SAB, Judges Introduction

Judges
Highlights
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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

Absurdities

Injustice

Cruelty and Violence

Intolerance

Family Values

Women

Contradictions

Sex

Interpretation

Language

Prophecy

Science and History

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SAB: Judges

Dwindling in Unbelief
-Judges
-God's killings in Judges

The Scripture Project
-Judges

"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 chopping off the thumbs and big toes of a captured king and ends with genocide following the chopping up a dead concubine's body and sending the pieces in the mail parcel post. 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, death 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
God's 41st Killing:
Ten massacres, a wedding, and some God-proof iron chariots 1:12-13
God couldn't drive out the valley people because they had chariots of iron. 1:19
God's 42nd Killing:
The spirit of the Lord comes upon Othniel and causes him to go to war. 3:10
God's 43rd Killing:
Ehud's message from God. 3:20-22
God's 44th Killing:
"And they slew of Moab ... about 10,000 men ... and their escaped not a man." 3:28-29
God sells the Israelites into slavery. 3:8, 4:2, 10:7
Shamgar kills 600 Philistines with an ox goad. 3:31
God's 45th Killing:
"The Lord discomfited Sisera ... with the edge of the sword ... and there was not a man left." 4:15-16
God's 46th Killing:
Jael drives a tent stake through her guest's head. For this she is "blessed above women." 4:17-23, 5:24-26
God takes Gideon's fleece/dew test. 6:36-40
God finds a few good men with a dog-lapping test. 7:4-7
God's 47th Killing:
"The Lord set every man's sword against his fellow." 7:21
Two princes killed and their heads delivered to Gideon 7:25
Gideon tears the flesh of the elders of Succoth and kills the men of the city. 8:7, 16-17
Abimelech kills 69 brothers "upon one stone." 9:5
God sends an evil spirit. 9:23
God's 48th Killing:
A city is massacred and 1000 people burn to death because of God's evil spirit. 9:49
God's 49th Killing:
The Ammonite massacre 11:33
God's 50th Killing:
Jephthah sacrifices his daughter to God. 11:39
God's 51st Killing:
The spirit of the Lord comes upon Samson and he murders 30 men for their clothes. 14:19
Samson catches 300 foxes, ties their tails together, and sets them on fire. 15:4-5
God's 52nd Killing:
Samson kills 1000 men with the jawbone of an ass. 15:14-16
Samson goes in unto a harlot. 16:1
God's 53rd Killing:
Samson kills 3000 in a suicide terrorist attack. 16:27-30
The Levite and his concubine. 19:22-30
God's 54th Killing:
A holy civil war (It had something to do with rotting body part messages) 20:35

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Dwindling in Unbelief: Judges; God's Killings in Judges
Christian Response Annotated Skeptic's Annotated Bible Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? (Judges, introduction)