by A.S.K. Joommal

            In Bible lessons we are taught that the Book of books is nothing but a God-inspired document. From pulpits the preachers have drummed it in our ears that the Holy Writ’s authenticity is beyond doubt and that every single sentence and every single word MUST be accepted as the pure Word of God. 

            Of course we would very much like to believe all this, but for one thing: REASON. The Almighty has distinguished man above the other creations of His by endowing him with reason. Man has been described as a rational being by philosophers. To place credulity above rationality is naïve. If the brain is not put to its proper function - that of THINKING, as the Almighty has intended – then one might as a well lead an animal or vegetable life. We have no right to call ourselves thinking, rational beings if in matters of faith (which is the most important aspect of human life) we divorce our intelligence and swallow every line of the Bible without investigating its veracity. 

            Faith is a necessary thing, and it is an integral part of man’s life on earth, but we must first know and understand in what our faith is vested. If the object of our faith has been exposed by scholarly research to be fallible, man-made, spurious and fabricated, and if our pet religious beliefs derived from this object have been exploded by analysis, then we must re-examine, re-assess our whole religious outlook and re-orientate ourselves spiritually in the light of what is true and what is false. 

            It is healthy to exercise one’s mind sometimes in life. Such an opportunity should never be missed! We give below a number of reasons which any normally intelligent and thinking person may advance for not placing his faith in, and credence on, the alleged genuineness of the Bible as “the Word of God.” 

1.         In the Old Testament we find several contradictory laws about the same thing, and contradictory accounts of the same occurrences. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus we find the first account of the giving of the Ten Commandments. In the 34^th chapter another account is given. These two accounts could never have been written by the same person. Read these two accounts and you will be forced to admit that one of them cannot be true. So there are two histories of the creation, of the flood, and of the manner in which Saul became king. 

2.         It is now admitted by Bible scholars that Genesis must have been written by at least two persons, and the parts written by each can be separated. When separated, they are found to contradict each other in many important particulars. 

3.         It taxes our credulity to read that God really wrestled with Jacob and put his thigh out of joint, and that for that reason the Jews refused to “eat the sinew that shrank”, as recounted in the 32^nd chapter of Genesis. 

4.         One can scarcely be blamed for hesitating to believe that God met Moses at an hotel and tried to kill him: that afterwards He made this same Moses a god to Pharaoh and gave him his brother Aaron for a prophet. (Exodus, 4:24 ; 7:1) 

5.         Is there a Christian missionary who could resist being amused if in any heathen country he had seen the following command of God carried out?: “And thou shalt take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram and take of his blood and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot.”  (Exodus, 29:19-20) 

6.         How can one ever believe that God threatened to destroy the Jews, but was dissuaded from taking this step by Moses who told him that the Egyptians might mock him!? “And the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people.” (Exodus, 32:14). In other words, Moses was much more sensible than God because he showed Him the error of His plan! 

7.         How does one reconcile the following two verses in Exodus?: 

In verse 11 of chapter 33 we read: “And the Lord spake unto Moses FACE TO FACE, AS A MAN SPEAKETH UNTO HIS FRIEND.” 

In the same chapter, nine verses later, it is written: “And He (God) said, Thou CANST NOT SEE MY FACE: for there shall NO MAN SEE ME, AND LIVE.” (33:20) Is God responsible for this inconsistency, or is this patent contradiction the “inspired” work of the writer of Exodus? 

8.         Why should God object to a man wearing a garment made of wool and linen? Why should He care whether a man rounded the corners of his beard? (Leviticus, 19:19,27). Why should God prevent a man from offering the sacred bread merely because he had a flat nose, or was lame, or had a broken foot, or was a dwarf? (Leviticus, 21:18-20). If He objected to such people, why did He create them in the first place? 

9.      No man in his right sense would ever accept that the ashes of a red heifer (burnt) are a purification for sin; that God gave cities into the hands of the Jews because they solemnly agreed to murder all the inhabitants; that God became enraged and induced snakes to bite His chosen people; that God told Balaam to go with the princes of Moab, and then became angry because he did go; that an ass saw an angel and conversed with a man. (Numbers, chapters 19-22)

10.       It is an insult to the human intelligence when we are asked to believe that a spear thrust through the “belly” of a woman ever stayed a plague. (Numbers, 25:8); that God ever commanded a man to kill his wife, his brother, his son, his daughter, or his bosom friend if they differed from him on matters of religion (Deuteronomy, 13:6-10); or that God was mistaken about hares chewing the cud (Deut. 14:7); or that He objected to the people raising horses (Deut. 17:16); or that He commanded widows to spit in the faces of their brothers-in-law (Deut. 25:9); or that He even threatened to give anybody the itch (Deut. 28:27). 

11.       Can any sane man believe that seven priests could blow seven rams’ horns loud enough to throw down the walls of a city?; or that God, after Achan had confessed that he had secreted a garment and a wedge of gold, became good-natured as soon as Achan and his sons and daughters, his oxen, asses and his sheep, had been stoned to death and their bodies burned? Must we believe that God sanctioned and commanded all the cruelties and horrors described in the Old Testament; that He waged the most relentless and heartless wars; that He declared mercy a crime, that to spare life was to excite His wrath; that He smiled when maidens were violated, laughed when mothers were ripped open with a sword, and shouted with joy when babes were butchered in their mothers arms? Read the infamous book of Joshua and then worship the God who inspired it – if you can! (Joshua, 6:4-20; 7:18-26; 6:4-13; 7:25; Deuteronomy, 20:13-14; 8:20-24; 20:15-17; 7:2; 7:16; 1 Samuel, 15:23; Jeremiah, 13:14; Ezekiel, 9:6; Judges, 21:10-24; Hosea, 13:16; Exodus, 13:15-16).  

12.       Is it not taxing the intelligence too much when we are asked to have faith in a God who had the power to stop the sun and the moon for Joshua, but could not defeat an army that had iron chariots?  (Judges, 1:19) 

13.       Do you really believe that men who lap water like a dog make the best soldiers? (Judges, 7:5). Do you think that a man could hold a lamp in his left hand, a trumpet in his right hand, blow his trumpet, shout “the sword of the Lord and of Gideon”, and break pitchers at the same time? (Judges, 7:20) 

14.       Who will believe that the Phillistines took back the Ark with a present of five gold mice, and that thereupon God relented? (1 Samuel, 6:4). Is it possible that God killed fifty thousand men for looking into a box? (1 Samuel, 6:19) 

15.       Must we believe, in order to be good and tender fathers and mothers, that because some “little children” mocked at an old man with a bald head, God – the same God who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me” – sent two she-bears out of the wood and tore forty-two of these babes? Think of the mothers that watched and waited for their children. Think of the wailing when their mangled bodies were found and brought back and pressed to the breasts of the weeping mothers! Would you call the God of the Bible a God of Mercy and Love?  (2 Kings, 2:23-24) 

16.       How can one believe that a prophet, by lying on a dead body, could make it sneeze seven times; or that being dipped seven times in the Jordan could cure the leprosy?   (2 Kings, Chapters 4-5) 

17.        Would a merciful God curse children, and the children’s children yet unborn, with leprosy for a father’s fault?  (2 Kings, 5:27) 

18.       Is it possible to make iron float in water? Is it believable that when a corpse touched another corpse, it came to life? (2 Kings, 6:6; 13:21) 

19.               Can you believe that Pekah slew one hundred and twenty thousand men in ONE day? (2 Chronicles, 28:6) 

20.               Does anyone believe that Zerah, the Ethiopian, invaded Palestine with a million men?

(2 Chronicles, 14:9). Did God ever secretly bury a man and allowed the corpse to write an account of the funeral?  (Deuteronomy. Chapter 34). Did God really tell someone that “Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her”? (Deuteronomy, 28:30)