Cole Slaw Bible study: The bad twin

Happy Sunday, brothers and sisters.

I'm at an age when friends have started having babies. Several of the kids are cute, even. Acknowledging that makes me weak, I know, but I've always loved dogs, so it's not that far of a stretch. Babies are like dogs with higher yield potential and less long-term loyalty: compare a twelve-year-old dog to a twelve-year-old kid, and it's clear who loves you more. There are trade-offs in life.

My point is this: dogs are cute and hairy but babies are cute and not hairy. I would not like to be around a hairy baby, but Rebekah didn't have that choice. She had twin babies, and Esau exited first. He "came out red, all over like an hairy garment." Yikes! But Esau also sounds like a little baby Ewok. Cute!

You'd think that given what we've learned from the Bible so far, Ewok would get hammered one night and burn all his body hair in an Everclear accident, and then get nursed back to health by banging his eight underage sisters. This is not the case! I'm 30 chapters into Genesis, and Ewok is the first character who's not a complete dick, including God.

Ewok's problem is his asshole brother, Jacob, and in the Bible's backward logic, I think it's Jacob who's the hero.

Ewok is a stand-up guy. He's his father's favorite. He hunts and provides food for the whole family, doesn't have drunk sex fiascoes, and commits no incest. Meanwhile, Jacob is his mother's favorite and doesn't do a thing. He sits in a goddamn tent, and is "a plain man." When he talks to his mom, he says, "Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man." Swift observation, Abercrombie. Somehow, Abercrombie's bragging about lack of body hair persuades his mother to go in on a swindle wherein Abercrombie covers himself in goat furs in order to trick Dad into thinking that he's Ewok. Hence, Dad gives Abercrombie a special blessing instead of Ewok, which sends Abercrombie off on a binge of the Bible's two favorite pastimes: farming and incest-based polygamy. Abercrombie leaves for a neighboring tribe. Once there, Abercrombie first marries his cousin, and then he marries her sister, and then he bangs several of their maids. Along the way, he fathers an entire minion.

Meanwhile, Abercrombie hoards his father-in-law's livestock -- sheep and cattle and whatnot. His brothers-in-law are angry that their first cousin is banging their sisters and impregnating the entire support staff and making off with all the goats and cattle and whatnot, so a rebellion happens, Abercrombie and company are evicted, and his in-laws' lives go back to normal. Abercrombie's justification seems to be that God wants him to steal all the livestock, which is the kind of thinking that got us into the whole Iraq mess in the first place.

Abercrombie, his multiple wives and concubines, his several dozen children and his fleet of livestock are cavorting away from his in-laws when Abercrombie hears an erroneous rumor that Ewok has raised an army against him. Abercrombie decides to bribe Ewok by giving him animals. But instead of kicking his ass for dressing up in goat furs and stealing their dad's magic blessing, Ewok hugs his brother. All is forgiven! Ewok is a good dude, a guy who's probably been happy just to hunt and hang out with his family, and it turns out that all he wanted was to see his dick brother again.

You'd think that this would be the end of the story. You'd be wrong. Abercrombie's kids turn out to be violent assholes (shocking, I know) and what happens next is a Last House on the Left-style revenge porn centering on rape, trickery and sore penises. And that, my brothers and sisters, will be the topic of our next session together.