As Book Challenges Reach Record Highs, a New Comprehensive List from Sunrise123.org Shows Why the Bible Could Be Banned

LOS ANGELES, June 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Book banning attempts more than doubled in 2022 from an already record-high in 2021. Parents registered over 1,200 challenges to reading materials they felt were inappropriate for children, focusing heavily on books related to LGBTQ+ characters or race issues. But one parent in Utah objected to a specific "sex-ridden" book with themes of child abuse, rape, murder and more. In response, a Salt Lake City school district removed the Bible from elementary and middle schools.

To show how the Bible could be considered unsuitable for kids, a comprehensive list of the 100 most inappropriate passages in the King James Bible is now available for free from Sunrise123.org, a nonprofit whose mission is to supply unbiased data and facts on social and political issues.

The list demonstrates that the Bible contains X-rated stories about genocide, genital mutilation, incest and torture, among other horrible acts.

In Genesis 19:32-33, for example, Lot's daughters get him drunk then rape him in order to get pregnant: "Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father."

In Numbers 31:17, Moses tells his soldiers to kill the male children his men captured after battle and all the women who aren't virgins: "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him."

In the final book of the Bible, Revelation 9:5, people are tortured with scorpion stings for five months: "And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man."

Steven C. Markoff, Founder and CEO of Sunrise 123.org, commissioned the list to demonstrate why anyone banning books should also should also look at the Bible as a candidate for removal. "I'm a supporter of free speech, and as far as I'm concerned, no books should be banned on the basis of someone not liking its content," Markoff said. "But it would be hypocritical for anyone banning books to ignore the heinous topics covered in the King James Bible. While the Bible has some parts that are surely unsuitable for some, many books share that characteristic. It is my hope that the Bible, which comforts many, will stay available to all who want it, as do other books that also have parts some may disagree with. Let readers read what they want."

Sunrise123.org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (previously ProCon.org), founded in 2004 by prominent Los Angeles businessman, author and philanthropist Steven C. Markoff. Encyclopaedia Britannica acquired ProCon.org's content in 2020 and continues to run it as ProCon.org. In 2023, the former ProCon.org corporation was reformed as Sunrise123.org.

SOURCE Sunrise123.org