The Bible may be the guiding light for most of the monotheistic religions out there, but you don't
have to dig deep into the text to find a whole bunch of truly grisly stories. From undead armies
to horrific executions to straight-up genocide, these are the most disturbing parts of the Bible.
Be warned: the following video includes references to violence, incest, and sexual assault.
In Ezekiel 37:1-14, the eponymous prophet has a vision of a valley filled with dry
bones. On the instructions of God, Ezekiel tells the bones to come to life, and, sure enough,
he begins to hear a strange rattling. Suddenly, the bones are coming back together, building
themselves into skeletons. Tendons, flesh, and skin begin to grow, and on the orders of God,
Ezekiel restores the bodies to life, creating a vast army. God tells Ezekiel to tell his people:
"I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them;
I will bring you back to the land of Israel."
Despite sounding more like a scene from Hellraiser,
Ezekiel's vision is actually meant to be uplifting.
Ezekiel's vision occurs while he and his people are exiled after the destruction of their temple.
In essence, God has put on a hugely dramatic show for them to bring them out of their despair.
Some interpret this story as a promise that there can and will be an afterlife,
but it can also be read as a call to keep faith, no matter what.
This interpretation made the story popular with Black ministers at the end of the 19th century;
it was even the inspiration for the classic spiritual song "Dem Bones."
The Tower of Babel is a just-so story, explaining why people on Earth speak so many different
languages. In Genesis 11:1-9, everyone speaks the same tongue, and, because they can communicate,
they're able to cooperate in turn. So the people of the world come together to build
a massive city, with a tower so tall that the upper spire will reach the heavens themselves.
When God sees the tower, however, he's a little put out by how much humans can accomplish by
working together. He decides to scatter humans across the Earth and confuse their language,
so that people would never be able to work together again.
The most common interpretation of this story is that God is punishing mankind for its pride,
but some people explain God's behavior here as a criticism of imperialism.
According to one academic paper, titled The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World's Cultures:
"The emphasis on one language at the beginning of the story represents the
imperial suppression of local languages and cultures, and God's punishment brings down
the empire [...] setting free the local languages and cultures to flourish."
The Bible is full of violent deaths, but the fates of two
enemies of Christ — King Herod and Judas Iscariot — are particularly horrific.
To historians, King Herod is famed as a great builder and a diplomat. Thanks to the Bible,
however, he is remembered as a straight-up genocidal maniac.
This is mostly due to the story in which Herod has the infants in his kingdom executed,
hoping that he will kill the baby Jesus in the process. In Acts 12:20-23, "an angel of the Lord"
then smites King Herod in a particularly gruesome way: he is devoured by worms.
There are many different accounts of the death of Judas Iscariot.
Matthew 27:3-10 is the most famous, suggesting that he hanged himself after Jesus' execution.
The writings of Papias suggest that he swelled up and bloated so much that he began to ooze with pus
and worms, before killing himself by pouring out his innards onto the ground. But Acts:18-2
might be the most brutal of all — suggesting that Judas fell headlong into one of his fields and,
essentially, burst open. So, yeah, not a happy ending for Judas.
There are four methods of execution suggested by the Bible. Arguably,
the most gruesome of them all is stoning.
"Stoning" refers to an execution in which a group of people throw rocks
at the condemned until they are killed. Sometimes the victim would be naked,
which would allow the blows to kill them more quickly. The trade-off,
of course, is that this method seems particularly excruciating and humiliating.
Deuteronomy offers up a few situations that might merit a stoning. For example, Deuteronomy
21:18-21 states that, if there is "a stubborn and rebellious son" who won't listen to his parents,
all the men of his city should stone him to death. Meanwhile, Deuteronomy 22:13-21
states that, if a man believes his wife was not a virgin when they married, and her father
cannot provide proof of her virginity, she'll be due for a stoning, too. It's hard to argue
that the Bible's explicit endorsement of this practice is anything but utterly barbaric.
Exodus 20-21, which contains such familiar Ten Commandments as "Thou shalt not kill"
and "Thou shalt not steal," also has a few rules about buying and selling human beings.
"We will not live by your commandments. We are free!"
"There is no freedom without the law."
One line states that if a "servant" dies while being beaten by their "master," then he should
be punished. However, if they survive for "a day or two" after the beating,
there will be no punishment for the "master." Nice, huh?
This representation of slavery in the Bible has even been used to justify slavery in
recent history. Many advocates for slavery in the early modern period depended on a
literal reading of the Bible, which they claimed represented the mind and will of God himself.
In their eyes, because it appeared in the Holy Scripture,
slavery wasn't merely justified — it was actually a moral imperative.
It probably won't come as much surprise to find that the Bible is rife with misogyny.
In Leviticus 12, God tells Moses:
"A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days,
just as she is unclean during her monthly period."
The passage goes on to state that it will take 33 days for her to be fully "purified."
If the baby was a girl, it would take twice as long. Meanwhile, Deuteronomy 22:28–29
states that, if man sexually assaults a virgin, he must pay her father a fine.
Then the woman and her rapist must get married — and they can never get divorced.
Some have attempted to interpret these rules in a way that is less harsh towards women,
while others have pointed out that Jesus doesn't advocate for them in the New
Testament. Whether those arguments are themselves convincing, however, is another matter entirely.
Although human sacrifice would be considered an abomination by Biblical rules, the Bible does
include stories in which people plan to sacrifice human beings — including their own children.
Many are familiar with the story in Genesis in which Abraham is told to sacrifice his
only son to God as a test of his loyalty, only to be stopped at the last second by an angel.
But Jephthah, the "ancient Israelite judge and warrior," was not so lucky.
In Judges 11:30-31, Jephthah swears to God that,
if he is victorious in his upcoming battle he will make a burnt offering sacrifice
of "whatever comes out of the door" of his home when he returns. In a chilling twist,
when Jephthah returns, it's his young daughter who comes out to greet him. Judges 11:39 states:
"And he did to her as he had vowed."
The Book of Job addresses the question of why bad
things happen to good people. And in Job's case, it all comes down to a bet.
Job is a pious man. Even God himself says that there's no man on Earth as blameless as he is.
But the Devil suggests to God that Job is only so loyal because things are easy for him.
So God accepts the Devil's challenge and decides
to test Job's loyalty — by ruining his entire life. Maybe he was in a bad mood.
"Every time I try to talk to someone it's 'sorry this' and 'forgive me that' and 'I'm not worthy.'"
First, God kills Job's children and destroys his home. But Job continues to praise Him. Then, God
has the Devil give Job a horrific skin condition. His friends believe he must have sinned,
or God wouldn't have punished him. Job, on the other hand, appears to have had a change of heart,
and argues that God is simply tormenting him for no real reason. Which isn't entirely incorrect.
God then tells Job that he's way out of his depth, suggesting he knows little of the real world.
Ultimately, God gives Job everything he had before and more. It's worth noting,
however, that some critics even argue Job's restoration isn't part of the original text.
In Genesis 19:4-8, two angels come to the city of Sodom. They had planned to spend
the night in the town square, but the Sodomite Lot urges them not to. Instead,
the two angels stay with Lot's family. That night, every single man in Sodom surrounds the house,
demanding that Lot sends the two angels out. So Lot makes the mob an offer, saying:
"I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters
who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please."
But the mob refuses. When the city of Sodom is subsequently destroyed by God, Lot and his family
make their escape, but Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back at the burning
city. This leaves Lot alone with the two virgin daughters he had tried to sacrifice to the mob.
By Genesis 19:30–38, Lot and his daughters have gone into hiding. The two young women worry
that they will never have children since they aren't able to meet any men. Distraught by this
knowledge, they get their father drunk and then sleep with him as a way of continuing their family
line. Horrifically, this actually works, and both daughters become pregnant by their own father.
And then, of course, you have the cannibal mothers. There are many forms of violence
against infants in the Bible, but one of the most horrific incidents takes place in 2 Kings 6.24-33.
In this tale, Israel's King Jehoram is asked to rule on a particularly gruesome case. The kingdom
is going through a terrible famine, and when a woman asks for an audience, he assumes she is
there to ask for food. Instead, the woman is there to ask for justice, because her friend didn't
go through with her side of a deal. When all of their food ran out, the two women made a bargain:
that they would kill and eat their own infant children. According to the text, the woman says:
"This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son
tomorrow.' So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her,
'Give your son, that we may eat him.' But she has hidden her son."
The woman seems to hope that the king will force her friend to give up her child,
but all he does is freak out. Can you blame him?
Noah's Arc is one of the best known Bible stories,
partially because all those animals make it particularly appealing to children.
Look closer, though, and you'll see that this tale is anything but family-friendly.
In Genesis, God intends to wipe every living creature off the face of the earth, because
he feels that they have sinned. He warns Noah, however, so that he'll have enough time to build a
boat large enough for him, his wife, and his three sons and their wives — as well two of each kind of
animal. God then sends the flood and, sure enough, it kills every single living on the planet.
The only survivors are those on the ark, who are told to repopulate the Earth, when God says:
"As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."
Of course, because there was only one pair of each animal and eight humans on the arc,
this would mean that all the animals on the planet are descended from two animals.
It would also means that every human being alive today is descended from the incestuous
coupling of Noah's descendents. But hey, that's the Bible for you.
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