Burning At The Stake
Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/burning-at-the-stake
9m
Shared with Public
Back in the 90s when I was raising my kids, I had a startling epiphany.
Having "grown up on Bible Stories" within the loving bosom of my devout, progressive Catholic family, I was eager to share these same stories with Maria and Daniel.
So I purchased a compendium of "Bible Stories" and began to read aloud.
But no sooner had I begun than I realized that a hugely disproportionate number of these stories recounted episodes of arrogant, totally-tribal murderousness, in which "God's Chosen People" were always ABSOULTELY right - not to mention Divinely Ordained - while the Philistines (and others) were ABSOLUTELY wrong, even though it now appears that the Philistines were the original Palestinians whose land was ripped off by Abram/Abraham out of Ur located in present day Iraq.
For perspective, consider the following account of Abraham's direct descendant, King David who, singlehandedly, killed 200 Philistines -- and then cut off each dead man's foreskin (even though he only needed to slice off a hundred body parts) -- in order to pay "bride price" for a young woman named Michal. https://rarebible.wordpress.com/2009/05/16/david-buys-a-wife-with-200-penis-parts/
Maria was devastated by this bloodthirsty storytelling and I, realizing she was supposed to be horrified, immediately abandoned my "bedtime story" plan.
In hindsight, I see that continuing to read such stories to Maria would have been child abuse.
If ever a case could be made that a book should be banned in elementary school, it's The Bible. (I say this as a "practicing" Catholic, who thinks the bible
- particularly The Four Gospels - is an extraordinarily seminal book.)
I encourage you to probe the links posted in the "Comment" boxes below.
No comments:
Post a Comment