Does the Bible Really Teach Family Values?
Are you sure? Have you read it all?
Family values are often defined as the moral and ethical principles that are taught and reinforced within a family or group, such as fidelity, honesty, compassion, law-abiding, faith, and other criteria that one should guide their conduct by. A lot of emphasis is on how you should treat other people; not only those inside your family or group, but also those outside of it.
The Bible is full of commandments, laws, and ordinances that it claims God gave to His people to instruct them in how they should conduct themselves.
The Bible also teaches that God never changes and is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It teaches that He is perfect, all knowing, all powerful, and is everywhere at all times. Thus, by definition, it would be impossible for Him to ever make a mistake or to change His mind. Since most Christians must believe that Jesus is fully God, and that every word of the Bible was divinely inspired, thus everything in the entire Bible would have been approved and ratified by God which obviously must include Jesus.
Let’s look at what His inspired Word teaches about how He values young girls and wives:
One of the laws that God gave Moses to declare is this: Deuteronomy 21:28–29 “If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.
Deuteronomy 21:13–21 is another law that requires that when a woman marries a man and on their wedding night he suspects that she was not a virgin, and he publicly announces that; unless her parents are able to prove that she was in fact a virgin, she must be stoned to death.
If an Israelite man became a slave to another Israelite, and during that time his wife bore him children; when he was freed in the seventh year; based on God’s declared law, he was prohibited from taking his wife and children as they were still the property of the master. The only way he could keep his wife and children was if he agreed to become a slave forever.” You can read it in Exodus 21:1–6. He was still much better off than if he was not an Israelite. The non-Israelite slaves became slaves for life and were property that was bequeathed to the masters’ heirs. See Leviticus 25:44–46.
Would you not think that any good and all-powerful God would have made owning other human beings a violation of His law? There are over 600 laws and ordinances in the Bible, and not one advocates against slavery or the rape of young virgin girls. In fact, as we will see, many advocate the complete opposite.
Would the God of the Bible ever approve of a father selling his daughter into slavery? YES! Exodus 21:7 “If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do.”
If one of God’s soldiers went to war and after killing a girl’s parents took her captive, she was given 30 days to mourn before he was allowed to rape her. Deuteronomy 21:10–13 “When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go into her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.”
God’s punishments to David for killing Bathsheba’s husband and committing adultery with her, was to kill her baby after seven days of suffering in addition to making him watch his wives get raped in broad daylight. 2 Samuel 12:11–12: Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. Indeed, you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’” Verse 15 states “Then the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.” We learn in verse 18, that the child dies after seven days.
If Jesus is God, and the Bible is inspired by God, then these are the things Jesus Himself did.
Jeremiah 8:9–10 again shows that God(Jesus) views wives as mere property. “The wise men are put to shame, they are dismayed and caught; Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what kind of wisdom do they have? “Therefore, I will give their wives to others, their fields to new owners; because from the least even to the greatest, everyone is greedy for gain; from the prophet even to the priest. Everyone practices deceit.”
As a youth, a favorite song of mine was “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world.” But the following scriptures were NEVER, EVER mentioned that clearly teach that God’s values about children and the unborn are not what that song was saying. It is not at all what we were taught.
Most Christians are shocked when they learn that the Bible teaches that some unfaithful people were punished by having to eat their own children. It is very clear and unambiguous. You can read it word for word if you wish.
Leviticus 26:27–29 “Yet if in spite of this you do not obey Me, but act with hostility against Me, then I will act with wrathful hostility against you, and I, even I, will punish you seven times for your sins. Further, you will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.”
Lamentations 4:9–11 “Better are those slain with the sword
Than those slain with hunger;
For they pine away, being stricken
For lack of the fruits of the field.
The hands of compassionate women
Boiled their own children;
They became food for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
The Lord has accomplished His wrath,
He has poured out His fierce anger;
And He has kindled a fire in Zion
Which has consumed its foundations.”
Deuteronomy 28:47–57, Ezekiel 5:8–10, Jeremiah 19:3–9, and others teach the very same thing about parents having to eat their children.
Deuteronomy 21:18–21 mandates that if a son is stubborn and rebellious, the parents must bring him before the elders in order to have him stoned to death. Matthew 15:4 reads For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’
Sadly, there is so much more about how the Bible values children.
Numbers 31:17–18 “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” (Ask your preacher how they were to determine if a girl was actually a virgin.)
1 Samuel 15:3 “Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel, and donkey.”
Hosea 13:16 “Samaria will be held guilty, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”
2 Kings 2:23–24 tells of God sending two bears to tear up 42 lads for making fun of a bald-headed preacher.
Isaiah 13:16 ”Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished.” Why does God keep punishing children and women?
Does God (and Jesus) value men the same way as He does women?
Wives are never allowed more than one husband, but their husbands are free to have not only other wives, but also a few sex slaves on the side. Just a few examples are David, “a man after God’s own heart” had eight, but God told him he could have had more if he only asked. Moses had two while Abraham had two plus his concubines. Solomon, the man that the Bible declares to be the wisest man on earth had 700 wives plus 300 sex slaves. (Solomon also caused his kingdom to be divided…yet is still the wisest man on earth according to God’s inspired Word). The Bible tells us that Gideon had “many wives and concubines” that bore him 70 sons. Jacob, who is the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, needed two wives and two concubines to provide those 12 sons.
Wives are required to submit to EVERYTHING that their husband may require. Ephesians 5:22–24: “ Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”
Proverbs 31. Nothing more needs to be said about this except “where is the list for husbands?”
Shockingly, the Bible calls the man Lot in 2 Peter 2:7 righteous even after he offered both of his daughters to a group of sex seeking men. Many Christians deny that the following verse really means what it says. Genesis 19:8: “Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.” Later, after he impregnated both of them, the Bible accuses the girls of getting him drunk and then raping him after he had passed out (See Genesis 19:30–36). Come on preachers, how is that possible?
Does it not appear that just maybe the Bible was written by men, for men, rather than by a good and perfect God?
If the above scriptures were in the Koran, most Christians would scream bloody murder against Islam. But since most were indoctrinated before they had the ability to critically think, they are convinced that their good and loving God and Jesus has an excellent reason for decreeing those things.
I realize that many Christians will be mad, and some will literally hate me for writing these things, but does not the Bible clearly teach, among other things, that God has used eating babies as a punishment, killing the unborn with swords, and requiring young virgins who are raped to marry their rapist upon the rapist paying 50 shekels of silver to her father? In all due respect, I am not the person who you should be hating. Jesus is God, who never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If the Bible is true, is it not Jesus and His Father who ordered all of those atrocities?
Many preachers and apologists try to argue that the New Testament is all about love, and did away with the Old Testament cruelties, but if God is perfect and never changes, and if Jesus is God, does that not create a problem? Unfortunately, there are many other examples that the Bible teaches us about values. Again, can we honestly say that family values come from the Bible? Or maybe, do good values and morals arise from kind and enlightened people who understand we are all on this journey together and that we should desire to treat others as we would hope they would treat us. That is not a religion…it is nothing more than humanism.
If Christians truly believe that Jesus taught the “golden rule,” how is it possible that they would vote and fight like hell to deprive tens of millions of fellow human beings basic health care, a fair living wage, adequate food and housing and equal rights and justice that most of those believers cherish? Should they not want for all children the same that they want for theirs?
Ask yourself, if these scriptures were in the Koran, what would you think about Islam? And, if you were God, would you have made any changes?
And now a few words; word for word from the Bible about foreigners. So much for loving your neighbor as yourself. Remember, if Jesus is God, and if the Bible is God’s inspired word, then He was the one who inspired the following:
1 Samuel 15:3: “ Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
Deuteronomy 7:1–6: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will quickly destroy you. But thus, you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
Numbers 31:17–18: “ Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.”
To deny or excuse any of the above incidents, is to deny the Bible. To believe that God is perfect and all powerful and that He inspired the Bible is to understand that the God of the Bible is not the God that is usually preached in church. To try to justify or explain away any of the clear and unambiguous passages is to both invent new rules of grammar while inventing new definitions to words contrary to their normal and well-established meanings.
Should not preachers be honest and professional enough to disclose everything that the Bible teaches about God, instead of just cherry-picking a few verses that grossly distort and cover-up the full truth about what the Bible really teaches? Is it honest to preach that something is true while concealing the many other passages that contradict it?
That reality is why so many early Christian communities such as the Marcionites, Cathars, and the Gnostics believed that the God of the Old Testament was an evil tyrant and not the God of the New. They realized that God did not like children, women, animals, and was a racist, genocidal, immoral monster. They were half right. They were not correct however in believing that the God of the New Testament was any better. Is the New Testament Really “Nicer” than the Old Testament?
Millions of people struggle because they fear things like going to hell which they were indoctrinated to believe as young children. The following are a few links to articles that may help to overcome those fears and guilt. Once they learn the many things they were never taught, many can come to realize that there is not a thing they need to fear. Sadly though, the power of fear and indoctrination is strong and seldom can be cured overnight. If you have been a victim of childhood indoctrination and/ or religious trauma, keep studying. There is a wealth of information available to assist you in fully understanding that what you were taught is just not so. Recovering from Religion has a 24-hour helpline that can be accessed at https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org to chat by text or 844–368–2848 to talk.
Ten Bible Stories Never Preached in Church
Bible Stories Never Preached in Church, Part 2
Ten Reasons No One Should Believe the Bible
The Reasons why the Bible’s Story of the Exodus is not True
Why do so many People still believe that Adam and Eve were Real?
