winstonjen

Ed, I was merely making a comment and observation - in our society, and back then, there is divorce and adultery, and there always will be.

Socially warped? I'm not the one who supports a legal system where married women who are raped get put to death, even though they couldn't do anything about it! Not to mention that the moral and religious laws suppressed natural urges such as masturbation, which can cause frustrated individuals to commit rape and child abuse and molestation (like Catholic priests).

winstonjen

What is the difference? The end result is the same, and the means are very similar. If the morality of an act depends on who commits the act, not the act itself, then morality is meaningless, and open to abuse.

Ed

Yeah right. Those two fellows that you suggested in a later post are hardly biblical scholars. One is a 21 year old college kid and computer geek that moderates this site and the other is a Roman historian!

Quote:

jtb: And you WERE lying when you said that "all SIGNIFICANT generations" was a correct translation of the original Aramaic. Ed: See above about how I have provided scholarly evidence and you have not. jtb: You have quoted one fundie who allegedly agrees with you. That is not "scholarly evidence".

No, he is plainly not a "fundie", fundies dont think there are any gaps in the genealogies.

Quote:

Ed: He doesnt become my ancestor until he fathers my great great grandfather and establishes the lineage leading to me. How is that nonsense? It is a biological fact. jtb: No, it is pure nonsense. He is a PART of the lineage that leads to you. He ALWAYS WAS a part of that lineage, ever since he was born. He was a link from HIS father to YOU. If you wish to argue that his lineage at his birth doesn't lead to you YET (because the remaining links in the chain don't exist yet), then this situation doesn't change when HIS son is born, because YOU still don't exist yet! Ed: No, the situation does change, because then my direct lineage is established and that is what the jews were concerned with. jtb: Your "direct lineage" was ALREADY established. He was ALREADY a part of that lineage! By exactly the same argument, the "direct lineage" was established from HIS father to you, when HE was born. So how can he "establish" a direct lineage that already exists?

The direct lineage exists, but how it was connected to the famous ancestor was not established until he had my great grandfather.

Quote:

jtb: I note that you have failed to provide ANY example of ANY culture, ANYWHERE or ANYWHEN, that uses your system. Ed:Just because the ancient hebrews may have been the only ones that used it doesn't invalidate it. jtb: The ancient Hebrews did NOT use it. It is a fiction invented by apologists who wanted to move the date of the Flood. As there was no global Flood anyhow, this is both unnecesary and futile.

Evidence?

Quote:

Ed: Single adult women were practically unknown in ancient societies like Israel. Because of that fact, the Torah does not have a specific law dealing with the rape of an adult single woman. The Torah is not exhaustive. But given the law mentioned above and other laws such as the Ten Commandments and laws regarding the treatment of your neighbor, it is a rational assumption that the law dealing with the rape of a betrothed women was used by Moses and the hebrew judges in the case of a single woman. So if she cried out it was rape, if she didnt it was consensual. jtb: ...Rational? Read that law again. It talks about the alleged VICTIM being killed, because of the suspicion that she was unfaithful to her betrothed! Ed: Huh? She is not a victim if she engages in sex consensually, ie the first case. jtb: Firstly, single adult women would have been fairly common. According to the Bible, the Hebrews fought many wars, and men die in wars. This produces a male/female imbalance: too many women, not enough men for all.

No, widows would have been fairly common due to the early age marriages at the time but not single never married adult women.

Quote:

jtb: And yet there are NO laws to protect them from rape.

No, you have not refuted my statements above so they still stand.

Quote:

jtb: Secondly, Deuteronomy 22 plainly refers to ADULTERY. Rape is regarded as a form of adultery (a crime normally punishable by death), but with a possible escape clause for the woman. She must prove that nobody would have heard her cries for help. If others could have heard her cries, but did not (maybe she was knocked unconscious, or gagged, or her rapist held a knife to her throat), then she will be put to death just in case she had been unfaithful to her husband.

No, see my comments above about how legal codes do not cover every detail of every specific case. Just like our system the judge uses principles gleaned from cases mentioned in the legal code but then tailors his judgement to the specific case.

Quote:

jtb: How can this POSSIBLY apply to an adult single woman? If she DID consent, then WHO is being wronged? Ed: They are both being wronged by themselves, because they have violated God's ideal of sex only within marriage. The Hebrews did not regard non-adulterous fornication as a crime punishable by death.

It depended on the situation, ie whether seduction was involved, etc. There were different levels of punishment, death was the maximum, financial redemption was among the minimums. See Numbers 35:31, subsitutionary punishments were allowed in some cases. But among the ancient hebrews "adultery" was ANY sex outside of marriage including fornication among unmarrieds.

Quote:

Ed: No, just because he allows evil men to sometimes have the free will to act on their inclinations does not mean he condones rape. jtb: And yet he DOES condone rape. This FACT is obvious from reading the Bible. You have just been given an example of God INSTIGATING rape. So you're lying again.

No, see my post to nogo above.

Quote:

jtb: You are lying AGAIN, Ed. The "common sense understanding of the text" is that HUMBLED means RAPED, and you KNOW that. The Bible says that the woman has ALREADY BEEN raped (humbled), and that IS the "common sense" understanding of the text. She was forcibly taken as a wife! OF COURSE sex was involved! OF COURSE she did not consent! OF COURSE this was rape! Common sense says so! The Bible says so! Ed: No, I disagree. As I demonstrated earlier humbled does not always mean rape and rape is plainly mistreatment. And the ad hominem attack means you cannot support your case with rational argument. jtb: It is perfectly obvious from the CONTEXT that this is rape. "Humbled" obviously DOES mean rape HERE. To believe otherwise, you must lie to yourself: just as you have lied repeatedly about what the Bible plainly states on MANY issues. This is not an ad hominem attack. It is directly relevant to the topic, and supported by many clear examples.

You may think I am lying to myself but I am afraid you are thinking a lie. To me it is quite obvious that rape IS mistreatment and vice versa. I think we have reached an impasse on this issue.

(deleted topic covered earlier)

Quote:

jtb: Oh, and there may have been some "temple prostitution" in the Bacchus cult, but they were volunteers, not conscripts. The same probably applies to Ishtar. Ed: Yeah right, I am sure they were "volunteers". jtb: Evidence that they were NOT? Remember these were polytheistic religions. There was no obligation to specifically worship Bacchus. He was the god of wine and orgies: the god of PLEASURE, not slavery. Ed: The nature of women. Women generally do not want multiple sexual partners, they generally desire one man to have as a husband and the father of their children. jtb: Sex is a pleasurable activity, not simply a means of procreation. You assume that no woman has ever voluntarily taken part in an orgy? No woman has ever committed adultery? No woman has ever voluntarily indulged in casual sex of any sort? This is your case for asserting that "temple prostitution" is slavery? You have led a sheltered life, Ed.

I said MOST women, not all women. The majority of women desire what I stated above. Next time actually read my post. The overwhelming majority of women would not voluntarily engage in such behavior. So probably most of them were slaves.

Jack the Bodiless

A lie, or a hallucination? It must be one or the other! There is no "post to Jack above" in which you refuted this.

It is a FACT that, according to the Bible, God instigates rape.
Not a punishment, but a consequence. If it was a punishment, it would be an unjust one.
Didn't you try to argue earlier that David's wives were raped because of some unspecified sins of their own, not mentioned in the Bible? You can't keep your story straight.

Of course, the "Supreme Judge of the Universe" has told us nothing whatsoever. The fact that you have just called an ignorant Bronze Age storyteller "the Supreme Judge of the Universe" says much about your objectivity.
No, we do not.
Of course I answered it!
God's law is tempered by his incompetence.
We have already covered the fact that the Bible is pro-abortion. How quickly you forget...
God wasn't made by ONE man, but by many. But David was probably a real person, and he might have had a child who died. It is only a story that he died as a result of God's punishment. All this theological tapdancing is unnecessary if you simply accept that the Biblical God doesn't actually exist: the death of a baby requires no supernatural explanation.
See above. The stories differ because they ARE just stories, written by different people at different times.
However, the Hebrews actually believed that the Earth WAS flat and covered by a solid dome, and this doesn't just occur in "poetry", but everywhere else too.
Revelation says that one-third of the stars in the sky would fall to Earth.

It couldn't be plainer. The stars that will fall are the stars which are twinkling in the sky right now.
It is the same model, the same picture of reality, addressed throughout the Hebrew scriptures. It is WHAT THEY BELIEVED. You will never, ever, find any scripture which contradicts this worldview. It is what the Bible TEACHES.
And why is someone automatically disqualified from being a "Biblical scholar" because he is ALSO an expert on Rome?
And, by exactly the same argument, it was still not connected until he had HIS son. Nor was it connected until HE had HIS son. And so on...
You (or some other apologist) invent a line of nonsensical bullshit, then expect ME to provide "evidence" that it was invented?

There is no EVIDENCE that it was NOT invented. There is no EVIDENCE that it was ever used by the Hebrews!

And there is plenty of EVIDENCE that there was no global Flood. But that's best dealt with in the Evolution/Creation forum.
It is evident that there would have been an imbalance, IF the Hebrews had been monogamous. However, the Bible indicates that these "morally superior" people were frequently polygamous, and also fornicated with concubines and handmaidens.
Yes, I did, they fell long ago.
Ed, how many times must I point out that you don't NEED to extrapolate the adultery rules to cover the rape of single women! The rape of single women IS specifically covered in Deuteronomy! This is how we KNOW that non-adulterous rape was NOT a crime!
No, you are lying AGAIN. There was NO death penalty for non-adulterous fornication.

And why are you still directing me to random, unrelated Bible verses? Numbers 35:31 says nothing about adultery or fornication, nor does it say that "subsitutionary punishments were allowed in some cases". In fact, it says exactly the opposite of that: "Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death". No ifs, no buts, no exceptions!

You're reading "the Bible according to Ed" again, aren't you?
And in "your post to nogo above", you said "No, see my post to Jack above"! You expect us to follow an endless series of links to a refutation that does not exist?

See your earlier post, located in hyperspace, in which you confessed to making this up as you go along.
How is YOUR opinion of rape relevant? It isn't!

The simple TRUTH is that "humbled" DOES mean "rape" in the verse under discussion. It does NOT mean "mistreatment", because then the verse would make NO SENSE. It would say "you shall not mistreat her, because you have mistreated her".

It is perfectly obvious that these captured women were raped.
You don't actually need MANY women to act as temple prostitutes. Even if only SOME women would be willing to do this, that is enough.

Especially if they thought it was holy. People do lots of bizarre things if they think it pleases their deity.

NOGO

No it does not, BUT, what it does mean is that it is possible to compare your girlfriend's eyes to pools of crystal clear water reflecting the blue sky or at least you as the writer believe that there is a comparison.

Now read Isaiah again

Isaiah 40:22
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers,
Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain
And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.

Here the author tells us that the heavens are spread like a tent.
I can see how you see that your girlfriend's eyes are like pools of crystal water reflecting the blue sky.
So it is legitimate to ask how are the heavens like a tent?
It is legitimate to believe that the author is comparing the heavens to a tent because he truly believes that this comparison can stick just like you can truly believe that your girlfriend's eyes and the pools of crystal water do have something in common.

Putting all the evidence in the Bible on this subject show quite clearly that ancient Hebrews believed the earth to be flat and the heavens were a dome over the flat earth. The poetic comparison to the tent then becomes clear.

You would not peotically compare the heavens to a tent because you now know that the heaven do not look like a tent. All poetry ultimately stems from our perception of reality.

As usual you have completely failed to answer the heart of the issue.

I quoted and explained Daniel and Neb's dream.
In Genesis God puts the sun, moon and stars in the heavens which is a surface separating the waters above from the waters below. etc.


No! People believed that meteorites were falling stars. That is very different from what you are pushing here. Stars falling to earth like in Revelations for example are associated with the end of the world. What this says is that the event is quite unusual which is complete opposite to meteorites which occur regularly ever year at the same period of time.

One third of the stars will fall is not talking about meteorites. Meteorites are a trivial mundane event. The other events mentioned in Revelation 6 like the sun burning out and the heavens departing like a scroll is definitely not mundane.

The idea that heaven is a surface can be found throughout the Bible. Is 40:22 says that the heaven is like a tent, Genesis says that it separates water from water then there is Ezekiel 1

22 Now over the heads of the living beings there was something like an expanse, like the awesome gleam of crystal, spread out over their heads.
23 Under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward the other; each one also had two wings covering its body on the one side and on the other.
24 I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army camp; whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings.
25 And there came a voice from above the expanse that was over their heads; whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings.
26 Now above the expanse that was over their heads there was something resembling a throne, like lapis lazuli in appearance; and on that which resembled a throne, high up, was a figure with the appearance of a man.

Note all the bold text. Ezekiel describes a surfac like an expanse or firmament which is the same word used in genesis to describe the expanse separating water from water. It is all nice poetry which describes exactly the cosmology in the book of Enoch.

Stars falling to earth can be seen in Isaiah but also in Mt24 where Jesus describes the end of the world.

Also Jesus in Mt24 and 2 Peter 3 says that the heaven and earth will be destroyed. Now I can understand why earth would be destroyed according to Christian thinking ...

BUT WHY IS HEAVEN DESTROYED?

2 Peter 3:7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
...
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

Heavens will be destroyed and is reserved for the destruction of ungodly men.

The heavens are a tent-like dome over the earth and are therefore destroyed with the earth because the earth supports the heavens.

Read the book of Enoch. You will see that all the Bible says about the cosmos is in complete agreement with what the book of Enoch describes. This is what the Hebrew people believed at the time and that is what the Bible describes as well.

NOGO

Surely you are joking. I have given complete proof that Job did not believe in afterlife. Ed, that you wish to keep your delusions is fine by me but do not pretend that you have evidence that Job believed in afterlife.

The problem Ed is that what you call progressive is not.
It is more like, abrupt.
Hebrew people did not believe in afterlife until they interacted more with other people like in the Greek period and then we see clear believef in the afterlife like in Daniel.

Daniel is told to go to his sleep and wait for final judgement.
So afterlife is not immediate but must wait till the end of the world because even early Christians believed in a physical "on earth" afterlife. The idea of a soul which survives the death of the body was still not part of the picture.

NOGO

Nonsense!
Accidents happen even when you do not drive too fast. People die in avalanches, in earthquakes and all sorts of other situations beyond our control.

What you are saying here, Ed, is just total nonsense and I am surprised that you do not see it.

You are saying that driving too fast is wrong and should be punished. So God punishes fast drivers by causing accidents which kill their children.

This is your kind of God not mine.


Tell me where?

I know from the Bible that Yahweh, the mythological God of the Israelites, was nothing but just. You are giving me myth here, Ed. You have to twist everything the bible says in order to maintain this fallacy.

Ed, the only person who thinks he is giving answers but does not actually give answers is you.


More nonsense.
Laws are not made for God. They were made for humans to live by. Surely you understand this simple fact, Ed.
You are saying that what David did was wrong because he broke a law and not because he caused Uriah and his family injustice.
This would surely reduce God’s laws to a bunch of do’s and don’ts because they are not related to the injury caused.

Really!
In direct contradiction that everyone shall die for his own sins.
Yahweh breaks his own laws.


Obviously you do not understand the idea of a law.
Once again Yahweh breaks his own laws.

Ed, try to be consistent.


You mean that we do no all get equal chances in life and that is part of God’s plan.

What you call evidence, Ed, is quite amusing.
What you see here is explained in a very simple way. The Bible was written by ignorant people. The inconsistencies, errors and general nonsense is due to ignorance and nothing more. The fact that you have to go through gyrations to try and patch it all is proof enough that there no God behind this.

Ed

While Jude may have believed that Enoch was inspired, later when the time came for the Canon to be determined, the church, led by the Holy Spirit, rejected Enoch but accepted Jude. IOW it did not endorse whatever views that Jude may have had about the works from which he took these citations, but it did endorse the explicit teaching in his letter. Another thing to consider is that, true statements and the recording of true events can be found outside the scriptures. Just because he quoted excerpts from the book does not necessarily mean that the whole book is inspired or that he believed it was. The apostle Paul quotes some pagans as making true statements but he plainly did not think that they were making inspired statements.

Ed

No, the key phrase in Deut. 22:28-29, is "and THEY are found out", this plainly implies they both were trying to hide their behavior and implies that it was consensual. The woman would not try to hide her being raped. So both these verses refer to consensual sex. Try again. Rape is punishable by death, see the verses just prior to this in Deut.

Ed

What engineering shortcomings and imperfections?