SEPTEMBER 2003

The Christian responses to my debate with Patrick last month were all over the place. There was considerable frustration because not one of them could answer The Question ("What can you say about how you know the Bible is the inspired Word of God, that a Muslim cannot say with equal sincerity about the Qur'ân?") any more that Patrick could. There were the usual "I just know it in my heart" and "My life experiences have proved it true" rejoinders and so on. The most interesting messages I received, however, were the stunned responses to my pre-formatted e-mail I send to so many Christians because they have no idea what is in the Bible.

When debating the "truth" of the Bible, what usually gets lost in the shuffle is a very important consideration. Just what all is in this hotly debated Bible? A good question is: Who would want to defend this book in the first place? There's an old Bing Crosby hit titled Dear Hearts and Gentle People that filled the radio airwaves in 1950. His rich baritone described his virtuous neighbors, in part, this way: "They read the Good Book from Fri—till Monday; that's how the weekend goes…." It sounds so homey and sweet, and you can imagine Dad smoking a pipe, seated next to the fireplace, while his adoring wife and children listen to him read from the Good Book.

But there's a problem with this cozy, homespun image. Dad's going to have to do a hell of a lot of speedy, judicious editing as he reads. The Bible is presented as the ultimate guide to moral principles, high standards and ethical living. That book is everywhere, at least in the USA. You can't turn on the TV or radio or pick up a newspaper or magazine, or look in the window of a bookstore, let alone walk into one, or open a book catalogue, without being bombarded with the word "Bible." The so-called History Channel is now featuring shows about David and Goliath and Noah's Ark, and it presents these biblical yarns as history. Even the Discovery Channel is bending to the pressure. So, as long as society is flinging the Bible at us, and our politicians are quoting from it relentlessly, and Christians smugly and conspicuously carry the book with them everywhere, and Televangelists wave it dramatically, declaring it to be the "world's best-selling book for a reason," I thought we'd take a closer look at it. It may be the world's best seller, but not one in a thousand knows what's really in it.

Judging by my mail most people who visit my site do not bother to look at my FAQs. If they did they wouldn't be asking me the questions they do. But one of the most important points I make there is that the Bible is nothing to be proud of from the get-go. That makes a Christian or Jewish defense of it all the more ironic.

THE PEARL IN THE DUNG

Imagine a 100-page book of photos. 50 of them are hard core pornography, including bestiality, S & M, and child pornography. The other 50 pages are exquisite photos of sunsets, hummingbirds, waterfalls and daffodils. Now. Would you keep that book on your coffee table?

This is what I call the Pearl-In-The-Dung Syndrome. And the Bible suffers from it. If I must plow through piles of dung to uncover a pearl here and there, I refuse to do it. There is too much real beauty in literature (Emily Dickinson, John Keats, Shakespeare, Percy Shelley) to bother trying to pry out the Bible's rare pearls. What isn't boring in that book is sadistically cruel, rabidly misogynic and just plain primitively stupid.

But even more important, the Bible is supposedly the guide to morality, inspired by a deity. Why is any of that awful stuff included in such a supposedly wonderful document? Why does anyone have to make excuses for the filth in it? The "context" argument does not hold. There is no moral context into which murdering babies, for example, may be inserted.

One of the most conspicuous blind spots Christians display is regarding Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount." Snippets of it are cited repeatedly and even nonbelievers know some of them. That sermon begins in Matthew 5:3. Some of its better known "beatitudes" include: Verses 3 through 5—"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Also Verses 7 through 9—"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

What makes this so ironic is that a mere eight verses later, in the same "Sermon on the Mount" Jesus says this: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-19) And again, "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John 5:46-47)

There you have it. Jesus is unambiguously talking about Old Testament Law. Not only that, but Jesus, the supposedly "gentle carpenter" from Galilee, as part of the Christian Triune God, participated in every single Old Testament atrocity. And the OT Law he defended so strongly includes, among so many hundreds of other cruel and/or bizarre directives, the Law that non­virginal brides must be murdered. And not just murdered, but "stoned," one of the most barbaric, cruel practices imaginable: "But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die." (Deuteronomy 22:20,21) Stonings take place to this day, in many Muslim countries, based on biblical directives. (Muslims, like Christians and Jews, consider themselves the "children of Abraham.") Remember, according to Jesus, not "one jot or one tittle" of the OT Law shall pass until the end of time. So, non-virginal brides should be stoned to death, today, tomorrow and forever. Amnesty International has a poster that shows, to scale, the size of the stones to be used in a "proper" stoning. Imagine dying that way. Imagine a God who would order that people should die that way.

The translators of the New Testament, which was written in Greek, intentionally mistranslated the word doulos as "servant." It does not mean servant. It means slave. It is not ambiguous. And the OT Law which Jesus defends, also covers beating your slave to death. "And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money." (Exodus 21:20-21) So you can beat the hell out of your slaves as long as they don't die. Jesus never spoke one word against slavery. Paul speaks calmly of people being bought and sold: "Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men." (1 Corinthians 7:21-23) [Emphasis added.]

We all know the old saying, "An eye for an eye." It comes from the Bible: "And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." (Deuteronomy 19:21) And also "And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Exodus 21:23-25) I prefer the words of a wise, peaceful man: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."—Gandhi.

THE MASSACRES

For my first book, "IN GOD WE TRUST: But Which One? " I threw together a list of God-approved murders in the Bible. They are also referred to in my October 2001 piece:

1—The entire population of the earth at the time of Noah, except for eight survivors. (Genesis 7:23)
2—Everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 19:24,25)
3—Amalek and his people. (Exodus 17:8­16)
4—3,000 Israelites. (Exodus 32:27,28)
5—14,700 Jews. (Numbers 16:44­49)
6—The people of Og. "So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land." (Numbers 21:33­35)
7—24,000 people. (Numbers 25:4­9)
8—All Midianite males. (Numbers 31:6­12)
9—The Ammonites. (Deuteronomy 2:19­21)
10—The Horims. (Deuteronomy 2:22)
11—The Amorites. "…utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones." (Deuteronomy 2:33­35)
12—The Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ". . . thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them;" (Deuteronomy 7:1­5)
13—Everyone in Jericho but one family. (Joshua 6:20­25)
14—12,000 people of Ai. (Joshua 8:19­29)
15—All the people of Makkedah. (Joshua 10:28)
16—All the people of Libnah. (Joshua 10:29,30)
17—All the people of Gezer. (Joshua 10:33)
18—All the people of Eglon. (Joshua 10:34,35)
19—All the people of Hebron. (Joshua 10:36,37)
20—10,000 Perizzites and Canaanites. (Judges 1:4)
21—All the inhabitants of the land of Goshen ". . . neither left they any to breathe." (Joshua 11:12­16)
22—The inhabitants of Hormah, Gaza, Askelon, Ekron. (Judges 1:17­19)
23—10,000 Moabites. (Judges 3:29)
24—600 Philistines. (Judges 3:31)
25—All the hosts of Sisera. (Judges 4:16)
26—120,000 Midianites. (Judges 8:10)
27—1,000 Philistines. (Judges 15:15)
28—25,100 Benjaminites. (Judges 20:35)
29—50,070 people of Bethshemesh. (1 Samuel 6:19)
30—All the Amalekites. "Slay both man and woman, infant and suckling…." (1 Samuel 15:3­7)
31—200 Philistine men, in order to obtain their foreskins as the price for buying a bride. (1 Samuel 18:27)
32—22,000 Syrians. (2 Samuel 8:5)
33—40,000+ Syrians. (2 Samuel 10:18)
34—The Ammonites of Rabbah, who were tortured to death by the great King David. (2 Samuel 12:29­31)
35—70,000 people. (2 Samuel 24:15)
36—Every man in Edom. (1 Kings 11:15)
37—All the prophets of Baal. (1 Kings 18:40)
38—127,000 Syrians. (1 Kings 20:28­30)
39—Moabite captains & "fifties." (2 Kings 1:9­14)
40—42 children, eaten by bears. (2 Kings 2:23,24)
41—185,000 Assyrians killed in their sleep. (2 Kings 19:35)
42—500,000 men of Israel. (2 Chronicles 13:16­20)
43—20,000 Edomites. (2 Chronicles 25:11,12)
44—120,000 Judeans in one day. (2 Chronicles 28:5,6)
45—75,500+ people. (Esther 9:12­14)

But there's so much more! "And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt…." (Exodus 12:29) "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." (Hosea 13:16) What sort of God would order such a thing? It's painful just to read those ugly words. But it's a popular theme in the Bible. "Every one that is found shall be thrust through….Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes….and their wives ravished. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children." (Isaiah 13:13-22) Is this not all revolting? Yet there are repeated references to slashing open the stomachs of pregnant women. "….because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up." (2 Kings 15:16) Enough already.

"They took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, and put their heads in baskets, and sent him them to Jezreel. And there came a messenger, and told him, saying, They have brought the heads of the king's sons. And he said, Lay ye them in two heaps at the entering in of the gate until the morning." (2 Kings 10:7,8) Baskets full of heads? Try to picture such a thing. Sickening.

"And there was a great famine in Samaria….And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son." (2 Kings 6:25-29) I cannot think of a worse thing to write about than eating your own children. That whole scenario is so appalling it nauseates. Boiled her son? She says it like it was no big deal. Did she boil him like a lobster, just drop the squirming infant into boiling water, or did she kill him first before putting him in the pot? I know it's sickening to think about such things; so why on earth is such a horrible story in the "holy" Bible?

All of the above is only a tiny, random sampling of the wanton violence and vulgarity in the Bible, and it bears repeating because people tend to forget that it's there. They pick and choose their Bible verses very carefully (looking for those pearls in the dung) and act like the other stuff doesn't matter. It matters. No "holy" book should include a description of women singing and dancing in the streets because "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." (1 Samuel 18:7) That calls for party time? Not in a civilized world. But in the Bible it's kill, kill, kill.

THE BARBARITY

Among God's curses on people who won't obey his commandments is the following: "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee." (Deuteronomy 28:53) Here we go again. More child-eating. Disgusting! Since the Israelites were not supposed to "work" on the Sabbath day, a man who was caught picking up sticks (presumably for firewood, but who cares?) was ordered directly by God to be stoned to death. (Numbers 15:33-36) For another infraction there was another slaughter. "And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun." (Numbers 25:4) Heads. More heads. But not in baskets this time. I guess the severed heads were hung up on tree branches or something. (I may be ill.)

If a son is stubborn, rebellious, a glutton and a drunkard he shall be stoned to death. (Deuteronomy 21:20-21) "Witches" are to be stoned to death. (Leviticus 20:27) So witches really do exist—according to the Bible. Homosexuals must be murdered. (Leviticus 20:13) and (Romans 1:26­32) You should beat your children with rods. (Proverbs 23:13,14) A king offers his oldest son as a "burnt offering." (2 Kings 3:27)

THE WOMEN

Two men who had displeased God were buried alive with their wives and little children. (Numbers 16:27-33) Men who plotted against Daniel are thrown into a lions' den along with their wives and children. The lions "broke all their bones in pieces." (Dan 6:24)

Whether as an allegory or not, a disgusting story is told about raping a woman to death: " The man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go." (Judges 19:25) Her "lord" finds her dead in the morning. "And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces." (Judges 19:29) Would you read this story to your 12-year-old?

If a virgin is raped, the rapist must pay the now non-virginal girl's father "fifty shekels" and the girl must marry her rapist. So says the Bible. (Deuteronomy 22:28, 29) The daughter of any priest, who "profanes" him by being a whore, "shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9) The Bible is obsessed with hymens and whores. Not at all coincidentally, the Bible makes it seem like a woman can be a "whore" or lose her hymen, all by herself. Wicked woman! However, the usual hymen/whoring activities include men, 100% of the time. (By the way, what's the male equivalent of the word whore? Slut? Strumpet? Fallen woman? Trollop? Harlot? Loose woman? Piece of ass? Jezebel? Just asking.)

Lot's two virginal daughters get him drunk and each sleeps with him to "preserve seed" of their father. No disapproval of the drunkenness and incest is even hinted at. (Genesis 19:32) Likewise, Jesus tells a parable about 10 virgins marrying the same groom on the same night. He utters not one word of condemnation about such an obscene situation, but merely goes on about the lamps and the oil. (Matthew 25) Women must keep silent and learn only from their husbands. (1 Corinthians 14:34,35) Women must "submit" to their husbands. (1 Timothy 2:11,12) Does that include wife-beaters? It appears to be all-inclusive. Women must speak to their husbands in fear. (1 Peter 3:1­7)

THE HATEFUL BIGOTRY

Among the people forbidden to be priests include the blind, the lame, anyone with a "flat nose," anyone with broken hands or feet, "crookbacks" and dwarfs. (Leviticus 21:18-23) Among those forbidden to "enter into the congregation of the LORD" are men with injured testicles and men who have had their penises cut off. Also forbidden are bastards and ten generations of their descendants. (Deuteronomy 23:1-2) "…. the Jebusites….which spake unto David, saying, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither." (2 Samuel 5:6)

THE FILTHY LANGUAGE

"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces." (Malachi 2:3) "Hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?" (Isaiah 36:12) "….he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall….according to the word of the LORD." (I King 16:11-12) It's sometimes hard to categorize these things: foul language or barbarity? The Bible is filled with both. "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." (Proverbs 26:11) "Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith." (Ezekiel 4:15)

The story of Jezebel is known far and wide. She was supposedly a Phoenician princess and queen of Israel as the wife of Ahab. The Bible says she encouraged idolatry and was ultimately killed by Jehu, an Israelite king. But here's how the story is told: "Who is on my side? ….Throw her down. So they threw her down: and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses: and he trode her under foot….Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is a king's daughter. And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands….And he said, This is the word of the LORD….saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel: And the carcase of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezreel." (2 Kings 9:32-37)

Why is there so much of this filthy language and so many obscenities in the "Good" Book? The sheer number of approving, boastful references to massacres on an enormous scale is appalling. The manner in which the atrocities are carried out is described in morbid, bloodthirsty detail. The murdering of babies is horrifying to contemplate. Biblical apologists claim that the Hebrew word for "murder" is different from "kill" so that all those scores of thousands of babies were not "murdered." That is pure biblical dung. Dead babies are dead babies and I don't care which Hebrew verb describes how they got that way.

I've written about some of these things before, but even so I was yet again shocked and sickened when I read the descriptions, in black and white, as they appeared on my computer screen. It's almost too easy to fill your screen with biblical filth. There is so much of it to choose from. And when you realize that I've only scratched the surface, which is all I did, that makes it even worse. How can anyone seriously call the Bible the "Good Book?" It's cruel and murderous and disgusting. All Jews should be asked to read the entire Old Testament, and all Christians should be required to read both the Old and the New, and then they should all be required to defend it—every, single word of it. Of course no one ever would because it can't be done. Disingenuously, all anyone ever does is just quote a few precious verses here and there, and ignore the rest.

For years people at football stadiums who have end zone seats grab the opportunity during field goals and points-after, to whip a little Bible on the TV viewers and their fellow stadium audiences. They hold up a huge poster that always says "John 3:16" which of course refers to that biblical passage about God so loving the world. Just once I'd like to see a poster behind the goalpost in a football stadium that reads: Hosea 13:16 in huge black letters. I'll bet that would send a lot of smug True Believers to their Bibles, and I'll bet they'd be shocked. Because what they would find is: "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."

Hey, don't blame me. I didn't write this stuff. I'm just quoting the "holy" Bible. But now I think it's time for me to do some other kind of reading—maybe about Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan. After spending so much time reading the Bible for this article, I need some lighter, more wholesome fare. 

© 2003 Judith Hayes

Back to Main Page                              Back to Previous Columns