An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 28

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Genesis 28

¹ So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed ^[a] him and commanded him: "Do not marry a Canaanite woman. ² Go at once to Paddan Aram, ^[b] to the house of your mother's father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. ³ May God Almighty ^[c] bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. ⁴ May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien, the land God gave to Abraham." ⁵ Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.

"So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him [...]": where is the complaining, the betrayal, and why is he blessing him once again? "Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother.": once again keeping it in the family with his cousin. People in the Bible are all inbreds! Now I know that he's probably saying that because of what Rebekah told him about the Canaanites, and we know that is a plan to make Jacob go away. Esau should be taking the opportunity to kill him.

⁶ Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, "Do not marry a Canaanite woman," ⁷ and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. ⁸ Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; ⁹ so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.

Where the fuck was Esau? And he already knew that Jacob was blessed, he did not just learn that. And what do you know, Esau marries his cousin too, in addition to the wives he already had, just like the Bible says word for word.

Jacob's Dream at Bethel

¹⁰ Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. ¹¹ When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. ¹² He had a dream in which he saw a stairway ^[d] resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ There above it ^[e] stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. ¹⁵ I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

Except for the stairs leading the angels to heaven (can't they fly? We've even invented better in our natural world these days with escalators.), there's nothing new here. God is once again presenting himself like Jacob had never seen him before while Jacob is sleeping with his head on a rock (now wonder he's having these strange dreams). God is still making the same empty promise he did countless times before now.

¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." ¹⁷ He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, 'Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.'": don't you know God is everywhere? "He was afraid and said, 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.': hey that was a dream dumbass. I mean just look around and you won't find this stairway to heaven. (No copyright infringement intended!)

¹⁸ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel, ^[f] though the city used to be called Luz.

Is this the same Bethel we've already seen before, with Abraham also having a vision of the LORD at that place? Because if it is, how can he rename it the same way it was already named? We never heard of Luz, might be a different place, though the circumstances leave be doubtful.

²⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear ²¹ so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD ^[g] will be my God ²² and ^[h] this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."

Is Jacob just learning that God is on his side? I thought that was pretty clear, even before he was blessed (but that was also a pretty good sign). The LORD has even appeared to him before and when he says that he will be his God officially, I thought there was only one God anyway.

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 28:1 Or greeted
b. Genesis 28:2 That is, Northwest Mesopotamia; also in verses 5, 6 and
c. Genesis 28:3 Hebrew El-Shaddai
d. Genesis 28:12 Or ladder
e. Genesis 28:13 Or There beside him
f. Genesis 28:19 Bethel means house of God.
g. Genesis 28:21 Or Since God ? father's house, the LORD
h. Genesis 28:22 Or house, and the LORD will be my God, 22 then