By Grunion Guy

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 CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Covenant with Abimelech, Genesis 21:22 - 21:34.


THE FACTS!

Abimelech and Chief Captain Phichol tell Abraham that God is with him.

Abimelech asks Abraham to swear on God's name (since The Bible wasn't written yet because that would be weird if it had been and they were in it doing this) that Abraham will not deal falsely with Abimelech or his son or his grandson.

Abraham swears.

Abraham tells Abimelech that some of Abimelech's servants violently stole a well of water from him.

Abimelech says he knew nothing of this since Abraham didn't tell him about it until now.

Abraham gives sheep and oxen to Abimelech to form a covenant instead of having Abimelech mutilate his ding dong.

Abraham places seven lambs apart from the flock and Abimelech says, "WTF?"

Abraham says the lambs are notary publics here to witness the digging of Abraham's new well.

Abraham calls the well Beer-Sheba, meaning the oath of the well.

Abimelech and Master Chief head back to Philistine.

Abraham plants a tree and calls God.

Abraham vacations in Philistine for many days. Philistonia? Philistan?

 

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

Did we enter a Water Pirate Time Warp or something? How could the well, Beer-Sheba, be dug after Hagar had saved Ishmael's life with its water? Is this a miracle or poor editing?

Speaking of Hagar, seriously, how stupid is she? She's wandering in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba without water. But Beer-Sheba means 'the well of the oath'! Wouldn't you look around a little bit for a well if you were in The Town With the Well Town?

Did Abraham's story sound fishy to you? How can a bunch of servants steal a well? And they succeeded through violence! But Abraham is the guy who defeated five kings with armed butlers! I think he was just feeling picked on by Abimelech and he wanted to show Abimelech that being mean to each other goes both ways and why did Abimelech have to bring up that whole 'my wife is my sister' scam again?

When Abraham tells Abimelech about the well being stolen, didn't Abimelech's response sound like most Defendants on Judge Judy? "Hey, Abimelech, you servants stole my well!" "Oh, really? This is the first I'm hearing about it! I don't owe you a well because you didn't tell me until now. If you'd told me right off, I would have done something to help out. But, sheesh, really, you're telling me now? Get over it! Plus, I'm counter-suing you for harassment because you asked for your well back."

Is it just accepted by every day Christians who read The Bible that these chapters are out of order? Shouldn't the digging of the well of Beer-Sheba be before Hagar's discovery of the well? Do Christians consider this postmodern writing? Don't you think a religious document this important should try to avoid little things like this that might make people question its historicity? Really? That's a real word? My spell check says it is! I'm smart!

Do you think Phichol was happy to get a mention in The Bible? Do you think he'll return in later chapters since his name was used? Even the wives of Noah and Lot never get names! This Phichol dude must be pretty important.

Do you think the soldiers called their captain Fickle Phichol? If they did, it was probably just behind his back. And by just, I mean 'only' and not 'just behind his back' as in really, really close to his back where he might hear them say it.

Why does Abraham give Abimelech some sheep and oxen? Does he feel guilty about lying about his well being stolen? Is it just the thing to do when the king of the land you're living on (the king your God almost killed because of you) comes to demand that you act like a good neighbor?

Abimelech doesn't believe in God. This is apparent because he says to Abraham, "So, God is with you, so I'll have you swear to God since you'll be honest because you believe in that garbage" although maybe not in those exact words. You can hear it in his voice, though. Probably. Who do you think Abimelech does believe in? Moloch? Abimelech is smarter than our court system, anyway! Why have people swear on The Bible when most people will lie to save their material hides before they ever give a thought to their immortal soul! Especially Christians who believe Jesus will forgive them just because they believe in him.

Why is Abraham sojourning in Philistonia? The Bible still hasn't given a satisfactory answer to this. I'm waiting!

 

FAITH vs SCIENCE
Time Travel

Science
A number of different versions exist in which time travel is possible without having to deal with paradoxes. One way is that it has all already happened and you can't change anything because that's the way it happened every time no matter whose personal timeline you might be viewing it through. The person traveling back in time is always there. It's just one pass through the moment. This is how it works in Lost. There is also the idea that every time a person travels back in time, a new time line is created. This means that the original time line continues to exist but the person who time traveled has disappeared from it completely. He arrives in a new time line which he can affect any way he sees fit, including killing his double who has yet to time travel. Nothing will be affected as this is a new time line. The movie Primer works in this way. The time travel in Back to the Future doesn't make any scientific sense because it is rife with paradox. Once Michael J Fox destroys his parents' relationship before it even gets started, he ceases to exist, preventing himself from going back in time, thus his parents still get together and he is still born and able to travel back in time to prevent himself from being born again. This situation cannot be resolved by the universe and its laws and, as such, is not possible. I think time travel is possible and has happened many, many times except the person traveling backward or forward through time has forgotten that a vehicle that travels through time must also travel through space. So everyone who has traveled back in time has done so successfully but ended up floating in deep space as everything in the universe is in constant motion and a time machine would not end up in the correct space in 1969 since the Earth and the galaxy have moved since then. It would just move backward while remaining in its point in space to the same point in space in 1969 to find that the Earth isn't there to meet them. And then they'd drown. Or do whatever you do when you die in space.		 Faith
Time travel in The Bible should theoretically work in every way including the Michael J. Fox way because God cannot be stumped by something as simple as a time paradox. And God, being omnipotent, could travel backwards and forwards in time himself. And he'd probably allow his creations to do the same due to the Free Will Clause and the made in his own image trademark. It might be a lot for God to keep track of but, being that he's God, he could do it. And he's probably done it a whole bunch of times already! Why not? He can do anything! How many times do you think he created Adam? Just the once? Well, sure, probably just the once since he's God and he does everything perfectly. But we've already seen God does change his mind like when he decided to destroy all of mankind in the flood because he regretted making mankind the way he made them. He may have gone back in time and remade Adam multiple times instead choosing to destroy the earth. Because he's God and I'm sure he's tried as many solutions to his problem as he could. Finally, after time traveling multiple times, he finally came to the conclusion we see in The Bible which is the acceptance that man is just inherently evil and he might as well stick to destroying them all and then promising not to flood them again even though they're going to be sneaky and evil. But man only noticed the last revision and that's what we see in The Bible, written by men.

You know, defending God would be easier if religion didn't make him all-powerful. God would be more believable if he had the excuse of a Kryptonite Allergy or something. Then when someone says, 'Why did God do that to us?', you could say, 'You know, he was probably exposed to some Kryptonite at that moment. I'm sure if he wasn't busy puffing up and trying to breathe, he'd have saved your child.' And then when atheists say, 'Well, if Kryptonite can kill him, why did he make Kryptonite?', Christians could say, 'How was God supposed to know he was allergic to Kryptonite if it never existed before he made it?' And then the atheist would say, 'I thought God knew everything?' And then, if you hadn't made your God so all-powerful, you could say, 'God only knows things through his own experience. Just like a scientist!' And then the atheist would leave you alone and go off to rape a puppy.
The Winner: SCIENCE!
The whole Christian definition of God is somebody that explains the unexplainable and can do whatever he wants. This is why Christians hate science. Because God is basically the answer to the question you finally come to that you cannot answer. And science keeps figuring out answers to the questions that were always explained by God. If all the questions can be answered by universal laws, God will no longer be needed. The Christians will continue to cling to the question, 'But who set up the Universal Laws? Oh, must be God!' But believe me, Science will get to that question too! So Science wins because if you're willing to see how accepting God as the answer to 'Why does the bread come out brown after sitting in the toaster for a minute?' is silly, then you're willing to see how God as the answer to any question is ridiculous.

 

 

HISTORICAL FACTS

Man-at-Arms, He-man's captain of the guard, was modeled after Phichol, right down to the horrible mustache.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey broke the time travel rules established in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. In the first movie, George Carlin warns them that the clock in present day San Dimas is always ticking. So even though they could travel through time, they still only had 24 hours or so to gather up all of their historical figures. But in the second one, when they realize that they can't play guitar for their concert, they use the time machine to learn guitar, returning to stage instantaneously with really long beards and babies. But according to the rules already established in the first movie, they would have missed the concert while learning to play guitar.

One time, this local newscaster called a drug 'a panacea for everything.'

Superman will eventually die from exposure to green kryptonite after a number of hours through some ridiculously contrived theory about electromagnetic radiation from the sun and the radiation from the kryptonite interfering with Superman's plant-like ability to suck energy out of sunshine which makes his cells explode or something. But kryptonite makes Bizarro stronger!

The idea of a bunch of servants stealing Abraham's well is the hardest thing to believe in The Bible.

 

ESSAY ASSIGNMENT.
Choose one.

A. Explain the linear discrepancies of The Bible. Why are they there? What purpose could they serve if The Bible is told exactly how it is supposed to be told? Doesn't it just seem like a bunch of different editors trying to marry a bunch of different texts into one text they could all, sort of, agree on?
B. It would appear the word 'beer' means 'well'. Is there a reason why this is? Is it a coincidence? Did God mean for it to have meaning?
C. If you could Time Travel back in time, what is the one thing you would change and why? How did the event originally transpire and how would you make it better?

 

DRAWING TIME!

Draw a comic strip depicting Abimelech's servants violently stealing Abraham's well.

 

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

If somebody mentions something you've done that doesn't exactly portray you in the best light, be sure to accuse them of something horrible also, even if you can't think on your feet very well and you come up with some dumb story like a bunch of guys stealing your basement.