Is Injustice in the Bible a Reason to Disbelieve?

The preceding five posts of this blog concern the Judeo-Christian Bible.  Perhaps that is too much, given the global existence of other religious and spiritual traditions.  The time I’ve spent on these posts reflects my own background as a Christian and the importance of the Bible in American culture.  The Bible itself is often cited by Christians as the ultimate authority on questions of religion, behavior and government without noticing the circular reasoning.  I concentrated on this topic, because, if the Bible is shown to be without moral or divine authority, then the religious conclusions drawn from Bible study are also void.

My posts on the Bible discussed various aspects of Biblical injustice: genocide; tribalism; divine extortion and intimidation; misogyny and sexism.  Indeed, these topics have barely scratched the surface of divinely administered injustice in the Bible.  There is the slaughter of innocent Egyptian children (Exodus), the slaughter of innocents in Sodom & Gomorrah and Noah’s Flood (Genesis), the disproportionate punishment of Lot’s wife, and disproportionate punishment of those condemned to eternal suffering in Hell (Matthew, Mark, Thessalonians, and Revelations).  The book of Job anticipates the plot of the movie “Trading Places”, where God and Satan have a wager about the consequences of ruining Job’s life.  The consequences of the wager include collateral damage: the death of Job’s children, servants and livestock.  Is there any regard for the lives of the innocents when God is punishing opponents or playing a game with Satan?  

Saint Paul writes in 2nd Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”  How can we say that the Bible is divinely inspired if it contains a single example of such injustice?  Indeed, the injustice is ubiquitous, spread throughout the Old and New Testaments, though, to be fair, the New Testament is generally less objectionable than the Old Testament.  To make sense of the Bible in terms of justice, we are forced to cherry-pick the best passages: justice for the down-trodden (Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3-12, Luke 6:20-22), love, (1st Corinthians 13), balance in life, (Ecclesiastes 3), and caring for the least of Jesus brothers (Matthew 25: 35-40).  But nearby or adjacent to these verses, we find some deep injustices.  If we hold the value of justice, we have to reject a divine origin for the Biblical texts.  The bad parts are flawed human injustice and the good parts are human wisdom.

You may have noticed that I did not list Psalm 23 or similar texts in my short list of “good verses”.  If you google “favorite bible verses”, you will find many, many verses promising God’s protection and comfort.  If these are comforting to people, why do I not consider them good verses?  It is because they aren’t true.  An earlier post on this site is called “Regarding the Power of Prayer, or Did the People on the Titanic Forget to Pray?”  Simply looking at the lives and deaths of other humans around us, it’s clear that there is no protection by God in this world.  Thus, the promises of God’s protection in the Bible are simply untrue, offering false complacency about the hazards of life.  

The Bible contains its own refutation as divinely inspired guidance for life.

Previous Posts on the Bible and Prayer
Sexism in the New Testament
https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2023/08/sexism-in-new-testament.html

Misogyny in the Old Testament; Deuteronomy 20 - 22, Numbers 5
https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/11/old-testament-rarely-heard-bible-verses.html

Tribalism in The Old Testament; Deuteronomy 7, 20, 21
https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-old-testament-rarely-heard-bible.html

The Protection Racket in the Old Testament; Leviticus 26
https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-old-testament-rarely-heard-bible.html

Religious Genocide in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 13
https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-old-testament-rarely-heard-bible_29.html

Regarding the Power of Prayer
https://sensibledisbelief.blogspot.com/2016/07/regarding-power-of-prayer-or-did-people.html

 

The Protection Racket in the Old Testament; Leviticus 26

The Protection Racket

Leviticus 26 1:13 promises good treatment to those who are faithful to God, while Leviticus 14:46 threatens punishment to those who are not faithful to God.  The essence of the passage is repeated in Deuteronomy 28.  

Leviticus 26

14 The Lord said, “If you will not obey my commands, you will be punished.

I will bring disaster on you—incurable diseases and fevers that will make you blind and cause your life to waste away. You will plant your crops, but it will do you no good, because your enemies will conquer you and eat what you have grown.

…

18 “If even after all of this you still do not obey me, I will increase your punishment seven times.

...

21 “If you still continue to resist me and refuse to obey me, I will again increase your punishment seven times. 22 I will send dangerous animals among you, and they will kill your children, destroy your livestock, and leave so few of you that your roads will be deserted.

23 “If after all of this punishment you still do not listen to me, but continue to defy me, 24 then I will turn on you and punish you seven times harder than before. 25 I will bring war on you to punish you for breaking our covenant, and if you gather in your cities for safety, I will send incurable diseases among you, and you will be forced to surrender to your enemies.

…

27 “If after all of this you still continue to defy me and refuse to obey me, 28 then in my anger I will turn on you and again make your punishment seven times worse than before. 29 Your hunger will be so great that you will eat your own children. 30 I will destroy your places of worship on the hills, tear down your incense altars, and throw your dead bodies on your fallen idols. In utter disgust 31 I will turn your cities into ruins, destroy your places of worship, and refuse to accept your sacrifices. 32 I will destroy your land so completely that the enemies who occupy it will be shocked at the destruction. 33 I will bring war on you and scatter you in foreign lands. Your land will be deserted, and your cities left in ruins.  [Good News Translation.]

 ---------

For those who are disobedient to God, in addition to other punishments, God will force the unfaithful to eat their children, due to starvation.  Really?  Is there no consideration for the innocence of children in God’s judgment?  Is this the same God of Love who is presented at church youth camp?  In these passages, God seems to have the character of a mafia “protection” boss, rather than the supreme being of love and ultimate goodness.  Extortion as a process for gaining love and devotion doesn’t seem very divine to me.

Martin Luther, founder of the Reformation, wrote: "If grace depends on our cooperation, then it is no longer grace" (1525. On Bondage of the Will).  And if the love of God depends on intimidation, it isn't love.