GOD - Chapter 17 (Sadomasochistic)

In chapter 17 of GOD, Barker argues that the god of the Old Testament is Sadomasochistic, a portmanteau that has been said to be non-existent in other sources (such as an infamous article in the Angelaki: Journal Of The Theoretical Humanities). Whether or not Sadomasochism is a real psychological entity (I would argue that it is, being something that YHWH & I have in common, apparently), YHWH seems to not necessarily be masochistic so much as an unreformed sadist. Barker says:

This is what comes up on Google when one searches 'sadomasochism'. Practices like this seem to bear little in resemblance to actual practices of Sadism & Masochism today

"Not content with being merely misogynistic & bloodthirsty, the Lord brags that he's also a rapist:...And if you say in your heart, 'why have these things come upon me!' it is for the greatness of your iniquity that you skirts are lifted up, & you are violated...I will myself lift up your skirts over your face, & your shame will be seen" (Jeremiah 13:15-26) 

Barker maintains that the phraseology of 'lifting skirts up over the face' means rape. Whether or not that is the convention, it must mean some sort of sexual humiliation which YHWH inflicts upon women. It is something that he threatens in more than just one passage:

So that YHWH may lift it up over her head

"The phrase 'skirts are lifted up' is sexual assault...the word 'violate' is rape. If you read the King James Version, which has the quaint idiom 'heels made bare' you might miss the sexual molestation...some English translations have 'skirts torn off' (NIV), 'stripped' (NLT & CEB)...'destroyed' (LB), & 'raped.' (NLT) The Good News Translation has the good news that 'your clothes have been torn off & you have been raped'"

YHWH is a rapist -- either in the sense that he commands rape, or that he acts to do so on a disobedient populace as a punishment for their 'iniquity.' Barker also quotes the god as saying "Go, love a woman who has a lover & is an adulteress, just as the lord loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods & have raisen cakes" (Hosea 1:1)

YHWH also offers this tidbit of 'good news':

"Happy shall they be who take your little ones & dash them against the rock!" (Psalm 137:9)

Lovely. It seems that YHWH is much pleased from violence in general, & likes to inflict rhetorical violence, as well as commanding/instigating physical violence, partly (At least) through leading the Israelites through their alleged sojourn of genocidal eradication in the Holy Land & Palestine.

YHWH seems to reserve a special reservoir of hate & anger against women subjects. This is, I believe, tied-in with the function of 'the judgments of god' as a cypher through which the actual personal, psychological, & cultural imperatives of the Hebrew humans flow into representation. It really has nothing to do with god: Let's be real, these are human prejudices, human desires, human insecurities, & human imperatives for persecution. YHWH's sadomasochism is that of the Hebrews. He is a scared, insecure, authoritarian Hebrew man. That is 'god'. & not mine. That is not my god. I leave you with this 'gem' from the book of Isiah:

"The Lord said: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty & walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet; the Lord will afflict with scabs the heads of their daughters of Zion, & the lord will lay bare their secret parts" (Isaiah 3:16-17)

You can practically taste the hatred for women.

There is special reservations of condemnation for women, especially those which have any degree of power

My Dog Fred

Fred entered my life when I was a freshman in High School, around October of 2005 I believe. He was a beautiful Boston Terrier, with an adorable round head, and a very delicate manner about him. He quickly absorbed the neuroticism of his new family, & by the time of his death, was a very nervous, particular, loud, & pretty much obnoxious dog. He would bark constantly to go outside, & we would give him treats when he went to the bathroom outside. This was how we originally trained him. Fred knew what he was doing, & he knew what he liked, which was treats. In & out he went, all day! If he did not get what he want, he knew what to do! Bark! & all day you would hear him. Not for just reasons of wanting to get a treat, but also responding to other dogs, people walking by the house, or any of his family members coming home.

This is typical-- Fred with his head out the
 window, & Coco in her own world

He was such a delicate little dog. He was mostly a black-brindle mix over his entire body, with a streak through the front down his head, & then also white on his belly and tipping the bottom of each of his feet. He had a walk that was more like a prance, so much different from the clobbing thump of our French Bulldog, Coco-T. She was named after the Reality Star with fake boobs, the wife of rapper Ice-T. I'm still not really sure why this was the namesake my family bestowed upon her.

We often found them in this position.
Coco has lost her friend & companion

                            I talked with my mom & she said that Coco is clearly, visibly sad after his absence. She walks around the house, looking for her friend that had been here her entire life. This must be a severe trauma for her. Even when they were boarded & we went on trips, they would be together. She may be quite dense, but it seems she is realizing he is not coming back. It is such a shame, especially because friends of mine have dogs that are thriving at age 11, age 14. I was going to visit Maryland in just a little over a month to host a birthday party for myself & engage in a whirlwind tour of friends & acquaintances up there. I keep thinking that if he could have held on just a bit longer, I would have been able to spend some time with him. Even more regrettably for me, I did have a few hours where I could have used the Facetime programme on my iphone to see him alive, one last time. Or I could have just called. Instead, I went on living my life. I have recently begun an attempted re-invigoration of my social life here in Jacksonville, but also of my professional life creating podcasts. The night before he died, this past Monday, I went over to a new friends house to review a film. I stayed there quite late, & then came home & started editing the audio. It was then I first started to receive notices that Fred was not doing so well. As of late, he had lost control of his bowels & was starting to contort due to spinal disk issues. I can only imagine the horrific sight of my companion, unable to move from some painful spinal contraction. I could only imagine, as it is not something I have to have seen. I could have facetimed, or at least called & just spoke to him. I didn't because I really thought he could make it. I didn't take it as seriously as I should have, & I regret that. Unless there is some super-natural communion that happens, I will be unable to have said goodbye to him.

Summer 2010 (I believe). When Fred was 4 & I was 19

I can picture him in spirit, moving about the house that he lived in, unable to comprehend that his physical body is gone. Knowing him he would just bark & bark, trying to get his human family or Coco's attention. Coco cannot hear anything of even the physical realm, her gigantic, bat-like ears are for show only. Fred is persistent & obsessive and i'm sure he may never give up, always haunting the house where he grew up & lived.

Fred may have tried to extract any amount of treats from me constantly, but he was always there for me; especially when I was at my worst at that, experiencing the crippling symptoms of what at-the-time was considered Major Depression. I wanted to die, no, I felt like I was in fact dead. Fred & Coco can detect when my emotions are on the extreme low end. He would often come sit in my lap and stay with me. He was such a loud snorer I would hear him through the walls & ceilings. He cowered when thunder & lightning were even getting close to approaching. By the time it actually appeared he would be panting & shivering constantly. He was so scared.

It is so hard for me to conceive of him as dead. I still just can't believe it. I am still in the process of coming to terms with my dog's death. It is just so hard to believe that it is over. The last time I saw him was in early January, towards the end of my holiday visit. I don't remember the details of seeing him-- I probably thought it just another unremarkable visit. I don't remember the details; I didn't think I would have to remember the details. I just didn't know.

Here Fred was 6 & I was 21

Believe it or not, barring celebrities, this is the first major loss I have experienced since the death of my Great-Grandmother Florence in 2006. No matter how beloved my Flossy may be, my dog Fred was a much more immediate presence in my life, & really was a constant companion. Like I said, even though I lived in the basement of the house from late 2014 until October 2015, I always heard him-- barking, or running, or snoring & snorting. I simply cannot seem to really accept that he is dead yet. I still remember what his short, bristly hair feels like. It feels so alive in my memory. I cannot believe that he is dead, that he is being cremated, that at this point all of that beautiful fur is just dust. If I cannot accept the death, I can accept the certitude of that which we will all return: ashes to ashes, & dust to dust. The earth is that which we will all return to. Whatever religious belief you subscribe to, your body will decay & become dust & ashes. We will go back to which we have always came from. & in the certain comforting void of death I can take solace. For whatever reason, in my nihilist mind, after experiencing the ravages of a thousand daily deaths living with depression. I have already felt like I have been dead or a returned member of the once-dead for several years. I may think that I am afraid of death, & my mental illness often fools me into thinking just that. But, in truth, it is the prospect of continued life that fears me. What is hell but a place we can visit on earth? I have been there. My friends have been there. Many humans have lives that truly can fit that description very much here on this earth, & they have been through much more than any fire-&-brimstone two-bit theologian could dream up. There is nothing supernatural about hell- about the Gulag, about brutality, about Christian persecutions, about genocide.

2013, I believe

Fred, I am so sorry that I never got a chance to say goodbye to you. While you were certainly one of the most annoying beings I have ever known, you were a great companion. I know you truly loved me, & Coco, & my family. You were beautiful & we loved you back. I would have loved to come home & pet you & nuzzle you one last time before you were taken away to death. I'm so sorry I couldn't have been there as you exited this life, one that I was so much a part of. I wish I could have been there. I have thought a little bit in these past days of some of what I would say to you-- I would want to tell you how much you have meant to me in my adolescence & that I will always appreciate your companionship. Thank you for several years of gracing me with your presence. I'm sorry I wasn't able to see you go.

I couldn't say it irl, so I will say it now: Goodbye friend

This is the last picture of Fred I took. We are at our grandparent's home. I don't remember this. I never knew I would need to

GOD - Chapter 16 (Megalomaniacal) & Meditations Upon Religious Uses Of God As Instrumental Id Expression

In chapter 16 of GOD, the author puts forward the charge that YHWH is 'megalomaniac'. I mean, we really don't need anything additionally (other than what we already know from the book thusfar) to believe that this is, in fact, the truth. Barker quotes Deuteronomy 28:58-59 (KJV):

"If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious & fearful name, the Lord thy God; Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, & the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, & of long continuance, & sore sickness, & of long continuance" 

According to my Google search, 'megalomania' is 'an obsession with the exercise of power'. Perhaps no previous descriptor reads better as to YHWH's character. Barker uses Pslam 102:15 as a proof-text in this chapter. The Psalm reads:

"The nations will fear the name of the Lord, & all the kings of the earth thy glory." (RSV) Several times in the Old Testament, YHWH speaks of his own glory, usually while demanding obedience from his favoured race.

Ezekiel 39:21 is also given as evidence of this 'obsession with the exercise of power':

"And I will set my glory among the nations; & all the nations shall see my judgement which I have executed, & my hand which I have laid on them" (RSV) 

If the judgement/punishment was or will be evident, then why did it need to be stated at all? If we imagine the Old Testament books as part of YHWH making a sustained case for the wide berth of his power & influence, as well as an apology for the exercise of this power, then perhaps we would conclude that the 'author' of the text was especially insecure about said power. If your might is overwhelming & apparent, if it need not be said, then why even bother? Such evident facts about life do not usually find themselves into religious texts unless they are just the opposite: not apparent at all. To put this into a relevant, Post-Modern context, it is not necessarily self-evident to a non-Christian that wars, natural disasters, & social change (all of which is really 'the usual' for this world) would portend the imminent end of the world. When one is instructed (or inducted, as it were) into the proper ideological framework, then perhaps they can 'get it'. In this way, we must take YHWH's forthcoming statements about his enormous power as evidence of his actual lack of power. The power that YHWH gains as a deity is that which he gains from the distribution of this very text of his followers. From an outsider perspective, Jesus, YHWH, Moroni et al really only start to acquire 'power' once their followers exert theirs. Whether it has been the long Christian history of persecuting others, the founding of religious colonies, the construction of churches, the power of deities, in a non-ideological sense (that which contains no ideological 'lens' through which to perform an interpretation) begins once that particular cult attracts followers, who then exert *their* will upon the world. 'Divine' will is done through very human hands, always (non-ideologically). Of course, within the various religious & spiritual ideologies, we would say that YHWH has always been 'in control' from the beginning of time, to the pre-modern murders committed by his followers, & beyond

The 'signs of the times'

My very Christian psychiatrist (called  'med managers' in this anodyne mental health clinic setting) remarked in a session how much easier it is to know that 'someone' is 'in control' other than humanity. She apparently finds much satisfaction & comfort to be derived from a feeling of being out of control. But, if what she imagines as 'god' is simply a medium through which her own id exerts its influence, than who really is in control? God-concepts, as well as values & ideologies have long fulfilled their utility as cyphers, allowing the very faithful to 'act' in accord with god's will, while the actual will they imagine to be god's is but themselves! For example, does it not seem questionable that the many pogroms committed by Christian Europeans were enacted as a form of religious retribution against that god's own chosen people? In cases like these, it is not 'god's' will being done, but that of the humans. In the monotheistic, confessional space, the 'all-powerful' god becomes simply that which legitimizes the imperatives of the id- to murder, to divide, to classify, to act upon in-groups & out, to patrol, to eliminate that which is different. God's will tends to dovetail closely with the 'will' of human followers in many cases. Is that not something to consider when looking at these ancient Jewish texts as well. I.e., it is no surprise that god says he favours the Jews, the Jews are the ones who wrote the book! This is one instance in which the social construction of religion is evident.

Barker addresses the notable Henotheism of the ancient Hebrew civilization in this chapter as follows:

"The first commandment prohibits having other gods, & the second commandment states that god is jealous of those other gods...you can't be jealous of someone who does not exist...The Promised Land was to be their love nest, cleared free of any potential challenges to his dominance & her compliance...The early Israelites indeed believed there were many gods, but imagined that their was supreme (what a coincidence, jm)..."

All in all, the author continues to make his case, long after even the proof-texts are necessary: We already quite understand that YHWH is not the nicest god on the block -- convinced of his own glory, yet jealous & insecure (at least he is honest about his insecurity, unlike some humans!). This insecurity is also found within his followers, of which I encounter many in Jacksonville, all of these centuries after his debut in the books of the Old Testament. The Christianity & Biblicalism is not simply loud-&-proud, but screamed & deafening, to the point where I wonder if the residents of Jacksonville are not experiencing a collective crisis of faith: If they really believed & really knew that theirs was *the* god, that their religious worldview, was the only correct & worthwhile project, then why make such a constant public show of it? Perhaps there is a religious experience that I lack understanding of phenomenologically speaking because I am not of that creed.

What I can know: YHWH's personality is reflective of his followers, yesterday & today.

GOD - Chapter 15 (Pestilential)

In chapter 15 of GOD, Barker introduces his next accusation against YHWH, the god of the Jews (& the Christians & the Muslims, allegedly.) Barker says YHWH is pestilential, bringing famines, destroying crops, & causing food-production issues like crickets, cicadas, & swarms of flies. He begins with "one of the most beloved passages in the bible, quoted frequently, in the book of 2nd Chronicles" This passage, commonly rendered & utilized in affirmations (& the type of poster that surrounds me on both sides at work, but I digress) that says that if the Israelites humble themselves, than perhaps god will step in & alleviate their suffering, & 'heal their land.' The common rendering is deceptive for the very reason that it leaves out god explaining that he is the cause behind the very suffering! He brings pestilence, which includes, in this verse, plague, insects, & drought.

A search on google image for 'pestilence'
yielded several interesting images, this one included

This passage, 2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV version) is used in "Hundreds of ministries around the world" that have "adopted the optimistic verse as a call to personal, national, & global repentance. The National Day of Prayer Task Force, founded by Evangelicals Shirley & James Dobson, utilizes 2 Chronicles 7:14 in many of the proclamations they compose & send to mayors, governors, & the US president for the National Day of Prayer on the first Thursday of every May. While President Eisenhower was taking the oath of office during his first inauguration in 1953, his left hand was placed on a bible open to 2 Chronicles 7:14, at the urging of Evangelical Billy Graham." This is the passage about 'healing the land' if one only 'turns toward God.' The verse is predicated on submission to god, but all-in-all, it is a very even-handed verse, appropriate for modern confessional, humanistic Christian forms. Barker jokes, "God is telling the Israelites how they can heal their land of himself" in the verse, which is commonly mis-quoted, according to him. "2 Chronicles 7:13 is a conditional clause, not a complete sentence, & there is no period at the end, so 7:14 is the continuation. But most Christians start 7:14 with a capitalized 'If', taking it out of context." This is vital, revealing greater biblical themes that some modern Christians might not be quite comfortable with. The slip changes this:

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land"

To, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land"

This kind of thing is what we are talking about

The difference in meaning, emphasis, & context is representative of greater struggles within the biblical tradition. 2 Chronicles 7:13 is what many Christians quietly ignore. God intentionally inflicting pain & suffering upon humans en masse is the purport of 7:13, which destroys the meme-ability/use as an affirmation. YHWH only will show mercy if you fully prostrate to him, humbling yourself under his great power, & even then he often didn't abstain from unleashing bloodshed & chaos. As Barker describes it in 15,

again...

"I will stop tormenting you if you will humbly apologize for cheating on me (with other gods): It's your own fault"

GOD - Chapter 14 (Fillicidal)

In chapter 14 of GOD, Barker argues that YHWH, the god of the Old Testament, is fillicidal 'killing within families' or 'encouraging parents to kill children'. That is certainly so in Genesis 22:

Abraham shows his son Isaac where
 he will kill him

"'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, & go to the land of Moriah, & offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you' (1-3) Without blinking, Abraham did exactly as God commanded"

This particular Bible story we 'all know of''. Many entertain such tales, considering it one part of 'the greatest story ever told'. Also, one of the most depraved. Probably not, but if we control for the amount of currency & circulation that this particular child-killing story has attained, perhaps.

Moving on; Barker continues to assail the writers of the Bible:

"If anyone was stupid, it was the writer of this fictional tale who assumed his readers would be uncritical"

Uncritical of the stories of YHWH demanding his faithful servants kill their children et al. Obviously, that is fillicidal (Not that I honestly have ever heard this term before.) It is stories like the Abraham-Isaac affair that have given centuries of Christian & Jewish ethicists an almost impossible burden (which they have duly twisted into their tortured ethical systems). The subject of killing one's children need not require much prolonged ethical examination, but Barker could not let such an evidentiary example of biblical depravity go without this:

"Try to imagine worshiping a master who demands that you slaughter your son or daughter to gain his approval"

Hundreds of millions do not need to imagine: They believe & sing praises to this very deity that demands behaviours like this. In Deuteronomy 21:18-21, god writes

 "If a man have a stubborn & rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother...all the men of his city shall stone him with stones...he will die" (KJV)

This American political concept of 'family values' is a lie & a canard, at least on the point of being derived from the bible. Why are pornography, homosexuals as teachers, & the liberated woman more obscene than this garble? The Bible has no legitimate claim to being the host or originator of any sort of ethic beside that of wanton parochialism & patriarchy.

Under the typical heading of 'Kill Your Children Who Leave The Faith', Barker supplies this proof text from Deuteronomy (13:6-10):

"'If thy brother, the son of the mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying 'let us go serve other gods'...thou shalt surely kill him...And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die" (KJV)

GOD - Chapter 13 (Genocidal)

"You must not let anything that breathes remain alive" (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)

So starts Barker on his 13th chapter of GOD. Unfortunately this is the kind of quote that readers of the book would become accustomed to (as well as, I assume, readers of the original text.) The single-minded destructive impulse of the ancient Hebrew culture, given voice by their deity, alone, stands the most jarring presence in GOD. The clang of death is more persistent than Barker's: His light addresses under the proof texts are sometimes pandering, or even inappropriate, but he is just treating these insane proclamations with what we would expect had these vituperations emerged from some other source.

Barker continues, provocatively calling upon The Holocaust:

"Noting that all genocides are morally equivalent in their purpose, we still might ask what was the numerically largest genocide in history. The European Holocaust, with estimates ranging between 4 & 17 million (depending on who is counting & whom you count)...The "American Indian Holocaust" following the arrival of Europeans, committed by many Catholic & Protestant actors over centuries, was harder to count. If we add European diseases to the massacres, an estimated 80 to 90% of the population of the Americas was annihilated over that period, perhaps totaling more than 50 million lives by many acts of genocide. But by far the largest single act of genocide, in numbers & percentages related in the 6th & 7th chapter of the book of Genesis."

Deuteronomy contains many of the
divine admonitions to kill

Pow. That statement is latent with a moral quandary for the Christian & the Jew: If we accept that your scripture is historical fact, your god is a murderer literally beyond compare. If you do not accept that this happened historically, then your book is a lie masquerading as an accurate chronicle of historical events. Choose one -- YHWH is the greatest of the purveyors of Genocide, or the allegedly inerrant 'good book' is not a direct look into The Real.

Barker continues:

"The population of the earth at that time is estimated at about 20 million humans...he decided to shut down his experiment by killing them all & reboot with a tiny remnant: "And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, & it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, 'I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created-- people together with animals & creeping things & birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them" (Genesis 6)

Whoops! We know what happens next in this story, a tale as old as time, the greatest incident of mass killing of all time:

Rendering of Genesis 6, 'Noah's Flood'

"Noah's flood was a swift &gruesome genocide of 20 million people. That was 99.99996 % of the entire human race. Picture the children clinging to their desperately parents. As you watch them succumb to the waves, you can join them as they sing praise to God"

While much of this is pulp, & Barker is no stranger to the most opportunistic & unfair of jabs, much of what he says is completely warranted. Such as this commentary on Deuteronomy 20: "Kill all the people but not the poor trees!" Of course, YHWH is not expressing caring for the well-being of the arbors in that verse, he is clarifying to his favoured warriors what they can & cannot destroy, & what they can take as plunder or utilize for their own purposes. Much of the 'Good Book' is warfare, whom to kill, whom to attack, what is permissible to do to cities that are defeated etc. The Old Testament is an extremely millitaristic & volatile meditation upon the Hebrew's inflated sense of their strength & power. If their actual ability, power, & influence was that great, Palestine would not be regarded as a backwater in the 1st century CE. I can imagine there existing some dissent among the internal Roman political elite around 70, 'just let it go! What is it worth?' Everything, if you believe the Bible.

Another of Barker's commentaries, upon Numbers 31, is glib but accurate:

"God was less humane than the Israelites. They wanted to keep boys & women alive, but God said 'only the virgins.' The bible doesn't say what the priests did with their 'Lord's tribute' of 32"

Much of what passes for 'Atheist' critque, especially from the Movement & its figures, is like I said glib, but most of the time is not overstatement. If we take the various stories of slaughter, overarching Hebrew chest-banging, & rape seriously, than the Bible is not 'the greatest story told,' it is probably among the most horrific, something of a provincial Salò, lacking the clarity or relevance of Passolini's film.

Any sense of religious ecumenacalism or inter-faith tolerance is absent in texts like Deuteronomy 13. In fact, we often hear of YHWH grumbling about the other deities that were his apparent competition in the years in which this archaic text was written, & then modified (& modified & modified.) YHWH himself becomes lost in my experience, as I continue critically through Barker's text. I am less & less able to take the deity of YHWH seriously as a figure, & more convinced that the YHWH concept is the collective cultural ego-concept that the Hebrews gave life to in their Old Testament. In Deuteronomy, the author of the text orders the chosen to murder entire cities in which others propose any religion beside the YHWH cult. If Christians & Jews today stated that they were unable to support the idea of religious tolerance & pluralism, it is my belief & stated conviction that this would be completely true. They cannot. Look at the 'fundamentals' in books like Deuteronomy: The ideological content is extreme religious xenophobia , masculinism gone astray, & fevered fantasies of rape & destruction.

God - Chapter 12 (Infanticidal)

In chapter 12 of Barker's GOD, he argues that the God of the Israelites is infanticidal, although he immediately qualifies it. For Barker, this is one of those moments where the English language is simply not enough to describe the horrors of the god of this world. What he really means, he reveals, is that YHWH kills children indiscriminately, although this is an accessory to general bloodthirstiness (chapter 7) & racism (11).

"There are many places, however, where the God of the Old Testament was clearly infanticidal by the strictest definition. In the early 6th century B.C.E., Jerusalem was invaded & conquered by the Babylonians."

In response, YHWH dictated this to his stenographers in the 137th Psalm:

"Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" (8-9)

YHWH also shows his obvious unforgiving character (chapter 4) as well. The Psalms are actually songs. Declarations like the above were "meant to be intoned during worship." Chilling, but not at all really surprising based on what we have been exposed to as biblical proof text thusfar in Barker's book:

"The command to be happy killing babies is consistent with God's character & actions elsewhere, as we have seen in other chapters in this book." 

YHWH continues, in the Book of Isaiah:

"I will punish the world for its evil...whoever is found will be thrust through, & whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered & their wives ravished...Their bows will slaughter the young men...their eyes will not pity children" (13:11-18, RSV)

In this type of verse, YHWH almost seems comical in the literary & visual quality of the Hebrew violence fantasies (which is what, I am coming to understand, much of the Bible really is.) This tendency toward violent fantasy is not only referred to & suggestive of the ancient Hebrew culture in general, but is much more understandable when one takes into account that the Hebrew culture was provincial, backward, histrionic in its own pronouncements. When Jesus (our alleged savior) emerged in the early 1st century AD, he attracted the attention of none of the heralds of the day. 'Jesus Christ' is only attested to in Christian scriptures, and these do not date back that early. 

In several of the biblical proof texts, we see a disturbing obsession with 'children eating their parents' & vice-versa. A strange concept, & one I suspect has some sort of greater meaning in this religio-cultural superstructure of symbols. Barker quotes Ezekiel 5, one of the aforementioned passages to round out the chapter.