Leviticus

Christians are pretty notorious for not reading in this book. Those who do claim to have read it (as in: "I read the Bible from cover to cover in a year!") have quite poor memories concerning its contents. Here is a refresher course on some of the more - interesting? - passages.

Lev 11:5,6 - The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you.
Biology quiz: Have biologists EVER collected a cud-chewing hare or rock badger? There is quite a bit of confusion about these passages, in that the Hebrew word translated as "rock badger" is uncertain. Apologists claim that the cud-chewing of hares actually refers to the fact that they eat their own excrement, which seems a rather specious argument.

Lev 11:13,19 - These you shall regard as detestable among the birds. They shall not be eaten; they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey,...the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe and the bat.
Another biology quiz: Have you ever held a bat in one hand and a bird in the other? How much alike are they?

Lev 11:20 - All winged insects that walk upon all fours are detestable to you.
Biology quiz III: How many legs do insects have?

Lev 14:33, 34 - The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying "When you come into the land of Canaan, and I put a leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession..."
God talks about times when he might put leprosy in someone's house. Apparently, these people thought diseases and bad events were all caused by God - there's no mention in this book of Satan or demons at all.

Lev 16:21,22 - Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the inequities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. The goat shall bear on itself all their inequities to a barren region; and the goat will be set free in the wilderness.
Let's see here. This looks like a method for removing sin from a large group of people without any blood being shed. How does this reflect on Christian theology? Why didn't we ever hear of the "Goat of God"?

Lev 23:30 - And anyone who does any work during that entire day [the Day of Atonement], such a one I will destroy from the midst of the people.
Is this a case of the punishment fitting the crime? The lengths these people went to ensure continuity in the religious life of their community appears quite alarming to me.

Lev 25:44-46 - As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.
Setting up rules for slave trade. Are we sure slavery is not supported in the Bible? In the entire Bible, there is not one word written against the concept of slavery. Obviously, this was one area in which social progress was never envisioned!

Lev 26 - You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no carved images or pillars, and you shall not place figured stones in your land, to worship at them; for I am the LORD your God. You shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.

If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land. And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land and no sword shall go through your land. You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand; your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look with favor upon you and make you fruitful and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you. You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new. I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you shall be my people. I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be their slaves no more; I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

But if you will not obey me, and do not observe all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments, and you break my covenant, I in turn will do this to you: I will bring terror on you; consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down by your enemies; your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee though no one pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not obey me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins. I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper. Your strength shall be spent to no purpose: your land shall not yield its produce, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

If you continue hostile to me, and will not obey me, I will continue to plague you sevenfold for your sins. I will let loose wild animals against you, and they shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock; they shall make you few in number, and your roads shall be deserted.

If in spite of these punishments you have not turned back to me, but continue hostile to me, then I too will continue hostile to you: I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. I will bring the sword against you, executing vengeance for the covenant; and if you withdraw within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into enemy hands. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven, and they shall dole out your bread by weight; and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.

But if, despite this, you disobey me, and continue hostile to me, I will continue hostile to you in fury; I in turn will punish you myself sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols. I will abhor you. I will lay your cities waste, will make your sanctuaries desolate and I will not smell your pleasing odors. I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to settle in it shall be appalled at it. And you I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword against you; your land shall be a desolation, and your cities a waste.

Then the land shall enjoy its sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbath years. As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your sabbaths when you were living on it. And as for those of you who survive, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall though no one pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies. You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall devour you. And those of you who survive shall languish in the land of your enemies because of their inequities; also they shall languish because of the inequities of their ancestors.

But if they confess their inequity and the inequity of their ancestors, in that they committed treachery against me and, moreover, that they continued hostile to me - so that I, in turn, continued hostile to them and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their inequity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. For the land shall be deserted by them, and enjoy its sabbath years by lying desolate without them, while they shall make amends for their inequity, because they dared to spurn my ordinances, and abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, or abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God; but I will remember in their favor the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God: I am the LORD

These are the statutes and ordinances and laws that the LORD established between himself and the people of Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses.
Here's the actual contract between God and Israel. See anything here about eternal life for any person, heaven or hell? Forced cannibalism, maybe, but no eternal souls here!