Ryan Mattis is a typical 7-year-old, who likes riding his bike, games of freeze tag, and playing fetch with the family dog, Sparky. But this week in Sunday School Ryan did something that made him stand out among his peers.
Although he didn't understand all of the words, young Ryan noticed something odd as he browsed through a copy of the Holy Bible. The book that his pastor, his parents and his Sunday school teacher had always told him was the infallible revelation of an all-wise, perfectly loving, merciful, all-knowing God, was full of stories about that God doing and commanding horrific things.
So Ryan decided to do something about it. Picking up a crayon, he started editing. The sheer number of opportunities for turning nonsensical, barbaric instructions into words you would expect from a morally perfect deity was almost overwhelming. So he started with simple ones, where he could just add one word, like in Exodus 31 with the word "not".
In this passage, we are told that God wants his people to take the Sabbath, or the day of rest, so seriously that they should kill anyone who does even the tiniest amount of work on that day of the week. Within 13 seconds and with just one three-letter word, Ryan had made a no-brainer improvement to a document often viewed as inerrant and perfectly moral. "There are so many verses where it gets a whole lot better if you just stick a 'not' in there", Ryan noted. In a related passage in chapter 15 verses 32-36 of the Book of Numbers, the Bible tells of how God commanded the Israelites to apply this Sabbath rule in a specific case, commanding them to stone a man to death for the horrible crime of picking up sticks to build a fire on the wrong day of the week.
And just a few verses earlier, in Exodus 21, Ryan found another place where he could easily make a positive change. Switching crayon colors, he replaced ludicrous-level judgment and murder with the reasonable, sane approach of engaging in discussion and reconciliation on the basis of love and forgiveness.
Ryan's Sunday School teacher, Heather Washburn, said that although she was shocked at first to see one of her students writing in a Bible, her response changed when she understood what Ryan was doing. "Honestly, I had never paid much attention to the Old Testament. I had heard that there was some rough stuff in there, but I had never taken a close look. Wow....I get it that a society needs to have some rules, but geez, the death penalty for being a medium? That's what it says in Leviticus 20, verse 27. I mean, it could just say 'talking to the dead is fake and people who say they can do it are con artists who play on your emotions, so don't listen to them and don't give them your money.' Some versions of the Bible call them wizards or witches or fortunetellers instead of mediums, but same deal".
"Honestly, I had never paid much attention to the Old Testament"
Then, commenting on Deuteronomy 13:13-19, where God demonstrates his love, mercy and justice by telling the Israelites to kill every single man, woman, child and baby in any towns that have a few people proselytizing for a god other than Him, Washburn said "Sickening. That's bloodthirsty warlord stuff. That's Taliban stuff. That's crazy."
Ryan and Miss Heather, as the kids call her, then teamed up and tackled a verse in Leviticus that they realized also sounds much more like the product of fallible human authors than a divine authority. Chapter 25 explicitly says that God allows His people, the Israelites, to own other people as their property, including the right to pass them down to their heirs. After a bit of discussion, the teacher-student duo replaced several dozen oppressive, dehumanizing words with a short and clear six-word defense of human liberty.
After Sunday School, Ryan eagerly showed his parents what he had done. Miss Heather watched their stunned reactions quickly turn to expressions of agreement and pride. Together the group of four jotted down this partial list of verses to work on next, which are about "offenses" for which people should be killed:
God Says People Should Kill Their Own Friends, Neighbors and Family Members for:
Not Obeying a priest or a judge (Deuteronomy 17:12)
Being a sorceress, whatever that means (Exodus 22:18)
Hitting your father (Exodus 21:15)
Adhering to another faith (Deuteronomy 17:2-5)
Being a homosexual man (Leviticus 20:13)
Committing adultery (Leviticus 20:10)
Not being a virgin on your wedding night, if you're a woman (Deuteronomy 22:20)
Sacrificing to a god other than Yahweh (Exodus 22:20)
Not seeking God (2 Chronicles 15:12-13)
Living in a town where a few people are proselytizing for other Gods than Yahweh (Deuteronomy 13:12-16)
Blaspheming God’s name (Leviticus 24:10-16)
Being a false prophet (Deuteronomy 13:1-5 and 18:20-22)
List adapted from: www.evilbible.com
The team hopes to finish editing all the capital punishment verses next Sunday and then reward themselves by having a cookie in the fellowship hall and starting on the kidnapping and forced marriage verses.
Seriously Though
Throughout the ages, there have been many stories describing gods and goddesses and what they supposedly say, do, want, like, and dislike. Many of them, including the Bible, contain some great wisdom and some amount of historical fact, but many, including the Bible, also advocate questionable morality and objectively incorrect claims about history and science. Thus, insisting that any one of them is perfect and that it should be taken literally and should be the absolute basis of our understanding of the world and how to live is a mistake. Unfortunately, it's not so simple. Precepts from the Bible and other texts certainly have been quite influential over the centuries of recorded history. But humanity, especially the West, has also largely realized that a civilization can only be just and free if it sidelines legalistic and oppressive decrees and instead places a high value on human life and liberty.
Questions for the Curious
Are you getting your information about the history of the Bible from an apologist or from a historian?
When were they written and by whom?
Which of them claim to be revealed or inspired by a supreme being?
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