Ship of Fools: Welcome... and send us your verse!

Thread: Welcome... and send us your verse! Board: Chapter & Worse / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Simon (# 1) on :

To send us your favourite worst verse of the Good Book, click here!

Welcome to Chapter & Worse, our summer 09 Ship of Fools project. Chapter & Worse includes a feature article, verses submitted by shipmates, and this discussion board, complete with online polls. And the whole thing will end at the UK's Greenbelt festival at the end of August, with a special show where we'll be unveiling the worst verse of the Bible, as voted for here.

This board is here for debate and voting on the best worst verses we've received so far. We'll be posting new verses every few days. If you think we've missed the real gems of the Bible, let us know by submitting your verses -- click here! Don't try to add new threads to this board -- you won't be able to.

Thanks for taking part... and enjoy the debate.

Posted by BWSmith (# 2981) on :

I'm disappointed that the only verses that count as "worst" are the ones that offend our notion of proper church or the character of God. Most of these "worst verses" are easily dismissed as culturally-conditioned or balanced out by other passages.

Much more significant IMHO, are verses where the Biblical authors are "shooting themselves in the foot" for those who are paying attention.

I would nominate 2 Kings 22:8 (Josiah's rediscovery of the Law) as much more dangerous than any of the verses below, because it unneccesarily raises the possibility (for anyone with an ounce of critical inquiry) that all subsequent Torah-centered Judaism could be based on an elaborate hoax by the Jerusalem priesthood and prophets on a naive young king.

Ditto for something like Exodus 20:11 ("In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth") which forces the moderate Biblical reader out of a comfortable "poetic old-earth interpretation" of Gen 1 and into either (a) blind faith in young-earth creationism or (b) an acknowledgement that the Biblical writers have overstepped the bounds of their knowledge. (This raises the question of "where history begins", for which the clergy has no clear answer...)

Another damaging verse is Matthew 21:4 - which quotes the Septuagint mistranslation of the Hebrew couplet in Zechariah and results in a story where Jesus rides two animals into Jerusalem. This raises a serious problem on the relationship of Jesus and OT prophecy in general and Matthew's use of it in particular in his telling the story of Jesus.

Thoughts?

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