What the Bible Really Says Or Why Disobedient Children Should be Killed
[By Michael Shermer]

I was on Boston's WTKK, 96.9 FM talk radio with the host Jenine Graf discussing, naturally, politics and religion. One religious caller was extolling the virtues of biblical ethics and how it is good that our politicians not only endorse their favorite biblical characters, but that they actually reintroduce biblical ethics into politics.

I said, "Oh, do you mean such biblical ethical practices as stoning to death disobedient children?"

The caller took offense at this comment, challenging me to produce the said passage. As I was no where near a Bible, he said that if I could post it to our web page within the next 24 hours he would donate to the Skeptics Society $100.00. If I could not produce, then I had to donate $100.00 to his favorite charity, which was some group I never heard of, something like Jews for the Right to Bear Arms (I wonder if they are affiliated with the Jews for Jesus group?!).

The host of the show took the caller's phone number and insisted that we actually play out this little bet and that she would have me on the show again tonight to settle the bet. So, I give you the aforementioned biblical passages about how we should handle our disobedient children, along with a few other gems for which I can't help but wonder if the religious right would really like to enforce in our public (or private) spheres of influence.

(Passages from the Revised Standard Version Bible, my own from my not so rebellious youth, although, thank God or whomever, my parents would not have practiced such antiquated ethics had I been rebellious.)

Deuteronomy 21: 18-21: "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they chastise him, will not give heed to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."

For you emancipated women out there thinking of adorning yourself in business attire that may resemble men's business attire, or for you guys who dig cross-dressing:

Deuteronomy 22: 5: "A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."

For all you Jewish and Christian men who married a nonvirgin, you've got to turn your wife in immediately for a proper stoning (for those not accustomed to reading between the biblical lines, the phrase "goes in to her" should be taken literally, and "the tokens of virginity" means the blood on the sheet from a virgin's first sexual experience; the key passage about stoning her to death is at the end):

Deuteronomy 22:13-21: "If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and then spurns her, and charges her with shameful conduct, and brings an evil name upon her, saying, 'I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her the tokens of virginity,' then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the tokens of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate; and the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, 'I gave my daughter to this man to wife, and he spurns her; and lo, he has made shameful charges against her, saying, 'I did not find in your daughter the tokens of virginity,' And yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity,' And they shall spread the garment before the elders of the city. Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him; and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the father of the young woman, becase he has brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel; and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. But if the thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has wrought folly in Israel by playing the harlot in her father's house; so you shall purge the evil from the midst of you."

For you religious folks out there who, despite your proclamations to the contrary, succumbed to the temptation of the flesh at some time in your married life, Deuteronomy 22:22 does not bode well for you:

"If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; so you shall purge the evil from Israel."

Are you SURE you want to legislate biblical morality ? I think I've made my point, but if you doubt it then go to Deuteronomy yourself. There's some real X-rated stuff in there! And while I'm ranting, let me point out that the religious right who are demanding that we post the 10 Commandments in public schools, the very first one prohibits anyone from believing in any of the other gods besides Yahweh; that is to say, by posting the 10 Commandments we are sending the message that any nonbeliever or believer in any other god is not welcome in our public schools. I seem to recall that the First Amendment of the Constitution had something to say about such religious exclusionary practices. To be fair, not ALL biblical ethics is this bad. There is much to pick and choose from that is useful to our thinking about moral issues. The problem here is consistency, and selecting ethical guidelines that support our particular personal or social prejudices and preferences.

If you are going to claim the Bible as your primary (or only) code of ethics, and proclaim that homosexuality is sinful and wrong because the Bible says so, then to be consistent you've got to kill rebellious youth and nonvirginal pre-married women. And surely no one would endorse that brand of consistency. What we really need is a new set of ethics, an ethical system designed for OUR time and place, not one scripted for a pastoral/agricultural people who lived 4,000 years ago. How about we think these moral issues through for ourselves instead of turning to what is largely an antiquated book of morals?