Recommended Bible verses for Jesus Guns

A USMC sergeant holds up an M-4 equipped with the ACOG scope, now found to be inscribed with secret codes for Bible verses. Photo from ABC News' slideshow.

By now you've probably heard the news that many of the Marine Corps' gun sights are engraved with code for Bible verses. Mostly it's Christian triumphialism like "then spake Jesus again unto them, saying "I am the light of the world" and similar stuff. Naturally, the fact that weapons used by an ostensibly secular military in combat among Muslim populations bear religious inscriptions proclaiming the superiority of another religion probably isn't going to go over well. Just like that time Bible verses decorated Iraq war briefings. That was an awesome moment in strategic subtlety.

So perhaps it's time to consider some different Bible verses gracing our high-tech weaponry. There's the obvious choice, of course, John 11:35; "Jesus wept." This reflects the probable reaction of a Semitic pacifist mystic by that name, were he to suddenly reappear in the Middle East today and witness these weapons in use.

But ideally, I think the military is better off going farther back, to the Old Testament, in particular the Book of Ecclesiastes, a particularly harsh view on life that predates the Abrahamic creeds' development of an afterlife. I haven't been Christian for many a moon, but these stark little nuggets of wisdom continue hold a place in my heart, partly because the odd variety of existential stoicism is so out of synch with much of the rest of the book into which accident and history have placed them.

Let's inscribe these on some guns, they describe war (and much of life) far better than trumpeting the bringing of light (a muzzle-flash, perhaps) to the world:

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

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for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

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yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

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Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

And my personal favorite:

the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Comments

[Stephen_eggett]

These quotes are great. Do you have the chapter and verse references for them?

[twitter.com/catvincent]

As ever, I go with my all-time fave Bible quote, one which for me holds the true essence of xtian theology...

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."
Ezekiel 23:20

[David Forbes]

Stephen: Ack, how forgetful of me. Ecclesiastes 4:1, 3:19-20 9:3, 9:10 and 9:11.

Cat: Don't know if I'd go as far as true essence, but it's a good one. Them ancient Hebrews were a kinky lot.