Jim Walker’s Excellent work…
“The Bible represents the best selling book of all time and serves as the sacred script for the Judeo-Christian faiths, it also stands as a book, by the majority, believed from ignorance. In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church forbade the reading of the Bible by its congregation for fear the people would misinterpret the texts. Many priests knew of the problematic and dark verses. Too much questioning could result in a loss of faith. Only the Church fathers had the right to make interpretations. This gave the early Church power over its people and prevented the majority of the populace from ever becoming educated.
One would think that with today’s practice of freedom of religion, education, free press and the availability of the Bible, the Bible and its history would result in common knowledge. Nothing could stand further from the truth. Most Church fathers today concentrate only on the “good” phrases. This represents an admirable approach as it serves to teach, stabilize and give meaning and morals to people in a society. However, Christians and Jews rarely hear about the dark side. Although most Christians own a Bible, few of them spend the time to read and understand it. Many Christians find it blasphemous for someone to point out that the Bible contains, not only errors, but atrocities that no Christian in good conscious would ever think of acting out. How many Christians and Jews today would feel happy to bash a child’s head against the rocks? Any secular question of this nature, of course, would result in revulsion, yet just such phrases occur in the Bible as well obscenities, filth and many horrendous phrases.
I do not write from a Bible scholar’s perspective but rather from my personal studies from a skeptical point of view. Showing the problems with beliefs, especially religious beliefs about the Bible. It represents selections that aroused my skepticism ranging from my early Christian beliefs to my present stage as a full blown skeptic. Isaac Asimov said, “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”:
The Dark Bible uses the King James Version as its main source because more Christians use this version. Although various alternate verses come from other versions with a caption as to its source. It will help to use this text along with the reading of each verse with the complete chapter from the Bible so as to gain a better understanding of its context. Click on a verse and it will take you online where you can peruse the entire context. Many of the comments come paraphrased from scholarly published work.”
The Dark Bible, copyright © 2006 by Jim Walker. No one may use the contents of the Dark Bible without permission or without proper citation and with a direct link to NoBeliefs.com. Use a link to the Dark Bible rather than copying the html code. This way, updates will appear as they occur.
I edited to make this fit my column. It’s Jim Walker’s work. I hope, in presenting this, readers will turn to Jim’s work for more information. For me, it’s a valuable friend.
bettejo 
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