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Raw Revelation: The Bible They Never Tell You About
The Bible is dynamic and powerful. But the Good Book isn’t always good. It can be confusing, disturbing, and sometimes downright ugly. So it’s been censored. It’s been robbed of its beauty and truth . . . by the church. Preachers of every ilk and denomination cook the Book, boiling away the unsightly and unpalatable passages. They never tell you that God can be a misogynistic, genocidal maniac, that Jesus encourages self-castration, that the Easter stories in the four Gospels are incompatible, that Paul was wrong about Jesus’ second coming, and that the Bible does not forbid abortion or premarital sex.
Fast-paced, hard-hitting, and entertaining, Raw Revelation calls Christians to resist the attractively packaged and processed Scripture and to dig in and deal honestly with the messy and tasteless aspects of the all natural Word of God. As Jesus himself says, believers are “to live on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” not only the words carefully selected and sanitized for Sunday sermons and sound bites. Regardless of your beliefs (or non belief), this book offers plenty of food for thought. At a time when wars are fought over religious differences, when the close association between Christianity and American politics puts the Bible in the public square, and when many people around the globe continue to believe in the Bible (even if they have not read it), everyone should know the uncensored content of the world’s all time best seller. So here it is. Real. Raw. Scripture.
Fast-paced, hard-hitting, and entertaining, Raw Revelation calls Christians to resist the attractively packaged and processed Scripture and to dig in and deal honestly with the messy and tasteless aspects of the all natural Word of God. As Jesus himself says, believers are “to live on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” not only the words carefully selected and sanitized for Sunday sermons and sound bites. Regardless of your beliefs (or non belief), this book offers plenty of food for thought. At a time when wars are fought over religious differences, when the close association between Christianity and American politics puts the Bible in the public square, and when many people around the globe continue to believe in the Bible (even if they have not read it), everyone should know the uncensored content of the world’s all time best seller. So here it is. Real. Raw. Scripture.
232 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 23, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 22, 2022
Bullet Review:
DNF at 18%; skimmed until 52%.
This book is not meant for me. This book is for people who need coaxing not to hold the Bible to 100% accuracy in all things historical and scientific.
I might have tried harder to stick with it but when the author purports his opinion of god - that god is basically an imperfect being evolving alongside us, hence why he goofs up majorly in the Old Testament - he lost me. So I’m supposed to want to worship a guy who is as flawed and messed up as me? I want to worship the abusive parent, the dictator, the narcissistic partner, the man who will kill those who counteract his word too much if he feels like it? Oh, no, wait, I am supposed to "appraise" God...at one point, I struggled to blend the author’s interpretation with any form of Christianity. I’m probably missing the point, so that’s why I’m cutting my losses here.
Also, enough of the raw food analogies. At one point, I thought it would go full blown “You need to eat a more raw food diet - raw veg, fruit, don’t cook meat, don’t roast nuts…” if you look this up on the Googles, it’s funny how many of these raw foodist sites you get.
3 stars because I think this is still valuable to a certain reader and would not hesitate to recommend to others looking for this type of information.
Deeper details in my notes:
https://www.goodreads.com/notes/18928...
DNF at 18%; skimmed until 52%.
This book is not meant for me. This book is for people who need coaxing not to hold the Bible to 100% accuracy in all things historical and scientific.
I might have tried harder to stick with it but when the author purports his opinion of god - that god is basically an imperfect being evolving alongside us, hence why he goofs up majorly in the Old Testament - he lost me. So I’m supposed to want to worship a guy who is as flawed and messed up as me? I want to worship the abusive parent, the dictator, the narcissistic partner, the man who will kill those who counteract his word too much if he feels like it? Oh, no, wait, I am supposed to "appraise" God...at one point, I struggled to blend the author’s interpretation with any form of Christianity. I’m probably missing the point, so that’s why I’m cutting my losses here.
Also, enough of the raw food analogies. At one point, I thought it would go full blown “You need to eat a more raw food diet - raw veg, fruit, don’t cook meat, don’t roast nuts…” if you look this up on the Googles, it’s funny how many of these raw foodist sites you get.
3 stars because I think this is still valuable to a certain reader and would not hesitate to recommend to others looking for this type of information.
Deeper details in my notes:
https://www.goodreads.com/notes/18928...
June 21, 2026
Roncace would wholly agree with most of Dawkins' famous quip: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” except, Roncace would remove the "in all fiction" part of the quote, as he actually thinks we ought to believe the Bible's presentation of YHWH, the good, bad and the ugly, and my god, there is a LOT of ugly presentations of YHWH in the bible, something Roncace will make abundantly clear.
In the first part of the book, he brings to light the textual inconsistencies and points out how poorly it works as a historical text, and Roncace is like, duh... it is a library of books from people with different opinions and perspectives, traditions, and axes to grind. A lot of it is like a dialogue and a debate--meaning the reader must engage, evaluate, and partake. I couldn't agree more with this. But then in the next section, he reveals several passages that clearly present YHWH as cruel, petty, genocidal, prideful, jealous, callous, dishonest, abusive, unfaithful, and evil. And he shows how in the Bible, YHWH is not all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing, or everywhere. He points out these repugnant portraits of God run from Genesis to Revelation, and Jesus is simply a chip off the old Block. Ronace was more brutal than any atheist, exposing the chilling implications and the disturbing things Jesus said, and how Revelation presents Jesus as infinitely worse than the god presented in the Old Testament.
I appreciate the honesty, for He is correct; the depictions of YWHW are overwhelmingly godawful and out of alignment with all notions of good, just, and love. Ronace is right in that if we simply change the word "God" in the text of terror with another god's name, all Christians would immediately judge the deity as evil, but because it is in the bible, people are quick to just assume genocide is good or justified or ignore it altogether.
Anyhow, what boggles my mind is, unlike the first part of the book, where he is like, we have differing opinions of the diverse authors; here, Roncace is like, we must take the good with the bad. This is the revelation of God in the bible. So God is much like a more powerful version of Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Jim Jones, or Mao. Yes, while God can have his kind and nice moments, most of the time, he is evil, selfish, quick to rage, and murderous and all too human--only worse.
I appreciate that he doesn't need to defend or justify it like most Christians who want to see it inerrant, but must somehow make it palatable. But shouldn't our assumption that God is love and perfect goodness force us to reject most of the depictions of God in the bible (where god is presented as evil) as being errant opinions of man? Roncace is like, NO, we must instead reject the notion that God is perfect goodness. He is like, we must accept this god, since we don't want to fashion our own god in our own image. Though like the Biblical authors, we can protest, accusing God of injustice and cruelty, and commit to being more morally upright than our monstrous deity, and also be God's conscience (Like Abraham and Moses), reasoning with him and trying to talk him out of his murderous rages.
Anyhow, I just cannot understand how Roncace, with the multitude of biblical historical inconsistencies, determines that we have a very human document, full of errors. But then, with the revelation concerning God's character and actions, he is like, no, we must take a bad depiction of God as inerrant truth. No, instead, we should conclude we have a very human document that is full of errors concerning God's character and actions.
Some present Jesus as welcoming the little children and saying "For such is the kingdom of Heaven," and that if we want to be a child of the Father, we must forgive our enemies, as the Father sends rain on the just and unjust. But how are we to really accept these statements, while at the same time, imagining Jesus stoning little children to death, drowning them in a flood, burning them alive with fire from heave, killing them for their parents sin, bashing their brains out on rocks, hewing them to pieces with a sword, sacrifices them as burnt offerings to hum, causing parents to eat them, sending bears to maul them, lions to tear them to pieces and personally trampling them in the wine press creating a river of gore... yes... also commanding his people to hold a genocidal grudge for hundreds of years and then murder infants for something their ancestors did 400 years prior. This is how YHWH is depicted elsewhere. There is far more contempt, indifference, and sadistic cruelty expressed towards infants in Scripture than there is love, but this NEGATES the positive and beautiful depiction in the Gospels. If we are to have the BAD, it is like the fly in the ointment; it is like the dye in the water. It renders the positive bits mute and meaningless. If the dominant depictions of YHWH are accurate, then God is NOT love, and it is utterly false to say "He is light and in him is no darkness at all," and all praise of this monster is like worship given to a Stalin, Hitler, or Mao. You cannot just accept the bad with the good, for in this case, the bad is SO OVERWHELMINGLY bad that it destroys any claims of goodness. Either the bible is wrong when it depicts God as love, or the dominant portrait of God is wrong when it depicts him as the antithesis of love. Here, it is true "A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit." As the Bible mostly presents bad fruit, it shows that most of the time their conception of God was faulty, and they presented a bad god.
If we can allow our moral intuition to speak, and allow for the notion of a dialogue, then we can see in this dialogue that gradually some kinda begin to move towards a more beautiful conception of God. Tragically, Revelation made it in the bible, since the author's conception of God was likely the absolute worst in the entire Biblical corpus, and that had to become the capstone. Any progress we made was undone by presenting Jesus as more beastly and evil than the beast, and more sadistic, bloodthirsty, and monstrous than the devil. Pure and absolute--ruthless power.
Anyhow, Roncace does us a favor. He shows the implications of actually adhering to a common precept of evangelicism. If we want the Bible to be our ultimate revelation of what God is like, then we need to embrace a deity who at any random moment gets mad and goes on a murderous rambages--slaying 70,000s innocent people, or will command his people to do child sacrifices, or gives permission to beat slaves to death (as long as the death is delayed by a day), or will ruin someones life for a bet with the devil, or will have his wife gang rapped to death to satiate his rage, or pull up women's skirts to expose their genitals and smear poop on them as people cheer, or command the butcher of infants and chidlren for somethign their ancestors did 100s of years ago, or trampe people into a river of gore that is five feet deep and runs for 200 miles, or cast a women on a bed, having her gang raped and then killing her babies (What Jesus is shown as threatening in Revelation) or... yeah, you get the point. We must take all this as gospel truth and not as the twisted and diabolical opinion of man. Don't defend it, don't call it holy and just. Don't soften it and make it more palatable. We have an evil god; the text presents the god as evil, and he is in power, and we need to just deal with it.
In a sense, I admire Roncace; here, he is one of the only people in the world who truly wanted to believe in the god depicted in the bible, but how could anyone worship such a monster?
Roncace does have a point, though; it explains our world, it explains the magnitude of evil, the hiddenness of God, the lack of miracles, and why almost none of the biblical promises are fulfilled. What if the true God is like Stalin, Hitler, or Mao? Well, that would explain a lot. As he said, this works as a theodicy. God is simply an incredibly flawed and extraordinarily evil deity who sometimes is nice. I suppose we can make sense of the "good" claims about God in the Bible, too, as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao had their sycophants and apologists. Lots of humans are drawn to absolute power and like to worship pure embodiments of power--the power to destroy, order people tortured, do whatever twisted fancy one wants, and be entertained by making people suffer. People can witness this and praise the Tyrant as good, holy, just, kind, and worthy of praise. Maybe that is what we have in the Bible. People just worship this monster, hoping this psychopath may, by chance, benefit them.
In the first part of the book, he brings to light the textual inconsistencies and points out how poorly it works as a historical text, and Roncace is like, duh... it is a library of books from people with different opinions and perspectives, traditions, and axes to grind. A lot of it is like a dialogue and a debate--meaning the reader must engage, evaluate, and partake. I couldn't agree more with this. But then in the next section, he reveals several passages that clearly present YHWH as cruel, petty, genocidal, prideful, jealous, callous, dishonest, abusive, unfaithful, and evil. And he shows how in the Bible, YHWH is not all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing, or everywhere. He points out these repugnant portraits of God run from Genesis to Revelation, and Jesus is simply a chip off the old Block. Ronace was more brutal than any atheist, exposing the chilling implications and the disturbing things Jesus said, and how Revelation presents Jesus as infinitely worse than the god presented in the Old Testament.
I appreciate the honesty, for He is correct; the depictions of YWHW are overwhelmingly godawful and out of alignment with all notions of good, just, and love. Ronace is right in that if we simply change the word "God" in the text of terror with another god's name, all Christians would immediately judge the deity as evil, but because it is in the bible, people are quick to just assume genocide is good or justified or ignore it altogether.
Anyhow, what boggles my mind is, unlike the first part of the book, where he is like, we have differing opinions of the diverse authors; here, Roncace is like, we must take the good with the bad. This is the revelation of God in the bible. So God is much like a more powerful version of Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Jim Jones, or Mao. Yes, while God can have his kind and nice moments, most of the time, he is evil, selfish, quick to rage, and murderous and all too human--only worse.
I appreciate that he doesn't need to defend or justify it like most Christians who want to see it inerrant, but must somehow make it palatable. But shouldn't our assumption that God is love and perfect goodness force us to reject most of the depictions of God in the bible (where god is presented as evil) as being errant opinions of man? Roncace is like, NO, we must instead reject the notion that God is perfect goodness. He is like, we must accept this god, since we don't want to fashion our own god in our own image. Though like the Biblical authors, we can protest, accusing God of injustice and cruelty, and commit to being more morally upright than our monstrous deity, and also be God's conscience (Like Abraham and Moses), reasoning with him and trying to talk him out of his murderous rages.
Anyhow, I just cannot understand how Roncace, with the multitude of biblical historical inconsistencies, determines that we have a very human document, full of errors. But then, with the revelation concerning God's character and actions, he is like, no, we must take a bad depiction of God as inerrant truth. No, instead, we should conclude we have a very human document that is full of errors concerning God's character and actions.
Some present Jesus as welcoming the little children and saying "For such is the kingdom of Heaven," and that if we want to be a child of the Father, we must forgive our enemies, as the Father sends rain on the just and unjust. But how are we to really accept these statements, while at the same time, imagining Jesus stoning little children to death, drowning them in a flood, burning them alive with fire from heave, killing them for their parents sin, bashing their brains out on rocks, hewing them to pieces with a sword, sacrifices them as burnt offerings to hum, causing parents to eat them, sending bears to maul them, lions to tear them to pieces and personally trampling them in the wine press creating a river of gore... yes... also commanding his people to hold a genocidal grudge for hundreds of years and then murder infants for something their ancestors did 400 years prior. This is how YHWH is depicted elsewhere. There is far more contempt, indifference, and sadistic cruelty expressed towards infants in Scripture than there is love, but this NEGATES the positive and beautiful depiction in the Gospels. If we are to have the BAD, it is like the fly in the ointment; it is like the dye in the water. It renders the positive bits mute and meaningless. If the dominant depictions of YHWH are accurate, then God is NOT love, and it is utterly false to say "He is light and in him is no darkness at all," and all praise of this monster is like worship given to a Stalin, Hitler, or Mao. You cannot just accept the bad with the good, for in this case, the bad is SO OVERWHELMINGLY bad that it destroys any claims of goodness. Either the bible is wrong when it depicts God as love, or the dominant portrait of God is wrong when it depicts him as the antithesis of love. Here, it is true "A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit." As the Bible mostly presents bad fruit, it shows that most of the time their conception of God was faulty, and they presented a bad god.
If we can allow our moral intuition to speak, and allow for the notion of a dialogue, then we can see in this dialogue that gradually some kinda begin to move towards a more beautiful conception of God. Tragically, Revelation made it in the bible, since the author's conception of God was likely the absolute worst in the entire Biblical corpus, and that had to become the capstone. Any progress we made was undone by presenting Jesus as more beastly and evil than the beast, and more sadistic, bloodthirsty, and monstrous than the devil. Pure and absolute--ruthless power.
Anyhow, Roncace does us a favor. He shows the implications of actually adhering to a common precept of evangelicism. If we want the Bible to be our ultimate revelation of what God is like, then we need to embrace a deity who at any random moment gets mad and goes on a murderous rambages--slaying 70,000s innocent people, or will command his people to do child sacrifices, or gives permission to beat slaves to death (as long as the death is delayed by a day), or will ruin someones life for a bet with the devil, or will have his wife gang rapped to death to satiate his rage, or pull up women's skirts to expose their genitals and smear poop on them as people cheer, or command the butcher of infants and chidlren for somethign their ancestors did 100s of years ago, or trampe people into a river of gore that is five feet deep and runs for 200 miles, or cast a women on a bed, having her gang raped and then killing her babies (What Jesus is shown as threatening in Revelation) or... yeah, you get the point. We must take all this as gospel truth and not as the twisted and diabolical opinion of man. Don't defend it, don't call it holy and just. Don't soften it and make it more palatable. We have an evil god; the text presents the god as evil, and he is in power, and we need to just deal with it.
In a sense, I admire Roncace; here, he is one of the only people in the world who truly wanted to believe in the god depicted in the bible, but how could anyone worship such a monster?
Roncace does have a point, though; it explains our world, it explains the magnitude of evil, the hiddenness of God, the lack of miracles, and why almost none of the biblical promises are fulfilled. What if the true God is like Stalin, Hitler, or Mao? Well, that would explain a lot. As he said, this works as a theodicy. God is simply an incredibly flawed and extraordinarily evil deity who sometimes is nice. I suppose we can make sense of the "good" claims about God in the Bible, too, as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao had their sycophants and apologists. Lots of humans are drawn to absolute power and like to worship pure embodiments of power--the power to destroy, order people tortured, do whatever twisted fancy one wants, and be entertained by making people suffer. People can witness this and praise the Tyrant as good, holy, just, kind, and worthy of praise. Maybe that is what we have in the Bible. People just worship this monster, hoping this psychopath may, by chance, benefit them.
Read
March 8, 2013I'm not sure how to rate this book. It was either great or terrible...I'm still processing it. I'm frankly dumbfounded with some of the things he said and I'm having difficulty coming to terms with everything he said in this book.
February 25, 2020
I liked this book because of confirmation bias. The author summarizes many thoughts I have had over the years. For me, the beauty of this book is the author’s thoughtful discussion about the parts of the Bible that ministers usually skip, the contradictions and what’s not written, and his ability to clearly express his commentary. Would have I liked this book when I started my spiritual journey decades ago? Yes. It would have given me mush to consider. I think Christian believers who hold to the Bible (both books or either one) literally may find this book difficult to accept as it means having to think more deeply about what is in the Bible and what isn’t (which I think can be hard to do if it means possibly having to change your worldviews); how to use the Bible. Believers who want to understand the Bible more fully will find much to ponder. This is not a book that provides definite answers to issues. It’s a source for discussion and personal study. I liked the author’s personal reflections at the end of each chapter and in his conclusion. Again, confirmation bias. Overall, his thoughts are helpful in thinking about the topics explored and definitely how to use the Bible.
February 13, 2013
Actual rating: somewhere between 3.5 and 4
This is a difficult book to review. For one it made me uncomfortable to know the author is right on many points. Two, his suggestions for help are not good ones (but he also mentions at the outset that he's not necessarily offering solutions). Three some issue I did not agree with his analysis. And finally it's frustrating that I would prefer a scholarly version arguing for his (what I feel are mostly correct) interpretation of given bible passages. Some will blow them off as liberal or "seen it before" without second guess. But having studied more into such issues and not taking a liberal or conservative side at the moment, I know there is more to such passages than people realize.
That being said: for what it is-a popular level conversational analysis of the nature of biblical revelation-is is a good book, and accomplishes its goal
I recommend this book, but biblical scholar or not, it will disturb, upset, and enrage you
This is a difficult book to review. For one it made me uncomfortable to know the author is right on many points. Two, his suggestions for help are not good ones (but he also mentions at the outset that he's not necessarily offering solutions). Three some issue I did not agree with his analysis. And finally it's frustrating that I would prefer a scholarly version arguing for his (what I feel are mostly correct) interpretation of given bible passages. Some will blow them off as liberal or "seen it before" without second guess. But having studied more into such issues and not taking a liberal or conservative side at the moment, I know there is more to such passages than people realize.
That being said: for what it is-a popular level conversational analysis of the nature of biblical revelation-is is a good book, and accomplishes its goal
I recommend this book, but biblical scholar or not, it will disturb, upset, and enrage you
July 27, 2016
"Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
This book is good reading, and honest, but the title is rather sensationalist and its author doesn't really go far enough in his thought process, presumably to keep his faith intact. That being said, there is a decent discussion about Biblical problems that the average reader either doesn't know about, or glosses over. Mark Roncace's approach is to take these issues head on, engaging in a dialogue with the text in order to figure out for one's self how to believe and apply said beliefs in practice. As an example, he interjects his own personal thoughts at the end of each chapter. Content-wise, nothing was new to me, but the presentation, peppered with humor, made it worth reading. So, I'd recommend this to people who aren't too far along in their Bible study.
This book is good reading, and honest, but the title is rather sensationalist and its author doesn't really go far enough in his thought process, presumably to keep his faith intact. That being said, there is a decent discussion about Biblical problems that the average reader either doesn't know about, or glosses over. Mark Roncace's approach is to take these issues head on, engaging in a dialogue with the text in order to figure out for one's self how to believe and apply said beliefs in practice. As an example, he interjects his own personal thoughts at the end of each chapter. Content-wise, nothing was new to me, but the presentation, peppered with humor, made it worth reading. So, I'd recommend this to people who aren't too far along in their Bible study.
August 2, 2014
Helpful for recognizing the humanity of Scripture; not as helpful for recognizing why the Bible is worth reading.
March 27, 2015
The questions the author asks are fantastic as well as his biblical knowledge. I do find the mental gymnastics that he uses to justify the bibles continued relevance as comical.
April 16, 2026
Are Revelation is a book of biblical excuses.
The title of this book would suggest it would be a completely different kind of book than the one it actually was. But that was my problem for not researching it properly.
This book does a great job in listing verses of the bible that are contradictory, horrifying, illogical, and in error. But it's author Mark Roncace while listing and addressing these difficult biblical verses offers little in the way of explanation, but plenty in the way of personal excuses for them.
There are plenty of examples of these verses but for me the author is repetitive in his excuses.
Let's examine just some of the issues he raises.
The contradictions in Genesis.
The Author writes in the beginning of the book:
"If Genesis 1-3 is logically, rationally, literally, and—we could add in light of contemporary debates—scientifically incoherent, does that make these stories false, untrue? Are they nothing more than make-believe? Perhaps."
He simply excuses these massive contradictions with:
"Instead, they (the writers of Genesis) were trying to express truths about God, God’s relationship to the world, the value of humans, and the like. Simply because the stories are rationally inconsistent does not make them untrue."
The Author concludes:
"Genesis 1 teaches that each and every person has equal value and worth because we are all made in the likeness of the deity. This is a practical, moral, and spiritual truth with ramifications for how we live our day-to-day lives. It has tremendous implications for how we treat other people. Thus, Genesis 1 is deeply relevant and meaningful for us today. But it’s not relevant in biology class."
A plain reading of Genesis, the sort of reading done by ordinary people searching for answers will not take this "teaching" from Genesis. Genesis is completely false, is completely and utterly contradictory in it's description of how the universe and our world came about, as to render it meaningless. It's not about "humans having equal value" it a bronze age story written by people who had no idea of cosmology. It is best understood as this
Marc Roncace continues excusing other shocking verses in the bible. As to why God hardened the Pharaohs heart and killed all the firstborn of Egypt he says:
"God speaks and acts in very unappealing ways here. It is difficult to conclude that God’s sole and primary objective is to free the enslaved Israelites. If that were the case, he could have softened Pharaoh’s heart so that he allowed the Israelites to leave peacefully, or he could have seemingly devised some other less violent means of emancipation. Surely God could have saved the Israelites without killing all the first born in Egypt and drowning the entire army. He willfully chose not to because he wanted, at least in part, to show the Egyptians who was boss. And he did so by destroying tens of thousands of them. Let's move on."
Yes Mark, there is no excuse for killing especially boastful killing.
Is homosexuality wrong? The Author says:
"The Old Testament condemns homosexuality. Twice and only male homosexuality. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 assert that a man should not lie with a man as with a woman. The latter verse proscribes death as the penalty."
"In the New Testament Paul addresses homosexual behavior in Romans 1:26-27. It reads: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received the due penalty for their error.”
"That’s it for homosexuality and the New Testament. Nearly 8,000 verses, and four, at most, address homosexuality. If you are looking for clarity, you won’t be very gay—as in happy."
This last statement isthe author's excuse for the bible's depection of homosexual men and women as an abomination who should be killed. That is the clarity of the bible on homosexuality and it is repugnant.
On the gospels:
According to Matthew, the story goes one way
According to Luke’s story: it goes a completely contradictory way.
The Author continues:
"So how are we to digest this? One way is to suggest that Matthew and Luke’s main objective was not to write accurate history, but rather to express truth about the significance of Jesus." Matthew and Luke, especially Matthew, were the author suggests just saying Jesus was just like another Moses coming. There is no contradiction this way.
There are only so many excuses one can make for the horrendous verses in the bible. One of them is not to just accept them as is th conclusion of this book.
The title of this book would suggest it would be a completely different kind of book than the one it actually was. But that was my problem for not researching it properly.
This book does a great job in listing verses of the bible that are contradictory, horrifying, illogical, and in error. But it's author Mark Roncace while listing and addressing these difficult biblical verses offers little in the way of explanation, but plenty in the way of personal excuses for them.
There are plenty of examples of these verses but for me the author is repetitive in his excuses.
Let's examine just some of the issues he raises.
The contradictions in Genesis.
The Author writes in the beginning of the book:
"If Genesis 1-3 is logically, rationally, literally, and—we could add in light of contemporary debates—scientifically incoherent, does that make these stories false, untrue? Are they nothing more than make-believe? Perhaps."
He simply excuses these massive contradictions with:
"Instead, they (the writers of Genesis) were trying to express truths about God, God’s relationship to the world, the value of humans, and the like. Simply because the stories are rationally inconsistent does not make them untrue."
The Author concludes:
"Genesis 1 teaches that each and every person has equal value and worth because we are all made in the likeness of the deity. This is a practical, moral, and spiritual truth with ramifications for how we live our day-to-day lives. It has tremendous implications for how we treat other people. Thus, Genesis 1 is deeply relevant and meaningful for us today. But it’s not relevant in biology class."
A plain reading of Genesis, the sort of reading done by ordinary people searching for answers will not take this "teaching" from Genesis. Genesis is completely false, is completely and utterly contradictory in it's description of how the universe and our world came about, as to render it meaningless. It's not about "humans having equal value" it a bronze age story written by people who had no idea of cosmology. It is best understood as this
Marc Roncace continues excusing other shocking verses in the bible. As to why God hardened the Pharaohs heart and killed all the firstborn of Egypt he says:
"God speaks and acts in very unappealing ways here. It is difficult to conclude that God’s sole and primary objective is to free the enslaved Israelites. If that were the case, he could have softened Pharaoh’s heart so that he allowed the Israelites to leave peacefully, or he could have seemingly devised some other less violent means of emancipation. Surely God could have saved the Israelites without killing all the first born in Egypt and drowning the entire army. He willfully chose not to because he wanted, at least in part, to show the Egyptians who was boss. And he did so by destroying tens of thousands of them. Let's move on."
Yes Mark, there is no excuse for killing especially boastful killing.
Is homosexuality wrong? The Author says:
"The Old Testament condemns homosexuality. Twice and only male homosexuality. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 assert that a man should not lie with a man as with a woman. The latter verse proscribes death as the penalty."
"In the New Testament Paul addresses homosexual behavior in Romans 1:26-27. It reads: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received the due penalty for their error.”
"That’s it for homosexuality and the New Testament. Nearly 8,000 verses, and four, at most, address homosexuality. If you are looking for clarity, you won’t be very gay—as in happy."
This last statement isthe author's excuse for the bible's depection of homosexual men and women as an abomination who should be killed. That is the clarity of the bible on homosexuality and it is repugnant.
On the gospels:
According to Matthew, the story goes one way
According to Luke’s story: it goes a completely contradictory way.
The Author continues:
"So how are we to digest this? One way is to suggest that Matthew and Luke’s main objective was not to write accurate history, but rather to express truth about the significance of Jesus." Matthew and Luke, especially Matthew, were the author suggests just saying Jesus was just like another Moses coming. There is no contradiction this way.
There are only so many excuses one can make for the horrendous verses in the bible. One of them is not to just accept them as is th conclusion of this book.
December 30, 2019
Very controversial ideas.
I believe that the author of this book has some valid points about the Bible. But for the most part, he is too critical of it. I definitely do agree that people need to read the Bible for themselves and not rely on others.
I believe that the author of this book has some valid points about the Bible. But for the most part, he is too critical of it. I definitely do agree that people need to read the Bible for themselves and not rely on others.
December 30, 2013
As an atheist it is a brilliant realistic presentation of modern healthy religion.
What delightfully presentation of religion. Mark has put all religion on a much more realistic footing. His humor only adds depth to the truthfulness of his perception..
I hope his students and readers open their minds to thetrue direction he is pointing. What he is saying is true for most of our social existence. This how we must deal with friends,politics,advertising, etc...
What delightfully presentation of religion. Mark has put all religion on a much more realistic footing. His humor only adds depth to the truthfulness of his perception..
I hope his students and readers open their minds to thetrue direction he is pointing. What he is saying is true for most of our social existence. This how we must deal with friends,politics,advertising, etc...
January 20, 2015
Coming from a person who was a Christian, both Christians and non-Christians should read this book.
This is written by a Christian. This book, which is outlined like a class, will ask some very tough questions and pose some incredible thoughts. I have gained major respect for this author and even though I don't believe the same things he does, I know he has thought his beliefs through and honor that they are his own.
A must read for those questioning and those who need to be awakened.
This is written by a Christian. This book, which is outlined like a class, will ask some very tough questions and pose some incredible thoughts. I have gained major respect for this author and even though I don't believe the same things he does, I know he has thought his beliefs through and honor that they are his own.
A must read for those questioning and those who need to be awakened.
June 4, 2015
It's an interesting read, as far as that goes, but Mark Roncace provides a diet in which the biggest question- why should I bite into something as unpalatable as this?- remains unanswered. For those who love the Bible and want to get a new perspective on it, this might be a good read, though it might also be a cure for that love. For those who don't, Mark's repast is likely going to have them discretely asking for the check long before the last course.
October 26, 2013
The author brings up lots and lots of issues which can be tedious and challenging if you're trying to maintain your faith. I also found that many of the issues he raises have long been resolved by theologians. Overall it's worth the read.
March 17, 2016
Worst kind of apologetics. Exposes passages that Christians wish they could ignore, so they won't thank Roncace, and tries to claim contradictions aren't, which will annoy atheists. I don't know who the author was attempting to address.
February 8, 2014
Very thought provoking. Interesting read, enjoyed it.
February 4, 2016
There's a lot of hard questions in this book, but I think they are questions worth asking. It's just asking people to think, and I never see any problem with that.
April 29, 2017
One might initially think the cover is simply being hyperbolic with the “genocidal maniac” bit while the book would walk back from that position, but it is quickly evident that Roncace (who is a fine scholar recognized for his ability in the classroom) means exactly that and more. The book retains this aggressive, edgy, hyperbolic tone throughout, with Roncace pulling no punches as he aims to uncover what “they” have been unwilling to tell “you.”
Full review here: http://www.jasonstaples.com/bible/rev...
Full review here: http://www.jasonstaples.com/bible/rev...
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