Is the Bible racist, homophobic and sexist?

Question

I've just been scanning some of the religious questions asked and answered on yahoo answers. Some of the quotes made by various people as coming from "The Bible" come across as illegal to me in this day and age of the Politically Correct and Tree Hugging brigades. Am I just another confused soul who thinks that if this book had been written today the authors would be spending a vast amount of time defending law suits?

Answer 1

All the above - and more. It should be banned, I'm with you. It's the biggest science fiction race-hater I ever read.

Answer 2

Yes, compiled and edited by 'men', funnily enough it is. The early RC church found or made what they wanted to include in the new test. and it's been used as a way to control people ever since. With similar men along the line doing with it what they wished.

Your question seems to pour scorn at people who are against racism, homophobia and sexism, so I guess it is a loaded question and you will see the answer that you want. You can't join a politcally correct movement, but you can decide what is tolerable or not today. Personally I've not seen a tree-hugging movement in my area either, so maybe you're just a 'flamer'. Serious answers to serious Open questions, are better on 'Yahoo Anwers' rather than a question, such as this poor 1, that includes put-downs of others within its text : these do get very tedious and degrade Yahoo.

Much of the stuff in the bilbe would now be categorised as disgusting, and vilely oppressive of good people today, people who have every right to their freedom to be themselves and expectations of equality.

Loving others and tolerance were some good qualities that were included in it and encouraged. I think racism, homophobia and sexism would not count as tolerance.

And If anyone thinks everyone should read the bible, would you first read every religious text from all world religions? Perhaps not.

Good luck! Peace and tolerance to all. Rob

Answer 3

Perhaps. While the Bible does (I believe) speak out against homosexuality, I would not call it "homophobic". Homophobia is, at least how I've seen it in my own country where it is quite prevalent, nothing but a strong emotional reaction; an "unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality". But the Bible explains why it has that stance; God did not create mankind for that purpose. I wouldn't call the Bible sexist either. While there are differing "roles" for men and women presented therin, women are not put down. Indeed, many women are spoken of quite highly as the "capable woman" in Proverbs 31. Mary Magdalene was the first women to see Jesus in an age when a woman's testimony was not taken seriously, showing either God's own lack of sexism or how unique the writers were to come up with such a fanciful tale. Racist, definitely not. There are a variety of races mentioned in Scripture. Scholars argue that Zipporah, Moses' wife, was probably black because she was a Cushite (Numbers 12:1); Cush is what they called Africa. Moses was likely dark-skinned, too, because the Egyptians were quite a proud race of people and would not likely accept a light-skinned person into their families. There are cases in which people outside of the Israelite nation were accepted into the Church. And, of course, there's the famous Scriptures what say that whether Jew or Greek, we are all one in baptism and faith (1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:28). Race is not an issue within the Bible's pages.

Answer 4

No. It's a combination between mistranslation, misunderstanding, and misinterpretation. Sexism - the Bible actually says that a man and woman are equal. When two people join in marriage, they are united as one, that means that not only is the woman's body the man's, but the man's is the woman's. It prescribes a certain role for the time and culture as well, but also shows a number of very prominent women. Ultimately, it's not something that's intended to be sexist at all and shouldn't be taken that way. Racism - I've found no evidence of this even in the severely mistranslated from mistranslated versions of the bible like the King James version. If someone calls the Bible racist, they haven't read it. Homophobia - this is mostly mistranslation and the rest is misinterpretation. English fails at accurately describing Greek words, as does Greek English. (Greek was the first language we have that the Bible was compiled in. From that they got the Latin. In Western traditions, the English is gathered from the Latin (which is similar to English when translating to English but also loses further value because Latin doesn't exactly translate well either). In Eastern traditions the English is gathered from the Greek. *Most* of the time when the bible talks about homosexuals, it's actually talking about catamites, which are an odd sort of long term prostitute. Other times it talks about conventional prostitution, and in Romans it talks about people going against their usual sexuality, abandoning what is natural for them, and taking up something that it's actually natural from them. (not homosexuals...people just having sex without attraction) Liviticus is actually referring to temple prostitutes that were effeminized...(ie became transgender. Vaginal intercourse with this sort of a man is labeled unclean along with childbirth and other things that are now irrelevant as of New Testament. So, no, the bible does not support sexism, homophobia and racism.

Answer 5

No but the people that read it and believe every word in it certainly are.

The Bible is thousands of years old and written when times, attitudes and morals were very different than they are today. Basically it is irrelevant whether the Bible is sexist, racist, homophobic or anything else. Even 50-100 years ago the majority of people in the west would have regarded sexism, racism and homophobia as entirely acceptable forms of behaviour.

Society has changed and moved on but the Bible remains fixed in the past, along with the fundamentalist fanatics who take every word as absolute truth and fail to place what the Bible says within the context in which it was written. Thus sexism, racism and homophobia should not be blamed so much on an ancient book as on the modern-day attitudes of a bigoted and narrow-minded group of its adherents.

Answer 6

Breathe easy, or as easy as you can. The Bible is a fairly accurate depiction of the times in which it was written. Overlaid by the vagaries of the King James Edition, which was later superseded by yet several other versions. Only one thing was constant, it was written by men. As such it reflects their own prejudices hopes and fears. Among them that slavery was a good thing with responsibilities on both sides, and women, well lets just say that despite stories showing powerful women, we did n't come out too well by the Renaissance. I wonder though if it were you who had to obey the restrictive positions as posited by the Bible, of woman or slave if you would be so happy to remain there. Political correctness as a bad thing is in the mouth of the name caller.
And watch those granny comments, not all grannies are ancient wrecks who put crocheted covers on Bibles and embroider roses on pillowcases.

Answer 7

Not exactly racist because in the time of the bible there were only tribes and not races, people hadn't been characteristically seperated by color, remember that in the bible the world started out as two people and from there our gene line got more condensed by Noah and his family cause of the ark and flood business. Maybe a little sexist because women were opressed, and homosexual activity was condemned.... but if it were wrong to have bi-sexual relations why were we each born with internal and external sexual organs?

Answer 8

The bible is basically a tribal history and set of rules on increasing the dominance of that tribe. So other tribes are seen as a threat, homosexuality is not conducive to expanding the tribe, and women's liberation distracts them from child bearing. This was the old Testament.
Nowadays we live in a crowded planet, and getting on with your neighbor is a better strategy for survival and success, and so the rules of the game have changed. Love they neighbor is the best survival tactic - this is the New testament.

Answer 9

I am not religious but I do believe that we are all entitled to our own beliefs. Who are we to say that you cannot be a Catholic because Catholics don't believe in Homosexuality and think it is wrong!

You and I may not believe this but they do, that is their belief their religion and we should not stop them

Hitler tried to convert the Jews was that right because someone didn't believe in the same thing as him he tried to change it. The Muslim suicide bombers had a twisted view of their religion and punished people for not obeying to them and their beliefs

Telling a women she can't wear her crucifix to work in case it offends people

This is ridiculous and where will it end! We will always disagree (just like I am sure people will with this) but we all have the right to our own beliefs and faith no-one has the right to take that

Political correctness included!

Answer 10

The Bible was written in a time when a lot of things were socially acceptable. It was also written by men, not God. The problem comes when people use the Bible to perpetuate their own prejudices instead of using it as a guide to living the best life they can live. People always should use common sense when reading anything.

Answer 11

The Bible is a book of faith put in place long before Democratic law ,. You can believe in democracy but you cannot apply democratic or legal thinking to it as it was in place long before the Political correct views. weather you agree with it or not.