God's Law; Your daughters

reply to post by DISRAELI


I concur!

Also I think that we now run up against the issue of is it even our place to judge stuff like that!

Methinks that is Gods job IF we take the bible at face value!

Whether we are collectively better or not doesn't matter when salvation happens at the individual level of the heart of ones soul.

I have Faith that Gods will is ultimately being done and that true justice will prevail in the long run.

Peace!

For information;
This thread is the sequel to God's Law; Your wife
These will shortly be followed by a thread on "Your Sons", to continue the "family law" theme.

DISRAELI
Yes, it was better than what would have happened otherwise.
You must be immeasurably cruel and heartless if you would have preferred the woman to experience destitution and/or prostitution, which were the most probable alternatives in the social conditions of the time.

No what's absolutely cruel and heartless is to think that such laws were even conceivable to a being that we are told is infinitely powerful, all knowing and all loving. And you should ask a few rape victims wheres or not a forced life of marriage to your childhood rapist is preferable to a life of prostitution, destitution or even death....

That's why, in the OP, I listed this law as one of the laws which were contributing towards the protection of women.

Delusion will do that....

I don't claim that these laws are perfect.[/quote]

What?? imperfect laws from a imperfect law giver??? blasphemy!!

I claim that they are an improvement on previous conditions.
It's just a question of having enough imagination to grasp the concept of "gradual improvement".

Right....so slow and so gradual that it's absolutely and utterly indistinguishable to there being no 'influence' from anyone or anything whatsoever......never mind a 'god'.......because thats what teachers do you see.....they teach veeeeery slowly.........

Prezbo369
And you should ask a few rape victims wheres or not a forced life of marriage to your childhood rapist is preferable to a life of prostitution, destitution or even death....

No, I'm not convinced that many real people of that era would choose prostitution, destitution, and death, for the sake of an abstract principle based upon twenty-first century sensibilities.
Given a genuine choice, they would probably prefer to live, and they would not thank you for choosing death on their behalf.

What?? imperfect laws from a imperfect law giver??? blasphemy!!

They are imperfect because of the human element in them. I have been saying that all along. "Hardness of heart".

Right....so slow and so gradual that it's absolutely and utterly indistinguishable to there being no 'influence' from anyone or anything whatsoever

Anything that wards off the prospect of prostitution, destitution, and death, is a very detectable improvement over prostitution, destitution, and death.
So that's a start.

DISRAELI

No, I'm not convinced that many real people of that era would choose prostitution, destitution, and death, for the sake of an abstract principle based upon twenty-first century sensibilities.
Given a genuine choice, they would probably prefer to live, and they would not thank you for choosing death on their behalf.

I dont claim authority to speak for other people, but you really should ask a rape victim about their 'twenty-first century sensibilities'....as your ignorance on this issue is showing....

They are imperfect because of the human element in them. I have been saying that all along. "Hardness of heart".

That's just poor story telling.....

Anything that wards off the prospect of prostitution, destitution, and death, is a very detectable improvement over prostitution, destitution, and death.
So that's a start.

And as ive shown you in the past, such improvements have a completely natural and evolutionary origin. No 'god/s' required nor detected....at all.

Prezbo369
but you really should ask a rape victim...

It would have to be someone living in the circumstances of the time, in the social conditions of 1000 B.C., and facing up to the reality of choice between prostitution, destitution and death, on the one hand, or being supported for life on the other.
Anyone not facing the reality of that choice is theorising, like the rest of us.
But I credit the people of the time with normal human reactions, and the normal human reaction, when it comes to the crunch, is that very few things are genuinely judged as "worse than death".

DISRAELI
It would have to be someone living in the circumstances of the time, in the social conditions of 1000 B.C., and facing up to the reality of choice between prostitution, destitution and death, on the one hand, or being supported for life on the other.
Anyone not facing the reality of that choice is theorising, like the rest of us.
But I credit the people of the time with normal human reactions, and the normal human reaction, when it comes to the crunch, is that very few things are genuinely judged as "worse than death".

If i'm theorizing then you're theorizing just as much. You're setting the circumstances and the reactions, creating your own reality.

And if you really want to know about human reactions to rape you have to listen to rape victims. Then and only then you'll be able to come even close to what would be a 'normal human reaction'.....and then maybe look at the suicide rates for rape victims and child rape victims (that is what we're talking about...).

reply to post by Prezbo369

If we are looking at the rights and wrongs of rape, let me draw your attention to an interesting point which has already been mentioned once on this thread.
I looked over the nearly contemporaneous Code of Hammurabi and found NOTHING relating to the rape of an unbetrothed woman.
There is a law about the rape of a betrothed woman, on similar terms to Israelite law, but if the woman was not betrothed, there is apparently no law in Babylon treating that act as any sort of crime.

Taking Israelite law in comparison;
1) Israelite law DOES have a law treating rape as a serious offence, even if the woman is not betrothed.
In fact there is an explicit declaration that a woman who has been raped is the victim of an act of violence which can be compared with murder; "This case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbour"- Deuteronomy ch 22 v26
Having a law which treats rape as a crime is a definite improvement over not having a law which treats rape as a crime.

2) Israeilte law sets out to penalise the rapist and find some way of compensating the victim, which are both laudable aims.
It finds a way of killing these two birds with one stone, by making the man take the woman as an undivorcable wife, which has the effect of compelling him to support her for life.
This gives her a way of escaping the prospect of prostitution, destitution, and death.
Having a law which provides an escape-route from destitution and death is a definite improvement over not having an escape-route.

But she's also given the option of rejecting the escape-route.
The law gives the woman's family the option of turning down the marriage and just taking the bride-price money- Exodus ch22 v17.
In other words, the marriage is not compulsory for the woman, but it is compulsory for the man, if the woman's family choose, because it is a penalty that is being imposed on the man.

3) Which brings us to the final point.
If the man is being penalised in this way, the existence of the penalty might act as a deterrent, which might mean that the act of rape is less likely happen in the first place.
Having a law which acts as a deterrent against rape is a definite improvement over not having one.

In all these ways, then, the Israeilte law is an improvement over the state of affairs which would otherwise have existed, and definitely an improvement on the Babylonian refusal to take an interest in the matter unless the woman was already claimed.

reply to [url= by DISRAELI[/url]


As I said, I find no reason whatsoever to think that such an 'improvement' was inspired by a being that is claimed to be the master and creator of existence......and no matter how much you fill out your posts you cannot escape the fact that such changes are and were to be expected through entirely naturalistic means...

reply to post by Prezbo369

Fortunately I wasn't setting out to prove that point.
The true objective was more modest (see opening paragraph of OP).
The premise that the laws were published in the name of the Biblical God is simply taken as the starting point for studying through what follows; "In that case, what do they say about him?"

DISRAELI
Fortunately I wasn't setting out to prove that point.
The true objective was more modest (see opening paragraph of OP).
The premise that the laws were published in the name of the Biblical God is simply taken as the starting point for studying through what follows; "In that case, what do they say about him?"

Regardless you have attempted to make that point on more than one occasion as your entire series of threads rests on this faulty premise. And due to this we can infer that your complete series on 'gods law' is baseless and irrelevant.

reply to post by Prezbo369

"Relevant" is a relative term, not an absolute one; "Bearing upon, pertinent to, the matter in hand". So it all depends on the definition of "the matter in hand". You can define what is relevant to your own interests, you cannot define what is relevant to other people.
These threads are relevant (and useful, in my judgement) to those who do accept the basic premise, and they will continue.

I often find threads on ATS (such as UFO's, "ascension", music) that are irrelevant to my interests.
I deal with that situation by taking no notice of them.

reply to post by DISRAELI


Actually the bloody sheet proof isn't from Judaism only, it was a widespread cultural practice in the Middle East. Even the Canaanites and other neighbors did that same thing. What people don't realize is that the Torah was given after the Jews began as a society and community, one that included people from other groups.

Gideon wasn't Hebrew, he was a Gileadite and the servant of Abraham was Eliezar was a Syrian, he was from Damascus. While the Torah came to Moses, the foundations of Jewish beginnings began at Abraham. And even't Abraham wasn't Hebrew, but from the East. But it's merely a foundation for the Jews. And in the early beginnings, they did things similar in the cultural practices as their neighbors. The first departure was when they began to circumcise.

Notice that not even Moses was circumcised as a baby, his sons were circumcised at a much older age, so there seems to be no practice while the Jews were in Egypt for 400 years. I think people assume that the Torah is as old as Adam and it was the only written document of the entire known world at the time. No, the Torah and five books of Moses were laws designed for two purposes, to create laws for a new community and creating a separate identity for the Jewish followers of Moses.

The bloody sheet was a cultural practice found all over the Levant prior to Moses. So was the bride price. No one can say that started with Moses, so if there is any criticism, it should not be directed at the God of the Jews, but toward all those who practiced those particular things. No one condemns the Canaanites who worshiped Molech, and burned their children, and no one criticizes Molech, but they do Yaweh.

reply to post by WarminIndy

Yes, exactly.
Thank you for adding more detail to the brief observation I made in the OP on some customs being simlar to those of other peoples.
We should not be afraid to recognise early Israel as a mixed group; what it means is that even in the beginning they were really a "faith community", to an extent which gets obscured when the common descent claim is taken over-literally.
I should point out, though, that the Gileadites were technically part of the twelve tribes of Israel. Gilead was the territory occupied by the tribes on the east of Jordan, namely Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

DISRAELI
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Yes, exactly.
Thank you for adding more detail to the brief observation I made in the OP on some customs being simlar to those of other peoples.
We should not be afraid to recognise early Israel as a mixed group; what it means is that even in the beginning they were really a "faith community", to an extent which gets obscured when the common descent claim is taken over-literally.
I should point out, though, that the Gileadites were technically part of the twelve tribes of Israel. Gilead was the territory occupied by the tribes on the east of Jordan, namely Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

I agree, at the beginning they were a faith community. And they were very mixed, even the Tanahk concedes that point. There has never been a time in Jewish history that they have never been mixed, I think it is simply strange that people think so, and it usually isn't the Jews who have problems with it, many "goy" also think the same way.

And I see how people flip out over the term "goy" as it merely means "people" because there are other instances where "goyim" is used also in reference to Jews. "Clap your hands all you goyim"...that was part of the worship described in Psalms. Does it bother me when Jewish people think of me as "goy", no, because I know what the word means. But alas, other people feel so threatened by being called "goy" that they think the Jews have separated you from them in humanity. No, the Jews are simply saying they live this way as a Jew and you don't, it has nothing to do with the humanity of the person. After all, many Jews are extremely humanitarian and do stand up for humanitarian issues.

Thank you for the Gilead explanation. Apparently Gideon was born of a prostitute mother, but accepted with Joshua who married Rahab, a well-known Canaanite prostitute.

WarminIndy

DISRAELI
reply to post by WarminIndy

 

Double post, sorry.

edit on 3/15/2014 by WarminIndy because: (no reason given)

There is now a "family law" group of threads covering four topics (which are divided in this way partly to bring each theme within the 7500 character limit which ATS demands).

Your wife
Your daughters
Your sons
Your family's land

nice fairy tails....

Still waiting for

Your Slaves...

reply to post by Prezbo369

I told you- poverty and debt come first.

The topics have been arranged in sequence, one thing leading on to another.
Aspects of family law.
Ownership of land.
Some of the effects of debt, including the "mortgaging" of land.
Slavery.
Reaching a climax with quarrels and murder.
Finally an Index thread to tie all the threads in the series together.

Methodical and systematic.