The Skeptics Annotated Bible (433 page)

16
After this lived Job an hundred and forty years
, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, even four generations.

(42.16)
“After this lived Job an hundred and forty years.”

17 So Job died, being old and full of days.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
—
Psalm 137.9

The thing that stands out about the psalms is how violent, vengeful, and vindictive they are. “Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth … let them be cut pieces.” Such prayers fill the psalms along with statements like this: “The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.”

Here are some highlights:

• God will hit the heathens with a rod of iron and “dash them in pieces.” ?
  2.9
  
• “My God … thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.”
  3.7
  
• God hates sinners.
  5.5
  
• Dead people neither remember God nor give him thanks.
  6.5
  
• “God will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow … He hath … prepared … the insturments of death.”
  7.11-13
  
• “Thou hast destroyed cities.”
  9.6
  
• God hides from those who need him the most.
  10.1
  
• “His eyelids try the children of men.”
  11.4
  
• God will rain fire and brimstone upon “wicked” people.
  11.6
  
• Atheists are fools who never do anything good.
  14.1
  ,
  53.1
  
• “At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”
  16.11
  
• Smoke comes out of God’s nose and fire comes out of his mouth.
  18.8
  
• God rides upon cherubs and can fly.
  18.10
  
• The God of Peace teaches us to kill our neighbors in war.
  18.34
  ,
  144.1
  
• God helps believers kill and enslave their enemies.
  18.40-43
  
• If you make God angry, he’ll burn you and your children to death and shoot you in the back with his arrows.
  21.9-12
  
• If you forget God, he will tear you in pieces.
  50.22
  
• If you don’t trust God, he’ll kill you, and while you’re dying the “righteous” will laugh at you.
  52.5-6
  
• Bad people are bad from birth—God made them that way.
  58.3
  
• “Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth … let them be cut pieces.”
  58.6-8
  
• “The righteous” will rejoice when they see “the wicked” being dismembered by God. They’ll “wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.”
  58.10
  
• The heathen “make a noise like a dog … Behold, they belch out with their mouths.”
  59.5-7
  
• God will “wound the head of his enemies” and the righteous will dip their feet in their blood. 68.21, 23
  
• “Let their eyes be darkened … and make their loins continually to shake.”
  69.23
  
• The earth is stationary and does not move.
  93.1
  ,
  104.5
  
• God will “fill the places with dead bodies.”
  110.6
  
• He is praised for slaughtering little babies.
  135.8
  ,
  136.10
  
• Happiness is smashing your little children against rocks.
  137.9
  
• God is in hell.
  139.8
  
• “Do not I hate them, O Lord? … I hate them with a perfect hatred.”
  139.19-22
  
• A prayer that God will burn people to death.
  140.10
  

1
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

4
The ungodly
are not so: but
are like the chaff which the wind driveth away
.

(1.4-6)
“The ungodly … are like the chaff which the wind driveth away … the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
157 Does Hell exist?

5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in
the congregation of the righteous
.

(1.5-6)
“The congregation of the righteous … the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous.”
35 Has there ever been a righteous person?

6 For
the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous
: but
the way of the ungodly shall perish.

1
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

8
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance
, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

9
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

(2.8-9) “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance … Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” If you ask God, he’ll force heathens to be your slaves and help you “dash them in pieces.”

10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.

11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

12
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way
, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

(2.12) “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.”