We’ve all heard the following quote…
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press.
Christians and Jews have been quick to defend against this, but the truth is his claims aren’t baseless. Like it or not, there’s a bunch of disturbing texts contained within sacred scripture which people of faith have been struggling with since the beginning! Take one example of many:
3Now go and attack the Amalekites and completely destroy everything they have. Do not spare them. Kill men and women, infants and nursing babies, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.’ ”
1 Samuel 15:3 (CSB)
I have a deep conviction in the good and loving character of God and over the years have been deeply troubled by texts like the above that seem to call this into question. I’m by no means the only one for whom this is the case (hell, some have rejected the faith over this) so I created a group where people can wrestle with the disturbing parts of scripture in
It’s been a big success and we now have over 1,000 members (including a number of biblical scholars) from all over the world who regularly engage in stimulating dialogue and debate. You are very welcome to join us!
I regularly share resources with the group and recently decided we needed a place to catalogue it all. And so this website was born! Here you’ll find links to essays, videos, books, podcasts – you name it! My aim is to make this a one-stop shop for anything related to the disturbing parts of scripture. I endeavor to share resources from a variety of perspectives, including those I disagree with. I think it’s healthy to expose ourselves to other points of view!