An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Genesis 44

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 44

A Silver Cup in a Sack

¹ Now Joseph gave these instructions to the steward of his house: "Fill the men's sacks with as much food as they can carry, and put each man's silver in the mouth of his sack. ² Then put my cup, the silver one, in the mouth of the youngest one's sack, along with the silver for his grain." And he did as Joseph said.

Joseph, the world's first pedophile! I'm kidding folks!

³ As morning dawned, the men were sent on their way with their donkeys. ⁴ They had not gone far from the city when Joseph said to his steward, "Go after those men at once, and when you catch up with them, say to them, 'Why have you repaid good with evil? ⁵ Isn't this the cup my master drinks from and also uses for divination? This is a wicked thing you have done.' "

I'm really getting tired of this. How many chapters can we spend on basically the same thing in the same environment with the same character? Why is Joseph playing so many tricks on these guys? Just kill them for what they did to you or forgive them and let them walk. "Isn't this the cup my master drinks from and also uses for divination?": what the fuck?

⁶ When he caught up with them, he repeated these words to them. ⁷ But they said to him, "Why does my lord say such things? Far be it from your servants to do anything like that! ⁸ We even brought back to you from the land of Canaan the silver we found inside the mouths of our sacks. So why would we steal silver or gold from your master's house? ⁹ If any of your servants is found to have it, he will die; and the rest of us will become my lord's slaves."

This is not the only time this will apply in the Bible, but here goes: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.)

¹⁰ "Very well, then," he said, "let it be as you say. Whoever is found to have it will become my slave; the rest of you will be free from blame."

But that's practically the opposite of what they said. They said to kill the one who'd have it and makes slaves of the others, because they're confident that they haven't stole it and so there would be no consequences. He's saying that all of them shall go except the one who stole it, which will be a slave.

¹¹ Each of them quickly lowered his sack to the ground and opened it. ¹² Then the steward proceeded to search, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. ¹³ At this, they tore their clothes. Then they all loaded their donkeys and returned to the city.

So this was all a plan to kidnap Benjamin from Joseph's father. I hope the story gets better, because it just makes Joseph evil by not telling the truth and worrying his old father. (And one has to hope he won't make a real slave out of Benjamin.)

¹⁴ Joseph was still in the house when Judah and his brothers came in, and they threw themselves to the ground before him. ¹⁵ Joseph said to them, "What is this you have done? Don't you know that a man like me can find things out by divination?"

Yeah, you are quite the bullshitter (hey for real I mean, because we know he's not using divination, just cheap tricks. That's why I told you to beware of clairvoyants and the likes in the real world, because what they do will seem as real to you as what Joseph is doing to his brothers in this story.) Anyway, they probably didn't know of your powers and since you did not have your divination cup with you, no they shouldn't have had to worry with that.

¹⁶ "What can we say to my lord?" Judah replied. "What can we say? How can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered your servants' guilt. We are now my lord's slaves—we ourselves and the one who was found to have the cup."

Oh so now they all want to be slaves, not get anyone killed? This deal just keeps changing every other line or so.

¹⁷ But Joseph said, "Far be it from me to do such a thing! Only the man who was found to have the cup will become my slave. The rest of you, go back to your father in peace."

And it's back to only one slave and the others walk free. In real life, Joseph would be the less subtle "police trying to put fake evidence in an innocent's place" I'd have ever seen in my life.

¹⁸ Then Judah went up to him and said: "Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself. ¹⁹ My lord asked his servants, 'Do you have a father or a brother?' ²⁰ And we answered, 'We have an aged father, and there is a young son born to him in his old age. His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother's sons left, and his father loves him.'

Yeah, that's why I'm saying Joseph is evil if he really wants to steal Benjamin from his father.

²¹ "Then you said to your servants, 'Bring him down to me so I can see him for myself.' ²² And we said to my lord, 'The boy cannot leave his father; if he leaves him, his father will die.' ²³ But you told your servants, 'Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.' ²⁴ When we went back to your servant my father, we told him what my lord had said.

OK, no need to recap the whole story though.

²⁵ "Then our father said, 'Go back and buy a little more food.' ²⁶ But we said, 'We cannot go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go. We cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.'

Normally, we would call this piece of dialogue "exposition". The worst part being that we've already seen the facts in real time as they happened before, so this is "exposition" for something that has already been... exposed.

²⁷ "Your servant my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons. ²⁸ One of them went away from me, and I said, "He has surely been torn to pieces." And I have not seen him since. ²⁹ If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave ^[a] in misery.'

Booooriiiing!!

³⁰ "So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy's life, ³¹ sees that the boy isn't there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow. ³² Your servant guaranteed the boy's safety to my father. I said, 'If I do not bring him back to you, I will bear the blame before you, my father, all my life!'

Still better than Reuben's deal to get his children killed.

³³ "Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord's slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. ³⁴ How can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that would come upon my father."

You're just a chicken! Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! Cheeeep! (Now go watch The Room if you have no idea of where this reference came from. I also swear I'm not getting paid by these third parties to promote their shit!)

Footnotes:

a. Genesis 44:29 Hebrew Sheol ; also in verse 31