30 of the Most Violent Exhortations from the Bible, Torah, and Quran

Illustration of the Black Death from the Toggenburg Bible (1411)

The world has watched in horror while members of ISIS justify the next mass murder or icy execution with words from the Quran, followed by shouts of Allahu Akbar-God is the greatest! If beliefs have any power whatsoever to drive behavior-and as a psychologist I think they do-there can be little doubt that the Quran's many endorsements of violence play a role in how exactly ISIS has chosen to pursue religious and political dominion.

At the same time, it should be equally clear a sacred text filled with violence is insufficient to trigger mass brutality unless other conditions are present as well. Culture, empathy, education and empowerment-and other factors scholars understand only in part-appear to have a protective influence, safeguarding even most fundamentalists against the worst teachings of their own tradition. We know this in part because the Bible contains commandments and stories that are as horrific as those being used to justify butchery in Iraq and Syria. So how well do religious people know their holy books?