Super-Abridged Bible: Genesis

Chapters 1-11 (the start of the world)

God creates light, sky, earth, sea, plants, sun, moon, stars, insects, fish, animals, man and woman (who are given charge of the rest of creation) and then rests. YHWH creates the first man in the garden of Eden, tells him he can eat any tree except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day he eats from there he will die. The man names all the animals. YHWH decides to make him a “helper” out of his rib — and the man prefers her company to the animals’ and is quite fond of the arrangement.

The snake talks to the woman and says that YHWH lied: eating from the tree of knowledge will make them like gods. The woman eats and gives to her husband. As a result they realise they’re naked and make clothes. YHWH is pissed at the man who blames his wife. YHWH makes some curses: the man will have to deal with agriculture being hard, the woman with childbearing and patriarchal subjugation, the snake with having no legs. YHWH banishes them from the garden, so that they wouldn’t also eat from the tree of life which will give them eternal life as well.

They give birth to Cain (who becomes a farmer) and Abel (who becomes a shepherd). YHWH prefers Abel’s meat offering to Cain’s grain sacrifices. Cain is jealous, YHWH tells him to watch himself. Still, Cain kills Abel and YHWH curses him with wandering for the rest of his life. Cain gives a special mark so that nobody will kill him. Adam and Cain both have children. Their genealogy is related ad tedium and people start to populate the earth. Some divine beings/giants cohabit with the human females. Yep. Also YHWH limits human lifespan to 120 years.

People start to become evil. YHWH regrets making them and decides to kill them all (plus animals) except Noah. He warns him and tells him to make an ark and take one breeding pair of each species (seven of the “clean” animals). It rains for 40 days and the water level gets 15 cubits taller than the tallest mountain. They float for 150 days, waters recede, the ark rests on a mountain.

Noah sends out a dove 3 times to check for land. On the 3rd go, it doesn’t return so Noah knows they can disembark. He sacrifices to YHWH who promises not to kill everyone again since NOW he knows people are just naturally evil and can’t help themselves. Noah plants the first vineyard and gets drunk. His son Ham sees him nakedness and makes fun of him. Noah’s other two sons respectfully cover him up. Noah curses Ham and his descendants to be enslaved by the descendants of the other two, thereby providing a creation myth for the institution of slavery.

More genealogies: people breed like rabbits. All the world still speaks the same language. They work as a team, invent bricks and build a city with a tower reaching high into the sky. YHWH is worried that if humanity remains united they can achieve whatever they want including toppling him. To protect himself, he muddles their languages and destroys the first world-scale civilisation. Tribalism begins.

Chapters 12-24 (Abraham and Isaac)

YHWH tells Abram to leave his father’s land and go to a new land (Canaan), in order to found YHWH’s chosen nation. He goes with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot. There’s a famine so they go to Egypt where Abram asks Sarai to pass off as his sister. Pharaoh, thinking she’s single, starts coming on to her. YHWH decides to improve the situation by sending him a plague. When Pharaoh finds out, he kicks Abram, Sarai and Lot out. They go back to Israel and Abram separates from Lot, their flocks becoming too big. However Lot gets kidnapped by local warlords and Abram goes on a rescue mission.

YHWH promises Abram as many children as the stars, though Abram is almost 100. Abram believes YHWH and YHWH counts this to Abram’s merit. YHWH prophecies that Abram’s children will be in exile for 400 years in a strange land (ie. Egypt) and will then be brought back to “take” Canaan from the nations living there.

Sarai “offers” her maid Hagar for Abram to get pregnant but then gets jealous and mistreats Hagar until she runs away. An angel tells Hagar to come back, that she’ll have a son Ishmael who will also found a great nation. So she does.

God makes a covenant with Abram, calling him Abraham (and Sarai Sarah) and getting him to circumcise himself at age 99 and Ishmael at age 13. He demands all males of the tribe get circumcised at 8 days old or they’re cut off from the people. YHWH promises Abraham children but by now he’s more skeptical.

Three angels come to Abraham. He takes them to be 3 men and receives them hospitably. They say the couple will conceive but now Sarah laughs and Abraham is indignant at her smirking. The angels leave to go to Sodom, their mission being to destroy it and the whole region for being wicked. YHWH tells this plan to Abraham. Abraham wants YHWH to spare the region for the sake of any righteous people that might be there. They negotiate and Abraham bargains YHWH down: if Sodom has 10 righteous people, YHWH won’t destroy it.

The angels come to Lot’s house (Lot having settled in Sodom years ago). Lot is hospitable but the inhabitants of Sodom appear at the door and want to rape the angels. Lot, not wanting to break hospitality, offers his virgin daughters instead. The crowd has none of it and attack the house but are struck blind by the angels. The angels tell Lot’s household to leave since YHWH is about to destroy the city: they must flee and not even look back. YHWH rains fire and brimstone and destroys Sodom, Gomorrah and all the cities of the plain. Lot’s wife turns around and turns into a pillar of salt.

Lot is in a cave with his two daughters who now think they’re the last people on earth. Their “plan” is to get their father drunk and get pregnant from him, which they do. Over two consecutive nights: one per night. They give birth to Moab (meaning “from father”) and Ben-ammi (“the son of my people”), the founder of the Moabite and Ammonite nations.

Abraham and Sarah go to king Avimelech to stay. Once again Abraham says Sarah is his sister, once again the king lusts for Sarah and is scared by YHWH. Avimelech is pissed but Abraham says he was afraid he’d be killed if he told the truth as a way of getting his wife. The king gives Abraham lots of cattle, slaves etc and Abraham prays so that YHWH’s plague subsides.

YHWH finally makes Sarah conceive Abraham’s child, Isaac. Sarah wants Abraham to kick Ishmael and Hagar out so they wouldn’t lay claim to Isaac’s inheritance. Abraham doesn’t want to but God says not to worry since Ishmael will start a great nation himself. Ishmael and Hagar almost die in the desert and she cries in despair. God shows them a well and they live.

God puts Abraham to a loyalty test, asking him for the human sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham does the preparation without a flinch, travelling with Isaac to the alotted place. As he’s about to kill Isaac, an angel stops him, telling him he passed with flying colours and his descendants will be great. Sarah dies and Abraham buys a cave for her burial (which will become a kind of family crypt) from a Hittite at an exhorbitant price.

Abraham is old and hasn’t yet found Isaac a wife. He makes his servant swear [on Abraham's circumcised penis!] that he will find one, not from Canaan but from the land of Abraham’s birth — and bring her back. The servant goes there and finds Rebeccah, a girl at the well, who is very helpful getting him and his camels water. He is welcomed to the house of her brother Laban, asks for her hand on behalf of Isaac and takes her.

Chapters 25-36 (Jacob)

Abraham dies. Rebeccah gives birth to twins, YHWH prophecies that each will found a nation and the older will serve the younger. The older (Esau) is red, hairy and becomes a hunter, the younger (Jacob) is refined and stays home. Isaac likes Esau better because of the meat he brings, Rebeccah likes Jacob. One day, Esau comes in hungry and asks Jacob for food. He agrees in exchange for Esau’s birthright, which Esau gives away.

Another famine in the land. It wasn’t enough for Abraham to say “she’s my sister” of his wife Sarah twice, now Isaac does this too — AGAIN to king Avimelech. Again YHWH strikes down Avimelech. Again there is reconciliation and a peace treaty.

Isaac is old and losing his vision. He asks Esau to get him some game so he can give Esau his pre-death blessing. Rebeccah overhears, prepares a dish from goats and gets Jacob to impersonate his brother. Jacob is reluctant but she takes responsibility for it, getting Jacob to wear goat skins on his hands to imitate Esau’s hairiness. Isaac is suspicious, asking to touch his son to check he’s really Esau, but then relents and gives him the blessing. Esau returns and, along with Isaac, realises he’s been had. Isaac has no decent blessing left, leaving Esau in murderous rage. Rebeccah gets Jacob to run away and stay with Laban. This she achieves by telling Isaac she doesn’t want her son marrying a local woman. On the way, Jacob has a vision of a stairway to heaven and YHWH blesses him.

Jacob comes to Laban’s household and works for him. As wages Jacob proposes 7 years for Laban’s daughter Rachel, whom he falls in love with. After the 7 years, on the wedding night Laban sneaks his other daughter Leah (who Jacob finds unattractive) into Jacob’s room. Jacob is furious when he finds out but Laban makes the excuse that it’s not customary to marry the younger daughter first. Jacob does another 7 years and ends up with 2 wives. Because Leah is unloved, YHWH makes her the one to bear children, and not Rachel. As competition, Rachel gives Jacob her slavegirl for procreation, then Leah follows suit. They continue to compete and finally Rachel bears children as well.

Jacob wants to go home, Laban asks for his terms. Jacob proposes that he only take the spotted sheep. However Jacob performs some strange genetic engineering (placing rods in front of the sturdy sheep as they’re mating to make their offspring speckled). This makes the speckled sheep the best of the flock and gives him the upper hand. YHWH tells Jacob to leave as his relations with Laban sour because of this. He flees. Laban chases him for 7 days. YHWH warns him to leave Jacob alone so when Laban catches up he merely shows anger at Jacob leaving so quickly. He also accuses Jacob of stealing his household idols. Jacob doesn’t know that Rachel is in fact guilty of this, so in haste he curses with death “whoever” took the idols. Laban searches the camp but Rachel sits on the idols and refuses to get up saying she has her period. Jacob finally has an outburst about this intrusion (and 14 years of hardship under Laban) and they make up.

Jacob some messengers to Esau ahead of them to placate him, along with lots of possessions. He takes a different route with his family as a precaution. On the way, he wrestles with an angel all night, wins and agrees to let the angel go only if he blesses Jacob. The blessing is that his name is now Israel. He goes on to meet with Esau who kisses him and they cry — Esau seems to accept the gifts and be of good cheer as he ended up being quite successful for himself despite the lost blessing.

Jacob settles near the city of Shechem. The chief (also called Shechem) takes a liking to Jacob’s daughter Dinah, kidnaps and rapes her. He asks his father Hamor to secure a marriage. Hamor pleads with Jacob, asking for any price. Jacob’s sons are very angry and say they can’t let an uncircumcised people marry into their family. If only they would circumcise themselves then they’d be fine. Shechem agrees and has the whole town’s men circumcised. But this was just a ploy: Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi take advantage of this incapacitation, sneak into town (while the inhabitants are crying “my dick, my dick!”) and kill everyone. Jacob is furious because now everyone in the land will hate him. His sons say they did it for Dinah’s honour.

YHWH renews his covenant with Jacob (who makes the whole family get rid of all their idols) and formally renames him Israel and promises good things for his offspring. Rachel dies in childbirth and Jacob’s son Reuben sleeps with Jacob’s concubine. Meanwhile Esau’s clans multiply and are recounted in greatly unnecessary detail. Finally, Isaac dies, even though he gave his pre-death blessing decades ago.

Chapters 37-50 (Joseph and his brothers)

Jacob loves his son Joseph over all the others. This makes Joseph’s brothers hate him, especially since he tells them about his dreams where they are bowing down to him. One day (when Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers’ flocks), they conspire to kill him and tell Jacob a beast devoured him. But Reuben persuades them to spare him and “just” throw him in a pit then sell him as a slave. They saw this as as a way of avoiding killing him since after all, he is their own flesh. They dip his tunic in animal blood and present it to Jacob, who is beside himself with grief.

Jacob’s son Judah moves away and starts a family. His first son Er is disliked (and therefore killed) by YHWH. Judah tells his second son Onan to take Er’s wife Tamar and have a child, thereby performing levirate marriage. But Onan isn’t keen since this child is meant for the continuation of Er’s line, not Onan’s. Onan deals with this by using the withdrawal technique, for which YHWH kills him. [NOTE: This is the only place in the Torah from which any prohibitions of masturbation or other forms of "wasting the seed" are derived.]

Judah tells Tamar to live as a widow: he has a third son but by now figures out YHWH is trigger-happy with his family. However Tamar still wants a son. Years later, she finds out Judah himself’s coming to where she lives. She sits on the road dressed as a prostitute (and disguised). Judah hires her, giving his seal as a pledge until he pays in full. But when he inquires later, nobody knos about a prostitute in the area so he writes the incident off. Tamar becomes pregnant with his son, and when Judah finds out that Tamar “played the harlot”, he orders for her to be burned. Tamar then producs his seal and Judah is embarrassed, saying it was his fault for not giving her to his third son.

Meanwhile, Joseph is bought in Egypt as a servant for Pharaoh’s courtier Potiphar. YHWH blesses Joseph and makes him well-liked. This leads Potiphar’s wife to come on to him. He refuses to sleep with her. She catches him by his clothes but he tears away, leaving some cloth in her hands. She has revenge by accusing him of attempted rape, producing the cloth as evidence.

This lands Joseph in jail. Even there, he’s successful and people come to him for advice. He shares a cell with the Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker, who both displeased their king. They both have prophetic dreams which Joseph interprets: the cupbearer will be released but the baker executed. Joseph asks the cupbearer to remember him when he is released. Jacob’s predictions come true but when the cupbearer is out he indeed forgets him.

Two years later, Pharaoh himself has two prophetic dreams, summons his sorcerers but nobody can interpret it. At this point the cupbearer remembers Joseph. He is brought and interprets the dreams as warning about a 7 year famine that will strike the land after 7 years of plenty. He suggests Pharaoh appoint someone to manage the stockpiling of grain during the plenty so that it can be distributed during the famine. Pharaoh is so impressed he appoints Joseph to this position. He gives him a wife and Joseph has children. When the famine comes, Egypt is the only land to escape it because of Joseph’s foresight.

Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy grain, leaving Benjamin (the youngest) in case something happens to him. They come before Joseph but don’t recognise him. Joseph does, so he decides to test them, accusing them of being spies and asking their background. When they mention that one of their brothers is still in Canaan, Joseph says he needs to see him to verify their story before he sells them grain. He jails them for 3 days and then “relents”, making one of them (Simeon) remain behind while the rest return to Canaan for Benjamin. His brothers decide this is their punishment for mistreating Joseph all those years ago. Joseph has their money slipped back in their sacks which they only discover after they leave, which frightens them even more.

They get back to Jacob but he is now so depressed over losing 2 sons (Joseph and Simeon) that he is reluctant to let Benjamin go. Finally, they eat the grain they brought and Jacob is forced to relent. Judah takes full responsibility for Benjamin’s safety. Jacob also gets them to carry some gifts for Joseph, including double payment (so as to cover the money that was returned to them). They tell Joseph about the money, but he says he received full payment. Joseph releases Simeon and treats them all to a meal, but is overcome with seeing Benjamin and weeps secretly in an adjoining room.

Joseph carries out the final part of his plan, getting his steward to put the money back in their bags once more, plus his personal goblet into Benjamin’s bag. When they leave for Canaan, he has them overtaken, their bags searched and his goblet found. Joseph demands Benjamin is imprisoned. Judah tries to intercede and serve Benjamin’s sentence on his behalf but Joseph says the rest of them should return to their father. Finally, Judah gives an impassioned speech outlining how it would kill Jacob and begging for him to be Joseph’s slave instead of Benjamin being locked up.

Joseph, unable to take it any more, reveals himself. He says not to feel guilty about selling him into slavery in Egypt because it was all just part of YHWH’s plan to have Jacob’s family move to Egypt and be saved from the famine. He asks for all their families to move to the choicest part of Egypt with their flocks. They go back to Jacob, laden with presents. At first Jacob does not believe them but quickly comes around and is determined to see Joseph before he dies. The family of 70 moves to Egypt and Joseph goes out to personally meet his father and present him to Pharaoh.

The famine rages on. The Egyptians run out of money to buy grain; Joseph gets them to pay with livestock. When this runs out he lets them sell their lands too — meaning Joseph turns Egyptians into serfs and acquires all the private lands for Pharaoh. He gives them grain reserves to sow on the condition that they pay Pharaoh 20% of their harvest, for which they are grateful.

Jacob feels he’s at the end of his life and makes Joseph promise he will bury him in Canaan. He then makes a poetic blessing for each of his children (and Joseph’s two children). These are prophesies for what each tribe of Israel will get up to (each of Jacob’s sons is the forefather of one of the 12 tribes of Israel). This includes rebuking Simeon and Levi again for killing everyone in Shechem.

Jacob dies and Joseph gets leave to bury him in Canaan (after he is mourned by all of Egypt and given the traditional Egyptian embalming). After his death, Joseph’s brothers fear Joseph will decide to finally take revenge on them. They send him another message of consolation which he accepts, and an offer to be his slaves which he rejects. Joseph dies and is embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.