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Latest Posts (Tagged with: Bible)

Posted: Monday 14 December 2015 ( 9 years ago )

Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran?

(Repost with updated numbers 14 December 2015.) The LORD is a man of war. Exodus 15:3 Fight in the way of Allah. Quran 2:244 Which is more violent, the Bible or the Quran? Is there a way to objectively answer such a question? Well, it wou ...

Posted: Thursday 28 March 2019 ( 6 years ago )

A numbers problem in the book of Numbers

The book of Numbers is well-named. There are a lot of number in Numbers. Take chapter three for instance. In the long last section of that chapter, God tells Moses to count the Levites [1] saying, And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wildern ...

Posted: Monday 02 November 2009 ( 15 years ago )

Jephthah's Daughter

In the last killing, the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah and he promised that he would offer to God a burned sacrifice of whatever comes out to greet him if God would help him massacre the Ammonites. God came through with his end of the deal by ...

Posted: Sunday 04 June 2006 ( 18 years ago )

Behold, it was very good.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. Genesis 1:31 Everything that God made was, at least at the time and according to him, very good. But things seem to have changed since then. This is a problem for beli ...

Posted: Tuesday 06 June 2006 ( 18 years ago )

The Bible's War on Marriage

There's a war on out there. A war on marriage. But the attack is not from gays or atheists, or even from academic feminists. It's from the Bible. Consider these verses that: Encourage polygamy. If he take him another wife.... -- Exodus 21:10 ...

Posted: Tuesday 30 March 2010 ( 15 years ago )

Jesus

You’ve heard this one before: God killed his son in order to stop himself from torturing people forever after they die for something that someone else supposedly did thousands of years before they were born. The story is known too well already. ...

Posted: Friday 05 June 2009 ( 15 years ago )

The great winepress of the wrath of God (How many will Jesus kill with his sickle?)

(Since the Brick Testament just added this story, I thought I'd update this old post by including a scene from and a link to The Son of Man's Bloody Gorefest.) In a previous posts, I counted the number of people killed by God in the Bible (2,301 ...

Posted: Tuesday 17 February 2009 ( 16 years ago )

Remember Lot's Wife (Forget Jesus)

Although this is God's fourth killing event, it is the first of God's 2,552,452 countable victims. It's interesting that God's first countable victim is unnamed. God killed Mrs. Lot without even knowing (or at least telling us) her name. And ...

Posted: Thursday 25 November 2010 ( 14 years ago )

50 reasons to be ashamed (and not a fan) of Jesus

There's a group in the United States called Not a Fan that encourage Christians to show that they aren't ashamed of Jesus (no matter how badly he behaved in the gospels) by being not just fans, but fanatics. But every believer should be ashamed ...

Posted: Thursday 11 November 2010 ( 14 years ago )

Something Christians, Jews, and Muslims can agree on: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.

As you may have heard, Michelle Obama ran into trouble Tuesday while visiting Indonesia. She shook hands with a man (actually several of them) while passing through a receiving line that greeted the president and the first lady after their arrival in ...

Posted: Thursday 24 August 2006 ( 18 years ago )

Have ye saved all the women alive?

Oops! In my post, How many has God killed?, I forgot to include the Midianite massacre. But luckily David Plotz in Blogging the Bible reminded me. Plotz calls it the "most hideous war crime in a Bible filled with them." And he's right about that. ...

Posted: Thursday 11 January 2007 ( 18 years ago )

The Bible and the Quran agree: Stay away from menstruating women

But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, and hath not ... come near to a menstruous woman.... Ezekiel 18:5 They question thee (O Muhammad) concerning menstruation. Say: It is an illness, so let women alone at such times.... Qur ...

Posted: Friday 07 August 2009 ( 15 years ago )

The Midianite massacre: Have you saved all the women alive?

This is a bible story that everyone should know. It begins with God telling Moses to take vengeance on the Midianites. (He doesn't say for what, but I guess it was for the sex and dinner party that brought on God's last round of killings.) ...

Posted: Tuesday 28 March 2023 ( 2 years ago )

The Bible in Fewer Words Podcast

As many of you may know, my wife, Carole, and I have started a new podcast. Well, it's not new anymore. In fact, we have released 54 episodes since we began a few months ago. We began with Genesis in December, and just posted the last episode of L ...

Posted: Saturday 01 April 2023 ( 2 years ago )

Father Mike Schmitz explains the law of jealousies to us

The most popular podcast in the United States is (or was according to the National Review in Jan 2021) "The Bible in a Year" by Father Mike Schmitz. In it, Father Mike reads the Bible to you, and explains it all for you. Father Mike gets through ...

Posted: Monday 19 March 2012 ( 13 years ago )

Luke 17:34 and Pray to be Gay Day

I don't know how I missed this before, but I did. Luke 17:34, that is. I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. And since Jesus clearly said that only a small minority woul ...

Posted: Saturday 27 July 2013 ( 11 years ago )

God's design for marriage

According to the Bible, what was God's original plan for marriage and how did it changed over time? So I thought I'd try to figure that out. Here's what I came up with. God's original plan was for Adam to select an animal for a "help meet" ( ...

Posted: Monday 18 February 2013 ( 12 years ago )

Is it OK to use perfume?

I was watching the 1966 movie "Hawaii" last night, when I came upon this dialog: Jerusha Hale: I felt so good after my bath that I washed my skin with oil of lilac. Abner Hale: I smell it. (Pause) Moses forbad the use of perfume. Jerusha: Pr ...

Posted: Friday 14 April 2023 ( 1 year ago )

What were the fiery serpents in Numbers 21?

In our most recent podcast, we told the story about the fiery serpents that God sent to bite the people for complaining about the lack of food and water. It all happens in just five verses in Numbers 21 (verses 5-9) Here's the story from the Bibl ...

Posted: Monday 17 April 2023 ( 1 year ago )

Why Christian marriage is wrong

Christians claim that the Bible condemns gay marriage. It doesn't. [*] The Bible says nothing at all about gay marriage. But it has plenty to say about Christian marriage. The Bible says that Christians should not marry. Art thou loose ...

Posted: Saturday 06 June 2009 ( 15 years ago )

What does Jesus have written on his testicles?

OK, I'm not sure about this. Jesus might not have anything written on his testicles. But he does have something written on his thigh, at least if you believe the Book of Revelation. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, ...

Posted: Monday 24 April 2023 ( 1 year ago )

Some questions about the Midianite massacre

Our last podcast episode told the story of the Midianite massacre of Numbers 31. It's one of the most appalling stories in the entire Bible. And it's also one of the most puzzling. Here are some of my questions about it. The Midianites were ...

Posted: Monday 15 May 2023 ( 1 year ago )

The Spirit of the Lord came upon him

According to the Bible, what happens when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon someone? Well, the short answer is this: a Spirit-possessed person usually kills things. The phrase ("the Spirit of the Lord came upon him" or "came mightily upon him" ...

Posted: Friday 02 June 2023 ( 1 year ago )

Some commandments nobody should obey

Here is a letter that I wrote to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News that was published today. In response to columnist Nick Gier’s suggestion that the Bible should be redacted, letter writer Larry Kirkland (Daily News, May 31) said “most of the Bib ...

Posted: Saturday 17 June 2023 ( 1 year ago )

Father's Day lessons from the fathers in the Bible

Noah, the just preacher of righteousness For some reason, God really liked Noah. He hated everyone else, though. Hated them so much, in fact, that he drowned every last one of them, except for Noah (and his family), that is. What was it that ...

Posted: Sunday 18 June 2023 ( 1 year ago )

Hamor: The best father in the Bible

In a previous post, I listed 15 of the fathers in the Bible who provide lessons for fathers today. I wasn't entirely serious, of course, as each of the fathers on the list behaved about as badly as any father could possibly behave. None of them could ...

Posted: Monday 10 July 2023 ( 1 year ago )

Who had the most powerful spit: Jesus or Muhammad?

This is an important question. Luckily, the gospels and Ash-Shifa can answer it for us. (Ash-Shifa is a 12th century biography of Muhammad that is considered authoritative throughout the Muslim world.) Let's take Jesus's spit first. ...

Posted: Wednesday 01 May 2024 ( 5 months ago )

No Jesus, the Golden Rule is not equal to the law and the prophets

Jesus said many surprising things in the Sermon on the Mount. Here are just a few of them: Every jot and tittle of the Torah must be followed. (Matthew 5:17) Whoever calls someone a fool is in danger of going to hell. (5:22) A man wh ...

Posted: Sunday 05 May 2024 ( 5 months ago )

Out of context

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a Netflix film based on the trial of seven anti-war protesters who were arrested during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. I very much enjoyed the movie, but I was especially struck by its portrayal of Abbie Hoff ...

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