Nature's diet

Old-school smackdown

Short of a single example in "Star Wars," the earth doesn't count as a predator in the food chain.

However, rewind back to the Old Testament to Moses and the gang during their 40-year amble through the wilderness, and we'll see the earth take on a personality all of its own.

Forty years is a long time, and it's almost understandable how some people would begin to be frustrated. But Korah, Dathan and Abiram took their frustration to a dangerous level.

They convinced 250 leaders to rebel against Moses, and once again, the Lord was ready to lay down the law and remind everyone who was in charge. The Lord had to do that a lot back in the day.

The first smack came to Korah, Dathan, Abiram and their families.

Numbers 16:32-33
"And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation."

I'm going to guess that it looked something like this:


The next round of smackage was dealt to the 250 guys who were sucked in by Korah's schemes. They were consumed by fire from the Lord. A little after that, a plague came and 14,700 people were killed "about the matter of Korah," Numbers says.

A history of D'oh

Had to be there

Editor's note: We're veering away from the Bible this week to bring our Mormon friends an excerpt from the Book of Mormon.

Abinadi, everyone loves him. Stalwart to the end, he gave his life bearing testimony of Christ. I imagine him to be the rough and rugged type, not really the gray-bearded and aging prophet the paintings and cartoons make him out to be.

He was awesome. He could go toe to toe in religious debate with the wicked King Noah and his priests all day and night.

But the usually steel-trap-minded Abinadi only made, from what I can tell, one mistake.

In Mosiah, where we hear Abinadi's story, he's preaching to the king and priests and proclaiming the need for them to repent.


Surprise, surprise, they don't like this very much and try to kill him, but Abinadi escapes and hides for two years. And then he comes back in disguise and began to prophesy among them, saying,

Mosiah 12:1
"...Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying—Abinadi, go and prophesy unto this my people..."

Now, if you're going to go to the trouble of rounding up a disguise, which weren't exactly common back then, how soon are you going to give your cover away?

Abinadi did it in his first sentence. And I'm sure that as soon as he did, a slight "D'oh!" escaped his lips.

Fortunately, a lot of good came from Abinadi's mission as a prophet, which is the likely reason this part of his story gets skipped in Sunday School.

And now, for your enjoyment, "D'oh!" which has now been made famous by blundering buffoon and cartoon TV dad Homer Simpson.

Overheard at the MTC

Misconscriptured

This never actually happened to me, but as I served as a missionary, I heard countless stories of a single source of dread at the Provo, Utah, Missionary Training Center.

It wasn't the homesickness. It wasn't receiving the "Dear John" from a girlfriend. It wasn't the food. Well, it was the food — just hours later.

It was the post-dining experiences that seemed to create a common bond among missionaries, sometimes discussed at length and for years afterward.

I think the prophet Jeremiah sums it up best.

Jeremiah 4:19
"My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet..."


Thanks to Keith for reminding me how much this verse really sings.

A joke

Misconscriptured

You've probably heard this one:

A new missionary was in town and wanted to go around and introduce himself. So he chatted with various neighbors and everything seemed to be going quite well.

Then he came to one home of a popular neighbor everyone suggested he meet. He knocked but got no response, which was funny, because he could hear sounds coming from inside the house.

He walked to a side door near the home's garden and even called out to see if anyone would answer. No luck.

So he left a calling card with his phone number and the following scripture reference:

Revelation 3:20
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him..."

He continued knocking doors in the neighborhood, and when he passed by the home an hour later, he saw his card had been removed, and in its place, another, with the following:

Genesis 3:10
"And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."

Jacob, Jacob and Sons

Old-school smackdown

Those wacky sons, full of quirks and hijinks. They sing and dance in a variety of musical styles: country-western ("One More Angel in Heaven"), Caribbean ("Benjamin Calypso") and French ballad ("Those Canaan Days"). Their harmonies are impeccable.

They wouldn't be the type driven to murder.

Or would they?

OK, fine. Everyone knows that when Joseph "The Dreamer" came around one day, some of the brothers thought they'd knock off Joey and say goodbye to his dreams. Lucky for Joseph and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Reuben (son No. 1) stepped in got his sentence reduced from death to thrown-in-a-pit-and-sold-to-Ishmeelites. You know the rest.

But that wasn't the first time the brothers had a taste for blood.

Flip back to another chapter in their lives, one we'll call Chapter 34.

Remember, Jacob didn't just have sons. He had at least one daughter we know about, the effervescent, witty and irresistible Dinah. And someone was in the kitchen with Dinah, someone named Shechem.

OK, we don't know for sure where Shechem defiled Dinah, but it might as well be the kitchen.

Poor Shechem. Yeah, he did that "which thing ought not to be done," as that chapter says. But he really picked the wrong family to mess with.

Even after Shechem and his dad apologized and said they'd like to make an honest girl of Dinah, some of her brothers, led by Simeon and Levi, hatched a plan for some serious payback.



These are circumcision tools. I'm not going to explain how they're used, but Dinah's brothers demanded that all the men of Shalem, the city where they lived, be circumcized, and all would be forgotten.

The men of the city agreed and Shechem was first in line. You couldn't get a circumcision fast enough that week. They were selling like hotcakes.

Ouch.

Genesis 34:25
"And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males."

Double ouch.

And if that wasn't enough, they spoiled the city, stole the oxen, sheep, asses, their wealth, their children and their wives and left for Beth-el.

Triple ouch.

But Jacob stayed pretty mad at his boys over this until he died. Even during his final blessing of the family, he cursed their anger and promised they'd be scattered one day.

There are so many lessons in this story that I'm not even going to try to explain them all.