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Tough Questions on the Old Testament

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Walter Kaiser has written a new book on the tough questions about God and His Actions in the Old Testament.

The questions Kaiser addresses in this book are all excellent questions. The answers he provides, however, are not.

Below is a list of the questions Walter Kaiser raises in his book, with a brief summary of his answers and a short statement about why I think his answers are wrong. The primary problem with all of Kaiser’s answers, however, is that he poses false dichotomies. I will try to point some of these out.

1. The God of Mercy or the God of Wrath?

Kaiser’s answer is “both” We cannot go to one extreme or the other. Kaiser understands God’s wrath as an act of love against sin which hurts those He loves. He also says that wrath is always preceded by love, grace, and mercy (p. 25).

Kaiser’s big mistake is his flat-out rejection of the revelation about God in Jesus Christ. He does not agree with those who seek to understand the nature and character of God by looking primarily to Jesus. In the introduction to the book, he called this “Christo-exclusivism” (p. 11).

But again, if Jesus claims to reveal God to us (John 1:14, 18; 14:9-11; 2 Cor 4:4; Php 2:6; Col 1:15; Heb 1:2-3), then why would we ever reject the perfect revelation of God in Jesus Christ as the lens by which we understand the actions of God in the Old Testament? Kaiser’s rejection of the revelation of Jesus as an interpretive grid for the Old Testament almost caused me to stop reading the rest of his book.

2. The God of Peace or the God of Ethnic Cleansing

Kaiser’s answer is that God did command the Israelites to practice genocide against the Canaanites, but this is only because the Canaanites were so evil (p. 29-30). Really, God was doing the whole world a favor by wiping such evil people off the face of the earth.

This is such a tired old answer, I had trouble believing Kaiser was still using it. Any student of history or literature knows that all the arguments used to defend the genocidal slaughter of one’s enemies are the exact same arguments we find in the Bible about why the Israelites went to war with the Canaanites. And we cannot say that “It was okay for the Israelites … because it’s in the Bible.” That won’t fly for anybody except the most close-minded of Christians.

Oh, and Kaiser says that this is WAY different than Jihad, or Holy War, of the Muslims. Why? Because God commanded His wars, whereas Jihad is only commanded in the Qur’an (p. 44). All I can say to that is … What?

tough questions on the old testament

3. The God of Truth or the God of Deception

Kaiser looks at some passages in the Bible where it appears that God deceives others (e.g., 1 Kings 22). Kaiser gets around these passages by providing the definition of a “lie” as intentionally speaking an untruth to people who deserve to know the truth with the intent of hiding the truth from them (p. 52).

Based on this, Kaiser says that God’s deceptions in the Bible are not really “lies” because the people who are deceived didn’t deserve to know the truth, and God didn’t really intend to lie to them anyway.

Again … what? If you are a parent, would you allow this sort of an explanation from your child about why they lied to you? I sure hope not.

4. The God of Evolution or the God of Creation?

Since I am currently doing a Podcast on Genesis 1, I was eager to read what Kaiser wrote.

But his explanation was quite confusing. As far as I could tell, he thinks that Genesis 1 should be understood scientifically, but not too scientifically. It didn’t happen millions of billions of years ago, but at the same time, a “day” isn’t really a 24-hour day (p. 65) and the only real point of the creation account is to tell us that God made mankind in His image (p. 70).

tough questions KaiserI also got somewhat upset when he rejected out of hand the idea that Moses was writing a polemic against the religions of his day. He said that this sort of idea has been “thoroughly discredited” (p. 63). I find this funny, because most of the scholars I have read in my own research and study do not share Kaiser’s opinion.

Overall, I found this chapter highly confusing and unconvincing. After reading it twice, I still was not sure what Kaiser was saying.

5. The God of Grace or the God of Law?

Kaiser’s answer is “God is both!” He uses the “Threefold division of the law” argument to make his case (p. 80) that while Christians should still follow the moral law, while rejecting the others.

But Kaiser knows that this arbitrary divisions of the law is not found within the Bible itself, but is forced upon the text by some scholars who want to keep some portions of the law, but not others.

6. The God of Monogamy or the God of Polygamy?

Kaiser’s answer is that while there are numerous examples of polygamy being practiced in the Bible, the clear New Testament teaching is that polygamy was a sin (p. 102).

I find this approach highly interesting, since earlier, Kaiser said that scholars should not allow the New Testament to guide or direct their understanding of Old Testament texts. I happen to agree with Kaiser, but I find it interesting that he appeals to the New Testament when it suits him.

7. The God Who Rules Satan or the God Who Battles Satan?

Kaiser argues that God created Satan to be good, but Satan rebelled and so God expelled Satan from heaven (p. 116). God allows Satan to continue to exist, just as God allows all of us rebellious sinners to exist.

I really don’t disagree too much with what Kaiser writes in this chapter, though I would have nuanced everything quite differently.

8. The God Who is Omniscient or the God who Doesn’t Know the Future?

Kaiser’s opinion is that God obviously knows everything, and that all the verses in the Bible which seem to indicate otherwise are nothing but anthropomorphisms (speaking about God in human terms).

Kaiser’s problem here is that he has created a false dichotomy. From a philosophical perspective, there are numerous other options, including middle knowledge, and knowledge of counterfactuals, and even the omniscient knowledge of all possible future events without knowledge of which future event will actually occur. In that last case, is it omniscience or is it not? I say yes.

9. The God who Elevates Women or the God Who Devalues Women?

This may be the best chapter in the book. Kaiser believes that all ministries and gifts are for all people in the family of God, both men and women included (p. 154).

I agree with Kaiser on this, so there is no objection from me.

10. The God of Freedom with Food or the God of Forbidden Food?

Apparently, Kaiser believes we still cannot eat pork or shellfish. According to Kaiser, all the Old Testament food laws are still to be followed today. Why? Because the prescribed foods are healthier, and the forbidden foods are unhealthy (p. 169).

Tough Questions KaiserAgain, as with much of the rest of the book, I was shocked to read Kaiser’s answers and the logic he used to arrive at those answers. He completely negated everything taught by Jesus, Peter, and Paul about all foods being clean, permitted, and allowed.

Conclusion

I cannot recommend this book to anyone. Though the chapter on how God values women was worthwhile reading, the damage done by every other chapter in the book to the Gospel, to the character of God, and to the witness of the church in this world makes this book not worth reading.

The saddest thing of all is in the introduction to the book, Kaiser recognizes that the vast majority of those in their 20s and 30s are “the non-attenders at church and the non-religious” (p. 10). Kaiser thinks this is a bad thing (I think it is good), but what Kaiser fails to understand is that it is exactly the kind of theology he presents in this book which has caused most of those people to leave the church and give up on God.

Until our understanding of Scripture and our explanation of theology (and how we live out both in the world) are brought into conformity to Jesus Christ, people of all ages will continue to reject (and rightfully so) the teachings and theology of the church.

[FTC Disclosure: I was given a review copy of this book by Kregel Publications in exchange for an honest review. I hope they don’t regret it!]

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If this were my only blog post, I would invite you to do one thing…

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I have participated in the Synchroblog for quite a while. But just as all good things must come to an end, the Synchroblog is closing shop. For this last synchroblog, participants were asked to write a blog post as if it were their only blog post ever.

In other words, if I had just one blog post to write, what would it be?

I have spent the last several weeks thinking about what I would write if I could write only one post.

I knew that it had to have something to do with Scripture and theology, since that is what I enjoy writing about. I wanted to write about some of the central biblical and theological truths that had rocked my world over the past decade, such as mimetic rivalry and scapegoating, or my growing conviction that God is not violent.

I also knew that it had to have something to do with the radical, free grace of God in Jesus Christ. Since so many people are caught up today in some form of works-based, guilt-based, performance-based religion, the outrageous, shocking, scandalous grace of God is a nuclear bomb that demolished everything you think you know about God and following Jesus, but at the same time, rebuilds and regrows everything into a new relationship with God built on love, joy, and freedom.

follow JesusBut I also knew that knowing Scripture, and knowing theology, and knowing about grace is not really the point of it all. The point of it all is to actually live this stuff out in real-world relationships by loving other people.

In the end, I finally realized that all these themes were centered on one common thing. Or I should say, they were centered on one common person: Jesus.

Jesus truly is all

If you want to understand the character and nature of God, just look at Jesus. Since God looks like Jesus, all proper thinking about God begins and ends with Jesus. Once you view God through Jesus, you begin to understand God so much more.

It is Jesus who revealed the mimetic rivalry and the scapegoating sacrifices that both threaten and bind all human cultures, civilizations, religions, and relationships. Once you view humanity through Jesus, you begin to understand humanity so much more.

It is Jesus who reveals that God is not violent; that there is no violence in God at all. And because of this, if you want to understand the violence of God in the Bible, you need to begin by looking at Jesus, and especially what Jesus did on the cross and how He appeared on the cross. “Christ, and Him crucified” is the key to understanding divine violence.

It is in the life of Jesus where you see most clearly what shocking, scandalous, outrageous grace looks like. While religion keeps sinners at a distance, Jesus parties with them like there’s no tomorrow. He makes friends with the worst of the worst (from a religious perspective) and tells stories which make heroes out of all the wrong people. He loves those the world says are unlovely. He touches the untouchable. He forgives those who think they cannot be forgiven.

All of this, of course, was no mere “theology” for Jesus. Jesus didn’t have a “theology” so much as He had a life focused on love. Everything that He said and did was to show people that He liked them, that He loved them, that He wanted to be with them.

The example of Jesus is so strong, that even people who do not believe in God, or who think that Jesus is a figment of historical imagination, are still inspired by the example of Jesus to live with more love toward others. The pull of Jesus is so strong, that in one sense, all the world is following Jesus.

following Jesus

So if I only had one message, one article, one blog post, or one thing to say to you, it would be this:

Follow Jesus.

I don’t care what you think about Jesus. I don’t care what you think about God. I don’t care what you think about Christians, or the Bible, or church, or politics, or religion, or anything else that people get so wrapped up in. My invitation to you is still the same:

Just follow Jesus.

follow JesusAnd trust me … if you follow Jesus, you will never get bored.

Jesus will lead you to the craziest of places and teach you the most amazing things. He will help you become truly “you.”

If you want to learn about God, Jesus will show you what God is like.

If you want to understand the Bible, Jesus will be happy to explain it to you.

If you want to get along with your neighbor, your boss, your spouse, or even your enemy, Jesus specializes in helping us learn to love.

I have written over 2000 blog posts on this blog, and while it may not be obvious on all the posts, every single one of them has been focused on one thing: I want to follow Jesus wherever He leads and I invite you to do the same.

But how can you follow Jesus?

I always try to be somewhat practical on this blog. I know that the invitation to “follow Jesus” is a little vague. We hear it so often in sermons and books, it has come to be almost meaningless.

So you might be asking these sorts of questions:

What does it mean to follow Jesus? How can someone do it? What are the steps? How can you follow someone you cannot see or hear?

My answer will probably not be very helpful, but it’s the best one I’ve got. My answer this:

You follow Jesus by believing that He’s leading you.

That’s it.

I know this is still terribly impractical, but it’s the only way I know to describe it.

There are no 10 steps for you to learn.

There are no doctrinal statements to sign.

There are no meetings to attend.

There are no Bible studies to take.

You simply trust that as you go about your day, Jesus is leading you. Following Jesus begins with a mental conviction, a mindset, or a frame of reference that Jesus is leading you.

And He will.

You won’t see much change immediately.

It might take a couple months, years, or even decades. But eventually, you look around in wonder and think, “How in the world did I get here?”

Jesus will wink and smile, and say, “Just wait until you see where I take you next. You ready?”

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I See Dead People

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There is a fourteenth-century poem by Guillaume de Machaut that tells about how the Black Death ravaged a northern French city (I could not find an English translation of this poem online, but I read about the poem in an excellent book I’m reading, Saved from Sacrifice by Mark Heim.)

Curiously, the poem seems to blame the Jews in the city for the Black Death. It condemns Jews in the city for killing large numbers of its citizens by poisoning the rivers, and it also enumerates various grotesque practices by the Jews.

But then the poem goes on to state about how the citizens of the city rose up and carried out a massacre of the Jews, and how this massacre was clearly God’s will because it was accompanied by heavenly signs. Furthermore, after the massacre concluded, the plague left the city, which was seen as proof to the citizens that the Jews were the ones guilty for bringing the plague upon them in the first place.

It’s a tragic poem, but I hope you can read between the lines and see that the events it describes are not historically accurate.

We all understand what really happened.

black death

Reading Between the Lines

Most likely, the Black Plague really did ravage the town, much as it ravaged many towns at that time. But as usually happens in such situations, people started looking for someone to blame, and in this town, because the Jewish people were seen as “outsiders under the curse of God,” they became the scapegoats.

But they could not just be killed. They first had to be demonized.

So the villagers came up with stories about how the Jews poisoned the river and engaged in various grotesque and illicit practices.

Once the Jews were properly demonized, they could be “righteously” killed.

After the Jews were killed, any sort of natural occurrence was viewed as a sign from heaven that God approved of the massacre. Maybe the day of the massacre began with dark clouds and fog, but as the massacre commenced, the sun shone through the clouds. Maybe that night a star fell from the sky. Maybe an eagle landed on the house of the town mayor. But whatever the events were, they were interpreted as heavenly signs.

Later, of course, the plague went away, and this also was interpreted as a sign that the Jews were to blame. We, of course, look back and recognize that the Black Plague had simply ran its course, as it did everywhere else.

I am not sure of the exact historical events, but it doesn’t really matter. We are able to read the poem by Guillaume de Machaut and see through the events to what actually occurred: “Frightened citizens persecuted a religious minority, projecting blame for the plague on them and seeking by violence to stop the dissolution of their community” (Heim, Saved from Sacrifice, 55).

You do not need to have been there to have this historical insight into the true story behind this tragic poem.

Stereotypes of Scapegoating

In his book, Saved from Sacrifice, Heim explains our “insight” into what “really happened” this way:

We don’t take this story at face value. We see through it precisely when it takes up certain anti-Semitic themes. The moment the Jews are mentioned in connection with the plague, the moment they are accused of poisoning the water supply, of bearing physical deformities, of practicing sexual perversions, bells go off.

These are stereotypes, trotted out again and again as preludes to pogroms.

They are characteristic “marks of the victim” brought forward as justification for the violence. We do not credit them as reports of fact. We have learned to read such a text quite against the grain of the writer who composed it, for whom these matters were as real as the death of the neighbors on the one hand and celestial omens on the other. We practice a hermeneutic of suspicion against persecution (Heim, Saved from Sacrifice, 55).

Yes, that is true. We do. When it comes to these sorts of texts in history and literature, we are fairly adept at “seeing through” the account to what fears and scapegoating mechanisms lie behind the text.

And it is right that we should do so, because this is what Jesus revealed through His death on the cross. The death of Jesus on the cross “rescues us from sin” in that it reveals to us the scapegoating, blame-game mechanism behind most of our sin and violence. We saw it happen to Jesus, and so we are able to see it happen to other people.

Nazi Germany killing Jews

We recognize this scapegoating mechanism at work when we read about a town in the middle ages killing Jews because they are accused of causing the black plague. We recognize this scapegoat mechanism when we read about the Nazis in Germany blaming the Jews for the financial problems and cultural upheaval in that country. We recognize the scapegoating mechanism when people burn women for being “witches.” We recognize the scapegoat mechanism when we read about governments justifying genocide against the native people living in the land.

In all these cases, we practice this “hermeneutic of suspicion against persecution” that Heim talks about in his book. And because of the revelation of Jesus Christ on the cross, we have become quite good at recognizing this scapegoat mechanism when we read about it in historical documents.

… Except in one place.

Reading the Bible with Scapegoating in Mind

Have you ever noticed that ALL of the characteristic “marks of the victim” are brought forward over and over again in the Old Testament as justification for the violence carried out against the enemies of Israel?

The stereotypes are trotted out as preludes to pogroms, but rather than “see through the text” at what is really going on, we nod our head in astonishing agreement with the text.

Like a pre-programmed robot, we say, “Yes … the Canaanites were very evil. Yes, they practiced horrible things. Grotesque things. They worshipped demons and were demonic themselves. Yes, they needed to die to cleanse the land and protect the people of Israel. Yes, God wanted them all to die. Yes, God even sent signs and miracles to Israel when they slaughtered the Canaanites showing that such actions were righteous and divinely ordained.”

Why can we see “through” the blatant lies and false accusations and scapegoating violence when we read such historical accounts, but not when we read the Bible?

Has it ever occurred to you that we read the Bible with blinders on?

It has recently occurred to me, and now, when I read the Bible, especially the violent portions in the Old Testament, my eyes tear up. It’s like reading an account of Nazi Germany … from the viewpoint of the Nazis.

Yet we Christians whitewash the entire thing and say that all the killing, and genocide, and slaughter was “justified.” That it was righteous. That God wanted it. Commanded it. Demanded it.

“And look!” we say. “There’s proof! The waters parted! The walls fell down! The sun stood still! There was peace in the land afterward!”

Yes, which is exactly what every group always says whenever they carry out scapegoating genocide. Those who carry out genocidal violence “believe they are (a) revenging an appalling offense against their entire community [and God as well], (b) expelling the contaminating evil from their midst, and (c) obeying a divine mandate” (Heim, Saved from Sacrifice, 51-52).

Note that this is also what happened when Jesus was killed. His accusers raised a large number of baseless and patently false accusations against Him, then felt that it was necessary to expel His evil from their midst, and they did all this in obedience to the command of God (so they claimed).

Jesus was the ultimate scapegoat … to reveal that we all scapegoat!

When we read the account of the crucifixion of Jesus, we see right through the murderous, scapegoating violence. We see that Jesus was not guilty for that which He was condemned and killed.

I See Dead People

And now we are back to my question: Why can we see “through” the blatant lies and false accusations and scapegoating violence when we read the account of the crucifixion, but not when we read the rest of the Bible?

Again, I think we are reading the Bible with blinders on.

We read and preach and teach these horrible texts without a bat of an eye or a sign of a tear. We talk about what these texts “mean” and “how to apply them to our lives” and what they “reveal about God.”

But we don’t think about what they are really, truly saying.

We don’t see what they really, truly reveal. The victims disappear, and we become guilty of the same crime as those who crucified Jesus. We say they had it coming. We say it was necessary to cleanse the land. We say that God decreed it. We say that God blessed it.

And we ignore the piles of bloody bodies rotting in the hot desert sun.

i see dead people

I am convinced that we will never, ever see the Bible for what it really is until we are able to read it and say, “I see dead people.”

The Bible was not written primarily to reveal God to us, but was written to reveal the same thing that Jesus revealed on the cross, which is that we scapegoat people in the name of God. And until we see this, we will never read the Old Testament correctly, nor will we ever understand God properly.

You will never understand the Old Testament until you see the victims.

The piles of bloody victims.

The masses of people unjustly murdered.

You will never understand the Old Testament until you see the genocide.

And don’t try to sidetrack this with discussions about inerrancy or inspiration or any of the other fancy theological words we use to divert our attention away from the bodies of bloody men, women, and children strewn all over the pages of our Holy Bible.

genocideThis is not about the sanctity of God’s Word, but about the sanctity of God’s people … namely, ALL people.

Once you are able to see this about the Bible, there will be no going back. Not just with how you read the Bible, but also with how you view life.

Once you begin to see dead people in the Bible, your eyes are opened and you begin to see dead people today. You will begin to see that the people we blame for the ills of society and the problems of culture and the war “over there” and the problems in our town, might not be the ones at fault after all…

Maybe, just maybe, those people over there are not to blame. Replace “those people over there” with whatever group you want … the communists, the Muslims, the liberals, the Tea partiers, the gays, the illegal immigrants.

Maybe the fault is not with them … but with us.

This is the perspective that comes from holding the mirror of Scripture before our face and taking a good, long look at how the Israelites scapegoated the Canaanites and how both the Jews and the Romans scapegoated Jesus, and how we ourselves scapegoat other people today.

Thankfully, there are countless Christians around the world who are starting to take the blinders off. They are reading the Bible with renewed eyes and are seeing that the violence of the Old Testament text is actually this genocidal, murderous, scapegoating violence.

And look … I firmly believe in inspiration and inerrancy. I truly do. I just think that the divinely inspired text inerrantly reveals something that few Christians want to see. The Bible reveals the dead people. It is a revelation of death and violence, and where death and violence come from.

The answer? They come from us. Not from God. From us.

But we don’t want to see this. We don’t want to admit it. So we put our blinders on and go back to nodding our heads along with texts that talk about the divinely-sanctioned slaughter of thousands of victims. We participate in the scapegoating, and we put to death the Son of Man all over again.

Until you see dead people, you are no better than those who cried out at the trial of Jesus, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Until you see dead people, you will be the one who puts people to death.

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Belief in an Angry God is Linked to Mental Illness

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I get dozens of emails every week from people all over the world who are scared of God.

They had some bad thought enter their mind and are now afraid that God is going to kill their family and then strike them down with cancer before burning their house down around their ears and sending them off to eternal torture in hell.

angry godThey are so scared, they cannot eat, they cannot sleep, they cannot think. They tell me about physical problems, emotional problems, relational problems, and all sorts of other problems they are experiencing because they are so afraid that God is out to get them because of something bad they said or thought about God.

Does Your Church Teach an Angry God?

Whenever I get these emails, this is the very first question I ask them. I ask them (1) if they attend church, and if so (2) what their church teaches them about God. Without fail, these Christians who contact me have attended, or currently are attending, a church which teaches them about an angry, vindictive, vengeful God.

Usually, they have heard some fire and brimstone sermon about the unpardonable sin or the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and because of the book I have written on the subject, people contact me because they are scared out of their mind that they have committed this sin.

I always try to tell them that God loves them, forgives them, and accepts them … no matter what they have said or done. Due to the large number of emails I get these days, I rarely can get into long explanations or discussions via email about why this is true.

But my heart always goes out for these poor people. Their emails are full of pain and fear, and I sometimes think that many of them are manic-depressive, or bi-polar, or maybe even have OCD.

An Angry God and Mental Illness

So it was with great interest that I recently read that belief in an angry God is linked to mental illness. Here is the article I read:

Professor Nava Silton of the Marymount Manhattan College and her colleagues have reached these conclusions following their analyzing data collected during the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey of US Adults.

Thus, Professor Nava Silton focused on three different categories of people: those who believe in an angry God, those who believe in a loving deity and those who work on the assumption that God is a neutral entity.

“Three beliefs about God were tested separately in ordinary least squares regression models to predict five classes of psychiatric symptoms: general anxiety, social anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion,” reads the abstract for this paper.

Furthermore, “Belief in a punitive God was positively associated with four psychiatric symptoms, while belief in a benevolent God was negatively associated with four psychiatric symptoms, controlling for demographic characteristics, religiousness, and strength of belief in God. Belief in a deistic God and one’s overall belief in God were not significantly related to any psychiatric symptoms.”

The link between the belief in an angry God and mental illness was studied in the context of the Evolutionary Threat Assessment System Theory, which states that anxiety disorders are mainly the result of the brain’s not properly interpreting threats.

Professor Nava Silton wished to stress the fact that her research does not establish causation between the belief in an angry deity and anxiety disorders.

Quite the contrary, the study merely pins down a correlation between the two.

“That means we’re not saying belief caused psychiatric symptoms, but we see relationships between beliefs and these psychiatric symptoms,” the Professor emphasized.

The disclaimer there at the end is interesting, but I think this was more of a copout by the Professor to avoid becoming the target of angry religious people who feel he might be blaming God for mental illness.

Ironically, those who hold to a belief in an angry God also believe that God strikes people with mental illness because of their sin and disobedience…

It may be clear that God has something to do with what happens everyday in the world, but probably not personally to every person that’s ill, sometimes they just don’t the best care of themselves and their bodies.

Anyway, I think that there is a clear correlation between belief in an angry God and mental problems. I further believe that we become like the God we worship. We become like the God we believe in. So if we believe in an angry, vengeful deity, we are likely to behave in angry, vengeful ways. And of course, if we believe that God’s anger could be directed at us, life will be filled with fear and dread.

belief in an angry god

What are your thoughts on the subject? Do you believe in a God of anger, retaliation, vengeance, and violence? Do you believe that God’s anger could be directed toward you? If so, how do you cope with this idea? If, on the other hand, you’re like me and you used to believe in an angry God but now believe that God looks like Jesus, what happened in your life to bring about this change?Fi

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These 11 verses turn Christians into Atheists. How do you explain them?

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atheist womanI was recently having a discussion with an atheist who had grown up in a Christian family and had gone to church for the first twenty years of her life. But she became an atheist in her 20s.

When I asked her why she became an atheist, she said, “I started reading the Bible.”

We Christians often tell people that if they would only read the Bible, they would come to see that God is real and that He loves them. We hear testimony after testimony about how drug addicts and hookers were considering suicide but somehow got a Bible and started reading it and ended up giving their life to Christ.

I am not in any way denying such accounts or stories.

But I think it is also time to admit that while many people decided to follow Jesus as a result of reading the Bible, there are many others who turned away from God after reading the Bible.

Part of this, I am convinced, is because we Christians have said that the entire Bible is the Word of God, but then we sort of ignore, gloss over, conveniently forget, or are simply dishonest about some of the more troubling portions of Scripture.

And there are many troubling portions of Scripture! (If you don’t believe me, read this book: Drunk with Blood).

I call these troubling texts “Atheist Maker Verses.” They are verses that do not point people to God, but lead people away from Him instead. Here are a few of the more blatant Atheist Maker Verses:

Genesis 19:8

“See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof.”

As a father of three daughters myself, I cannot imagine offering my daughters to get raped so that I could protect the strangers under my roof.

And yes, I have heard the Christian explanation of this text that this was how the ancient Middle Eastern people valued hospitality. But how does that make it okay? It doesn’t.

Rather than trying to explain away Lot’s behavior according to “hospitality laws” we must condemn his behavior as horribly barbaric.

Exodus 21:20-21

“And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property.

This was a favorite verse of slave-owners during the period of slavery in our country. In fact, all of Exodus 21 talks about the rules for treating slaves.

And apparently, you can beat your slave all you want, even within an inch of their life, because the slave is your property.

Of course, even if you kill your slave, you won’t be put to death yourself, but only punished.

This sort of verse about slaves has caused many people to turn away from God and Christianity.

Leviticus 25:44-45

And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have– from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property.

This is another verse about slaves, but this one includes the children. According to God, it is okay to buy and sell children. So apparently, everybody today who is trying to raise awareness about the human trafficking of children just needs to shut up. Apparently, God’s in favor of it.

Note as well that it is not just the Old Testament which says these sorts of things. Here is a quote from 1 Peter:

1 Peter 2:18

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.

slaves 1 peterSo if you are a slave, and your master beats you harshly, the slave should just accept it. After all, fear of your master is a good thing.

As a little side note, what I find most interesting about the numerous verses all over the Bible about slavery is that modern Christians almost unanimously condemn the practice of slavery, even though the Bible condones and accepts in in numerous places.

And yet when the Bible condemns homosexuality in three verses, Christians are divided over whether or not we should follow these verses. “God’s Word said it; that settles it!” we are told. My response is, “Really? So can I meet your slaves?”

But the Bible is not just wrong about slaves. Certain texts about women are also quite appalling.

Deuteronomy 22:20-21

But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.

So if a woman has pre-marital sex, she should be stoned. Other texts lay guilt on the man as well, but the guilty male gets less attention than the guilty female.

Deuteronomy 23:1

“He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the LORD.

So if your penis is cut off or your balls are crushed, God does not accept your worship. God only accepts worship from people whose genitals are in good condition (minus the foreskin of course … that sort of mutilation is required by God).

The thing that gets me about such verses is how people knew who could go in to worship God and who couldn’t.

Did they have a little “inspection station” at the front door? And we complain about the TSA groping us when we get on a plane…

Deuteronomy 25:11-12

If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her.

So two men are fighting and a woman steps in to defend her man, and ends up grabbing the genitals of her husband’s opponent. Rather than discipline the men for fighting in the first place, the proper response in this case is to cut off the woman’s hand.

That sounds fair.

I also wonder how this law came about… Was it a common thing for women to grab the balls of their husband’s enemy when they were fighting?

Maybe this verse had something to do with the previous one about not getting to worship God if your balls are mangled. Maybe a man could no longer pray to God because some woman crushed his balls, and so they had to make a rule against that sort of thing.

Of course, now that the woman has no hand, she can’t worship God either, because God doesn’t allow deformed people into his presence either. On other hand, He doesn’t care too much for women either…

Of course, it’s not just women God hates. He is also not fond of dwarves and hunchbacks, people with eczema, and those who have a limb that is too long…

Leviticus 21:18-19

For any man who has a defect shall not approach: a man blind or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long, a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, or is a hunchback or a dwarf, or a man who has a defect in his eye, or eczema or scab, or is a eunuch.

To approach God, you apparently had to be a perfect male specimen, with a working penis. Everybody else could not approach Him.

But it is not just the dwarves and the blind that God was against. He also was not a big fan of children.

Leviticus 20:9

For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.

How is this even remotely justified? I don’t care if a kid cursed his parents with the worst curses ever uttered, does he deserve to get stoned to death for it?

Frankly, if a kid has parents who would be willing to stone him to death for cursing them, they probably deserved getting cursed.

But no, God, apparently, sides with the parents.

And it is no wonder that the #1 sin Christians are terrified of committing today is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. I get dozens of emails about this sin every single week, and without fail, the people who think they have committed this sin feel that because they said something mean about God, God is going to burn them forever and ever in hell.

And where does such an idea come from? It comes (partly) from a verse like Leviticus 20:9 where God tells parents it is okay to kill their children if he curses them.

So sad.

But God doesn’t always have children killed by stoning them. Sometimes He kills them with bears!

2 Kings 2:23-24

Elisha 2 Kings

Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!” So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Apparently, even though God doesn’t want people to worship him who are blind in one eye, or have a limb too long, or have eczema, He is a big fan of bald men!

These youths learned that lesson the hard way. Bald men shall not be mocked! Especially when that bald man is a prophet.

And when God cannot get children stoned or mauled by bears, He just pronounces blessings on those who bash babies’ heads against rocks.

Psalm 137:9

Happy the one who takes and dashes Your little ones against the rock!

Happy? The word here could also be translated as “blessed.”

Psalm 137:9But try to picture the scene. Was this like baby piñata day?

Imagine a soldier coming home from a day of baby-smashing. His wife greets him at the door with a kiss. “So how was your day, honey?” she says.

“Great! God was really at work in me today! I got to smash babies against a rock wall! We all praised God as we did it. The Spirit was really moving! I must have killed ten or twelve, but that Joash, he got over twenty! He’s a beast! The best part is that now we are going to be blessed because of all the babies we killed. I’m standing on the promises of God!”

How to Handle Atheist Maker Verses

I could go on and on with these sorts of verses.

But here’s the point: What are we to do with these sorts of “Atheist Maker Verses?”

There are three basic Christian responses.

1. We can stick our head in the sand.

Many Christians look at these difficult and troubling texts and say, “God is good all the time, and He gave us His Word to show us that He is good, and so while I don’t understand how these texts can reveal a good God, we know they must, and so I believe they do.”

It is this sort of response that does not help people at all.

In fact, I would say that, more than the verses themselves, it is this response that causes people to become atheists. Such a response is so irrational and ignorant, that most of the world simply cannot accept it.

Nor should they.

God cannot be both good, kind, and loving, while at the same time commanding genocide, praising the smashing of babies’ heads against walls, and sending bears to maul children because they made fun of a prophet’s baldness.

If Christians want people to see God as He truly as, as the God revealed in Jesus Christ, rather than sticking our heads in the sand, we must find some way to side with the world in condemning such texts of terror. This leads to the next two ways of responding to these texts.

2. Call them Errors in the Bible and be Done with It

Probably the simplest way to handle these troubling texts in the Bible is to handle them the same way we handle violent texts like this in Greek Mythology, in the Qu’ran, or in ancient historical documents.

How is that? We say that the people were flat-out wrong in what they did and the reasons they gave for doing it.

And while this approach is increasingly common with many Christians today, it makes many others quite uncomfortable, because then we are admitting that there are errors in Scripture, and that maybe God didn’t inspire it after all.

So while this helps explain the violence in Scripture, it does so at the expense of Scripture itself. We are left with something that, in my opinion, is less than Scripture.

This is why I prefer the third approach:

3. Realize that the purpose of the text IS condemnation

There is a way to both affirm inspiration and inerrancy while at the same time denying that God had anything to do with it.

I am working on writing a more thorough explanation for a future book on this subject, but the short explanation is that we can view the Bible as a divinely-inspired text which inerrantly reveals human error. In this way, we get a glimpse into our own hearts by reading Scripture.

We see ourselves on the pages. We see our tendency to demonize our enemies. We see our desire to take what is not ours. We see our addiction to blaming God for our own evil actions. We see our habit of scapegoating the outsider. We see how easy it is to excuse our own sin and turn a blind eye to our moral failures.

When we approach Scripture this way, we can agree with the Atheists about the moral repugnance of these violent texts, but then turn around and say that the reason God inspired these texts to be written in Scripture is not to justify such behavior and actions, but to challenge us to not do such things ourselves.

Study the Bible with Atheists

At least, this is the way I have been learning to read Scripture, but it is still something I am working on

How about you? How do you read these violent and gruesome texts? How do you understand them? What would you say to someone who has rejected God because of verses like these? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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