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Here are 11 things that are technically banned by the Bible. (All quotes are translations from the New American Standard Bible, but, because I’m actually trying to maintain serious journalistic integrity here, I cross-referenced several other translations to make sure I wasn’t missing the point.)
- Round haircuts. See you in Hell, Beatles… and/or kids with bowl cuts, surfer cuts or (my favorite) butt cuts. Leviticus 19:27 reads “You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.”
- Football. At least, the pure version of football, where you play with a pigskin. The modern synthetic footballs are ugly and slippery anyways. Leviticus 11:8, which is discussing pigs, reads “You shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.”
And you’re doubly breaking that if you wake up, eat some sausage then go throw around the football. Or go to the county fair and enter a greased pig catching contest. - Fortune telling. Before you call a 900 number (do people still call 900 numbers, by the way?), read your horoscope or crack open a fortune cookie, realize you’re in huge trouble if you do.
Leviticus 19:31 reads “Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.” The penalty for that? Check Leviticus 20:6: “As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.”
Seems like a lifetime of exile is a pretty harsh penalty for talking to Zoltar. - Pulling out. The Bible doesn’t get too much into birth control… it’s clearly pro-populating but, back when it was written, no one really anticipated the condom or the sponge, so those don’t get specific bans.
But… pulling out does. One of the most famous sexual-oriented Bible verses… the one that’s used as anti-masturbation rhetoric… is actually anti-pulling out.
It’s Genesis 38:9-10: “Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; so He took his life also.”
Yep — pull out and get smote. That’s harsh. - Tattoos. No tattoos. Leviticus 19:28 reads, “You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.”
Not even a little butterfly on your ankle. Or Thug Life across your abdomen. Or even, fittingly enough, a cross. - Polyester, or any other fabric blends. The Bible doesn’t want you to wear polyester. Not just because it looks cheap. It’s sinfully unnatural.
Leviticus 19:19 reads, “You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.”
Check the tag on your shirt right now. Didn’t realize you were mid-sin at this exact second, did you? (Unless you checked the tag by rolling off your neighbor’s wife while you two were having anal sex in the middle of robbing a blind guy. Then your Lycra-spandex blend is really the least of your problems.) - Divorce. The Bible is very clear on this one: No divorcing. You can’t do it. Because when you marry someone, according to Mark 10:8, you “are no longer two, but one flesh.” And, Mark 10:9 reads, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
Mark gets even more hardcore about it a few verses later, in Mark 10:11-12, “And He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.’” - Letting people without testicles into church. Whether you’ve been castrated or lost one or two balls to cancer isn’t important. The Bible doesn’t get that specific. It just says you can’t pray.
Deuteronomy 23:1 reads (this is the God’s Word translation, which spells it out better), “A man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off may never join the assembly of the Lord.”
Oh, and the next verse says that if you’re a bastard, the child of a bastard… or even have a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of a bastard, you can’t come to church or synagogue either. Deuteronomy 23:2 reads, “No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the Lord.” - Wearing gold. 1 Timothy 2:9 doesn’t like your gold necklace at all. Or your pearl necklace. Or any clothes you’re wearing that you didn’t get from Forever 21, Old Navy or H&M.
“Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments.” - Shellfish. Leviticus 11:10 reads, “But whatever is in the seas and in the rivers that does not have fins and scales among all the teeming life of the water, and among all the living creatures that are in the water, they are detestable things to you.” And shellfish is right in that wheelhouse.
Leviticus 11 bans a TON of animals from being eaten (it’s THE basis for Kosher law); beyond shellfish and pig, it also says you can’t eat camel, rock badger, rabbit, eagle, vulture, buzzard, falcon, raven, crow, ostrich, owl, seagull, hawk, pelican, stork, heron, bat, winged insects that walk on four legs unless they have joints to jump with like grasshoppers (?), bear, mole, mouse, lizard, gecko, crocodile, chameleon and snail.
Sorry if that totally ruins your plans to go to a rock badger eat-off this weekend. - Your wife defending your life in a fight by grabbing your attacker’s genitals. No joke. Deuteronomy actually devotes two verses to this exact scenario: Deuteronomy 25:11-12.
“If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.”
That’s impossible to misinterpret. Ladies, if your husband is getting mugged, make sure to kick the mugger in the pills. Do not do the grip and squeeze (no matter what “Miss Congeniality” might advise). Or your hand needs to be cut off.
As a final note, I know that nine of these 11 cite the Old Testament, which Christianity doesn’t necessarily adhere to as law.
To which I say: If you’re going to ignore the section of Leviticus that bans about tattoos, pork, shellfish, round haircuts, polyester and football, how can you possibly turn around and quote Leviticus 18:22 (“You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”) as irrefutable law?
But that’s me trying to introduce logic to religious fanaticism (or, at least, trying to counter some mix of ignorance, bigotry and narcissism with logic). And I should probably know better.
Damned good rules all of them. Never trust a man with a round hair cut. A hair cut should have a beginning, middle and end. Just like the bible.
RE: The Beatles
I’ve seen plenty of Christians stating online that they do believe George and John are burning in hell, but not one blamed their haircuts!
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Great story, I didn’t think this was going to be so amazing when I saw the title!!
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This is the main reason why I read monicks.net. Stunning post.
Great article, but things “you do anyway?”
Like my wife grabbing my attacker’s testicles is a common occurence.
Though I do pull out when I’m shagging my sister-in-law.
I love it when people wear those gold crosses. Hypocrisy! At least the Mormons kind-of had the right idea. They don’t wear or display the cross because, as they say, it’s the “death weapon” of Christ. Still, they make, sell and frequently wear those “CTR” rings, which stands for “Choose the Right.” In recent years they’ve become quite fancy and very expensive in some cases. Yet the Bible says not to adorn yourself.
And then the one about divorce? HA! Just about all of those Bible-thumping, Christ-loving, God-fearing politicians who want to bring America back to it’s “Christian roots” have broken at least one of these Bible bans. Pick and choose!
Excellent work here!
You are completely correct in your last two sentences as well. The last thing any religion wants (or could stand up to) is logic and rational thinking.
I feel sorry for those Christians that have angel wing tattoos on their back. That shit ain’t gonna fly in heaven!
its impossible to be an insect with only 4 legs
With respect, I think your caricature of Christian theology is something short of intellectually honest. Obviously Christians still accept the entire old Testament, and thus Christians look to it for sound theology in all these instances. This theology, however, is informed by a fundamental commitment to understanding the entire Torah as setting theological trajectories aiming towards the fullness of that revelation in the Gospel. That means that all of those passages are accepted in such a way that their “proper” (at least according to classical Christian exegesis) interpretation is informed by Christ and thus that reality towards which the law was pointing is itself retained as ultimately true. Technically speaking, Christians are not even bound to the ten commandments (as such), but are bound to the righteousness behind them, such that what each of the commandments is ultimately aimed towards remains a final cause of all Christian spirituality and religious engagement.
If this seems obscure, perhaps a simple example will help. Take the example of divorce. Notice that none of the passages forbidding it come from the Old Testament. Rather, the Old Testament allows for divorce, where the new doesn’t. Why is this? Precisely because the ‘ideal’ towards which the laws surrounding marriage in the Torah are oriented is monogamous and indissoluble marriage. Of the list you present, I would say that this is the only example Christians must take seriously, and this has remained the position of the Catholic Church. Similarly exegetes argue that passages such as those on homosexuality (which exist also in the New Testament) are oriented to direct people towards the ideal of indissoluble monogamous marriage previewed in the Eden account. Other features, such as not being able to have certain hair cuts, or wear clothing according to some customary styles, or have bodily markings, etc, are aimed to separate and visibly distinguish the People of God from their surrounding cultures, something which itself is intended to direct Christians to the reality that God calls his people ‘out’ from among the nations, to be notably different. In the Gospel, this takes the form of not dressing one’s tongue with slander, and not engaging in the immoral activities in the surrounding culture. Whether one agrees with this logic or not, it is hardly given a proper treatment in this post, don’t you think?
Perhaps you could attack this exegesis as ad hoc or inappropriate, but it seems difficult to take your points seriously as they now stand, since they seem to ignore any sophisticated theological account of exegesis.
I also cannot help but comment on the fact that you use the terms or ideas of ‘Church’ ‘Temple/Tabernacle’ and ‘synagogue’ as essentially synonymous. Again, if you want clean up your argument and make it more persuasive it might be worth your time to pay more careful attention to those distinctions or else argue that equivocation is justified.
These comments are intended to be constructive criticism more than anything else. My hope is (though perhaps naive) that in future the argument(s) you present may be more worthy of a thoughtful and reflective response. Good luck.
Ok, I was being a little cheeky there, but my point is sincere.
If Christians can use exegesis to defend their religious texts then it is only fair for atheists to use it exegesis to assault them. Your argument denies itself.
first off; where in the new testament does christ or any of his discipals say anything about homosexuality? you chide the author of this post for illogical or unfair treatment but you say the new testament speaks on homosexuality and give us no example. because one does not exist.
second; christ was a jew. christ was happy being a jew; he wanted to be their king. the last supper wasn’t just a get together; it was passover seder. the old testament was written by and for the jews; so, any mixing of terms church, tabernacle ect is silly. as far as either the old or new testaments reference to the place of worship…. they meant temple/synagogue.
lastly; your long winded rebuttal skirts and largely ignors that these crazy rules and laws ARE some of the basic tenets of your faith and exegesis is not really needed since they are quite clear and specific and for the most part ignored while items clearly on those same crazy lists are picked out and chosen as reasons for bigotry, division and spite.
I guess I won’t be buried in “our” Jewish cemetary…Not only do I wear polyester (and I’m wearing a polyester/cotton T-shirt at the very moment), but I’ve “sinned gravely” by having a lovely tattoo with the quote from “Twin Peaks” lol.