The day to day life of a Bible character is pretty similar to that of a character right out of a Grimms fairy tale.
Witches are a real threat. You can go down to the local spiritist and get really useful information. You have your magic pots that constantly contain food, if that fails you can count on a bird to bring you food. Talking animals are no big deal. Mages have magic contests and show of their pyrokinesis. Giants roam the earth, and they're always evil. People have super human strength. You have to beware of magical fruit. People walk on water. Warlocks will curse you with plagues, turn water to blood, bring darkness and kill your kids. Everybody seems to want to take your firstborn. Nobody changes straw to gold, but they do change water to wine. And people always fall for the dumbest tricks multiple times without learning a thing.
But this isn't about the bizzare things that happen in the Bible that are similar to fairy tales. This is about how the people in those stories REACT to the wacky things going on around them. They don't behave like you would expect a normal person to behave.
Let's start with Samson, and Rumpelstiltskin.
Rumpelstiltskin is about a girl who's father, for no known reason, tells the king that she can change straw into gold... She can't. But Rumpelstiltskin CAN! So he tells the girl that he'll do it for her and save her from being killed, but only if she gives him her firstborn child. She agrees (even though she has no intention of doing it), and then changes her mind as soon it's her turn to pay up. He makes a deal with her, if she can guess his name he'll call off the deal.
This challenge is impossible to do without cheating. He knows this, but he proposes the challenge anyway.
She has to cheat, but she does it. And this makes him so mad that he kills himself in a fit of rage.
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Samson is a man who kills a lion and, for no known reason, there is honey inside of it. He doesn't tell anyone about this. Instead he goes to a group of guys and proposes a challenge, he tells them that if they can solve a riddle, he'll give them 30 sets of clothes and 30 high quality sheets (even though he doesn't have the goods.). He doesn't tell the riddle until after they agree.
Turns out, the improperly titled 'riddle' is impossible to solve without cheating, because it's directly about the lion with the honey, and nobody could know possibly know about it. He knows this, but he proposes the challenge anyway.
So they have to cheat, but they do it. And this makes him so mad that he kills 30 innocent men to pay them off.
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Do you see the similarities? Samson has a lot in common with both the girl, and Rumpelstiltskin. He makes promises he originally has no intention of keeping, he proposes riddles that are in fact not riddles at all, but simply impossible-to-answer questions. Then when the person finally answers it anyway, he goes mad with rage.
Now that I've set the story of Samson, I'll do him again:
Here's Samson, and Snow White!
Snow white is about a very young girl with a crazy queen-mother who wants her dead. So she runs away into the woods to live with seven perverted pedophile/necrophiliac dwarfs. The mother come back for her, but instead of just stabbing her in the eye or something, she decides to poison her in a very direct way that defeats the purpose of using poison. She also uses a mild sedative instead of actual poison. Anyway, first she approaches Snow White in an old lady costume and uses poisonous ribbons, Snow White tries them on and falls down seemingly dead. The dwarves come back, unwrap the ribbons and she wakes back up. Then the queen does the same thing, but uses a comb instead... Yeah... Snow white falls for it again, and she passes out from the "poison". The dwarves come back again, take out the comb and she's fine again. Then the third time her mother uses an apple, and Snow White falls for it AGAIN, THREE TIMES in a ROW. She gets what she deserves and dies. (She doesn't really die, but I'm ending it here, before it gets really creepy with the dwarves.)
This is a girl who falls for the same trick three times in a row. If you read the story it actually explains that she realizes this could be a trick, but falls for it anyway because the stuff is so tempting.
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Back to Samson, What I didn't tell you about Samson, is that the reason he lost the riddle, is because his wife begged him to tell her the answer, and then she 'cheated on him' and told the guys. Samson promptly called her a cow, and divorced her.
Well, fast forward a few years. Samson is a fugitive. The Philistines hate him, for reasons that I can't possibly imagine. (Sure he kills 30 innocent guys for their clothes, burns their crops, and beats them up with a donkey jaw, and steals their gate. But that's not the reason, the reason is that the Philistines are just nasty people... They have giants!) Anway, he has a new woman (Not necessarily a wife) now, and the Philistines decide to ask her the secret to Samson's super-human strength so that they can kill him. (...Did I mention he had super-human strength? )
She agrees, and she begs Samson to tell her the secret. HE KNOWS SHE'S TRYING TO TRICK HIM! So her lies to her and gives her a false secret. The Philistines try it out, and it doesn't work. (He was sleeping at the time, so I'm not sure why they don't just jam a sword through his head.)
She asks him again. He's positive now, so he lies to her again and gives her another false secret. The Philistines try it out, and it doesn't work.
She asks him again, I don't know why he hasn't killed her or dumped her yet. He, of course, knows she's just going to try to kill him, so he lies again... yada yada...
FINALLY, she tries it again! He knows she's trying to trick him, his last wife did this once, and she's done it three times already. BUT This goofball actually tells her the secret, and then they capture him and give him what's been coming to him.
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Do you see the similarities? At least Snow White was only 7 years old at the time. But that was pretty dense, falling for the same trick 3 times. Samson on the other hand was supposed to be a hero. And he fell for the same trick 5 times. I'm pretty sure even a gerbil would have better pattern recognition skills than these two!
How would a REAL person react in those circumstances? These people behave like... well... fairy tale characters!
I'm sure you're sick of Samson. (I didn't even get to talk about the 300 foxes and the most pathetic act of terrorism EVER.)
Next up, is Little Red Riding Hood, and Balaam.
Little Red Riding Hood (LRRH from now on, because it's a pain to type.) was skipping through the forest, tripping over rocks and stuff, when she met a wolf. LRRH, like most fairy tale characters, is completely stupid, and doesn't run from this wild animal. Instead, she sticks around long enough to talk to it. She is not the slightest bit surprized at this talking animal, instead, she carries on a nice little conversation, explains where she's going, exchanges email adresses, then the wolf directs her to the nearest patch of flowers, and the go their merry way... There's more, but it's not important.
Why was she not suprised? I would be! Wouldn't you?
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Balaam was a warlock, riding his donkey on the way to cast a dark spell on a magic city... On the way there, an angel apears in front of him, but doesn't bother to turn his cloaking device off. Fortunately, the donkeys eyes emit subspace particles, and she can see the angel.
The donkey tries to stop, but Balaam is with a crowd of people, and he doesn't want to look dumb, so he hits the donkey. Immediately the donkey begins to verbally complain about the abuse. Balaam responds that if the ass would move her ass he wouldn't hit her. They donkey responds that she's always been a good donkey, so he should trust her by now. Balaam said: "Well yeah I guess your ri_" The angel then rudely interrupts the conversation and explains what's going on. Balaam then apologizes for his horrible sin of not being able to detect invisible deities.
Do you notice anything strange about this story? Okay, wrong question... Do you notice anything strange about Balaam's behavior in this story? Balaam's donkey starts to talk to him, and he does not act the slighest bit suprised, but instead just carries on a casual conversation about how well they've worked with each other. Also, there were other people there! None of them spoke up, or ran away, or anything!
Nobody in that story behaved in any way like a real person. They all behaved like fairy tale characters.
It's not until the new-testament that they actually start including a believable reaction. But it's generally limited to "And the crowd was amazed." But then, the 'crowds are amazed' no matter what Jesus does, from raising a guy to life, to avoiding answering questions, so it tends to lose its meaning.
Just a few quick ones to ponder:
The king offers his daughter as a bride to anyone who can kill the dragon.
Saul offers his daughter as a bride to anyone who can kill a gaint.
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Granny survives inside a wolf for several hours.
Jonah survives inside a fish for several days.
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A witch dies trying to put a girl in an oven.
The guards die trying to put three Hebrews in an oven.
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A dwarf changes straw to gold, and nobody cares how, they just want more.
A jew changes water into wine, and nobody cares how, they just compliment the quality.
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Okay, I'm done for now, that's enough of me rambling. I have to hurry up and finish before the Tonight Show starts. I'll be back in about two hours.
Lore - What.Would.Satan.Do?