The Skeptics' Overrated Bible on Deuteronomy

as analyzed by Sheila Rangslinger

Regular reference will be made to the item here with answers to some of these. Reference will be made by the letters CAA.

2:9, 19 God gave the Moabites and the Ammonites special protection since they were the descendents of Lot's drunken, incestuous affair with his daughters (Gen.19:30-38). Oh? It says that drunkenness and incest was part of what was required? SAB must have a different version than I do. What does SAB have against people born of such unions, the bigot?
2:10-11, 20 More talk about a "land of giants." They must have been much more common back then. Given that most people were 5' 4" or less, a race with an average height of 6' would be called "giants".
2:21-22 "The Lord destroyed them before them" -- the general treatment of the people who were supposedly displaced by the Israelites. And of course do not deserve it? CAA.
2:30 God hardened the heart of the king of Heshbon and so that he could have him and all of his people killed. CAA. Of course the man had had years before that to get everyone out.
2:33-36 At God's instructions, the Israelites "utterly destroyed the men, women, and the little ones" leaving "none to remain." CAA.
3:3, 6 Again the Israelites kill everyone: "men, women, and children, of every city." CAA.
3:11 Og, the king of the giants, was a tall man, even by NBA standards. His bed measured 9 by 4 cubits (15 feet long and 6 feet wide). I read 13 feet, but anyway, that's like claiming Shaq must have a big family of around 100-130 people because he has a 100-room house.
3:22 When going to war, don't be afraid. God is on your side; "he shall fight for you." Yes, and? The problem?
4:2 "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you neither shall ye diminish ought from it." This verse is one of those that prevent Bible-believers from cleaning up the Bible. So they're stuck with the unedited version. "Clean up" here means "getting rid of what SAB finds offensive."
4:3 God destoyed the followers of Baalpeor. Mere argument by outrage.
4:16-18, 23 In these verses, God condemns the making of graven images. But in Ex.25:18 and Num.21:8 he commands others to make graven images. See here.
4:24 God is "a consuming fire, even a jealous God." See here.
4:35, 39 How many gods are there? See here.
4:40 According to this verse, the earth will last forever. But this is contradicted elsewhere in the bible. Not really. The one verse used on this is where Jesus says "heaven and earth will pass away" -- which he stated as an impossibility to compare to the survival of his words. It's like saying, "When pigs fly." See here.
5:4 Moses tells the Israelites that God spoke to them "face to face." But this contradicts many Bible verses that say that no one has ever seen God. See here.
5:7 The first commandment ("Thou shalt have no other gods before me.") condemns those who worship any other than the biblical god. And the problem with this is what? Of course to SAB all gods are equally invalid, which is why he can be "equitable" here.
5:8 God forbids the making of graven images. But at other times (and, I guess, in other moods, he ordered such images to be made.) See above.
5:9 God, by his own admission, is a jealous God who unjustly punishes great-great grandchildren for the failings of their long-dead ancestors -- or so it says in this verse. But Dt.24:16 and Ezek.18:20 say that God does not punish children for the sins of their fathers. It seems that God is a bit confused on this issue. See here.
5:12-14 The fourth commandment prohibits the breaking of the sabbath. But elsewhere in the Bible, the sabbath is downplayed or even ignored. See here and here.
5:16 Here we are told to honor our parents, but Jesus didn't and counseled others to hate their parents. Nope. See here. SAB adds stuff about JWs we do not care about.
5:17 "Thou shalt not kill." A strange commandment from a God who kills so indiscriminately and commands others to do likewise. See here.
5:18 Here adultery is forbidden. But God orders Hosea to commit adultery in Hos.1:2 and 3:1-3. See here.
5:19"Neither shalt thou steal." But sometimes God encourages others to steal. What SAB calls "stealing" turns out to be the rightful plunder of war and the Israelites despoiling the Egyptians who kept them as slaves for 400 years. Reparations, anyone?
5:20 Don't lie. But sometimes God approves of lying. See here.
5:21 Is it OK to covet? See here.
5:21 In this version of the ten commandments (see Ex.20 for the other list) a man is told not to covet his neighbor's wife, slave (servant in the KJV), or ass -- or any thing that belongs to his neighbor. You see, in the eyes of God, women and slaves are the possessions of men. How does that follow om women? Slaves, yes, but see here. Men still covet others' wives or girlfriends today with no idea of them as property.
6:2, 13, 24 Should we fear God? See here.
6:4 This verse says that there is only one God, but other verses say there are several. See here.
6:13 "Thou ... shalt swear by his name." But the New Testament forbids swearing. See here.
6:15 If you worship the wrong god, God will get jealous and kill you. All the same to SAB, since he considers all gods equally false -- but if one is true, then the question is begged as to whether the retribution is just. How if your selfish or careless worship of a false god resulted in others spending eternity away from the true God?
6:16 "Ye shall not tempt the Lord thy God." But James (Jas.1:13) says that God cannot be tempted. See here.
7:1 God promises to cast out seven nations including the Amorites, Canaanites, and the Jebusites. But he was unable to fulfill his promise. These nations were "greater and mightier" than the Israelites, who according to Ex.12:37 and Num.1:45-46 already had numbered several million. So the region, according to the bible, must have had a population of more than twenty million! Yes, and the problem is, what? Does SAB have contrary population figures and adequate reason to accept them?
7:2 God instructs the Israelites to kill, without mercy, all the inhabitants (strangers) of the land that they conquer. But in Dt.10:19 he changes his mind, saying "Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Um, hello? The persons referred to in 10:19 are people who walk in to the land meaning no harm -- not "people you don't know, period." Does SAB thinks this means that any Egyptian could walk in and kill everyone and not be stopped out of "love"?
7:3 God forbids marriages with those of other tribes. He makes an exception for Moses, though (Num.12:1, 9-10). Moses of course married this woman well before this command was given.
7:4 If you do show any mercy to such strangers, "give your daughters to any of them, or "take" any of their daughters, then you'll get God so angry that he'll "destroy thee suddenly." Of course to SAB being politically correct is more important than preserving religious purity and soteriological truth upon which the eternal fate of others depends.
7:5 Destroy the altars, images, and places of worship of those with different religions. And the problem here, other than anachronistic political correctness, is what? The answer is that to SAB, Baal is as good as Yahweh because both are false.
7:6 God prefers the Israelites to everyone else. It's not that he's prejudiced, he just like them better. See here.
7:10 God will kill those who hate him. Mere argument by outrage again (see above).
7:14-15 God's favorite people will never be infertile (neither will their cows!) and will never get sick. (God will send infertility and diseases on the other guys.) Where does it say the latter? No, it just says Israel will be preserved from such things. Period. As if again SAB thinks the Egyptians, Canaanites, etc. had no warning and had just been playing tiddlywinks for hundreds of years.
7:16 God commands his people to "consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity on them." Yet God is supposed to be merciful. Mercy is not contrary to justice, and we're still waiting for SAB to do more than argue by outrage when it comes to that. Plus see here.
7:20-23 God will send hornets to kill your enemies, "for the Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible." The hornet symbolizes Egypt, which used the hornet as a "mascot".
7:24 God says that the Israelites will destroy all of the peoples they encounter. But according to Joshua (15:63, 16:10, 17:12-13) and Judges (1:21, 27-36, 3:1-5) there were some people they just couldn't kill. See Land Promise debate here.
8:2 God had to test the Israelites to find out what was in their minds and hearts. But according to Acts 1:24 he should have already known. See here -- same words are used.
9:3 God is "a consuming fire" that destroys people. Yes, and of course not one of them ever deserves it...
10:6 Here it says that Aaron died at Mosera, but in Numbers (Num.20:27-28), he is said to have died on Mount Hor. Hello again? "Moserah" seems to be a much broader region than a single mountain. It's like saying, "He died in Miami" and "he died in Florida".
10:12, 20 Should we fear God? See here.
10:16 Here is some good advice from God: "Circumcise the foreskin of your heart." Yes it is good advice. So what is SAB's problem? Is he too busy making jokes about genitalia to take seriously the spiritual metaphors of other cultures to whom he is being an intolerant bigot?
10:17 God "regardeth not persons." But God showed a high regard for several biblical personages. See here.
10:19 After God instructs the Israelites to mercilessly slaughter all the strangers that they encounter (Dt.7:2, 16), he tells them to "love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." See above.
10:20 Is it OK to "swear by his name?" See here.
12:2-3 God orders the destruction of all other places of worship. And once again, what is the problem, other than that SAB begs the question and assumes no religion is right?
12:27 "The blood of sacrifices shall be poured out ... and thou shalt eat the flesh." Isn't this the sort of thing that satanists are accused of doing? Yes. But to a false god. Hello?
12:32 God says that we shouldn't add to, or take away from, any of his commands. Why then don't modern Bible-believers stone to death blasphemers, sabbath breakers, and disobedient sons? See here.
13:3 God tries people to find out what is in their hearts, contrary to those Bible verses that claim that God knows the hearts of humans. See here.
13:1-5 Prophets and dreamers are to be executed if they say or dream the wrong things. Of course SAB also does not favor the execution of those who sell intelligence information to the enemy. It doesn't hurt anyone, leave them alone! Information can never hurt a fly.
13:6-10 If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tries to get you to worship another god, "thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death." If Bible-believers followed this one, they would have to kill many of their own family and friends. Problem is, SAB is still contextually ignorant.
13:12-16 If you hear of a city where another god is worshiped, then destroy everyone in the city (even the cattle) and burn it down. (Watch out Salt Lake!) Ditto.
14:1 Don't "make any baldness between your eyes for the dead." Shaving one's hair was a type of mourning in the ANE. Because SAB is a contextual ignoramus, he just thinks it is funny.
14:7-8 Certain kinds of animals are not to be eaten. See here.
14:7 This verse mistakenly says that the hare chews its cud. See here.
14:9-10 Don't eat any seafood unless it has fins and scales. Oysters, clams, crabs, and lobsters are "unclean" and shouldn't be eaten. See link above.
14:11, 18 To the biblical God, a bat is just an another unclean bird. See here.
14:19 "Every creeping thing that flieth is unclean unto you." But Lev.11:21 says that some flying creeping things (the ones with four legs!) are OK. And the problem is, what? On the legs see here. Otherwise SAB is playing on our modern distastes and not the realities of ANE dietary options.
14:21 Don't eat any dead animals that you find lying around. But it's okay to give it to strangers or sell it to foreigners. Yes, and so what? There are "gourmets" who eat roadkill today and in the ANE even a dead animal was considered a welcome meal. And, just in case you were getting ready to, don't boil a kid (young goat) is its mother's milk. SAB may not be planning it, but it was a known ritual of the pagans of the time. As elsewhere he just assumes it is a joke because he hasn't got the social knowledge to know better.
15:4 This verse discusses a time when there will be "no poor among you." Yet just a few verses later (15:11) God says, "for the poor shall never cease out of this land." Uh, hello? The verse says, "For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." he word "cease" means leave -- the poor will never leave the land, so keep helping them. It's like someone saying today, "Poverty in our city is not going to go away."
15:7-8 Help the poor. He likes it.
15:12-17 Instructions for buying your brother. A merciful action in this period -- if SAB wants to whine about slavery: see here.
16:3 How many days are we supposed to eat unleavened bread during the passover? Six or seven days? See here.
16:16 Three times a year all of the males are to appear before God. But the females he never wants to see. Hard luck on them not to be required to make the difficult travel in dangerous conditions, eh?
17:1 Don't sacrifice any animal with a blemish to God -- he is very picky! Let's see SAB get a steak with mold on it in a restaurant and see if he accepts it graciously. Or is he picky?
17:2-7 Kill everyone who has religious beliefs that are different from your own. Same begged question/argument by outrage from someone who thinks all religions are equally false.
17:12-13 Anyone who will not listen to a priest or a judge must be executed. Hardly questionable, in light of that society at this time was constantly on the verge of chaos. It's much easier for SAB to demand mercy from his air-conditioned room and his La-Z-Boy.
18:10 Does God approve of human sacrifices? See here.
18:10-12 Wizards, witches, astrologers, and new age folks are all "an abomination unto the Lord." Yes, and the problem is, what? Looks like SAB has no problem with these guys leading others to eternal death.
18:20 False prophets are to be (you guessed it) executed. How do you know who is a false prophet? By whether or not their predictions come true. Yes, and once again, the problem? It's the same: since SAB thinks all religion is false...
19:11-13, 18-21 Murderers and perjurers are to be executed -- "and thine eye shall not pity" them. Still hardly questionable in an age when society was always on the brink.
19:14 "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbors landmark" (?) It's a property boundary marker in the ancient world. See how educated SAB is?
19:15 Jehovah's Witnesses use this verse that's their problem.
20:4 God travels with people and fights in their wars. Yes, and the problem is, what? Is it the old canard against the miraculous? Or would SAB have forbidden God to help at Pearl Harbor?
20:13-15 In the cities that god "delivers into thine hands" you must kill all the males (including old men, boys, and babies) with "the edge of the sword .... But the women ... shalt thou take unto yourself." Very merciful, actually, in this day and age. See here. Also CAA.
20:16 "But of the cities ... which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Kill the old men and women, the sick and the dying, the blind and the lame, pregnant mothers, nursing mothers, infants, toddlers, and babies. CAA.
20:19 In this verse, the Israelites are told not to destroy the trees (They are only supposed to kill things that breath). But in 2 Kg.3:19 god tells them to cut down all of the trees. Actually 20:19 says not to cut down trees you can eat from -- and permits cutting down all others. And it's also specific instructions during a siege.
21:1-8 If you find a dead body and don't know the cause of death, then get all the elders together, cut off the head of a heifer, wash your hands over its body, and say our hands have not shed this blood. (That'll do it!) So might someone years removed and in a different society say of our own judicial penalties and practices, the bigots. See here to grasp the principles involved.
21:11-14 If you see a pretty woman among the captives and would like her for a wife, then just bring her home and "go in unto her." Later, if you decide you don't like her, you can "let her go." Yes, a very merciful action, again, in this time. The problem is?
21:15 Rules for those who have two wives: "one beloved, and another hated." Presumably SAB would rather than unmarried women in this period starve. Maybe he thinks they could have gotten jobs from the secretarial pool. See here.
21:18-21 If you have a "stubborn and rebellious son," then you and the other men in your neighborhood "shall stone him with stones that he die." See here.
21:22 Hang on trees the bodies of those who are "accursed of God." They make nice decorations. Other than SAB's weenie attitude towards such things, the problem is what? This is the kind of person who thinks it's an argument against the death penalty to point out about the smell of singed hair.
22:1-4 Look out after your brother's animals and protect them from harm. He likes it.
22:5 Women are not to wear men's clothing -- it's an "abomination unto the Lord." Oh -- wouldn't want to violate SAB's hobby. Once again see here to grasp how the ancients looked at boundaries in the world -- a lesson we may learn soon enough.
22:10-12 "Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together" or wear wool and linen together in the same garment. But "thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture." See link just above for a why. SAB the Bigot has no grasp on the importance of such things to the ancients.
22:13-21 If a man marries, then decides that he hates his wife, he can claim she wasn't a virgin when they were married. If her father can't produce the "tokens of her virginity" (bloody sheets), then the woman is to be stoned to death at her father's doorstep. See my discussion with another anachronistic bigot, Brooks Trubee.
22:22 "If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die." If SAB lived in a world on the verge of chaos like the ancient world, he might see the need for such penalties as well.
22:23-24 If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn't cry out loud enough, then "the men of the city shall stone her to death." It does not say "loud enough" it says at all and says nothing about it being rape -- the implication of her keeping quiet is that she was a willing participant.
22:28-29 If a man rapes an unbetrothed virgin, he must pay her father 50 shekels of silver and then marry her. A solution these people would have wanted -- see my discussion here plus here and this item.
22:30 "A man shall not take his father's wife, nor discover his father's skirt." Oh. SAB approves of sex with one's own stepmother?
23:1 You can't go to church if your testicles are damaged or your penis has been cut off. See here.
23:2 God won't let bastards attend church. Neither can the sons or daughters of bastards "even to the tenth generation." So if you plan to attend church next Sunday be ready to prove that your genitals are intact and don't forget your birth certificate and genealogical records for at least the last ten generations. Don't laugh. This stuff is important to God. SAB's rampant miseducation is far more amusing. See link above, plus remember this and that SAB is a bigot with no conception of ancient perceptions of ritual purity.
23:3, 6 No Moabite will ever be allowed into the congregation of the Lord. But Ruth was a Moabite and she not only entered "the congregation of the Lord," but was also an ancestor of David and Jesus. (Ru.1:4, 4:12, 17) See here plus here.
23:7 In this verse, God tells the Israelites to be kind to the Edomites. But in 2 Kings, Joash is praised for killing 10,000 Edomites, and throughout Obadiah God orders the destruction of Edom. It says not to loathe or detest an Edomite -- since when does this mean not going to war with them, especially when they attack? Hello?
23:10 God lays down the law regarding wet dreams. "If there be among you any man that is not clean by reason of uncleanness that chanceth him by night ..." SAB needs the law laid down yet again on ancient conceptions of purity.
23:12-14 God gives us instructions for defecating. He says to carefully cover up all feces "for the Lord walketh in the midst of thy camp." See again here.
23:17-18: God says not be bring any whore, sodomite, or dog into the house of the Lord. For "these things are an abomination to the Lord." Sodomites and dogs are biblical names for homosexuals. Actually, no -- these are biblical names for male temple prostitutes.
23:20 "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury." And why not? Money that leaves the country is accruing interest elsewhere. Hello, this is sound economic principle!
23:21 God says that vows are binding, but vows are forbidden in the New Testament. See here.
24:1-4 If a man marries a woman and later finds "some uncleanness in her," then he can divorce her and kick her out of his house. If another man marries her and then dies, the first husband cannot marry her again. "For that is an abomination before the Lord." See here, relevant section. Once again SAB ignores the cultural context.
24:9 "Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Miriam." (He struck her with leprosy for rightly accusing Moses of breaking God's laws regarding marriage [Num.12:10]). Miriam did no such thing. God's law had not been announced when Moses married his wife; it was a matter of not marrying within a kinship group.
24:16 This verse says that sons are not punished for the sins of their fathers. But elsewhere in the Bible it is clearly stated that sons are punished for their fathers' sins. See here.
25:5 If a man dies before his wife has a child, then the widow must marry her husband's brother -- whether she likes him or not, and whether she wants to or not. "Likes" are of no relevance when it comes down to pure survival, which is what this was all about -- keeping a family going so that a widow would not become destitute and suffer.
25:5-10 If a man dies without having a child, his brother shall "go in unto" his dead brother's wife. If he refuses, the dead man's wife is to loosen his shoe and spit in his face. See above. SAB's complaint-talk is cheap in an age of a 7-11 on every corner.
25:11-12 If two men fight and the wife of one grabs the "secrets" of the other, "then thou shalt cut off her hand" and "thy eye shall not pity her." See here.
25:19 God commands the Israelites to "blot out the rembrance of Amalek from under heaven." A few hundred years later God orders Saul to kill of the Amalekites "both man and woman, infant and suckling." (1 Sam.15:2-3) See here.
27:15 "Cursed be the man that maketh any graven image." Why then did God insist that graven images be made in Ex.25:18 and Num.21:8. "An abomination unto the Lord is the work of the craftsman." See here.
27:17 "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark: And all the people shall say, Amen." For the next few SAB basically repeats all the Deuteronomic curses as though the "problem" were obvious. We will skip these as repetitive, other than a few notes.
28:23 "And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron." Figure of speech for, no rain.
29:5 The shoes and clothing of the Israelites didn't wear out even after wandering in the wilderness for forty years. They just don't make them like they used to! Nope. No miracle producers, but plenty of anti-miracle bigotry and begged questions.
29:20 God, in his jealousy, "will not spare him and will smite him with "all the curses that are in this book." Mere argument by outrage.
30:6 God will circumcise your heart and "the heart of thy seed." SAB still does not appreciate the spiritual metaphors of other cultures, the bigot.
30:14 Misquoted in Rom.10:8. What SAB calls "misquoting" is normal Jewish exegetical method -- see here -- and normal for antiquity when quotations were done by memory and were seldom exact.
31:1-2 SAB makes a sexual joke out of this one that deserves no attention.
31:3 Moses tells the people that God will destroy all the inhabitants of the lands that they pass through. It seems God hates everyone except for his "chosen" people (and he doesn't like them too much, either). Still just argument by outrage.
31:3-6 God promises to "destroy these nations before thee." But he didn't fulfill his promise. See above on Land Promise.
31:12, 13 Should we fear God? See here.
32:21-26 When God gets mad -- watch out! He'll starve you to death, burn you with fire, and send vicious beasts to devour you. He'll "destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." Not even the helpless and innocent are spared by this psychotic God. I wonder if SAB thinks the police and the justice system are "psychotic" for justly punishing all those poor innocent convicts...get the begged question?
32:33 "Their wine is the poison of dragons." I wonder what genus and species the bible is referring to when it mentions dragons. It is referring to serpents, not the dragons the KJV figured it was. Meanwhile SAB is Enormicus idioticus like in the Road Runner cartoons.
32:35 God says, "To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense ... for the day of their destruction is at hand." God's attitude seems to be: "Go ahead, make my day." That's the "attitude" of all justice systems throughout history. They say they're in charge and SAB astill begs the question.
32:36 God will repent. Or will he? See here.
32:39 God says "there is no god with me." But many other verses imply that there is more than one god. See here and ignore the JW bit.
32:39-43 God says, "I kill ... I wound ... I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh." Someone should take his sword and arrows away, at least until he's feeling better. "Someone should take away that electric chair until the state feels better and stops executing innocent murderers..." SAB may also want to say the same to folks like the Egyptian Pharaohs who had plenty of inscriptions with similar trash talk that the weenie SAB can't handle.
33:17 Joseph's "horns are like the horns of a unicorn." That's good to know. All figures of speech are good to know, bigotry or no bigotry.
34:5 Moses, the alleged author of the Pentateuch, describes his own death and burial. "Author" in the ancient world didn't mean you had to write it down yourself -- you could be only the authority who commanded others to write it. And nothing prevents a scribe from including such an addendum after Moses' death.
34:7 At the age of 120, Moses is still as spry as ever. According to Dt.31:2 he could no longer "go out and come in," which seems like a significant handicap. The figure of speech would suggest it, as in Solomon saying in Chronicles, "Give me now wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people: for who can judge this thy people, that is so great?" Despite SAB's guttery mind, it isn't sexual innuendo but a matter of leadership.
34:10 Moses know God "face to face." But this is contradicted by many Bible verses that say that now one has ever seen God. See here.