Genesis 28:12 "Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it."
This is the bit about Jacob, after he pretends to be his brother Esau to deceive his father. He's having a dream and god is talking to him through the dream promising all good things.
I have two thoughts on this:
First, why didn't god have the foresight to install elevators, or escalators at least, for all those angels? I mean, think about it, there they are climbing this ladder day in and day out back and forth for all time? That doesn't seem very benevolent.
Second, obviously, in this scene heaven is like a penthouse floor for earth. You've got angels running back and forth between the two (like catering in a high rise hotel), and god is standing at the top talking down this stair to Jacob, right?
Do you think god gets pissed at us for all those times our communication satellites have crashed through one of the windows of the heavenly palace? I mean, think about it, maybe that's why we've been getting such colossal "acts of god" lately. Earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes may very well be god's way of telling us to stop launching military spy-cams and global weather trackers into his breakfast nook.
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3 comments:
I would imagine that some would take the dream that Jacob had literally to mean there really was a ladder to heaven. To me Jacob's Ladder is a really good Rush song.
The conclusion of this chapter (and I think the whole purpose of Genesis 28) sets up the often quoted requirement to tithe 10 percent of your earnings. But that was just Jacob vowing that HE would, not really commanding anyone else to do the same.
For me this is all about the difference between the way the world is actually shaped and the way iron-age people thought it was shaped. If you wanted to use this passage as a metaphor I'd have no problem. It's only in the context of literal biblicism that I'd point this passage out. It offers clear proof that whomever wrote this wasn't receiving any divine revelations about physical reality.
Everybody knows that the walls to god's house are like forcefields-- he can let whatever he wants just pass right through it.
But, here's one to think about: I thought angels had wings... fuck do they need with a ladder???
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