I found that the Exodus quote’s ambiguous wording was best preserved in the KJV.
Besides, KJV preserves the formality of the book. A religious book should not sound like your buddy in the coffee shop telling you a story. (IMHO)
There are a number of older societies where the thought was they were “real people” once the dangers of childbirth had passed. One society I read about, the baby was not considered a child until given a name at 6 days age. I wonder if the same logic applied in some small way originally to Christian baptisms and Jewish circumcision ritual?
In perusing my ancestors’ records in southwest England, I see a number of cases where the baptism (christening) did not happen until a month to 3 months after birth, if they bothered to record the birth date at all.
Also point out that the same Old testament rule - “you broke it you bought it…” applied to a wide number of societies laws - IIRC Italy and Spain until a few decades ago had the option that a man could escape a rape charge by marrying the woman. I recall something in the news similar about rape in some middle eastern country. (not clear what option the woman had in all this, but in a male-dominated society, obviously she didn’t have a lot of choices once she’d been identified as a victim, no longer a virgin, and hence “spoiled goods”. Ah, the good old days…)
Though, to be fair, the cases where they are permitted both center on deciding that class B is your enemy. Theoretically, that’s supposed to be “as proclaimed by God”, but it’s pretty easy for anyone to decide that they can feel God’s support or to find a guy who’s willing to claim that he’s getting messages from God. (Cite: ISIS) So, it’s a restriction that leaves itself fairly open to abuse.
Okay, then the OP’s question is unanswerable, since there is no archaeological evidence that any of the stuff we are citing actually happened.
We are discussing what is in the text. The text says that God put those in stone, so that’s what we have to go by.
And, frankly, the thread shouldn’t be in GQ because it is obviously dealing with religious or literary interpretations. You are throwing out mod notes left and right because this isn’t the forum for this topic.
There are multiple ways to read the OP’s question and what qualifies as making those specific things “okay.” Some (including me) think the answer is no. A lot of other people think the answer is yes. Yet we have the same facts.
On the other hand, the KJV is over 400 years old – there have been centuries of advance in our understanding of ancient languages and “correct” translations, not to mention archaeological discoveries and reams of ancient manuscripts not available in 1611. And that doesn’t even include the changes in the meaning of many English words used in the KJV since then.
It’s beautifully poetic, and worth reading as classic literature. But if you’re using it to actually argue “what the Bible says about…” (and can’t read ancient languages) then you’re far better off going with an accurate modern translation. As I said, most churches don’t even use it in normal worship anymore.
That depends on what part of the Bible you’re talking about; they weren’t all originally written in the same style. The Gospel of Mark, for instance, maybe should
“sound like your buddy in the coffee shop telling you a story.” (“And then this happened and then this happened and then this happened…”)
Yes. For a man who was interested in a woman who rejected him (or whose father rejected him) this law is a feature, not a bug.
Betrothed women are different because then it is also a crime against the husband, and marriage is impossible. So the penalties are greater.
It depends on how you worded your bet.
No law in the Jewish Scriptures permits either murder or rape.
However, there are occasions when the text portrays God as ether permitting or ordering actions by the Jewish people that would result in murder or rape.
This is made further confusing because 21st century attitudes will cast various actions in a different light than the way they would have been viewed by the original audience. For example, the command to marry a woman who has been raped gets interpreted as “permitting” or “encouraging” rape, although there is no indication that this was the actual outcome of the law.
Basing declarations on bad translations is never a good idea. Despite the popularity of the sentence “Thou shalt not kill.” the actual command should have been rendered in English as “Thou shalt not murder.”
And the story is told in a way that their actions are condemned. Lot became the patriarch of people with whom the Israelites were at war–Moabites and Ammonites were “bad guys” in Israelite literature.
And he was wrong to do so (in the sense that Voldemort was wrong to kill Harry Potter’s parents). Capital punishment is morally wrong, in every circumstance, and always has been.
Yeah, it is. So couldn’t God have said something about that?
I just don’t get that God saw that women were being treated as property, unable to support themselves or live independently from a man, ostracized if they were raped, forced into literal slavery or prostitution, and God’s big solution is to say "Hey, bros, those women you’re raping? Someone should totally own them. I mean pay for them. I mean, the fathers, who owned them, they’re not gonna get paid for them any more, and it’s not fair those fathers should have to keep feeding them when it’s totally your fault for raping them that his daughters are worthless now. So if you rape someone, you better be prepared to be responsible for them now.
"Kind of a you-break-it-you-bought-it thing.
"And I’m totally going to hold you accountable for her welfare according to exactly the same strict, perfectly holy and just standard I have for other marriages, by which I mean, you’re the man, do whatever the fuck you want. Just don’t divorce her; we can’t have a bunch of unclaimed bitches running around after they’ve been raped, right? I know that’s harsh, but that’s the burden of being the chosen people, called to be perfect as the LORD your God is perfect, a light unto all nations.
“I mean, I certainly couldn’t cut any slack on something fundamental to basic morality, right, or what would be the point of the Law? Of course, I also couldn’t command anything too radical like actual gender equality because no Iron Age tribe could even understand what that–By the way, just checking, you guys cut the ends off your dicks like I asked, right? Cool. I’m glad we got this stuff straightened out.”
Actually, almost the reverse. Although we, today, in modern English don’t have a “familiar” form, the Jacobean “thee and thou” are familiar. This is how you talk to your children, to your lover, to really good buddies, and to your social inferiors when you want to dress them down. When you speak to God as “thou,” you’re talking to him exactly the way you talk to your buddy in the coffee shop!
(This is why Darth Vader kneeling and asking, “What is thy bidding, my master” is so wrong. “Thy” is familiar, not formal! It’d be like me saying, “Yo, Darthy, how’s the Sith biz?”)
In 2 Kings 2:23-25, the prophet Elisha calls down a curse “in the name of the Lord” on some annoying little brats. Two bears appear and kill forty-two of the children.
Not quite the same as “killing kids is OK,” but certainly along the lines of “under certain circumstances, God kills kids and that’s OK.”