Quote:
Originally Posted by balok
Firstly, anyone who has actually read the bible will note that scenes of murder, incest and infanticide are very infrequent considering the sheer volume of literature included (in the case of "torture," I have never noticed any such scenes). Secondly, these "scenes" are actually brief accounts of regrettable events with little or no description. It would be simply unfair to qualify the bible as a violent book.
Clearly, that is not the purpose of censorship.
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How exactly is it "clear" what the "purpose" of censorship is?
Secondly, have a look at the story where the other 11 tribes
first nearly wipe out the tribe of (benjamin?), and then "
remember" that there
should be 12 tribes, so they kidnap whole tribes of women to be "impregnated" by them. This story contains a fairly gruesome group rape, the cutting up of that woman to send out as "reminders", and then first near-genocide, and afterwards yet another episode of massive kidnapping. While the passages may be eloquently worded or not is a secondary (translation) issue, but they're definitely not "neutral accounts" in any meaningful sense of the word. (alternatively, look at what all the 'favored by god' second (jealous) sons do.)
These scenes are not at all infrequent, they're just usually skipped in "bible reading" sessions. (And yes, the stories might be meant as reminders to
not do these things, but then how do you explain the ending?)
"Length" or "frequency" are not valid arguments against "judging" a book. Whether stories are presented as endorsed or not might be, but that's where the bible gets into major trouble.
Anyway, I'm not interested in starting a discussion on the relative merits of this piece of literature, but I don't appreciate it when people whitewash the bad stuff by saying "but hey, He died for us in the end".