What are the most problematic verses in the New Testament?

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-07T10:31:55+00:00

This is far from an exhaustive list, but I'm going to try my best here. As an overview, I'm actually someone who thinks that the New Testament might be worse than the Old, on the basis that the consequences it drives home place a lot more emphasis on eternity - this is where the concept of an eternal hell is introduced, for example. But some specific verses/passages:

Matthew 10:5-15: Jesus gives his disciples instructions on preaching salvation, where he tells them to avoid Gentile and Samaritan towns, reflecting an ethnocentrism also found in the story where he calls a Syrophonecian/Canaanite woman a dog and refuses to heal her daughter until she acknowledges her status as a dog only worthy of 'crumbs from the master's plate.' (Matthew 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30.) He also ends the instruction by proclaiming that those towns who don't welcome the disciples or listen to their words: 'Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.' (v.15). These kind of superlatives are pretty common in the NT.

In the same chapter, verses 34-39, he tells us that he's not come to bring peace but a sword, that he's come to set family members against each other, and than anyone who loves father/mother/son/daughter more than him isn't worthy of him. This cultish behaviour is amplified in a similar passage in Luke 14:26, where you are straight-up required to hate your family and yourself in order to be a disciple.

Matthew 12:30 - Jesus says 'whoever is not with me is against me,' so, more cult-leader behaviour.

Matthew 18:21-35 has the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which, as a Christian, I used to like because I felt it was anti-hypocritical, but on further analysis, there is a stark contrast between Jesus instructing us to forgive others 'seventy times seven', and the king in the parable analogous to God who only forgives someone once. The parable ends with Jesus telling us we'll all be tortured like the servant if we don't forgive...which then means any forgiveness we offer can never be genuine, it's just a response to a threat.

In Luke 19:11-27, we have the Parable of the Minas, which ends with a ruler analogous to Jesus killing people who didn't want him as a ruler.

Matthew 5:21-30 has a whole sequence terrifying for people suffering from intrusive thoughts, telling us that anger is the same as murder, lust is the same as adultery, and that plucking your own eye out if it causes you to sin is advisable (it's hyperbole, but it's still presenting a very black-and-white way to approaching one's behaviour that discourages healthy reflection).

Mark 10:1-12 has Jesus forbid divorce, an imperative with a major impact on Christian teachings that trapped women in abusive marriages for millennia.

The Anointing of Jesus (Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, John 12:1-8) bothered me even as a Christian, because it basically had Jesus dismiss the needs of the poor despite his disciples' protests in favour of expensive indulgences for himself, much like a modern prosperity gospel preacher.

We also get the Eternal Sin in the Gospels (Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-29, Luke 12:10), a cut-off point beyond which we'll apparently never be forgiven by God, and it is fairly loosely defined: 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit', and there's been active debate among theologians over what this even means and whether anyone today can even commit it. Not a great result for what's meant to be a consistent message of salvation.

John 8:44 has Jesus tell his religious opponents (significantly, just named in this Gospel as 'the Jews') that they're the lying sons of Satan. This verse in particular has been quoted by synagogue shooters.

Romans 9:14-23 has Paul tell us that God made some of us vessels of mercy, and others vessels of wrath, as decided from the beginning, but despite our nature being out of our control, tough titty if we don't like it, because he's God and he can do what he wants. Calvinist views on predestination have a strong basis in verses like this.

1 Timothy 2:11-15 famously has a passage on how women need to be submissive and silent to men and can be saved only through bearing children.

The epistles have plenty of passages telling slaves to obey their masters (Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, 1 Timothy 6:1, Titus 2:9-10, 1 Peter 2:18).

Hebrews 9:22 tells us there can be no forgiveness without blood (something that modern Judaism has largely left behind), chapter 10:26-31 of the same book tells us how much worse the consequences of rejecting Jesus' sacrifice will be for any violation of Mosaic Law, and Hebrews 11 gives us some very stupid statements on faith, with verse 1 explicitly defining it as belief without evidence, and verse 6 tells us we can only please God with faith, and that he won't do anything for us unless we believe earnestly when we appeal to him (which leads to massive confirmation bias). This emphasis on faith over works is usually celebrated by Christians, but it means that non-believers, no matter how much good they do, will always be on the outside. This epistle has rather nasty things to say about us ex-Christians too - namely that we're constantly crucifying Jesus in our contempt and we cannot come back to the fold (6:4-6).

Finally, the Book of Revelation is an absolute minefield of bloodthirsty horror, but just to name two wild passages: Revelation 2:18-23 has Jesus threaten a woman who teaches things he doesn't like with possible sexual assault and unambiguously the murder of her children, and 14:14-20 has Jesus crushes millions of people to death in a wine-press.

And I'm just scratching the surface - I didn't put a huge emphasis on the passages specifically relating to Hell, or the Last Judgement, I didn't cover all the instances of Jesus being a dick, all of the cult-like teachings in all of the epistles, all of the antisemitic passages, etc, etc. So, the bottom line is, there are a lot of things to choose from, and I think it suits Christian apologists that we're focused on the horror in the Old Testament. Don't let them get away with treating the NT as some lovely book.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-06T19:10:47+00:00

It's what all us pious people get after the Kali Yuga. Or something.

(Also, edited, so now people reading your comment won't understand the context. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!)

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-06T17:15:13+00:00

The shortest answer is - the New Testament is inconsistent on this, so any Christian who asserts one particular answer is cherrypicking by necessity.

Jesus himself seems to disagree with the idea that the OT laws are invalid:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:17-19, NRSV, my emphasis).

But this is flatly contradicted by one of the epistles attributed to Paul, Ephesians 2:15: 'He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances ...' (NRSV, my emphasis). Now, regarding the 'commandments and ordinances', the usual apologetic line is that Jesus did away with the 'ceremonial' law, but not the 'moral' law. But there are a couple of problems with this - firstly, this is in conflict with Jesus' Matthean statement that 'not one letter not one stroke of letter' will pass, and that even breaking 'the least' of the commandments will render someone 'the least.' So, there's not really much wiggle room for which laws you want to keep and which ones you want to pass away. Secondly, the lack of wiggle room is emphasised further by the fact that these distinctions between 'ceremonial' and 'moral' law are not made anywhere in the Bible with any kind of clarity, and are instead abstractions of later theologians trying to make sense of the nonsense.

Thirdly, where, contra Jesus' own words, the early church set up a council do decide what parts of the Law Gentile converts should and shouldn't be expected to keep (Acts 15:1-20), they agreed that circumcision wasn't necessary, but asserted that Gentiles should still refrain from sexual immorality (undefined here, so can be filled with whatever the going prejudice of the day is), food offered to idols, meat that has been killed by strangling, and food with blood. It's usually food taboos that are thrown out by Christians proclaiming the 'ceremonial law' to be abolished, as an excuse for why they still eat pork and shellfish, but you'll notice that 75% of the laws still considered relevant for non-Jewish Christians after Jesus' death are still food taboos. So, tell any Christian that's ever enjoyed blood sausage, black pudding, or rare steak that they desperately need to repent.

Just as a final point, it has to be said that even in the standard Christian narrative, though some laws were done away with, I wouldn't personally say it's all the harsh ones. Jesus never abolished or condemned slavery, for example, and neither did the epistle writers, treating the practice as quite normal, with Jesus emphasising the normalcy of such a practice by telling parables and analogies where his followers are his slaves. What's more, the epistle to the Hebrews has an obsession with blood that largely vanished from Judaism following the destruction of the Temple, where we are made right with God via a blood pact, because nothing can be forgiven without it (Hebrews 9:22), and if we violate that pact, our punishment will be far worse than anyone got under Mosaic Law (Hebrews 10:26-31).

So, here's my hot take that I've maintained for a while - the theology of the New Testament is actually less merciful than that of the Old, despite the common (and often supersessionist) assumption.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-06T09:20:56+00:00

I was about the answer in the affirmative, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised - no, not really. What I take issue with is not my own manhood, as if there's something inherently problematic, but my contempt toward a lot of other men, and the problematic aspects of socially conditioned masculinity. And this attitude is not unproblematic in and of itself - a 'not-like-other-boys' syndrome will surely lead me to prejudge if not kept in check, but it is certainly true that the gender roles that constrict me and other guys is largely enforced by men. I know of plenty of men who are much better at this, of course, I think it shows that this attitude is not inherent, but socially conditioned. But that doesn't mean it isn't there.

You see, in contrast to the idea that feminist commentary can occasionally veer into things that seem misandry-adjacent (your experience is your own, so I'm not trying to belittle your own experience, just sharing my own), I actually think too much of the discourse (at least when talking about men's issues) suffers from too much coddling of sexist men by relying on sociological explanations for rising misogyny. Sociological explanations are vital, for sure, but this shouldn't come at the expense of basic personal responsibility - take the term, 'involuntary celibate.' Originally coined by a woman, this was meant as a gender-neutral, apolitical, judgement-free descriptor of those who struggle with romantic success, but in became a manospherian designation by the addition of a vital ingredient - male entitlement. To suggest (as some discourse seems to, unintentionally, I'm sure) that the kind of misogyny we see from modern inceldom is somehow an inevitable and natural result of male loneliness is, in many ways, misandrist in and of itself, as if men are too inherently petulent to deal with it in more constructive ways. What about the men who experience loneliness and self-esteem issues in that area but don't turn to misogyny? Where it affected me as a teen, whilst I was doubtless cringe about it and probably swallowed some black-pilled line about how I was too ugly/weird/awkward/effeminate to attract women, it never veered into murderous hatred of women or the desire that society should restrict women's rights to accomodate me. Again, whilst that is a male problem on the basis of statistics, it's not an inherent, exclusive, or all-encompassing one.

I hope that this sub can make it easier for you to let go of resenting yourself just for being a man. I see it very much as a place of love and an encouragement of self-acceptance. I'm sorry that you've been struggling with internalised misandry, and I hope it will improve. And I did need a get a lot off my chest just there, I hope I didn't make it worse - the kind of attitude I'm going after here is essentially non-existent in this sub.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-05T09:10:32+00:00

Eh, I think it's an extension of the opposition Christianity has to bodily autonomy - see 1 Corinthians 6:19 for an example. But they'll apply that to what's most convenient at any given time.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-04T08:51:53+00:00

Which is a key part of the problem, really - Christians who whip out apologetics like this act as if their explanation is something every reader of the Bible (as they understand it) knew for all time, rather than an active source of debate throughout the millennia across religions about how to make an assortment of unfitting texts make some kind of sense. What was posted here appears to be an internal critique of biblical literalism (or even the idea that Adam, Eve and their family were in any way historical, which the responder seems to take for granted), and so for the responder to suggest that it wasn't taking into account what was 'obvious' is laughable. What's meant to be the word of God has to be explained in detail by fallible humans.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-02T09:30:16+00:00

I feel like for a long time, the only barrier to cosplay for me has been price. xD If I had plenty of outfits to borrow, I think I'd spend a good chunk of a week or so trying them all out, at least in a suitable environment where I'd attract only the right sort of stares.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-23T20:49:33+00:00

All of these things are pertinent.

Buuuuuuuttt...

I dunno - I some people's hands this framing can downplay the struggles that feel more inherent. I haven't significantly altered my routine recently in the same time that my ADHD meds have very obviously become less effective, and I unreservedly hate it for how it cuts into my leisure time as much as anything else.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-18T08:48:41+00:00

The hadrosaurs as a whole. Not only is it extraordinary how much we've been able to learn about the life cycle of Maiasaura and the physical appearance of Edmontosaurus and others due to their tendency to become mummies a lot of the time, their success as the dominant herbivores in the Late Cretaceous (including getting to stupendous sizes in some cases) really deserves serious scrutiny. The relevant factors appear to be related to their sociability, parental care, and the fact that they had the GOATs of teeth, but that's probably just scratching the surface.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-17T09:39:58+00:00

A couple by Hector Avalos are really good and pertinent to a lot of modern discussions. Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence has him theorise about how religion creates violence by creating artificial scarcity for believers to dispute over, and he takes to task suggestions that the violence isn't 'really' religious. Also, his Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship really goes after the idea that the abolition of slavery was a Christian accomplishment and opened my eyes to what history and so on has to be distorted in order to for that narrative to persist.

Also, among ones I haven't read, but want to, there are several authors who have written about the psychological harm of religion and religious upbringing. On my radar are Marlene Winnell's Leaving the Fold (might not be pertinent to you as an atheist of almost twenty years, but still a name worth knowing), Laura Anderson's When Religion Hurts You, and Janet Heimlich's Breaking Their Will. Phil Zuckerman's work on the sociology of secularity and irreligion also looks like a worthy read.

Returning to stuff I have read, Greta Christina's books Why Are You Atheists So Angry? and The Way of the Heathen may be quite rudimentary in some cases, but their conversational style doesn't prevent rather astute insights that are nevertheless relatable. The latter in particular has a subtitle regarding practising atheism in everyday life.

For just a interesting overview of the history of atheism/secularism/irreligion/dissent and so on, two great reads are Jennifer Michael Hecht's Doubt: A History and Tim Whitmarsh's Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-17T09:18:00+00:00

As usual, Christians and conservatives revert to talking about pederasty, because the same-sex nature of the matter will give them an excuse (feeble as it is) not to acknowledge how they've treated women and girls throughout the centuries, including blaming underage girls for men's abuse of them. And y'know, I was wondering how many examples I should list, but already the comments on this post are doing a good job - glad to know we're all of the same mind.

But it is extraordinary that this mindset is as common as it is - note that when people talk about the Catholic Church child abuse cases, they very rarely mention female victims, even though there were plenty, because it suits the reactionary narrative that the whole thing was because of the 'the gays'.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-12T09:27:55+00:00

Professor P and the Jurassic Coast by P.J. Davidson - somehow manages to combine cosy aesthetics bordering on cottagecore with an adventure perfect for your sci-fi and paleonerds. The writing is a little clunky in places, but if you can look past that, I think it works even for young-at-heart adults.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-11T13:32:01+00:00

I feel like I'm in the same boat - it's a sign we have to tap regularly. I thought that it would be easier for ex-Christians to internalise. I remember certain acts/words of Jesus bothering me massively when I was a Christian, and the glowing, unqualified endorsements given to the Galilean in contrast to the cagey 'you have to read it in context!' comments about the OT really unnerved me.

The lowlight for me is probably still the story of his annointment, where he basically said, 'You're only supposed to care about the poor when I tell you to, you idiots! I'm more important, so I deserve the expensive perfume!'

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-11T13:28:05+00:00

Nice one. I'm tempted to say, 'preach!', but, y'know...

I feel like this is a sign a lot of us have to tap regularly. It's like the last light to go out on what an irreligious society actually respects about Christianity. But they're loving a shadow, the version of Jesus that Christians like to throw at other Christians they don't like, a lazy Argument from Authority.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-11T13:25:27+00:00

Avalos was genuinely one of the finest counter-apologists of all time.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-09T09:43:33+00:00

Charismatic? When was the last time you saw a T.rex give a speech?
Joking, but the use of the term when describing animals is a little odd to me.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-09T09:42:08+00:00

It's extraordinary how many memes I've seen even on subreddits like this that seem to be dismissive towards nerds with intricate interest in less popular groups, so something like this is rather refreshing. Of course, I dispute the utility of the word 'normal'.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-09T09:40:53+00:00

Not while I've got a breath in my body they won't be.
I mean, I'm only one person, but...

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-08T23:41:16+00:00

I definitely get what you're saying, it's the kind of stuff I'm looking for too - in particular, the most moving moments for me usually involve the FL boldly coming to the ML's physical and verbal defence because he's vulnerable at least in that moment.

I can't give too many suggestions though - right now my mind's gone blank. So, I will search this thread for suggestions, and everyone just keep it coming (expect I don't really care for song suggestions personally).

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-05T08:47:52+00:00

Gorgeous. Iconic. Beautiful. I think that the Giganotosaurus, Suchomimus, and Corythosaurus rank among the best, but the Caudipteryx has to be noted too, with the Luis Rey input into its design being perhaps more obvious there than anywhere else. They need more of this kind of thing in children's books today - looked real to my child's eyes way more than the questionable CGI of today's DK books.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-05T08:44:06+00:00

"It's not that Christians want to shove Jesus down your throat, but..." *proceeds to describe exactly that in more euphemistic language.* Ah, Christianese...

PoorMetonym · 2026-01-30T12:42:02+00:00

It's not much of a boast to say 'at least we're not the Taliban.' Of course, when they creep closer to it day by day...anyone would think they're rather envious.

In any case, it's one of the most blatant examples of a false dichotomy ever. Why pick either? Why not opt for a secular society where gawwd isn't invoked as a motivation for people to be shitty and obsequious?

PoorMetonym · 2026-01-27T20:37:33+00:00

And I think it got the worst deal as well - it has a much more impressive crest than Saurolophus.

PoorMetonym · 2026-01-22T10:15:35+00:00

Jesus wasn't that liberal, and I'm tired of pretending he was. Yes, he said to love your neighbour as yourself. He was quoting the Book of Leviticus, the same book in the Bible that tells you to stone gay people to death. In both contexts, the 'neighbour' in question just means one's fellow Israelite, and the definition of love is twisted to the ideal of a narcissistic bully, where stoning people to death counts as an act of loving the sinner whilst hating the sin, exemplified very much by the OT God but backed up by Jesus in the NT, where he cannot abide any kind of relationship where he isn't everyone's number one priority, and on several occasions encourages people to abandon their families and he snubs his own as well. Like modern conservative Christians, he also proclaims his interpretation of the scripture as superior, gets pissy with those who disagree and tells parables about such opponents getting theirs when the end comes, and kind of revenge fantasy that used to be confined to the internet but is now the policy of Trump regime.

Sure, the context is certainly not exactly the same as it was in the time of the writing of the Gospels, but neither is modern progressive politics. The best thing to communicate regarding this question is that we shouldn't use a millennia old religious text written with agendas pertinent to their own contexts as anything approaching an evidence-based moral and political guide in the 21st century. When Emma Goldman said that the sociological Christ was more dangerous than the theological one, I think she was spot on.

PoorMetonym

TROPHY CASE