No, not THAT kind of dog-woman!

This exciting tale of Jesus’ adventures takes us to Matthew 15. (The same story is repeated in Mark 7.)

22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Well, that was rather rude, don’t you think? After all, Jesus is supposed to love everybody, right? “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight”?

That doesn’t sound very loving!

25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

The woman begs. Even so, Jesus doesn’t really care what she has to say:

26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.

The dog-woman begs Jesus to help her!

Does it sound to you as though Jesus is saying that she’s a human-animal hybrid, like at the top of the page? Or is “dogs” an ethnic slur?

27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

She debases herself, calling herself a dog and accepting the insult, hoping desperately to get help.

28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Glory! Jesus grants this lowlife, this dog-woman, what she has asked for.

In Mark 7, Jesus is explicit in His reason for granting her request.

25 For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:

26 The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

27 But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.

28 And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.

29 And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.

He granted her request specifically because she debased herself!

What can we learn from this story? Talk about these questions with your friends, and ask in Sunday School!

• Does Jesus help just anybody?
• What does it take to get Jesus to help you? Is just asking enough?
• We are often told that we should act “Christ-like”. Does this mean that we should discriminate against people based on their race or nationality, just like Jesus did? Why or why not?
• Does Jesus love all people equally, no matter what race or nationality they are? What do Mommy and Daddy and Pastor say, and what does the Bible tell you?
• Whom can you trust? Mommy? Daddy? Pastor? Or the Bible, which is God’s Word?
• Is this the same story twice, or are these two different women? After all, the descendants of Canaan were cursed . . . and weren’t Greeks!

If you ask your public school teacher, she’ll probably say that as humans “evolved” in different parts of the world, they developed languages on their own. I bet she never read the Bible, because it tells us the truth!

Maybe it looked like this!

Traveling as a single vast group (no doubt with Ham and his descendants as slaves), they entered the land of Shinar.

The Bible doesn’t say anything about them having maps, and you’d think a worldwide Flood which exerted enough pressure to turn sediments (and buried dinosaurs) into stone would have wiped out landmarks, but somehow, they knew it was the land of Shinar.

(We’re going to ignore the entire chapter of Genesis 10, which tells us all about how the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth became great nations building vast cities and spreading all over the place. They had big cities and were spread out, but they were really all together in one place.)

The people made bricks, and used slime for mortar. (Gen. 11:3)

I wonder how big and tall a tower you could build with slime as mortar. Would that meet building code?

The people decided to build a city with a tower that would reach to Heaven. By doing this, they hoped to make a name for themselves and prevent themselves from being scattered. (Gen, 11:4)

Since these were the only people on Earth, who were they trying to impress? Make a name for themselves for whose benefit?

God came down and saw the city they were building, and the tower. He said, “The people are all as one, and speak one language; if they continue to succeed in this, they’ll be able to do anything they put their minds to!” (Gen. 11:6)

Was God jealous of his Creation’s success? Would your Mommy or Daddy be jealous if you were successful at something? How would that make you feel?

What will God do? SABOTAGE, what else?

God went down (in spite of already being down) and confused their language, so they couldn’t understand each other. They scattered all over the world and gave up on building the city. (Gen. 11:7-8)

How would you feel if your Mommy or Daddy saw you making a really nice drawing, realized that you could do whatever you put your mind to . . . and poured paint on your drawing and took away your crayons?

Would you feel loved?

That’s the difference between humans and God. When humans sabotage one another’s efforts instead of being happy that we’re successful, it is a horrible thing. When God does it, it’s called “Love”.

]]> http://www.realbiblestories.com/2010/02/genesis-11-the-tower-of-babel/feed/ 3 http://www.realbiblestories.com/2010/02/genesis-11-the-tower-of-babel/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RealBibleStories/~3/tU1f54XwSy0/ http://www.realbiblestories.com/2010/02/gen-9-10-ham-bears-the-sins-of-his-father/#comments Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:39:51 +0000 Sister Shirlee http://www.realbiblestories.com/?p=126 When last we saw Noah, he and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth had just exited the Ark. They had slaughtered one each of probably dozens, if not hundreds, of species of “clean” animals, burning the corpses so God could smell the sweet, sweet smoke (Gen. 8:20-21). God decides here to never “. . . again curse the ground for man’s sake, because the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth”.

Yes, that’s right, God points out that His own creation is evil! But if God knows that people are evil, and that’s the way He made them . . . wait, how does that work, exactly?

In Genesis 9, God commands Noah and his sons to repopulate the earth, and tells them that “every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you”.

Some speculate that humans ate no flesh before this point. After all, the first humans were given “every herb bearing seed . . . and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed” for food. (Gen. 1:29)

Wait a minute . . . Noah was commanded by God to take seven of every “clean” animal and two of every “unclean” animal into the Ark. This references cleanliness for consumption. How did Noah know what was “clean” or “unclean”, if people didn’t eat meat?

God doesn’t God spell out what is “clean” and what is “unclean” until Leviticus 11, talking to Moses, hundreds of years after Noah’s death!

There being six of every “clean” animal left, and two of every “unclean” animal, the eight humans (Noah, sons, and wives; I’m assuming one wife per man, but the Bible doesn’t specify) apparently had plenty to eat. Noah, knowing he would live several hundred more years (350 years after the Flood, Gen. 9:28), and having no brothels to go to and no cable TV, decided he needed a drink.

Let’s see how that worked out.

Genesis 9: 18-27

18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.

19 These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard:

21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent.

22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.

23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.

24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

26 And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

27 God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

Summary: Ham saw his father naked. He ran outside and told his brothers about it. His brothers, knowing that wieners are shameful creations of God that we should recoil from in horror, covered Noah with a garment. In fairness and fatherly love, Noah cursed Ham’s son, Canaan, to be “a servant of servants unto his brethren”.

How does this square with later pronouncements by God, in Deuteronomy 24:16 and Ezekiel 18:20, which specifically state that sons shall not bear the sins of their fathers?

Genesis 10 explains where the children of Shem, Ham, and Japheth moved within the region. Not much of a story there . . . or is there?

This article at Secular News Daily explains the Creation Museum’s take on the subject. You see, Canaan — son of Ham, the servant of servants — moved into what is now northern Africa.

Slaves came from where? Africa.

Europeans and early Americans used Genesis 9-10 to justify importing dark-skinned black folk — a demonstration of the Curse of Ham — into Europe and North America for use as slaves.

Anthony Pagden writes,

This reading of the Book of Genesis merged easily into a medieval iconographic tradition in which devils were always depicted as black. Later pseudo-scientific theories would be built around African skull shapes, dental structure, and body postures, in an attempt to find an unassailable argument–rooted in whatever the most persuasive contemporary idiom happened to be: law, theology, genealogy, or natural science — why one part of the human race should live in perpetual indebtedness to another.

Discussion Questions:

God didn’t interfere when Noah cursed Ham’s son, Canaan, and let Ham off scot-free, even though it appears Canaan was nowhere near at the time of the alleged wiener-sighting. So, it must have been fine with Him. But how does that square with the things He has said about the sons not bearing the sins of their fathers, and also with basic ethics?

Was Noah behaving ethically?

Do you know anyone who still believes black people should be slaves because Ham’s father looked at Noah’s wiener? Could it be your Mommy or Daddy, or maybe your grandfather?

Extra Credit: Ask your Daddy or your pastor whether, if you looked at his weiner, he’d make your son and all your son’s descendants slaves. After all, it’s the Biblically correct thing to do!

Instead, I’ll ask you.

I’ll be back on track starting this week, and hope you subscribe to the RSS feed. I’ll announce new stories through the feed!

Your Bible-reviewing buddy,

Sister Shirlee

First, Adam and Eve had Cain. Then another son, Abel.

The children grew quickly, being born and catapulted into adulthood in the space of the first two verses of Genesis 4. Abel established himself as a shepherd, while Cain went into farming.

God Says: Meat Good, Grain Bad!

One year, each brother brought to the Lord an offering of his labors. Cain brought “of the fruit of the ground”, and Abel brought the firstborn of his flock to slaughter.

The Lord was pleased with Abel’s offering, but turned up His nose at Cain’s “fruity” sacrifice. This made Cain angry, and he had a long face.

God asked Cain why he was upset . . . after all, “if you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, [it shows that] sin is at your door!”

Do you think this was a particularly constructive thing of God to say?

How would you feel if you and your brother or sister worked equally hard at the things you do to make presents for your mommy, and she really loved your sister’s macaroni-and-glitter portrait of her, but ignored the reproduction Ming Dynasty vase you’d so carefully crafted?

Jealousy Introduced by God's Insensitivity

God, not willing to undo His curse, added another curse atop the first. God decreed that anyone who would slay Cain would receive vengeance sevenfold upon himself. He marked Cain so everybody would know not to kill him.

Does that mean that someone killing Cain would be killed seven times? What do you think?

So, Cain left the presence of God and went to the land of Nod, east of Eden. He married and had a son named Enoch.

All’s well that ends well! Now for some discussion questions!

How does God feel about vegans? Does He respect them? Does He prefer a nice tossed salad, or some fresh sheep fat?

If your Sunday School teacher has told you that Adam and Eve were the first people and everyone descended from them, how could there be a “land of Nod” for Cain to go into? He was Adam and Eve’s firstborn . . . Thus the third-oldest human, if Adam and Eve were ancestors of all.

Where did Cain’s wife come from? If all were descended from Adam and Eve, wouldn’t that make Cain’s wife his sister?

Genesis 1:27 tells us,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

So, God created a whole bunch of people! Adam wasn’t the first person . . . He was the first Jew!

Genesis 2:7, God creates Adam. He makes him out of dirt and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils. Just like you might blow in the nose of a Resusci-Anne doll when learning CPR!

God then created the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8-14), and put Adam in it as the caretaker. God said to Adam, “You can eat from every tree in the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of that tree, you will die that very day!” (Gen. 2:16-17)

Since God wasn’t able to be around all the time, He decided that Adam should have an assistant. It’s just like you leaving your dog home all day while you’re at school. Your dog gets lonely, left all alone! So you leave the radio on, or you get a puppy to keep him company.

God tried making all kinds of animals for Adam, and had him name each and every one of them. But he couldn’t find a suitable assistant among the bunch! (Probably because very few of them had opposable thumbs.) (Gen. 2:18-20).

Since God wasn’t having any luck making Adam an assistance from dirt, He gave Adam a strong anesthetic and tore out one of his ribs. From this, He made a female clone of Adam, and gave her to him as a present. (Gen. 21-22)

Adam was made from dirt. So, why do you suppose God couldn’t make a good assistant for Adam from dirt?

God created a clone of Adam (using Adam’s tissue to create a new person). Why do you think there are so many Christians who are against all forms of cloning? God did it, why shouldn’t we?

Along came the serpent.

Your Sunday school teacher may have told you that Satan came into the garden disguised as a talking snake. The Bible doesn’t say that. It just says that the serpent was very clever (Gen. 3:1). Since Satan is described in other parts of the Bible as a serpent, people have interpreted the serpent to be Satan.

The serpent had some important information for Eve. It asked her if God had told her she could eat from any tree in the garden. She said, “Well, we can eat from any of the trees except that one in the middle of the garden. He says that we shouldn’t eat from it or even touch it, because we will die.”

The snake knew this wasn’t true. (I think he had already eaten from it himself!) He said, “No, you won’t die. God just knows that if you eat from the tree, you’ll be like Him and know good from evil!”

That sounded pretty good to Eve, because she was naked and not very intelligent and figured she could change for the better. (The snake may be an ancestor of Oprah, who also teaches people ways to improve themselves.)

So, Eve ate the fruit and found that, contrary to what God had said, she didn’t die! Not wanting to be superior to her husband, she gave some to Adam to eat.

>POOF!< The magic fruit made them able to understand good from evil. For the first moment, they knew the difference between right and wrong!

If Adam and Eve didn’t know good from evil, then how could they know that it was wrong to disobey God until they’d already done so?

They also suddenly realized that they were prancing about naked, and that God — who had made Adam from dirt and cloned him to make Eve — might SEE them naked! So they made aprons for themselves out of fig leaves, thus beginning the garment industry we know today.

Later that day (Genesis 3:8), they heard God walking in the garden and hid from Him. God called out to Adam, asking where he was.

God knows everything. Why wouldn’t He know exactly where Adam was, and what Adam and Eve had been up to?

Adam came from his hiding place and admitted what he had done . . . that the woman had given him fruit from the tree and he ate it.

Once Adam had blamed Eve, she spoke up and said that the snake had tricked her.

As you can see, failing to take personal responsibility for our decisions isn’t a new thing.

Now, God was very angry. He cursed the snake to go on his belly forever. No more legs for snakes!

Then, God told Eve that she’d have great pain in childbirth, and always be a servant to her husband.

Wasn’t Eve created to be Adam’s assistant anyway? How is this a change?

God then cursed Adam, saying that since he couldn’t obey a simple command, he’d have to work for a living to raise food for himself.

God tore the skins off some animals to make outfits for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). Thus began the fashion industry.

Do you think God killed the animals before He took their skins to make clothes?

God then said, “Look at this, the man is like us now, and knows good from evil; next, he might eat from the Tree of Life too, and live forever!” (Gen. 3:22) So, He cast Adam and Eve out of the garden, and posted Cherubim, terrifying four-faced and four-winged creatures, with flaming swords to guard the Tree of Life.

What do you think? God knows everything, including the future . . . so that means that before He created Adam and Eve, He knew that they would eat fruit from the tree. He also knew the snake would talk Eve into trying it.

I hope you and your friends enjoy discussing this Real Bible Story!

Here’s what really happened!

Once upon a time, there was nothing. No world, no sun, no stars, no moon. There was just God. (Before you ask, He had made Himself, and had always been and always will be.)

One day (well, it wasn’t really a “day”, because God hadn’t invented those yet), God decided to create a world. So, He created a blob of material covered with water.

To go further, He needed to be able to see.

“Let there be light!” He cried, and POOF! There was light! God liked the light, and He divided it from the darkness. He named them Day and Night, and that was the first day. (Gen. 1:2-5)

On the second day, God made a “firmament”, the vault of the sky, which he called Heaven. He made it to divide the waters below the sky from the waters above the sky. (Gen. 1:6-8)

That’s right, there are waters above the sky! I bet your “science” teacher didn’t tell you that!

On the third day, God pulled all the water under the sky into one place, making the ocean. Then, the dry land appeared, on which He commanded plants and trees to spring forth. God thought these were pretty good, too. (Gen. 1:9-13)

On the fourth day, God put lights in the sky; a big light (the sun) for the day, a smaller light (moon) for the night, and a bunch of tiny stars which would tell people signs, seasons, days, and years. He made the sky into a calendar! (Gen. 1: 14-19)

Day Five, God decided to create some of the living animals — those of the sea and the air, like whales, fish, birds, and dolphins. He told them to reproduce and spread all over the Earth. (Gen. 1:20-23)

On the Sixth Day, God created land animals and insects and creepy-crawly things. He made cows, and lions, and dinosaurs, and bees, and worms, and unicorns, and bears. Lots of creatures! He also made humans!

He decided to make men and women in His image (that means that people look like God!), and told them that they could run the world and be in charge of it and the animals in it. He told them they could eat fruits and vegetables, and so could all the animals. That’s right, God made the first people and all the animals vegetarians, so there would be no violence in the world! (Gen. 1:24-31)

On the seventh day, God rested. This is why Sunday is to be a day of rest.

Since there was nobody to till the land, and God hadn’t yet created rain, He made a mist rise from the land to water all his plants. It must have been really humid! (Gen. 2:5-6)

What’s that? What about Adam and Eve?

Did you think they were the first people? Sorry. That’s not what the Bible says. Adam and Eve were the first Jews! Adam doesn’t arrive on the scene until after the Creation is complete. That’s our next story, about Adam, Eve, and Original Sin!

Now, Noah was a very good man; the Bible says he was just, and that he was perfect. He followed every rule God made, not just the ones he liked!

Do you know people who say they are Christian, but only follow some of the rules God gave us in the Bible?

Breaking one of God’s rules is called sinning. God hates people who sin! The story of Noah and the Ark will tell us just how much He hates them!

Even though God had decided by Noah’s time that people should only live to be 120 years old (Gen. 6:3), He liked Noah a lot and let him live to be much older.

When he was 500 years old (Gen. 5:32), Noah had three sons. He named them Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

About that time, God looked around the Earth, and saw that there was all sorts of wickedness and sin. People had, in the 2,000 years since Creation, forgotten or started ignoring His rules. There was miscenegation going on — that’s the grownup term for interracial marriage. Giants were marrying normal humans (Gen. 6:4), instead of keeping to their own kind. God hates that!

Can you think of any marriages God would hate today? Why would He hate them?

All the people were thinking evil thoughts all the time. So, God decided to kill them all.

He said, “Noah, I’m sick of all these people who ignore Me. I’m sorry I created people at all, because they won’t follow My rules! I’m going to kill them all, and all the animals and birds and everything else, too.”

Noah didn’t say anything.

God continued talking, telling Noah, “Build a big boat. We’ll call it an Ark. Then take two of every animal on that boat with you, or seven of animals that I’ve told you are clean animals. Only two of the unclean animals, like pigs and crabs. (I don’t like them much, but they might be useful someday.) You can bring your family with you. But I’m going to kill all the other people, and all the animals not on your boat with you.”

Well, Noah still didn’t say anything, but he did what God said. God knew Noah would do what He said, because Noah was perfect and followed all of God’s rules, even if he didn’t like what God told him to do.

What would you say if God told you He was going to kill everyone you know? Would you warn everybody, or just do what He said and build the Ark?

Lots of people who tell the story of Noah say that he spent 100 years telling people God was going to destroy everyone on the Earth, and that they all laughed at him. Some even say Noah offered to take them on board, in violation of God’s commands. This is found nowhere in the Bible. People made it up!

Even if people had believed Noah, God’s covenant was with Noah. He had already decided to kill everyone but Noah and his family.

Do you follow all of God’s rules? Would you have been on Noah’s boat?

God gave Noah quite a while to build this really big boat (the Ark). The story starts when Noah was 500, remember. But the Bible says that the rains came when Noah was 600! (Gen. 7:6) Noah spent 100 years building the Ark. His sons, then, were 100 years old when they went onto the Ark.

God even shut the door for them and locked them in, to make sure they’d stay nice and dry. (Gen, 7:16)

Then, God made it rain. He made it rain for forty days, and for forty nights. That’s a long time! That’s more than a month of solid heavy downpour! It was like a big hurricane, like Katrina in New Orleans, only instead of being over in a day, it went on for forty!

As the waters rose, I bet all Noah’s neighbors who had laughed at the crazy old man who spent 100 years building a giant boat were beating on it, trying to get in. Noah didn’t let them in, though. God hadn’t told him to let his friends in, just his family. And God had locked the door anyway.

After the forty days it took to flood the Earth, God waited another 150 days. It took over seven whole months from when the rains started to when the boat rested on Mount Ararat, a tall mountain. I bet it just looked like a tiny island then, though!

Too bad Noah wasn’t in modern-day Nepal; he might have stopped being seasick earlier. Mount Everest is twice as tall as Mount Ararat. But, Mount Ararat is the tallest mountain in Turkey, and that’s where God wanted Noah to set down.

I’m pretty sure it was crowded and stinky in Noah’s boat, with two or seven of every creature. He must have locked lions in stalls to keep them from eating the lambs, and the baby dinosaurs probably had big cages too. Noah had all kinds of food to last over seven months! And think of the cleanup after all those animals with no way to go outside!

But what do you think it was like for all the people not in Noah’s boat? Let’s think about them for a minute.

People who lived by the ocean probably got into boats, them and their children and their wives, pregnant with pre-born children who hadn’t had a chance to defy God yet. But God capsized those boats, or let the people in them starve to death over the seven and a half months.

What do you think the people on those boats, who didn’t have months of supplies stored up, ate? Do you think they ate each other, or their children? Would your Mommy or Daddy eat you?

Are you sure?

The people who didn’t have boats must have climbed trees and hills, then sat helplessly watching as the water rose. I bet that was scary! They probably tied logs together to try to make rafts, then clung to them hoping to survive, finally getting too tired to stay awake but knowing they and their little babies would die if they fell asleep.

All the animals of the world died, too. Birds flew, landing on whatever they could find, until everything was waterlogged and sank. Then, the birds drowned, just like all the zebras, and dinosaurs, and lions, and chickens, and bunny rabbits. God killed them all, because the people didn’t follow His rules.

Don’t you feel like following God’s rules now? Are you worried that God will drown you if you break His rules?

Well, don’t worry about that! God promised not to!

That’s right, when Noah got out of the ark, he took the seventh creature from all the clean animals and birds, and killed it, and burned it on an altar for God. God liked the smell of the burning flesh, and was happy and said:

“I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” (Gen. 8:20-22)

That’s right, God will never destroy all life on Earth again! Only select locations, as you’ll see in the story of Lot.

After this, Noah and his sons, and their wives, were the only people left on Earth. They had to repopulate the planet. That’s why it’s OK to marry your first cousin, if your state or country follows God’s rules. States where you can’t marry your first cousin are run by people who hate God.

Do the people running your state or country love God? If you’re in the United States, you can look here to find out!

Here are some things to talk about with your friends!

Is God forgiving of all sin, like some Pastors say, or does He punish people for breaking even one of His rules?

God planned the Flood for 100 years, giving Noah all that time to build the Ark. Why did God secretly tell Noah His plans and let all the people keep on breaking His rules for a whole century, instead of just telling the people to stop breaking His rules? What reasons can you think of?

Exciting news! Noah’s Ark has been DISCOVERED! Multiple news outlets report the discovery by evangelical archaeologists:

April 26, 2010: A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers said Monday they believe they may have found Noah’s Ark — four thousand metres up a mountain in Turkey.

The team say they recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4,800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat.

“It’s not 100 percent that it is Noah’s Ark but we think it is 99.9 percent that this is it,” Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah’s Ark Ministries International told AFP.

The structure had several compartments, some with wooden beams, which were believed to house animals, he said.

The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds that one had never been found above 3,500 metres in the vicinity, Yeung said.

Unfortunately, the discoverers refuse to release the location, dimensions, or any exterior photos. But there is 4,800-year-old straw!

Just look at this 4,800 year-old fresh straw in Noah's Ark! Surely it's not a hoax this time!

Christians around the world are hoping it’s not a hoax, like the last time:

Nicholas Purcell, a lecturer in Ancient History at Oxford University, was dismissive of the claims adding that ‘these kinds of stories come along pretty regularly’.

‘The usual nonsense,’ he told MailOnline.

‘If floodwaters covered Eurasia 12,000ft deep in 2,800 BC, how did the complex societies of Egypt and Mesopotamia, already many centuries old, keep right on regardless? And dating Noah’s Flood to 2,800 BC is arbitrary anyway…’

Over the years there have been numerous hoaxes over the search for the ark. In 1993, George Jammal claimed in a programme shown by CBS that he had ’sacred wood’ from the ark.

It was later revealed that he was an actor and that the wood was in fact taken from Californian railroad tracks which had been baked in an oven with various sauces.

I’m sad to say that Uncle Bobby will not be able to provide any further travelogues or lessons for the time being . . . so you’ll have to be satisfied with Real Bible Stories instead! – Sister Shirlee

Jesus:Heyyyy Kids, how about some playtime with Jesus?

Child:Yay!

Jesus: Which of the nations of the earth would you like to see tonight?

Child: I wanna see cowboys and Indians!

Jesus:  Hold on tight, we’re going to India! Just kneel down and pray…

*POOF*

Welcome to India!

Child: *Retch* what is that nasty smell?

Jesus: That’s called “curry”. It’s a kind of spices they put on as perfume. It makes them smell like food, so that if here’s a famine and they need to eat each other, they at least taste good.

Child: Will they eat…Me?

Jesus: Of course not. First of all, you don’t smell like curry. Secondly, they don’t have famines any more because we Americans flood their markets with subsidized food that they are too lazy to farm for themselves.

Child: I’m still scared. They’re all around me, and they’re standing too close!

Jesus: Just slap them and they’ll step back.

Child: What? I’m not going to start a fight with them! It looks like here’s a million on them!

Jesus:Actually, there’s a THOUSAND million of them – a billion. But go ahead and slap them, they don’t hit back. You see, they worship a man named Ghandi, who taught them a thing called “pacifism”. If you hit them, they will do what they call “passive resistance”.

Child:What’s parsave residence?

Jesus: It means they’ll just stand there and let you slap them.

Child: But I don’t want them to stand there, I want them to go away!

Jesus: Yes, that’s exactly how they beat the British. I guess we’ll have to move on and find another part of India that isn’t so crowded.

Child: Where’s that?

Jesus: I think some of their mountaintops aren’t completely overrun. Here, let’s catch this bus:

Child: What bus? All I see is a big pile of Indians!

Jesus: That’s what Indian buses look like. Indians are too cheap to pay for a seat, so they sit on the roof instead. Come on inside, we have the whole bus to ourselves!

Child: Hello Mr. Bus Driver, where is this bus taking us?

Bus Driver: Lahore

Child: WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!?

Jesus: You can stop slapping him: Lahore is the name of the city the bus is going to. God gives sinful cities sinful names, so he’ll have an easier time remembering which ones to rain brimstone upon. For example, there was a city of sodomites, so He called it Sodom. And as for Bangkok – well, you get my point.

Child: This ride is so bumpy! Aren’t there any roads in India?

Jesus: There’s only one, and it isn’t any better than this.You can’t drive fast on it because around every corner there’s a herd of holy cows.

Child: Holy cow? I thought that was just an expression!

Jesus: No, Indians believe cows are holy, so they don’t eat them. This is a good example of the foolishness of worshipping false religions: India has more cows in it than any other country in the world. It also had more famines in its history than any other country in the world. These people would rather feed an animal than their own starving child.

Child: Where did they get such a crazy idea?

Jesus: Probably one of their gurus fell in love with a cow, married it, and had his heart broken at a BBQ.

Child: What’s a guru, and why would he marry a cow?

Jesus: See that naked guy sitting in the muddy gutter, smoking a peace-pipe full of hashish? That’s an Indian holy man. Trust me, that’s not a way to get many dates. I doubt he’s ever had a girlfriend. If it weren’t for the cows, he wouldn’t get any loving at all.

Child:Oh No! Terrorists are hijacking the bus! Look at their knives!

Jesus:Oh, don’t worry about that. Indians just look like that. Indians have diarrhea all the time – they need all the cloth on the turban to wipe their bottoms with. And the knives are idols that they worship, they don’t use them as weapons much. Anyway, if they hijacked this bus, what would they crash it into? There aren’t any skyscrapers in India. As you can see, most of their buildings are tee-pees.

Child: I think we’re in Lahor now!

Jesus: How can you tell?

Child: Look at the women, they’re dressed like sluts! You can see their bellybuttons!

Jesus: Very interesting….Let’s get off here, I’m going to see if I can convince them I’m a tartaric guru….

Child: What’s a tarantula-goo?

Jesus: Many Indians believe in a religion called Tantra. It involves, hm, how do I put this mildly….See that temple over there? See what the statues are doing?

Child:Ew! That’s gross! Look at those those ladies are doing to that man! And what that man is doing to that cow!

Jesus:Just wait til you see the Kama Sutra!

Child: Camera-soup what?

Jesus: Never mind. On second hand, maybe I don’t need any more wives. These Indian women have fine figures, but those annoying red dots on their forehead ruin their beauty. It looks like a tic on their forehead, and I keep wanting to pick it off. Either that, or it looks like someone shot them between the eyes. They look like corpses that have been raised from the dead – and take it from someone he’s actually been a reanimated corpse – that’s not pretty.

Child: Why do Indians think looking like a corpse is attractive?

Jesus: It comes from the zombie false-gods they worship. See how their skin is blue and green?

Child:Ew! That’s gross! Are there really zombies wandering around India?

Jesus: No, only their false gods are zombies. When an Indian woman dies, they leave her for the vultures to eat. When an Indian man dies, they burn him, and toss his wife into the fire with him.

Child: Can we catch another bus now? These dot-headed women are creeping me out and that freaky temple – can Indians really bend all over like that?

Jesus: Yes, they can, because of another false religion called “Yoga”.

Child: How many weird cults does this place HAVE?

Jesus: Nobody’s bothered to count. Anyway, Yoga is a cult based on a snake goddess. All Christians should avoid it.

Child: You don’t have to tell me twice! Can we go to some other country now?

Jesus:Sure, there other other countries that border India. For example, there’s Kashmir, which partly belongs to Pakistan and partly belongs to China. Both nations are the “good guys” – they are strong allies of the Republican Party. Pakistan’s strong rulers have been our best friends in the region in both the war against Russia, and the war against Islamofascism. China is a great land with lots of investment opportunity. You’ll never see any Chinese environmentalists whining about what happened at Bhopal.

Child:What happened at Bople?

Jesus:Americans generously gave jobs and chemicals to Indians, but the lazy, incompetent Indians spilled the chemicals all over. The Indians complained about being sick, but they’re sick with diarrhea all the time, how can they tell what caused it? And anyway, *I* caused it, to punish them for their sins.

Child:Wow – this place is horrible. And to think that an Indian movie just won all those Oscars!

Jesus: They must have had a quota or something. Indians movies are boring – no car chases, not even any kissing. And they’re mostly cheap knock-offs of western entertainment. For example, notice how all their music is ripped off from the Beatles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtJRNyPK-lc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzVp_6m5gXs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ky5ClIjL8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnwrzssOjc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pq98sZSBtc

Child:Is there any way it’s possible to bring salvation to this place?

Jesus: The last person who tried was Mother Teresa, and it destroyed her faith. She most likely died an atheist and went to hell, because of India. But on the other hand, there is an ex-Indian named Bobby Jindal. He has become such a good Christian that he even does amature exorcisms!

Child: Wow! So there IS hope! God Bless America!

Jesus: I will! And that’s also a happy ending for today’s adventure. It’s time to go home to the greatest nation in the world, and go to bed.

Child: God bless America!

Jesus: I Will! And remember, I’m just a pray away(tm)! I’ll see you later, for another adventure in “Around the world in 80 Prays”.

Since Uncle Bobby is no longer around to read them, comments have been disabled for this story. Why not read some Real Bible Stories instead?

I’m sad to say that Uncle Bobby will not be able to provide any further travelogues or lessons for the time being . . . so you’ll have to be satisfied with Real Bible Stories instead! – Sister Shirlee

Jesus Says: “Hi kids!

“You know that if mommy and daddy pay their tithes at church and donate to the 700 Club they go to Heaven. You know that as long as you obey the Pastors, no matter what they say, you’ll go to Heaven.

“Sometimes mommies and daddies lose their jobs. They think it’s more important to pay for the house or for food than to tithe as God commands them. They don’t think that I need to see how much they love Me through their Love Offerings.

“Now, we don’t like to think about a mommy or a daddy dying, do we? But it can happen. And if your mommy or daddy is paying more attention to worldly things than Me, how do you think that will make Me feel?”

Click on Jesus to find out how He’ll reward your mommy and daddy!

Playtime with Jesus #23 is recommended for children ages 5 to 12. For best results, have children view this page just before bedtime.

Click here for another fun-filled Bible adventure!

Since Uncle Bobby is no longer around to read them, comments have been disabled for this story. Why not read some Real Bible Stories?