The Uncleanliness of Women

The Lord said to Moses in Leviticus 12:1-5 that a woman will be twice as unclean after giving birth to a baby girl than to a baby boy.

1Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
2"Speak to the sons of Israel, saying: 'When a woman gives birth and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days, as in the days of her menstruation she shall be unclean.
3'On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
4'Then she shall remain in the blood of her purification for thirty-three days; she shall not touch any consecrated thing, nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed.
5'But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean for two weeks, as in her menstruation; and she shall remain in the blood of her purification for sixty-six days.

Hmmm, did a bronze age people invent these laws and place them in the mouth of God; or is God really that sexist?

Is Beauty only Skin Deep?

"The Lord said to Moses" in Leviticus 21:16-23 that no priest with a physical defect may approach the alter to give a sacrifice, otherwise he would defile God's sanctuary.

16 The LORD said to Moses, 17 "Say to Aaron: 'For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18 No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; 19 no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20 or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. 21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the LORD by fire. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. 22 He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; 23 yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the LORD, who makes them holy.' "

I had no idea God was that superficial that physically disabled people would desecrate his sanctuary. What on earth does outward appearance have to do with the quality of an individual? Have we learned something in the 21st century that Jehovah hasn't?

Unwarranted Skepticism?

Should we believe the gospel accounts of Jesus?

Should the existence of other apocryphal writings (i.e. Gospels of Thomas, Peter, and Mary) cast any doubt on the trustworthiness of the Bible?

If we look around we'll notice a trend. People are disposed to writing religious fiction and a great many people are inexorably inclined to believe it. If we pick any religion as the truth, we are left with the incorrigible fact that billions have believed a lie. People write religious books and credulous people believe them. Fact. Just look around! (i.e. Book of Mormon)

So how should the Bible, bulging with stories of the fantastical, be viewed in light of this fact? Simple reasoning and common sense tell us to assume the Bible to be false, in line with all the other religious books and beliefs that have been held sacred over the centuries.

With this in mind, what Christian evidences could possibly trump these tenable, unequivocal facts that people write religious nonsense and credulous people continually scoop it up like ice cream?

Is Satan Bruised or Crushed?

While reading Genesis I discovered an interesting translation on the part of the NIV Bible:

15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel (Genesis 3:15, emphasis mine).

The words crush and strike are familiar wording to me since the Nearly Irrelevant Version has been the main bible of my past. So I found it very interesting when I read the same passage from the NASB:

15And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her seed;
He shall bruise you on the head,
And you shall bruise him on the heel (Genesis 3:15, emphasis mine).

I looked it up in the Zondervan Hebrew Dictionary and the words crush and strike are actually the same Hebrew word (Shuph: to bruise).

I wonder if the NIV translators spiced up this passage because they believed it was a prophesy about Jesus? (We can't have Jesus merely striking or bruising Satan's head, we must have him C-R-U-S-H-I-N-G it!)

Ingersoll on Genocide

The following is a quote from Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) to finish up my 3 day vent on the genocides of the Bible.

If the Bible be true, God commanded his chosen people to destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native land. They were not allowed to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mothers' arms. They were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the sword of war, the unborn child. "Our heavenly Father" commanded the Hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive. Why were not the maidens also killed? Why were they spared? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. Is there, in all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? Is it possible that God permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? If this was the order of God, what, under the same circumstances, would have been the command of a devil? When, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and loathing, throw the book away. A general, who now should make such an order, giving over to massacre and rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by the whole civilized world. Yet, if the bible be true, the supreme and infinite God was once a savage.

A little while ago, out upon the western plains, in a little path leading to a cabin, were found the bodies of two children and their mother. Her breast was filled with wounds received in the defense of her darlings. They had been murdered by the savages. Suppose when looking at their lifeless forms, some one had said, "This was done by the command of God!" In Canaan there were countless scenes like this. There was no pity in inspired war. God raised the black flag, and commanded his soldiers to kill even the smiling infant in its mother's arms. Who is the blasphemer; the man who denies the existence of God, or he who covers the robes of the Infinite with innocent blood?

We are told in the Pentateuch, that God, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men. If there be a God, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him.

Jehovah's 9/11

I watched a 9/11 ceremony yesterday and was struck with irony at seeing a "God Bless" sign. I found it extremely ironic that these people are asking for the blessing of Jehovah when he supposedly committed the same type of terrorist acts in the past. Moses and Joshua, in the name of Jehovah, indiscriminately killed the men, women and children of the surrounding nations because of what these people believed, the lifestyle they had, and the place where they lived - some of the very reasons we are under attack by Islamic extremists today.

One group believes their god asks men to kill today, the other group believes their god asked men to kill yesterday. The only difference between the fall of the twin towers and the fall of Jericho (and the ensuing genocide) is some 3500 years and the name of the god.

If militant Islam, by some horrific chance, managed to win the war and spread their religion across the globe, who would doubt that the murdering terrorists of 9/11 would be exalted as heroes of the faith with glorious accounts written of their deeds? Future generations would honor these terrorists with the same reverence (and nonchalance) that Christians honor their biblical "heroes".

But Joshua is not a hero. He is a cold blooded murderer of men, women and children. His name should be filth in our ears and stand next to the likes of Adolph Hitler and the terrorists of 9/11. If the people he conquered had been successful in defending their home land and were able to pass down their version of history instead of the one we got, I'm sure his name would be viewed in a much different light.

Jehovah's Rules of Engagement

I found it very interesting reading some of the biblical rules for war and genocide. The following passages are from Deuteronomy 20:10-18.

When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. (Deuteronomy 20:10-13)

That's quite the offer of peace. Forced labor or death! Reminds me of God's offer for us today - worship me as king or burn in hell.

14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.(Deuteronomy 20:14-15)

OK, all the men were to be killed and now the women, children and livestock are to be taken as plunder. Jehovah gives the green light to slavery. Although he does compassionately remind his people in Exodus 21:21 to make sure, after a hearty beating, that the slave can get up after a day or two.

16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God. (Deut. 20:16-18)

Here is where the real trouble begins. The justification for killing men, women and children is the fear that they will lead the fickle Israelites away from God. But how on earth could a toddler, or an 8 year old teach them to worship false gods? I find it highly ironic that they are murdering children to prevent themselves from sinning against God. What do you call killing children? Wouldn't the opposite be better - let them worship false gods to prevent the killing of children? What does this say about Jehovah? He'll have children murdered in order to have a "holy" people around to stroke his vanity and tell him how awesome he is.

A final thought (for the literal minded) - if humanity really ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and God really said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil", then how come most of the civilized world knows that genocide and slavery are wrong but God doesn't?