Copyright
© 2010 by Steve Wells
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
http://DrunkWithBlood.com
http://SkepticsAnnotatedBible.com
http://DwindlingInUnbelief.blogspot.com
Print Version:
LCCN: 2010931807
ISBN 10: 145366291X
ISBN 13: 9781453662915
Table of Contents
Introduction
How many did God kill?
Who has killed more, Satan or God?
Estimated totals: Satan and God
How many more will God kill?
A note about the title
God’s Killings in the Bible
1. The Flood of Noah: All flesh died that moved upon the earth
2. Abraham’s war to rescue Lot
3. Sodom and Gomorrah: Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do?
4. Remember Lot’s wife (Forget Jesus)
5. Er was wicked in the sight of the Lord (so the Lord slew him)
6. Onan spilled it on the ground (so the Lord killed him too)
7. God’s seven year, world-wide famine
8. The seventh plague of Egypt: Hail shall come down upon them and they shall die
9. The Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt
10. The Lord took off their chariot wheels
11. The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation
12. Who is on the Lord’s side: Forcing friends and family to kill each other
13. The Lord plagued the people because of the calf that Aaron made
14. God burns Aaron’s sons to death for offering “strange fire”
15. A blasphemer is stoned to death
16. When the people complained, God burned them to death
17. While the flesh was still between their teeth, the Lord smote them with a very great plague
18. Ten scouts are killed for their honest report
19. A man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day
20. The opposing party is buried alive (along with their families)
21. God burns 250 people to death for burning incense
22. God killed 14,700 for complaining about God’s killings
23. The massacre of the Aradites
24. God sent fiery serpents to bite the people for complaining about the lack of food and water
25. Phinehas’ double murder: A killing to end God’s killing
26. The Midianite massacre: Have you saved all the women alive?
27. God slowly killed the Israelite army
28. God the giant killer
29. God hardens King Sihon’s heart so that all his people can be killed
30. All the men, women, and children in 60 cities
31. The Jericho massacre
32. Achan and his family are stoned and burned to death
33. The Ai massacre
34. God stops the sun so that Joshua can get his killing done in the daylight
35. Five kings are killed and hung on trees
36. Joshua utterly destroyed all that breathed as the Lord God commanded
37. The genocide of twenty kingdoms
38. The Anakim: Some more giant killing
39. The Lord delivered the Canaanites and the Perizzites
40. The Jerusalem massacre
41. Five massacres, a wedding, and some God-proof iron chariots
42. The Lord delivered Chushanrishathaim
43. Ehud delivers a message from God
44. God delivers 10,000 lusty Moabites
45. Shamgar killed 600 Philistines with an ox goad
46. Barak and God massacre the Canaanites
47. Jael pounds a tent stake through a sleeping man’s skull
48. Gideon’s story: The Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow
49. A city is massacred and 1000 burn to death because of God’s evil spirit
50. The Ammonite massacre
51. Jephthah’s daughter
52. 42,000 killed for failing the “shibboleth” test
53. The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he murdered thirty men for their clothes
54. The spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he killed 1000 men with the jawbone of an ass
55. Samson killed 3000 in a suicide terrorist attack
56. A holy civil war (It had something to do with rotting, concubine-body part messages)
57. The end of Judges: Two genocides and 200 stolen virgins
58. God kills Eli’s sons and 34,000 Israelite soldiers
59. God smote them with hemorrhoids in their secret parts
60. 50,070 killed for looking into the ark of the Lord
61. The Lord thundered great thunder upon the Philistines
62. Another Ammonite massacre (and another God-inspired, body-part message)
63. Jonathan’s very first slaughter (not counting the one before)
64. God forces the Philistines to kill each other
65. The Amalekite genocide
66. Samuel hacks Agag to death before the Lord
67. In the valley of Elah: Goliath
68. David buys a wife with 200 Philistine foreskins
69. The Lord said to David, Go and smite the Philistines
70. God killed Nabal (and David got his wife and other stuff)
71. David commits random acts of genocide (as a mercenary for the Philistines)
72. David spends the day killing Amalekites
73. God killed Saul (and his sons and soldiers) for not killing all the Amalekites
74. David killed the messenger
75. David killed Rechab and Baanah, cut off their hands and feet, and hung their bodies over the pool
76. God helps David smite the Philistines from the front and the rear
77. God killed Uzzah for trying to keep the ark from falling
78. David killed two-thirds of the Moabite POWs and enslaved the rest
79. The Lord gave David victory wherever he went
80. David killed every male in Edom
81. Thus did David unto all the children of Ammon
82. God slowly kills a baby
83. Famine and human sacrifice: Seven sons of Saul are hung up before the Lord
84. David’s mighty men and their amazing killings
85. God killed 70,000 because David had a census that God (or Satan) told him to do
86. Solomon carried out the deathbed wish of David by having Joab and Shimei murdered
87. A tale of two prophets
88. Jeroboam’s son: God kills another child
89. Jeroboam’s family
90. Baasha’s family and friends
91. Zimri burns to death
92. The drought of Elijah
93. Elijah kills 450 religious leaders in a prayer contest
94. The first God-assisted slaughter of the Syrians
95. God killed 100,000 Syrians for calling him a god of the hills
96. God killed 27,000 Syrians by making a wall fall on them
97. God sent a lion to kill a man for not smiting a prophet
98. God killed Ahab for not killing a captured king
99. God burned 102 men to death for asking Elijah to come down from his hill
100. God killed Ahaziah (of Israel) for asking the wrong God
101. God sent two bears to rip apart 42 boys for making fun of a prophet’s bald head
102. The Lord delivered the Moabites
103. A skeptic is tram
pled to death
104. God’s seven year famine
105. Jehoram of Israel
106. Jezebel
107. Ahab’s sons: Seventy heads in two heaps
108. Ahab’s hometown family, friends, and priests
109. Jehu killed Ahaziah’s family
110. Jehu and his partner show their zeal for the Lord by killing the rest of Ahab’s family
111. Jehu assembles the followers of Baal and then slaughters them all
112. The priest of Baal and Queen Athaliah
113. God sent lions to eat those that didn’t fear him enough
114. An angel killed 185,000 sleeping soldiers
115. God caused King Sennacherib to be killed by his sons
116. Josiah killed all the priests of the high places
117. Just another holy war
118. God killed a half million Israelite soldiers
119. Jeroboam
120. God killed a million Ethiopians
121. Friendly Fire: God forced “a great multitude” to kill each other
122. God made Jehoram’s bowels fall out
123. God killed Jehoram’s sons
124. Ahaziah (of Judah)
125. Joash, the princes, and army of Judah
126. God destroyed Amaziah
127. God smote Ahaz with the king of Syria
128. God killed 120,000 valiant men for forsaking him
129. The fall of Jerusalem
130. God and Satan kill Job’s children and slaves
131. Hananiah
132. Ezekiel’s wife
133. Ananias and Sapphira
134. Herod Aggripa
135. Jesus
Afterword
A list of God’s killings (with biblical numbers and estimates)
List of Illustrations
About the author
Introduction
A few years ago, I started to document God’s killings at my blog, Dwindling in Unbelief. I began with Genesis and worked my way through the Bible, writing a post for each killing event and keeping a running count of the number of victims as I went along. I don’t think it’s ever been done before, which is a shame, since God is so proud of his killings.
You don’t believe me? Well, here, I’ll let him tell you directly.
Bible believers, on the other hand, are less proud of God’s killings. Oh, they like a few of them—Noah’s flood, David and Goliath, the walls of Jericho, Job’s daughters—those that can be made (with considerable dishonesty) into cute children’s stories. But the rest are completely ignored by, or completely unknown to, believers.
I believe that most believers would stop believing in the Bible if they knew what was in it. And this is particularly true of God’s killings. All of the stories are absurd from an historical standpoint; they could not have happened the way they are told in the Bible. But what is even more damning is their unspeakable cruelty and obvious immorality. If the killings described in this book actually happened, then the God of the Bible is not the kind of God that believers pretend him to be.
It is my hope that as God’s killings become better known, people will know better than to believe in the Bible. Such belief should be admired by no one and ridiculed by all.
In this book, I’ve tried to count all of God’s killings: those that are numbered in the Bible and those that are not; the ones that God did himself; those that he instructed others to do; and those that, while he may not have taken an active role in, met with his approval.
Of course, some killings are easier to count than others. When God burned to death 250 men for burning incense (21) in Numbers 16.35, we know how many were killed. But how many did God drown in the flood (1) or burn to death in Sodom and Gomorrah (3)? How many firstborn Egyptian children did he kill (9)? There’s just no way to know for sure.
So I have two tallies: one for the killings in which numbers are given in the Bible, excluding the others; and another that uses both the Biblical numbers and estimates when numbers are absent.
But what about the killings that God apparently approved of, but didn’t take an active role in?
Take the story in 1 Samuel 18.25-28, for example, in which David buys his first wife with 200 Philistine foreskins (68). Did God approve of that killing?
Well, yes he did, if you believe the Bible, that is. God approved of everything David did, including all of his killings, with only one exception: the killing of Uriah. How do we know this? Because it says so in the Bible.
David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. 1 Kings 15:5
Drunk with Blood includes a separate account for each of God’s 135 killings. They are listed in the order that they occur in the Bible, with a note at the top that lists the verses in which the killing occurs, along with the number killed, either the Bible’s number or an estimate, or both. In each account, I’ve made an effort to quote enough of the actual story from the Bible (using the King James Version) to make it unnecessary to refer to the Bible itself. Still, I encourage everyone to read these stories in the Bible. It is nearly impossible to believe in the Bible once you have read them.
*
How many did God kill?
Here’s the total, if you use only numbers that are provided in the Bible: 2,476,636
(For a complete list of God’s killings with biblical number and estimate for each killing, see the list at the end of this ebook.)
*
Who has killed more, Satan or God?
How many did Satan kill in the Bible?
I can only find ten, and even these he shares with God, since God allowed him to do it as a part of a bet. I’m talking about the seven sons and three daughters of Job (130).
There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job…And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the LORD … put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face. And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
And there was a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house … And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. Job 1.1-19
So it seems that both Satan and God share the blame (or the credit) for killing Job’s children. If so, then the tally would be:
God: 2,476,636
Satan: 10
*
Estimated totals: Satan and God
When the Bible doesn’t say how many were killed, I try to provide a reasonable estimate.
For example, the Bible says that Job’s ten children were killed in God and Satan’s bet. The Bible also says that all of Job’s slaves were killed, though it doesn’t say how many slaves Job owned. But since he was a wealthy man (“the greatest of all the men of the east”), he must have owned many slaves. So I guessed that fifty slaves were killed, and I gave both Satan and God credit for their killings.
I made similar estimates for the other killings when a number was not provided in the Bible. I tried to give an idea of my thinking for each estimate at the end of each killing account.
When there was no clear way to get a number directly from the Bible itself, I used estimates from Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones’ Atlas of World Population History (Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1978).
Using these estimates, I came up with the following grand totals
for the number killed by God and Satan in the Bible:
God: 24,634,205
Satan: 60
*
How many more will God kill?
What about God’s future plans? Does the Bible tell us anything about that?
Well, yes it does. But it’s hard to take any of it seriously, especially if you’re a believer.
Take the great winepress of the wrath of God, for example. You know, the one featured in the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
The story is told in the 14th chapter of the book of Revelation, which begins with Jesus (or “someone like unto the Son of man”) sitting on a white cloud with a gold crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.
I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. Revelation 14.14
Then an angel stops by to tell Jesus that it’s time to start swinging his sickle.
Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. 14.15
So Jesus thrusts his sickle on the earth, while still sitting on his cloud.
He that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped. 14.16
Another angel came out of the temple in heaven and joined Jesus on his cloud. He also has a sharp sickle with him, and together they begin to reap the harvest on earth.