Acts of Giving

ACTS 4

Busted! Peter and John are both arrested for healing people. Lolwhut? They were preaching against the local theocrats, so yeah, that sounds likely, sez Julian Assange.  But The Man couldn't trump up any charges so they let them go. We're better at it now, if it had been the CIA they'd still be shivering in an isolation cell somewhere, sez Jose Padilla. Charges? We don't need no stinking charges! Rank amateurs, those Sanhedrin, letting potential terrorists go free.

And look what happens, there's a section titled “the believers share their possessions”. ZOMG, Socialism! It tells how all the cultists shared, some of them even donating money when they sold their house. Gosh, that's nice, isn't it?

Like Ananias and Sapphira, they sold some property and gave most of the money to Peter. Peter thanked them profusely bitched him out for not giving him ALL the money. Now that's the kind of preacher we know and love today, and then it gets weird

Acts 5:5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.

Wait, what? He just keeled over dead in the middle of a conversation? And then Peter expressed great sorrow and held a service in his honor and gave back all the money to support the widow. Didn't say shit, buried the guy on the spot and when his wife turned up he told her her husband had died and offered condolences bitched her out for keeping her own money. Here is how you inform a person their spouse has just died, when you're a Man Of Gawd^(TM) :

5:7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.
8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

All sympathy and compassion, that's our Peter. And then guess what?

10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

What, again? Goddam, people are dropping like flies around this Peter guy. Why is that, is anybody suspicious, what killed them, what The Fuck?

Here's how it looks to me. Nobody was there to witness these deaths, it says the young men came in later, politely ignoring the dagger sticking out of the deceased's chest, it does not say, and immediately hid the body. No funeral, no mourning period, no three day waiting, definitely no autopsy. No sirree, three hours later our boy is dead, gone and buried and even his wife doesn't know it. Nothing suspicious there, boy. Then she shows up and the same thing happens again. About these young men, was one called Winston Wolfe? About the rest of the money, who ended up with that? Why does the book keep saying

5 … and great fear seized all who heard,

11 Great fear seized the whole church

Not “That's really a weird coincidence that two people would just die for no reason like that”, more like “Man, DON'T FUCK WITH PETER.”

Could this have anything to do with the notorious growth of the early Christian Church? Does a fish shit in the sea? Am I too cynical? NAAWWW.