever type of bird.  So there were kosher laws before Moses? Guess so.

The dates and chronologies are so convoluted that I suspect that these priests were out of baffle 'em with bullshit - either that, or some storyteller just went apeshit rattling off random numbers in a trance.  Granted, special attention is given to 7 and 40, and we know how numerology is tied up with the Hebrew alphabet.   

Yahweh the Jerk

I really do have a problem with this punitive god, Yahweh/Elohim.  Kill everyone and all the animals because of man's vague crimes?  That's one elemental volcano god, there.  Only after the flood does Yahweh tell Noah that he and his family can now eat animals, and that all creatures will fear him.   Noah is told that he can now eat meat, but only with the blood drained out, presaging the kosher laws.  Then Yahweh launches into some blood feud code, reminding Noah, essentially, an eye for an eye when it comes to human murder.  I guess he didn't realize that this wouldn't work as a deterrent.  The silver lining?  He won't kill everything and everyone again *by flood*. (No mention of asteroids or thermonuclear war though.)  And to seal his pact, a pretty rainbow.   How sweet.

Noah the Drunk

Noah drinks a bit.  He drinks so much that his sons find him spread out trashed and naked in his tent.  Because his son Ham had the misfortune to find him and to tell his two other brothers what was going on, Ham get crapped on big time when Noah wakes up.  The message is that kids are supposed to keep quiet about their parents' foibles, not effect an intervention.

Peoples of the Earth

Genesis 10 provides a list of the descendants of Noah's sons.  Japheth's sons became the coastland gentiles who moved inland (some equate this with the Indo-Europeans); Ham's sons became the people of east Africa, Babylon and the Philistines, Israel's perennial enemy; and Shem's sons include Elam (of the Elamites?) and I'm guessing the bloodline of Israel.