Disturbing Passages in Holy Books

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Menstruating women are viewed as unclean for 7 days. I’m sure this did wonders for their self-esteem. It seems a bit extreme:

Leviticus 15:19-24 When a woman has a discharge of blood that is a menstrual discharge from her body, she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. 20 Everything upon which she lies during her impurity shall be unclean; everything also upon which she sits shall be unclean. 21 Whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until the evening. 22 Whoever touches anything upon which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until the evening; 23 whether it is the bed or anything upon which she sits, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening. 24 If any man lies with her and her impurity falls on him, he shall be unclean seven days, and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean.

Menstruation is viewed as an infirmity: 33 for her who is in the infirmity of her menstrual period; for anyone, male or female, who has a discharge; and for the man who lies with a woman who is unclean.

Women are “unclean” for 7 days after having a boy and 14 days after having a girl because girls are gross, I suppose, and will have menstrual cycles of their own someday. The barbaric practice of circumcision.

Leviticus 12:1-7 The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. 3 On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. 4 Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. 5 If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.

6 “‘When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering.7 He shall offer them before the Lord to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.

Yes, they’re fantastic.

More misogyny in the New Testament: women aren’t allowed to teach men but must keep silent and submissive.

1 Timothy 2:11-14 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve, 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Ah, that's Paul . I've also got a bone to pick with that bugger:

^ I often focus on the anti-gay stuff in that passage, but I’m just thinking how ridiculous it is that people who are disobedient to their parents are deserving of death.

The Bible is more about obedience and indoctrination.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

There’s not much about evaluating evidence there or teaching kids to think for themselves.

I’m more about this:



As a parent, I think I’ve done a good job with that. He loves proving me wrong and debating with me.

1 Samuel 18:27
King James Version
27 Wherefore David arose and went, he and his men, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men; and David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law. And Saul gave him Michal his daughter to wife.

^ That was very considerate of him.

King David gets the hots for a woman (Bathsheba) who was bathing on a roof for some inexplicable reason, so he has sex with her, gets her pregnant, and disposes of her husband by sending him to the frontline of battle. He was very sorry, but God eventually punishes him by killing the son that he has to Bathsheba which is totally fair and just. Damn children.

2 Samuel 11 2-5,14 It happened, late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. 5 The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

David tries to get the husband and wife to have sex with each other to hide his sin, but it doesn’t work out.

14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. 15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

2 Samuel 12:13,14 David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan said to David, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die. 14 Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord the child born to you shall die.”

15-18 The Lord struck the child whom Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became very ill. 16 David therefore pleaded with God for the child; David fasted and went in and lay all night on the ground. 17 The elders of his house stood beside him urging him to rise from the ground, but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. 18 On the seventh day the child died.

Cute story.

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 (KJV

9 And it was so, that, after they had carried it (the Ark of the Covenant) about, the hand of the 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.

12 And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

1 Samuel 5:9&12 (KJV)

It’s pretty juicy, that’s for sure. I always liked reading it because it wasn’t boring.

Cute story about child sacrifice:

Judges 11:30-31 Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, 31 then whatever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.”

34-40 Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah, and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow.” 36 She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the Lord, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the Lord has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.” 37 And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.” 38 “Go,” he said, and he sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains. 39 At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that 40 for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

Moral of the story: Be very careful about what you promise God!