It’s very difficult to have a meaningful conversation when anyone who doesn’t tiptoe on eggshells around you gets this bomb dropped on them. Knock it off!
Please don’t think I’m trying to shut out your viewpoint here. I’m sure that MOST of the people here would agree with you on the point of, “people shouldn’t use archaic 2000-year-old laws to justify the horrible things they do.” What I was trying to get across is that, for most people, religion is not a static tradition: it evolves along with humanity to best fit the society in which it is practiced. In Judaism, you will often hear references to “in the year ABCD, Rabbi Whatshisname said this, in the year WXYZ Rabbi Someotherguy said that”, etc. As another example, there are many, many different versions of the Haggadah, the prayer text used at Passover, written by various rabbis, scholars, and authors over the years, all with slightly different ideas over what the holiday means and why it should be observed. That means that there has, in fact, been an ongoing dialogue about just what faith and religion mean to people, which is quite a healthy thing.
It’s indeed sad that some people use outmoded religious texts to justify doing bad things, but as history has taught us, ANYone can use ANY text, speech, sentiment, or idea to justify ANYthing. I’m sure the Manson gang felt completely justified in murdering people, not that murdering people was right of course, but hey, Charlie told 'em to. Religious texts inspire a lot of violence, but so do many other things. If you took out the Torah, the Bible, the Koran, whatever, people would still do violent things and feel somehow justified in doing them.
You may have noticed that this forum is called Great Debates. So debating is what happens here. 
The comment about people not tolerating your opinions is absurd, as we have people who share your viewpoints and then some. Don’t mistake arguments for intolerance.
Having re-read part one of “Who Wrote the Bible,” I do see what Becky01 is/was talking about in the last two paragraphs. But I don’t think it’s an overall assessment of the goodness of the Hebrews. I see it as a comment on some of the positive impacts of the Bible on human history and culture.
Shouldn’t this be in the “Comments on SRs” forum?
Anyway, the Hebrews were evil sonsabitches, sure. So were the Canaanites, and the Romans, and the Egyptians, and everyone else. All evil. EVIL!
Except the KhoiSan. They never had a littler guy to pick on. sniff
Aside from th atrocity of forcing a woman to become the physical property of her rapist, this also higlights what kind of hideously misogynist culture we’re talking about.
That’s a repulsive assumption, is it not?
The underlying assumption being that a woman is physical property and that any woman who commits adultery deserves to be baten to death with rocks.
I think the OP’s point is valid that the Hebrew Bible is a repository of ancient cultural attitudes which are abominable by modern standards and that attempts to defend it are grasping and ill-advised. What she may not really get, however, is that this culture was not particularly worse than any other in the ancient world and that some others were even worse.
Comparatively speaking, Mosaic law represented some moderation over what had existed previously, but it was still horrific by our standards.
Indeed, and I like to point out to fundies that the US was not founded so much on Biblical principles as Greek and Roman ones.
True, but the Bible continues to be shorthand for the ideological base of what is arguably the most powerful bloc of voters in the US. Christian conservatives consider the Bible to be the handbook for all that is righteous, and the “vote their values”.
Do stay. We live for this kind of thing.
Yes, if there’s one thing we just won’t tolerate around here, it’s atheism, anti-Christian sentiment, or any sort of irreligious posting at all. Also, we won’t hold with evilution, we hate the gays, and all posters are required to certify their support for George W. Bush before becoming members.
Seriously, Becky01, you’re not getting this reaction because you’re shocking or offending us, you’re getting it because you’re saying stuff that most of us figured out back in high school, and acting like you’re Moses come down from the mountain. Ratchet it back a couple of notches, take some time to read the boards and get a feel for the culture around here, and try again with a little more nuance to your views.
Hell, this has been one of the more interesting religious debates as of late.
Most of the others have been cut and paste “Does God Exist” squabbles with no significance whatsoever, either that or lekatt’s sandbox.
Carry on Becky01, I for one do not agree with what you are saying but you have every right to speak your mind around here (but be prepaired to defend it as well)
I thought about moving it, but it would’ve gotten tossed over here anyway. This is GD stuff. In case anyone hasn’t read the series, however, here is the first column.
I’m aware. The Bible keeps some ancient viewpoints alive, but that’s because they speak to something within people. If Judaism hadn’t survived or Christianity hadn’t become the dominant religion in the West, I think it would have been replaced with something different but roughly equivalent on the balance.
Seconded.
The proposal has been moved and seconded. Mr. Chairman, I ask the question to be put to a vote.
No. First of all, the woman has to consent to the marriage. Under that law, the woman can demand of the rapist that he marry her, and he’s obligated to do so, and, having done so, may not divorce her. The obligation is his, not hers.
Secondly, the wife isn’t her husband’s property. He has legal authority over her, but she has rights too. She has to consent to sex within the marriage. She can own, buy, and sell property, she constrols her dowry.
It’s 3000 years ago. And it’s not that repulsive an assumption. If it’s up to you as a judge to decide, how do you tell if a sex act is consentual or not? The standard of “Did she resist when she had the opportunity” is maybe not the best standard, but it’s a reasonable one.
Well, the underlying assumption being that a woman who commits adultery deserves to be beaten to death with rocks. Doesn’t mean she’s physical property. And laws against adultery make sense. If everybody’s going around having sex with everyone else, without DNA testing, how do you determine parentage? If you can’t determine parentage, that has all sorts of implications ranging from child support, to inheritance, to tribal identification, to incest, etc.
With respect, no you do not.
You come from the most intolerant and inflexible of the Christian traditions, reject the faith you were raised in, but in doing so you reject the whole kit and caboodle and do not account at all for the millions of believers who interpret the Bible in very different ways.
My own faith believes that the Bible was written by men who, while inspired by the Holy Spirit, used their own faculties and powers to write the Scriptures - and the limitations of these men can often be detected. Therefore, our reasoning as intelligent people must be brought to bear sometimes, and through this we may open our mind to the true Word of God.
Now, you can believe this or not, but it is a fuller and more complete view of the situation than the narrow and simple one you have presented here.
Where are you getting this? The Bible doesn’t say that.
Like what?
Cite that she has to consent to the marriage?
So?
The assumotion is that any woman who is raped in the city must have consented. There is also an unreasonable assumption that passive acceptance implies consent.
Laws against adultery only applied to women and to men who slept with other men’s wives. men were allowed to bang their servants, for instance. It’s true that the reason they felt the need to control the sexual activity of women was to have some assurance of paternity, but the implication is still that a woman is property and that she has no right to sleep with whoever she wants.
I don’t think that trying to defend these kinds of archaic, brutal laws is going to be very productive. The best you can say is that the Israelite law described in the Torah was not as bad as some other cultures.
This is in a sense the problem with what I suppose it the thesis in the OP - that because there are horrific acts retold with approval in the OT, that therefore and because of that everything in the OT is tainted (as the product of people fundamentally evil) and must be rejected - even though the books of the OT were written or redacted from traditions that span a very long time (the writer of Ecclesiasties probably was not the same person as the originator of the stories in the book of Judges).
Applying the same principle consistently leads to absurdity, in that much of our culture is based on peoples who did stuff that by our standards is pretty horrific. Should we reject democracy as evil, because Greeks had a central mythology that was outrageously violent and sexist …
I think Captain Amazing was talking about Celtic law, not Biblical law.
Ok.
It doesn’t. Later rabbinical commentary does. You can’t apply the idea of sola scriptura to Judaism- it’s not a Jewish idea. We don’t interpret the Bible literally and without context.
Polls go in IMHO. 
But if we’re voting… hmm. On the one hand, you’ve got the violence and oppression discussed in the Bible, and centuries of wrongs based on that. On the other hand, you have bagels, comedy as we know it (subtracting a few points for the works of Sandler and Schneider), Alyson Hannigan and the Beastie Boys. I vote “Good.”
Brisket, matzo ball soup, bagels and lox, fantastic words like meshuggener, nudnik, chutzpah and the like.
I have to vote GOOD!
I’m aware of the importance of oral law and Talmudic commentary in Jewish tradition, but the acceptance of that oral law as an accurate exposition or interpretation of the original intent or practices depicted in the Torah is accepted as a matter of faith, not proveable historical record.