The Hebrew Bible is the textual core of the Judeo-Christian tradition (the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Christianity and Judaism) and considered a fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values until the present time. An important principle that connects events, uniting action and reaction, is the notion known in Hebrew as mida keneged mida, meaning "measure for measure" in the sense that "the punishment fits the crime" from the Bible's perspective. 11th century manuscript of the Hebrew Bible with Targum This article discusses usage of the term Hebrew Bible. For the article on the Hebrew Bible itself, see Tanakh. ... Judeo-Christian (or Judaeo-Christian) is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, and typically considered (along with classical Greco-Roman civilization) a fundamental basis for Western legal codes and moral values. ... Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recounted in the New Testament. ... Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people with around 15 million followers as of 2006 [1]. It is the first[Monotheism|monotheistic]] faiths and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. ... A moral is a one sentence remark made at the end of many childrens stories that expresses the intended meaning, or the moral message, of the tale. ... Value is worth in general, and it is thought to be connected to reasons for certain practices, policies, actions, beliefs or emotions. ... Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‘Ivrit) is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Jewish communities around the world. ...

In order to illustrate its principals, the Biblical text records vivid events and laws narrated that are endorsed or prescribed by God himself, or carried out by certain people in the Bible. Judaism teaches that the Torah (i.e. the Pentateuch) contains 613 eternal commandments, many of which deal with law and punishment, on the personal, national and global scales. Christianity has also adapted and adopted many of these directives. At the bottom of the hands, the two letters on each hand combine to form יהוה (YHVH), the name of God. ... Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people with around 15 million followers as of 2006 [1]. It is the first[Monotheism|monotheistic]] faiths and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. ... Torah () is a Hebrew word meaning teaching, instruction, or law. It is the central and most important document of Judaism revered by Jews through the ages. ... 613 mitzvot (or 613 Commandments. ... This article or section is missing references or citation of sources. ... Punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant on a subject as a response to some unwanted behavior or disobedience that the subject has displayed. ... Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recounted in the New Testament. ...

To illustrate the power of the God, the Bible openly records what befell nations or individuals as a moral lesson: Morality deals with that which is regarded as right or wrong. ...

In the Book of Genesis

Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden when they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (i would check your sources and discuss your theories with a pastor before you make statements like what was previosly on this page.)[1]

1. God decides to destroy the world he created during the Great Flood because: "God saw that man's wickedness on earth was increasing. Every impulse of his innermost thought was only for evil, all day long.(evidently, even the babies, children and animals were also evil, since they all died too.) God regretted that He had made man on earth, and He was pained to His very core. God said, 'I will obliterate humanity that I have created from the face of the earth - man, livestock, land animals, and birds of the sky. I regret that I created them.' But Noah found favor in God's eyes." Genesis 6:2-7:3 [2] [3]. The text is explicit that everyone had become evil, except for Noah's family, and that therefore they were punished accordingly.
2. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed because of the debasedness of their culture. This debasement is depicted by the desire of the men to homosexually rape the strangers who had come to visit Lot, Abraham's nephew: "...They had not yet gone to bed when the townspeople, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house - young and old alike - all the people from every quarter. They called out to Lot and said, 'Where are the strangers who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may know (i.e "rape") them!'...They pushed against Lot very much, and tried to break down the door." Genesis 18:20-19:20 (this forces God to kill, via a fiery, horrible death, all the children and babies of the city, who shared in the communal guilt)

[4] [5] The Deluge by Gustave Doré. The story of a Great Flood sent by God or the gods to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution is a widespread theme in myths. ... Noahs Ark, Französischer Meister (The French Master), Magyar Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest. ... In the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah (עֲמוֹרָה, Standard Hebrew , Tiberian Hebrew , ) —were two cities destroyed by God for their sins. ... Lot and his Daughters, Hendrik Goltzius, 1616. ... Abraham (אַבְרָהָם Father/Leader of many, (circa 1900 BCE) Standard Hebrew Avraham, Tiberian Hebrew ; Arabic ابراهيم ; Geez አብርሃም ) is regarded as the founding patriarch of the Israelites whom God chose to bless out of all the families of the earth. ...

In the Book of Exodus

Moses negotiating the Exodus from Egypt with Pharaoh leading up to the Ten plagues: First Pharaoh enslaves the Children of Israel: "[The Egyptians] appointed conscription officers over [the Israelites] to crush their spirits with hard labor. [The Israelites] were to build up the cities of Pithom and Ra'amses as supply centers for Pharaoh...The Egyptians started to make the Israelites do labor designated to break their bodies. They made the lives of [the Israelites] miserable with harsh labor involving mortar and bricks, as well as all kinds of work in the field. All the work they made them do was intended to break them." (Exodus 1:11-14 [6], then he issues decress to kill all the Israelite males (Exodus 1:15-16) (Moses is saved by his mother putting him into an ark of bulrushes), and after first being the option of freely letting the Israelite slaves go, God hardens Pharaoh's heart, so that Pharaoh does not agree to let the Hebrews leave, then God sends various disasters onto the whole of Egypt, the cycle ends with the story of the killing of every firstborn child in Egypt as the final punishment for having afflicted the Israelites with deathly punishments. (Exodus 6-14) Moses or Móshe (מֹשֶׁה, Standard Hebrew, Tiberian Hebrew Mōšeh, Arabic موسى Mūsa, Geez ሙሴ Musse) is a legendary Hebrew liberator, leader, lawgiver, prophet, and historian. ... Pharaoh (Arabic فرعون ) (Hebrew פַּרְעֹה ); is a title used to refer to the kings (of godly status) in ancient Egypt. ... The book of Exodus (שמות), chapters 7:14 - 12:42, recounts the story of ten plagues (Eser Ha-Makot עשר המכות in Hebrew): 10 disasters, executed against Egypt by God, in order to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. ... // The Children of Israel (Hebrew: בני ישראל Bnai Yisrael or Bnei Yisrael or Bnei Yisroel or Bene Israel;) is a Biblical term for the Israelites. ... This article is about the second book in the Torah. ... The ark of bulrushes in which the infant Moses was laid (Ex. ...

In the Book of Numbers

The people of Midian together with Moab began to interact with the people of Israel, including sexual relationships: "Israel was staying in Shittim when the people began to behave immorally with the Moabite girls. [The girls] invited the people to their religious sacrifices, and the people ate and worshipped the [Moabite] gods." Numbers 25:1-2 [7] According to the Bible, Midian (מִדְיָן Strife; judgment, Standard Hebrew Midyan, Tiberian Hebrew Miḏyān,Arabic مدين) was a son of Abraham and his concubine Keturah (Genesis 25:1-6). ... Moab (מוֹאָב, Standard Hebrew Moʾav, Tiberian Hebrew Môʾāḇ Greek Μωάβ; Assyrian Muaba, Maba, Maab; Egyptian Muab) is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in modern-day Jordan running along the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. ... The Book of Numbers is the fourth of the books of the Pentateuch, called in the Hebrew ba-midbar במדבר, i. ...

For these alleged transgrations, the Midianties were attached by Moses and his followers (Num 31:1-54). When Moses learns that some of the Midianties are left alive (Num 31:15), he orders all males an non-virgin females killed, and all the virgin females to be taken captive (Num 31:17,18). Of the 32,000 virgins taken captive, 32 were sacrificed to God (Num 31:40). The rest of the virgins were considered booty (Num 31:32-35), for what purpose is not stated, but generally presumed to be sexual slavery.

For the alleged transgration of not initially killing all the males and non-virgins females, God brought a plague upon the people of Moses (Num 31:16)

Other punishments

• Canaan was cursed to become a slave ("servant of a servant") by Noah. That was a punishment for Ham (Canaan's father) accidentally seeing Noah "naked" (Genesis 9.20-9.25) (which some believe is a Biblical euphemism meaning rape. Most scholars dispute this.)
• Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back when fleeing Sodom (Genesis 19:26) (They were all explicitly warned by God not to look at the destruction of the wicked people of Sodom.)
• Onan was killed by God for his refusal to marry his brother's widow and carry on his brother's family line. (Genesis 38:5)

For other uses, see Canaan (disambiguation). ... A euphemism is an expression intended by the speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling to the listener than the word or phrase it replaces, or in the case of doublespeak to make it less troublesome for the speaker. ...

Examples of the death penalty

The Bible prescribes the death penalty for the following activities

• Violating the Sabbath (by working, for example, see Exodus 31:14).
• Men having sex with men, animals, or someone else's wife (Leviticus 20)
• Rape (Deuteronomy 22)
• Worshipping other gods (Deuteronomy 13:6-13:10)

Challenge to modernity

It is true that in an environment of political correctness, those imbued with Western culture will see some stories as samples of mutilation, rape, various curses, slavery, capital punishment, animal cruelty, misogyny, child abuse, homophobia, and so forth. Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ... Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian Man, for many a symbol of the changes of the Western culture during the Renaissance Western culture refers to the culture of western Europe and the Americas that has developed in modern times. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Disfigurement. ... Look up Curse in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... It has been suggested that Chattel slavery be merged into this article or section. ... Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the execution of a convicted criminal by the State as punishment for crimes known as capital crimes or capital offenses. ... Cruelty to animals refers to treatment which causes unacceptable suffering to animals. ... Misogyny () is hatred of or strong prejudice against women. ... Child abuse is the physical or psychological maltreatment of a child by an adult often synonymous with the term child maltreatment or the term child abuse and neglect. ... The word homophobia means irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. ...

These events are sometimes labelled "Bible atrocities and absurdities" by critics of Christianity (fundamentalist Christianity in particular), and presented as examples of ridiculousness, inconsistency and hypocrisy in those who subscribe to a literal interpretation of Scripture. One website summarises the argument: "Myth: The Bible is morally pure and free from atrocity. Fact: The Bible is filled with countless acts of barbarism and tyranny." [8] The argument dates back at least as far as 1795, voiced by Thomas Paine in The Age Of Reason. Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recounted in the New Testament. ... This article concerns the self-labeled Fundamentalist Movement in Protestant Christianity. ... Many religions and spiritual movements hold certain written texts (or series of spoken legends not traditionally written down) to be sacred. ... 1795 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

"Bible difficulties" is an alternative term used by believers and apologists to describe these passages, although the phrase also covers alleged or apparent contradictions in the Bible. It may be argued, however, that Many of the atrocities outlined in the Bible are indeed not sanctioned by God. That is to say, historical events depicted in the Bible that may be atrocious, but the events, as history, may not have occured as God's will. Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. ... Broadly speaking, a contradiction is an incompatibility between two or more statements, ideas, or actions. ...

Reference

• Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, 1795.

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809), intellectual, scholar, revolutionary, deist and idealist. ...

External links

• Cruelty and Violence in the Bible — 821 examples
• Explanations of Bible Difficulties
• Bible Atrocities — compiled by Donald Morgan
• Dealing with alleged moral atrocities by Eric Lyons, M.Min.
• The Brick Testament - controversial Biblical scenes depicted in Lego