But have none of these religious folks read the horror stories in the holy book? Granted it may be the best possible word by word translation of the oldest, most exquisitely written Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew text, but are the “inspired,” truth-filled words of its God in any way acceptable? How could any reader not find them shocking? Could a real God, any God, give such heinous commands to a group of people, let alone his “chosen” ones?
Let me cite just a few examples. Keep in mind these are twelve samples from among many, to murder other people. The Old Testament advises that the following people should be killed.
- Those who reject the verdict of the judge or the priest who represents the LORD God (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)
- A sorceress (Exodus 22:17 NAB)
- Gay men who lie together (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
- Any medium or fortuneteller; by stoning (Leviticus 20:27 NAB)
- Whoever strikes his father or mother (Exodus 21:15 NAB)
- All who curse their father or mother (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)
- Both adulterer and adulteress (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)
- A priest's daughter who commits fornication; by burning (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)
- Any man or woman who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)
- A man who prophesies shall be thrust through by his parents (Zechariah 13:3 NAB)
- An entire town if one person worships another God (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)
- Women who are not virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)
Like the tip of an iceberg (90% of its ice is underwater), this appalling list mentions only a few of the horrific acts ordered by the God of the Old Testament. It leaves out child killing, rape of virgins, killing of the elderly, taking of slaves, destruction of property.
I’ve read a number of explanations about the culture of Biblical times which alleges an excuse for such defiling deific acts. Some scholars believe such morbid conduct was forced upon the Israelites so they would understand the severity of being God’s select people. Any inclination to abandon his call would certainly bring dire consequences from this wrath-inclined God. Thus, it would be a horrendous, fearsome burden to be hand picked by Yahweh.
Article comments
1 - barbara
Your lack of knowledge is only amplified by your confidence in "researching" the Internet for answers about the "huge" crowd as well as "atrocities" you mention. You need to research by speaking to the authentic Rabbinical Orthodox and learned sources who have studied the subject and sweated to get the REAL answers. Why don't you do your homework?
Your logic as well is flawed. FYI the ancient Egyptians were a very murderous bunch. Just to give you a taste of how life was in those days please do more research. The Bible came to illuminate (and continues for those who try to understand its true message)and change the awareness of humanity about justice and freedom. Today after so many of its messages have sunk into our consciousness it's easy to criticize.
2 - Regis
The REAL answers are right there in the Bible for all to see. Taken IN CONTEXT, the murderous words I mentioned are just a few of many such atrocities approved by the Biblical God. Religious murder and killing does not illuminate. It is responsible for the horrific conditions of the world today. Can you imagine being a child in one of the tribes conquered by God's chosen people who was left alive while her father and mother were slaughtered?
3 - Irene Wagner
Re: fate of orphaned children left alive after parents slain by Jews.
It's a case of damned if they did, damned if they didn't, though, isn't it, Regis? Some of the most shocking biblical passages are the ones recording orders from God (or a not infallible go-between?) to slaughter every man, woman and child in conquered territory.
It’s not always easy, but I’ve tried to interpret passages like this from a broader perspective--an overall picture I have from a preponderance of biblical and personal evidence that God is merciful to those who, in their human weakness, fail to live up to their potential to love and live in harmony with their Creator and his creationâ€"and are sorry about it and try to take Him seriously nonetheless.
What would have been the fate of children if their parents HADN’T been slaughtered? Many of the peoples the Jews conquered worshipped Molech, who required child sacrifices. God didn’t give the Hebrews carte-blanche to slaughter anyone who happened to occupy land they wanted for themselves (though modern Israel sometimes behaves as if that were the case.) The Hebrews were directed to replace societies that had become irredeemably shot through with cruel corruption â€" and a disrespect for (ironic to say it, I know) the value of life that would have been instilled in even some of its very youngest members.
That brings us to the question of the fate of the orphans left alive.
Presumably, they weren’t left to be eaten by the jackals, but were brought back as servants. In about thirteen years, though, that would cause problems. Imagine the stories passed on to the younger orphans by the oldest of the children allowed to surviveâ€"and the plans that would hatch among a group of teenagers discussing the fact that they lived amongst the people they did, only because those people slaughtered their parents.
It was hard to figure out just WHAT to do with them, I imagine.
That’s just one in a class of troubling passages you mentioned, Regis,
I’m not sure you’re looking for answers but I am taking a chance that you’re generous enough to want to understand people whose viewpoints are different from yours, and to attempt to find common ground . (Had the Jews tried that approach before the wholesale slaughter? Good question.) That’s a key responsibility for ALL people who want the spheres they touch to be peaceful spheres, whether they believe in Holy Books or not.
There are more members of organized religionsâ€"more than you know aboutâ€"who have spent a good deal of time thinking about how the HELL certain passages made it into the Bible. You have to try to understand though, Regis. Some people (and not just people who have experienced the miraculous mercy of God through things like medically unexplainable healings or help from angelic beingsâ€"because even Bible disbelievers have had those) have reasons to believe in the Bible but they wouldn’t make sense to anyone else but themselves.
It is intellectually impossible for them to give up what they "know that they know that they know" to be true even if there are questions yet unanswered. One typically doesn’t get to that place of confidence before going through a sometimes years long process of mental and spiritual wrestlings with God over the contents of his word, learning to hear his voice through it, tender and amazing "coincidences" many involving confirmation of and by passages of scripture. Did I mention suffering? Explaining it all (even to someone who WANTS to understand) would be like trying to convince a color blind person that yellow and purple set one another off nicely, or trying to show someone learning to count that those squiggles representing "the integral of e to the xth power" in calculus books are more than what they appear to be to one who has not yet gone through the necessary paces.
4 - Ruvy
Regis,
I read the Torah, the first five books of the Tana"kh, regularly, along with the commentaries and the haftarót, the finishing portions originally chosen as allusory readings because the Roman savages forbade the study of the Torah in ancient Yudaia on pain of death.
You whine pitifully about the punishments listed in the Torah. Let's look at some real punishments meted out by real barbarians.
Drawing and quartering, a standard punishment of the English. The person is tied to four different horses, and the horses are slapped to gallop off - in four different directions.... Flogging with a cat-o-nine-tails, a whip with pieces of lead tied into nine lashes attached to a stick. Again, credit the English. Keeling - tying a man under the keel of a boat and dragging him through the water. Full marks to - wait for it - the English! Waterboarding - originally practiced in a dungeon by the Spanish in the Inquisition. Later adapted and modernized (Thoroughly Modern Millie!) for information extraction by the Americans. Add to this putting a piece of sticky cloth into a man's mouth, stuffing him with water, and then pulling out the sticky cloth suddenly, which dragged out the tissue of the throat and immediately below. Let's hear it again for the Spanish!
Now let's go a few centuries back. Rabbi 'Akiva died by having his eyelids first torn off, and then being wrapped in a Torah and burned. Hundreds of thousands of Jews died sagging from crosses, exposed to the elements. Credit all this to the Romans.
I haven't mentioned herding hundreds of people into a "shower" facility, and tossing in a canister of Zyklon B, did I? The people in the "shower" all scream bloody murder as the gas kills them off and leaves them in a pile. And who did all this? Let's all sing it out - "Deutschland, Deutschland, ünter Alles!"
I haven't mentioned how the Cambodians murdered off millions of their own, or even the invention of los campos de concentración invented by the Spanish to put down a rebellion in Cuba, and used by the English in the Boer War, and later the wait for it - Germans!
Are you getting the picture Regis?
It was in this kind of world, filled with this kind of savagery, that G-d led my ancestors, the Hebrews, and told them to kill off ALL the inhabitants of the land - lest their evil contaminate the Hebrews. And guess what? The Hebrews didn't do as they were commanded. So the sickening evil of the savages living in ancient Canaan did infect the Hebrews and they never did develop the holy society they were supposed to.
But they did not use the punishments in the Torah all that much. Instead they sank to the level of the savage Canaanites.
Unfortunately, that is history. That is the tragic tale of the Tana"kh.
To be blunt, it interests me not at all that you dislike the Tana"kh - you won't be the first to bitch and moan about it, and you won't be the last. Thousands have come before you spreading the same evil trash you do - in the same savage world filled with genocide, murder, rape and massacre.
5 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Ruvy,
First, it's called "Keelhauling" not "Keeling".
Second, "Drawn & Quartered" wasn't just about how they quartered the body but how repulsive & barbarian the entire process was:
"First the prisoner was drawn to the place of execution on a hurdle, a type of sledge. (Originally he was merely dragged behind a horse.) Then he was hanged. Cut down while still alive, he was disemboweled and his entrails burned before his eyes. (Some references, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, say this step, and not dragging behind a horse, is what is meant by "drawn," but actual sentences of execution don't support this view.)
Finally the condemned was beheaded and his body cut into quarters, one arm or leg to a quarter. How exactly the quartering was to be accomplished wasn't always specified, but on at least some occasions horses were hitched to each of the victim's limbs and spurred in four directions. An assistant with a sword or cleaver was sometimes assigned to make a starter cut and ease the strain on the animals. The remains were often put on display as a warning to others."
BUT, my point is that I am still quite amazed at how many people still view the bible as accurate historical fact.
So, mark one up for Ruvy because factual history has proven to be far more vicious than the fairy tale that a lot of people get riled up about.
6 - Clavos
Keelhauling, which Ruvy accurately attributes to the British navy, was widely practiced during the 17th and 16th centuries.
It consisted of tying lines ("ropes") to the transgressor's feet and hands, then passing the line attached to his hands under the ship's keel to the other side, then pulling the individual from one side to the other, making sure to keep the lines tight so that he scraped against all the razor-sharp barnacles commonly found on the ships' bottoms. The punishment might be repeated several times, until the back (and sometimes the front, if he twisted around) of the individual was thoroughly lacerated. The intent was not to drown, but occasionally that did happen. Most lived through it, but suffered for weeks afterward and were scarred for life.
7 - Regis
Ruvy tells Rege: You whine pitifully about the punishments listed in the Torah. Let's look at some real punishments meted out by real barbarians.
Let's not. Human barbarians cannot compare to a God who condones barbaric acts instead of intervening in history to prevent them.
8 - roger nowosielski
I buy that, Regis. The Hebrew God is overblown and grossly exaggerated.
9 - Regis
Brian says above: "Factual history has proven to be far more vicious than the fairy tale that a lot of people get riled up about."
Rege says: I've become a believer that what is written in the Old Testament is not a fairy tale; there simply is too much evidence to the contrary uncovered by scientifically examined papyrology and paleographic studies. I don't believed the OT or the NT writings are in any way inspired by God. My God is the great mystery of being rather than nothingness.
10 - dave
"We are all God's Children",,,,well, I am a father and I would not let my children murder anyone, and if I saw a monster letting my children be murdered I would stop him if I could. Seems to me God is kind of letting us dowm in the parent dept. This could be, should be, a much better world. All the people in the world need to get over this idea that they are somehow better than everyone else just because they are part of a religious group. It's time the people of the world take responsibility for their own actions instead of falling back on something "God" said it was OK to do. We all know right from wrong,,,it's time to start practicsing that as responsible , reasoning, intelligent beings on this planet.
11 - Regis
Roger: "I buy that, Regis. The Hebrew God is overblown and grossly exaggerated."
What is interesting, Roger, is that the Hebrew God sent his "chosen" people on a mission to conquer the land of Canaan which eventually became the twelve tribes of Israel. These tribes built their dwellings and lived off land that did not belong to them.
Now today, we have the stubborn refusal of the Israeli nation to continue taking back, bit by bit, an area their murderous God gave them.
This mess in the mid-east will not end until Israel makes every attempt to integrate with the true owners of the land they occupy instead of continuing the ancient belief that "God gave us this land. It is ours and no one will ever again take it from us!"
12 - roger nowosielski
The way I see it, Regis, the Hebrew scriptures served their purpose while the Israelites (using this term loosely) were slaves in Egypt, and throughout the Exodus - all through their progress towards emancipation as a people. Even the idea of regarding themselves as "chosen people" to be able to deal with persecutions was functional, just as Christians viewed martyrdom when they were persecuted.
Of course, there is a double-edge when you elevate these ideas to the level of ultimate and fundamental reality, rather than recognize them for what they are - myths.
13 - Ruvy
Regis, your ignorance of history is only matched by your arrogance in misrepresenting it. This is our land, given us by G-d, and if you can't deal with that, that is not my problem. My gun backs my word. So, we are taking back what is ours, and foreigners, like Turks, Persians, Americans, or Europeans will discover the comforts of the body bag as we kill them off when they come here.
There are other questions, like the resident Arabs, that are for us, not you, to solve or pontificate over. Since you do not comprehend the actual nature of the issues, and since you are not responsible for your utterances in attempting to solve them, I suggest you consider more interesting topics - where you can be responsible for you utterances in an intelligent manner.
Your whine about the Torah and the Tana"kh, is just that - the whine of a semi-civilized man who is unwilling to admit how much of a savage he still is. I suggest you re-read comment #4 and look your own savagery in the face. I suggest you start with the genocide of the American Indians to begin with.
14 - roger nowosielski
I was hoping, Regis, we were going to have a nice conversation.
No such luck.
15 - Regis
Wow, Roger, I thought a good conversation was at hand but ...
Regardless of what was said by the gunslinging body-bag chap, biblical scholars have agreed that the books of the Bible and the Torah were written by human beings who wanted the land of Canaan because of its promise.
This is a political issue.
The belief that God inspired biblical words is tantamount to belief in other political texts like Mein Kampf, which justified murderous tactics for political gain.
The world knows the results of Mein Kampf. Why are we repeating it?
What is interesting is that scholars study the Bible for its authenticity and veracity down through the ages, not for proof that it was/is inspired in any way.
It is the fanatics caught up a vicious circle of faith who claim the Bible is the word of God because the Bible says it is the word of God.
16 - roger nowosielski
The point really is, Regis, that it's got nothing to do with being spiritual or whether or not a person believes in God.
My only argument is - the Jews have no monopoly on infinite wisdom as regards the exact nature of divinity, if there be such, any more than do Christians or Muslims or any other religious sect.
Each is free to practice their faith and subscribe to their beliefs, but we've got to draw a line when they try to impose their beliefs on others and act accordingly.
Faith is a personal thing, anyway, and it must remain so. I can understand, besides, appeals by others out of love for their fellow human beings; but I certainly don't understand and won't put up with actions and speech which evoke nothing but hate.
17 - Regis
Well said, Roger!