"What the Bible Says," Part 2
Part 3: WHAT ELSE DOES THE BIBLE SAY
Now, since no one out there is taking this seriously, at all, it is worth noting two things. The first is that, as I have said, Putting adulterers to death is what the Bible actually says.
The second is that, since no one believes that, what else does the Bible say that people don’t believe?
In fact, there are a great number of things the Bible says that nobody believes.
In fact, in addition to homosexuality and adultery being punishable by death, there is also incest (Leviticus 20:17). I haven’t seen anybody advocating the death penalty for that either, come to think of it. The same for virgins (girls, naturally) who have pre-marital sex, the penalty for that is a good stoning (Deuteronomy 22:20-21). So, not just homosexuality is punishable by death, we’ve upped it now to:
Homosexuality
Adultery
Incest
Pre-marital (female) sex
Another thing nobody does is marry their rapist. So, if a woman is raped, she’s supposed to marry him? Deuteronomy 22:28-29.
Regrettably, sexual sins are not the only things worthy of death. If you’ll recall the Ten Commandments, which are still posted outside some courthouses and are assumed to be worthy of emulation, tells us to “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Ex. 20:8). That would be Commandment No. 4. Regrettably, further on a punishment for working on the Sabbath is announced in Exodus 31:15, “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.” So, not only homosexuals, adulterers, and loose women are to be put to death, pretty much anybody working retail, or - realistically - any other job. I mean, who hasn’t spend time working on Saturday.
I’m sure a protest might be made that these words don’t apply anymore, because they’re directed at Israel, a theocratic kingdom in the BC era, or because it applies only to Jews. This may be true, but it doesn’t matter, because the Bible doesn’t say anything about that. That would be a matter of interpretation. What the Bible actually says is, Kill anyone that works on the Sabbath.
Because we’re not doing any in-depth analysis here, just like folks who say “The Bible Says” would maintain. If we’re glibly skimming the surface of the words, the sheer number of things the Bible says that people don’t follow starts to add up.
It’s not just this kind of stuff the Bible forbids that nobody follows. The food restrictions alone….! Things you probably had for dinner just last week:
Pork, Leviticus 11:7-8
Fat, Leviticus 3:17
Blood in meat (no rare or tartare meat!), Leviticus 3:17
Cheeseburgers, lasagna (or anything else that mixes meat and dairy), Exodus 23:19
Clams, scallops, oysters, eel, mussels, crab, lobster, crawdads, shrimp, squids, octopus (any seafood without fins or scales), Leviticus 11:10-12
Escargot, Leviticus 11:41-42
Rabbit, Leviticus 11:4-7
Other things nobody follows:
Tattoos, Leviticus 19:28
No poly-blend clothes! Leviticus 19:19, Deuteronomy 22:11
Working on the Sabbath, Exodus 20:10
Planting more than one kind of seed in a field, Leviticus 19:19
Cutting the hair on the sides of your head, Leviticus 19:27
Clipping the edges of your beard, Leviticus 19:27
Cross-dressing [either day], Deuteronomy 22:5
Ploughing with an ox and donkey together, Deut. 22:10
One wag has come up with a list of 76 Things Banned in Leviticus.
That’s a pretty good number of things, considering it’s just one book. And it’s certainly a popular one for conservatives looking to forbid things.
The curious thing is that people back off when you start mentioning ALL the things that are forbidden by the Bible. You can say, “According to the Bible…,” but when you mention the food proscriptions, people say, “Well, it doesn’t mean that….”
I used to get tripped up by this. I used to get focused on why people focus on the one and not the others, but it doesn’t actually matter. Not really. My friend Wes used to tell me that the proscriptions against homosexuality in Leviticus are part of moral code that was somewhat different in essence from the proscriptions against food and other things. That’s one reason why looking at adultery is so important here. Because it’s in the exact same context.
When two sins are mentioned in the same context, with the same result, yet one is condemned in the most rabid terms, and the other is rarely even mentioned, and never in the same terms as the first one, there’s a problem. And, strangely, the problem is not with the Bible itself.
This is not to take into account many of the other things the Bible says, which are otherwise simply appalling:
“Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks (Ps. 139:9),”
or “Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open (Hosea 13:16.”
Further, even Jesus said things that are hard to swallow, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you” and “ If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you…” You can interpret these sayings any way you want, but that the Bible actually says is ‘pluck out your eye’ and ‘cut off your hand’ if they cause you to stumble.
It’s very simple, actually. Anyone who says either, “The Bible says …. So I believe it,” or “According to the Bible…” simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
That’s the nice way to put that. You can’t simply have your cake and eat it too. What the Bible says is not treat gay people badly, discriminate against them, take their rights away, refuse to recognize their weddings, deny them services, or the like. The Bible says KILL THEM.
What the Bible says when a man has sex with another man’s wife is also KILL THEM.
So, if you’re not prepared to go the logical end of your ‘According to the Bible’ argument, stop talking about “What the Bible says.”
Because the point is this, when you use that phrase, yet your own beliefs and actions show that you yourself don’t believe everything the Bible says, then the Bible loses all authority and any argument from it becomes entirely spurious.
Now, since no one out there is taking this seriously, at all, it is worth noting two things. The first is that, as I have said, Putting adulterers to death is what the Bible actually says.
The second is that, since no one believes that, what else does the Bible say that people don’t believe?
In fact, there are a great number of things the Bible says that nobody believes.
In fact, in addition to homosexuality and adultery being punishable by death, there is also incest (Leviticus 20:17). I haven’t seen anybody advocating the death penalty for that either, come to think of it. The same for virgins (girls, naturally) who have pre-marital sex, the penalty for that is a good stoning (Deuteronomy 22:20-21). So, not just homosexuality is punishable by death, we’ve upped it now to:
Homosexuality
Adultery
Incest
Pre-marital (female) sex
Another thing nobody does is marry their rapist. So, if a woman is raped, she’s supposed to marry him? Deuteronomy 22:28-29.
Regrettably, sexual sins are not the only things worthy of death. If you’ll recall the Ten Commandments, which are still posted outside some courthouses and are assumed to be worthy of emulation, tells us to “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Ex. 20:8). That would be Commandment No. 4. Regrettably, further on a punishment for working on the Sabbath is announced in Exodus 31:15, “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death.” So, not only homosexuals, adulterers, and loose women are to be put to death, pretty much anybody working retail, or - realistically - any other job. I mean, who hasn’t spend time working on Saturday.
I’m sure a protest might be made that these words don’t apply anymore, because they’re directed at Israel, a theocratic kingdom in the BC era, or because it applies only to Jews. This may be true, but it doesn’t matter, because the Bible doesn’t say anything about that. That would be a matter of interpretation. What the Bible actually says is, Kill anyone that works on the Sabbath.
Because we’re not doing any in-depth analysis here, just like folks who say “The Bible Says” would maintain. If we’re glibly skimming the surface of the words, the sheer number of things the Bible says that people don’t follow starts to add up.
It’s not just this kind of stuff the Bible forbids that nobody follows. The food restrictions alone….! Things you probably had for dinner just last week:
Pork, Leviticus 11:7-8
Fat, Leviticus 3:17
Blood in meat (no rare or tartare meat!), Leviticus 3:17
Cheeseburgers, lasagna (or anything else that mixes meat and dairy), Exodus 23:19
Clams, scallops, oysters, eel, mussels, crab, lobster, crawdads, shrimp, squids, octopus (any seafood without fins or scales), Leviticus 11:10-12
Escargot, Leviticus 11:41-42
Rabbit, Leviticus 11:4-7
Other things nobody follows:
Tattoos, Leviticus 19:28
No poly-blend clothes! Leviticus 19:19, Deuteronomy 22:11
Working on the Sabbath, Exodus 20:10
Planting more than one kind of seed in a field, Leviticus 19:19
Cutting the hair on the sides of your head, Leviticus 19:27
Clipping the edges of your beard, Leviticus 19:27
Cross-dressing [either day], Deuteronomy 22:5
Ploughing with an ox and donkey together, Deut. 22:10
One wag has come up with a list of 76 Things Banned in Leviticus.
That’s a pretty good number of things, considering it’s just one book. And it’s certainly a popular one for conservatives looking to forbid things.
The curious thing is that people back off when you start mentioning ALL the things that are forbidden by the Bible. You can say, “According to the Bible…,” but when you mention the food proscriptions, people say, “Well, it doesn’t mean that….”
I used to get tripped up by this. I used to get focused on why people focus on the one and not the others, but it doesn’t actually matter. Not really. My friend Wes used to tell me that the proscriptions against homosexuality in Leviticus are part of moral code that was somewhat different in essence from the proscriptions against food and other things. That’s one reason why looking at adultery is so important here. Because it’s in the exact same context.
When two sins are mentioned in the same context, with the same result, yet one is condemned in the most rabid terms, and the other is rarely even mentioned, and never in the same terms as the first one, there’s a problem. And, strangely, the problem is not with the Bible itself.
This is not to take into account many of the other things the Bible says, which are otherwise simply appalling:
“Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks (Ps. 139:9),”
or “Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword, their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open (Hosea 13:16.”
Further, even Jesus said things that are hard to swallow, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you” and “ If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you…” You can interpret these sayings any way you want, but that the Bible actually says is ‘pluck out your eye’ and ‘cut off your hand’ if they cause you to stumble.
It’s very simple, actually. Anyone who says either, “The Bible says …. So I believe it,” or “According to the Bible…” simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
That’s the nice way to put that. You can’t simply have your cake and eat it too. What the Bible says is not treat gay people badly, discriminate against them, take their rights away, refuse to recognize their weddings, deny them services, or the like. The Bible says KILL THEM.
What the Bible says when a man has sex with another man’s wife is also KILL THEM.
So, if you’re not prepared to go the logical end of your ‘According to the Bible’ argument, stop talking about “What the Bible says.”
Because the point is this, when you use that phrase, yet your own beliefs and actions show that you yourself don’t believe everything the Bible says, then the Bible loses all authority and any argument from it becomes entirely spurious.