January 15th: Genesis 27, Psalm 32 and Matthew 17

Telling a lie is bad. That's what Mrs. Whittaker my first grade teacher told me. I believe it was in correlation with a syringe and a bullet casing. I went to school in the ghetto. Seriously. (Lies are bad, remember?) But who told Mrs. Whittaker that lies were bad and who told that person? And what about the person before that?

If you had never read the Bible. If you had never been influenced by Judeo-Christian thought, how would you know? Heck if you only read Genesis, how would you know? Take a look at the lineage:

-Adam told God he was afraid because he was naked, no mention of the one thing he wasn't supposed to do.
-Abraham can't remember if Sarah is his sister or his wife.
-Same for Isaac.
-Jacob...

Yeah, the dude dressed up in a camel hair coat (Marc Jacobs fall 4500 BC), rubbed his brothers stank on himself and stole the blessing. Any mention of it being a "bad" thing. Nope. Not really. In fact, God is referred to as, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Keep moving along, Rehab, nice girl...ohh wait... not so much. Lies. She makes it into the faith chapter in Hebrews and is in the line of Jesus as one of the only women mentioned. No mention of the lie being a negative thing.

So what gives Mrs. Whittaker? I know Moses had "You Shall Not Lie" engraved in some stone but how come everyone in the Bible does it. I got to thinking. When did God tell the Israelites not to lie... not till way after Jacob. About the same time as the "do not eat ham." So is it wrong for Jacob? How would he have known? Is he off the hook?

Probably at this point in reading this, one of three things has happened:

A. You have already mentally drafted, edited, rewritten and footnoted a witty and cutting response to this post. Which, honestly, you've gone way overboard. I didn't even write a draft. Seriously, you should read better stuff if you're going to go through all that effort.

B. You stopped reading because you totally disagree...and why am I still responding to you?

C. You agree with me and have vowed to lie.

I hope that you know that I don't think lying is good. I just want to read the Bible as someone that hasn't before... as someone that would question whether what Jacob did was OK. So was it? He was blessed and he prospered. God blessed a lot of liars. And there is no mention of most of them repenting of it.

So, how do we deal with this? Gloss over it? Be OK with it? I'm not sure. I wish Mrs. Whittaker would have told me the answer to this one.