Drunk with Blood: God's Killings in The Apocrypha

The books in the Apocrypha (aka Deuterocanonical books) add another twenty killings to God's list. The first three involve beautiful women: Susanna and Judith. The rest are told in the books of the Machabees.

The story of Susanna includes what is arguably the only justified killing in the Bible. The bad guys were guilty and deserved to be punished, though the trial seemed less than fair and the punishment a bit excessive.

The book of Judith confirms what we already knew from the story of Jael in Judges: it is a most blessed thing for a woman to kill a man while he sleeps.

1 and 2 Machabees present a series of 17 God-assisted killings, any one of which, if true, would clearly show that God, whatever else he might be, is not good.

Here are the killings in the Apocrypha.

138. Oh! Susanna
139. Judith is blessed among all women (for cutting off a sleeping man's head)
140. The Judith massacre: hang ye up this head upon our walls
141. Mathathias's double murder
142. Mathathias and his friends slay the wicked sinners, circumcise the the uncircumcised, and yield not the horn to the sinner
143. God killed Andronichus (that sacrilegious wretch)
144. A Jewish mob kills Lysimachus, the sacrilegious fellow
145. God helps Judas Machabeus destroy the wicked
146. Judas and his unarmed men kill 3000 of Gorgias's soldiers
147. The Hanukkah killings
148. The Machabees brothers slaughter the heathens
149. Nicanor's Army: The Almighty being their helper, they slew above nine thousand men
150. Jonathan and Simon destroy the wicked out of Israel
151. Five heavenly horsemen cast darts and fireballs at the enemy
152. God killed Antiochus with an incurable bowel disease
153. Idumeans, traitors, and Jews in two towers
154. Nicanor's head: A manifest sign of the help of God
155. Aliens at Cades
156. John burns to death 2000 in the tower of Azotus
157. God sent wasps to slowly kill people