An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Exodus 2

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

Exodus 2

The Birth of Moses

¹ Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, ² and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. ³ But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

"Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.": ah yes, Levi, one of the violent brothers who killed people for the rape of his sister. So I guess by now he was scattered in Jacob and dispersed in Israel like his father said, whatever that means. And of course men are still fucking within their own tribe. That might look normal as much as say a German-born man fucks with a German-born woman, but the tribe of Levi can't be all that big yet, so that means they must still be closely related (must be some kind of cousin or something like that. If the Bible were to be true, how many retards would there have been?) "When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.": of course, if he happened to be an ugly piece of shit, she would have let him go long before that.

⁵ Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. ⁶ She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.

Uh oh! Something bad is going to happen; after all Pharaoh himself ordered the death of all male babies.

⁷ Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?"

Why would she assume that the Pharaoh's daughter be compassionate about a male boy? It seems very unlikely.

⁸ "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. ⁹ Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, ^[a] saying, "I drew him out of the water."

Well ain't that the most contrived piece of shit ever written? It did make for a very good movie though, one of my favorites in fact even if I'm an atheist. I'm speaking of course about The Ten Commandments, the 1956 Charlton Heston version. Now, I picked this information from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible and then I checked elsewhere to see if the facts held up and they did, so here goes: there was a man known as Sargon of Akkad, for he was an Akkadian emperor, whose birth account is closely related to that of Moses and would even seem to predate it, leading us to believe that the Moses story was likely inspired by that (scholars also compare the obscure birth account of Sargon to many mythological figures). If you've seen bullshit documentaries the likes of Zeitgeist, they mention that previous gods had stories that the Bible mimicked (making the Bible possibly and probably false), but that's mostly untrue if you check valid sources. This story about Sargon though does seem to hold up. Now I'm speaking to fellow atheists here, don't use this as proof that the Bible is false. It's interesting to know for sure, but it's not a great or even good argument and it's not a proof for the inexistence of God by any means. There are far better arguments to be found against the existence of the God of the Bible than this. Just remember, you won't find any definitive proof that God doesn't exist, even if science definitely found many natural answers to lots of our questions (making the existence of gods very improbable, especially those extensively described as in this book). You're still better off than believers, because you're not claiming anything, you're just saying: "I don't have any knowledge of a god so far, so I'm skeptical and don't believe in any. If you have any good information, give it to me and I'll see if it holds up. If it does, I'll become a believer knowing that God or gods exist." They might give you the traditional easily countered bullshit, but I'd be surprised if they'd give you anything compelling since they do not even have a tiny single valid proof whatsoever (a story book with many contradictions is as far from a proof as you can get).

Moses Flees to Midian

¹¹ 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. ¹² Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?"

Hey Moses, whatever happened to killing being a bad thing deserving godly punition? Of course, I guess God doesn't mind when it's not his people that are killed. (Is God protecting only the Jews?) Worst of all, Moses knows he's doing a bad thing, because he looks around to see if anyone is seeing him. (OK, I guess that's natural, because he would probably be killed by the Egyptians themselves is he was seen.)

¹⁴ The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known."

Moses, you're about as subtle as an obese man walking in plain daylight on a creaking floor. But Moses, you have nothing to fear, for God is on your side (or is he?), if he isn't on your side, there's still the fact that Pharaoh didn't kill you even if he ordered it for every other male baby, so that ought to count.

¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. ¹⁶ Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. ¹⁷ Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

"When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.": oh he did try to kill him, never mind. But am I the only one who wants more here? You can't just say he fled; I want to know how he managed to do this very unlikely thing. "Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock.": lucky seven once again. I hope Moses gets to fuck them all, lucky bastard!

¹⁸ When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?"

So they got home early even though they encountered an obstacle on their way?

¹⁹ They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock."

Yeah I know he rescued you, but that still takes more time than if nothing happened and you watered the flock yourselves with no problem on the way.

²⁰ "And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat."

"Invite him to have something to eat.": like one of his daughter I guess, figuratively speaking?

²¹ Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. ²² Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, ^[b] saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

Only one out of seven? What kind of deal is that?

²³ During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. ²⁵ So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

Yeah that's probably what happened to let the Israelites suffer. God just forgot during that long period and he just now remember his covenant. I mean, he has shown advanced signs of Alzheimer's disease before.

Footnotes:

a. Exodus 2:10 Moses sounds like the Hebrew for draw out .
b. Exodus 2:22 Gershom sounds like the Hebrew for an alien there .