Controversial Bible Verses (The 10 Most Problematic Verses)

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily match my own. - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman

Whatever a person believes about the Bible’s religious authority, the biblical writings, including the most controversial Bible verses, can also be studied historically: as texts produced by ancient authors, shaped by particular cultures, institutions, assumptions, and social worlds.

In his book The Bible as Literature: An Introduction, John B. Gabel writes:

(Affiliate Disclaimer: We may earn commissions on products you purchase through this page at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting our site!)

Without a doubt, the Bible is the most important collection of writings in the history of Western civilization. 

Not surprisingly, it also contains some of the most problematic verses ever written, passages that continue to generate heated debates over women, sexuality, slavery, violence, family authority, and divine punishment.

Some are controversial because their meaning is disputed. Others are troubling precisely because their basic meaning appears relatively clear, while the values or institutions they reflect can seem deeply alien to modern readers. 

In what follows, we’ll examine ten such passages and ask two related questions: Why do these verses remain controversial today, and how do contemporary biblical scholars understand them within their original historical and literary contexts? 

The main goal is to clarify what these texts say, what scholars think they meant, and why they continue to provoke such strong reactions.

Check out Dr. Travis Proctor's course, Must Women Keep Silent, to learn Paul’s real views on gender, desire, and women.

#1: 1 Timothy 2:11–12: “I Do Not Permit a Woman to Teach”

Even though 1 Timothy was almost certainly not written by Paul himself, it played an important role in the development of Christianity. And here we find our first example of the most controversial Bible verses. 

In a section devoted to instructions concerning Christian women, the author writes: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.”

It’s not difficult to see why these words have generated controversy. For centuries, they have been used in debates over whether women may teach, preach, exercise authority in Christian communities, or serve as ordained clergy, and they continue to play a major role in disagreements over women’s leadership in churches today.

But how do scholars understand this verse from a historical and literary perspective? 

As Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann explain in their Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, the immediate setting concerns proper behavior within the Christian assembly, where women are instructed to remain subordinate to male teaching and not to exercise authority over men.

Yet they caution against interpreting the prohibition as merely a response to disruptive behavior during worship.

The author grounds his argument in the creation of Adam before Eve and in Eve’s deception, suggesting that he understands the restriction as part of a broader conception of the proper social and religious position of women. 

The passage also belongs to a wider set of household instructions and may reflect a situation in which the author was reacting against Christian groups that allowed women more prominent roles as teachers and preachers. 

In other words, the verse reflects debates over gender, authority, and social order already taking place within early Christianity.

But this isn’t the only controversial and problematic Bible verse concerning women. Another appears in a letter that most scholars agree was actually written by Paul.

#2: 1 Corinthians 14:34–35: “Women Should Be Silent in the Churches”

In a letter addressed to a Christian community deeply troubled by internal divisions, Paul gives instructions about orderly worship and the use of spiritual gifts.

Yet near the end of that discussion comes one of the most controversial Bible verses concerning women: “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”

But did Paul actually write these words? Joseph Fitzmyer highlights the central difficulty: “The prohibition of women speaking in church seems to counter what Paul has already admitted in 11:5, where he spoke of a ‘woman who prays or prophesies’ (in a common worship service), even though he criticized one who did so ‘with uncovered head.’ Perhaps, too, it runs counter to the ‘all’ used of prophecy in 14:31.”

That tension is one reason many scholars, including Bart D. Ehrman, argue that 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 may be a later interpolation rather than part of Paul’s original letter.

The suspicion is strengthened by the fact that in some manuscripts these verses appear in a different location, suggesting that scribes may have known the passage in a movable textual form before it became fixed where it now stands.

If that interpretation is correct, the command reflects a later attempt to restrict women’s participation in Christian worship rather than Paul’s own consistent position. 

We have an entire article devoted to Paul’s views on women, and readers who want to explore the issue in greater depth can also turn to Dr. Travis Proctor’s four-lecture course, Must Women Keep Silent: Paul’s Real Views on Gender, Desire, and Women.

#3: Genesis 3:16: “He Shall Rule Over You”

It’s not only in the New Testament that we find controversial Bible verses concerning the role and status of women. 

The Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, also contains Bible passages that have generated considerable debate, and one of the most important appears in the story of Adam and Eve’s transgression in Genesis. 

In Genesis 3:16, after the couple has eaten from the forbidden tree, God tells the woman that childbirth will bring pain and that her husband “shall rule over” her.

Because of those final words, the verse has often been read as providing divine sanction for male authority over women. Yet from a historical and literary perspective, the crucial question is whether Genesis is prescribing such domination or describing it as one of the consequences of human transgression.

Bill T. Arnold, in his Commentary on Genesis, places the verse firmly within this larger pattern of consequences:

For Arnold, “he shall rule over you” is descriptive rather than prescriptive. In other words, male domination belongs to the damaged world outside Eden, not to God’s original ideal for relations between men and women.

From Genesis, however, we now return to the New Testament, where another controversial passage addresses the “proper” relationship between husbands and wives.

#4: Ephesians 5:22–24: “Wives, Submit to Your Husbands”

Another example of controversial Bible quotes comes from the Epistle to the Ephesians, one of Paul’s disputed letters. Many critical scholars believe that it was written by a later follower of Paul, although other highly respected scholars continue to defend Pauline authorship. 

Either way, the controversial passage appears in chapter 5, where the author tells wives to subordinate themselves to their husbands and compares this relationship to that between the church and Christ. 

Unsurprisingly, these Bible verses have played a major role in Christian discussions of marriage, gender hierarchy, and the authority of husbands over wives.

Yet the passage is more complicated than it may first appear. 

Having in mind the historical and religious context of these verses, Markus Barth, in his Commentary, rightly points out:

Just as importantly, Barth refuses to read verses 22–24 apart from verse 21, which calls believers to mutual subordination. 

In fact, the Greek of verse 22 doesn’t even repeat the verb “submit” in the shorter textual form, but carries it over from the preceding command to “subordinate yourselves to one another.” 

Barth therefore argues that the wife’s submission is framed by a broader ethic of mutual responsibility rather than by an unrestricted command for female obedience. He also stresses that the epistle speaks specifically about wives and husbands, not women and men in general, and thus doesn’t teach that women as a class are naturally inferior or socially subordinate to men. 

With that, we leave the question of women and gender behind and move into a very different category of controversial Bible verses: divine violence in the Old Testament.

#5: 1 Samuel 15:3: The Command to Destroy Amalekites

In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins famously wrote:

Dawkins’ assessment is deliberately polemical, and readers may agree or disagree with his broader evaluation of biblical religion. Yet the fact remains that the Old Testament contains some deeply troubling passages involving divinely sanctioned violence.

One of the clearest examples appears in 1 Samuel 15:3. Through the prophet Samuel, God commands King Saul to attack the Amalekites and destroy men, women, children, infants, and livestock. 

The command is presented as punishment for Amalek’s earlier attack on Israel during the exodus, a tradition also preserved in Exodus 17 and Deuteronomy 25

As Kyle McCarter explains, the key concept here is the Hebrew ḥērem, or “ban,” by which captured people and property were devoted to Yahweh through complete destruction. 

Within the narrative, Saul’s failure is actually that he doesn’t carry out the command completely: he spares King Agag and some livestock, and his disobedience becomes the reason for his rejection as king. 

In any case, historical context helps explain the passage’s ideology of holy war and prophetic obedience, but it hardly removes the ethical difficulty created by a text that attributes such comprehensive violence to divine command.

#6: Deuteronomy 21:18–21: Stoning the Rebellious Son

Our next example comes from Deuteronomy, where the law addresses the case of a persistently rebellious son who refuses to obey his parents. 

According to Deuteronomy 21:18–21, the parents are to bring him before the elders of the town, accuse him of stubborn disobedience, and describe him as “a glutton and a drunkard.” The men of the town are then instructed to stone him to death.

By modern standards, the punishment appears extraordinarily severe, and some readers may view it as among the worst imaginable, especially when the passage is read simply as prescribing death for disobedience to one’s parents.

Historical-critical scholarship, however, places the law within Deuteronomy’s broader concern with household authority, communal order, and the removal of behavior regarded as threatening to Israel’s covenantal society.

The wording suggests something more serious than an unruly child: the son is portrayed as persistently defiant and socially destructive, while judgment is transferred from the parents to the community’s elders rather than left to private family vengeance. 

Even so, the text does prescribe capital punishment, and there is little evidence that such a law was regularly enforced in ancient Israel. Its severity reflects the legal and social world of Deuteronomy rather than modern assumptions about family discipline and criminal justice.

#7: Leviticus 18:22: “You Shall Not Lie With a Man”

Leviticus 18:22 is probably one of the most controversial Bible verses of recent decades because it is frequently invoked in public debates over homosexuality, same-sex relationships, and the moral authority of the Bible. 

The verse prohibits a man from lying with another male “as with a woman” and labels the act an “abomination.” 

Because of this wording, it has often been treated as a straightforward biblical judgment on homosexuality as such. Yet that modern formulation already raises an important historical problem: the text was written within an ancient social world that didn’t conceptualize sexuality primarily in terms of fixed sexual identities or orientations.

The historical-critical method therefore invites us to ask a different question: what function did this prohibition have within the legal and social world of Leviticus? 

Jacob Milgrom places it within the larger sequence of prohibited sexual practices in Leviticus 18 and argues that the underlying concern is not simply sexual desire in the abstract. As he explains:

On Milgrom’s reading, then, Leviticus 18:22 belongs to an ancient system concerned with reproduction, household order, and the preservation of a particular patriarchal social structure. 

He also notes that the Hebrew expression used in the verse refers specifically to a sexual act, not to a modern category of sexual identity. 

That distinction doesn’t make the verse disappear from contemporary ethical debates, but it does mean that historians should be careful not to assume that an ancient Israelite prohibition and the modern concept of homosexuality are simply identical categories.

#8: Leviticus 25:44–46: “You May Buy Male and Female Slaves”

There is another problematic Bible passage in the Book of Leviticus that frequently appears in discussions of controversial Bible verses. 

In Leviticus 25:44–46, Israelites are permitted to purchase male and female slaves from surrounding nations and from foreigners living among them. These slaves are explicitly described as property that may be inherited by the owner’s children and held in permanent servitude.

As with our other examples, however, the historical question is what these verses meant within their own religious, cultural, and social setting. 

In his Commentary on Leviticus, John E. Hartley explains:

The crucial distinction, then, is between Israelite debt-servants and foreign slaves.

An impoverished Israelite who entered servitude was to be treated more like a hired worker and ultimately released, because the Israelites themselves belonged to Yahweh, who had liberated them from bondage in Egypt. 

Foreign slaves occupied a very different legal position. Namely, they could become permanent members of an owner’s estate and could be transferred to the next generation as inherited property.

Historical context therefore helps explain why Leviticus 25 combines surprisingly strong protections against the permanent enslavement of fellow Israelites with an acceptance of permanent slavery for outsiders. 

The Jubilee legislation sought to prevent debt from creating a permanent slave class within Israel, but it didn’t challenge slavery itself as a social institution. 

That distinction is essential: ancient Israelite slavery wasn’t identical to modern Atlantic racial slavery, but neither can Leviticus 25:44–46 accurately be reduced to a system of ordinary paid employment or temporary indenture.

#9: 1 Peter 2:18: “Slaves, Submit to Your Masters”

The issue of slavery did not disappear with the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

Far from it, slavery remained a central social and economic institution, and, as Ramsay MacMullen has shown, the position of slaves did not suddenly or substantially improve after the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity.

Against that background comes our next example. In 1 Peter 2:18, household slaves are instructed to submit to their masters with respect, not only to those who are kind and reasonable but also to those who are harsh.

From a historical-critical perspective, the verse belongs to the broader household instructions of 1 Peter and reflects the realities of Christians living within Roman social structures rather than a program for abolishing slavery. 

The author addresses enslaved Christians as people already embedded in unequal household relationships and urges endurance under unjust treatment, presenting such suffering as religiously meaningful when borne because of commitment to God. 

In that sense, the passage is pastoral and pragmatic, but it’s also socially conservative. In other words, it assumes the continued existence of slavery and doesn’t challenge the master's legal ownership of the slave.

That is precisely why the verse remains controversial. 

Historical context can explain why an early Christian author might counsel submission to people with very little social power and few realistic avenues of resistance, but explanation isn’t the same thing as moral exoneration.

The text still accommodates itself to an institution in which one human being could exercise legally sanctioned authority over another, and that tension has made 1 Peter 2:18 one of the more difficult New Testament passages in later debates about slavery and Christian ethics.

#10: Revelation 20:15: The Lake of Fire

In Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End?, Bart Ehrman notes:

So it seems fitting to end our journey through the most controversial Bible verses with the Book of Revelation. 

Our final example comes near the end of the book, in the vision of the final judgment. Revelation 20:15 states that anyone whose name isn’t found in the “book of life” is thrown into the “lake of fire.” 

The verse has been enormously influential in later Christian ideas about hell, eternal punishment, and the ultimate fate of the wicked, which is precisely why it remains so controversial.

Yet the passage needs to be read within Revelation’s apocalyptic and symbolic world. 

Robert H. Mounce, in his Commentary, explains that the lake of fire represents not only punishment but also the final defeat of everything associated with evil. Death and Hades themselves are thrown into it, so the image is part of a broader vision in which the powers of sin and death are finally abolished.

Mounce also places the scene within the wider tradition of Jewish apocalyptic literature, where vivid images of divine judgment were common.

Revelation is severe, but its description is actually less elaborate than some comparable Jewish apocalyptic texts.

If you're eager to explore visions of the end in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity, Jason Staples’ course, Visions of the End, is the perfect place to start. Across 28 online lectures, Dr. Staples brilliantly unpacks just how profound and complex these ancient apocalyptic perspectives truly were.

Historically, then, Revelation 20:15 is best understood not as a straightforward geographical description of the later Christian hell, but as part of a symbolic vision of universal judgment and the final eradication of evil.

Conclusion

Shakespeare famously wrote that even “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” and after looking at the complexity behind the books that came to form the Bible, as well as the controversial verses they contain, the English playwright’s remark makes perfect sense. 

Biblical texts can be quoted in isolation to support remarkably different moral, theological, and political claims, resulting in them sometimes appearing on lists of the most offensive verses. But historical-critical scholarship reminds us that they emerged from particular ancient societies with their own assumptions about gender, violence, sexuality, slavery, authority, and divine judgment. 

Context doesn’t make every difficult passage ethically unproblematic, nor does it dictate how modern readers must evaluate or apply these texts.

What it does provide is something more fundamental: a disciplined way of asking what these passages meant in their original literary and historical settings before deciding what they should mean today.