As I've mentioned before, after meaning to read the Bible for a long time, I have recently been actually doing it, if in fits and starts and bouncing around to find the right translation/version.
I'm in Exodus now, and Moses has just come down from the mountain, found that Aaron made a golden calf at the bidding of those around him, smashed the tablets on which the 10 commandments were written in God's very own handwriting (we have to wonder what that would fetch for an autograph collector).
I was surprised to see that -- at this juncture, Exodus 32:27 -- Moses gathers the Levites and tells them: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Each of you, take your swords and go back and forth from one end of the camp to the other. Kill everyone - even your brothers, friends, and neighbors.” So they go and do that, killing about 3,000 folks, and the plot rolls forward.
I had to break from my reading right about there, but that little part of the story tends to get elided in most retellings. In general the Bible is a pretty weird book. I don't really know how much Christian in general focus on the New vs the Old Testament since I don't really hang out with many actual Christians. Certainly if I were to found a religion I would go for a more high-level, principles-based text. There's a whole lot of Bible and I can see how people could spend much of their lives trying to figure out how the fuck it's supposed to make sense if it's really the word of God. That would be confusing to anyone.
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