I am going to avoid throwing in phrases like "if I remember correctly" and just go with my memory of the Bible stories I've read. If I get it wrong, someone is bound to tell me. There are no guarantees.

When Abraham was a teenager, he found it ridiculous that his dad's customers worshipped the lumps of clay that he helped his dad fashion. They were just bits of ceramic, no? And dad's customers worshipped them as gods. A sucker born every minute, huh? What a bunch of bobos. Thus, from this attitude, came the father of Judaic monotheism.

Dad made what we would today call "idols". I think the term "idol" trivializes them and shows our own paternalistic attitude towards the ancients. Call them what they represented to those people. They were GODS, not just (haha what idiots) idols. They were things to worship and to pray to. They were taken ultra seriously. The term "idol" doesn't convey their seriousness.

It's like calling the deadly serious religion of the Greeks "mythology". No, they didn't consider it mythology. They killed Socrates for mocking it. Are you so sure that your own religion couldn't rightfully be termed "Jewish mythology" or "Christian mythology" or "Hindu mythology" or "Muslim mythology"? Oh wait, you're right and they're wrong, I forgot. How could I have missed that central point?

Abraham decided that the idols his dad made and sold were not gods, and that there is only one god, or at least only one head honcho of the gods, perhaps surrounded by a cast of lesser gods. It gets down to your definition of a god, doesn't it. Is the only one you refer to as god the one who created our universe? Or would you consider someone a god if that person could accomplish something else, if that person might just be a subordinate of the head honcho? Is Jesus Christ a god? Or just his daddy? Don't confuse me with that silly stuff about them being one and the same. They aren't one and the same. You aren't your own daddy. Come on now. Let's not be silly. Except if you want to get all Nirvanic about it and say we're all one, hare hare krishna.

I'm not you.

Then the customer would take God home and put him or her on the mantel piece, or on the piano, or on the dashboard of the Pontiac, and pray to it whenever there was a family emergency. Who are you to doubt that someone heard those prayers and actually helped? You don't know anything. You are, as we all know, a blooming idiot.

Where do we go after death? Do we rot in the ground and that's that? I think not. I think we survive bodily death, return home, get our diploma if we in fact received a passing grade, and have the option to keep in touch with those who are still alive, even helping them out now and then if we are so disposed, somehow or other.

So, I can think of those gods, those idols, as telephones. The customer would address the idol as you would address a telephone. The customer would speak to "god" and end up getting grandpa Moe on the phone, and maybe grandpa Moe would be able to help. Never underestimate grandpa Moe.

Maybe the scorn that Abraham felt for daddy's merchandise was unwarranted. A good telephone is worth something. These days they are built so shabbily. They didn't used to break or go out of order. In de ole days, a big clunky circular dial phone would outlive you.

I remember, because I was born in 1806. They don't make em like they used ta. Planned obsolescence. How are you going to sell a new phone to somebody who already has one that works?

Abraham was surrounded by belief in polytheism. The early stories of Genesis are polytheistic. Early Judaism was polytheistic. It was "Thou shalt have no other gods before me, for I am a jealous god." It was not "I am the only god, and the rest are bullshit."

Abraham's family was very rich. Abraham himself was very rich. The forefather of Judaism was not some dude living in a basement scrounging for nickels. He was extremely rich. Rich enough to have lots of servants and animals. Rich enough to make an impact. You think anyone would listen to Obama if he didn't have some gelt? If he was just some black guy with ideas? Uh uh.

Abraham married his half sister Sara. At one point they had to make the difficult decision to put themselves in harm's way, get on the move, cause times got tough. It must have been a pretty big decision for Abraham to make. I doubt he consulted Sara. She was just a chick. Chicks didn't get consulted back then. Dumb friggin bimbos. Not worth talking to.

They ended up crossing the border into Egypt. Abraham knew it was dangerous, but it must have been necessary. He told his wife not to let on that they were married. Just say she's a sister, not a wife. Because the Egyptian army were devotees of rape and murder. They'd rape Sara and murder her hubby. But not if she said she was a sister. In that event, they'd rape Sara and be nice to bro, if he didn't make a fuss.

So the hell with Sara, let her get gang raped, who cares. Abraham didn't care. She was just some dumb ass chick. Wife shmife. First things first.

Sara was a real cutie. The Egyptians who ran into them did not rape Sara. Instead they brought her to the Pharaoh and he fucked her til she was bowlegged. At that point, the Pharaoh's luck changed, and his magicians told him that his new bitch was a married woman, married to Abraham, and worst of all, Abraham had friends in very very very high places, some god named YHWH, who was evidently very pissed at Pharaoh for fucking Sara.

To calm YHWH down and stop him from messing up Pharaoh's life, Pharaoh sent Sara back to Abraham and said "Why the hell didn't you tell me that you were her husband?" He answered, and I quote, "Because your fuckin troops would have killed me, you silly bitch, Sara told me about how she used to spank you."

Abraham went on his way, loaded down with gifts and new animals from Egypt as a bribe to YHWH to get off Egypt's ass. But Abraham and Sara did the exact same thing in other places, with the same result, and made quite a killing from naive little kings who inadvertently pissed YHWH off. Sara was having the time of her life, and Abraham was getting richer by the month.

Sara was barren. She gave her husband a girlfriend, a servant named Hagar The Horrible, to make a baby with. They had a son named Ishmael. He was a wild kid. He was to become the forefather of the Arabs.

Now and then YHWH, creator of the universe, would come to Earth in the physical body of a man, and he would pay his friend Abraham a visit. One day he came with two angels, all in human form. He told Abraham that he was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because the people there were so nasty and evil to each other. Abraham said "What if there are 100 good people in those towns? Won't you save those towns from destruction for the sake of those 100 good people?" God said yeah, okay.

Then Abraham said "What if there are 50 good people? Won't you save those towns from destruction for the sake of those 50?" God said yeah, okay. Then Abraham said "What if there are 10 good people in those towns?" God said yeah, okay.

God sent his two angels to scout around. They first stopped at the home of Abraham's relative, Lot, where he lived with his wife, his two young daughters age 9 and 11 who were deep into N Sync, and his dog Frenchy. The angels were handsome men, sort of like Paul Newman and Brad Pitt. They were spotted by men lounging around Sodom. Hoo hah, the men said. Woo hoo. What pretty boys they are. Wouldn't it be fun to poke them in the rear.

Soon all the men of Sodom were assembled outside Lot's house with erections. We want Brad, we want Brad, they chorused. One of the more assertive of the group knocked politely on Lot's door and said "Mr. Lot, can Brad Pitt and Paul Newman come out to play, please?" Lot said no, to their disappointment. Then they became quite insistent and said "Look at these erections, if you would. What are we to do with them?"

Lot offered them his two little girls to gang rape. The girls were alarmed at the prospect. They hid in their room, under the bed, shaking. They didn't want to be assaulted by all those ugly bastards.

The men of Sodom got really angry and they scared Lot. Then the angels, Paul and Brad, went outside and caused a blinding light to explode, temporarily blinding the would-be gang rapists. That ended that. You don't mess with angels.

Lot and his family were allowed to leave, and God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone. He wasn't really thinking about that whole business about sparing the towns if they had 10 good people. Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, but who cares.

At some other time, Lot was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and an invading army busted into his house and took him and his whole family hostage, also taking all his shit too. Abraham heard about it and assembled a little militia of maybe 100 guys, followed the invading army, attacked at night, and kicked their ass. This was a victorious army he just beat the crap out of. Abraham was a pretty tough dude, an effective warlord, and he saved Lot and the rest, and got all their shit back too.

God told Abraham that he was going to have another son, with his wife Sara this time. They were in their 90s. She was decades past menopause. She was listening from behind a door and she couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. God opened the door and accused her of laughing. She said "No I didn't." He said "Yeah you did." She said "No I didn't." He said "Yeah you did."

Sara had a son. He was named Isaac, which means laughter.

Sara decided that Hagar The Horrible had been acting too big for her britches, being the mother of Abraham's son Ishmael, and she wanted to throw Hagar's ass out. Get rid of her and her goony goo son. Abraham said no, Sara said yes, and Abraham said okay, I'll get rid of them. He sent them away and they survived the desert and ended up being the progenitors of the Arab race who hated the hell out of Jews.

God told Abraham to kill Isaac. Abraham said "Whatever" and put a knife to Isaac's throat. Then God said stop, so Abraham stopped. Then God said he would make of Abraham a people numerous as the stars, cause he was willing to sacrifice his most cherished thing, his son Isaac, upon God's demand. Abraham mumbled under his breath, "I don't really like kids, I threw that prick Ishmael out too, and his pain in the ass mother."

That's about it. Now you know who Abraham was, if you didn't know before.