Book of Exodus

[realexplodingcat]

Welcome, again, to Irreverent Interpretations of Ancient Literature with Professor ExplodingCat. We will continue our study of the Old Testament not through a lecture, but through a letter from my fan mail. I received a letter from Mrs. Mary O'Brien in which she writes, "My young and precocious daughter, Sally, was recently expelled from her Sunday School class. Sally turned in an essay entitled 'What I Learned From Reading the Bible.' The teacher was not amused with its content, but I was. And I think you will be, too. I find her young, fresh perspective very enlightening. I wish to share her essay with you and your students." Thank you, Mary. I agree.

Hello, my name is Sally O'Brien and I'm going to write about what I learned from reading the Bible. I have been reading the Book of Exodus and I learned what it takes to become an all powerful God! My Mommy always says that I should apply what I learn, so I think I want to apply it toward becoming Supreme Super Queen!!! of My Sunday School Class. Here are my six steps to becoming a Supreme Super Queen!!!

1. Get lots of people to be your people.
God has a lot of people. The people of Israel. They are very very good at having babies, because in the Book of Genesis they learn all about the penis. At the beginning of Exodus, they reproduce like bunnies and the Egyptians freak out and are like, "OMG they're spreading like roaches wtf are we gonna do?"

My friends Michael, Danielle, and Bethany are in my class. They can be my people. Maybe if Michael stands close enough to Danielle, she will have a baby. Then I could have four people. Actually, I will have five if I include Gerald, my pet hamster. I think he has a penis. He can breed like a rat.

2. Torture your people
God led his people to Israel, where I'll bet my left shoe that he knew the Egyptians would freak out and make them slaves. God uses his magic powers to make the Egyptian Pharaoh very heartless and cruel. The Pharaoh won't let God's people go and he treats them very poorly. Later, after God's people leave Egypt, God makes them wander around in the desert without any water or food.

I will bring cookies and give them to Oliver as a reward if he punches my friends while they sit in church. They'll have to be quiet, or they'll get in trouble. Oliver will punch his own Mom if you give him cookies. I'll also tell Oliver to steal my people's snacks and milk during our Sunday brunch. Oliver is big and mean, so my people will be afraid of him. My people will cry every morning before coming to Sunday school. And they can't skip out, because God will smite them.

3. Torture your people's enemies even more
God punishes the Pharaoh and his people by turning their river into blood, sending plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, livestock diseases, boils, storms, locusts, and darkness. Then, he kills all the first born sons in Egypt. The Pharaoh is ready to let God's people go half way through the torture, but God controls his mind and makes him refuse to let them go, just so he can torture him some more and show his people how cool he is.

When my friends are watching, I will torture Oliver. There's an ant hill outside. I'll collect some ants and dump them on his head. I'll make my hamster bite him. I'll fill his shoes with spoiled pudding. A plague of pudding! But he won't hurt me, because I'll give him free cookies. And some gum. But my friends will think I'm cool because I hurt Oliver.

4. Buy stock in unleavened bread.
I'm not sure what stock is, but every time Dad has to go to the hospital Mom says we ought to buy stock in Preparation H. There is a lot of unleavened bread in the Bible, whatever that is. God won't let them eat anything else sometimes. He must have stock in it. I will get stock in pop tarts and force my people to eat nothing but that.

5. Rescue your people from the torture you created.
When Moses parted the Red Sea and led his people to freedom, God drowned the Egyptian army that was following them. He also made it rain bread from the sky when his people were starving and wandering in the desert.

I don't think Oliver will hold still long enough to drown in the font of holy water, but I could hide some naughty pictures that I found in my Dad's closet inside his Bible. He'll freak out when he sees them and then the teacher will see them. He will be kicked out of Sunday School, for sure. Then, I will give my friends cookies and we shall rejoice! Then, we will all go to Oliver's house after church and watch God smite him with a lightening bolt.

6. Create laws to help your people
After God saved his people and proved how awesome he was, his people would do anything he told them to do. He created the 10 commandments so his people would be nice to each other and build a community.

After saving my friends from Oliver, they will love me and do whatever I say. I will have some rules. My friends should have no other friends but me, because I'm the coolest. They can't say dirty words, because my Mom won't let me say them. They should come to my house and leave me candy on my front porch. Nobody should pick their nose while I'm looking at them. They should comb my hair whenever I want. They should be nice to each other. And they should clean Gerald's cage when it gets dirty, because I hate doing it. They should not be adultery, because we're kids and adults are boring. And they will love each other. And they will always call me Supreme Super Queen!!! Yay! I think I'm done.

Comments

From the mouth of babes...

[daq42.livejournal.com]

For some reason, that seems so realistically perceived by a child, I would almost beleive it (if it weren't for the wtf in the first part of it). Though I wonder if kids really do use wtf without knowing what it means.
Heck, I used the word bastard without knowing what it was until I called my dad that. He really didn't like that. But I learned what bastard meant.

Re: From the mouth of babes...

[explodingcat.livejournal.com]

I channeled my inner child. Apparently she's a little girl. :P

I think you answered your own question with your "bastard" story. I had thought about that "wtf" when I was editing this. I figured this kid, being a modern child, gets a lot of exposure to the internet. Kids do use spoken words all the time for which they don't know the meaning, but have a general idea of how to put them in context. Enough so that they use them properly and get in trouble. So, I took a leap and guessed that perhaps children might actually do this in text, too. Especially if they grew up communicating via instant message. It's an interesting question.

[javafiend.livejournal.com]

That read like something I probably would have written had I been subjected to Sunday brainwashing school.

[explodingcat.livejournal.com]

I bet they would have recognized your capacity for critical thinking and refused to let you write. One big flaw in my piece is that Sunday school probably wouldn't allow students to write such an open ended essay. I don't remember having the opportunity to do in my years of Catholic classes. And Krasota was routinely kicked out of Sunday school for asking questions.

[javafiend.livejournal.com]

My guess is that Sunday school is routinely staffed by volunteers that don't have any actual scholarly training, which I feel is disgusting. A teacher with a mature view of theological issues is less likely to misinform, and better able to not let children get the better of them. Enough smart people have studied Christianity over the centuries to give better arguments than "you just sort of have to believe me, because there's a cross on the roof of this building."

[seeliespright.livejournal.com]

"you just sort of have to belive me because there's a cross on the roof of this building"

bahahahahah! Ah, good times.

[hallwayjulie.livejournal.com]

I wish there were Sunday schools that allowed this kind of creativity!

You are really fantastic at this.

[explodingcat.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I really do wish free-thinking and religion could meet more often. Sure, some awkward things might be discovered. But I bet there's also great potential for finding new enlightening discoveries, even within the bounds of one's faith.

Priceless

[kugelblitz.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a children's book I was told to read to my nephew's about David and Goliath. For some reason there is a duck in most of the illustrations. This quickly became the Holy Duck of Antioch, which got me in trouble the next time they were in Sunday School. My son still gets the edited version though.

Re: Priceless

[explodingcat.livejournal.com]

Holy Duck of Antioch. That's great! I'd love to see that book.

[seeliespright.livejournal.com]

You are awesome! :D

Your Bible interpretations are always amusng and a ray of sunlight in the Christian thunderclouds lurking about me. :oP

[explodingcat.livejournal.com]

Christian thunderclouds! I like that. Keep an eye out for Baptists tornadoes.

[javafiend.livejournal.com]

Not to mention plagues of Pentacostals...

[explodingcat.livejournal.com]

If only the Lord had started with a plague of Pentacostals, Exodus would have been over really fast.

[ismene.livejournal.com]

I think they're headed your way. The storms have been moving east the past few days...