commanded
Explanation
The Joke
The comic shows what appears to be a biblical scene: a group of ancient, bearded figures stand before a large tablet or screen displaying a list of divine commandments. However, the commandments shown are not the familiar Ten Commandments. Instead, the tablet reads: "Don't police yourself. Don't use prisons. Blot out the memory of all Amalekites. Don't break promises. Don't punish without trial. Be more good for the poor. God has spoken. All calamities and enslave them forever."
The caption below reads: "Reading The Bible is a great way to convince yourself that there is a minimum of two deities." The joke is that the moral instructions in the Bible are wildly contradictory -- some commandments are progressive and compassionate (don't use prisons, don't punish without trial, be good to the poor), while others are horrifyingly brutal (blot out all Amalekites, enslave people forever). The comic presents these side by side to highlight the tonal whiplash.
The Humor
The humor comes from the observation that the Bible, taken as a whole, contains moral directives that are so dramatically inconsistent that it seems like they must have been written by at least two completely different gods -- one benevolent and just, the other vengeful and cruel. By placing contradictory commandments next to each other on the same tablet, the comic compresses centuries of theological debate about the nature of God into a single, absurd visual. The punchline -- "a minimum of two deities" -- is delivered with deadpan understatement, as if the reader should logically conclude polytheism just from the internal contradictions alone.
References
- The destruction of the Amalekites is commanded in Deuteronomy 25:19 and 1 Samuel 15, where God orders Saul to destroy the Amalekite nation entirely.
- The comic touches on a long-standing theological discussion, notably associated with Marcionism (2nd century CE), which argued that the Old Testament God and the New Testament God were fundamentally different deities.