Genesis 18, 19, 20

Bargaining With the Lord

Abraham spends the afternoon sitting on the front porch of his desert tent drinking iced tea and playing a mouth harp when the Lord appears in a mirage. "I'd better hide," Abraham says. "God knows what other cherished body parts he's after now."

Suddenly, 3 men stand before him. Abraham recognizes them as the members of ZZ Top and offers them something to eat and a flying V to practice on. The strangers reiterate what God has already told Abraham, that despite Sarah's dry womb she will conceive a child. Sarah silently chuckles at the idea, but God hears her. "Helloooo?" God says. "Omnipotent deity here!"

Sarah says she didn't laugh. God says she did. Sarah says no. God says yes. No way, Sarah says. Yes way, God says. They play a round of rock, paper, scissors to decide who is right. God brilliantly plays The Avalanche and is declared the winner.

The Bible goes to commercial and when it returns, God is pissed that Sodom and Gomorrah are filled with sodomites and gomorrahites committing sodomy and gomorrahy, which is, like, 100 times worse than ordinary butt-fucking. God plans to destroy both cities instead of just telling everyone to go easy on the lube.

Abraham shows some balls for once and demands to know if God will destroy Sodomif there are fifty righteous men living there. "Shall not the judge of the Earth do right?" Abraham asks. If Abraham had read the Bible so far he would know the answer. (The answer, by the way, is "no.")

Surprisingly, God relents. "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes," God says.

Abraham decides to push his luck. "Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five?"

"If I find there forty and five," God says, "I will not destroy it."

"What about 40?"

"All right," God says, "I'll give you forty."

"Thirty-five?"

God thinks. "You driveth a hard bargain. Thirty-five it is."

"Do I hear 30? What about 25? Ten?"

"All right, all right. If I can find 10 righteous men in all of Sodom I'll spare the city. Man, way to haggle, Abraham."

Lot Whores Out His Daughters
The story now turns to Lot, who, you may recall, lives in Sodom. Two angels visit his home and he invites them to stay the night. He regrets the offer immediately when their enormous wings knock over a display case of rare Franklin Mint plates.

News of the broken plates spreads quickly and the city's curio shop owners demand that the angels come outside for a little "talk." Lot, ever the gracious host, is reluctant to feed the angles to the angry mob, so does what anyone would do to protect total strangers: he offers up his 2 virgin daughters instead.

"I have 2 daughters which have not known man," Lot entices the crowd. "Let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. Yea, my daughters are also under the shadow of my roof, but, you know, they're girls."

The crowd declines the generous offer. After all, they collect plates, if you know what I mean. The angles step in 3 paragraphs too late and blind everyone outside Lot's house. They then tell Lot to pack up his family and leave because God plans to destroy all of Sodom and Gomorrah.

"As soon as he searches for 10 righteous men, right?" Lot asks, knowing for humor's sake the pact between God and Abraham.

"Uh, sure," the angels say. "Yeah. Right after that."

Lot speaks to his sons-in-law, the ones who married his 2 virgin daughters. They mock Lot because they're living in Sodom and still not butt-fucking the virgin brides. Lot leaves them behind and takes his wife and virgin girls with him.

God tells them not to look back at Sodom as it's destroyed. He also wants them to escape to the mountains. Lot, however, wants to live in a nearby city. After some hemming and hawing, God agrees to an apartment close to the subway on 86th. "But don't look back!" he reminds them. Lot and family are too busy contemplating how much better the city will be than the mountains that they pay him no attention.

As they flee, Lot's wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. That'll learn her to listen when God speaks.

Lot's Daughters Whore Themselves Out

After watching his wife turn to salt, Lot thinks it may not be in his best interest to live in the city after all and moves into a cave in the mountains. His daughters notice something odd right away: there aren't any men around. They devise a simple plan to pop their cherries. "Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father."

Uh--I just threw up in my mouth. Wait a minute. Hold on.

Blaaah! Okay. I'm back.

The sisters get Lot drunk and lay with him--

Urp! Hold on! Urp! All right.

Lot is so plastered he doesn't remember screwing his own daughters, so you know it must have been enjoyable for everyone involved.

Amazingly, both daughters conceive from the one-night stand and bear sons, Moab and Benammi. These genetic mutations serve as the patriarchs of two great biblical families: the Hatfields and the McCoys.

Abraham: Back to His Old Tricks

Abraham travels to Gerar and tells King Abimelech that his wife Sarah is really his sister, a lie that netted him lots of goodies the last time he told it. Despite Sarah's age, vaginal dryness, and barrenness, the king takes her as his wife. I guess she's still hot in a Sophia Loren, old lady kind of way.

Just like the last time, God is angry with the deceived for believing Abraham. "Thou art but a dead man, " God tells the king in a dream. Unlike the last time, God is easily talked out of his wrath by the apologetic king, but not before the Big Guy closes up the wombs of all the women of Gerar. It's an odd punishment, but hey, it wouldn't be the Bible if it made sense.

The king confronts Abraham demanding an explanation. Abraham offers a Clintonesque excuse: "And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife."

Uh--wait, it's coming up again. Urp!

Paging through the previous chapters, I don't see this relationship mentioned. My guess? Abraham is lying.

Still, the king is for some reason duty bound to give Abraham livestock, manservants, and a thousand pieces of silver. Abraham rubs his hands together and cackles, then prays to God. Miraculously, all the wombs that had been closed up earlier that morning are now opened. One whole day without wombs would have decimated the population, that's for sure.