When God Speaks
for Himself
Have you read the Bible?
From cover to cover? From Genesis to Revelation?
It would seem that few of us have.
Not even devout Christians, or those you’d
think would be required to read the whole Bible —
like a nun who, when browsing through a copy of When God Speaks
for Himself burst out, horrified:
“That’s not true!
Those verses aren’t in the Bible!”
To prove it, she opened the Bible — only
to discover that she was wrong.
How can this be?
It turns out that what most people “know”
about God, Jesus and what the Bible says is the abridged, saccharine
version of the “Word of God.”
No wonder, then, that most Christians are astonished
to learn that, when “God speaks for himself,” he uses
words you’ll never hear in church or Sunday School:
- Gruesome, bloodthirsty massacres ordered
by God — Bible passages that will make your stomach
churn;
- Bible passages that say the exact opposite
of another Bible passage, sometimes in two consecutive verses!
- Bible passages that contradict what you
“know”: Jesus was born in Bethlehem — wasn’t
he? (Page 35). And he gave his Sermon on the Mount on the mount,
right? (Page 13). And of course David killed Goliath
with a slingshot (didn’t he? — see page 40);
- Obvious inconsistencies about the Virgin
Birth, Original Sin, and other central tenets of Christianity
— to which the churches’ only possible answer is:
“have faith”;
- Simple questions about such Bible favorites
as the Creation, the Flood and Noah’s Ark that make Cinderella
and The Three Little Pigs seem far more realistic;
Plus: extracts from official church documents,
some kept hidden for centuries, including the actual words of the
Inquisition’s reasoning and verdict on Galileo; a collection
of pointed and often hilarious quotes and comments from skeptics
and believers from all over the world...and much more.
In sum, in When
God Speaks for Himself you’ll find the answers to
dozens of questions you simply would not have been allowed to ask
in church or Sunday School. |