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 | "God is a being of terrific character...cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust." Thomas Jefferson |
| "Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?" Job 4:17 |
| "Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples are captivating and noble." Fisher Ames, Massachusetts Congressman (1758-1808) |
| "...Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints." Revelation 15:3b |
| "...texts from the source we call Holy Scripture have been used in the past to defend the divine right of kings and to oppose the Magna Carta; to condemn Galileo and to assert that the sun does indeed rotate around the earth; to justify slavery, segregation and apartheid; to keep women from being educated, entering the professions, voting or being ordained; to justify war, to persecute and kill Jews; to condemn other world religions; and to continue the oppression and rejection of gay and lesbian people." Bishop John Shelby Spong 1 |
| "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 2 Timothy 3:16-17 |
| "The Bible has been used for centuries by Christians as a weapon of control. To read it literally is to believe in a three-tiered universe, to condone slavery, to treat women as inferior creatures, to believe that sickness is caused by God's punishment and that mental disease and epilepsy are caused by demonic possession. When someone tells me that they believe the Bible is the 'literal and inerrant word of God,' I always ask, 'Have you ever read it'?" Bishop John Shelby Spong. 2 |
Special note:
Of all the thousands of essays on this web site, we regard those in this section to be among the most important.
Almost everywhere else in our essays dealing with Christianity, we compare conservative and liberal Christian points of view. This essay is different. Here, we compare various events in the Bible with current secular and religious standards of morality. This section lists many events in the Bible that are immoral by today's secular standards, including: genocide, murder of people for their religious beliefs, mass murder of innocent children, etc. They are sometimes called "hard passages" because they seem to portray God as behaving in a way that would be considered highly immoral by most people today.
The purpose and intent of this section is to show there are some profoundly violent, immoral and unethical passages in the Bible when it is compared to today's secular and religious ethical systems. These passages are casting Christianity and Judaism a bad light. They are causing many potential Christians and Jews to reject the Bible, and may be contributing to the legitimization of violence throughout the culture.
Solving this problem is difficult.
| Most religious liberals have long asserted that the Bible was written by humans who were influenced by their tribal culture and regional violence. Most liberals accept that the passages did not reflect the will of God at the time and are not the will of God today. |
| However, most conservative Christian and Jewish leaders take a very strong stand that the entire Bible reflects the will of God. If they were to teach that some biblical passages violate the will of God then their followers' faith in the validity of the rest of the Bible might dissipate. |
Included below is a link to a companion essay which discusses why it is important to change the interpretation of those passages in religious holy books that are violent and unjust by today's standards
Topics covered in this section:
| Part 1:
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| Part 2:
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| Part 3:
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| Part 4:
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| God's genocides (being written) | ||||||
| Passages that transfer sin and punishment from
the guilty to the innocent | ||||||
| Passages about human slavery | ||||||
| Religious intolerance in the Bible | ||||||
| Changing holy books in order to modify beliefs and alter behaviors |
List of books which deal with hard sayings from the Bible:
Some of these books are written by skeptics and religious free-thinkers. Others are authored by Christians who attempt to interpret difficult Biblical sayings from the standpoint of faith:
| R.H. Green, "The born again skeptic's guide to the Bible," private publisher (1992), Pages 102 to 111. Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store |
| R.G. Ingersoll, "Some mistakes of Moses," Prometheus, (1986) Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a leading free-thinker of the 19th century. Read reviews or order this book safely |
| W.C. Kaiser, ed., "Hard sayings of the Bible," Intervarsity Press, (1996) Read reviews or order this book safely |
| J.C. Laney, "Answers to tough questions from every book of the Bible: A survey of problem passages and issues," Kregal Publ., (1997) Read reviews or order this book safely |
| Phyllis Trible, "Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist readings of Biblical narratives," Fortress Press., (1984) Order this book safely |
| David Voas, "The bad news Bible: The New Testament," Prometheus Books, (1995) Read reviews or order this book safely |
| R.J. Weems, "Battered love: Marriage, sex and violence in the Hebrew prophets," Fortress Pr., (1995) Read reviews or order this book safely |
Reference used:
- John Shelby Spong, "The Sins of Scripture: Exposing The Bible’s Texts Of Hate To Reveal The God Of Love," HarperCollins, (2005). Read reviews or order this book safely from Amazon.com online book store
- Bishop John Shelby Spong, "Q&A on the Bible as a weapon of control," weekly mailing for 2007-OCT-31. You can subscribe to these mailings at: http://secure.agoramedia.com/
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Copyright © 1997 to 2007 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2007-NOV-01
Author: B.A. Robinson
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