21 REALLY BADDASS Bible Passages
A while ago, Natasha posted the link to Cracked Magazine’s bit on Nine Most-Badass Bible Verses. In my view, Cracked really missed some of the biggies, although it is pretty hard to really pick the best (or worst). I did figure more needed to be included than Cracked’s nine, so here is Dr. Jim’s selection of Twenty One Really Badass Bible Passages.
When it comes to the Bible, of course, there is no shortage of bloodletting, sex, and so forth to choose what to comment on. Of course, the Old Testament wins hands down over the New, although I do get the Christian stuff here a bit and I will eventually make an “honourable mention” list of some stuff from the Apocrypha. I didn’t include the Apocrypha here since not all Christian Bibles contain it and, of course, it is excluded from the Jewish Bible.
For this list, I tended to leave out prophetic visions of myriads of sinners boiling in lakes of fire, the great flood that killed everyone except Noah and family, and stuff like that. I decided that however much death and destruction is in view it is not really “hardcore” enough in terms of gore and a debauched sense of ethics, morality and what not.Sure, dropping A-bombs on cities and killing 100,000 people is worse than a single murder (bad as a single murder is), but a single instance of a depraved maniac putting someone in a blender and then justifying it just has a certain, well, “badass” character to it, don’t you think? So, for my list I went for somewhat more down to earth violent debauchery, injustice serving of all that is sacred, and sadistic horrors in the name of good old time religion and family values. I was especially drawn to passages that not only display a rather hard-core cruelty, sexual violence, and so forth, but also are aware of the emotional shock of the described events. I also picked some biblical episodes because of later tradition’s attempts to justify the story or otherwise try to wiggle way out of seriously addressing the moral questions that normal folks might otherwise raise about the episode. One thing I’ve noticed is that there is a lot of fodder for a feminist critique here! There are a few exceptions to these criteria where I have included the actions of God and not people on behalf of God, but what the hell, it’s my list and I will do what I want.
I’ve tried to list them in terms of severity, but I failed. There is an increasing sense of morbid fascination with death and bodies (or at least parts thereof) as the list goes on, and I have saved the biggie for last, but I decided in the end to categorize them thematically. If you don’t like it, sue me. This post is in seven parts and all Bible passages are from the New American Standard Version.
Part 2. All in the Family #18-#16
Part 3. God in a Snit #15-#12 (coming soon)
Part 4. Weird and Spooky #11-#9 (coming soon)
Part 5. Vengeance is Best Served up Red, Wet, and Drippy #6-#8 (coming soon)
Part 6. Holy War #2-#5 (coming soon)
Part 7. The Biggie #1 (coming soon)
