The Strangest Books in the Bible

The Bible is a collection of various ancient texts that are considered by Christians to be the inspired Word of God. The number of books in the Bible varies depending on which branch of Christianity you happen to belong to. The standard Protestant Bible only has sixty-six books, the standard Roman Catholic Bible has seventy-three books, and the standard Eastern Orthodox Bible has seventy-eight books.

Many of the texts that are included in the Bible seem rather strange—at least when you read them for the first time. There are some books in the Bible that are a bit peculiar in the sense that they don’t fit in well with the other books in the Bible. Then there are other books in the Bible that just seem downright bizarre—at least until you decipher what they’re talking about.

In this article, I want to talk about five of the most unusual books in the Bible. These are books that are striking either because they are so different from the others or because they employ such bizarre imagery.

The Book of Jonah

The Book of Jonah was originally written in Hebrew. The author of the book is completely anonymous. Although it has been given the title “Book of Jonah,” the book never claims to have been written by Jonah and it consistently speaks of Jonah in the third-person. Internal evidence indicates that the book was written during the time when Judah was ruled by the Achaemenid Empire (lasted c. 539 – c. 332 BC).

The Book of Jonah is, in my opinion, almost certainly a work of satire making fun of people who believed that YHWH would destroy people who refused to obey him and that his mercy did not extend to non-Jews. In the story, Jonah is portrayed as an apathetic jerk who hates the people of Nineveh. YHWH calls on him and tells him to go to the city of Nineveh and tell the people there that they have been wicked and that YHWH is mad at them.

Jonah’s name is יוֹנָה (Yōnāh) in Hebrew, which means “dove.” This name clearly must be intended ironically; the ancient Hebrew associated doves with faithfulness, but, throughout the book, Jonah shows complete lack of faithfulness. Instead of doing what YHWH tells him to do, Jonah rejects his role as a prophet altogether and tries to run away. He boards a ship that is heading to Tarshish, evidently thinking (ludicrously) that YHWH won’t be able to find him there.

YHWH sends a terrible storm that threatens to sink the ship. The sailors are all panicking and throwing all their cargo overboard. Meanwhile, Jonah is fast asleep in the hold of the ship and the other sailors have to wake him up. He tells them that YHWH must be angry with him and orders them to throw him overboard so he will drown and the ship will be spared.

Just as Jonah is about to drown, YHWH sends a giant fish to rescue him by swallowing him. Jonah somehow manages to survive inside the giant fish for three days and three nights. Finally, he agrees to go to Nineveh as YHWH asked him to. Then the giant fish goes up to the land and vomits Jonah out on the beach.

This whole part about Jonah being swallowed by a giant fish, surviving in its belly for three days, and then being vomited out the beach is so over-the-top ridiculous that I can only think it is deliberately intended to be silly. This trope of the hero getting swallowed by a giant fish shows up in other works of ancient satire, most notably in the satirical novel A True Story, which was written in Greek by the Syrian writer Loukianos of Samosata (lived c. 125 – after c. 180 AD). (For more information about this novel, you can read this article I wrote in January 2020 in which I talk about it extensively.)

ABOVE: Jonah and the Whale, painted in 1621 by the Dutch painter Pieter Lastman (lived 1583 – 1633)

The Book of Jonah wildly inflates the size of the city of Nineveh; in Jonah 3:3, it is unrealistically claimed that it took three whole days to walk from one end of Nineveh to the other. If this were true, though, this would make ancient Nineveh far larger than any city on Earth today. For comparison, three days is roughly the amount of time it would realistically take for someone to walk all the way from Indianapolis to Chicago!

Meanwhile, the people of the city of Nineveh are portrayed as unrealistically eager to repent and worship YHWH; as soon as Jonah shows up and starts half-heartedly preaching, everyone in the entire city instantly repents. Not only do all the people fast and put on sackcloth, but their livestock are explicitly stated to do this as well. The Book of Jonah 3:4–9 reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.”

“When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’”

Obviously, this is unrealistic and the idea of animals fasting and dressing in sackcloth is just plain silly.

After this happens, Jonah gets extremely mad at YHWH because the people of Nineveh actually listened to him and repented and Jonah clearly didn’t want that to happen. Thus, Jonah begs YHWH to kill him, saying that he would rather die than see Nineveh be spared. He sits down outside the city to watch, evidently hoping that YHWH will still destroy it, even though the people repented.

Instead, YHWH sends a plant to provide Jonah with shade. Then he causes the plant to wither. Jonah gets mad and begs YHWH to kill him, but instead YHWH reproaches him for caring more about a non-sentient plant that he didn’t even plant himself than about all the people and animals in the city of Nineveh.

The Book of Jonah, in other words, is comedy gold and it has a truly moral message—but there is no way on Earth that any of the events described in it could have really happened. It is clearly a work of satirical fiction.

ABOVE: Illustration from c. 1866 by the French illustrator Gustave Doré, depicting Jonah preaching to the Ninevites

The Song of Songs of Solomon

The Song of Songs is an erotic love poem. It was originally composed in Hebrew, most likely sometime around the third century BC or thereabouts. The version of the poem that has been passed down to us through the manuscript tradition begins with the words “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s,” but it is unclear whether this is supposed to mean that the song was written by Solomon, that the song is about Solomon, or that the song was composed in honor of Solomon. It is also unclear whether this verse was originally present.

Oddly enough, the poem does not contain even a single mention of God. It does, however, contain tons of heavily innuendo-laden passages that seem to describe a whole range of sexual acts that both Jews and Christians have traditionally regarded as forbidden. There are two speakers in the poem: a woman and a man. In Song of Songs 2:3, the woman says something that sounds a lot like a description of fellatio:

“As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”

In Song of Songs 4:11–5:1, we have this exchange that sounds a lot like a description of cunnilingus:

Man: “Your lips distill nectar, my bride;
honey and milk are under your tongue;
the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon.
A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
a garden locked, a fountain sealed.
Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates
with all choicest fruits,
henna with nard,
nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with all trees of frankincense,
myrrh and aloes,
with all chief spices—
a garden fountain, a well of living water,
and flowing streams from Lebanon.”

Woman: “Awake, O north wind,
and come, O south wind!
Blow upon my garden
that its fragrance may be wafted abroad.
Let my beloved come to his garden,
and eat its choicest fruits.”

Man: “I come to my garden, my sister, my bride;
I gather my myrrh with my spice,
I eat my honeycomb with my honey,
I drink my wine with my milk.”

“Eat, friends, drink,
and be drunk with love.”

In Song of Songs 5:2–6 the woman says something that sounds a bit like a description of some sort of fingering:

“I slept, but my heart was awake.
Listen! my beloved is knocking.
‘Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one;
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night.’
I had put off my garment;
how could I put it on again?
I had bathed my feet;
how could I soil them?
My beloved thrust his hand into the opening,
and my inmost being yearned for him.
I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
upon the handles of the bolt.
I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had turned and was gone.
My soul failed me when he spoke.
I sought him, but did not find him;
I called him, but he gave no answer.”

There are a lot of different ways you can take these passages. Obviously, I may just have a dirty mind and I may be reading too much into them, but, to me at least, these passages really sound like they are describing sex acts that, historically, most Christians would consider abhorrent.

Of course, there’s also another peculiarity; towards the end of the poem, the woman speaker seems to say that she and her lover are unmarried and that their relationship itself is forbidden. In the Song of Songs 8:1–3, she says, as translated in the NRSV:

“O that you were like a brother to me,
who nursed at my mother’s breast!
If I met you outside, I would kiss you,
and no one would despise me.
I would lead you and bring you
into the house of my mother,
and into the chamber of the one who bore me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
the juice of my pomegranates.
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!”

This passage only makes sense if we assume that the woman and her lover are not married. Notably, she implies that she still lives with her parents, which implies that she is unmarried, because a married woman would ordinarily live with her husband. Furthermore, she implies that it would not be socially acceptable for her to be seen kissing her lover or leading her lover to the bedchamber.

It is true that, earlier in the poem, the man does repeatedly describe the woman as “my bride,” but he also repeatedly calls her “my sister” and the passage I have just quoted above strongly suggests that she is not really his literal sister. It therefore seems likely that, when he calls her “my sister” and “my bride,” what he really means is that she is like a sister and a bride to him, when, in fact, she is really neither.

I think someone could reasonably argue that the various passages quoted above aren’t really about fellatio, cunnilingus, fingering, and so forth, but I think someone would have a really hard time arguing that Song of Songs 8:1–3 does not indicate that the lovers in the poem are unmarried.

Both Jewish and Christian scholars have been trying to come up with excuses for why the Song of Songs is included in the Bible for millennia. The Church Father Origenes of Alexandria (lived c. 184 – c. 253 AD) famously interpreted the poem as an allegory for the relationship between God and the believer in his Commentary on the Song of Songs, but this interpretation is not entirely convincing.

ABOVE: The Song of Songs, painted by the French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau (lived 1826 – 1898) in 1893

The Book of Job

The Book of Job is a philosophical poem with a prose framing narrative that was originally written in Hebrew. Rabbinical tradition attributes the book to Moses, but the book itself never actually claims to have been written by Moses and there is frankly no good evidence to support the claim that the book was written by Moses. The true author of the Book of Job is anonymous.

The Book of Job was most likely written during the time of the Babylonian captivity (lasted c. 597 – c. 539 BC), but there are some aspects of the book that some scholars have interpreted as evidence that it might have been written during the time when Judah was ruled by the Achaemenid Empire (lasted c. 539 – c. 332 BC).

The Book of Job is unusual because it seems to challenge the basic theological assumption of the Deuteronomistic History, which is that those who fall on hard times are being punished by God for their sins. It does this by presenting us with the example of Job, who is described as perfectly righteous in every way. This is how the character of Job is introduced in Job 1:1:

“There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.”

Job 1:6–12 describes how the “sons of God” (בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים; bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) came to present themselves before YHWH. YHWH asks one of these sons, a figure described as “שָּׂטָן‎” (sâtan), which means “the accuser,” where he has been. The accuser replies that he has been exploring the Earth. YHWH points out Job to the accuser and tells him about what a truly righteous man Job is.

The accuser tells YHWH that Job only follows YHWH’s commandments because YHWH has been good to him and he assures him that, if Job lost everything, then he would undoubtedly curse YHWH to his face. YHWH therefore gives the accuser permission to do whatever he wants to Job—as long as he doesn’t hurt physically harm Job’s body.

The accuser causes foreigners to steal all Job’s livestock and kill nearly all his slaves. He also causes a roof to collapse, killing all Job’s children. Nevertheless, Job refuses to curse YHWH. The accuser goes to YHWH again and tells him that, if only he would let him harm Job’s body, then he could make Job curse him. YHWH gives the accuser permission to harm Job’s body, so the accuser afflicts Job with painful boils from head to toe.

ABOVE: The Examination of Job, painted c. 1821 by the English poet and artist William Blake (lived 1757 – 1827)

Job’s wife comes to him as he is sitting in the ashes, covered in painful sores, scraping himself with a potsherd. She tells him, “Curse God and die,” but Job refuses. Job’s three friends—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—come to “comfort” him, but, instead, they mostly just tell him that his suffering clearly must be his own fault and that he must have done something wrong for YHWH to punish him like this.

Job defends himself, telling his friends that he has done absolutely nothing wrong and that his misfortune is not any kind of punishment for anything he has done. Job even flat-out declares in chapter 24 that, most of the time, YHWH does not punish the wicked for their sins at all and that YHWH doesn’t even necessarily reward the righteous either, because human lives are short and of little importance to YHWH. He says in Job 24:24:

“They [i.e. mighty humans] are exalted a little while, and then are gone;
they wither and fade like the mallow;
they are cut off like the heads of grain.”

After the dialogue between Job and his friends, there is a poem in chapter 28 about how wisdom is hidden from humans and how it is only accessible to God. After the narrative resumes, Job gives a speech demanding that YHWH answer him. Then this guy named Elihu who has never been mentioned before randomly shows up and gives a few speeches before he seemingly disappears, never to be mentioned again.

ABOVE: Job and His Friends, painted in 1869 by the Russian painter Ilya Repin (lived 1844 – 1930)

At last, after Elihu’s speeches, YHWH himself appears in the form of a whirlwind and speaks to Job. He does not directly respond to anything Job has said, nor does he in nay way try to justify Job’s punishment; instead, YHWH merely boasts about his own supremacy, pointing out how weak and pitiful humans are compared to him.

YHWH also vividly describes to Job the behemoth and the leviathan, two terrifying mythical creatures that are presumably supposed to prove how weak and pitiful humans are relatively speaking. In Job 42:1–6, Job admits that he is nothing compared to YHWH and that YHWH is supreme—a fact that Job doesn’t seem to have ever really questioned to begin with, but that YHWH seems awfully keen to impress on him.

Finally, YHWH tells Job’s friends that Job is right and that they must all make offerings to him with Job acting as their intermediary. YHWH restores Job’s health and gives him more children, livestock, and money than he had had before. Job lives to the ripe old age of one hundred and forty, having lived to see his own great-great-grandchildren.

Christians have often read the Book of Job as offering up as theodicy—an explanation for why God allows bad things to happen to good people—but, in all honesty, the book doesn’t really offer up a satisfying explanation. Instead, it seems more concerned with trying to prove that bad things do sometimes happen to good people than with trying to explain the reason why.

If there is a moral to the Book of Job, it seems to be that YHWH is a capricious, all-powerful, otherworldly being who generally doesn’t care about humans because he thinks they are too puny to concern himself with. (Also, apparently he is so out of touch that he thinks that just giving someone more children is enough to make up for the children they’ve lost.)

ABOVE: My own illustration from c. 2015 of God showing the Leviathan to Job

The Book of Revelation

The Book of Revelation was originally written in Koine Greek near the end of the first century AD on the Greek island of Patmos. At the time when the book was written, the entire Mediterranean world was ruled by the Roman Empire. The book itself is generally thought to have most likely been written during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian (ruled 81 – 96 AD).

The author of the book introduces himself as Ἰωάννης (Iōánnēs). This name is usually rendered in English as John. Internal evidence strongly indicates that the author of the Book of Revelation was not John the Apostle, but rather a different man with the same name. Most noticeably, the author of the book never claims to be an apostle and, at several points, he even seems to imply that he isn’t an apostle. The author of the Book of Revelation, then, is generally known as “John of Patmos” or “John the Revelator” to distinguish him from John the Apostle.

The Book of Revelation is full of all sorts of bizarre visions and symbols that have left readers perplexed for centuries. It starts out strange from the very beginning. In the very first chapter, John of Patmos describes how he saw Jesus in a vision with a double-edged sword sticking out of his mouth, his head glowing like the Sun, and seven stars floating in his hand. Here is the full text of the Book of Revelation 1:9–20, as translated in NRSV:

“I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.’”

“Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.”

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.’”

There’s equally weird stuff later in the book, including the famous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (whom I wrote about in this article from January 2020), bizarre “living creatures” covered in eyes, a many-headed dragon, a whore drunk on the blood of the saints, the prophet being commanded by an angel to literally eat a scroll, and a lake of fire.

Ultimately, as weird as all this stuff is, it isn’t nonsense; everything that is described in the book is meant to be symbolic. The Book of Revelation is, in part, a manifesto against the Roman Empire written in a code that the author knew only Christians would understand. It draws heavily on imagery from the prophetic writings of the Hebrew Bible.

In fact, I actually don’t think the Book of Revelation is the weirdest book in the Bible. There is one book that I think surpasses it. I’m talking about a book that is more sexually explicit than the Song of Songs and that is the ultimate source of most of the most bizarre imagery in the Book of Revelation: the Book of Ezekiel.

ABOVE: Modern imaginative depiction of Jesus’s divine form, as described in the Book of Revelation 1:9–20. For some reason the artist forgot to include the massive sword that’s supposed to be sticking out of his mouth.

The Book of Ezekiel

When it comes to the weirdest book in the entire Bible in terms of sheer alien bizarreness, I’m probably going to have to go with the Book of Ezekiel—which, as I said, is actually where the Book of Revelation gets some of its strangest images from. Some version of the Book of Ezekiel was originally written by the prophet Ezekiel (lived c. 622 – c. 570 BC), but the book seems to have undergone substantial editing after Ezekiel’s death and the book as we have it today is probably not exactly the same as it was when Ezekiel wrote it.

The opening scene of the book is a bizarre, detailed description of a vision in which Ezekiel sees YHWH in the sky on a divine chariot pulled by four terrifying, chimeric creatures that sound like something straight out of an acid trip. Ezekiel 1:4–14 reads as follows, as translated in the NRSV:

“As I looked, a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud with brightness around it and fire flashing forth continually, and in the middle of the fire, something like gleaming amber. In the middle of it was something like four living creatures. This was their appearance: they were of human form. Each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus: their wings touched one another; each of them moved straight ahead, without turning as they moved. As for the appearance of their faces: the four had the face of a human being, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle; such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies. Each moved straight ahead; wherever the spirit would go, they went, without turning as they went. In the middle of the living creatures there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches moving to and fro among the living creatures; the fire was bright, and lightning issued from the fire. The living creatures darted to and fro, like a flash of lightning.”

Incidentally, these same four “living creatures” make a reappearance in the Book of Revelation 4, although in that book they are described as having six wings rather than only four and as being completely covered in eyes.

Things get even weirder right away, though, because, almost as soon as Ezekiel sees YHWH in his crazy nightmare chariot, a mystical hand comes down from the sky holding a scroll and YHWH orders Ezekiel to eat it. Ezekiel 2:8–3:3 reads as follows:

“’But you, mortal, hear what I say to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.’ I looked, and a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it. He spread it before me; it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe.”

“He said to me, ‘O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.’ So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat. He said to me, ‘Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.’ Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.”

The eating of the scroll is evidently supposed to symbolize the fact that YHWH is giving Ezekiel the gift of prophecy, but it is still really, really weird.

Evidently God really likes making people eat scrolls, since John of Patmos is also instructed by an angel to eat a scroll in Revelation 10:1–11.

ABOVE: Illustration of Ezekiel’s inaugural vision by the Swiss engraver Matthäus Merian (lived 1593 – 1650)

The Book of Ezekiel isn’t just filled with crazy chariots pulled by monstrous alien creatures and random scroll-eating; it’s also extremely sexually explicit. In Ezekiel 16, YHWH compares Jerusalem to an adulterous wife, but, for some reason, YHWH goes into extremely graphic, explicit detail describing her sexual depravities. The Song of Songs seems to describe a lot of sexual acts, but it does it through obfuscating metaphors, usually involving fruit. Ezekiel’s YHWH does no such thing; he just says exactly what he means outright.

In Ezekiel 16:17–21, YHWH describes the adulterous Jerusalem as literally having sex with male idols made from the silver and gold jewelry that he gave her. He also describes her as sacrificing her sons and daughters to the same idols:

“You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. Also the food I provided for you—the flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

“And you took your sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols.”

Ezekiel evidently loved this idea of using sexual promiscuity as a metaphor for general unlawfulness so much that he actually uses it again. Later, in Ezekiel 23, YHWH tells Ezekiel a story about two prostitute sisters named Oholah and Oholibah who are said to represent the nations of Israel and Judah respectively. Once again, for some reason, YHWH describes all their depraved activities in vivid detail.

The most bizarre passage is Ezekiel 23:14–21, in which YHWH first describes Oholibah, the younger sister, who represents the kingdom of Judah, lusting after paintings of Chaldean men on a wall. Then YHWH goes into extremely explicit detail describing Oholibah’s Egyptian lovers’ penises:

“But she carried her whorings further; she saw male figures carved on the wall, images of the Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion, with belts around their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers—a picture of Babylonians whose native land was Chaldea. When she saw them she lusted after them, and sent messengers to them in Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their lust; and after she defiled herself with them, she turned from them in disgust. When she carried on her whorings so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned from her sister. Yet she increased her whorings, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your young breasts.”

Way too much information there, YHWH.

ABOVE: Illustration by the French artist James Tissot (lived 1836 – 1902) of the whoredom of Oholibah

Then, of course, there are more weird visions. In Ezekiel 37:1–14,YHWH shows Ezekiel an entire valley that is completely filled with dry bones and asks him if the bones can come to life. Ezekiel basically tells him, “I don’t know; you tell me.” Then YHWH tells Ezekiel to talk to the bones. As a result of Ezekiel’s words, the bones come to life and they turn into zombie people. Then YHWH tells Ezekiel that the weird zombie bone people are the nation of Israel. Here’s the full passage:

“The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’ Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.’”

“So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.”

“Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”

Ultimately, all of these weird visions and stories do serve a theological message, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still really weird.

Finally, the last nine chapters of the book (Ezekiel 40–48) are devoted to an extremely lengthy, detailed description of what the new temple in Jerusalem is going to look like. Ezekiel goes on and on, giving exact measurements of everything.

And that’s why I think the Book of Ezekiel is, hands down, the weirdest book in the Bible.

ABOVE: Illustration from c. 1866 by the French illustrator Gustave Doré, depicting Ezekiel’s vision of the zombie bone people