Fighting with the Bible

In times of conflict, the Bible is often used as a club to beat those whose opinions differ from one's own. We recoil from such usage, yet the Bible actually represents many diverse and conflicting points of view. It is like a library, full of books that speak to all sides of every question. Like Christians today, the communities and individuals who wrote the biblical texts often strongly disagree with each other. Ruth and Ezra, Isaiah and Ezekiel, Micah and Joel, Deuteronomy and Daniel, Mark an