Now we know why cattle hate Rome.

If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the Lord a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed .... He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it there before the Lord. Leviticus 4: 3-4

So let's just say, hypothetically, that an "anointed priest" molests a young boy (ridiculous, of course); that means that a bull needs to be slaughtered? That's not fair! Oh wait, in the Bible molesting children is probably not even much of a sin. The Bible triumphs again. Whew.

The REAL Ten Commandments—Abbreviated for Alabama courthouses to display.

1: Worship no other Gods; I'm jealous.
2: Make no treaties.
3: Make no idols.
4: Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
5: The first offspring of every womb belongs to me.
6: Redeem the firstborn donkey.
7: Honor the sabbath.
8: Celebrate the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Ingathering
9: No blood sacrifices with yeast; no leftovers.
10: Bring the best firstfruits to God; don't cook a goat in its mother's milk.

Exodus 34: 14-26 abbreviated for use in public displays.

Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments. Exodus 34:28

The REAL Ten Commandments

1: Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Exodus 34:14

2: Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same. Exodus 34: 15-16

3: Do not make any idols. Exodus 34:17

4: Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Exodus 34:18

5: The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. Exodus 34:19

6: Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Exodus 34:20

7: Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest. Exodus 34:21

8: Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord, the God of Israel. I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the Lord your God. Exodus 34: 22-24

9: Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Festival remain until morning. Exodus 34:25

10: Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. Exodus 34:26

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments. Exodus 34: 27:28

Let's see these, the real Ten Commandments, displayed in our courthouses! And don't disobey number seven...

These are the things the Lord has commanded you to do: For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death. Exodus 35:1-2

I also have a little self-esteem problem.

Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Exodus 34:14

God seems to be a 16-year-old girl.

Say what?

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation." Exodus 34: 6-7

Um, are you hearing yourself, God? You just had us kill 3000 of our brothers, friends, and neighbors. Frankly God, you're coming across as a little bipolar. And how exactly does punishing future generations for their predecessors sins make you "abouding in love?" If I wasn't so afraid of you, I just might stop taking your calls.

Kill your brother for God. It's an order!

Then he said to them, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.'" Exodus 32:27

God seems to have been a great role model for some of our most successful totalitarian dictators.

Oh by the way: The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Exodus 32:28

Antique Roadshow would have loved these.

When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain. Exodus 32:19

Had Moses had some self-control, those tablets would be worth a fortune today.

God has a hissy fit.

"I have seen these people," the Lord said to Moses, "and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation." Exodus 32: 9-10


God, take a deep breath. You created the mountains, the seas, billions of complex creatures, trillions of stars, galaxies, black holes, supernovae, globular clusters, and many more cool sounding things in the cosmos; don't let those stiff-necked people get you so mad. You're GOD, for Christ sake. You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people like you!


(Luckily, Moses, as mere human, talked some sense into the divine, perfect, being in the next paragraph.)

Let the punishment fit the crime, again.

"Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people." Exodus 31:14 "...Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day is to be put to death." Exodus 31:15

God also wanted people to be put to death for littering and for chewing on the left side of their mouths but he completely forgot to tell Moses.

God moonlights as a Mafia boss.

Then the Lord said to Moses, "When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. Exodus 30:11-12

Sure he created billions of galaxies, each populated with billions of stars and billions of planets; but what God really wants is a kickback from a group of nomadic Bedouins. And thus, the world's first case of a protection money shakedown.

God LOVES the smell of good BBQ.

"Then take all the fat on the internal organs, the long lobe of the liver, and both kidneys with the fat on them, and burn them on the altar. But burn the bull's flesh and its hide and its intestines outside the camp. It is a sin offering." Exodus 29:13-14

Internal organs, good. Flesh and hide, bad. Obviously. Any paranoid deity knows such things.

And watch out for that damn Indiana Jones!

Have them make an ark of acacia wood—two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry it. The poles are to remain in the rings of this ark; they are not to be removed. Then put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law, which I will give you. Exodus 25: 10-16

The ark of the covenant was fierce and fabulous. The box that God designed to house his rulebook was the envy of all the other gods.

Sounds familiar.

Then Moses entered the cloud as he went on up the mountain. And he stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. Exodus 24:18

This is absolutely not a book cloaked in superstition and fable.

How about some of those lovely islands in the South Pacific, instead?

"I will establish your borders from the Red Seat to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River." Exodus 23:31

Based on the border's that God laid out, Israel should be quite a bit larger. Biblical scholars are befuddled about the divine creator of the universe's inability to block off a this relatively tiny plot of dirt for His chosen people.

GOD IS LOVE!

"My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out." Exodus 23:23

Just so everyone knows, this God is also the Jesus god. They are one and the same.

Mommy goats have feelings, too.

"Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk." Exodus 23:19

This is the verse that led so many candidates to run on "family values" in the US.

Do not offer the fur of a Yak along with anything containing cinnamon.

Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. Exodus 23:18

God seems to have the rationality of Frank Costanza.

Kick your feet up Mr. Slave, it's Saturday!

"Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed." Exodus 23:12

Another way to refresh a slave is to not HAVE slaves because your morality is better than God's morality and you realize that slavery is not very nice and you know damn well that you wouldn't want to be a slave because being a slave blows.

It was a lonely night in the desert...

"Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal is to be put to death." Exodus 22:19

Or at the very least, mocked relentlessly on the internet.

I am not a witch. I'm you.

"Do not allow a sorceress to live." Exodus 22:18

Perhaps God should have just told people that witches are make-believe.