Culture, Religion

Most Badass Bible Verses

Badass
Humor site Cracked has a hilarious list of the 9 Most Badass Bible Verses. They’re not so much central to my religious life (or the way I understand how we live Torah, for that matter), but I laughed. Here’s #8 (the verse is above):

We’ve all been there. You’re walking along, minding your own business, when a gang of cocky, young bastards start hurling abuse at you. Most of us would just keep walking, or maybe, yell some insults back or flip them the bird. Elisha (commonly regarded as the Luke Skywalker to the Prophet Elijah’s Obi-Wan Kenobi), however, decides to take it one step further. Invoking the name of God, he summons motherfucking bears to come and claw the shit out of them.
Christians are constantly asking for prayer in schools to help get today’s kids in line, but we beg to differ. We need bears in schools. If every teacher had the power to summon a pair of child-maiming grizzly avengers, you can bet that schoolchildren nowadays would be the most well-behaved, polite children, ever. It’s a simple choice: listen to the biology lesson, or get first-hand knowledge of the digestive system of Ursus horribilis.
It should be pointed out that even after his death, Elisha continued to kick ass. II Kings 13:20-21 tells us that when a dead body was thrown into his tomb and touched Elisha’s bones, it sprang back to life. It’s unknown whether Elisha had this power in life, as well as death, but we like to think he did and that he had the habit of killing his victims with bears, resurrecting them, and then promptly re-summoning the bears to kill them, again. He’d just repeat the whole thing over and over until he got bored.

It should also be noted there’s another great Star Wars reference in #5, where Korah gets swallowed by the earth.
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11 thoughts on “Most Badass Bible Verses

  1. I still can’t believe they left out Parshat Pinchas, the only part of the Bible I know of where someone earns favor in G-d’s eyes by sneaking into somebody else’s tent and running through the guy and his Moabite mistress with a spear (in mid sex act, mind you).
    Now THAT’s badass.
    Of course the end of Megilat Esther, where the Jews go around slaughtering 75,000+ allies of Haman is also pretty badass.

  2. How can you overlook Shimon & Levi slaughtering the entire city of Shechem (present day Nablus) because the local prince abducted and raped their sister Dinah? This one is probably the biggest atrocity because they deceive the local Hivites.
    At least the people warn Zimri and Kozbi to stop what they’re doing before Pinchas impales them. King Achashveros issues a royal decree that the Jews can slaugher his subjects in their defence. Elisha calls out a curse so the youths know that he’s pissed. However in this past week’s parasha, Shechem and Chamor try to make up to Yaakov after Dinah is dishonoured and he and his sons appear to go along by setting out terms for living together in peace, and the Hivites accept. They get the Hivites to undergo brit milah which, essentially, incapacitates them. Shimon and Levi then go in armed and kill everyone when they are flat on their backs and incapable of resistance.
    How does Yaakov handle this? His chastisement is rather mild. He criticises them for “disturbing” him and making them a target for revenge by the Hivites’ allies. He never says that what they did was wrong. On his deathbed he has some slightly harsher words but even they are somewhat mild. He basically assumes no responsibility for this act and while he states “arur appam ki az”, “cursed in their anger for it is mighty” there are commentaries that take “arur” (cursed) and render it as “adir” (glorious) by reducing the vav in arur to a yud and adding the reduction to the two reishes to make them into daleds.
    If that is not sanction enough Hashem gives it the OK by putting fear into the Hivites’ allies so they do not attack Yaakov in revenge. Hashem doesn’t simply allow the Jews to kick ass. He allows us to suck the neighbours into getting their asses kicked.
    If this is not disturbing I don’t know what is.

  3. Let’s note that if you look at the Hebrew, these were she-bears:
    åÇéÌÄôÆï àÇçÂøÈéå åÇéÌÄøÀàÅí, åÇéÀ÷ÇìÀìÅí áÌÀùÑÅí éÀäåÈä; åÇúÌÅöÆàðÈä ùÑÀúÌÇéÄí ãÌËáÌÄéí, îÄï-äÇéÌÇòÇø, åÇúÌÀáÇ÷ÌÇòÀðÈä îÅäÆí, àÇøÀáÌÈòÄéí åÌùÑÀðÅé éÀìÈãÄéí

  4. Goon, the emendation of àøåø to àãéø, while may be possible, does not jive with the ancient Hebrew alphabet, or with the context.

  5. That is so great.
    I also always wondered, after reading the passage in Sefer Shmuel, how a lady might feel being bought for 200 foreskins…
    Philistine foreskins, no less!

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