text. When it suits their purposes, they treat it like the literally
perfect word of God. Then, when it suits their other purposes, they
conveniently ignore the parts of the Bible that are—inconvenient.
spouting the others when they want to. To list all of the verses in
to be precise. I’ll limit myself to a couple tantalizing tidbits of
the Bible writers might have given him a run for his money. Christians
2. Awkwardly useless commandments. The
Bible is chock-a-block with do’s and don’ts. Some of them are simply
statements of universal ethical principles, like do to others what you
would have them do to you, or don’t lie, or don’t covet your neighbor’s
possessions. But from a moral standpoint most of them are simply useless
or even embarrassing—especially if you think God could have used the
space to say don’t have sex with anyone who doesn’t want you to, or wash
your hands after you go to the bathroom.
- Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material. Leviticus 19:19
- Ye shall not round the corners of your heads. Leviticus 19:27
3. Silly food rules. The
early Hebrews probably didn’t have an obesity epidemic like the one
that has spread around the globe today. Even so, one might think that if
an unchanging and eternal God were going to give out food rules he
might have considered the earnest Middle-American believers who would be
coming along in 2014. A little divine focus on amping up leafy green
vegetables and avoiding sweets might have gone a long way. Instead, the
Bible strictly
forbids eating
rabbit, shellfish, pork, weasels, scavengers, reptiles, and owls. As
is, Christians simply ignore the eating advisories in the Old Testament,
even though they claim that edicts like the Ten Commandments and the
anti-queer
clobber verses still apply.
- All
that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all
that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters,
they shall be an abomination unto you. Leviticus 9:10
- Thou shalt not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. Exodus 23:19
4. Holy hangups about genitals. God,
or the Bible writers, is hung up about sexual anatomy in a way many
modern Christians, fortunately, are not. In “The Year of Living
Biblically,” the author, A.J. Jacobs,
attempts to obey Mosaic
laws about menstruation. When his wife finds out what those laws
actually are, she gives him the middle finger by sitting on every chair
in the house.
- When a woman has a discharge, if her discharge
in her body is blood, she shall continue in her menstrual impurity for
seven days; and whoever touches her shall be unclean until
evening. Everything also on which she lies during her menstrual impurity
shall be unclean, and everything on which she sits shall be unclean. Leviticus 15: 19-20
- When
men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to
rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out
her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off
her hand. Deuteronomy 25:11-12
5. God’s temper tantrums. Modern
Christians may talk about God as a loving father, or even a Jesus
buddy, the kind you’d want to play golf with, but in reality Bible-God
goes out of his way to be intimidating. Worse, he appears to lose
control of his temper at times, lashing out like an oversized thwarted
three-year-old; and his earthly representatives—including Jesus—do the
same.
- Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the
road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of
here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around,
looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord.
Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 2 Kings 2:23-25 NIV
- Early
in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was
hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found
nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear
fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. Matthew 21:18-22 NIV
6. Times when the Bible God is worse than Satan. In
the Bible, Satan is described as a roaring lion who prowls the earth,
seeking whom he may devour. But if you actually read the stories, Satan
doesn’t do much other than to tempt people into disobeying the dictates
of Yahweh, who acts like a heavenly dictator with borderline personality
disorder. God, by contrast, professes his undying love, kindness and
mercy, but then commands his minions to commit brutal atrocities when he
isn’t up for it himself. Some of the stories are so bad even Hollywood,
with its passion for
glorious biblical sex and violence, won’t touch them, especially the plentiful Bible stories about sexual slavery and human sacrifice.
- Now
therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman
who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man
intimately, spare for yourselves. Numbers 31:17-18
- He
[Josiah] executed the priests of the pagan shrines on their own altars,
and he burned human bones on the altars to desecrate them…. He did this
in obedience to all the laws written in the scroll that Hilkiah the
priest had found in the LORD’s Temple. Never before had there been a
king like Josiah, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and soul and
strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a
king like him since. 2 Kings 23:20-25 NLT
7. Instructions for slave masters. The
reality is that the Bible says much more in support of slavery than
against it. Even the New Testament Jesus never says owning people is
wrong. Instead, the Bible gives explicit instructions to masters and
slaves. Awkward.
- You may purchase male or female slaves from
among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the
children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born
in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to
your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like
this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated
this way. Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT
- Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. Ephesians 6:5 NLT
8. Bizzare death penalties. Years
ago, I wrote an article titled, “If the Bible Were Law Would You
Qualify For the Death Penalty?” It identified 35 different offenses that
earn a person capital punishment in the Bible. Hint:
You probably qualify. And so does the dog who belongs to your kinky neighbor.
- If
a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice
of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have
chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his
mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city,
and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of
his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our
voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city
shall stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 21:18-21
- If a man has sex with an animal, he must be put to death, and the animal must be killed. Leviticus 20:15 NLT
9. Denigration of handicapped people. The
yuck factor is probably wired into humanity at the level of instinct, a
way to avoid contamination and pathogens. Shit smells bad to us, as
does decaying flesh. Our revulsion at illness and injury fuels a whole
Hollywood horror industry. The Bible writers had the same instincts, but
unlike modern health professionals, who have the benefit of germ
theory, they had no idea what was contagious and what wasn’t, and they
blurred the ideas of physical purity with spiritual purity. Modern
Christians largely escape their denigration of physical handicaps.
- No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD. Deuteronomy 23:1 NRSV
- Whosoever
… hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a
blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing
superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or
crookback, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy,
or scabbed, or hath his stones broken … He shall not go in unto the
vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he
profane not my sanctuaries. Leviticus 21:17-23 KJV
10. Moral edicts that demand too much. If
much of the Bible gets ignored because it is morally irrelevant,
immoral, outdated, or factually wrong, another portion gets ignored
because it sets the bar too high, like putting divorce on par
with—omg—homosexuality. If you want to send a conservative
Bible-believer into a froth, try suggesting Jesus was a socialist. Then,
when he goes all Jehovah on you, quote from the book of Ephesians.
- Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same. Luke 3:11 NIV
- Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place. Ephesians 5:4 NIV
11. Passages that are a waste of brain space and paper. Some years ago I worked on a website called
Wisdom Commons,
a library of timeless quotes and stories from many traditions. I had
the idea that I would go through the Bible and pull out bits that were
relevant, so I started reading.
What I found was that most of the
Bible was neither horrible nor inspiring. It was simply dull and
irrelevant: long genealogies written by men obsessed with racial purity;
archaic stories about ancient squabbles over real estate and women;
arcane rituals aimed at pleasing a volatile deity; folk medicine
practices involving
mandrakes and dove’s blood; superstition that equated cleanliness with spiritual purity and misfortune with divine disfavor; outdated insider politics.
On
top of that, it was badly written, with some stories garbled and others
repeated, though rarely in complete agreement about the facts. The
Bible’s supposed author seemed like a
psychological mess, and I found myself irritated. With a finite number of pages to set the course of human history, this was the best He could do?
Thank God Bible-believing Christians don’t take the Good Book as seriously as they claim to.
