Biblical Child Abuse Statutes

"He went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young boys came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, 'Go up, you bald head! Go up, you bald head!' And he turned behind him and saw them, and cursed them in the name of Yahweh. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore forty-two of the children."

"And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."

A group of youths teases a prophet for being bald. The holy prophet responds by cursing them in God's name, and God immediately dispatches two female bears to rip forty-two children apart. Apologists attempt to soften this by claiming the Hebrew word refers to "young men" or a "gang of hoodlums," but no amount of linguistic gymnastics justifies an almighty deity commanding wild animals to tear human beings to shreds over a playground taunt.

"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and though they discipline him, he will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives... Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear and fear."

"If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place... And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."

Under biblical law, adolescent defiance is a capital crime. If a child does not obey his parents, the holy legal remedy is for the mother and father to drag their offspring to the city gates so the entire town can smash him to death with rocks. The text commands public execution as family discipline.

"Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol."

"Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell."

The Bible directly commands beating children with wooden rods, explicitly promising that the child will survive the beating. This passage has served as the divine authorization for corporal punishment and physical child abuse in religious households for centuries, framing blunt trauma as an act of spiritual rescue.

"And you shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters."

"And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat."

As a threatened consequence for disobeying his statutes, God promises to inflict a siege so desperate that parents will roast and devour their own babies. This threat is repeated in Deuteronomy 28:53 and Jeremiah 19:9, and depicted as fulfilled in Lamentations 4:10. The biblical deity weaponizes the starvation and consumption of children as divine payback.