What is the worst atrocity in the Bible?

Felis Valdez
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Guitarist, Composer at MonadoUpdated 7y
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What is the most horrific thing written in the Bible?
This story is actually told twice, but has different outcomes…it is the Bible gang rape story. So, you are probably familiar with the tale of Lot in Sodom, where the messengers of the Lord (in presumably male human form) came to see just what kind of state Sodom and Gomorrah were in…and they were apparently wicked to Elohim, so the two messengers end up meeting Lot, and he invites them into his abode. Then a mob of Sodomites came to Lot’s house, demanding he release the visitors for the express purpose of raping them. Lot refuses, but then offers his daughters for the mob instead.
The second time this story is told in in Judges 19. Basically, a traveler en route to an area in Ephraim are befriended by a resident from Gibeah ( a Benjamite town) who offers to put them up in his house for the night, since the traveler had been taking refuge during the nights in the city square. The men went to his house that night and they had a lovley dinner, which was interrupted by a knock at the door. A mob of wicked men of the city had arrived and wanted to rape the traveler. The man who owned the house refused and offered his virgin daughter and the traveler’s concubine instead. This time…the rape was not stopped. The scriptures say that the woman who was the traveler’s concubine was raped and abused by the mob literally the entire night. Apparently the abuse was so great she fell at the door of the house in exhaustion…bear in mind the scriptures do not say she died at that time. When the traveler saw her in the morning, he strapped her to his horse and set out for home…again, she may not be dead right now. When he reached home, he dismembered her body and shipped the pieces to various places in Israel. To me this is one of the most gruesome, immoral deaths in the Bible, and shows a clear lack of respect for women.

Addendum. It was pointed out in a comment that according to an individual who is a scholar of Judges, that the Judges account was written as a copy of the Lot account from Genesis. Well, no argument there, though I think it not invalid to still say it is the same story told twice…because it kinda is. Unless Israel was just chock full of cities and towns where rape mobs wandered the streets at night., and these events happened all the time under the nose of Yahweh.

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Kosta
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has read entire the bible many many timesUpvoted by
Robin Spacil
, Business Administration Red Seal Journeyman Electrician, Lakeland Community College (2002) and
Lyonel Perabo
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What is the most horrific thing written in the Bible?
One of my favorite Bible stories of all time is also, in my opinion, one of the darkest and most horrific stories. I read it the first time when I was around 8 and many times after that. I happen to love dark and horrific stories. It's from the book of Judges, one of the darkest and most horrific books of the Bible, full of rape, murder, genocide, misogyny, and more.

Let me set the stage for you. This is pre-Saul and David when Israel is 12 separate, loosely connected tribes. Those who are familiar with the story of Samuel the Prophet picking Saul to be king might remember that Saul claimed to be from the smallest tribe in Israel: Benjamin. Why was Benjamin the smallest tribe, so small that it effectively became absorbed into Judah when the kingdoms split? This is the story. [1]

So a Levite (from the tribe of Levi) takes a concubine (basically sex slave and baby factory) from the tribe of Judah. She is listed as being unfaithful because she ran away from her owner to return to her father. Apparently she was valuable to him, so he sets off to pick her up.

He gets to her father's house and her father placates him with food and wine. They party for 4 days straight before the man decides it is time to go home. The father urges him to get a drink before leaving and they end up eating and drinking all day again. The father urges him to stay another night. This happens again the next day, but, perhaps sensing a trend, the man takes his concubine and, along with a servant, the three of them head back home. It's much too late for them to get home that day, so they stop in the town of Gibeah in Benjamin. They couldn't find a place to stay until an old man invited them in.

Now apparently strangers weren't welcome in the towns of Israel and if any strangers did show up, the norm was to have sex with them. The "wicked" men of the city surrounded the house of the old man, demanding they give up the Levite that so that they could "know him" (in other words, fuck him). The old man tried to talk them out of it, saying that the Levite was a guest, but offered the men his virgin daughter and the concubine instead (seems fair), but they would not be dissuaded.

Finally, the Levite grabbed his concubine, shoved her out the door, and locked it. Unable to break in, the men grabbed the concubine and raped and abused her all night long (while her master slept soundly inside), and then let her go at dawn. The poor girl crawled to the door and collapsed on the steps and died. The man comes out, sees her lying there and says, "Get up, it's time to go." Figuring out she is dead, he takes the body, brings it home, and proceeds to cut her up into twelve pieces. He sends each of the pieces to the leader of the twelve tribes with a message of horror. Claiming that such a thing had never been done before, he demanded action.

After the Levite tells his story (leaving out his own horrible actions and any culpability), the leaders of the 11 tribes (sans Benjamin) were horrified and they gathered together an army, demanding that Benjamin hand over the offenders.

The Benjamites refused and gathered an army of their own. Per the Bible, the numbers were 400,000 from the 11 tribes vs 26,000 Benjamites, but these numbers are likely wildly inflated. The Israelites asked God what they should do and God told them to send Judah to lead the fight (he was talking directly to them back then).

They attacked and were horribly rebuffed, losing 22,000 men. They prayed again and God told them to attack. This time they lost 18,000 men. They cried and prayed and God said, "Go, for tomorrow I will give them into your hands." (Apparently he was joking before and perhaps he's a bit of a sadistic prick.) So this time they hide part of their army behind the city and then when the battle starts, the main body breaks and flees. As the Benjamites pursue, the hidden men enter the city and set it on fire. Seeing the smoke and hearing the screams of the women and children, the Benjamites broke and fled. Showing no mercy, the Israelites slaughtered all the men, women, children, and animals in the city, and most of the army as they fled. 600 men survived and formed a defensive barrier on a hilltop, where they stayed for four months. Meanwhile the army of Israel went through the countryside, burning every town and city of Benjamin and killing everyone inside.

After the euphoria from the mass murder had settled down, the Israelites thought, oh shit, there are now going to be only 11 tribes of Israel (apparently 12 was a big deal). To further complicate matters, they had all sworn an oath to not allow their daughters or sisters to marry a Benjamite and they had just murdered all of the women of Benjamin. So they set about looking for a solution.

First they checked to see if there was anyone that didn't show up to fight who wouldn't have taken the oath. They found out that no one from the city of Jabesh, Gilead had shown up. So they sent an army of 12,000 men to murder everyone in the city who wasn't a virgin female. They netted 400 virgins, who had just been ripped from their homes after watching their families murdered in front of them, and gave them to the remaining Benjamites as wives. That still left 200 single men. So they told those 200 men, “Hide in the vineyards near the annual festival of the Lord in Shiloh. When the young virgins came out dancing, jump out and kidnap yourself a wife. When the fathers or brothers complain, we'll buy them off and tell them that their oath wasn't broken because the girls were kidnapped and they didn't give them to the Benjamites.”

And, minus all the dead people and the kidnapped and raped virgins, everyone went happily ever after back to whatever they were doing. And I suppose God got his satisfaction in making his chosen people fight each other to the death, satiating his sadism for a time, at least until he got bored and killed everyone in Job’s family on a bet with the Devil.

As a disclaimer, I do not believe this story to be factually correct or historically based. This story may have some basis in reality (likely an inter-tribal war) but the details are unlikely to be true.

Edit: I have no desire to debate this story, religion, or my opinions on it with any theists. Any attempts to comment on this answer to start a debate will be deleted.