BREAKFAST BIBLE STUDY

Bloody Violence and Criminal Rape

The Book of Revelation

12/14/25

“Christian nationalism is about power, nothing more.” – Christian Pecker

Because we have been getting ready for Christmas this month, I told Grace and Christian that I did not want to do any of the Old Testament laws or stories because they won. Grace reminded me that I could find many good laws in the Old Testament if I looked. She pointed me to Leviticus 19:34, which says that you should love immigrants and treat them well.

“I still want to do the New Testament for the next couple of weeks,” I said.

“Not all of the New Testament is wonderful,” Grace said as we decorated the tree.

“Like what?”

“Our church loved preaching from Revelation,” Grace said. “It’s a violent, bloody book.”

“Yep, but that’s because the end times will be rough,” I said.

“People debated in the early church if it should even be included,” Grace said. “My problem with it, besides the bloody genocide and rape, is that Jesus is depicted as entirely without love.”

“He is?”

“He unleashes violence on the world,” Grace said. “Sure, in the gospels, Jesus tells the high priests that they will witness him returning with clouds of angels, but that didn’t happen.”

“It was a metaphor?” I asked.

“The earliest believers believed he would come back with clouds of angels,” I said. “He didn’t. And then we have Revelation. John of Patmos was preaching to the early churches.”

“Some of them were bad, like Jezebel.”

“So, she deserved to get raped and killed, along with her followers?”

“She gets raped and killed?” I asked. “I thought she got sick or something.”

“Some translations say that she’s thrown into a sickbed,” Grace said. “Or a bed of suffering.”

“Both sound like sickbeds,” I said.

“Do you throw a person who is sick on a bed?” Grace asked.

“No, that would probably make it worse,” I said.

“Why would you throw somebody onto a bed?” Grace asked.

“To wrestle?”

“C’mon, Cole.”

“To rape?”

“Look it up for yourself,” Grace said.

I did and read from the International Children’s Bible: “‘You let that woman Jezebel do what she wants. She says that she is a prophetess. But she is leading my servants away with her teaching. Jezebel leads them to take part in sexual sins and to eat food that is offered to idols. I have given her time to change her heart and turn away from her sin. But she does not want to change. And so I will throw her on a bed of suffering. And all those who take part in adultery with her will suffer greatly. I will do this now if they do not turn away from the wrongs she does. I will also kill her followers. Then all the churches will know that I am the One who knows what people feel and think. And I will repay each of you for what you have done.’”

“Was she getting people sick?” Grace asked.

“No,” I said. “It sounds like she was telling them they could eat foods offered to idols and perform sexual sins. Which ones do you think? Like sodomy and stuff? The Old Testament laws didn’t like any of that.”

“I don’t know,” Grace said. “Pagans offered food to their gods. ‘Jezebel’ evidently told her church that they could eat food eaten by their neighbors. If you’re friendly with your neighbors, you gain converts. As for the sexual immorality, if absolute celibacy was the edict, maybe she was saying that they could have sex.”

“Does absolute celibacy mean married people couldn’t trampoline?” I asked.

“Have sex, you mean? John believed the end of the world was near,” Grace said. “He was wrong. Had he been right, complete celibacy would have been logical.”

“How come?”

“Would you want to bring a child into a world about to burn?” Grace asked.

“No.”

“That said, I don’t think ‘Jezebel’ was to be thrown on a sickbed,” Grace said. “I believe the threat was rape. John of Patmos threatens to repay people for the sins he thinks they’ve committed. It goes to reason that sexual immorality would be repaid with rape, not sickness. May the punishment fit the crime, yes?”

“Unless they got VD,” I said. “Then they might get sick.”

“Fair enough, but the Book of Revelation goes far beyond rape,” Grace said. “Valleys filled with blood. Millions dead,” Grace said. “Does any of that sound like Jesus of the gospels to you?”

“No, not at all,” I said.

“Jesus was dead,” Grace said. “John of Patmos assumed his voice and authority to threaten the early church. You can believe he had a vision. I believe he was sick in the head.”

In state legislatures across the country, Christian fundamentalists are passing laws meant to force the teaching of the Christian Bible in public schools. From the posting of textually inaccurate iterations of the Ten Commandments on the walls of classrooms to the incorporation of the “Trump Bible” across multiple pedagogical disciplines, these laws and mandates are sweeping the reddest parts of this nation.

The height of hypocrisy is banning books in the name of “protecting children” while mandating one particular book rife with numerous acts of sexual violence and scenes of graphic violence and genocide.

Book bans are dangerous. The Bible is worth reading and exists online and in public school libraries across the country, but proponents of mandating its formal teaching in public schools need to know what it actually says.

Some themes in my books below might not be appropriate for children.