If you listened to my second interview on Chariots of Iron you heard some of this, but in this post I’m going to cover a broader topic and perhaps more detail and precision. Due to culturally irrelevant passages, contradictions, and obvious myths, Christians have to pick and choose which parts of the Bible to take seriously and which parts to ignore. Liberal Christians don’t really take anything from the Old Testament seriously, but Seventh-day Adventists and other biblical literalists/inerrantists take it as a great source of science, history, and prophecy.

Nearly all Christians completely ignore the book of Leviticus. Adventists, on the other hand, look to it for a description of the earthly sanctuary to use as a model for the mental construct of the heavenly sanctuary and Adventists who eat meat look to Leviticus 11 for direction on what meats are acceptable to eat. It should be noted that Adventists aren’t Kosher, the dietary restrictions are much closer to the Muslim Halal rules.

I got baptized when I was 12. By this time I had read 44 books of the Bible, including the entire New Testament and the first 17 books of the Old Testament. Reading the endless genealogies and the highly redundant ceremonial laws was tedious, but the stories of violence and conquest were quite exciting. Only a few weeks after my baptism I had another coming of age moment, my first wet dream.

As luck would have it, this was on a Friday night. When I woke up in the morning and figured out what had happened, my mind quickly went to Leviticus 15:16, “Now if a man has a seminal emission, he shall bathe all his body in water and be unclean until evening” (NASB). It was Sabbath morning and I was about to go to God’s house unclean.

My dad was the deacon opening the church that week so we went in early. On the way to the church and for the hour I had to kill before the program started, I was scouring the Bible trying to find a loop hole, but I couldn’t find one. I was terrified. I was afraid that God would be displeased if I went into the Church, but I was also ashamed to tell my parents why I couldn’t go in. When the time came, I prayed that God would forgive me and I went into the church. I was only unclean for the day, I couldn’t imagine the fear a young girl would have going to church during or after her first period.

As luck would have it, my next two wet dreams were also on Friday nights, but by that time I had figured out that this chapter of Leviticus must not apply since otherwise more people would miss church more often. It’s hard for a 12 year old to have to try to figure out why Leviticus 11 applies to us today but Leviticus 15 doesn’t. Even for Christians who ignore all of Leviticus, it would be hard for a kid to make the distinction between part of “God’s word” that applies to believers today and “God’s words” that don’t.

Aside from that traumatic experience, I spent my childhood reading stories about slavery, genocide, rape, and other atrocities, all of which were commanded by God! I also had a very vivid imagination…not a good combination. What’s funny is the way Christians find violent video games and movies to be so abhorrent when they are quite tame compared to their own holy book.

If the Bible were a movie, it would have a R rating at the least. It is definitely not safe for children. To top that, some people want it in schools…