0 SAB Category list

About the Categories

There are 17 categories in the SAB, with the corresponding icons shown below. No attempt has been made to rate the occurrences, since what seems trivial to one person may seem important to another.

Still there are some things we can all agree on. No one doubts, for example, that 1 Samuel 15.2-3, Ezekiel 23.20, and Leviticus 19.18 are cruel, filthy, and good, respectively.

But many other passages are not nearly so clear. Some will think a verse is important and should be included; others that it is trivial and should be left out.

Although I would like make the site as comprehensive as possible, I can't include everything. So I apply this test when deciding what to include or leave out: How would an objective reader view the passage? As cruel, absurd, intolerant, etc. -- or good? If so, I mark it accordingly. If not, I leave it out. (And when in doubt, I leave it out.)

There is a lot of overlap between the categories, so often a passage that is marked cruel will be marked unjust and intolerant as well. Take 1 Samuel 18:25-27, for example, where David buys his first wife with 200 Philistine foreskins. That passage is marked with absurdity, cruelty, sex, women, family values, injustice, and contradiction icons. And I probably could have thrown in language and science and history, as well.

I've marked passages as I see them. On some you may agree, on others you may disagree. This is as it should be. Read each passage and decide what you think about it. That is the whole point of the SAB.