Judges
Introduction
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21

Injustice
Absurdities
Cruelty and Violence
Intolerance
Contradictions
Women
Family Values
Sex
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Science and History
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SAB: Judges

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Cruelty and Violence in Judges

  1. God appoints Judah to succeed Joshua. The Lord delivers his foes into his hands and another 10,000 are slain. In the process, they capture Adonibezek and "cut off his thumbs and great toes." Nice guys. 1:2-6

  2. "They slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it ... And the Lord was with Judah." (You can tell by the number of innocent people he killed.) 1:17, 19

  3. The Israelite spies killed everyone in Bethel, except for the man (and his family) who showed them how to enter the city. 1:25

  4. Ehud delivers a "message from God" to the king of Moab. God's message consists of a knife thrust so deeply into the king's belly that it could not be extracted, "and the dirt came out." Just another lovely Bible story. 3:15-22

  5. God "delivers" more folks into the hands of his chosen people. "And they slew of Moab ... about 10,000 men ... and their escaped not a man." 3:28-29

  6. Shamgar kills 600 Philistines with an ox goad. Praise God. 3:31

  7. "The Lord discomfited Sisera ... with the edge of the sword ... and there was not a man left." 4:15-16

  8. Jael (our heroine) offers food and shelter to a traveler (Sisera, Jabin's captain), saying "turn in my Lord ... fear not." Then after giving him a glass of milk and tucking him in, she drives a tent stake through his head. "So God subdued on that day Jabin." 4:17-23

  9. For murdering her guest while he slept, Jael is "blessed above women." (Hail Jael, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women....?) 5:24-26

  10. "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord." (Let them all have their temples pierced by blessed women.) 5:31

  11. "The LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man." God promises to help Gideon kill all the Midianites. 6:16

  12. When Gideon and his water-lapping companions blow their trumpets, God forces all the enemy soldiers to kill each other, killing 120,000. 7:22, 8:10

  13. Two princes are killed and their heads are brought to Gideon. 7:25

  14. For refusing to feed him and his army, Gideon tears the flesh off the elders of Succoth and kills the men of the city. 8:7, 16

  15. Gideon orders his son to kill two kings, but he refuses. So Gideon has to do it himself since his son isn't "man" enough to do it. 8:20

  16. Abimelech kills 69 brothers "upon one stone." (He was trying to get in the Guinness Book of World Records.) 9:5

  17. God sends evil spirits that cause humans to deal treacherously with each other. 9:23-24

  18. God smites Sihon and all his people and gives their land to Israel. 11:21

  19. "Whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we [the Israelites] possess." 11:24

  20. When "the spirit of the Lord" comes upon Jephthah, he makes a deal with God: If God will help him kill the Ammonites, then he (Jephthah) will offer to God as a burnt offering whatever comes out of his house to greet him. God keeps his end of the deal by providing Jephthah with "a very great slaughter." But when Jephthah returns, his nameless daughter comes out to greet him (who'd he expect, his wife?). Well, a deal's a deal, so he delivers her to God as a burnt offering -- after letting her spend a couple of months going up and down on the mountains bewailing her virginity. 11:29-39

  21. 42,000 men are killed because someone mispronounces "shibboleth." 12:6

  22. Samson rips up a young lion when "the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him." Later, when going to "take" his Philistine wife he notices a swarm of bees and honey in the lion's carcass (a Divine miracle -- or just rotting flesh and maggots?). 14:5-8

  23. "And the spirit of the Lord came upon him [Samson], and he ... slew thirty men." (Samson might have been a decent person if he could have kept the spirit of the Lord off him.) 14:19

  24. Samson catches 300 foxes, ties their tails together, and sets them on fire; the Philistines burn Samson's ex-wife and father-in-law; and Samson smites them "hip and thigh with a great slaughter." 15:4-8

  25. "The spirit of the Lord came mightily upon" Samson and "he found a new jawbone of an ass ... and took it, and slew 1000 men therewith." 15:14-15

  26. Samson, with God's help, kills himself and 3000 Philistine men and women by causing a roof to collapse, setting an example for Bible-based terrorism. 16:27-30

  27. The Danites massacre the "quiet and secure" people of Laish. 18:27

  28. After taking in a traveling Levite, the host offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine to a mob of perverts (who want to have sex with his guest). The mob refuses the daughter, but accepts the concubine and they "abuse her all night." The next morning she crawls back to the doorstep and dies. The Levite puts her dead body on an ass and takes her home. Then he chops her body up into twelve pieces and sends them to each of the twelve tribes of Israel 19:22-30

  29. God tells the Israelites to send the tribe of Judah into battle and 22,000 men were killed by the Benjamites. 20:18, 21

  30. God tells Phinehas to fight against the Benjamites, saying he will deliver them into his hand. So the Israelites kill some more people for God. 20:38-41

  31. God tells them to go to battle again and another 18,000 are killed. 20:23, 25

  32. God helps the Israelites kill 25,100 Benjamites. 20:35

  33. The Israelites killed everyone in the city with the edge of the sword. 20:37

  34. Another 25,000 Benjamites are killed by the God-assisted Israelites. 20:44, 46

  35. The Israelites finish their massacre of the Benjamites by killing all the men, animals, and everything they could find in every Benjamite city. Then they burned the cities to the ground. (In this way God helped the Israelites make everything better after the rape and dismemberment of the concubine.) 20:48

  36. To find wives for the Benjamites (they were unwilling to use their own daughters), the other tribes attacked and killed all occupants of a city except for the young virgins. These virgins were then given to the Benjamites for wives. 21:7-23