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About a year ago, I began slooowly reading the Holy Bible and assessing what it means to a modern reader — not historically, but literally and metaphorically.
As I'm nearing the end of the third book of sixty-six (Leviticus, that is), I've encountered one of the most disturbing passages yet:
16 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,In other words, keep those creepy physical defectives away from my holy altar! God is love, doncha know, God is love.
17 Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
18 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,
19 Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,
20 Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;
21 No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.
There are so many unsavory passages in this vaunted tome, such as...
- The punishment of all women because Eve dared to eat from the Tree of Knowledge
- The destruction of nearly every living thing, because God got it in his head that "the wickedness of man was great"
- Completely uncriticized slave-banging and otherwise legitimizing slavery as a legal activity
- A Bible hero offering up his virginal daughters to an angry mob (and the daughters subsequently raping him)
- God insisting that Abraham be willing to stab his son to death on a sacrificial altar, and surely traumatizing the kid in the process
- Members of YHWH's favorite family avenging a single act of rape by tricking an entire city of men into getting circumcised and then killing them all
- After killing a young man the Lord deems wicked, killing his brother for not wanting to impregnate his sister-in-law
- God randomly trying to kill his right-hand man, Moses
- The plague after plague unleashed on the Egyptians — including the slaves and animals — because God hardened Pharaoh's heart so he wouldn't let the Israelites go and have a picnic in His honor. And making an annual celebration of the killing of every firstborn Egyptian.
- Yahweh claiming ownership of every firstborn male, including of the human variety, with the seeming implication that he wants them sacrificed in his honor
- Meting out punishment not only on infidels, but on three or four generations of their offspring
- Repeated calls to execute people who work on the Sabbath
- A 9/11-sized massacre of fellow Israelites because they dance around a golden idol
- Endless descriptions of reasons and methods for absolving human sins by ritually sacrificing animals, including rituals where one animal is soaked in the blood of its butchered brethren
- The Good Lord burning two children alive for lighting some incense, and then forbidding their father — His #1 priest — from grieving the loss
- And countless other reasons for people and animals to be slaughtered, including for being gay and for being a critter who's the victim of bestiality. And you'll be excommunicated for many other sins, including having sex with a menstruating woman.
The major story of the Pentateuch is that God is going to kick all the natives out of Canaan and give it to a small group of people that are his favorites. Doesn't that sound like the nicest little deity you've ever heard of?
For y'all, who may have read much more of the One True Infallible Guide to Morality, what are your favorite examples of bad messages in the Good Book?
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Bonus out-of-context Bible quotes:
The coolest (so far) is from Genesis 27:11 — "I am a smooth man."
The cruelest, so fitting for today's Religious Right Repubs, from Leviticus 19:15 — "Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor."
The truest, from Exodus 15:3 — “The LORD is a man of war.”
13 comments:
Well, I think you're wrong about the killing of the circumcised citizens (of shechem), the homosexuality, burning 2 incense-lighting children alive, and the meeting out punishment to generations 3 and 4.
-The Bible actually portrays the slaughter of the Shechem citizens in a negative light; Jacob criticises his children for it (genesis 34:30), and implies that their descendants will be heavily punished (in Genesis 49:"The Blessing of Jacob" [its a poem, in the Hebrew]).
-Leviticus 18:22 (and its parallel in Leviticus 21) are not about homosexuality, nor gay sex, nor are they even about male-male anal sex in general. If you look at the literal translations (in the comments for the post on Leviticus 18), its clear that its either about male religious prostitution or about adultery in which the 3rd party is a male.
-The Incense-Burners are meant to be adults. That doesn't justify the punishment any more, but it isn't killing of children [there's plenty of that elsewhere].
-You haven't posted about it yet, but when you get to Deuteronomy, the "3rd or 4th generation" thing will be roundly contradicted.
Keep up the great work.
You ever watched any of Bishop Spong's vids or read his books? Check out "The Terrible Texts of the Bible" on Google Video. Excellent stuff. I wish he'd just come out and say his religion is rubbish, overall, but he doesn't.
anon,
I didn't get a clear sense that Mr. Bible Writer Man thought the Shechem slaughter was a crime. YHWH, who has come down hard on much slighter matters, uttered not a peep about it -- though, indeed, Jacob did wring his hands about it.
Yes, there was ambiguity in the supposedly anti-gay passages, but they are at least suggestive of a prohibition on homosexuality (and they've certainly done the job in providing fodder to those who would demonize gays).
Even if the incense burners were adults, they were still Aaron's "kids," and was literally inhumanely hurtful to not only kill them unjustly but to bar him from grieving them. Truly a monstrous act.
longtime fan,
Took a look at some of Spong's stuff. Looks quite thoughtful, thanks!
In regards to Shechem, Yahweh's supposed opinion is expressed in the long term, somewhat later in the narrative (Somewhere between Joshua and Kings); the threat that Jacob makes, in the "Blessing of Jacob", is an expression of the eventual fate of the TRIBEs in the long term future. The point of course being that when the story was really written, and especially when the "Blessing of Jacob" was really written, the events of Joshua to Kings had mostly already happened. To spoil the surprise (its not that exciting or major), the TRIBE of Simeon dwindles into nothingness, and Levi is scattered among the other tribes; Simeon disintegrates due to being absorbed by Judah, and the reality of the Levites is that "Levi" was originally just a job description ("priest") and as a result the "Levi" gathered around prominent sanctuaries (which obviously would be cities/towns/etc. scattered among the other territories, rather than continuous territory).
I'm not exactly sure why you seem to think that "And with a sanctified male you shall not lie down to have sex with a woman, it is a [religious] impurity" (masoretic) or "And lying with a male in the wife's bed, it is religiously impure" (Septuagint) are suggestive of homosexuality in general rather than VERY SPECIFIC activities connected to WOMEN. Neither the masoretic nor the Septuagint even mention sexual encounters only involving two people where where neither man is married to a woman. In fact, as you'll see in about 2 years time, when you reach the books of Samuel, there's some quite positive depictions of male-male love. And if your qualms are more with the fact that I refer to the Septuagint and masoretic rather than the KJV:
-the KJV is based on the Bishop's Bible and William Tynedale's translation
-these are partly based on on Jerome's Vulgate, partly on the Douay-Rheims Bible, and partly on the masoretic text
-the Douay-Rheims is a translation of the Vulgate
-the Vulgate is a Latin translation of the ancestor of the masoretic text (as far as the first few books of the Old Testament are concerned)
-based on the Talmudic quotations from the masoretic text's ancestor, it appears to have been remarkably similar to the versions in the Hexapla
-the Hexapla is a book containing 6 versions of the bible next to one another in parallel columns
-the Septuagint is one of these 6 books, and the only one that survives completely; the other 5 books only survive as a few fragments
excellent reading! the bible is rather disturbing and quite opposite for the whole "God is love" argument.
great post!
This is what happens when people are reading something they don't understand. First, too many atheists in general seem to lack the ability to READ IN PROPER CONTEXT and they also (you, I mean and anyone else reading this blog) lack the ability to think in nuanced terms. And people accuse Christians of being rigid.
Therefore you have foolishness like this blog where a bunch of people who don't know the Bible (and don't really want to understand it) cherry pick through the Bible and read into the scriptures only what they want to see or in some cases, things that aren't even there. Nice work.
So, Victoria, let me get this straight: You think that all the blood letting, sacrificing, killing people for such reasons as "spilling their seed", testing someone's faith by telling them to kill their son just to see if they would actually do it, killing rebellious teens, killing wives for almost any reason at all, killing people for not performing overly complicated rituals, and just the killing in general of various peoples (of whom god was supposed to have created in the first place, but apparently now wants erradicated), and alllll the revenge that he demands be exacted on people for absolutely petty reasons, along with granting men the right to do just about anything while women are basically property...you're cool with all of that? Not just cool with, but actually believe and accept that? I just want to make sure, because if you say 'yes' then any further dialog with you will be pointless, as faith and love of that sort to a cruel and vindictive god shows a mind set identical to "Battered wife syndrome" and no outside logic or reason will change your mind until you yourself realize that you don't have to accept that kind of cruelty.
In response to Jeff H:
The failure in your laundry list against Victoria is exactly as she says. Context is important in any book, and is especially so in one as broadly sweeping as the Bible. The Bible is a record of human failures as much as it is one of God's revelation about Himself. You accuse God of being petty or vindictive. But what is God combating in this world? Note Genesis 6:5. Man's heart is incredibly wicked - this is a theme that pervades all of Scripture. What about Onan? Because Onan showed complete disdain for both his family (according to the customs of his people) and God, he lost his life. Be thankful that God is far more merciful than this 99.99% of the time.
The "overly complicated" rituals statement betrays your lack of understanding. Every ritual was symbolic in some aspect of Jesus Christ - the rituals were foreshadowing. Even Abraham's offering of Isaac was a picture of what Christ would do.
One other important note: the Scriptures are progressive. In the Old Testament times, men were allowed to marry multiple wives, but this changed as God revealed more information about holy living over time. We don't give 1 year olds a chart of chores and expectations, demanding they follow every last jot, and God has not done this with man either. What was allowed (not commanded/expected) in OT times is often clarified and refined in the NT.
The battered wife syndrome comment is fascinating, because it's almost the same argument that Paul makes against atheists in Romans 1:18-22. Creation declares that God exists, even apart from the Bible. Knowledge of God is written in every human's heart, but man refuses to accept this truth...for now.
I am in no way Christian or Christian-like, other than the fact that I'm human [supposedly]. But the way I want to bring down christianity is through TRUTH, not through misquotes and things taken out of context.
The whole "thou shalt not respect the person of the poor" was taken out of context from this
"Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. "
And it just makes us atheists look bad and misrepresenting.
So if you want to show people how STUPID the bible really is, don't take shit out of context. There are thousands of bullshit crap in there, find those!
The irony, it burns!
You take a quote from a section expressly labeled "Bonus out-of-context Bible quotes" and leave out that caveat and slam me for, um, quoting out of context. 111FTW!!!!
God of Mercy and Love? 2 disturbing verses:
Deuteronomy 25:11-12
"When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shall cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.”
Matthews 10:35
Jesus Says, “For I have come to turn "'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—“
I quite enjoyed your post. I love the comment about "proper context" from Victoria. And that is the crux of her and all believers problems. There is no proper context for modern mythological belief.
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