The Skeptics Annotated Bible
A Brief Introduction
Knowledge is power, as they say. However, knowledge without insight, context and understanding is just fact. In order to understand something fully, you have to think beyond the surface; look past what is front and center to see the full picture.
When it comes to the bible, most people of faith are not encouraged to read closely or think deeply about its contents. If you’re a believer, you’re inculcated to accept it as the word of your god, that it represents his will and plan, and never question beyond that. If you don’t accept that the christian god is real, you’re told you just need read the bible and to think harder about your convictions. Nice contradiction, eh?
As a side note, since most Atheists have a vested interest in countering spurious claims of fact on the part of devout religionists, it’s a fair bet your average Atheist knows their holy book better than they do. Since we don’t accept their claims of authorship as reality, it’s easier to see their ‘holy’ book for what it is — a series of ancient writings compiled (and revised) within the last thousand years or so, to cement a religious-political ideal as supreme over all else, which is full of contradictions and bad advice.
Thankfully, there exists a resource by which we can make the process of understanding a little easier, and it’s called The Skeptics Annotated Bible.
The website itself is a good resource if you’re out and about and just happen to get pestered by an annoying proselytizer. It’s also a good resource if you want to take a look at the written traditions of other faiths, like Islam or those wacky kooks out in Utah. The website also includes a section on the Apocrypha, books accepted in the Catholic Canon which are suspiciously (or not) absent from most protestant bibles. As an aside, I’m of the mind that calling any one particular bible THE bible is highly problematic considering how different is the accepted text from one tradition to another, or how many translations there are within a particular tradition itself.
For my home library, I prefer to have a physical copy on hand. It has a nice leather cover and a bookmark ribbon, so it’s not just something someone threw together on the cheap. As you can see below, a typical page is sectioned in two, with the inner half of the page the actual text of the bible (based on the KJV translation) and the outer half the reference section which gives context to various passages on the basis of a list of categories which can be found at an index in the front of the book.
The website categories themselves are as follows: Absurdity, Commandments, Injustice, Cruelty and Violence, Intolerance, Good Stuff, Contradictions, Science and History, Family Values, Interpretation, Women, Sex, Prophecy, Language, Boring Stuff, Homosexuality, Politics. The category wordings are a little different in the physical copy but the meaning is the same.
Having these categories available makes the process easier, as I mentioned before, but it can also make the process a bit more fun. What say we have a look at a handful of examples?
Since naive people are all about the toxic positivity, let’s kiss their asses for a moment and start with the ‘Good Stuff’ category. Obviously, the definition of ‘good’ is subjective where the bible is concerned, but if taken as pure philosophy, absent any supernatural bullshit, there is some wisdom to be gleaned therein. Take Proverbs 2:2, for instance.
Look at that, there’s a passage in the bible that advocates for the same things for which I, an Atheist, advocate: Wisdom and Understanding. As you can see by the passages before and after, however, the bible and I differ on the standards by which Wisdom and Understanding are to be measured. The bible limits the context to a very narrow view therein, as one can clearly see.
How about we next dive into the ‘Sex’ category? Sex is enjoyable, right…? It’s a natural part of life, yes…? Surprisingly, the bible (unlike the Evangelical world) agrees with these assumptions. And, amazingly, some of it’s passages on sex and desirability are very much in line with modern standards of sexual desirability. Take Song of Solomon 8:10.
What exactly does it mean to be ‘a wall’ or to have ‘breasts like towers’…? One can debate these things till the cows come home, but it’s clear from the text that larger mammaries are indeed more desirable, because flat-chested women are implied to be less desirable only two verses prior (some things change, some remain the same). For my part, I like to (jokingly) think this passage says ‘Bring on the big breasted Amazon Women’ mainly because a) I like taking the piss out of religion, and b) because I am a product of the 80s, when strippers and pornstars were so glamorous they put Aphrodite to shame, and that is how I will probably gauge desirability from now until I croak. Is it fair to average women, no, but that’s how it goes. Also, it’s fun to quip that Brigitte Nielsen and Julie Strain are prophesied in the bible…or maybe just their type…
Regardless, the entirety of this book is one long love poem which celebrates sexual love, admittedly in the context of god and his flock. Still, it reads as highly sensual, even given the confusing grammar emblematic of the KJV. How it remains a part of biblical canon, I don’t know; particularly if the prudish sensibilities of most modern christians are anything to go by. Judaism must have a more relaxed attitude, because I have it on good authority that some Orthodox Jews still sing it as a regular part of their weekly worship rituals.
‘Absurdity’ seems like a good category by which to follow the ‘high holy bumping of uglies’ advocacy, wouldn’t you say...? What constitutes absurdity is, again, highly subjective. However, there is subjective and there is WTF…as is the case with Leviticus 4:2.
This isn’t the most absurd thing in the bible, I’ll admit. There are passages elsewhere which prescribe a highly confusing ritual of eating bad food and lying in certain uncomfortable positions for prolonged periods of time as atonement for sins committed. This one is important, however, because we have to remember that the Church actually had to debate whether or not babies who died in infancy were sent to hell.
Call me crazy, but it seems to me that a baby is pretty much helpless in all physical ways relevant to living and is dependent on its parents for all of it’s needs. Why then would there have ever been an assumption that a baby has the mind to comprehend, let along commit, any sort of hell-worthy trespass, thus earning eternal damnation…? Ancient people were fucking weird if you ask me…
Let’s stop picking through the OT and move on the the NT, given how there are some faithful who are fully convinced that the OT no longer counts given that the NT states Jesus came to override the old canon…or uphold it…or…whatever… Of course, many who discount the OT still adhere to one of the three versions of the Ten Commandments, so yeah…logic…consistency…naw…we’re fine as is…saith the preacher man…
Misogyny is rife in the bible, so it makes sense to look at the ‘Women’ category next. The passage I want to highlight should be well known to many Left-leaning women who have a bone to pick with these fundie nutjobs stroking themselves off at the prospect of Roe v Wade going the way of the Dodo. If you don’t know it, though, here is 1 Timothy 2:11–12.
Do I even need to provide commentary on this one…?
That said, speaking from my own life experience, pretty much every teacher I had until I broke with my family and their religion was female…even in Sunday School. So be wary of anyone who says they have a biblical worldview. They’d have a hard time backing it up, particularly where it concerns this passage and the one before it. Tell any modern Evangelical woman to sit down and shut up, and you’re likely to unleash the ignorant rage monster that is The Incredible Karen.
‘Homosexuality’ is always in the news these days, it seems, so that should probably be the next category we venture toward. Let’s look at Romans 1:26–28.
Let’s put aside, for the moment, any religious notions about what is natural or unnatural, because Bonobos rub parts with anyone they can find; hence, bisexuality is evident in nature; hence, NATURAL! Also, some females in certain primate populations have been observed killing the offspring of other females as a method of hierarchical domination; hence kinder-cide is evident in nature…need I continue…?
What’s really messed up here is that Paul condemns people for desiring their own gender after god makes these people desire their own gender. Contradictory? Yes. This isn’t so strange in the context of the bible though, because in Exodus there are repeated passages which talk about Yahweh insisting, via Moses, that the Israelites be set free — on the one hand — but then ‘hardening’ Pharaoh’s heart against these people— on the other — thus causing the denial of the freedom Moses just demanded. Consistency is clearly at a premium here…
If one understands Greek influences on the bible, however, one understands that Zeus had control over how much good AND bad luck a person experienced in everyday life. And since the various Bronze Age communities in the Mediterranean basin were not living in a vacuum, one can easily see how these qualities were translated over to the Hebrew traditions.
‘Cruelty’ is always good place on which to close out a diatribe on the nasty shit in the bible. 2 Thessalonians 1:7–9 seems as good as any for our purposes.
One part of the bible has Jesus saying ‘love thine enemies’ and another says that when he comes back he’s going to fuck up anyone who doesn’t accept him. One part of the bible says murder is bad, and this part says ‘Jeebus gunna kill yo ass’ if you don’t believe.
So yeah, good and evil are relative and debatable as far as the bible is concerned. For my part, I just shut the whole ‘god is good, god is love’ argument down by citing Isaiah 45:7.
Pretty hard to argue for an all-loving, all-good god when his ‘holy’ book clearly states he’s an abusive bastard.
The Skeptics Annotated Bible isn’t a perfect refutation of christianity, I’ll admit. It’s based on the King James Version of the bible, the translation of which in turn was based in part on the Latin Vulgate, which is known to have some errors. There are more recent translations of the ancient writings on which the modern bible is based, the intent of which was to ‘get it right’, on the surface at least.
For my money, though, religious people just can’t accept that their doctrine isn’t perfect and keep looking for ways to soften the language so that the nasty shit is easier to side-step. It’s not an easy task in some cases, though, so denial of obvious fact comes into play. One study bible I’ve looked at went so far as to annotate the Isaiah passage above with the assertion that ‘God is not the author of evil’ despite the text saying outright that he is. No further comment, just an outright denial of the words on the page.
Most people will be content to use the website, given that we are all attached to our phones anymore, but I do recommend a physical copy for anyone who wants to dive into the text as a whole without getting lost in the language. In that respect, if one wants to be able to hold it over the head of your average religionist when challenged as to whether or not they’ve read the bible, take the next 12 months to actually do it. If you read 4 chapters a day, you can read the whole damned tome in one year. Thus you can say with certainty that you’ve read it cover to cover.
Knowledge is power, and context matters when confronting the misuses of power evident in society based on this supposed ‘holy’ word of a perfectly good, ‘loving’ god. The SAB can help you in your mission to combat such ignorance, should you choose to rise to the challenge.
If you would like to read more of my writings on religion and related subjects, follow this link.
