Badass Bible Stories (or Why You Should Stay Awake In Church)

You might all think that the Bible is flowery text that would be interesting to read if you were devoted to God or a Classical Literature major, but it can actually get way more kickass than that. Note that none of this is an attempt to either preach or mock the Bible, but rather just to entertain you. Of course, evangelizing could be easier if we just told non-Christians to read the passages in this post, but I've never tried it.

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But first, some background information:

-Many see the Bible as divine inspiration from God himself

-Others see the Bible as inspiration for Norwegian black metal band names

-The four Gospel accounts vary, probably because they were written by four different people for varying audiences. Unfortunately, other Gospels and books of the Bible, such as the one written for gamers, either never existed or were cut out of the Bible.

(picture went here before, but now it's gone because of glitchy blogger)

Gospel According to Bungie

-The Bible is a compilation of books and texts that were written by various authors across many years (how they were compiled depends on whether you're Dan Brown).

-Most scholars that the various books of the Bible were compiled from the separate texts that were floating around between 1200 BC and 100 AD.

-Other people believe most parts of the Bible were written in the 1950s.

(again, a picture went here before but now it's gone)

Sweet Jesus, and that's one of the better ones.

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Anyways, now that you're filled in, here's the part I glossed over: If the Bible were written by a divinely inspired Batman wrapped in X-Men on the backs of every spartan you see in 300, it would still look pretty much the same as it is today, because as it turns out, it's already stuffed to the brim with ass-kicking. Now read this post and rush out there and put some unbelievers to the sword.

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Ehud (Auditore da Firenze Altair blah blah blah) the Assassin.

History repeats itself, sometimes in very awesome ways. Our hero Ehud managed to pull off this stunt a good several thousands years before either Altair or Ezio did in the two Assassin's Creed games. Only instead of strapping hidden blades to his wrist, he strapped an eighteen inch long sword to his thigh:

Judges 3:16-23 "Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. He presented the tribute to Eglon kind of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, "I have a secret message for you, O king." The king said "Quiet!" And all his attendants left him. Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, "I have a message from God for you." As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them." -Judges 3:16-23

So Ehud bypasses tight security and starts acting like Bruce Willis, even busting out the one-liner "I have a message from God for you." Then he whips out his blade and shanked the evil king Eglon right in the belly. Really, the only way this could be any more badass is if Ehud threw in something like "Wow, I guess being a ruler takes guts" right after the kill. The Bible doesn't say if he goes flying over the rooftops like the bastard son of Batman and Altair from AsCreed, so I'm forced to assume "Yes."

Although, I have to wonder why none of the guards who frisked him wondered why there was eighteen inches of cold, hard steel between his thighs. I guess he told them he was Egyptian or something.

Egyptians and their Endowment (sexually explicit section of post, just saying)

Ezekiel 23:19-20 "Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in

Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." -Ezekiel 23:19-20

You might think the Bible shies away from sex, but it really doesn't. The Bible isn't too uptight about the subject, even containing the Song of Songs, which holds such gems as "She is a wall and her breasts are like towers". In Ezekiel 23:19-20, there's a full verse dedicated to telling us that Egyptians are hung like farm animals and emits quantities of (self-kensorship) that coincide perfectly with the annual flooding of the Nile. And Egyptians are the BAD GUYS of this tale of the Old Testament, which means their reputation w

as well earned if all their enemies could say to the prostitute of this passage was "Go! Go on! Run back to those big-[kensor]ed bastards! I hope you're happy with their enormous dongs.

The Egyptians didn't run from this reputation either. If anything, they endorsed it. Here's a picture of Min, Egyptian God of Dong-Having:

(Photo of penises kensored. I mean, seriously Jason?? Do I need to censor every post from you by now?)

In fact, the Egyptians invented the obelisk:

To advertise this fact. Their message to their enemies went something like "Gaze upon our dick-towers and despair!"

Moses

In a part of the Bible you know from the Ten Commandments, Moses and his brother Aaron freed the Hebrew slaves. What you may not know from the Ten Commandments is that they achieved this in a totally awesome way. Need proof?

Exodus 2:11-12 "One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand." -Exodus 2:11-12

Moses was a great leader and emancipator, but he was also the Biblical version of Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher. Martin Luther King had a dream, but Moses had a body count. Picture this scene: An Egyptian is beating a slave, when Moses drops down from the ceiling and kills a man with his bare hands. He then wraps things up by pulling out a cigar and lighting it, casually quipping "Looks like you bit off a little more than you could Jew."

Moses and Aaron were also given a magical staff from God, which did a variety of cool things like

Exodus 7:10-12- "Then Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of the Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian

magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs." Exodus 7:10-12

So their staff turns into a snake. Then, the Egyptian magicians copy this trick, only their snakes are slightly less hungry. Although, through my experiences with Egyptian magic, they were either card game monsters summoned through tablets imbued with magic from the Shadow Realm and called to Earth by ancient Egyptian Life

Points, or those cheap plastic snakes with wire snaking through them to make them look like they can move.

Probably the latter. In any case, they later use their staff to turn rivers to blood, spread disease throughout the land, call forth swarms of locusts, and turn a rock in the middle of a desert into a waterfall for a couple of hours. It's like God gave them the wildcard of a terrifying game of superpower poker.

And remember how earlier I said Egyptians were renowned for having enormous dang-a-langs? Well now you do, and you're forced to imagine the Egyptian turkey-slapping the slave. Which really makes Moses' actions all the more justified.

Elijah and Elisha, Miracle-Making Tag Team

Elijah and Elisha were basically two prophets that roamed the earth smiting heathens, setting water on fire, summoning bears, and raising the dead. To get a scope on how badass they were, flip to 2 Kings 2:11-12:

"As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, "My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart. He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. "Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over." 2 Kings 2:11-12

So basically, God decided that waiting potentially thousands of years (Elijah lived for a REALLY long time) for Elijah to die and go to Heaven so the Lord could go clubbing with him or whatever was way too long, so He decided to simply pluck up Elijah and take him to the Pearly Gates while the prophet was still alive. And because he likes to make these rare public appearances count for something, he staged the entire thing on his giant flaming pimpmobile chariot. Then, Elisha, realizing that his name could no longer be confused with his dad's and reached his full potential. Doing what was such a big deal for Moses and his magic staff to do, he picked up a bit of dirty laundry and split a body of water in half and journeyed off. Now what can he possibly do to top something so badass? Well, skip a few verses forward to 2

Kings 2:23-24 and find out:

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths."

We've all been there before. We're just minding our own business when some group of jackasses start hurling insults at you. Most of us would make a witty comeback, ignore them, or flip them the bird, but Elisha takes things one step further and summons bears to eat them. Forty-two of them. Some people are constantly asking for prayer in schools to get us youth in line, but I beg to differ. We need bears in schools. It's a simple choice, learn the digestive system from your textbook or learn it from the inside of a mother[kensored] bear.

And speaking of school, Elijah (the flaming chariot one) pretty much rocks the Speech and Debate stage.

1 Kings 18:24, 33-35, 38-40 " Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God." Then all the people said, "What you say is good."... "He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood." "Do it again," he said, and they did it again. "Do it a third time," he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench... Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The LORD -he is God! The LORD -he is God!" Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don't let anyone get away!" They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there." 1 Kings 18:24, 33-35, 38-40

THIS is how they should do religious debates. Here's the story: the people of Israel had taken to Baal worship, which was essentially idol worship except with a bunch of whores added to the ritual. In other words, an immediate success. Elijah (not the bear one) decided it was time for people to choose between Baal and God. Rather than write a series of books or give a bunch of boring speeches, Elijah invited 450 Baal prophets to a contest, where both sides would set up an animal sacrifice. Whichever God could rain down fire on its sacrifice would be the one everybody worshiped. This makes perfect sense, since no matter how much you debate about the validity of your God, at the end of the day you have to worship the God valid enough to set your ass on fire. When all 450 of the Baal prophets called on Baal to set the altar on fire, nothing happened. Elijah sat back and mocked them, goading them into doing it a few more times. Again, nothing happened. Finally, Elijah pours about four gallons of water onto his altar and prays to God. Fire rains down and smited a good bit of the prophets as well as the sacrifice, the altar, the soil, the rocks, and the frickin' water. Again, I'm forced to interpret the Bible and fill in the blanks that it doesn't cover. I'm going to assume Elijah straightened up and dusted off his robes, and then smoothly stated "Thus, my opponent's argument fails." He then ended the debate like all debates should be ended, by rounding up the losers and slaughtering them. Now, Elijah might seem like a pretty damn good debater, probably better than Austin in some respects (see also: all of them), but the Baal prophets got off pretty easy compared to what usually happens when God himself takes the stand.

Back to Moses, God defeats hundreds of rebels in glorious rebuttal

Numbers 16:23-24, 31-33 "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to the assembly, "Move away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiran'"... As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community." Numbers 16:23-24, 31-33

The above happened years after Moses killed the Egyptian guy and led a country's worth of Hebrews into the desert where they wandered aimlessly for several decades (as seen in The Ten Commandments). At some point, a troublemaker named Korah and 250 supporters banded together and aired a series of complaints about the fact that they were wandering aimlessly in the desert. Being a prodigious debater, God listened carefully to their complaints, weighed each point carefully, and then made the earth eat the alive. This really puts things into perspective for anti-religion critics today. They constantly attack Christians about their faith, and then bitch in the nastiest ways when Christians retaliate, saying there's no REAL proof that the Black Pearl God exists. Well, the alternative to Christians standing up for their faith is God feeding you to the Mighty Sarlacc (look it up, pictures aren't working right now) instead.

Samson and his Lion-Crushing, Phillistine Killing Strength

If I wanted to, I could have easily let Samson dominate a good half of this list, who had the ability to call upon the strength of the Lord and invoke a hurricane of ass-kicking. The other half would, of course, be occupied by Elijah and Elisha. Why is this, you ask? Well have a look at Judges 14: 5-6

"...suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him in power so that he tore apart the lion with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father or his mother what he had done." Judges 14: 5-6

So essentially, Samson at the young and tender age distracted his mom and dad with the classic "Hey look over there and not at this gushing fountain of lion gore flying all over the place" trick and killed a lion. Note that the author says "as he would've torn apart a young goat", which really says something about Samson without his super strength, namely that holy [kensored] he supposedly tears apart young goats easily. After this, the legacy of Samson truly began.

Judges 15:15 "Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men." Judges 15:15

Samson's whole story involves his feud with the Philistines, people who embraced the long celebrated tradition of hating Jews and declared war on them. Or rather, declared war on Samson. And the Philistines lost. On this particular day, the Philistines had burned Samson's wife to death, and sent some men to capture him. Specifically, they sent 3,000 men. So, at that point, Samson either had the reputation as a world-class badass, or the Philistine army was the equivalent of those [kensored]ty battle droids from the Star Wars prequels that could only kill an enemy soldier by crushing him under a pile of their own corpses.

Either way, they didn't send enough. Samson tore apart the skull of a nearby dead donkey and grabbed a jawbone and killed a thousand men. A thousand. Now what underlines the badass-ocity of this tale? The fact that the Philistines kept charging, namely the ones who, after watching 700 or so of their comrades die, had to clamber over hills made of their murdered buddies just to get at Samson. If this seems improbable to you, then you can claim a mistranslation. For example, some translations of the Bible say only 20 men died. However, I don't think it's a numbers issue. I think most modern-day scholars simply mixed up the word for donkey jawbone with the word for Tyrannosaurus Rex jawbone.

Or maybe they mistranslated the Hebrew word for jawbone with the word for minigun.

Runners up for this spot on the list included Josheb-Basshebeth, who according to 2 Samuel 23:8, "... raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter." Obviously he lost points for killing fewer men and for using an actual weapon to do it, which almost seems like cheating at this point.

There was also Anath in Judges 3:31, who "struck down six hundred philistines with an oxgoad." An oxgoad is a sharp stick you used to poke oxen. That started the Israeli tradition of killing large numbers of their enemies with farmyard tools, which continued through Samson and onto modern times, where the Six Day War of 1967 was won by a crippled Israeli peasant wielding a watering can.

The only downside to Samson was that his strength was tied directly to his long hair, that is, when his hair got cut off so did his power connection with the Lord. In Samson's case, he revealed his secret to his bitchy girlfriend Delilah, who nagged him until he revealed this fact to her. Delilah then proceeded to shave his head and then hand him over to his enemies, so I guess you could say he has two weaknesses, short hair and boobs.

To be fair, though, he then tore down the pillars of the stone building he was being held in and killed himself along with all his captors in a glorious symphony of broken building. No doubt, Samson was remembered by the Philistines as the worst thing that ever happened to them.

Until King David came along...

1 Samuel 18:25-27 features Saul telling David that, in order to marry his daughter, had to go bring King Saul the foreskins of 100 Philistines. If you're wondering, foreskins are, unfortunately for the Philistines, not the skin of your forehead, but the skin of your, well, Trouser Titan. David agrees to this and, just for the hell of it, brings back 200 foreskins. This raises alot of weirdass questions, such as

"Why did Saul want 100 foreskins? Was he making a sweater?"

"Did David think at all that this was kind of weird?"

"If this was secretly a plan to have David killed, why not tell him to bring back 500 bear foreskins instead?"

"Did David just wander into Philistia and kill the first 200 men he saw? Did they think it was odd at all? Or, with all the other [kensored] that went down before, did they just shrug it off?

Since I have no desire at all to touch this topic, I'll never know the answer. The point is, David went way further to win the heart of Michal than any of us would ever have gone. Way, way, way, way, WAY further.

Ladies, when a man finally proposes to you, ask him one simple question: "How many dongs would you mutilate for me?" If you demand a hundred and he doesn't blink, he's a keeper. But, if he's David, who was sent after a hundred and then came back with twice that many just for the hell of it, well, you've got a love for the ages.