Examples of God personally killing people
From RationalWiki
God is recorded in the Bible as having personally killed accelerated to the afterlife[1] a large number of people. While the majority of the divine assassinations certainly took place during God's time as a notoriously vengeful dick deity[1] in the Old Testament a few instances are also recorded in the slightly more peaceful New.
This lists people personally assassinated by his hand or by his non-human agents, it is not complete. It also does not include the vastly greater number of people which the bible states were killed at his instruction.
This is more or less in chronological order but there may be some slips.
Contents |
[edit] Old Testament killings by God
The God of the Old Testament had a very simple approach to education and law. In Genesis 9, God asked that Noah and his kin be "be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth". Frenzied reproduction was certainly a good idea when trying to avoid extinction at the hands of an angry and unpredictable God who saw death as a suitable chastisement for just about anything.
| Fatalities | Crime | Method used | Biblical reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 million (estimated). | Being evil. | Drowning (Yes, even the Plesiosaurs). | Gen.6-8 |
| The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (population of Sodom estimated to be 600-1200, Gomorrah presumably would be similar). | Being evil and wanting to have homosexual sex with angels. | Burnt to death by a rain of burning sulfur. | Gen.19:4-5 |
| Lot’s wife. | Pausing to look back at the spectacle of God's fiery wrath. | Transformed in to a pillar of salt. | Gen.19:26 |
| Er, the firstborn of Judah. | Being "wicked in the sight of the Lord" | Not specified | Gen.38:7 |
| Onan (Er’s brother and apparent inventor of onanism) | Disobeying God's orders to impregnate his dead brother's wife (or “spilling his seed”). | Not specified | Gen.38:10. (unlucky family) |
| The firstborn of Egypt. | Being firstborn when God decided to show his strength. God hardened Pharaoh's heart so he refused to let the Israelites go. | The Angel of Death. | Exodus 12:29 |
| The Egyptian army. | Refusing to disobey orders to pursue the Israelites feeling through the parted Red Sea. | Drowned when the seawater returned. | Exodus 14:28 |
| Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron. | Offering strange fire before the Lord. | Burnt to death | Lev.10:1-3 (God, being a perfectionist, does not tolerate mistakes during rituals.) |
| Korah, Dathan, Abiram and their respective families (including of course the little children). | Claiming to be as holy as Moses and Aaron. | The earth opened up and swallowed them - burying them alive. | Num.16:27-32 |
| 250 Israelites. | Followers of Korah. | Burnt to death by fire from God. | Num.16:35 |
| 14,700 Israelites. | Complaining about Moses and Aaron killing of Korah and his followers. | Plague | Num.16:49 (The management thanks you for your feedback. Now die!) |
| Undisclosed number of Israelites. | Despairing, and complaining about the quality of bread. | Being bitten to death by divinely summoned fiery serpents. | Num. 21:4-9 |
| 24,000 Israelites | Sexual immorality with Moabite women and worshiping Baal. | Plague. | Num.25:9 (Proving once more that despite God being obviously real and very jealous, Israelites would worship a sandwich if Moses so much as popped out to buy a newspaper.) |
| Either 70 or 50,070 Israelites (dependent on how the inerrant Bible is translated). | Looking in to the Ark of the Covenant (Like the ending of Indiana Jones: Raiders of The Lost Ark). | Not specified | 1 Sam.6:19 |
| Nabal. | David refrained from murdering Nabal's servants or stealing from him. He expected his kindness to be repaid in the form of gifts from Nabal, but Nabal declined. God killed Nabal before David had the chance to go "avenging thyself with thine own hand". | Not specified | 1 Sam.25:38. (This was quite convenient as David, an avid collector of wives, got to marry Nabal's wife who was quite hot.) |
| Uzzah. | Touching the Ark while trying to prevent it from tipping over. | Not specified. | 2 Sam.6:6-7. (No good deed goes unpunished.) |
| David and Bathsheba's baby boy. | None. The baby was killed in order to punish David. | Not specified | 2 Sam.12:14-18 (The life of a baby is sacred, as explain by Christians, but it's worth squat when God is angry with the parents.) |
| 70,000 assorted Israelites | David took a census of his lands and people. | Plague | 2 Sam.24:13 |
| An unnamed prophet | The prophet had been told by God to not eat bread, but another guy claimed he too was a prophet, and that God had commanded him to bring the prophet home for some food. | Eaten by lions | 1 Kg.13:1-24. (That’s what happens when you follow the advice of self-proclaimed prophets.) |
| An unnamed man | Refusal to strike a prophet when ordered to do so by the prophet in question. | Killed by a lion (God really enjoys using Lions in Kings.) | 1 Kg.20:35-36. (Weird or what?) |
| King Ahaziah | Seeking medical advice from a rival god, and Baal worship. | Died in bed while recovering from an earlier fall. | 1 Kg.22:51 and 2 Kg.1:16. (Baal must have been pretty good to compete with a Yahweh: The God who would incinerate your children on a whim.) |
| 102 soldiers | Being impolite to Elijah and serving King Ahziah. | Burnt to death. | 2 Kg.1:9-12 (This verse is worth reading, since it's almost comical the way in which the soldiers queue up to be incinerated.) |
| 42 youths. | They mocked Elisha's bald head. | God sent bears to maul them to death. | 2 Kg.2:23-24. (Important safety tip: When dealing with God's prophets, don't highlight the testosterone design error which has male pattern baldness as a side effect.) See also, Christian morality, Elisha and the bears. |
| Some foreigners. | Not worshiping God | Killed by lions | 2 Kg.17:25-26. (“Death by lion” crops up with suspicious frequency. Did the author of Kings have some kind of lion-phobia?) |
| 185,000 soldiers. | Being at war with Israel | Killed by the angel of the Lord while they slept. | 2 Kg.19:35 |
| King Saul. | Being unfaithful to the Lord and consulted a medium. | Not specified | 1 Chr.10:14 (Christians who consult psychics and mediums should probably pay close to attention to this verse.)' |
| Jeroboam. | Rebelling against Abijah, the king of Israel based on dependence from David. | Not specified | 2 Chr.13:20 |
| Jehoram. | Doing evil in the sight of the Lord. | Stricken by a disease that caused his bowels to fall out. | 2 Chr.21:14-19.(Nasty way to go.) |
[edit] New Testament killings by God
God of the New Testament appears to have had a rather drastic change in personality, resulting in far fewer deity-induced deaths than seen in the Old Testament. On the other hand, the New Testament is a smaller book covering a much shorter time period.
| Fatalities | Crime | Method used | Biblical reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ananias and Sapphira | Deceit (Pretending they sold their land for less than they did, so that they could pretend to give all the money to the church, when in reality they kept a nice bit of their money to themselves.) | Not specified | Acts 5:1-10. (Better make sure you pay those tithes!) |
| Herod | Failure to praise God | Struck down by an angel | Acts 12:23 |
[edit] Prophesied future killings
- A large percentage of the population of the Earth. At least according to Book of Revelation. Crime - Not worshiping God, or following the Beast instead of God. Method - Various. Detailed in the passages where God sends four horsemen (Rev 6:1-6:7), commands the angels to sound seven trumpets (Rev 8:7-11:15), commands the angels to unleash seven plagues (Rev 16:2-16:17).
[edit] See also
- Actions which demand the death penalty in the Old Testament
- Examples of Satan personally killing people
- God's Love
- Divine retribution
- Friedrich Nietzsche - an example of a person personally killing God.
[edit] External links
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 To avoid charges of blasphemy a more politically correct term is used.
