Shodan, Diogenes, Tomndebb, how many ways are there to be inside of a woman that isn’t sexual? The issue is with the “out of” part and not the “come”. You could just as easily say “get out of the woman” or “remove yourself from the woman” and it would have the same chance for a sexual connotation. Stop being inside of her.
I’m not saying there is a sexual connotation, I’m just saying you all are failing to see the eyeglasses on your nose.
(There could similarly be an image of birthing as opposed to sexual penetration, of course.)
Right. I think the only reason that there is any implied sexual metaphor in this passage is because English speakers don’t usually refer to a city as feminine so much. There have been metaphors of Babylon as an adulteress before, but I don’t think this is talking about a metaphorical end to fornication.
For a modern example, in German you would literally (and grammatically correctly) tell someone, “come out of her,” in reference to a city and no one would see anything odd about it. The Greek gender was translated into English is all.
To be honest I am defending the premise to a much greater degree than it matters to me. Perhaps it does mean leave the city. I just thought the imagery of a whore could have shaded the meaning.
The OP mentions coitus interruptus, so you are incorrect. That claim has been made. I refuted it in my first post to the thread.
No, it does not mean that. As I mentioned in my second post to this thread.
Serious question - is anyone actually reading anything here?
I guess I will repeat what I have already said a couple of times, y’all can ignore it, and then perhaps you will trip over the actual meaning of the passage if someone else posts it. There is no sexual connotation in the passage.
Kings weren’t really having sex with Babylon either, and Babylon wasn’t really having sex for money or fornicating with people. It was a metaphor in verse 3, so why would the personification of Babylon cease to exist solely for verse 4, and then continue for the rest of the chapter and into the next?
I don’t understand how one can be so sure that the image is NOT meant to be a sexual one, as the descriptive words “whore,” “adulteress” and “fornication” are used in the preceding verses and following chapter? Not even anatomic or graphic or literal sexual intercourse, but Biblically in the sense that God’s people had “become one” with a immoral culture, as opposed to “becoming one” with Christ. And this was the author’s way of saying to remove themselves from this wicked city before God destroyed it.
I’m not saying the sexual connotation here is a given, but how can anyone be so sure of the intent of an author who is using symbolism and poetry, especially when the symbolism and poetic language is drenched in sexual terms?
CaerieD, how is the sexual metaphor merely implied when in the preceding verse the author explicitly says she has committed “fornication” with the kings of the earth?
DtC, poetically speaking, the grammatical function of the language potentially helps the author carry out his use of the metaphor. That’s what double entendres are made of.
“Remove yourself from the whore, and beat it.” newscrasher, it does mean “leave the city.”
From The New Oxford Annotated Bible: “The great whore, a symbol that builds both on the fact that cities were grammatically constructed as feminine and on the Hebrew prophets’ metaphorical references to cities and nations as brides, wives, or harlots.”
Well I found out why I was having such a hard time getting through to Shodan!
I just googled the meaning of coitus interruptus and I have misunderstood the meaning of the word!
Apparently it is a method of birth control where the man withdraws and ejaculates outside the woman.
I understood it to be just the interruption of intercourse.
Back in the 80s I found an old Penthouse. There was a cartoon of a man and woman in the bed. Obviously they had just been interrupted during love-making by the telephone. He was handing it to the woman, looking annoyed. The caption said, “It’s your mother, old coitus interruptus.”
To this day I have thought that the phrase meant being interrupted during the act of sex. I didn’t realize that the phrase itself does in fact refer to ejaculating outside the vagina.
So my misunderstanding of the phrase, married with the coincidental use of the word “come”, had **Shodan ** and I talking at a disadvantage from the start.
Basically we can lay this whole misunderstanding at the feet of 1980’s smut peddlers.
{{shakes fist}} Damn you Bob Guccione!!!{{/shakes fist}}
So, I finally have the Straight Dope: I emailed my Bible as Literature professor (she’s got a PhD and everything, so I’m going to consider her to be a reliable and knowledgable source), and explained the discussion. This is what she had to say:
Here’s the relevant portion of my email to her, to provide any necessary context:
I don’t think that “you can also interpret it in other ways as well” is logically equivalent to “you can interpret it however you want”. If you won’t believe a professor of Bible studies as an expert, there’s not much more I can say.
She’s lit critic, not a historical one. I would like to hear her argument for why it’s fair to assume the author intended such an implication. Her email sounds like a pat on the head to me.
She’s not a lit critic, and she does study the Bible from a historical perspective as well as literary. The only information you have about her is that I mentioned the class I took with her. If you want to consider an informed answer to be a “pat on the head,” have at it. If she had agreed with you, I have a feeling that you would have accepted that as a valid cite.
You said she teaches Bible as literatue. That’s lit crit.
That was my subjective impression. All she said was that you could take it that way if you wanted to. She didn’t provide any argument as to why it can be argued that the author had any such intent.
Well, she would have been right, at least.
I’ve already cited the Greek definitions, and you are the one making the claim that the line should not be read at face value, but with a specific connotation, therefore you are the one making a claim. I don’t have to prove the negative, just like I wouldn’t have to prove the line was not about baseball. It’s your claim that the line means something other than its prima facie reading. You back it up.
I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you email her again and ask her if she can provide any on point argument as to why it can be assumed that the author intended any sexual connotation?
