What You Didn't Know

If you're not a total novice, you know that one of the key figures early in the Bible is Jacob, aka the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. We're not going to recount his whole story here, but at one point he's running for his life and finds himself all alone in the desert. Just a man and his thoughts.

Oh, and God, who, out of nowhere, grabs Jacob from behind. Now, you might think that being grabbed from behind by the Big Guy himself pretty much means your ass is ash, but not so with Jacob -- nope, Jacob wrestles Him (not knowing that it's Him, with a capital "H") all night long.

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And God said, let there be ass-kicking. And there was ass-kicking.

When dawn arrives and the two are still going at it, God realizes that he has accidentally solved the ancient thought experiment, "Could God create a wrestler so badass that not even He could pin him?" and figures out He's not going to win. So instead he touches Jacob's hip and causes it to go out of the socket. This is probably an illegal move, but who are you going to complain to?

But Jacob still won't relent, so something unexpected happens: God asks Jacob to let Him go, and Jacob -- still not knowing who he has in a headlock -- demands that his attacker bless him first. It's only then that he finds out what's really happening -- that he's essentially beaten up God.

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"Oh, hey, dude, I was just kidding. We're cool, right?"

And you might not have guessed it (what with His penchant for plagues and smiting and stuff), but God is apparently not a sore loser. He did indeed bless Jacob, with a new name:

"And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."

We should note here that there are different versions of the text, and some translations say that it was merely an angel sent by God that Jacob wrestled into submission, which honestly only makes the story about 10 percent less weird.

What You Didn't Know

In a revelation that just gave us an idea for the bitchingest family sitcom ever, it turns out Jesus wasn't the only brat tinkering around in Joseph's wood shop, because according to the Bible, he had brothers and sisters. This isn't some obscure trivia: Jesus' siblings are referenced right here in Mark 6:3:

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him."

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Well, they were after they saw some of the drunken texts he was sending out.

And the holy siblings pop up again in Matthew 13:55-56:

"Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Juda? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?"

So there were not only at least four brothers, but multiple sisters. All growing up in the same house as the Messiah. This doesn't change anything in terms of what the various sects believe (the "Mary was always a virgin" theory figures the kids were Joseph's from a previous marriage), but it does mean the Bible left out some of the most interesting stories. Did the other kids get along with Jesus? At what point did they know he wasn't just another kid (he started schooling church elders as early as age 12)? If nothing else, it had to have made things weird around Christmas.

What You Didn't Know

There's a reason your Sunday school's VHS copy of David and Goliath ran out of tape before getting into King David's reign: If it were any longer, it would have touched upon how one of the first things David did as king was subject the wife of one of his soldiers to what Old Testament scholar Richard M. Davidson described as "power rape."

David was walking around on the rooftop of his palace one night -- you know, being king -- when he spied a hot woman bathing (it's only creepy if you're not the fucking king). Rather than doing the decent thing and rubbing one out right there on the rooftop, David instead had the woman fetched to the palace so he could perform some kingly insemination on her. This put David in a bit of a pickle: The woman, Bathsheba, was not only married, but her husband, Uriah the Hittite, was a soldier in King David's army.

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"Doh, is my face red. Just goes to show it pays to check beforehand, huh?"

In an attempt to cover up what he'd done, David ordered Uriah to immediately go home and bang Bathsheba so that if she got pregnant, nobody would get suspicious. But when Uriah refused to go home out of respect for his fellow soldiers who were still on the field, David arranged for him to be sent to the frontlines of a battle (aka "the place where all the arrows land") to make sure he'd never come back. It worked out just as he wanted: The guy was killed.

Andrew Burward-Hoy
Probably in slow motion.

Now, we're not suggesting that David's douchebaggery went unpunished. Bathsheba's baby died, and David's kingdom was subsequently subjected to some good ol' Old Testament smiting. However, it's hard to argue that David used his newfound king status for anything other than being a colossal dickbag, especially when you consider the fact that before his devoted soldier's corpse was even cold, he married Bathsheba and knocked her up again forthwith.

Naturally, God got pretty pissed at Cain for inventing murder, but He didn't want to kill him, since that would technically classify Him as the world's first copycat killer. Instead, Cain was branded and forced to wander the world as a hobo, eventually settling east of Eden in a land called Nod.

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Artist's depiction.

What You Didn't Know

While God was none too pleased with Cain, He apparently hadn't quite gotten the hang of that whole "wrath" thing just yet. According to the rest of Genesis 4, after taking away his favorite hobby and booting him out of Eden, God then went to great lengths to bless Cain along the way. First he assured Cain that nobody would ever kill him, which by Old Testament standards is like winning the friggin' lottery. Then Cain found himself a sexy wife in Nod, had a kid named Enoch, and founded his very own city, which he also called Enoch. (Apparently originality hadn't been created just yet.)

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OK, we're starting to not trust the artist very much now.

In short, Cain didn't just wander the world like Caine in Kung Fu -- he wandered the world like someone who wanted to be the next mayor of SimCity, and he begat a pretty impressive family along the way to back him up. The Bible mentions children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, one of whom appears to have invented the guitar.

So in hindsight, it would seem that all God's pet Abel ever accomplished was to please God one day and then get his ass murdered. That's pretty small potatoes compared to his original sinner father, the Sower of Seeds, or his murderous brother, the Founder of Cities. We'll let you come up with your own moral to this story.

What You Didn't Know

The Gospel of John never quite gets to that "rose up to heaven" part. John 21 describes Jesus showing up on the shore after his death and making fish appear for his hippie pals. They proceed to have themselves a feast on the beach, and then Jesus asks Peter to follow him and go ... well, we don't know where they went. It ends with John 21:25, which says:

"Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written."

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"And in the fourth month of our Lord, Jesus did catch some wicked air."

And that's it. That's where the Gospel of John ends, and Acts opens with Jesus strapping himself to a cloud and bottle-rocketing it straight up to heaven. We tend to think of Jesus' ascension closely following his resurrection, but apparently there's an Earth-sized ellipsis in between those two events where God knows what took place (literally).

This gives a whole new perspective to those "What Would Jesus Do?" bumper stickers. What would Jesus, newly resurrected from his own brutal slaying, do? (We can think of several things we'd do, but they're not very Christian-like -- more revenge-movie-like.) And, perhaps more importantly, why didn't any of his disciples feel it necessary to share any of those events with us? Was nobody taking notes? Were they afraid it would make the Bible too long? We're picturing Jesus feeding another crowd or walking on another body of water and his biographer standing there, like "Eh, they've got the idea by this point."

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"Maybe do it in lava? Juggle sharks? There has to be something that can keep their attention."

Follow Jacopo della Quercia on Twitter and at Man Cave Daily for his ongoing This Badass Day in History. Douglas A. McDonnell has no Twitter or cave to refer you to; he's just lucky to be here, and thankful, too.

For more insanity on a biblical scale, check out The 9 Most Badass Bible Verses and 5 Real Deleted Bible Scenes in Which Jesus Kicks Some Ass.

If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out The 4 Least Anticipated TV Shows of March 2013.

And stop by LinkSTORM to discover what happened when Jesus oil-wrestled Moses.

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