The Bible as R-rated?

Beginning with the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, we are given a full picture of human noninnocence. We have seen so many Sunday school pictures of dutiful children in biblical garb that we forget how utterly unblinking the Scriptures are about human nature. Far from being a collection of inspirational stories, the Old Testament is replete with unedifying R-rated tales of every conceivable kind of crime and villainy, much of it committed by men and women of God’s own choosing.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 196