Slavery Animal sacrifices Expulsion of the seven nations With in-depth treatment of numerous passages from the Scripture, these and other topics from the Jewish Scripture troublesome to many 21st-century readers are analyzed in Is the Good Book Bad? Stern also makes the case that a morality based on belief in God is more compelling than one based on scientific materialism. While the content and argumentation are unique and nuanced, he takes on modern-day criticism without making modern-day compromises on the authenticity of Scripture and how it was interpreted by the sages of the Talmud and the scholars who followed in their footsteps.