There are several passages, but the one that most recently hit me was Joshua 6.21:
They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
Stories like this always made me uncomfortable, but since I have had children they have become deeply disturbing. How many toddlers, do you think, lived in Jericho and were “destroyed with the sword?” How many newborns?
I have not figured out what to do with this one yet.

This sort of thing has happened to me on many occasions. One might say that if it hasn’t, you’re not paying attention. But it is a matter of perspective as to what shocks you as you read. As a very young conservative, I was bewildered and confused by passages about caring for the poor. “Shouldn’t these people be made to work? Haven’t they read 2 Thessalonians?” In more recent days,it is just the passages that Jeff mentions (especially Psalm 137) have made me uncomfortable.
My pastor, Bill Tibert, speaks often about how Jesus would disorient people then reoriented them. “You have heard it said, but I say to you” sort of thing. The parable of the late visitor and the audacious neighbor is a good example of this. The fact that these passages are still doing this today give me hope. I need to be reoriented. Passages like these keep me thinking, questioning and praying.
Ken Ham-Scot McKnight-Bart Ehrman sliding scale…what do you even say about that?

You’ll appreciate this old Rich Mullen’s quote:
http://christineascheller.wordpress.com/2007/09/23/saturday-night-church/?preview=true&preview_id=424&preview_nonce=9986b271ef

whoops. I meant to link to the YouTube video only, but the K0S videos are pretty good too.

Its a great question, Patton, and certainly one I’ve felt over the years (though I’m more likely to get a shock when Paul suggests that maybe it’d be better of the circumcision knife “slipped”!).
That said, being pretty near the Ehrman end of the scale (and likewise religiously curious), I’ve found that I’m more often shocked by how “Christians” interpret all the craziness in the Bible. That is, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with the diversity of the Bible–its a book for all seasons–but watching or hearing it translated is what drives me bonkers.

Yeah, Martyn, good point. I suppose this kind of scriptural shock happens most often to the pious. I don’t recall having the same kind of unsettledness in reading the more violent passages in the Qur’an.

I have experienced “Scripture Shock”. Personally, I would fall on the fundamentalist side by accepting these difficult passages as true. Though it is a challenge, I accept them for two main reasons:
1. People are God’s creation and He can do with them as He pleases.
2. People are all rebellious sinners who deserve nothing but hell for eternity, which shows God to be eternally merciful. To all of the people that God commanded to be slaughtered, He was eternally gracious in letting them see life as long as He did.
These answers don’t necessarily always emotionally satisfy me, but they make perfect logical sense. I think the “scripture shock” passages help us in a few different ways:
1. They show us how gracious God is in sparing us from such trouble.
2. They prove to us that our emotions are not reliable detectors of truth.
3. They emphasize the fact that God’s ways are not our own and keep us from committing Idolatry. I would not create a god who would command the slaughter of women and children and the fact that I worship a God who did makes me confident that He is an Objective reality and not subject to my own desires.

Woops, I posted my e-mail address as my name.

http://osservivedono.blogspot.com/
I’ll preface this by saying I’m not a Christian, though I do regularly (or as regularly as my schedule allows) attend a Bible study with my Christian friend. I don’t think this is the place to explain the entirety of my faith, so I’ll try to remain as on topic as possible. I don’t struggle with these passages like a Christian would, so I wouldn’t call what I experience when I read them “Scripture shock”. They just provide evidence to me that the Bible is a product of culture.
The thing that grates me about these scriptures is that it runs counter to the message that Jesus brings in the New Testament (which is, of course, the foundation of Christianity). In fact, if you asked 1000 Christians to pick 3 adjectives to describe Jesus, probably none of those adjectives would be “wrathful.” I doubt they would say he would condone violence, either. Nor would they apply those descriptions to God the Father or the Holy Spirit. That’s just my assumption but I think it’s pretty close to the truth.
On top of that, these passages reinforce my belief that while the Bible may be divinely inspired (with heavy emphasis on the inspiration part), it was still written by men. I don’t believe any holy text to be infallible or without our grubby fingerprints all over it. Being a product of the culture in which its created, of course it will contain elements that support that culture: demonizing the (human) enemy, waging war for the “just cause”, crushing dissent with violence, along with more subtle devices. There are certain rays of truth that shine through in the Bible but they don’t exist in the passages that explain when and how we should stone someone or slaughter a baby.

I think you’re right, Patton, that critical belief is the big fourth response to scripture shock. But to me scripture shock is not just the challenge of what to do with so much horror; it’s also an aesthetic response. Part of what makes scripture literature is the imaginative depth and range of horror it describes. (And yes, love, mercy, etc., too; but the subject here is horror.) Many readers have not only never encountered such horror in life, they’ve also managed to miss it in art. Scripture shock is the result of encountering the most “traditional” of texts as, in some ways, the most wildly strange and insidiously unsettling of narratives. The “shock” is not simply that the Bible contains much cruelty; it’s also that the text one supposes is ultimately most stable is anything but.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people who claim to be devout Christians are so unaware of what is actually in the Bible.
When I tell them the Bible says we should deny communion to the disabled, and put the victims of incest to death, that eating lobster or shrimp is just as much an “abomination” as a man lieing with another man (“as with a woman” – which clearly speaks not of homosexuals but from heterosexuals turning from that which is “natural” – for them), many stare at me in utter disbelief. For so long they merely have accepted that the Bible says what other people have told them it says.

I think it is reasonable to ask a literalist why he would be worshiping a god that is obviously insane.

I agree. I have often struggled with stories in the bible of cruelty and I, too, consider myself a critical believer. I love the bible but I believe that it is only one source of the divine word. We need to open our minds and find spirit where we can; even in modern literature and speeches. I believe God never stopped talking to us and still does today.

The god of the Old Testament was a blood thirsty god which supposedly loves me but if I don’t accept his son I’ll burn in hell forever. Freewill’s a b******

To the casual on looker it would appear that the Judeo Christian has more that one god. The god of devastation and retribution and the god of miracles and love. “A jealous god” seems like an oxymoron. How can the all perfect and content benevolent one have human traits?
I see the Bible as a a transubstantiation of the human soul. It is an evolution of our own consciousness. It would seem that God himself dealt with us in a fashion fitting to our understanding and mental capability. The God of Genesis seems different than Jesus. A literalist will have difficulty in justifying “thous shalt not murder” and the massive deaths incurred by the flood and Gideon and David.
Perhaps there are missing parts to this Bible. Perhaps parts have been emphasized on purpose. Take some time to read the Gospel of Thomas and Mary Magdalene. Note that the curtain was torn to the inner sanctum upon Jesus’ death. Note that Christ said that He and the Father are one and that He is in us.