Indecent Bible?

Indecent Bible?

A recent column in the Chinese University’s Student Press magazine (Hong Kong) was deemed “indecent” by the Obscene Article Tribunal because it asked readers about whether they had ever fantasized about incest or bestiality.

A storm of debate followed – on freedom of speech, the right to open sexual discussion, and the obligations and limits of social morality.

Seemingly in response (although I’m not sure how they would know that), someone launched an anonymous web site (truthbible.net ) that said the holy book “made one tremble” because of its violent and sexual (including rape and incest) content.

By noon Wednesday, Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing authority (TELA) had received more than 800 complaints about the Bible. TELA now has to decide whether the Bible violates Hong Kong’s obscene and indecent articles laws.

If they decide that it does, then the bible could be sold only in a sealed wrapper, with a statutory warning notice. You’d have to be over 18 to buy it.

Ok, generalization time: Here in sanctimonious America it is common for people simply not to read the bible (really read, as you would read another book). Those who notice little issues tend, for whatever reasons, to keep critical thoughts to themselves. Many people on all sides feel ignore the parts that might make them at all uncomfortable, or that contradict one another, or that aren’t really comparable from one book to another. Many people don’t realize how much violence and censorship was involved in the selection and canonization of the scattered texts called the Bible, or that ideas about “inspiration” came along rather late.

“I think the Good Book is missing some pages….” – from “Icicle,” Under the Pink, Tori Amos

There are plenty of odd bits in these texts. Ancient peoples lived a bit closer to life’s edges than we do, and their cultures and perspectives varied. Ever wonder about how things looked from the Canaanites’ point of view? Or why God would order someone to impregnate his brother’s wife? Where did Cain’s wife come from? And what was that whole thing about grabbing “thigh” to make a vow?

I won’t list more examples here. Hey, it’s a PG-rated blog, and some of these are too… tooo… toooo…. unreflective of American “family values.”

But I’ll link ’em! Here are a couple of lists – I’m pretty sure that at least one example may startle you.

Books are better. Reputable biblical scholarship is best, but some of the others are interesting too:

“It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts that I do understand.” – Mark Twain

2 thoughts on “Indecent Bible?

  1. What with the long history of editing behind the current Bible, I’d say lets just go for that Gideon’s version with Psalms, Proverbs, and the New Testament books. Much more humane.

  2. The Bible is so old that declaring parts of it indecent by somebody’s modern standards is ridiculous (and anachronistic). Even more ridiculous is trying to redact out the “bad” parts. One of the things I love about the Bible is that it faithfully records a people’s struggle to be The People of God – so faithfully that not only are their mistakes and misunderstandings left in, so are their attempts to cover them up. I’m particularly thinking of the history in Chronicles which is repeated in a cleaned-up version in Kings.

    Of course, some things get covered up by translation: Most of the New Testament was written in koine (i.e., “pidgin”) Greek. We read, “What am I to you?” where a literal rendering would be “What me you?”

    Our Bible is not perfect. But neither our we. Therefore the Bible’s imperfection suits us perfectly. It is a piece of God’s Truth, and makes us look foolish when we lie about how perfect it is.

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