"And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and
divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into
all the coasts of Israel." -- Judges 19:29
Judges for Skeptics
Judges is a violent book even by biblical standards. It begins by cutting off the thumbs and big toes of
a captured king and ends with a genocide following the dismemberment of a concubine's body. Along the way it describes, with apparent relish and approval,
a gruesome "message from God" (a knife blade stuck deeply into
a fat man's belly); a tent stake driven through a sleeping man's skull; a couple of severed heads delivered to Gideon; the
killing of 69 brothers upon a single stone; a daughter killed by her father as a sacrifice to God; 300 foxes tied
together by their tails and lit on fire; 1000 men killed with a jawbone of an ass; and, in what is probably the most disgusting
story in all literature, the rape and mutilation of the Levite's concubine. And I've left a lot out. Read it yourself,
if you have a strong enough stomach. And be sure to check out:
God's 39th Killing:
"The LORD delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand:
and they slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men." 1:4
Cutting off the thumbs and big toes of a captured king. 1:6-7
God's 40th Killing:
The Israelites killed everyone in Jerusalem and set the city on fire. 1:8
Absurdities
Injustice 
Cruelty and Violence 
Intolerance 
Family Values 
Women 
Contradictions
Sex 
Interpretation 
Science and History 
Language 
Prophecy 
Boring Stuff 
Good Stuff 
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