I’ve been wondering about this, and it might be a fun debate, since it’s fairly pointless and involves penises.
Okay, I ran across this Bible verse:
So I was wondering - if it’s been cut off and then put back on, does that count? Can Tom Green enter the congregation of the LORD? He had testicular (“stones”) cancer - does that count as a “wound” if one is removed? Wouldn’t heaven BY DEFINITION include the absence of John Bobbitt anyway?
As a resource, I’m using: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/, which has a handy search function if you want to look up some other Bible verses.
I don’t have a Hebrew bible on me right now, but from what I assiume the original wording to be, Scratch is right - it just means that eunics can’t be counted as members of a minyan.
So, let me get this straight. If a group of Skinheads kidnaped and castrated a Rabbi, he would lose his office? That’s more than a little strange. What if I converted to Judaism now that I’ve had a vasectomy? I would like to hear what some of the Jewish scholarly thought is on this verse.
Acutally, it’s even more narrow than that. “Congregation of the Lord”, or “Assembly of the Lord”, or even “Kingdom of G-d”, all various translations I have seen of this verse, all mean one specific thing: the Temple in Jerusalem. IzzyR, cm, CK or another member of the Jew Crew will have to confirm, but my understanding is that the rules of the Temple were unique to the Temple, and would not apply at a schul.
In any event, I love the verse. My college roommate and I used to go to college football games with “Deuteronomy 23:1” posters, a la “John 3:16”.
I know little about the Bible, other than finding fun verses that were never brought up in Sunday school - Judges 19, anyone? - so I was just asking for fun. I read the Bible more as a historical document. It’s interesting to see which verses people pick out as important and the ones they skip over, like this one. But I don’t get how “Congregation of the Lord” could ever mean “marry a Jewish woman.” How does that work out? 0r how could it mean just the one Temple? “Enquiring” former Lutherans want to know… ;j
I would have to say that a vasectomy wouldn’t count as an injury to the privy member, right? Don’t they sever the vans deferens or some such thing within the body (i.e., not in the privy member itself)?
And I don’t even recall what the final verdict was with Bobbitt. If he did rape his wife, he certainly deserved to have his penis cut off. Heaven, however, would still be in reach in most religions, assuming confession, forgiveness, etc… SueSponte: Great minds think alike.
Congregation of the Lord refers to entering the temple, as SuaSponte already pointed out. Rabbis, synagogues, etc. are all non-Biblical, so none of those rules apply to them. I had a good argument with a Jewish fundamentalist about the morality of this verse, and similar ones like Lev. 21:16-23, which forbids handicapped people from being priests. He insisted that these laws were okay because Temple priests were supposed to be representatives of the assembly. As such, they had to look nice, and be free from physical defects. Sort of like how companies don’t allow ugly people to directly interact with the public. He seemed to be arguing that because humans are petty and discriminatory based upon appearance, that God should be allowed to be that way as well.
OK.
First, was this Bible verse from an ‘inspired’ holy man or was it a direct quote from Jesus?
I’ve discovered already that the so-called ‘inspired’ passage writers of the Bible tend to lean heavily on their own beliefs and accepted moralities of their times, which were heavily Patriarchal, women were considered one step above sewage and children somewhat minor entities until they reached the beard and functional prick stage. (Well, male kids anyhow.)
If an ‘inspired’ verse, then I’d place very little value on it.
(I must say, people here on the SDMB find more wacko Bible verses than I ever knew existed. No wonder the Christian religion is so fragmented and somewhat screwed up.)
BTW, I knew John Bobbit. He was a pain in the ass before he got married. He used to house sit at times for some of the very, very wealthy for months at a time and throw parties in their homes and act like he was rich when he was not. Needless to say he provided plenty of pot and booze. I never met his knife wielding wife.
Plus, he had his wiener reattached, went around bragging about it, showing up on TV and even made a porn flick – which was kind of a flop. Then he got married again, smacked that woman around, who promptly took him to court and dumped his butt.
The quote was from the book of Deuteronomy (part of the OT), which was written before 620BC, some 600 years before JC was born. So, no- it was not likely a direct quote from JC himself.
Next, Davis, if Bobbit is a Christian, the old Jewish Law would not apply to him.
Finally, I beleive it was only the High Priests that had to be whole in limb & body. I do know that when the Romans cut off the ears off John HyrcanusII, for rebelling in about 40BC, he was deposed as High Priest as he was 'a physically mutilated person". That verse, in any case, had nothing to do with going to Heaven.
It’s dificult to translate idioms from one language to another. There are many idioms used in English which, if translated literally into another language, would have little obvious connection to their intended meaning. But that it what it means, notwithstanding what anyone else may tell you. (The idiom is also used elsewhere in the Bible for other categories of people, Moabites etc.).
It is also true that a priest who has physical “blemish” cannot serve in the temple (the preceding statement by DITWD is incorrect). This is not limited to the one’s being discussed here, and is mentioned elsewhere in the bible.
Let’s not forget the child he fathered and then just walked away. The mother only found him again after the incident, when she recognized his photograph. Bobbit would still be guilty of child neglect or abandonment or whatever you call it if this hadn’t happened.
“For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have made themselves eunuchs because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
So interpreting the words in the Bible literally is probably a bad idea, eh?
It’s interesting, the church I went to as a child had a rigid, “infallible,” and literal interpretation of the Bible, but clearly that’s not such a great idea. I always wondered, even back then, how they were so sure that no one had ever translated anything wrong. I guess I didn’t have enough faith - for the Lutheran Missouri Synod, at least.
Umm, which one? Was it all Priests, instead of just the High? I am quite sure that the High Priest had to be free of mutilations. I thought that it was because he was allowed to go into the “holy of holies”, and others were not. Were you then disqualified from being a Priest entirely if you were mutlilated?
Absolutely. Words in the Bible, as with words anywhere else, must be interpreted in the context that they were/are used by those who they were/are spoken by, or to. This is not to say that one can substitute any meaning that one wishes into the Bible and consider it equally valid.
Danielinthewolvesden:
Yes
From serving in the Temple. There are other aspects of being a priest with regards to which you did not lose your status.
