How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

After getting several reactions like this, the two fellows remove the paper cover jacket from the book. Though the jacket said “Holy Qur’an,” the book they had been reading from was actually a different book, a Holy Bible. The verses people had been listening to were being read from the Bible, not the Qur’an. The responses are fascinating to watch. They vary from a shocked “What the #$?” to a stunned “Seriously?” to “That is really unbelievable. That is sick, that’s really sick,” and my favorite—perhaps most revealing of all—“Of course I heard Bible stories when I was young, but I really had no idea this was in there.” Most of the people who weren’t raised in a Christian home weren’t aware of some of the violence contained in the Bible. They thought of it as a book filled with good stories and happy things you could teach children. But even those who were raised in a Christian home or taught the Christian faith seemed to be unaware of the violence. I’m frequently surprised by the number of people who say, “I had no idea this was in there.”