A pair of German lawyers recently asked a government minister to re-classify the Holy Bible as a book too violent for children, according to an August 1 Agence France Presse report.
The Bible “preaches genocide, racism, enmity towards Jews, gruesome executions for adulterers and homosexuals, the murder of one’s own children and many other perversities,” wrote the lawyers. They argued the Bible should remain on a list of banned books deemed unsuitable for children, until the offending passages are removed.
The Bavarian Court threw the case out because the German constitution prevented the government from interfering in religious matters. The lawyers’ request, however, raises some interesting questions: Namely, what distinguishes the biblical stories from other “violent” writings?
Noticeably absent from the lawyers’ demands was mention of the biblical context in which the “gruesome” passages are found. Moreover, they failed to address the fact that horrific scenes of violence and perversion abound in countless other books of fiction and non-fiction, as well as on TV, on the Internet, in movies and in virtually every other easily accessible medium.
Of course, there was no acknowledgment of God as the Author of the offending stories either. (Yet, even many secular history books concur that the biblical accounts are factual, not fictional.)
The lessons of the Bible are recorded, not merely for our literary enjoyment, but as examples for us of the blessings and cursings of either obedience or disobedience toward God and His everlasting, inex-orable laws. (See i Cor. 10:11 and ii Tim. 3:16.) These events are recorded so that our children and we may be educated in how to live in love and obedience toward our Creator, and in peace with fellow man. No other stories, fictional or non-fictional, can claim these benefits.