I’m not trying to start a debate I’m just looking for factual answers.
How many times does the bible condemn homosexuality?
How many times does the bible condone/encourage parents to murder their children for some infraction?
How many times does the bible condone/encourage people to help the poor or give away all their money?
How many times does the bible condone/encourage slavery?
Explicitly: twice, both in Leviticus.
None.
There is a section in Duetronomy about the “wayward and rebellious son.” (It’s in this week’s Torah reading, as a matter of fact.) However, Talmudic law has defined the requirements for carrying this out so narrowly that it is just about impossible to ever execute a “wayward and rebellious” child under this law.
Help the poor: I’m not certain about a specific number - but at least a few times it is mentioned.
Give away all your money: None.
Several.
Zev Steinhardt
Perhaps not in the Old Testament, but there is at least one such passage in the Gospels. In Matthew 19:16-22, Jesus tells a rich man to sell all of his possessions and give them to the poor.
This passage freaked me out when I first read it (currently reading the bible for a class; first time I’ve read it). It reads in part: “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them…and all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you…” It’s at Deuteronomy 21:18
I don’t recall seeing anything that explicity condones slavery thus far, though I could have missed something. Often, it’s spoke of as an expected norm. Zev - do you have the chapter/verse numbers for what you cited?
There may not be simple, factual answers to your questions. For example, as for the Bible condemning homosexuality, in the passages that are often trotted out, there are issues of translation, connotation, and context, so that it’s not clear exactly what’s being condemned (homosexuality as an orientation? as a “lifestyle”? homosexual behavior? and if so, what specific behavior?), and to whom the condemnations apply. I’m sure we’ve had whole threads on this, and the other, issues.
As for “How many times does the bible condone/encourage parents to murder their children for some infraction?” I’m pretty sure the answer is none. I do recall an instance somewhere in the Mosaic Law prescribing the death penalty for children who show disrespect to their parents (sorry, no cite or details—but on preview I think this is what zev and NinjaChick mention), but I don’t believe would have been the parents who carried out the penalty; capital punishment wouldn’t be considered “murder”; and, again, it would take a Biblical scholar to tell us exactly what the law was and what it meant in its context.
In the Old Testament, at least, slavery is not explicity forbidden. It is sort of accepted as societal behavior, but there are limits placed on how one must treat (and cannot mistreat) a slave.
Also, biblically-acceptable slavery is different from (say) later race-based slavery. For example, under the biblical social system, a person could sell himself into slavery as a way of working off debts. The slavery was limited to seven years maximum (voluntarily continuing as a slave was possible.)
To be honest, I wasn’t making a distinction between “an expected norm” and “condoned.”
Exodus 21 deals with “slavery” among Jews (which is not chattel slavery as we have come to know the term). Leviticus 25:44 (among other areas) deals with non-Jewish slaves.
Zev Steinhardt
Yes, that is the chapter that I was referring to. There is an opinion in the Talmud that this law was never actually carried out, due to the constraints upon it.
Zev Steinhardt
Zev he’s asking about the Bible, not the Torah/Talmud. To say that the Bible never encourages people to give away all there money is simply incorrect. Consider for example Matthew 19:21 ““If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”” That seems pretty explicit. Similarly there are fairly unambiguous condemnations of homosexuality in the NT.
I’d also have to question the accuracy of a claim that the Torah never condones parents killing their children ( Wesley it can’t be murder if you accept that the state and God has authorised it. That is the highest possible authority for a legal execution, not a murder.). Any punishment that requires the community or the accusers to participate in a stoning is condoning, in fact demanding, that a parent kill their own child. Unless you can show some evidence that parents were never required to participate in the stoning of their own children or not required to report the crimes of their own children then when it says the accusers or the community carry out the execution then it includes parents.
Beyond that the questions get tricky to answer. What exactly constitutes condoning an action? Obviously a direct order from God to make sex slaves of teenage girls is condoning slavery, but what about passages that mention how slaves are to be treated? Is that condoning it, it or simply accepting it as inevitable? Are passages dealing with the treatment of disease or corpses considered to be condoning condoning death and disease, or simply accepting those things as inevitable even with an all-powerful God?
You really need to clarify what you mean by condones before the question can answer. Any number of passages refer to slavery or situations where parents
The Torah is part of the bible though, it is the first five books.
Nnnnnn…not really.
There’s a semantic difference between “sell everything you have and give it to the poor” and “sell everything you have and give to the poor”. The verse reads as the latter.
Being somewhat unfamiliar with the NT, that’s why I prefaced my comments.
It’s interesting that you point that out. It is true that under Jewish jurisprudence, the witnesses are the ones who actually carry out the execution. However, it is a general rule in Jewish law that a parent cannot testify concerning a child (nor can any relative testify about another relative). In order for a ben sorer u’moreh to be convicted, it must be with his parents’ acquiescence (perhaps part of the reason why this law was rarely, if ever, carried out); but the specific acts that “earn” him the dubious title must be witnessed by others. They are the ones who formally testify in court and would carry out the execution - not the parents.
Zev Steinhardt
(Bolding mine)
I realized that I did not address the bolded part of your post.
Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah (Hilchos Mamrim chap 7) states as follows (translation mine):
If his father wants (to prosecute his son as a ben sorer u’moreh) and his mother does not want; or if his mother wants and his father does not want; he cannot be made into a ben sorer u’moreh as it states “And his father and mother will take him.”
Zev Steinhardt
I think you’ve missed something. There are numerous instances where people are commanded directly by the Prophets of God himself to take slaves.
“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
“And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses. And the booty, being the rest of the prey which the men of war had caught, was six hundred thousand and seventy thousand and five thousand sheep,… And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him.”
When God himself commands his Prophets to command the people to take human beings as booty in war you can’t get much more condoning of slavery. It’s a direct order from the top to enslave other human beings. I’m not sure whether the fact that they are clearly being enslaved for sexual purposes makes it better or worse, but undoubtedly slavery is being condoned, even demanded.
Zev,
Thanks for your input, but you haven’t really cleared things up. If I see my 25 year old son commit mass murder, torture and rape am I not obliged and allowed under Jewish law to testify against him on the matter? And if I am not allowed does that mean that a criminal of that magnitude will go free for want of my tesimony? And if I do testify doesn’t that oblige me to participate in killing my own son?
It seems to me that there will inevitably be cases where a Father will be obliged to kill his own son, however rare those may be instances may be in reality. If that is the case then it’s an overstatement to say that there is only one instance where the Law condones a father executing his own child.
At least twice in the Old Testament, and at least twice in the New Testament. (People will argue this passage refers to heterosexuals practicing homosexual acts, not homosexuals – a topic for GD, I’m sure)
1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Romans 1:24-27: “the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
To help the poor? Probably a few dozen.
Here is one I found while looking for the story below: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.”
To explicitly give away all their money? I can only think of one.
The Rich Young Ruler: “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
This story is repeated in Matthew, but since Matthew and Mark draw from the same source, they are not independent accounts.
I’m not sure whether the Bible ever condones slavery. Slavery is mentionned several times, but there is very little commentary on the moral implications.
(Incidentally, polygamy is viewed in the same way – the Bible never explicitly condemns nor encourages polygamy, only writes as if it is an accepted part of life)
Genesis 22 discusses Abraham being tested by God to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. Isaac has done no wrong, however.
For information on homosexuality and the Bible, you might try this site from the largest Gay and Lesbian Church in Dallas. It provides a different perspective.
It goes way beyond being implicit. God explicitely orders the Isrealites to take slaves. That is not merely an implicit agreement that it is OK, it would actually be a sin NOT to engage in slavery.
This is about as much implicit agreement as keeping the Sabbath is implicitely agreed to. It’s implicit insofar as people are explicitely ordered to become slaveowners by God himself.
While that may be true for that one instance, it’s hard to generalize. For example, God tells the Israelites to wage war. But that doesn’t mean “the Bible / God encourages war” in general.
If the Bible, as a whole, explicity encourages slavery, then why is Paul so adamant about returning Onesimus (sp?) to his owner with a specific plea for freedom? Why would Jesus proclaim freedom for the oppressed?
I agree the answer to that question may be theological, as opposed to factual – but my point is that, factually, Biblical encouragement of slavery is not universal. I suppose we can agree that debate about Biblical consistency should be for GD, not GQ.
Under Jewish law a person is ineligible to testify about a relative. The only case where it is permitted is in civil cases and both sides agree to accept the testimony. In criminal cases, this right cannot be waived. And yes, if there are no other witnesses, the criminal will be acquitted for lack of evidence. Therefore, a parent can never be required to participate in the execution of his/her own child (or any other relative).
Zev Steinhardt
Yes, but verse 1 clearly states it was a test.
Zev Steinhardt