brighid

How is it that you come to conclusion?

This man forcibly took a woman who did not consent to be his wife as a war booty, he then "allowed her" (oh so gracious a host) to mourn the loss of her family and the he made her his wife by raping her. I doubt a woman who has been taken from her family (that he and his brothers have just murdered), then shaved her head, clipped her fingernails, and spent the last month mourning for her mutilated family members would be all that "willing" to have sex with this man, much less become his WIFE!! Sorry bud, but that IS rape, emotionally and physically.

See women aren't possessions and therefore can't be "taken" to be the "wife" of a man simply because he finds her physically attractive. And if women are nothing more than possessions to be owned and stolen from other men, and this is the way your God wants or wanted it ... this is just another reason to think your God is nothing but an evil bastard completely unworthy of worship. He is worthy of my moral outrage and ire, but my worship - never.

The only thing I have wasted is my valuable time attempting to have a discussion with an individual who is clearly unwilling to objectively and accurately evaluate the plain language of the Bible, and therefore accepts the moral attrocities of the Bible and excuses His God much the same way Holocaust deniers defend Hitler and the genocide of the Jews.

I will allow those who have much greater patience continue to disect your lack of reasoning and evidence, and cast it into the light where your arguments will fester like the infected bits of flesh that your sickening line of thought truly is.

Brighid

greyline

What worries me about the horrendous stories in the bible that relate God as a murderous tyrant is that someone very close to me, who is Christian but by no means a "bible-basher" or biblical scholar, came to the exact same conclusions as Ed seems to have come to: since God is the supreme moral authority, anything God does must by definition be moral, even when what he does is clearly immoral.

My friend, a loving wife and mother and upstanding member of the community, has therefore convinced herself that it's acceptable for the invading Israelites to murder women and children, rape virgins etc. (To be honest, I doubt she thinks about it that much, but I asked her to.)

She's suffering from a psychological discord that she can only resolve by ignoring common sense and human decency.

No wonder so many churches and Christians discount the embarrassing OT as imaginative stories "written by the victor", or ignore it all together.

Doctor X

greyline:

To be fair they are imaginative stories. They are part of a mythic "glorious" past Israel never had.

Ethically, the writers had a story were "they" once kicked ass, their god kicked other god's asses. It is problematic in modern contexts, of course, especially if one wants to worship the depiction of a god in the texts today.

It is indeed disturbing that your friend cannot simply recognize them as hyperbolic myth and that religion has developed beyond it. That presumably the El and YHWH cults once practiced child sacrifice does not mea it has to be practiced now, or condoned now . . . unless the kid fails to eat his vegetables, of course. . . .

--J.D.

greyline

I was so hoping this was the reason she accepted the stories, but no - she specifically told me that she believes it all happened as written.

However, I'm fairly sure she's not a Creationist. Her 4-year-old son is going through his dinosaur stage, and he believes dinosaurs died out well before humans existed. I imagine he'd believe otherwise if she did.




It all makes so much sense when you view the stories as stories, doens't it. And by "victors write the history" this is really what I meant. A god who acts like that god is immoral by our standards, but makes for a perfect all-powerful entity when you set down your religion's "history".

Kind of like Jesus retroactively becoming God once the Christian church took off.


Any Christian I've met will simply say that Jesus overturned the old laws, so they're not concerned about what the Israelites used to do.

I realise there are other disputes about exactly what "fulfilling" the old law, etc. means, but your average Christian listens to his pastor's platitudes rather than engaging in scholarly analysis of the bible. Most people don't want to subject themselves to the possibility of doublethink - as with my friend. She simply doesn't think about it too much. In this instance *I* brought it up and she didn't even give me her thoughts - she emailed a Christian website owner whom she has never met, and forwarded HIS email to me as HER answer?!?

blt to go

While I would agree that those are POSSIBLE reasons for this treated as an anomaly, I would state they are not probable reasons for this being treated as such.

To be fair, I am not an expert in Canaan society of 1000 B.C., so it may be a completely unknown reason why it is treated as such.

But I would argue that any person who read this story would state that the reason there is an annual lament is because some idiot father sacrificed his daughter based upon a irresponsible oath.

But to address the anomaly reasons you raise....

"long after it has ended" The first question would be when, between Joshua (say 1400 B.C.) and Jephthah did it end (1100 B.C.)? What is the source of the claim it ended some time in this 300 years? [of course, I would state it never started.]

More importantly, if you read Judges, each Judge was brought by God after the Israelits did evil in the sight of the Lord. (Judges 3:7, 3:12, 4:1, 6:1, etc.) The Judges were bringing them BACK to Mosaic Law. If, as you claim, Mosaic Law required the sacrifice of individuals, this would not be an anamoly, it would simply bringing them "back into line!" This would be happening again and again...

"Sacrifice of adult not baby" I like this as the anamoly because it eliminates the problem of the 32 virgins of Numbers 31. (addressed above) Apparently they lived, because in this story she died.

"Captive, not Jew" I really like this as an anamoly because it completely does away with the claim that Mosaic Law required the sacrifice of Jewish children. I may still have problems arguing the sacrifice of captives, but if Jephthah's daughter was so rare because it was a JEW that dies, so we create an annual 4-day holiday event, this completely destroys the argument Mosiac Law required sacrifice.

Dr. X, I am disappointed. (But I've been disappointed and lived before. )

If you are going to use my Bible against me, to claim that God required children sacrifice, you also have to address the issue of Jephthah's daughter.

You rely on Exekiel to claim that my God requried Human sacrifice, but when I point out the anomaly portrayed in Judges, you seem to state, "bah, just a story."

I may be wrong in my interpretation of what I read, and you seem to be a person who will correct me if I am.

Frankly, I have been surprised you did not bring up Jephthahs' daughter before (I consider it the thrid best argument for the proposition that God required Child Sacrifice) and I was concerned you were not bringing it up because it is treated as an anomaly.

Am I right?

greyline

blt to go, why didn't God tell Jephthah not to bother about sacrificing his daughter?

Doctor X

blt to go:

I may misunderstand your objection:

They are two separate issues. The sacrifice of the first-born--that which opens the womb--is the apparent practice that the Ezekiel writer needed to explain. This is the practice that is required in the Exodus passages.

The Jephthah's daughter is a story. Is it "impossible" that something like that ever happened? I do not know, but I am unaware of anyone demonstrating the historicity of Jephthah. Incidentally, the Moabite king Mesha sacrifices his son to have the Israelites squished. In his "Moabite Stone" celebrating his victory, he does not mention this.

I agree with Levenson and others that what is significant about the Jephthah story is that YHWH's acceptance of the human sacrifice is assumed.

It was more of an over-sight of length. The argument I have received from those who do not accept that, at one point, child sacrifice was a requirement, has been that Jephthah's daughter is "just a story"--akin to Agamemnon and Iphegenia and Midas touching his daughter and turning her into gold--a horrible consequence for a wish. In a way, the story shows Jephthah was more than happy to sacrifice some poor slob, but when it turned out to be his daughter . . . the question whether or not he would have made such a promise.

I concentrated on a different requirement for sacrifice. Ezekiel demonstrates a need to "explain" the practice and justify stopping/suppressing it.

I could have discussed the actual sacrifice of Isaac in the E story. The problem with that is I get hit by people who want to deny the multi-authorship of the texts. Also, it is not "100%" clear Isaac "gets it" in E. There is no halting or substitution in the sacrifice, and Abraham comes down alone. Isaac disappears from the E narrative. Levenson, actually, is not convinced that it is a true sacrifice--eventhough far, far later Mishna commentary consider it!

The problem is proving that a substitution and all of that was not in the E story. For all we know, it was simply cut out by the J/E redactor in favor of the J story. I do not buy that because Isaac disappears, Abraham was alone, and the requirements for sacrifice were in the E Exodus material.

Or have I misunderstood your objection?

--J.D.

blt to go

I'm misunderstood all the time. but not this time. Thanks.

Because it would appear that God gave tacit approval to the sacrifice. Under Mosaic Law, if you made an oath, you had to keep it.

Nu 30:2 "If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

So Jephthah was stuck with it. Again, a strong argument for Child sacrifice. However, if, as Dr. X says, this is simply a story, then it is no argument for anything.

Can't help thinking, therefore Numbers 31 could ALSO be a tale? thus no argument for child sacrifice?

And Ezekiel is simply illiteration, and also no argument.....

and so on....

Doctor X

That Jepthah is a tale does not mean it is not an argument for child sacrifice. As noted above, it indicates a deity that accepts them.

Again, it indicates acceptance of such sacrifices. However, if you follow Friedman's arguments, Numbers 31 is a P story which, in a way, denegrates the Mushite priesthood by denegrating Moses' connection with his Midianite wife.

Sorry, but Ezekiel is a strong argument for trying to explain the sacrifices.

--J.D.

greyline

Jephthah may have been stuck with it, but God certainly wasn't.




Now I'm confused. How is an OT-reader and believer supposed to tell the difference between whether something is "simply a story" or "really" happened?