# religion
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 19, 1999, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125 "1999-05-19T04:57:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/101 "1999-06-07T20:05:00Z")
pldennisson wrote:
> [@](#):
>
> So to whatever extent rape is wrong, the god of the Bible does not consider it so in all circumstances.
The operative phrases being “to whatever extent” (ie, to some extent, but not totally) and “not in all circumstances” (ie, but in some, perhaps even most or the vast majority, of circumstances).
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/102 "1999-06-07T20:05:00Z")
Sheeeeesh! I can’t believe I’m saying/doing this, but pld is right.
(and he was right without calling anyone names!!)
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/103 "1999-06-07T20:27:00Z")
Keeves;
I would very much like to know under what circumstanses you and your god think rape is justifiable.
* * *
“I think it would be a great idea” Mohandas Ghandi’s answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/104 "1999-06-07T20:36:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Keeves;
> I would very much like to know under what circumstanses you and your god think rape is justifiable.
I can’t speak for Keeves, but within the Old Testament:
Lot, the man who is allowed to escape the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah becuase he’s a stand-up guy and a pal of Abraham, offers his two teen daughters up for gang rape. He is not punished for this action, but his wife, who disobeys the “don’t look back” command, is destroyed. Implicit condonement of rape.
Later, Lot’s daughters get him drunk and sleep with him to impregnate themselves. Condonement of rape AND incest.
In, I believe, Deuteronomy, the Israelites do what they do best: attack some city and kill everyone. Except they bring back the women and children. Moses tells them to kill all the male children and all the mothers, but keep the virgins for themselves. Explicit condonement of rape.
There’s more, if you want it.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/105 "1999-06-07T20:42:00Z")
Dear Lucky,
Thank you very much for catching me on that. The way I wrote it, it does sound like I might sanction rape under some circumstances. The fact is, I **cannot** think of any situation which would justify rape. However, pldennisson seems to think that
> [@](#):
>
> Rape is frequently … suggested and condoned in the Bible.
My point was that I am confident that as a general rule, God does **not** condone rape, but I have an open mind, and wouldn’t mind hearing about pldennisson’s exceptional cases. I can’t imagine what they’d be.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/106 "1999-06-07T20:49:00Z")
Lot was never made out to be a saint. He survived the destruction because he wasn’t as bad as the rest of them. He was wrong for offering his daughters. Period.
They were told not to look back and gloat. What does that have to do with the previous story?
The daughters raped their father and were wrong for it.
The women in the war were not killed. They were allowed to live and join the Jewish people. Where’s the rape?
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/107 "1999-06-07T21:41:00Z")
CrystalBlue: Nickrz’s comment you quote appears to relate to promoting beliefs, not discussing them. There’s a big difference between door-to-door preaching and having a discussion on a message board meant only for that purpose. And opinions do change after discussions like these; at a minimum they become more sophisticated. I wonder what you are here for if people’s minds don’t change? 🙂
Keeves:
> [@](#):
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> Kids who are lucky enough to grow up in a decent environment will probably turn out as you say, but not everyone is lucky enough to be in such an environment.
As I suggested, it’s possible to interfere with the ‘normal’ moral development (if if’s true that there is a ‘common set’ of values) through means such as indoctrination, traumatic experience, or just poverty, or under dictatorial conditions. But even then these same values do exist to some extent. Gangs, for example, are not examples of:
> [@](#):
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> There are lots of dog-eat-dog-type human societies out there where no one can be trusted, and everyone is out for themselves, and there is not a chance in hell that anyone will feel bad about stealing.
I know gang members think of each other as a family, and are said to be very caring towards each other. In fact, I bet gang members express the common values set towards each other; otherwise the gang couldn’t exist. The way dictatorial systems promote hate is by narrowing the definition of ‘us’, and fanning the flames of hate towards all others. This happens on the national level as well as on the personal level.
Gang members just don’t see the rest of us as people who count in their society. A combination of redefining the boundaries of us vs. them, along with dictatorial extremism seems to be a good way to approach the study of gang morality.
Of course, this implies that the ‘common values set’ allows for hate towards enemies, whether in the form of the dog next door, Saddam Hussein, murderers and rapists, or, for a gang member, anyone outside the gang. We’ve all felt hate, and most of us think we shouldn’t. So, hate is an instinctive reaction to Enemy that we suppress through our values set. I wonder whether “Hate is Wrong” is a member of the common values set. I doubt it.
This reminds me of Cecil’s column on headhunters. The Jivaro cut off the heads of captured enemies with blunt tools without caring or maybe even noticing whether the victim was still conscious. They probably felt that ‘us’ was their own tribe only, everybody else wasn’t really human, and had some ideological reason for it.
I don’t think anyone was suggesting that rape is ever justifiable, just that some societies have thought so, even more individuals have thought so, and sometimes religion or some other ideology is used as a justification. Ethnic cleansing comes to mind.
Keeves, while I don’t think there are such completely hateful societies as you describe, there are societies that define us vs. them quite differently and have some extraordinary behaviors. But do they really have a fundamentally different set of values? If so, how are they different?
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/108 "1999-06-07T21:59:00Z")
Busy night. Several posts came in while I was writing my last one.
A comment on the Lot’s-wife-pillar-of-salt story. I heard that the expression “a pillar of salt” was used in ancient times to mean simply a barren woman. I don’t know if it’s true or not.
> [@](#):
>
> The women in the war were not killed. They were allowed to live and join the Jewish people. Where’s the rape?
Right in front of your nose. You’ve got to be kidding. Let the virgin daughters join in the glorious Jewish faith, but not the young sons? Is that the implication you get out of it? Does God in this passage explain why only the virgin daughters are ready to handle the faith? I’ve read the passage, but not recently. I don’t remember any stated reason given at all. It looked more like the reason was too obvious to explain, namely, rape.
The women were chattel: the spoils of war. They might not have been actively raped, but if not they were probably either sold around or, if the Isrealites were particularly enlightened, married off draft-pick style. But I doubt the women had much choice about any of it, particularly if they didn’t speak the lingo.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 1999, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/109 "1999-06-07T22:44:00Z")
While I was failing to find the passage in Deuteronomy referred to by pldennison I was stunned anew by what I did find:
Deuterotomy 22:20
> [@](#):
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> But if it is true that the girl could produce no signs of virginity, the men of her city shall bring the girl to the door of her father’s house and shall stone her to death, for she has done a foolish thing in Israel by playing the harlot in her father’s house; thus you shall purge evil from your midst.
Read from 22:13 for the full effect.
And…
Deuterotomy 22:28
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> If a man comes across a virgin girl who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they be discovered, the man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has humiliated her; he may not divorce her as long as he lives.
And this,
Deuterotomy 23:1
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> A man with crushed testicles or severed penis may not enter the assembly of the LORD.
How I found these: I just did a word search on “virgin” in Deuterotomy and landed smack dab in this section. Is this representative!?
All quotes from The NET Bible:
[http://www.bible.org/netbible/index.htm](http://www.bible.org/netbible/index.htm)
I point these out as examples of how the normal values set can be overridden by a dictatorial system. I say nothing works better at solving human problems than feeling inwardly, caring outwardly, and thinking, none of which seem plentiful in Deuterotomy. Just obeying and hoping.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 8, 1999, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/110 "1999-06-08T14:27:00Z")
Axel Wheeler asked:
> [@](#):
>
> Let the virgin daughters join in the glorious Jewish faith, but not the young sons? Is that the implication you get out of it? Does God in this passage explain why only the virgin daughters are ready to handle the faith?
As it was taught to me, the men were the warriors and soldiers, and would be a bad influence upon the Jews. Gotta get rid of them. Same goes for the women, as they’ve formed emotional attatchments to the men, and are similarly indoctrinated in that foreign society. The virgin girls are the only ones who are innocent (hmmm, that might not be the right word. I don’t mean innocent as opposed to guilty, but in the young, naive, malleable sense) enough to join the Jews without detrimental effects.
> [@](#):
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> The women were chattel: the spoils of war. They might not have been actively raped, but if not they were probably either sold around or, if the Isrealites were particularly enlightened, married off draft-pick style.
Or, just maybe they had the option of staying single? I thought we were gonna talk about how God condones rape. Now you messed it all up and changed it to God telling us how to take care of prisoners of war. Party pooper.
Then we have a few quotes, (1) showing how premarital sex is a serious sin, (2) showing that indeed, rape is a BAD thing (surprised?), and (3) a fertile woman should not marry an infertile man. By the way, in the #2 rape case, the forced marriage is a punishment to the rapist; the girl is allowed to opt out of it.
> [@](#):
>
> I point these out as examples of how the normal values set can be overridden by a dictatorial system. I say nothing works better at solving human problems than feeling inwardly, caring outwardly, and thinking, none of which seem plentiful in Deuterotomy. Just obeying and hoping.
Depends on what you mean by “normal values”. Feeling, caring, and thinking don’t seem plentiful in Deuteronomy? That depends on where you look. Here are some lines from the SAME CHAPTERS you cited, and the SAME TRANSLATION that you used:
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> 22:1-4) You must not observe your brother’s ox or sheep going astray and close your eyes to them - you must without fail return them to your brother. If your brother does not live near you or you do not know him, then you must corral it at your house and let it stay with you until your brother looks for it; then you must return it to him. You shall do the same to his donkey, his clothes, or anything else your brother has lost and you have found; you must not hide yourself. Do not observe your brother’s donkey or ox fallen along the road and avoid them; indeed, you must help him get them up.
>
> 22:6-7) If a bird’s nest happen to come to your notice along the way, whether in a tree or on the ground, and there are chicks or eggs upon which the mother is sitting you must not take the mother from the young. You must be sure to let the mother go but you may take the young for yourself. Do this so that it might go well with you and that you might have a long life.
>
> 22:8) If you build a new house, you must construct a guard rail on your roof to avoid bringing culpability to yourself in the event someone should fall from it.
>
> 22:25-27) But if the man found the engaged girl in the field and seized and raped her, then only the man who did this must die. You must not do anything to the girl - she has done nothing deserving of death; for just as someone rises up against another and kills him, so is this case. For he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
>
> 23:7) You must not hate an Edomite, for he is your brother; you must not hate an Egyptian, for you were a foreigner in his land.
>
> 23:15-16) You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in any of your villages that seems best to him; you must not oppress him.
Look, I’m sure both of us can go back and forth forever, throwing quotes at each other. I pointed out a bunch of verses that you conveniently ignored, and I predict that if you look them up, you’ll find a bunch that _I_ conveniently failed to mention, mostly because they appear to be great examples of percieved inequalities between men and women. That is a whole 'nother subject, and there are plenty of places where you can learn more about that, if you really want to.
The main point of discussion for the past few days, which I’d like to get back to, is the moral compass provided by religion, as opposed to moral compass which individuals and/or society can find on its own. Axel says
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> I point these out as examples of how the normal values set can be overridden by a dictatorial system. I say nothing works better at solving human problems than feeling inwardly, caring outwardly, and thinking,
and I say that the “normal values set” is at least as debatable as God’s value set.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 8, 1999, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/111 "1999-06-08T19:22:00Z")
Keeves:
> [@](#):
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> and I say that the “normal values set” is at least as debatable as God’s value set.
Well, the “normal values set” (my term for a set of values that normally develops from human interaction) has better evidence in that all peoples share the same basic values (if you accept this claim, of course) regardless of religious belief. So we already accept people have the same basic values. It’s the assertion that it’s God-given that has to be proven.
The defense of the “God-given” hypothesis is usually based on the belief that our instincts are selfish and could not produce good moral behavior. This assertion is also without proof (and it is what I have been arguing against).
I readily acknowledge that much more research needs to be done in the area of cross-cultural values. But already the traditional view you have defended seems to have had it’s main support knocked out from under it.
Now, your responses to my quotes were frankly absurd. It’s like saying that the death penalty for speeding is justifiable because speeding is, in fact, wrong, and then saying (surprised?). Yes, the ancients were not completely divorced from normal values, they just promoted a savagely extreme oversimplication of it. I’m only saddened that so many feel compelled to find excuses for these excesses of ancient religion. Deuterotomy isn’t wholly depraved, just mostly so.
And Deuterotomy certainly does NOT give the rape victim the option of turning down the marriage. Her opinion on the matter is clearly considered irrelevant in the text. In fact, it says “…she must become his wife…” specifically and says nothing whatsoever to the contrary. Women were sexual property then just as they are in literalist nations today.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 9, 1999, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/112 "1999-06-09T12:55:00Z")
Axel Wheeler:
> [@](#):
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> And Deuterotomy certainly does NOT give the rape victim the option of turning down the marriage. Her opinion on the matter is clearly considered irrelevant in the text. In fact, it says “…she must become his wife…” specifically and says nothing whatsoever to the contrary. Women were sexual property then just as they are in literalist nations today.
This is not true, but to demonstrate that to you, it would take an analysis of the Hebrew text as according to the Talmud. Unless you wish me (or Keeves) to delve into the details of that, take our word for it: “She will be (_not_ “must be”) to him for a wife” means (according to Jewish tradition) only with her consent, not against it.
* * *
Chaim Mattis Keller
[ckeller@schicktech.com](mailto:ckeller@schicktech.com)
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 9, 1999, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/113 "1999-06-09T13:52:00Z")
AxelWheeler wrote
> [@](#):
>
> The defense of the “God-given” hypothesis is usually based on the belief that our instincts are selfish and could not produce good moral behavior. This assertion is also without proof (and it is what I have been arguing against).
I focus on your words “could not”. - I never meant to imply that selfish instincts **can’t** produce moral behavior. Indeed, several people here have demonstrated that it **can** , at least in a very general way. My point was that there is not guarantee that it **will** produce moral behavior, either.
In contrast, **if** someone believes in God, **and** believes that God prescribed a specific set of rules, then that set of rules becomes the very definition of what is moral and what is not, at least for those who subscribe to that set of beliefs.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 9, 1999, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/114 "1999-06-09T13:56:00Z")
Chaim - You explained the wording of the rape business better than I could’ve. Thanks.
EVERYONE - Would it be possible to move this discussion to the “Great Debates” section? This section is really designed for questions which have an answer which might be found with enough research. There’s a forum there called “The Great God Debate”, and this conversation really belongs there.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 9, 1999, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/115 "1999-06-09T22:56:00Z")
Keeves:
1. I didn’t realize there even was a Great Debates section. Thanks!
2. I agree with your comments mostly, but you have changed your argument from:
> [@](#):
>
> the definitive morality which one can get from religion is a benefit which cannot be gotten in any other way.
and
> [@](#):
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> My belief is that only God can tell us what is “right” and “wrong”. Everything else is either guesswork or mob rule. But He can give us morals, and not because He is the Boss who threatens us with heaven and hell, but because He is the Creator who does know more than us, and because He created everything, he truly knows what is right, and what is wrong. Fortunate are those who are willing and able to listen to Him.
But now you say,
> [@](#):
>
> I focus on your words “could not”. - I never meant to imply that selfish instincts can’t produce moral behavior. Indeed, several people here have demonstrated that it can, at least in a very general way. My point was that there is not guarantee that it will produce moral behavior, either.
I believe this reflects a change in your perspective, from the view that morality comes only from God, to the view that it might come naturally from human interactions as well, but a suspicion that it would be inferior. Forgive me if I’m getting this wrong. Now if it’s true that irreligious people are demonstrably as moral as religious people, then you can’t reasonably claim that:
> [@](#):
>
> My point was that there is no guarantee that it **will** produce moral behavior, either.
because there is an empirical guarantee.
Cmkeller & Keeves:
Yes, I believe English-speaking Christian fundamentalists usually believe in the literal truth of the English translation, not the Hebrew. It was that perspective I was criticizing, since there are so many of them here in the USA. So, I can say that Christian literalistm can be proven false, or at least absurd, based on Deuterotomy, and is one of the “not right” ones, to put it in ObbieWon’s original terms.
> [@](#):
>
> “She will be (not “must be”) to him for a wife” means (according to Jewish tradition) only with her consent, not against it.
This is because the Jewish people are notoriously reasonable, and, when faced with a choice between an interpretation that suggests that God is a maniac and one that suggests He isn’t, they prefer the latter. Unfortunately, Christian fundamentalists aren’t so sensible. I’m talking about my own experience here.
Even with your phraseology it sounds like Jewish interpreters are adding the voluntary as the benefit of the doubt. The word “will” is a statement, not an offer. In other words, both of your interpretations sound non-literalist, which is a good thing! I mean if your going to believe it, it’s better not to be literalist. Because, if it in fact is **not** the literal word of God, then you’re forced into believing an ancient human’s interpretation as fact, which would be bad.
I think this discussion relates directly to the original question, and anyone wishing to promote a particular religion as the true one can do so at any time. Until then, the Great God debate is pretty busy with other stuff. There are so many different “Great God Debates”!
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 10, 1999, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/116 "1999-06-10T13:08:00Z")
Axel Wheeler:
> [@](#):
>
> Even with your phraseology it sounds like Jewish interpreters are adding the voluntary as the benefit of the doubt. The word “will” is a statement, not an offer. In other words, both of your interpretations sound non-literalist, which is a good thing! I mean if your going to believe it, it’s better not to be literalist. Because, if it in fact is not the literal word of God, then you’re forced into believing an ancient human’s interpretation as fact, which would be bad.
Afraid you’re off-base on this one. When I mentioned the Talmudic interpretation of the phrase, it is in fact based on strict literalism, not “reasonable (by human standards” interpretative liberalism. I didn’t want to get into the details, but I can see that my words were misconstrued, so here goes:
The basic word form for “to be” in Hebrew is “HYH”. (I will highlight it below with bold lettering.) This word form is used to refer to marriage in two places in the Torah. One such place is in the portion dealing with a man who rapes a single woman: “V’Lo (to him) Ti **HYEH** (she shall be) L’Isha (for a wife).”
The other place is where the Torah discusses divorce, specifically, the law that a man who divorces a woman and then the woman subsequently remarries another and that second marriage somehow dissolves (either through divorce or death), the first husband is not allowed to remarry her. When describing the case (and I’m afraid I don’t have chapter and verse numbers in front of me), it phrases the first divorce and remarriage as follows: “V’Yotzah (and she leaves) V’ **HaYsaH** (and she is, or she becomes) L’Ish Acher (to a different man).”
The Talmudic scholars used the similarity in language between the second case I quoted you and the rape case to derive that the marriage for the woman is optional, as it is in the divorce-remarriage case. It is only the man that it is forced on (i.e., if the woman wants him, but he had just been looking for quickie sex and not a lifelong commitment, guess what, creep…you’re stuck!), which is evident from the fact that it later says (re: the rape case) “He can never send her our all his days” (i.e., he does not have the option of divorce).
So not only is the interpretation literalist, it’s sort of _ultra_-literalist. But there’s a heck of a lot of Biblical stuff that seems nonsensical in a translation, but works perfectly in the original Hebrew.
* * *
Chaim Mattis Keller
[ckeller@schicktech.com](mailto:ckeller@schicktech.com)
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
---
### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 10, 1999, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/117 "1999-06-10T20:29:00Z")
AxelWheeler: Yes, there was a change in perspective, but not a change in opinion. What I mean is that it sounded different because the focus of the conversation changed, but my opinion stays the same.
Please note my use of the phrase (who you were so kind to include in the quote) “_at least in a very general way_”. What I meant is that by trial and error, it is indeed possible to achieve a basic morality even without God teaching it. But there will be borderline cases where different people will have genuine differences of opinion, and there will also be cases which never came up for discussion because they appeared straightforward. So I think that I am still pretty consistent in feeling that a genuinely sincere person (or people), working hard enough at the task, can reach an approximation of the same rules of right and wrong that God would dictate to His believers on a silver platter.
Several caveats to the above:
Different religions make different claims regarding what God thinks about what is right and what is wrong; but this conversation is about “morals from religion” as opposed to “morals from logic”, so I think it is fair to stipulate that the religion under discussion is “the true religion” or “a true religion”, without naming any particular one.
Further, I think this discussion has been about defining the _rules_ of morality, as opposed to _following_ those rules. It saddens me to have to admit that temptations can be very strong, and that people – religious or not – often succumb to those temptations. I’d like to say that a belief in God will strengthen a person to stand up to temptation, but it has been amply argued in this forum that an effective police force and judicial system is not much different. Religious or not, when push comes to shove and a person thinks he can get away with something, the determining factor is usually the morality of his friends, family, and general environment.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 10, 1999, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/118 "1999-06-10T20:57:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> “She will be to him for a wife”
Cmkeller’s explanation is accurate. Let me add a prequel to it, from a linguistic angle:
The bane of translators all over, is that there is very rarely a one-to-one correspondence between words of one language with the words of another language. A word in language #1 might be translatable several different ways in language #2, and a word in L2 might go any of several ways in L1.
To me, one of the most common examples of this, is the simple future tense form of Hebrew verbs. A literal translation is very simple: “He will do it.” It is literal, but it is often inaccurate. What was the actual intent of the words? It is a command? “He must do it.” or a suggestion? “He should do it.” or a mere prediction? “He will do it.”
Sometimes the rhetoric comes through in English, and sometimes it doesn’t. Take the Ten Commandments, for example. The negative laws there all use the simple future tense verb, not the imperative. It does not say, “Do not murder.” But rather it says “You will not murder”, or in older English, “Thou shalt not murder.” But because we understand the context, we understand that “You will not murder” is not a mere prediction or suggestion, but it is a command.
Ambiguities of this sort are the basis of many Talmudic investigations, similar to the one presented above by Cmkeller.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 11, 1999, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/119 "1999-06-11T18:13:00Z")
Keeves:
> [@](#):
>
> Ambiguities of this sort are the basis of many Talmudic investigations, similar to the one presented above by Cmkeller.
But, I say, if the scholars in question are also believers in the accuracy of the text they are interpreting, there is a massive conflict of interest. Particularly, if they believe at the outset that God is good, and that the talmud is literally His word, then their interpretations on close calls might be affected.
The problem is that one can’t just invalidate the best scholars in a subject area; what else do we have to go on? Yes, presumably there are secular interpretations, but they may be similarly biased against finding accuracy in the text.
Cmkeller:
Yes, this does show a possible interpretation of a marriage option for the woman, but it bases it on another case in which we presume the marriage was optional, but we don’t really know. However, in many cultures marriage in general was/is not an option for women, only to the women’s parents, and many marriages are/were arranged long beforehand. Your argument relies, I think, on some assumptions:
1. Marriage was optional for women. If not, then the second case only reinforces the horrific interpretation of the first case.
2. As Keeves says, differences in context make for differences in meanings. If assumption #1 above is true, then that meaning would have been clear in context to those living in that time. Thus, the first case is a different context, and the word may mean differently there.
Actually, I’m not sure I agree with the idea that the divorce/remarriage case usage involves any choice for the woman anyway. Yes, she may have had a choice, but this sentence isn’t about the choice, it’s about the fact of the first remarriage, clearly an event in the past:
Marriage to bachelor #1
Divorce from bachelor #1
Marriage to bachelor #2
Divorce from bachelor #2
-This is where we are now-
Question remarriage to bachelor #1
So, the marriage to bachelor #2 is clearly in the past, and while she may well have been willing to go along with it, there’s no reason to have included that meaning in a sentence merely relating the fact that it occurred.
However!: I also don’t have the text in front of me, and even if I did I’m not a scholar. I’m sure I’m missing a lot.
Here’s a fair question: Do most talmudic scholars agree on this interpretation (including most non-literalists)? The discussion on this detail could easily get huge, so I’m asking this question as a sort of shortcut. If many non-literalist talmud scholars feel that the passage forces her to marry the rapist, then it opens the door to the possiblity that the literalists are “blinded by the light”.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 14, 1999, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/religion/1125/120 "1999-06-14T14:18:00Z")
Axel Wheeler:
> [@](#):
>
> But, I say, if the scholars in question are also believers in the accuracy of the text they are interpreting, there is a massive conflict of interest. Particularly, if they believe at the outset that God is good, and that the talmud is literally His word, then their interpretations on close calls might be affected.
It’s not a _conflict_ of interest…it’s a single interest. Yes, they believe that G-d is good, but they believe His goodness is _defined_ by what it says in the Torah. Therefore, whatever way the Torah is to be interpreted is to be considered good, as long as it is done so properly (and there are guidelines regarding this). Granted, there are non-Judaic value systems in which something Judaic might not be considered good. But since there are well-defined guidelines for Biblical interpretation, the scholarship methodology is testable, and therefore if there are influences from non-Judaic sources, they will be identifiable.
> [@](#):
>
> Yes, this does show a possible interpretation of a marriage option for the woman, but it bases it on another case in which we presume the marriage was optional, but we don’t really know.
Not true; we do know. The text on question (which I abbreviated slightly) goes as follows (Deuteronomy 24:2):
And she leaves his (bachelor # 1) house, **and she goes** and she is to another man.
It’s extremely clear from the case that the marriage is optional. And that’s beside the point from plenty of Judaic text which makes it clear that the woman (as long as she’s an adult; a father does have the right to marry off a minor daughter against her will) has the right to refuse a marriage.
> [@](#):
>
> However, in many cultures marriage in general was/is not an option for women,
Not in Judaism. Why are you trying to compare apples and oranges?
> [@](#):
>
> Your argument relies, I think, on some assumptions:
It is not an assumption.
> [@](#):
>
> So, the marriage to bachelor #2 is clearly in the past, and while she may well have been willing to go along with it, there’s no reason to have included that meaning in a sentence merely relating the fact that it occurred.
The text of the Torah is extremely precise, and does not waste words. It is capable of making one thing understood while dealing with a different subject.
**However** …
I must admit that I was a bit off in relating my understanding of the Talmudic learning of that verse (in the rape case). I looked it up over the weekend (I do this from work, where I don’t have a Talmud handy), and it says that the fact that the woman has a choice is learned from the use of the word “Tihyeh” (this part I got right). Not due to a comparison with the divorce/remarriage case, but because the form of the verb is “third-person female active”, in other words, “She will (actively) be to him…”. If it meant against her will (and this is now directly from the Talmud, not my own speculation, as it was earlier), it would have said “and he will take her for a wife”, i.e., active on the part of the man.
> [@](#):
>
> Here’s a fair question: Do most talmudic scholars agree on this interpretation (including most non-literalists)?
I think you’ll have to give me an example of a “non-literalist” Talmudic scholar. The point I had been trying to bring out is that _everything_ in the Torah is interpreted by the Talmudic scholars with a careful eye toward the text, and things that seem nonsensical in a translated text but which you are later told meant something sensible, it is not sensible because the text was interpreted non-literally, but because it was interpreted literally…in the original Hebrew.
* * *
Chaim Mattis Keller
[ckeller@schicktech.com](mailto:ckeller@schicktech.com)
“Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks.”
– Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
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