THE DARK BIBLE v1.5.1 Selections from the King James Version of the Bible (1611) The infor

THE DARK BIBLE v1.5.1 Selections from the King James Version of the Bible (1611) __________________________________________________________ The information from this text file came from the HyperCard program called The Dark Bible. (See end of text.) WARNING! Literal belief in the Bible may endanger your mental health and life and those of others. FOREWORD Despite the fact that the Bible represents the best selling book of all time and serves as the sacred script for the Judeo-Christian faiths, it also stands as a book, by the majority, believed from ignorance. Strangely, in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church forbade the reading of the Bible by its congregation for fear that the people would misinterpret the texts. Many priests knew of the problematic and dark verses in the Bible. Too much questioning could result in a loss of faith, or so they thought. As a result, only the Church fathers had the right to make interpretations for its people. This gave the early Church power over its people and, at the same time, prevented its populace from ever becoming educated. One would think that with today's practice of freedom of religion, education, free press and the availability of the Bible to anyone, that the Bible and its history would result in common knowledge. Nothing could stand further from the truth. Most Church fathers today concentrate only on the "good" phrases of the Bible. This of course represents an admirable approach as it serves to teach, stabilize and give meaning and morals to people in a society. However, Christians and Jews rarely hear about the dark side of the Scriptures from their religious leaders. Although most Christians own a Bible, few of them spend the time to actually read and understand what it actually represents. Many Christians find it shocking, even blasphemous for some one to point out that the Bible contains, not only errors, but atrocities that no Christian in good conscience would ever think of acting out. For example, how many Christians and Jews today would feel happy to bash a child's head against the rocks? Any secular question of this nature, of course, would result in revulsion, yet just such phrases occur in the Bible as well obscenities, filth and many horrendous phrases. It will, perhaps, come from "good" Christians who will object most strongly to what I have put in and left out from the Dark Bible. However you may judge it, I have edited this stack in this way for several reasons: Firstly, I wanted to share with people that the Bible does not represent only "high morality" or a means to better one's life; that most of the Bible, in fact, concerns itself with conquest, war, killings, and curses, many times coming from directly from Yahweh (God). By today's standards, many of these Biblical stories describe despicable atrocities. Secondly, there exists a minority of faithful fundamentalists who take the Bible literally and act out or condone the atrocities in the Bible. People, groups and governments, for centuries, have instigated wars, pogroms, racism, hatred, anti-Semitism, terrorism, and the inferiority of women based on their religious beliefs. I wanted to point out some of the Biblical verses that people of faith have used as justification for their atrocities and also to help people become aware, and beware of the dangers that can result from belief in the Bible. Thirdly, to make this knowledge available, I had to edit out the admirable phrases of the Bible to keep this stack within size limits. Most people know about these "good" verses, and I should not have to point them out (there exists a plethora of books about the admirable works). I also had to leave out most of the dark phrases of the Bible for if I had included them all, it would literally involve more information, along with the comments, than the Bible itself. I tried to keep this stack close to 100 pages (cards). As a result, this stack only represents a small sampling. I encourage the reader to investigate the history of the Bible and why it contains the stories that it does. From the sampling of the dark passages of the Bible presented in this stack, it should become self evident that if one wishes to defend the concept of a "good" and "loving" God, the Bible should serve as the last source to use for supporting evidence. Moreover, if we wish to know ourselves, it may well serve us to learn the limitations of our language system, the written form has existed for only six thousand years; only a brief instant of time relative to our millions of years of evolution. The Bible represents the beliefs of men at the birth of writing. As in most evolutionary trends, mistakes get made, sometimes fatally. Indeed, our species has become even more violent in relation to strengths of faith in written Scripture. Unfortunately faith relies on hope and ignorance. Only education and critical thinking can allow us the means to correct our mistakes. With technology advancing every year, our weapons have the capability to destroy whole cities, countries, if not every person on the earth. If people continue to base their actions on ancient Biblical reasoning, any small minority who gains access to the destructive technology may very well carry out holocaust-like proportions on innocent men, women and children. It has happened before and it can easily happen again. Today we still see the destructive acts carried out around the world which originate from deep cultural roots based on religious Scripture. Even though our belief-systems give us a means to establish culture, it can also produce life threatening situations to our existence on earth. Understanding our belief-systems and to de-emphasize the sacredness of the Bible may well help to prevent our own destruction. The majority of verses in this Stack come from the King James Version (1611) of the Bible (various alternate verses come from other Bible versions with a caption as to its source.). It will help to use this stack along with the reading of each verse with the complete chapter from the Bible so as to gain a better understanding of its context. Most all of the comments come paraphrased from established scholarly published work. HISTORY The stories of the Bible evolved slowly over centuries before there were formed orthodox religions. There were many belief cults that spread stories and myths probably handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation before they were written down. Many of the stories originally came from Egyptian and Sumerian cults. Most of these cults were polytheistic in nature as practiced by the early Hebrews. Some of the oldest records of the stories of the Old Testament came from excavations in Mesopotamia where small cylinder seals depicting creation stories were found. These early artworks (dated at about 2500 B.C.E.) were the origin for the story of the Garden of Eden. Virtually all human societies, before the advent of the northern invaders, practiced female goddess worship. It has been archaeologically confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language were initially developed in societies that worshipped the Goddess. Later the goddesses became more war-like with the influence of the invaders who slowly replaced the goddesses with their mountain male war gods. So why doesn't the Bible mention anything about the Goddess? In fact it does, but in disguise from converting the name of the goddesses to masculine terms. Many times "Gods" in the Bible refers to goddesses; Ashtoreth, or Asherah, named of masculine gender, for example, actually refers to Astarte- the Great Goddess. The Old Testament doesn't even have a word for "Goddess." The goddesses are sometimes referred to as Elohim (masculine plural form) which was later mistranslated into the singular "God." The Bible authors converted the ancient goddess symbols into icons of evil. As such, the snake, serpents, tree of knowledge, horns (of the bull), became associated with Satan. The end result gave women the status of inferiority, a result which we still see to this day. The Old Testament consists of a body of literature spread over a period from approximately 1200 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E. There exist no original writings of the Old Testament. However, there are hundreds of copies of fragments from copies that became the old testament that have been found in the form of Cuneiform tablets, papyrus paper, leather etchings and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. The literature of the old testament was written in classical Hebrew except some brief portions which are in Aramaic. The traditional text was originally written in consonants, but the Rabbis later added vowels so that the words could be pronounced. Of course the Rabbis did their best in choosing the vowels that they thought gave the words their proper pronunciation. In the second century C.E., or even earlier, the Rabbis compiled a text from manuscripts as had survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and on this basis was established the traditional or massoretic text, so called from the Hebrew word massorah. This text incorporated the mistakes of generations of copyists, and in spite of the care bestowed on it, many errors of later copyists also found their way into it. The earliest surviving manuscripts of this text date from the ninth to eleventh centuries C.E. It is this text which has been used for the present translations. The New Testament has even fewer surviving texts and it is believed that it wasn't until about 60 or 70 years after JesusÕ death that the Gospels were beginning to be written. There is no evidence that the New Testament was ever written by the original apostles themselves or anyone else that had seen Jesus. Although the oldest surviving Christian texts are believed to have been written by Paul, he had never seen the earthly Jesus. But there is nothing in Paul's letters that either hints at the existence of the Gospels or that even talks of a need for such memoirs of Jesus Christ. It is more probable that the Gospels were written by scribes that followed the apostles after Jesus' death. The oldest fragment of the New Testament yet known is a tiny snippet of a Gospel of John. The little flake of papyrus was dated by the style of its handwriting to about 130 C.E. Most of the new testament was originally written in old Greek. There have been over a hundred different versions of the Bible, written in most of the languages of the time; Greek, Latin, German, etc. Some versions left out certain biblical stories and others contained added stories. The complete compiled version of the old and new testament was probably finished at around 200-300 C.E. It wasn't until 1611 C.E. that the King James version of the Bible was completed. It's interesting that there were many competing Christian cults in the early years after Jesus's death. Some sects saw the universe in dualisms of goodness and sin, of light and darkness, God and the Devil. Other Christian sects performed odd rituals, some of which involved the swallowing of semen, thought to be a sacred substance. Many other Christians were also writing mystical stories and by the second century there were more than a dozen Gospels circulating, along with a whole library of other texts. These include letters of Jesus to foreign kings, letters of Paul to Aristotle, and histories of the disciples. In one of these secret Gospels, it describes Jesus taking naked young men off to secret initiation rites in the Garden of Gethsemene. There were Christian Gnostics (knowers) who believed that the church itself was a device of the Devil to keep man from God and from realizing his true nature. In those first centuries of Christianity there was no such thing as orthodoxy and when an organized orthodox church finally came, it was defined, almost inadvertently, in argument against many of the Gnostic sects. So the idea of the Bible as a single, sacred unalterable corpus of texts began in heresy but was then extended and used by churchmen in their efforts to define orthodoxy. One of the BibleÕs most influential editors was Irenaeus of Lyon who decided that there should only be four Gospels like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures - the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, and the eagle of John. In a single stroke, he had delineated the sacred book of the Christian church and left out the other Gospels. Irenaeus also wrote what Christianity was not, and in this way Christianity became an orthodox faith. A work of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, became the starting point for later inquisitions. The salvation doctrines of Christianity survived and flourished because they afforded the priesthood considerable power. The priests alone held the keys to salvation and could threaten the unbelievers with eternal punishment. Hence, in the evolution of Christianity in the last two thousand years with priests preying on human fears, the religion has demonstrated extraordinary powers of survival. Even without the priests, the various versions of the Bible have had more influence on the history of the world, in the minds of men than any other literature. Unfortunately, the beliefs in Scripture has been the trigger for the most violent actions against man in the history of humanity. The burning of competing Christian cults (called heretics) by early Christian churches were the seeds of violent atrocities against man. There later followed the destruction of Rome by the Christian Goths, and the secret pagan sacrifices consented by the Pope, the Vandals that had the Bible with them as they destroyed imperial North Africa, the crusades in the eleventh century fighting in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean, Palestine and Syria, capturing Jerusalem and setting kingdoms from Anatolia to the Egyptian border. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade plundered Constantinople the most holy city at that time, with Christians fighting Christians. And the slaughters continued. According to Romer, "More heretics and scholars were burned in the Middle Ages than were ever killed in Carolingian times. For at this time the Inquisition came into its own, and torture, largely unused as an instrument of government since Roman days, was reintroduced." In the early 1500s the German heretic, Martin Luther, almost single handedly caused the split from the Roman Catholic church and created the beginnings of the Protestant church. This split is still influencing violence up to this day. Luther also helped spread the seeds of anti-Semitism with his preaching and books such as his "The Jews and their lies." It must be remembered that Hitler's holocaust could not have occurred if it weren't for German Christian beliefs and their support. There is little reason to think that violence inspired by religion, will ever stop. One only has to look at the religious wars around the world to see belief's everlasting destructive potential. One only has to look at the Protestant-Catholic uprising in Ireland, the conflicts in the middle east with Jews fighting Moslems & Christians, the Iran-Iraq war, SudanÕs civil war between Christians and Islamics. The desperate acts of fanatical individuals proclaiming to have killed in the name of Jesus, Mohammed, God or Satan would create a death list far longer than any crimes in history. The Holy Bible supports the notion that war and destruction is not only necessary, but moral. If we wish to become a peaceful species, it may well serve us to understand the forces involved that keep us in continual conflict. CONTENTS The atrocities Babylon is fallen David slaughters them Decapitate them! Gideon slaughters God kills the firstborns God sends pestilence God slaughters blacks God's threat to kill Godly head wounds Godly mass murder Kill all unbelievers Kill man, woman, infant King David's holocaust Moses' mass murder Nail his head! Raping and killing Shed the blood Slaughter of innocents Slay old and young Stone the woman! The survivors Utter destruction Washing feet in blood Sex, obscenities, filth Biblical pornography Piss crimes David uncovers himself Death to adulterers Drugs and aphrodisiacs Eat human feces! Eating dung and drinking piss Eating dung and son Expose her breasts! Fatal orgasm Fecal disposal God given hemorrhoids God's bowel diseases God's fecal fetish Howl and strip naked Incestuous relations Passing wind Pisseth against walls Prophesy in the nude The sacred penis Morality and paradoxes Burn the daughter! Burn them! Creation paradox Creation paradox 2 Curse the children Eat your children God accepts slavery God orders adultery God's OK on abortion Gods creation Happy to kill children Hate them! Hate your family Human sacrifice Make weapons More than one god Rape my daughter Serpent Jews Synagogues of Satan Talking donkey The "gods" The sun stands still Turn thy cheek Virgin's worth God-Satan-Jesus-heaven Beasts in heaven Christ with horns Christ's temper Curse the earth Evil from God Evil spirit of the Lord God creates evil & peace Fire from the Lord Fire of God God casts stones God rejoices your death God the Jealous God's fiery serpents God- man of war God & Satan the same? I came not to send peace I come to send fire Jesus not entirely good Jesus will kill children The Back Parts of God The brethren of Jesus The evil spirit of God The wrathful God Wars must be Pray in the closet Women's inferior status Burn the daughter! Cut off her hand! Expose her breasts! Female births get penalty Female inferiority God's OK on abortion Jesus will kill children Kill the witches! Moses' mass murder Rape my daughter Raping and killing Silence the woman! Stone the woman "Virgin" mistranslation Virgin's worth Wives, submit yourselves! Women shall not speak Women's sorrow Rip up pregnant women The wicked woman The Biblical view of women The God of the Bible decrees that woman must submit to the dominance of man. The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about... all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance... A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce... the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king. The Decalogue includes a man's wife among his possessions... all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession. -Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest ____________________________________________________________ THE VERSES ____________________________________________________________ Gods creation In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. -Genesis 1:1 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... -Genesis 1:26 COMMENT: The Bible has a problem from the very beginning in that the English term 'God' came from the Hebrew term 'Elohim.' The problem, here, lies in the fact that Elohim represents the plural form of 'El.' And since 'El' means 'god,' then Elohim should mean 'gods.' (More accurately, "goddesses.") The idea of Genesis and the Creation did not come originally from the Hebrews, but rather from various cultures in the area. For example, excavations in Mesopotamia uncovered small cylinder seals depicting the creation stories. Of course these early people believed in many gods and goddesses, just as the first Hebrew people did. Although as the Hebrew belief system grew, and the word Elohim came to mean the singular God, the fact still remains: The original meaning meant the plural form. Any honest translation of Elohim, therefore should reflect this plurality. In the name of honesty, we should ask why our Church fathers would allow the dishonest singular forms of the word God in the Bible. Note, when anyone questioned this plurality, Christian priests tried to resolve this sticky problem by using the concept of the Trinity (Father, Son and the Holy Ghost) to explain the plurality. The problem here comes that if they truly believed this, then why not use the proper plural translation in the first place? ____________________________________________________________ Creation paradox And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that is was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... -Genesis 1:25-26 --------------------------------------------------------------- And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air... -Genesis 2:18-19 COMMENT: Man was made before the beasts and after the beasts. Only a person who exercised warped logic or blind faith could justify this outright contradiction. Yet to the fundamentalist reader, the many hundreds of contradictions and discrepancies in the Bible go by unseen, regardless of how many honest scholars and theologians have discovered otherwise. Even the belief among non-fundamentalists, that the Bible has kept its original form despite minor changes, has led many theologians to think otherwise. One of the most highly respected theologians, Bruce Metzger, has written extensively on the errors in the Bible. For example, in his book "The text of the New Testament- Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration," Metzger asserts errors due to: Errors arising from faulty eyesight Errors arising from faulty hearing Errors of the mind Errors of judgment Difficulties historical and geographical Alterations from doctrinal considerations Addition of miscellaneous details. Many times whole belief systems and vast changes to a society can change from a simple mistranslation of a single word. (See "virgin" in Isaiah 7:14) ____________________________________________________________ Creation paradox 2 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. -Genesis 1:27 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. -Genesis 2:21-22 COMMENT: In the first account, God created a man and female, simultaneously. In the second account Adam got created from out of the dust, and then later, a woman came from one of his ribs. There occur many other contradictions in the Bible that would require an extensive amount of disk space to record and explain. For those who feel impressed by the number of instances, and for further edification, consult "The Bible Handbook for Free-Thinkers and Inquiring Christians," edited by G. W. Foote and W. P. Ball (Pioneer Press, London) ____________________________________________________________ Incestuous relations And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. -Genesis 2:23 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. And she again bare his brother Abel. and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. -Genesis 4:1-2 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch... -Genesis 4:17 COMMENT: Since Eve came from Adam and due to God's edict to "be fruitful and multiply," this describes the first incestual relationship. In 4:17 one must infer incest for Cain would have had to have sex with either his own mother, Eve, or an unnamed sister. For other examples of Biblical incest see Gen. 20:12 where Abraham married his half-sister Sarah; Gen. 19:30-38 where Lot's daughters had intercourse with him; Gen. 38:16 where Tamar had sex with her father-in-law Judah. People should become aware that many of today's incestuous abuses occur in Christian families and many use Biblical scripture for its justification. ____________________________________________________________ Women's sorrow Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thycconception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee -Genesis 3:16 COMMENT: Not only does Woman get blamed for the Fall, but God decides to multiply her sorrow, plus, she must submit to her husband like a slave. To this day, Christians and Jews place women lower then men. Before the advent of male dominated religions, cultures around the world respected women and worshipped goddesses. The Old Testament records the brutal slaughter of surrounding cultures and slowly throughout the centuries, the goddess religions faded away in place of the belief-system of a jealous male war god. ____________________________________________________________ Cain's wife? And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. -Genesis 4:17 COMMENT: What wife? At that time only Adam & Eve, Can and Abel existed on the Earth. The only possibility comes from, either a grave omission from the Bible, or his mother Eve served as his wife. The second possibility would mean incest. After Cain killed his brother, God protected him by setting "a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." (verse 14). Considering the earth supposedly had only Adam's family, who should kill him? And what kind of mark could have protected Cain? From the absurdity of this story, it should not surprise why anyone would read into it what they wanted. Certain inane beliefs resulted such as the common belief that the "mark of Cain" meant the dark skin of the "Negro" race. ____________________________________________________________ Shed the blood And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made the man. -Genesis 9:5-6 COMMENT Some anti-abortionists have used these words to justify the killing of abortionists. As such, these words helped inspire Michael Griffin to kill Doctor David Gunn on March 10, 1993. Consider that little of the Bible even mentions abortion, much the less the condemnation of it. On the contrary, God himself has condoned, not only miscarriages, but has personally called for the killing of suckling infants and the bashing of children against the rocks. (See Numbers 5:26-27, I Samuel 15:2-3, and Psalm 137:9) ____________________________________________________________ Fatal Orgasm And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also. -Genesis 38:7-10 COMMENT The term "onanism," from the name Onan, has come to stand for masturbation which has suffered a fate similar to sodomy in the sense that it has evolved to have a meaning far different from its original usage. Dictionaries define onanism as "male masturbation" or "Uncompleted coitus." According to interpretations of the Bible, Onan removed his penis from his partner's vagina before he ejaculated so that his seed fell onto the ground. This displeased God so much that he killed him! Onanism has also received a another definition of "self pollution" which has caused misery throughout the centuries. God killed Onan because, rather than to impregnate his brother's wife - thus extending his line, Onan chose to interrupt his coitus before he could impregnate Tamar. Onan had a logical reason for doing so, one that involved Jewish law of those ancient days. During Biblical times, any child born to the wife of the eldest son died without heirs - and if his wife had no children sired by a relative of her dead spouse - then the dominance would pass to the second son. Onan stood to lose a great deal if he complied with his father's order. Had he been asked to marry his brother's wife, thus transferring her to his possession, he no doubt would have completed the act. Then the resultant child would have been his, legally as well as physically. Some time during the centuries, the character of the sinful act was changed. Instead of being recognized as a seldom performed interrupting of coitus, it became accepted as any form of self-stimulation that resulted in orgasm. And the entire character of the deed became altered, and Onanism came to mean a sinful act of masturbation! ____________________________________________________________ God's threat to kill And Moses said, Thus saith the LORD, About midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt: And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill; and all the firstborn of beasts. -Exodus 11:4-5 COMMENT: After reading such verses, it would become apparent, even to a child, that this does not describe the actions of a loving Being. Anyone who reconciles the killing of innocent children with an intelligent and loving Creator can only come from great ignorance and stupidity under the addiction of blind faith. "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind." - Thomas Paine ____________________________________________________________ God kills the firstborns! And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead. -Exodus 12:29-30 COMMENT: If we believe every word in the Bible as coming from God, then it stands to reason that the violent actions from the God described in Exodus cannot give us a moral comparison to live our lives in a peaceful world. If one wishes to believe that God possess love for His creations, then the killing of innocent children cannot possibly come from God, and therefore, these verses from the Bible must have come elsewhere. But note that if one takes the Bible's words as truth, then not only did God smote the firstborn children, but all firstborn regardless of age. This means children of all ages, teenagers, men, women, and the aged. No matter how much love or goodness they may have imparted to the world, if they were unlucky to have first passed through their mothers vagina, they were to be killed by God. ____________________________________________________________ God- man of war The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. -Exodus 15:3 COMMENT: Note that many fundamentalists who consider every word of the Bible as fact must also concede that God, not only consists of a man, but also a man of war; a killer man of men. With such a belief, how could a Christian people ever divorce war from their lives? The Midrash Rabbah gives an explanation of The Man God: "His lower half was 'man', but his upper half was as God. [Only the lower half of his body, the seat of the sexual and secretory organs, belonged to the earthly within him, but his head and heart, given over entirely to holiness, were as divine.]" ____________________________________________________________ More than one God Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them. -Exodus 18:11 COMMENT: Here we have the Bible alluding to the existence of more than one god. Note that it does not say "the Lord is the ONLY god" but rather that he "is greater than all gods." History records that the ancient people in the area of the Middle East, including the Hebrews, believed in many goddesses and gods. Yahweh served only as their god, a god among many others. "It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." - Thomas Jefferson ____________________________________________________________ The "gods" Thou shalt have no other gods before me. -Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; -Exodus 20:5 COMMENT: Note this does not mean "I am the only god," but rather, that one shall not believe in other gods above the God of the Chosen People. Scholars and archeologists know that the early Hebrews practiced polytheism. Not only does the Bible describe the polytheism of the Hebrews but digs from archeological sites give evidence that these early people believed in many gods, or more accurately, goddesses. They have found many statuette goddesses among their living dwellings. Monotheism appears later in the Bible. Historically, monotheism got taught by many Greek philosophers. Judaism later separated itself from the Hellenistic world with its belief in only one supreme deity. In Exodus 20:5 we have a god so jealous that he holds a grudge against the children of the fathers who hated him. Hardly a concept of a forgiving and loving God. ____________________________________________________________ God accepts slavery And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever. -Exodus 21:5-6 COMMENT: The Bible bears witness to the fact that God accepts not only slavery but violence against such slaves (in this case a awl driven through the ear) for the innocent statement of love for their master, wife and children. It came from precisely these verses that justified, in many peoples minds, the tortures inflicted on African slaves when they tried to leave their cruel masters in the American colonies. "Good" Christians of the day would drive nails and spikes through the ears of defenseless slaves whose only offense came from the will to no longer serve as slaves. Not until after the Civil War did federal laws become enacted to protect African Americans from gross physical abuse. Even today, the KKK and "the Aryan Race" use the Bible as justification for their attacks against "Negroes." ____________________________________________________________ Kill the witches! Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that sacrificeth unto any god, save to the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed. -Exodus 22:18-20 COMMENT: These verses attest to the power of belief as they led to the slaughter of thousands of defenseless people throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Understand that these verses not only authorize the executions but they explicitly command them. Verse 18 justified the burning of women in Europe judged as witches. In early America, the Salem witch trials resulted in the deaths of women and men. Verse 19 refers to bestiality, a sin considered worthy of death. Christians used verse 20 to justify religious wars, Crusades and the slaughter of unbelievers throughout Europe. And the condemnation of heretics still goes on. ____________________________________________________________ Human sacrifice Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me. -Exodus 22:29 COMMENT: This verse refers to human sacrifice which many primitive cultures practiced. In the Canaanite world the Molech cult practiced human sacrifice and many scholars equate Yahweh with the Molech god. Explicit references to Molech appear in Lev. 18:21, 20:2-5; Jer. 32:35 and II Kings 23:10. Fortunately, few people believe in sacrificing humans to gods these days. (See also Gen. 22:1-19 for Abraham's will to sacrifice his son Isaac, and Judges 11) ____________________________________________________________ The Back Parts of God And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend... -Exodus 33:11 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen. -Exodus 33:20-23 COMMENT: In verse 11 we read that God spoke to Moses, face-to-face. Yet in seeming contradiction, we have later God telling Moses that he cannot see His face. Instead, God decides to show Moses his back parts! ____________________________________________________________ God 'the Jealous' For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters so a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods. -Exodus 34:14-16 COMMENT: Verse 14 (among other verses of the Bible) makes it abundantly clear that the God not only feels jealous but the Bible names him Jealous. Why an all powerful God should feel jealous of his creations simply because they believed in other gods remains unclear. Could it mean that other gods exist as well as the Hebrew god? It appears that many Christians fail to heed this explicit command in verse 16 to not make molten gods. Many Christians use plastic Jesus' or molten statuettes of Christ tortured and nailed to a Cross (Jesus, supposedly God in human form). ____________________________________________________________ Fire from the Lord AND Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. -Leviticus 10:1-2 COMMENT: In Sunday school, many children learn that Satan lives within and uses fire, yet here we have fire coming out of God to devour two young men to death. Their only crime came from offering before God a "strange fire." Although no one knows what the term "strange fire" means, it seems improbable that it could deserve a cruel death. ____________________________________________________________ Female births get penalty Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. -Leviticus 12:2 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days. -Leviticus 12:5 COMMENT: A woman who gives birth to a child must undergo a purification ritual lest her "uncleanness" contaminate others. This not only entails her isolation, but also payments to priests for the ritual acts. Thus the male dominators had even made birth dirty. Notice here that if a woman bears a female child, her isolation must last twice as long as that if she gives birth to a male child! (See also Psalms 51:3-5) "The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation." -Elizabeth Cady Stanton ____________________________________________________________ Death to adulterers And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. And the man that lieth with his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. -Leviticus 20:10-11 COMMENT: Few Christians today consider death as a punishment for adultery; no doubt because so many Christians, themselves, practice sexual liaisons with other people's spouses. Note, however, that a growing number of heterosexual fundamentalists have begun to call for the death penalty for homosexuals simply because Leviticus 20:13 calls for the death of a man who lies with mankind (homosexuality). ____________________________________________________________ Burn the daughter! And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire. -Leviticus 21:9 COMMENT: A priest's daughter, if found to have lost her virginity without marriage, can receive the death penalty, but in the form of incineration. How many fundamentalist priests who so easily condemn others would carry out the burning of their daughters if they found them "whoring"? (See also Genesis 38:24) ____________________________________________________________ God's OK on abortion And when he hath made her drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. -Numbers 5:27-28 COMMENT: This nonsensical ritual, prescribed by God, to a woman suspected of infidelity, must undergo the drinking of a vile concoction made of bitter water and dust from the floor of a tabernacle. A priest calls a curse upon the woman's head to insure that if she has acted in adultery the drinking of the liquid will cause her to have a miscarriage. If she comes out clean, then she shall conceive. Regardless of how ridiculous this procedure appears, any person who believes every word of the Bible must come to terms with the realization that the quoted God here sometimes authorizes abortion. (also read Num. 5:1-25) ____________________________________________________________ Curse the children And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise. -Numbers 14:33-34 COMMENT: This cruel curse on children attributed to God, for the sins of their parents, bears the typical harsh vengeful evil spirit that permeates the Old Testament. How can one not conclude that these verses give the greatest insult to a loving God? ____________________________________________________________ God buries them alive And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation. And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also. And there came out a fire from the LORD, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense. -Numbers 16:32-35 COMMENT: Moses relays a sadistic threat that asks us to believe that God punishes members of families, including innocent infants. And again we have the Satanic fire coming from God burning his creations. ____________________________________________________________ God's fiery serpents And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. -Numbers 21:5-6 COMMENT: The Israelites began to complain against God about their miserable condition in the wilderness. So what did their loving God do? Their Jealous god sent fiery serpents to cause even more misery and death! Serpents, usually regarded as the Devil, appears to have come from the direct will of God here. Do God and Satan work together as a team? Let us hope not! Actually, in ancient cultures the snake represented a symbol of the Goddess. Many times a priestess of a Goddess temple would use snakes in their rituals. Sometimes a snake bite could cause hallucinations, or by their beliefs- 'prophetic visions.' Much of the Old Testament describes the Israelites overtaking the goddess cultures and destroying their cities. They thoroughly eliminated the goddess religions and replaced them with their male god religion; they even turned the Scripture words of the goddess into masculine terms. Nowhere does the word 'goddess' appear in the Old Testament, yet many times, when you see the word 'gods,' it actually refers to goddesses. Sending fear into the hearts of the Israelites concerning the goddess, gave power to their own male god. Thus, Numbers 21:8-9 describes Moses control of the goddess symbol by making a fiery serpent; anyone who gets bitten when he sees it, lives. The deaths due to the fiery serpents and then Moses' command from the Lord to save their lives when bitten, must have given their male god a powerful image. ____________________________________________________________ The talking donkey And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff. And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, "What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" And Balaam said unto the ass, "Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee." And the ass said unto Balaam, "Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee?" And he said, "Nay." -Numbers 22:27-30 COMMENT: Here we have, as absurd as it may seem, a talking donkey. If we came across a talking animal, would we not feel amazed? Yet, oddly, Balaam here seems not the least bit concerned and converses with the ass as if nothing unusual had happened! Given that millions of fundamentalists believe every world in the Bible, they would have us also believe that the Bible has its own version of Mr. Ed. Notice that Balaam's cruel behavior to the donkey seems to have mimicked God's jealous behavior towards His people. Yet God responds to Balaam: "thy way is perverse before me." (Num. 22:32) "If the bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it." - William Jennings Bryan ____________________________________________________________ Decapitate them! And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said unto Moses, "Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel." -Numbers 25:3-4 COMMENT: Those who worshipped other gods must die, and even more horribly, their heads displayed publicly. Either God never said anything so cruel, or we truly live in a cursed universe, ruled by a maniac Supreme Being. Millions of people, today, switch their religions. If God had any interest in this ongoing process, there appears no evidence of this. ____________________________________________________________ Moses' mass murder Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. -Numbers 31:16-18 COMMENT: Moses commands the murder of approximately 100,000 young males and, roughly, 68,000 helpless women. Consider women and children of your own family: No matter how sick they may lay, or how they may go against a religion, how would you feel if a man named Moses, claiming to speak for God, sent men into your house and hacked to pieces the women and male children? Also, how would you react if they spotted a female child, dragged her off with them to do as they please with her? Note that these innocent virgins served for their own sexual pleasures. Midian, the land of the Midianites, did not reside in an area regarded as a natural enemy of Israel for centuries, and in fact lay hundreds of miles away from the Israelite encampment. Moses, himself, had lived in Midian as fugitive after committing his first murder. In short, Midian presented no threat to God's Chosen People. ____________________________________________________________ Slaughter of innocents And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. -Deuteronomy 2:34 And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Hesbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities we took for a prey to ourselves. -Deuteronomy 3:6-7 COMMENT: Such words helped give justification to mediaeval Crusaders who slaughtered men, women and children along their way and stole the spoils of the cities. Even today, many Christian military men use Scripture to justify their actions. Even George Bush, with Billy Graham beside him, proclaimed the Gulf War as "moral." (See also Deuteronomy 20:16-17 and Joshua 6:2) ____________________________________________________________ Utter destruction Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. -Deuteronomy 12:2-3 COMMENT: The Lord, here commands the destruction of all the places where people worship other gods. There appears not a shred of religious tolerance here! "I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our ownÐ a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism." - Albert Einstein ____________________________________________________________ Kill all unbelievers And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God... -Deuteronomy 13: 5 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; -Deuteronomy 13: 6 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. -Deuteronomy 13:8-9 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. -Deuteronomy 13:15 COMMENT: These severe laws commanded the members of the Hebrew religion to murder even their own children if they did not worship Yahweh (God). These Bible words can justify, to a fanatical fundamentalist believer, the killing of friends or family simply because they may fail to change their beliefs. Why anyone today would accept these words, much less allow them to exist in a sacred book goes against the nature of any tolerant and loving people? ____________________________________________________________ Stone the woman! If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; -Deuteronomy 22:22 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you. -Deuteronomy 22:24 COMMENT: (Read also Deut. 22:13-21) The discovery of a bride lying with another man can yield disastrous results. If the wife's parents can produce tokens of the damsel's virginity and spread the cloth before the elders of the city, the husband has to pay the bride's father one hundred silver shekels and he may not send his wife back to her parents as long as she lives. But if the bride's virginity does not satisfy the requirements, the husband can get rid of her by letting the men of the city stone her to death. From a practical level, these designed laws regulating women's virginity protected economic transactions between men rather than for the sake of morality. (see next page) ____________________________________________________________ Virgin's worth If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silvers, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days. -Deuteronomy 22:28-29 COMMENT: The impression we get about the law leads us to believe that it represented a great advancement in morality. However, if we look at this law in the social and economic context, it becomes evident that it did not come from any moral ground, but rather to protect men's property rights of their wives and daughters. This law says that since an unmarried girl, a non-virgin, no longer serves as an economically valuable asset, her father must receive compensation. As for the legal requirement of the man that caused the economic problem, his marriage in that society gave him practically unlimited power over their wives. Such forced marriage can hardly serve as a concern for the poor girl's welfare. ____________________________________________________________ The sacred penis He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD. A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. -Deuteronomy 23:1-2 COMMENT: Consider the religious man who happens to accidentally receive an injury that results in the loss of his penis. According to the Bible, and regardless of his righteousness or goodwill toward men, mind you, but just because he lacks a penis, he should never enter a Church or Temple again. Also pity a poor man born of a mother who, for whatever reason, including rape, may have born him out of wedlock. He too should, according to the Bible, never enter the Lord's congregation. ____________________________________________________________ Fecal disposal And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee: For the LORD thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall they camp be holy: that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away from thee. -Deuteronomy 23:13-14 COMMENT: These verses ask us to believe that God has concern for fecal waste disposal outside a military camp because God personally wishes to walk within the camp. Now really! ____________________________________________________________ Cut off her hand! 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 shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. -Deuteronomy 25:11-12 COMMENT: A wife would naturally wish to come to the aid of her husband in any way she could if he desperately struggled with an opponent, but the Hebrew law specifically forbade a wife to help her husband in distress if that support consisted of her grabbing the enemy's genitals in an effort to stifle his onslaught. The penalty? Amputation of the hand that fondled the genitals! Only in an overly obsessive male dominated culture could men create such atrocious laws. As such, the penis ranked sacrosanct in the minds of men (as it still stands today). If a male lost his penis for any reason, he would lose the right to enter a congregation of God. (See Deuteronomy 23:1) ____________________________________________________________ God given hemorrhoids The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. -Deuteronomy 28:27 COMMENTS: When Israel felt rebellious against God's plan, He threatened them with type of plague: "emerods" or by today's terminology, "hemorrhoids." God also sent hemorrhoids as a plague to the enemies. "...he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods..." and "... Lord was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts." (See I Samuel 5:6-12) ____________________________________________________________ Eat your children And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD they God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee: -Deuteronomy 28:53 And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates. -Deuteronomy 28:57 COMMENT: Here we have the horrific calling for cannibalism. It comes even more barbaric considering it calls for the devouring of their own sons and daughters. Hardly anyone today accepts cannibalism, yet many fundamentalist Christians would have us believe that cannibalism will result if we choose not to believe in God or to choose another god. (See also II Kings 6:28-29) ____________________________________________________________ God rejoices your death And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. -Deuteronomy 28:63 COMMENT: If the religious mind believes that God represents a loving God, then one must wonder about God, as described in the Bible, who would rejoice to destroy some of his creations. Should we hold honor to an insane God? The Bible assures us that God possess an evil spirit with hate, and full of wrath, and here he rejoices in destruction! God appears completely devoid of any wit or humor; a mental state that psychologists have observed in many schizophrenics. ____________________________________________________________ Utter destruction And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. -Joshua 6:21 COMMENT: These "God inspired" words give not a hint of mercy to innocent slaughtered women, children or the old. After Moses and Aaron died, Joshua assumed command and the Israelites entered Jericho. Note that in the same siege, "all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord" (Josh. 6:19) In the battle of Ai, the Bible tells that twelve thousand, the whole population of Ai, got slaughtered. (Josh. 8:25) Note that many invaders throughout history have used such words as justification for wars and looting. (See also Deuteronomy 3:6-7) ____________________________________________________________ God casts stones And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword. -Joshua 10:11 COMMENT: Another typical slaughter described in the Bible. Here we have God, personally throwing great stones on the people for the sole purpose of killing them. "The Christian religion has been and still is the principle enemy of moral progress in the world." - Bertrand Russell ____________________________________________________________ The sun stands still Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. -Joshua 10:12-13 COMMENT: These verses imply that the sun moves around the earth. If the Bible actually represents the words or inspired words of God, then why didn't the Great Creator inspire them to tell the truth about the universe and our solar system? Also, the Bible asks us to believe that a supposedly loving God made the sun stand still for the sole purpose of helping the Israelites slaughter the Amorites. How can one not see that these verses would insult the intelligence of any person who believes God possess wisdom, knowledge and love? ____________________________________________________________ Nail his head! Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died. -Judges 4:21 COMMENT: In verse 16 the Israelites surprise Sisera's army and that "there was not a man left," except Sisera who deserts his army and flees, a deed punishable by court martial today. Sisera then goes to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber. Jael takes him in, hides him under a blanket, gives him milk to quench his thirst, and promises to stand guard at the door while he sleeps. Then Jael kills Sisera! We see no telling of the slightest shame, but rather, Jael proudly flaunts her kill. The author of this piece of Scripture makes it clear that the passage represents a deed, not only as grand and heroic but also consistent with the will of God (see Judges 4:23). ____________________________________________________________ Gideon slaughters And Gideon said, Therefore when the Lord hath delivered Zebah and Zalmunna into mine hand, then I will tear your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers -Judges 8:7 Now Zebah and Zalmunna were Karkor, and their hosts with them, about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of all the hosts of the children of the east: for there fell an hundred and twenty thousand men that drew sword. -Judges 8:10 COMMENT: The Gideon Society places Bibles into motels and hotels across America. One would assume Gideon lived as a person of exemplary character and great worth to have a worldwide society named after him. Below describes some of Gideon's accomplishments: + Gideon slaughtered thousands in battle by plotting with the "Lord" to use Treachery. + Gideon murdered thousands more for worshipping "false Gods." + Gideon tortured and killed still more for daring to taunt him. + Gideon plundered the bodies of his victims (to fashion a jeweled priestly vestment). + Gideon fathered an offspring who killed 69 of his stepbrothers. Read the story of Gideon in Judges, chapters 6-9. The tale of Gideon describes just one of the many horror stories in the Bible, a book that glorifies behavior abysmal to modern society. The clergy and leaders have hoodwinked millions of people about the stories in the Bible. Don't let others decide for yourself. ____________________________________________________________ Rape my daughter Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so 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 19:24-25 COMMENT: Judges 19 describe a father who offers his virgin daughter to a drunken mob. When the father says "unto this man do not so vile a thing," he makes clear that sexual abuse should never befall a man (meaning him), yet a woman, even his own flesh and blood, or a concubine belonging to a perfect stranger, can receive punishment from men to do what they wish. This attitude against women still persists to this day and we have the Bible, in large part, to thank for this attitude against women. Verse 25 describes the hours long gang rape of the poor concubine. The Bible gives not one hint of passion or concern for the raped girl. Considering that many people believe that every word in the Bible comes from God, it should not surprise anyone why people still use these verses to justify such atrocities. ____________________________________________________________ Godly mass murder And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. -I Samuel 6:19 COMMENT: Here we have just one more instance of God performing mass murder, a sadistic killer far worse than Hitler, Attila the Hun or Pol Pot. These verses should insult the intelligence of any person who thinks that God possesses a loving nature. One should not dismiss the Old Testament's repeated demand for the vilest atrocities as something peculiar to the early Hebrews. Even today, our most atrocious wars, terrorism and hate crimes occur around the world based on ancient religious beliefs, many of them coming directly from verses in the Old and New Testament. ____________________________________________________________ Kill man, woman, infant Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. -I Samuel 15:2-3 COMMENT: No matter how one can justify possible crimes from adults, suckling infants have no means of acting out crimes. And what evil against God could the animals have possibly performed? Only an evil entity could kill innocent infants and animals, no matter what their parents and owners may have done. ____________________________________________________________ The evil spirit of God And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. -I Samuel 16:23 COMMENT: Here it specifically describes an evil spirit from God! What religious killer could not also view this passage as justification for his evil nature? Note that many murderers and serial killers have attributed the Biblical God to the reason for their slaughters. If the Religious Right feels so adamant about eliminating violence and pornography from secular literature, then why have they not seen that the Bible has influenced more deaths and atrocities than any other literature in the history of mankind? (See also I Samuel 19:9) ____________________________________________________________ Evil spirit of the Lord And the evil spirit from the LORD was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand: and David played with his hand. -I Samuel 19:9 COMMENT: Consider that many modern Judeo-Christians consider God the opposite of evil, yet here we have, again, the clear Biblical wording of evil coming from the LORD. In early Christian history, several Gnostic cults believed that the orthodox Church as well as the Old Testament, came from Satan. The Church, of course, labeled these Gnostics as heretics and burned their books as well as the heretics themselves. Reading the Old Testament appears to affirm the observation that God and Satan, if not one in the same, at least work as a team. (See also I Samuel 16:23) ____________________________________________________________ David uncovers himself And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. And as the ark of the LORD came into the city of David, Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the LORD; and she despised him in her heart. -II Samuel 6:14-16 Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel today, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! -II Samuel 6:20 COMMENT: Imagine King David dancing and leaping with all his might while uncovering himself to the crowd. David's wife, in effect, says "Well, you certainly made an ass of yourself at the temple today leaping and dancing about like an idiot and exposing yourself." An "ephod" describes of an embroidered robe that looks similar to a woman's dress. ____________________________________________________________ God orders adultery This said the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. -II Samuel 12:11 COMMENT: Here describes God, not only condoning adultery, but literally causes it to happen! Note also, the strange assertion that God raises up evil, supposedly an act reserved for Satan. ____________________________________________________________ King David's holocaust And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under the axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem. -II Samuel 12:31 COMMENT: From the sacred scripts from the Bible we learn that the great King David carried out atrocities that rivaled the cruel acts from the holocaust of World War II. If we condemn the Nazi's for their atrocities, why should we not do the same for David's bloodthirsty actions? ____________________________________________________________ Piss crimes therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jerobo'am, and will cut off from Jerobo'am him that pisseth against the wall... -I Kings 14:10 COMMENT: If God brings evil upon a house, then what makes Him different from Satan? Although the unsanitary practice of urinating on walls might have caused serious erosion of the mud walls, this appears too steep a punishment. (See also I Kings 16:8-11, I Kings 21:21, and II Kings 9:8-10) ____________________________________________________________ Pisseth against walls And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends. -I Kings 16:11 COMMENT: Consider that many Christians tell us to believe all of the Bible, must we also include this vulgar language as the inspiration of God? (See also I Kings 14:10, 21:21; II Kings 9:8) ____________________________________________________________ Eating dung and son And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver. -II Kings 6:25 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 -II Kings 6:28-29 COMMENT: According to the Bible, a horrible famine took place in Samaria where in desperation, the people ate feces of doves, (strangely worth more than a donkey's head). The same chapter describes an incident of cannibalism- a son boiled alive by his mother to provide food. ____________________________________________________________ Eating dung and drinking piss But Rabshakeh said unto them, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men which sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you? -II Kings 18:27 COMMENT: Whatever moral lesson an adult might gain from such vulgar verses, one can only wonder. How many parents realize that their children, who might come across such filthy passages, could get the wrong message? Any mention of drinking of feces and urine in any secular writing would get considered obscene and sick by any righteous minded Christian. Then why should it not receive the same consideration if found in a bible? Note the word "piss" stands as one of the vulgar words that does not get allowed on television programming. If Christians wish to censor such language from secular sources, then it behooves them to give themselves as an example and thus censor the obscene verses from their own Bible. (See also Isaiah 36:12) ____________________________________________________________ Fire of God Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. -I Kings 18:38 COMMENT: We get told that Satan involves himself with the eternal consuming fire, yet the Bible makes it abundantly clear that hell fire comes directly from God. Note that fire does not consume stones, otherwise ovens and kilns could not work. ____________________________________________________________ David slaughters them And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes... -I Chronicles 20:3 COMMENT: Chapter 17-19 tell us that David killed 22,000 Syrians and that Abishai killed 18,000 Edomites. No one expresses shame at such slaughters. Here in 20:3, we have David, counted as a great leader of the Israelites, slaughtering captives after the cessation of hostilities. From what high moral ground should we admire this action? ____________________________________________________________ God & Satan the same? AND Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. -I Chronicles 21:1 AND again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. -II Samuel 24:1 COMMENT: Here we have either a contradiction, a grave Biblical error, God and Satan working together, or the unmistakable interpretation that God and Satan "are" one and the same! Given that fundamentalists believe the Bible contains no errors or contradictions, then that leaves only the last two possibilities Note that the capitalized word "AND" appears at the beginning of each verse and the message appears at the beginning of each chapter. Note also that the name Lucifer (another name for Satan) means light bearer, or morning star: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer to the ground..." - Isaiah 14:12 The last page of the Bible reveals Jesus: "I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." -Rev. 22:16 It should now become clear to the reader why some Satanist cults use the same Bible as the Christians. (See also evil and good from God: Lamentations 3: 38-39) ____________________________________________________________ God sends pestilence Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel... -I Chronicles 21:12 So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. -I Chronicles 21:14 COMMENT: David made an offense against God in taking a census of the people, so God gave David a choice. Oddly enough, David ignores God and never actually gets around to making a choice; so the Lord makes the decision for him and sends pestilence upon Israel. It appears unclear as to why David committed a crime, but why shouldn't God have punished individual offenders instead of killing an army of innocent bystanders? Atrocities such as this appear outrageous enough when perpetrated by Attila the Hun, Hitler or Pol Pot, but when it comes from a, supposedly, loving God, it should make one wonder if this represents a Devil instead of a God. ____________________________________________________________ God slaughters blacks Zerah, the Ethiopian came up against them with an army of a million and three hundred chariots... -II Chronicles 14:9 Then the LORD struck down the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah so that the Ethiopians fled. -II Chronicles 14:12 COMMENT: It appears doubtful that Black Christian Bible studies programs concentrate on these verses. These Bibles verses say that the Lord God slaughtered over a million blacks. The Klu Klux Klan have used such verses as evidence to justify their beliefs. ____________________________________________________________ God's bowel diseases Behold with a great plague will the LORD smite thy people and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods: And thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of the sickness day by day. -II Chronicles 21:14-15 And after all this the LORD smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease. And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. -II Chronicles 18:19 COMMENT: Another among many instances in the Bible where the Lord smites, not only men, but all the people including women and children. Why God would concern himself with giving an incurable cruel bowel disease where the person's guts spill out of the abdomen, goes beyond human decency and comprehension. ____________________________________________________________ The wrathful God Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies. -Psalm 18:7-11 COMMENT: Consider that these verses describe an angry (wroth) being, spouting smoke and fire, whose secret place consisted of darkness. This devilish entity, sounds like a description of Satan, but believe it or not, actually comes from the Bible as describing God. ____________________________________________________________ Washing feet in blood The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. -Psalm 58:10 COMMENT: How many "good" Christians realize that such words appear in the Bible? Of course most preachers keep these immoral words away from their congregations, and the few Christians who do come across these verses, re-interpret them for their own purposes, not realizing the impact these words can have on some. Unfortunately, the few that take these verses literally can justify atrocities against anyone who they wish to define as "wicked." ____________________________________________________________ Godly head wounds But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses. The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea: That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same. -Psalm 68:21-23 COMMENT: If anyone believes these sadistic words come from God, then it might serve prudence to stay away from such people. For anyone who holds to such beliefs may very well do the same to others. ____________________________________________________________ Happy to kill children Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. -Psalm 137:9 (KJV) [Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rock!] -Psalm 137:9 (New American Bible) [a blessing on anyone who seizes your babies and shatters them against a rock!] -Psalm 137:9 (Jerusalem Bible) COMMENT: Ask a Christian friend whether he or she should feel happy to dash a child against the rocks. Your friend will most likely stare at you in horror, much less believe this idea exists in their sacred Bible. Many Churches have found this verse as quite embarrassing. It gives no wonder then why priests, Jews, and Christians alike, have quoted from Psalm 137, but always leaving out this last verse. (See also Isaiah 13:16) ____________________________________________________________ Hate them! Surely thou will slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. -Psalm 139:19-22 COMMENT: A message of hate from the, supposed, inspired words of God against anyone who takes God's name in vain or who goes against God. Faith in one's belief produces a barrier to further investigation. As such, societies that differ in beliefs from other societies cannot see past their own barriers. When hate enters into the prison of their beliefs, the seeds for violence to act out against other societies come to full bloom. ____________________________________________________________ Burn them! Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to overthrow my goings. -Psalm 140:4 Let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire; into deep pits, that they rise not up again. -Psalm 140:10 COMMENT: Such wicked words can justify to the religious person any atrocity including holocausts. Ironically in verse 4, the words "Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked" calls in verse 10 for horrible acts against their enemies; hardly a message of love of thine enemies. ____________________________________________________________ Drugs and aphrodisiacs Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved. -Song of Solomon 7:11-13 COMMENT: The poetry of the Songs of Solomon give Scriptural testimony for love, sex and the beauty of the female body, a rare and usually ignored portion of the Bible by many fundamentalist Christians. The mandrakes mentioned here describe a Mediterranean herb of the nightshade family of plants. To this day in the Middle East, people believe it overcomes impotence in men and acts as a powerful aphrodisiac. Even the roots have a decidedly phallic appearance. Ancient physician, Galen, wrote that pomegranate possessed antifertility properties. Many women in ancient days used pomegranate, (as well as other plants) for birth control, with little interference from religious or political authorities. Studies in the 1930s showed that pomegranate reduced fertility in laboratory animals, much as modern contraceptive pills do. [Archaeology, March/April 1994] (See also Genesis 30:14) ____________________________________________________________ "Virgin" mistranslation Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. -Isaiah 7:14 COMMENT: Perhaps the most famous mistranslation of the Bible, the word virgin here comes from a mistranslated Greek word for virgin. However, the original Hebrew version uses the word "almah" which means "young woman" which may or may not refer to a virgin. Of course the context of the original Hebrew Isaiah does not refer to a virgin at all, as scholars the world over agree. Later, the author of Matthew 1:22-23, quoted from the mistranslated Isaiah version, and thus the error turned into a world-wide belief. Today a few of the modern bibles such as the Revised Standard Version, have corrected this mistranslation and have replaced the word virgin with "young woman." Apparently either God makes errors or the Bible does not come all from god, but rather from fallible men. ____________________________________________________________ Raping and killing Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished -Isaiah 13:15-16 COMMENT: These verses foretold the deaths of the people of Babylon. Fortunately not everyone in Babylon (now modern Iraq) fell by the sword or had their children dashed to pieces or their wives raped (just another instance of errors in the Bible). How some people who believe in an infallible Bible can accept these verses as God inspired, or morally uplifting can only give evidence to the blinding nature of belief. ____________________________________________________________ Passing wind Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and mine inward parts for Kirharesh. -Isaiah 16:11 COMMENT: This passage refers to the flatulent passing of gas in musical fashion from the bowels of a prophet. Could this represent a rare instance of humor in the Bible? ____________________________________________________________ Prophesy in the nude At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy lions, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. -Isaiah 20:2-4 COMMENT: Although Saul acted on his own, God gave Isaiah a direct injunction to prophesy in the nude, and it should continue for three years. God seems not the least offended by nudity when it comes to prophesying, yet he imbues his followers with shame over nudity associated with sex, especially when it involves pagan sex worship. (See also Micah 1:8) ____________________________________________________________ Babylon is fallen And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. -Isaiah 21:9 COMMENT: Many soldiers have used Bible verses to justify horrific destruction against their enemy. Such beliefs can comfort the minds of men to do virtually any kind of atrocity against men, women, and children of the enemy. The Crusaders of the 12th century, slaughtered or tortured anyone who stood in their way. The Bible's words gave them their justification. Even today, our government, military and religious leaders judge wars as "moral" based on Biblical reasoning. Fighting men feel, not only comforted, but glorious in their actions against the destruction of fellow human beings. In the Gulf War, for example, an F-16 fighter/bomber had "Isaiah 21:9" written on his bomb. ____________________________________________________________ God creates evil and peace I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -Isaiah 45:7 COMMENT: Here it explicitly states that God creates evil as well as makes peace. Considering that since the invention of man-made religions there has always existed war, it appears that God likes war more than peace. (see also Lam. 3:38, II Samuel 12:11 & I Kings 14:10 "I will bring evil upon...") ____________________________________________________________ Evil from God Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? -Lamentations 3: 38-39 COMMENT: Here we have the little known verse that plainly asserts that evil as well as good comes from the mouth of God. At the same time, men who possess God given evil must endure punishment for God's cruel gift. (see also II Samuel 12:11 and I Kings 14:10 "I will bring evil upon...") ____________________________________________________________ Eat human feces! And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. And the LORD said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. -Ezekiel 4:12-13 COMMENT: How many good Christians today realize that their God has coprophilic tendencies? One wonders what value, nutritional or moral, it would serve the people to eat human feces with their bread, as God ordered. Note, God here has also ordered, the voyeuristic-like observation of the feces coming out man. ____________________________________________________________ Slay old and young And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and woman: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house. -Ezekiel 9:5-6 COMMENT: These words, commanded by God, orders the slaying of not only women and the old, but of little children. These accounts of cold-blooded massacres occurred simply because people refused to accept Yahweh. These phrases should give warning to anyone who knows a person who believes every word in the Bible. For what sense of moral reasoning should we allow ourselves to admire such Biblical verses? ____________________________________________________________ Biblical pornography Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. -Ezekiel 23: 20-21 [and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions.] -Ezekiel 23: 21 (NRSV) COMMENT: The story of the sister whores, Aholah and Aholibah gives a moral lesson against the sins of the flesh. But why does God have to describe their adventures in such pornographic detail? As any adult should know, such descriptions might bring temptation for anyone reading these verses. For what moral lessen can this could this possibly serve? What parent would want their children reading verse 21 about comparing the size of men's penises to donkey genitals and the sperm flow to that of horse issues? ____________________________________________________________ Rip up pregnant women 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 COMMENT: Throughout the Bible, God smites those who do not believe in him or those who do not follow his commands. Here we have the grotesque description of infants dashed to pieces and pregnant women ripped up. Whatever rebellious nature an infant's father or mother may have had, it bears no justice to an innocent child or to an unborn fetus who could not possibly have rebelled against God, much less understood him. Anyone who claims to love such a God, must accept infanticide as one of God's ugly revenges. (See also Psalm 137:9) ____________________________________________________________ Make weapons Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. -Joel 3:9-10 COMMENT: Peace loving Jews and Christians love to quote the biblical passage about beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruninghooks, (Micah 4:3) but here we have just the opposite. ____________________________________________________________ Howl and strip naked Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. -Micah 1:8 COMMENT: The minor prophets felt influenced from Isaiah and these words of Micah indicate that he would imitate Isaiah's nudist actions as an adjunct to his prophesying. Picture in your mind a religious man of today stripping and running around totally nude and prophesying in public, wailing and hooting at the top of his lungs. No doubt the police would snatch him up in a second while citizens stare in embarrassment. It just goes to show how far we have demeaned ourselves and our bodies as shameful. (See also Isaiah 20:2-4) ____________________________________________________________ Expose her breasts! Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make the vile, and will set thee as gazingstock. -Nahum 3:5-6 [Look, I am against you!- declares Yahweh Saboath- I shall lift your skirts as high as your face and show your nakedness to the nations, your shame to the kingdoms. I shall pelt you with filth.] -Nahum 3:6 (The New Jerusalem Bible) COMMENT: Some think these verses describe a genius of a poet. If judged as such, it can only come from its sharpness and vividness. But it also describes vulgarity and hatred, even if it aims against the harlotry of the city of Nineveh. Few scholars today believe that these verses come as a direct quote from God. But a fundamentalist who believes every word of the Bible, must also accept these words as Godly. If so, then how can one not see God in a cruel vulgar light? "Filth" here refers to dung. (See also Malachi 2:2-3 where God says "I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces...") ____________________________________________________________ God's fecal fetish If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the LORD of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. -Malachi 2:2-3 COMMENT: Amazingly God appears to have a fecal fetish. This commandment to the priests told by the Lord gives example of the Satanic threats of curses He seems to enjoy. What should one think of a God that would smear feces upon the faces of his creations? Such vulgarity can hardly give good example to high morality. ____________________________________________________________ Curse the earth For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. -Malachi 4:1 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts. -Malachi 4:3 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. -Malachi 4:5-6 COMMENT: This last chapter of Malachi ends the book of the Old Testament. One would think it might end with a flourish of enlightenment. Instead we get fear of burning to death and can only look forward to the dreadful day of the Lord. With all the horrors recorded in the Bible, perhaps it should not surprise anyone to see the Old Testament end with the word "curse." ____________________________________________________________ The wicked woman Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman. -Eccles. 25:13 Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. -Eccles. 25:22 If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a bill of divorce, and let her go. -Eccles. 25: 26 The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids. If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty. -Eccles. 26:9-10 A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord: and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed. A shamefaced and faithful woman is a double grace, and her continent mind cannot be valued. -Eccles. 26:14-15 A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord. -Eccles.26:25 For from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness. Better is the churlishness of a man than a courteous woman, a woman, I say, which bringeth shame and reproach. -Eccles. 42:13-14 COMMENT: Ecclesiasticus of the Apocrypha does not appear in most Bibles. However, in Catholic Bibles, in inferiority of woman still appears in the verses of Ecclesiasticus. These are only a sample of verses which attempts to lower the status of women. ____________________________________________________________ Turn thy cheek But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. -Matthew 5:39 COMMENT: This nonviolent principle does not originate with Jesus. Lao-tse and the Buddha taught this five or six hundred years before Jesus. Ironically, few Christians hold to this principle. In fact, the Religious Right preach just the opposite as Christians throughout the centuries have violently attacked anyone who dared threaten them. ____________________________________________________________ Pray in the closet And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hyprocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. -Matthew 6:5-6 COMMENT: The Religious Right wishes to put into law public prayer. How many Christians realize that the Biblical Jesus strongly opposed public prayer? The wall of separation between Church and State, actually protects the religious liberties for all of us in the United States and here we have Biblical justification for keeping prayer private. ____________________________________________________________ Be wise as serpents Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. -Matthew 10:16 This verse instructs the apostles to act "wise as serpents." Since Christians hold that the serpent in the Bible represents Satan, one might wonder about this. Note also that some Bibles use the term "subtle" in place of "wise" which alludes to the serpent in Genesis 3:1, "the serpent was more subtil than any beast..." Early Gnostic heretics believed that Jesus "was" Satan and they used Biblical verses such as this to support their belief. It seems odd that Jesus would resort to the metaphorical "sheep" instead of pet dogs or some other loyal animal. The awkward fact remains that men raise sheep for two reasons: to rob them of their coats and to kill and eat them. Note also that doves actually act just the opposite of "harmless." Doves act viciously against other birds. ____________________________________________________________ I came not to send peace Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to SET A MAN AT VARIANCE AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND THE DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND THE DAUGHTER IN LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER IN LAW. And a MAN'S FOES SHALL BE THEY OF HIS OWN HOUSEHOLD. -Matthew 10:34-37 COMMENT: These words of Jesus confirm the unbelievable notion that Jesus did not come to establish peace, but rather to send the sword and to put man against his family. So much for family values. (See also Luke 12: 51-53, Luke 12:49 and Luke 14:26 ) ____________________________________________________________ Jesus not entirely good And behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. -Matthew 19:16-17 COMMENT: Most Christians believe that Jesus, not only lived as the Son of God but God in the flesh. Consider that Jesus here calls "none good but one, that is, God," pointing to an entity separate from himself (also see Matt. 5:48, 6:9) Also note that because of the belief that none other than God "is" good suggests that Jesus must not have behaved in an entirely good manner himself. Some early Gnostic cults ( judged as heretics by the orthodox church) believed that Jesus was Satan in the flesh and these verses suggests that He was the opposite of good- Evil in the disguise of God. ____________________________________________________________ Serpent Jews Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? -Matthew 23:33 COMMENT: Chapter 23 describes the famous diatribe of Jesus against the Jewish leaders. Such biblical words has, for centuries, given believers justification for Jewish hatred. This verse, spoken by Jesus himself, compares the unbelieving Jews with the serpent devil. ____________________________________________________________ Wars must be And when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows. -Mark 13:7-8 COMMENT: Belief in these words can justify any war and atrocity against nations. Yet Jesus here tells us that we should not feel troubled by it as long as we have belief in Him. When Jesus prophesies about the future, he gives the message that we have no control over our lives other than to choose or not choose a belief in the Lord. With such a message, it should not surprise anyone why the Religious Right does little to strive against war. ____________________________________________________________ I come to send fire I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? -Luke 12:49 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. -Luke 12:51-53 COMMENT: Jesus did not come to send peace, but rather fire and division among the family. So much for the idea of a pacifist Jesus and the modern concept of "family values." (See also Luke 14:26 ) ____________________________________________________________ Hate your family! If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. -Luke 14:26 COMMENT: This remarkable statement of hate by Jesus directly contradicts the idea of a loving Christ. If one must hate their father, mother, wife, children, brethren and sisters and even themselves, in order to become a disciple of Jesus, one must question Christ's idea of the family. (See also Luke 12:51-53, Matthew 11:34-37) ____________________________________________________________ The brethren of Jesus After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. -John 2:12 COMMENTS: This verse describes Jesus and his brethren. Jesus Christ's blood-related siblings directly contradicts the Catholic concept of the life-long virginity of the mother Mary. Some Christians have attempted to defend this contradiction by pointing out that brethren has two meanings: it could mean brothers, from the same parents, or it could mean colleagues or friends. Note, however, that the use of the word "disciples" suggests that brothers and disciples constitute two separate groups. Therefore, brethren must mean brothers in this context. Note also that Mark 6:3 mentions brothers and sisters that can only mean blood siblings. Also, nowhere in the Gospel of John or Mark does it mention Jesus' birth or Mary as a virgin. Considering that a virgin birth of the Son of God would seem of utmost importance, it appears rather odd that these Gospels do not mention it. ____________________________________________________________ Christ's temper And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, "Take these things hence; make not my Father's house a house of merchandise." -John 2:14-16 COMMENT: Here we have Jesus' temper and violence showing. It must have taken considerable fortitude to drive all the moneychangers out and then have the nerve to pour their money out and turn over their tables. Consider what would happen today if a man entered a Church bake sale and threw everyone out and violently turned over the tables. No doubt the police would come and throw him in the slammer. "I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of humankind has preserved the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!" - John Adams ____________________________________________________________ Female inferiority But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. -I Corinthians 11:3 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. -I Corinthians 11:8-9 COMMENT: The Bible's decree of male supremacy has kept woman inferior to men for centuries. For the religious, it comes as a sad fact that a human must have a penis to receive any respect or power within the Church. All woman should realize that such phrases in the Bible has justified for many Christian men, not only their supremacy but a reason to sexually abuse women. (See also I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19) ____________________________________________________________ Women shall not speak Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. -I Corinthians 14:34-35 COMMENT: If one ever wishes to find an explanation of woman's inferiority to men, one only has to look in the Bible. Paul makes clear and delineates the importance of woman recognizing her place, -ad nauseam.- (See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19) "The bible teaches that women brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire... Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton ____________________________________________________________ Wives, submit yourselves! Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. -Ephesians 5:22-24 COMMENT: These words of Paul describe another instance for the calling of the submission of women to their husbands. (See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Col. 3:18-19) ____________________________________________________________ Silence the woman! Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. -I Timothy 2:11-14 COMMENT: Another case where the Bible makes it quite clear that women live for man and must submit to them. "Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards revolt in the downtrodden female." -Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex 1949 (See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19) ____________________________________________________________ Synagogues of Satan But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate. -Revelation 2-6 I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. -Revelation 2-9 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which the thing I hate. -Revelation 2-15 Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. -Revelation 3-9 COMMENT: These verses by Jesus has fueled the engine of anti-Semitism throughout Europe and the rest of the world for centuries. Unfortunately many believers today still justify their hatred of Jews based on Scripture. Note that we have here in Rev 2:6 the words of Jesus admitting to hate, contrary to the belief by many Christians that Jesus holds only to the principle of love. ____________________________________________________________ Jesus will kill children Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works. -Revelation 2-22-23 COMMENT: If anyone thinks Jesus represents only a peaceful loving soul, then think again. For an act of adultery, Jesus would kill innocent children for the adultery of others; hardly fair justice, love, or the concern for human beings. "It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions, the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses." - Flo Kennedy ____________________________________________________________ Beasts in heaven And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle. And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, WHICH WAS, AND IS , AND IS TO COME. -Revelation 4: 6-8 COMMENT: Here we have a rare description of heaven where it appears frightening with strange beasts. One cannot help to think that it seems more a description of Hell than a heaven. (See also Rev. 5) ____________________________________________________________ Christ with horns And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. -Revelations 5:6 COMMENT: Biblical scholars agree that "a Lamb" refers to the crucified Christ. Strangely, Jesus here appears to look devilish with horns and multiple eyes. How can this description of heaven inspire an image of a peaceful afterlife with all these ghastly beasts and spirits about? (See also Rev. 4) It should come to no surprise where some early Gnostic cults got the idea that, not only the Church, but Jesus represented Satan and the embodiment of Evil. And who do the literalists claim as the "seven Spirits of God"? ____________________________________________________________ The survivors Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. -Revelation 7:3-4 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. -Revelations 9:3-4 COMMENT: Here we have the great future destruction where millions of people will die. Only 144,000 Jews with a protective mark on their heads will survive. How many believers realize that this means the death of everyone on earth but a few Jews? And this includes the destruction of ALL Christians! ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Beware of a future "Armageddon" caused by religious people. Belief in self-fulfilling prophesies creates self-fulfilling acts ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ BIBLIOGRAPHY Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, by Elaine Pagels (1988) Anatomy of Religion, by Adrian Crees Ancient Israel, by Roland de Vaux (1965) Asimov's Guide to the Bible (Vol 1 &2), by Isaac Asimov (1968-69) Beyond Theology, by Alan Watts (1964) Holy Bible, King James Version, by God(?) (1611) Holy Bible, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), by revisionists (1989) Midrash Rabbah Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality (1990) More Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality (1993) Molech: A God of Human sacrifice in the Old Testament, by John Day Testament, by John Romer (1988) The Bible Handbook for Free Thinkers and Inquiring Christians, by G. W. Foote, et al The Book of the Prophet, by A.S. Herbert (1973) The Chalice & the Blade, by Riane Eisler (1987) The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels (1979) The Gospel Sources, by Dorthy F. Wilson The Interpreter's Bible The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount, by G. Friedlander (1969) The Masks of God, by Joseph Campbell (1964) The Old Testament Library, Isaiah 1-12, by Otto Kaiser (1972) The Revell Bible Dictionary (1984) The Secret Teachings of Jesus, by Marvin W. Meyer (1984) The X-Rated Bible, by Ben Edward Akerley (1989) When God Was a Woman, by Merlin Stone (1976) ____________________________________________________________ Please give this text to friends, relatives, church leaders and other BBSs. If you have questions, comments, or corrections, please address them to: The Dark Bible P.O. Box 661133 Miami Springs, FL 33266-1133 Note, if you send $20 (cash only) and your address, I'll send you a floppy disk full of religious and freethought texts. Indicate what format you'd like (Mac or DOS). If you use a Macintosh, you will receive the latest version of a HyperCard stack version of the Dark Bible along with other interesting files. I give my warmest appreciation and thanks to the people who have supported my efforts with donations and letters. Because of you, I will continue to present educational material for freethinkers. *********************************************************************** * * * American Atheists website: http://www.atheists.org * * PO Box 140195 FTP: ftp://ftp.atheists.org * * Austin, TX 78714-0195 * * Voice: (512) 458-1244 Dial-THE-ATHEIST: * * FAX: (512) 467-9525 (512) 458-5731 * * * * Atheist Viewpoint TV: avtv@atheists.org * * Info on American Atheists: info@atheists.org, * * & American Atheist Press include your name and mailing address * * AANEWS -Free subscription: aanews-request@listserv.atheists.org * * and put "info aanews" in message body * * * * This text may be freely downloaded, reprinted, and/other * * otherwise redistributed, provided appropriate point of * * origin credit is given to American Atheists. * * * ***********************************************************************