Judges is definitely not suitable for Sunday School reading, the bits that are told are firmly censored, and few of us go back to notice what we are missing. But, if we do, what we find is a book chock full of horrid twisted tales, brutal, brutish and sadly not short. Why? Can such a nasty collection of stories be justified, or should it simply be banned?

The book of Esther tells a terrible story, of attempted genocide averted. Too often Christian readers miss the humour in the story, of course some of it is sex related, and/or poking fun at gender expectations, so perhaps there are reasons for the blindness.