Christianity didn’t flow out of Judaism

By John Draper ~

It was stapled on by the Church—and ham-handedly.

I came to this realization the other day when I was busy arguing with myself on Facebook—my former self, my mid-20s Sold-Out-for-Jesus self. These young evangelicals and I were discussing my post No one has a personal relationship with God. I was trying to get them to see that the “relationship” they had with God was nothing special. It’s the same thing all devoted religious people have. In fact, what they call a “relationship with God” is just what nonbelievers call life. So when an evangelical says, “God has given me a peace about this decision,” a nonbeliever just calls it “gut instinct.”

Of course, they couldn’t process that.

So they grilled me. How could I say Christianity was just like all the other religions? Didn’t I realize that other religions are people reaching up to God—whereas Christianity is God reaching down to humans? As they went on, I couldn’t help but see myself in college, going up to people cold with Campus Crusade for Christ to “share” the Four Spiritual Laws.

This got them going on about how Jesus perfectly fulfilled Old Testament prophecies—in particular Isaiah 53, which talks about the “Suffering Servant.” How could I not see that that is talking about Jesus? It’s as plain as the nose on your face.

I get it. I was them when I was their age. That the Old Covenant perfectly segued into the New Covenant seemed self-evident. It was silly to say otherwise. (In fact, I would use part of Isaiah 53—we all like sheep have gone astray and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all—when sharing the Four Spiritual Laws with Campus Crusade.)

Here’s a slice of Isaiah 53 that is critical to Christians:

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.

When you’re a Christian and you read something like that, it’s nearly impossible to unread it. It’s so obviously Jesus!

Nearly impossible. I’ve trained my brain to spot baloney from believers.

First off, Isaiah 53 clearly is not about the Messiah. It’s about Israel. Read the context. Specifically, read Isaiah 52, 53 and 54 together, and you’ll see this. The servant is Israel.

A Christian’s best position, then, would be to admit that the passage is in fact about Israel but that there is second hidden meaning that is about Jesus.

The other Old Testament “references” to Christ are the same way. They make sense only as referring to Jesus in light of his life and death, which obviously the Jews knew nothing about. Read the passage where Abraham takes Isaac up a mountain to plunge a knife into his gut, as instructed by God. As they’re ascending, Isaac asks where the sacrifice is—and Abraham says, “God will provide the lamb.”

Ah ha! Christians say.

Thing is, you need to be wearing your Christian decoder ring to spot things like that.

Which makes you wonder, Why would God hide these messianic references from the Jews? If the sacrifice of a suffering Messiah was so critical to God’s plan—Christians will tell you it was the whole point of Judaism—you would think He would have made sure the Jews understood it. As it is, it looks like God botched the plan of redemption. He left His Chosen People out in the cold.

Sorry, guys. My bad!

The Jews studied the Hebrew scriptures diligently and devotedly, looking for any clue about the Messiah. In so doing, they built a popular expectation that the Messiah would be the God-sent king who would sit on the throne in the Kingdom of God in Jerusalem. The idea of a suffering Messiah was stupid. The Messiah was going to rule.

If Christianity did indeed flow out of Judaism, then the Jews would have naturally become Christians. Makes sense. But what we see is that the God of Christianity pulled a bait and switch on the Jews. He allowed the Jews to get a completely incorrect picture of what the Messiah would be. They didn’t see the hidden clues because they were . . . hidden.

There’s no way around it. If modern-day Christianity truly was from God, He did an awfully crappy job of laying the groundwork for it. At least if you’re a Jew. (Meanwhile, if you’re on the Winning Team, you give Him an A+.)

I think what’s more likely is that the early Christians who came to believe in the idea of a suffering Messiah searched their scriptures—what Christians call the Old Testament—looking and looking for verses that supported their case. And—whattayaknow?—they found them.

Also, they knew these passages intimately and made sure the stories of Jesus’ life and death lined up. Make sure someone pierces him! And have him say nothing when he’s in front of the Sanhedrin! Think about it. The only reason we know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, for example, is that the gospel authors claim it. There are no other sources.

Am I saying the early Christians lied? Well, yes. They probably found ways to rationalize it. Who’s to say he WASN’T born in Bethlehem? The important thing is that people get saved! Christians lie all the time. Have you not watched Benny Hinn lately?

Bottom line, Jesus failed. Judaism may well be true. The Messiah may yet come. Who’s to say? Until then, though, I’m laying my bet that both religions are just wishful thinking: We’re God’s People!

Truth is, God doesn’t have A People.

Process that.

Love Is Not Christian - It Is Human

By Fernando Alcántar ~

I’m sorry. I used to challenge the veracity of your love and doubted your understanding of it on a regular basis. I believed you didn’t really know love, or understand the fullness of love, because you didn’t know Christ like I did. At times, I’ll admit, I wondered if that hurt you—but to be honest, at times I also hoped it did. I figured that if you felt that way than somehow that would discomfort you enough into seeking what I considered to be the source of true love—Jesus.

But, I also did it for selfish reasons. I boasted of some proprietary rights on love because I considered that to be my greatest evidence toward the existence of an invisible being. That feeling inside my chest was really the one true “tangible” piece of truth I could sort of really hold on to. Let’s face it, not much else can truly be proven between Genesis and Revelation.

1 John 4:8 reads, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” This theme is narrated and strongly pushed forward at most Christian assemblies. They’ll preach and sing that, “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love.” The most quoted bible verse of all time reads, “For God so loved the world…”. This persistent focus on the love of god made me and other Christians believe a number of things:

1. That we had proprietary rights on love because our god gave it to us
2. That we possessed a moral high ground because we truly knew love
3. That any love outside of Jesus’ love is inferior
4. That real love outside of Jesus’ was impossible
5. That anyone who wants to experience true love must convert to Christianity

This produced an arrogance over our ironclad hold on love, but also a fragile faith on a lifeline connected to that hold. We saw non-Christians as eternally incomplete, and our emotional mechanism overworking itself as it tried to compensate for lack of evidence to our faith.

The more scientific discovery tried to convince me to listen to my mind, the more I made an intentional decision to quiet my thoughts and “only listen to my heart” because that’s where “god spoke to me.” You see, when life got hard, that’s when I struggled most to see evidence of my god’s existence. Facts were troubling and they were debilitating. But love had always been, though at seasons rare, able to lift me and give me a second wind on faith.

So I preached love as a tool to win an argument, and also as a way to maintain myself in this hope of a better life. When I testified of “Jesus’ love” I was holding on to a rope hoping that my public declaration of faith would lift me off the cliff of doubt I was in. I built my support system so strongly around it that the mere thought of losing it felt like a threat to my very existence.

And I wasn’t alone. Sermons were preached every Sunday about it. Posts on social media flooded our timeline as we thanked Jesus for giving us love, blowing our own horns of a special connection with him—through love. And I constantly assured you that you wouldn’t know “true love” unless you converted to my religion—I mean—“relationship.” At times I said that I respected all religions, or lack their of, but in reality I was preaching my faith with a pretense of respect for diversity.

But this public display of understanding of love only powerfully furthered a bias towards people who don’t ally with such belief—not just for atheists; but for Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and other members of the human family. This belief further promoted stereotypes and prejudice against those who believed differently because if ‘God is love,’ and ‘Jesus loves you,’ than if you are not a Christian you must not know true love or how to truly love. But I didn’t see that then.

I understand that some people use religious belief to further their value and love for humanity—I’ll take that any day over the atrocities done in the name of deities every day. But there is a point to be made about the virtue of being able to have such value and love for humanity, not because a deity told us to, but because it grew naturally from our connection to each other as members of this family floating around the universe in a pale little cosmic rock.

If someone chooses to believe their love comes from a creator—that is their choice and they have every right to make that choice. But human history has shown us that we don’t need gods to act in love or hate, though often religion will intensify both of these. Furthermore, breaking from the belief that love can exist just as powerfully and real outside of Christianity is threatening to Christian belief because:

1.  It supports the troubling hypothesis that a belief in Jesus is nothing more than a preference (as preferring red over blue) and NOT evidence for a creator
2. If non-Christians can love just like they do, they lose their upper hand and claim on morality
3. It would bring a weakening unbalance to the emotional health many Christians are holding on to dear life

Believing in an all-powerful god who sent his one and only son to die for the sins of humanity is a beautiful story. It really can be inspiring in the voice of a powerful speaker. Christians admit that they’d rather believe they are the creation of a loving deity than the result of some “cosmic accident.” But preference doesn’t produce causality. Choosing to believe we arrived at work riding a magic carpet than by taking the bus may be uplifting. Fantasy is certainly more alluring and awe-inspiring, but it doesn’t make it real--quite the opposite. The fact that love and value for humanity exist just as greatly outside of belief in Jesus only strengthens the challenge that you do not need such belief to love or to value people.

As human beings we do need beautiful stories. It’s called inspiration and we need that as motivation. But I also feel it is beautiful to ponder that of billions of solar systems, and an even greater number of planets, we were the astoundingly lucky ones who got a crack at life. And not just life, but a diverse, colorful, and complex one at it.

I now value people because they hold me when I cry, because they cheer for me when I win, and because they give me a second chance when I fail. I hope my value and love for humanity is judged by my ability to do the same for another, and not over my preference of belief in a mystical source. Love is not Christian, it is human. Let’s act like it.

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Fernando Alcántar is a former evangelical missionary leader, now a gay atheist activist, and author of 'To the Cross and Back: An Immigrant's Journey from Faith to Reason," now available on audiobook. You can read more of his blogs on gospelofreason.com.

Judeo-Christian Absolute Values

By Carl S ~

A friend of mine, Wizened Sage, asked me to submit my response to a commentary that appeared in a weekly newspaper on Oct. 19. I spent over three hours that night (finished at 2:15 a.m.) composing this letter. I was very reluctant to write it, but even more compelled to respond. It was published on Oct. 26.

In essence: The guest commentator described himself as “Christian, fundamentalist in faith, with conservative values,” and is very upset, most likely as a result of believing those “war on Christianity” fear tactics his fundamentalist leaders have been propagating for decades.

He blames “the Supreme Court's church-state separation decision of the 1940's,” plus the ongoing removal of crosses, nativity scenes, the ten commandments (all on public property), the removal of prayers and bible readings from public schools, etc., as reasons for a breakdown in our “moral values,” and the reason why we have public massacres! He asks, “What has been the effect of the attack on the Judeo-Christian ethic that has been the foundation of America's value system for over two centuries?” Really? (Between you and me, I think publicly displayed crosses, including those on steeples, should be turned into crucifixes. It's time to change the public's perception of them.)

He condemns the “significant population who challenge every aspect of Judeo-Christian moral absolutes,” maintaining there can be no American morality without them. Then, he somewhat sums up with: “In the beginning,” from Genesis, as “the basis for the validity of everything that follows in the bible,” and therefore, “it follows,” we would not have rights, since only his biblical Creator endows us with those unalienable rights. This is my humanist response:

In “Another View” of Oct. 19, guest columnist …, tells us “America must return to Judeo-Christian moral absolutes.” “Absolutes” is a loaded word; absolutes are responsible for much misery and death in human history. Absolute moral convictions drive all religious persecutions and wars, the Crusades, Inquisition, denials of equal rights, and in our times, the 9/11 “martyrs” and ISIS. Absolutes propelled the Holocaust and the terrors and deaths that came of Communist ideology. For decades now, I've noticed the literature of evangelicals is dedicated to “returning” our country to their special interpretation of absolute moral values. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother replying to Another View.

The author begins with listing examples of “absolutely senseless violence,” in our country, attributing them to a “ lost sight of its values.” Have you noticed: for every single killer there are hundreds, even thousands, of good people who show up to help and comfort the survivors? That is only one of our values. Some people take advantage of our tragic mass casualties as examples of what happens as a result of removing crosses on public lands, prayers in public schools, nativity scenes on public land, ten commandment monuments, etc. These “effects” the author claims, are “attacks on the Judeo-Christian ethic that have been the foundation of America's value system for over two centuries.” Not true. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are founded on the rights of the individual citizen. America's value system resides with We the People and in those documents. Those rights are not found in Judeo-Christian absolutes.

Yes, our country had prayers in public schools, and bible readings, too. This was wrong, since the first amendment disallows government favoritism of any religion. There's one good reason for this. Whenever political power is wed with religion, there is repression and inequality. (Notice: those Christian protesters do not endorse Islamic, Judaic, or Buddhist scriptural readings and prayers in our public schools, or their symbols on taxpayer paid properties. This would also be unconstitutional.)

If we learn anything, it should be that displaying religious symbols, saying public prayers, and preaching, do not make us moral. We don't really need scriptures and churches to be kind, caring, compassionate, non-judgmental and ethical. And if religious spokesmen did their moral duties, there would have been no KKK, slavery, lynchings, denials of human rights, the right to vote, no beatings of gays, etc., in our history. Those, unfortunately, took place all the while prayers were said in school. Where are the massed protesting voices of the spokesmen of God when the president and governor deny essential health care to “the least of our brethren?” (Why did 81% of evangelicals vote for an amoral man for president?) There is no denial of religious rights in our country, but there is a rebellion, initiated by the Founders, to keep any one religion or sect thereof from dominating our nation.

I'm beginning to understand the fears of the Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. Societies are changing. Diversity is good, but diversity is a threat to any deeply-held traditional values. Also, if we are to put ourselves into their shoes, we need to understand something. The biblical God has a habit of punishing the good people, including children, for the “sins” of the real and perceived perpetrators. Ergo, those punishments would extend to our nation. Most people are unwilling to see God that way.

Lastly, the author quotes from the opening phrase of Genesis; “In the beginning...”, telling us “This phrase becomes the basis of everything that follows in the bible.” It follows, though, the words “in the beginning” are very telling. We know that whoever wrote them was literate and capable of writing. It follows that the author was not, could not have been, present to witness the beginning. And so, he was inventing, and therefore, everything that followed those words was likewise invented.

Nothing They Told Us Was Actually the Truth

By Karen Garst ~

I started challenging myths when I was about twelve years old. That’s right! I was a young skeptic, very young. Being raised in a religious cult can do that to a kid. Through the lottery of birth, I started my life in a family of religious zealots. You might say that I was forced to hit the ground running. We don’t get to pick our parents. Mine were total outliers. Thus, I grew up living in a closed society. When I was eighteen, I left home with a small bag of personal belongings and little else. I was attempting to find my place in the civilian world. The decision to leave the church ended with my excommunication from the family. So, with no money, no family, no friends, no job, no world experience, no car, and no driver’s license, I was soon sorely tested by the great, big, unpredictable world.

Of course, I’d been told that Satan ran the world!

Sometimes, it actually did seem like evil prevailed, but I wanted to stick my big toe into the civilian waters at whatever cost to my never dying soul. I turned my back on the church and thus my father’s god, a very domineering god who promised a burning hell to those like myself that refused to comply with his wishes. This isn’t a totally unique American tale, but there was one thing that made my experience with an extremist religion a bit different. My father believed that he’d been chosen, handpicked by god if you will, to be the final prophet of the last day and age. He didn’t just believe that sinners were sinners, he also believed that most Christians were sinners. He claimed that the actual voice of his god had revealed all of this to him. He’d been personally chosen to restore the truth, the holy truth that had been virtually lost from the face of the earth.

Now that’s a mighty tall order for one mortal man and his family to bear, but my father seemed to relish it. Little by little, he cut his ties with every church he attended. It might be fairer to say that most churches were relieved to see him go. Finally, it boiled down to just me, my two brothers, three sisters, and my mom. We were it. Yet, he wasn’t deterred. He carried on by himself, hearing the voice of god every day of his life.  That’s right! God told my father a lot of stuff. He promised him that if he was faithful that he’d deliver unto him a million followers before Jesus returned to rapture them all. He promised that he wouldn’t die, but instead, would one day in the near future be swept into the heavens by the angels — just in the nick of time. As soon as he and his followers were gone, god would pour out his wrath upon the earth and the scores and scores of miserable sinners left behind to suffer.

Little by little, his god began to reveal all kinds of things that needed fixing.

It turned out that my mom, sisters and I needed lots of fixing. Over the course of about five years, we had a complete godly makeover. Slacks, shorts, and swimsuits were put away for good. Hair was never cut again. Dresses were lengthened. Makeup and jewelry discarded. Dresses were lengthened again. Hair was pulled back into a bun at the nape of our necks. Dresses were lengthened again. Black stockings replaced flesh colored ones. Finally, we gave up color and the ultimate makeover was completed — long gray dresses to the ground, buttoned at the throat and wrists, a cape that fit over the bodice hiding our blooming figures, black stockings, and no accessories. Plain women who were shamefaced and modest was the goal. God, apparently, has no sense of fashion whatsoever and hated the sight of a woman’s body.

I experienced a lot of brutality growing up.

My father’s god was a vengeful deity that punishes on earth in addition to after death if he doesn’t receive total compliance. Children apparently really piss god off. So, the belts, hair brushes, hands, and all manner of instruments of torture were wielded with complete confidence that, if done regularly, would save our childish sinful souls from eternal damnation. Anything that brought pleasure was suspect. In fact, pleasure and sin were synonymous. Life was very drab for a young girl who was told that there was no use in planning for her future because before she was twenty or thirty, well, soon, the world was going to end.  

My story is a long one.

It started with turning my back on god and my family and ended with eventually giving up on all gods. It was a process that didn’t happen quickly. For a long time, the church was in my head, hounding me with fear and trepidation. Every time something happened on the world scene, it seemed prophetic. I worried that the world was going to end and that I’d be left behind with the unbelievers to suffer untold anguish. Fortunately, I had always been extremely sensitive to the inconsistencies of my ultra-religious upbringing. My mind seemed to be hardwired to recognize contradictions. For that reason, becoming a lifelong myth buster may have been easier for me. That was an amazing stroke of good fortune considering the family that I’d been born into.

The most interesting thing that I learned after I left a closed society in search of my place in the civilian world was that the world at large also expected conformity.

That bothered me. I’d already had a bellyful of forced compliance to the extreme. The last thing that I wanted was to have to become a card-carrying member of any club. Thus, began my official career as a myth buster. Once I’d managed to debunk my religious upbringing, I went on to question many aspects of my culture. Incidentally, I didn’t get to choose where I’d reside once born either. Turns out there wasn’t a lot that I got to choose. I didn’t get to choose my gender, country, how my brain was wired, family, level of intelligence, genetic makeup, looks, and so much more. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with from the get go, I eventually discovered that all societies are built upon myths, fairy tales, and cultural expectations and that very few people are living a life they actually chose. People usually don’t realize the predicament they are in, but there’s a reason why most everyone lives out their existence pretty much like everyone else. We never knew we even had a choice.

Religion was a great place to begin my myth-busting career. It’s so absurd in all of it’s ridiculous forms that it literally screams to be challenged. Yet, many atheists haven’t exercised their myth-busting skills beyond the realm of religious fairy tales. Religion is just one of many culturally concocted myths promising a fairy tale ending if we’re fully compliant with the thousands of attached cultural expectations. All cultures have developed very detailed requirements of compliance and coercion. Belonging to the tribe comes with certain benefits but we sacrifice an enormous amount of personal autonomy as well. There are a thousand different ways to do something, many happening simultaneously all over the world, but humans tend to do it the same way over and over again. I contend that is to our great disadvantage.

Not only does compliance and conformity rob of us of getting to live a life of our choosing, but it discourages creativity and problem solving. Most people do things over and over in roughly the same fashion hoping for a different outcome. Yet, when a true nonconformist comes along with a creative idea, they are often resisted, even driven out of town. Fortunately, there are those who were born to question. And, they make all the difference.

If you’re a myth buster, too, congratulations.

The world needs us more than they’ll ever know. If you’ve managed to bust the myths surrounding religions, you’re already familiar with the skills needed to expose cultural limitations at large. Join me in the trade. There’s plenty of work for everyone.

I'm a myth buster. My recent published book -  Have We Been Screwed? Trading Freedom for Fairy Tales - can be purchased on Amazon. 

http://amzn.to/2wDEabD

 Check out Teresa's books on her website Creative Paths to Freedom

http://findingthegypsyinme.com/home-2/

VOTE BIBLE?

By Steven Dustcircle ~

On the way to the gym, I drive by this house that has a weird display.

For years, this rickety, little house has a weathering paint job, rusty vintage vehicles, and a roughly constructed wooden cross shoved into a hole in the ground. Across the crossbeam are crudely-painted, blue capital letters reading, VOTE BIBLE.

Perhaps—like myself—you've already mentally pictured the type of person that would do this. You've drawn him or her, or a couple and their kids, in your head. Like me, maybe you've put together their theology or how they would debate you considering religious matters. Maybe you've put together their voting patterns and maybe what kind of work they do, or what kind of health they are in.

I mean, really, what kind of person puts a homemade Etsy reject in the front of their property, to face a fairly busy street of traffic for everyone to see.

VOTE BIBLE

What does that even mean? Any theologian—and layman—would tell you that the Bible has varying degrees of different views and stances. This isn't only because of the mistakes and inconsistencies, but also because the Bible cover to cover isn't constructed as a guide for behavior (or how to vote!).

Most of the Bible is a collection of stories set in a supposed historical context. While some of the book is a collection of poetry, genealogies and letters, most of it is about people in one part of the world (in a period of 4000 years) behaving badly, claiming to be People of God. Within the Bible are sadly many instances of murder, incest, rape, child abuse, plural marriage, drunkenness and more. These tales, true or not, are passed off as how the forefathers of Judaism and eventually Christianity acted in history. Yes, the People of God.

What does that mean, to VOTE BIBLE?So, let's get back to that painted cross in my city. What does that mean, to VOTE BIBLE?

Vote for murder? Vote for child rape? Vote for slavery? Vote for pillaging foreigners' lands?

I doubt that this is the intent of the crafters at this particular residence. They probably mean to vote for “morality.” Vote for convictions. Vote for whichever candidate that claims to be the more robust Christian.

I assume that this is what they mean, but I am still quite embarrassed for them.

While I kind of see where they are coming from, the ignorance that they are displaying for the whole city to read is rather numbing. To try and show off how spiritual they are—how godly they are—they are instead making themselves look foolish.

Sure they think they might look like a beacon of light to those who don't know any better, but for those of us who have read and studied the actual Bible cover to cover—over long periods of time (and with other scholars)—they are showing nothing in boldness but their bare asses.

Alabama Conservatives are Right: Roy Moore’s Behavior is Perfectly Biblical

By Valerie Tarico ~

Conservative Christians often proclaim that the Quran encourages marriage and molestation of girls who are too young for consent. But it’s rare that they take to the airwaves proclaiming that the Bible does the same. By citing the Bible and Christian tradition in defense of Roy Moore, that is exactly what they have done. And their arguments have merit.

Moore is a former Alabama judge, now senate candidate, who believes emphatically that the Bible should take precedence over the U.S. constitution and American tradition of jurisprudence. He fought long and hard to keep his preferred version of the Ten Commandments—carved in stone—on display in the state supreme court. Moore boldly proclaims his allegiance to the Bible, citing verses at will. So, when he was accused recently of making unwanted sexual advances toward several young teens while a lawyer in his 30s, people accused him of hypocrisy. But if Moore’s only transgression was exploiting his greater age and status to seek sex or intimacy from teenagers, the accusation is unfair. Such behavior is perfectly biblical.

1. In the Bible, females are created for the benefit of males. A man’s right to expect that females will serve his needs and desires is established on literally Page 2 of the Bible, in the second creation story in the book of Genesis. In this version of creation, Eve is made from Adam’s rib to be his “helpmeet” because none of the other animals is a suitable companion and helper for him. The next chapter, the well-known serpent-and-“apple” story, reveals even more about how the writers and their culture view women. After Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge, God punishes Eve with a curse, saying: “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)

This brief passage distills three core components of Judeo-Christian attitudes toward women that persisted down through the rest of the Bible and through the words of Church fathers, and into many modern day pulpits: 1. Discomfort or pain women feel around sexuality and childbearing are inevitable, even morally proper. 2. Regardless, women really want it. 3. Men are in charge.

2. In the Bible, female consent is not a thing. The Bible talks about a lot of sexual couplings and marriages, and it gives a lot of options for the form that these relations can take—a man and a slave, a man and his brother’s wife, one man and two sisters, a man and hundreds of female concubines. Most of these can be found only in the Old Testament—the Bible shows clear evidence of cultural evolution over the centuries in which its texts were written—but nowhere in either the Old Testament or the New does a Bible writer communicate that a woman’s consent is needed before sex. (The Virgin Birth story itself reflects this moral-cultural nexus.)

On the contrary. Like livestock, children, and slaves, reproductive-age women are legal chattel—property of their male owners, who also own their reproductive capacity and the “fruits of their womb.” The sexual consent required is that of the male owner: Young women are given by their fathers in marriage; sold, when necessary, into slavery; and taken as war booty. The New Testament accommodates evolving social mores, but it never condemns or reverses this arrangement, and wives, like slaves, are encouraged to submit to those God has rightfully placed in positions of power over them. 

3. Unwanted sexual contact in the Bible is a violation not against a woman but against her male owner. Under Levitical law virginity is prized because when men know who has had sex with which females, they also know who fathered any offspring. Kin groups and family obligations are clear. By contrast, female fertility that isn’t regulated muddies things. A virgin who voluntarily has sex with a man, thus reducing her value as an economic asset, can be stoned. If she is raped against her will, her rapist can be forced to buy and keep the damaged goods as happens today under some forms of Sharia. In this worldview, Roy Moore may have come precariously close to violating the rights of the fathers of the young women he pursued, but that is not the accusation made against him, nor a question that his defenders have taken up.

4. In the Bible, young women are commonly given to older men. Modern Westerners decry child marriage, for very good reasons. We recognize children as autonomous beings with human rights of their own, but we also recognize that cognitive and emotional capacities develop gradually over years and with them, the capacity to provide full and free consent. Caregivers (and our legal system) try to give young people choices in keeping with their capabilities but we also protect them, knowing they are easily pressured or manipulated by people who are older and more powerful.

None of these concepts—human rights of children, cognitive development, full and free sexual consent—existed in the conceptual world of the Bible writers, rooted as they were in the Iron Age cultures of the Ancient Near East. Ignorance of child development, the legal status of women and children as chattel, and the view of female fertility as a family economic asset each incline families to swap female children for other goods as soon as they are sexually mature (or sometimes before).

The Bible story of the Midianite virgins, suggests that even pre-pubescent children could become sexual property. In a battle with the Midianites, Israelite warriors are commanded to kill all the male adults and children among their defeated enemies, and all the women “who have been with a man.” But God’s anointed messenger tells them to keep the virgin females for themselves and gives them instructions on how to ritually purify the girls before having sex with them. Presumably most of these girls would have been pre-pubescent (or they wouldn’t have been unmarried virgins.)

Even apart from this awful story, Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler pointed out that many biblical pairings are between older men and younger females:

He’s clean as a hound’s tooth. Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. . . . Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.

5. Christian tradition has long assumed that Mary was a young teen. The Catholic Encyclopedia, citing customs at the time, says that the Mary of the Virgin Birth story would have been as young as 13. Jewish tradition allows betrothal at the age of 12 and consummation at sexual maturity. Outside of sacramental mythology, a story about an uneducated human girl getting impregnated by a powerful alien being would disturb many people. That Zeigler saw this rapey story as a defense of Moore’s behavior, says something about the extraordinary moral and ethical exceptions our society makes for religion.

None of these concepts—human rights of children, cognitive development, full and free sexual consent—existed in the conceptual world of the Bible writers, rooted as they were in the Iron Age cultures of the Ancient Near East. 6. The Abrahamic sacred texts--the Quran and the Bible--largely agree on a God-given male-dominated gender hierarchy in which men can negotiate bodily rights to pubescent and prepubescent girls. Those Christians who find themselves appalled by Islam’s stories about the Prophet marrying multiple wives, one of whom is six years old at the time he acquires her—and those who are appalled more broadly by Islam’s subordination of women or the penchant of fundamentalist believers toward forcing young girls into marriage and killing females who transgress—would do well to remember this: The Quran contains little that is original. It derives from the same tribal shepherding culture that produced Judaism and Christianity, and much of it is explicitly derivative of the Bible itself.

You might be surprised by how hard it can be to tell the two books apart. (Try it here.)  The differences may be real and consequential, but so are the similarities. All Abrahamic texts, taken literally, anchor believers to the Iron Age—a time when men alone were created in the image of a god, and women were vessels and helpmeets, and God favored patriarchs who he blessed with lots of male offspring born to not only their wives but also concubines and handmaids.

The Bible contains fragments that are uplifting and beautiful—verses that record timeless wisdom and elevate humanity’s shared moral core. But that’s not all it contains. When it comes to relationships between woman and men, the contents of the Bible confront modern Jews and Christians with a difficult choice. Believers can treat the “Good Book” as the literal and perfect word of God or they can embrace an egalitarian view of men and women, one in which sexual intimacy is rooted in shared desire and consent. These two options are mutually exclusive, and people who say otherwise are engaged in a desperate attempt to protect the Bible from itself. Roy Moore has made his choice. You can call him disgusting, even vile, but don’t use the word hypocrite. Moore is living the script.