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

In the first five books of the Bible, God instructed Moses to write down the history of the origin of the Israelite people to teach them it was God who created everything, not the gods of Egypt or other gods. He was making it clear that he is the one true God, and the other gods and goddesses of Egypt were not to be believed or worshiped. He was giving the Israelites instruction for how to relate to each other and how to worship and relate to him. God wanted them to be holy, distinct from the people groups who lived around them. The word “holy” means set apart, separated, and kept away from the evil and false worship of the neighboring nations. God was concerned that they would be too easily influenced by the surrounding people groups and turn away from him to worship and follow other gods (which, sadly, they did at times despite God’s warnings). However, all these laws that God gave the Israelites were not intended to simply establish an ideal social system. It was God speaking into their ancient world and instructing them with codes of wisdom for them to know what living in the presence of God is like. So he used many things familiar to them in the ancient world, which are unfamiliar to us today.