Stephen Law

The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has accused Richard Dawkins of being anti-semitic. That's a pretty serious charge. In a BBC TV exchange (which you can view here ), Sacks says that a passage in Dawkins’s book The God Delusion - in which Dawkins says that "the God of the Old Testament" is a "vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser" as well as "misogynist", "homophobic", "racist", "pestilential" and "infanticidal" - is “profoundly anti-semitic”. According to Sacks, the passage reflects a centuries-old anti-Jewish attitude. Of course there are centuries-old anti-Jewish attitudes, but this is not an example. According to Sacks, Dawkins has misunderstood those sections of the Hebrew Bible because he is a "Christian atheist" rather than a "Jewish atheist". Dawkins, says Sacks, reads the Old Testament in an "adversarial way," and that is "Christian" because Chris...

The Bible, done in Lego. I particularly like the Book of Job . And advice on stoning . This is officially the work of a Reverend, but is clearly a clever spoof. It certainly gets you to look at the Bible in a new way. Some bits are very funny . This reminds me of Outrageous Tales From the Old Testament , as it's just the original, unvarnished text illustrated (with, I grant you, some rather tongue in cheek speech bubbles). The illustrations, being in an incongruous style, bring home just outrageous the tales really are. Some nice stuff in the shop . Ships to U.K. The amazon.com page for the book of the Ten Commandments contains this review: This book, and the corresponding website, is written by an atheist, and the website contains disturbing Lego "creations" by the author that young children should not be exposed to. How irresponsible for this author to use children to advance his agenda regarding his lack of belief in God. Ironic. Possibly this is itself a spoof comme...

Below I mentioned that the Old Testament God seems something of a monster (genocidal, petty, vindictive, fickle, vicious, performs weird loyalty tests on Job, Abraham, etc.) Indeed, here's that quote from Waugh again about Randolph Churchill's shock on actually reading the Old Testament: Randolph Churchill, son of Winston, had been annoying his friends by talking too much. They wagered he could not keep quiet for a week. Churchill, a keen gambler, thought he could win the bet by reading the Bible. But he didn't last long. After a few pages, he was heard to exclaim, "God! God's a shit!" In response to this and comments, Guess Who says: As someone who actually reads Hebrew and has published exegetical articles on the Hebrew Scriptures, I would just like to say that I find that Christian fundamentalists and secular fundamentalists read the bible in the same way. How do they read it? Entirely without sophistication, unable to appreciate irony, humor, metaphor, or...

Clearly there's something wrong with me as Outrageous Tales From The Old Testament is indeed available from amazon sellers. Here you are. Alexander Waugh's very funny book is here. I like it very much but irritatingly it lacks references.

Some more genuine church signs from www.churchsigngenerator.com . I particularly like the last one. "A spirit filled church", is a nice touch. Very Old Testament. Their God is a smiting, fighting God urging his people to take up arms against his enemies. Does anyone have a favourite Old Testament tale involving God's gratuitous smiting, genocide, etc.? What's the most outrageous tale? Personally, I think Abraham and Isaac is hard to beat. As Alexander Waugh relates in his book God - The Biography . Randolph Churchill, son of Winston, had been annoying his friends by talking too much. They wagered he could not keep quiet for a week. Churchill, a keen gambler, thought he could win the bet by reading the Bible. But he didn't last long. After a few pages, he was heard to exclaim, "God! God's a shit!" Talking of which, I have been trying for ages to get hold of a copy of Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament , now out of print it seems. If anyone has ...