Are Women's Rights Against The Bible?

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Leviticus 20:12:



Why would Judah not have been justified in sentencing her to death, other than the fact the he was himself the father of her children?

Hardly. If I were to write a story about the Vietnam war and describe terrible things happening to people, would you assume that I enjoyed the fact that these things happened, unless I specifically noted otherwise, each and every time?


This is answered directly in the text: Genesis 38:9 "But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother."


The problem is that in sending her back, he pretends that he will give her his third son when he grows up. So she ends up waiting around for say 15 years (or so) before realizing she's been had.


No. Why do you assume that you can predict God's actions precisely in an incident that we know almost nothing about?


That is all that Judah thinks he'd done wrong, yes.

Well, what else did he do wrong?

-Lying to his daughter-in-law
-Hypocrisy - wanting to punish his daughter-in-law for an act he also participated in
-hiring a prostitute (yeah, I know you disagree on this)
-giving important personally identifiable items to someone who's face he'd never seen (yeah, I know this is more stupidity than a moral wrong)

Judah was the founder of the tribe of Judah--one of only two tribes that wasn't completely annihilated by the Assyrians. He would be the ancestor of much of modern-day Jewry. He is certainly important.



Actually, the offspring would genetically be Onan's. Perhaps the first child would be counted as Er's when the inheritance was distributed. But, any paternity suit, and potential obligations for child support, would be directed at Onan.



15 years seems a bit long.



If the Lord is killing Onan for next to nothing, anything that Judah did would have to have been even more trivial than spilling his seed on the ground.

Judah lied to his daughter-in-law to try to protect his last surviving son, Shelah, which is understandable, given the run of bad luck that he had had with Tamar.

Hypocrisy doesn't enter into it--it would if he had wanted to punish his son for hiring prostitutes.

The items were personally identifiable only to Judah--it isn't as if another man would be able to take out a loan based on Judah's walking stick and seal with its cord.

And, in the end, Judah says "She is in the right," which means that it was actually acceptable for her to act like a prostitute, under the circumstances.

That is why they call us Jews. If the tribe of Reuveyn had survived they would call us Rubes.

Bob Kolker

As I understand things, the people who follow the Bible more closely than anyone else are the ultra-Orthodox Jews.

One of the biggest markets for prostitutes in the world today is Tel-Aviv, with ultra-Orthodox Jews, from all walks of life, being the largest clientele.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews will not masturbate, will not use condoms (even with prostitutes), and will only ejaculate (at least willingly) into a woman's vagina.

But, back to Judah--since Tamar was, at that time, living with her Father, a Canaanite, would Judah really have had the authority to burn her to death? Granted, she was engaged to be married with Shelah, Judah's youngest son, but this never happened. Judah only poked her one time, and she gave him twin sons (Perez and Zerah).

I want to ask you, what makes you think that the Bible says that abuse is acceptable? I'm curious, and you never answered the question when I asked if before.

I'm not saying he wasn't important.


This is just silly. Satan is also a character in the Bible.


I understand his reason, I'm just saying that he could have been honest about it.


Actually that just seems to be Judah's opinion on the matter, and I think he's referring only to the Shelah situation, not actually approving of all of her actions.

Take a look at Numbers 31



And what exactly did the Midianites do to the Lord? Nothing, really. It hearkens back to Numbers 25:



It all sounds pretty hospitable to me.

Back to Numbers 31:



This certainly sounds abusive to me, but it gets worse:



So, they killed all of the captured boys, and all of the women who were not virgins, and divided up 32,000 Midianite virgins, along with the sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, and other spoils. Eleazer and the Levites got their share of the virgins, too.

This was all as the Lord had commanded. I would consider it abusive. Others might not. But, there you have it.

Do you know what other nations normally did in that area in that time with their spoils of war?

I'm not, BTW, approving of that as acceptable treatment of POWs. The way I look at the Bible, God took them through a civilizing and enlightening process, but what he started with was basically a bunch of barbarians.

Considering current events God hasn't been doing too well with us barbarians.

Actually, the Midianites were a lot kinder and more hospitable than the Israelites, and look at what happened to them.

They invited some Israelites over for some cultural exchange, dinner, and sex, and got slaughtered for their hospitality.

Based upon my reading of Cosmopolitan in the dentist's office, it is my understanding that modern social conventions would dictate that when a woman invites a man to her place for a meal, and maybe some discussion or watching TV, then sexual congress would also be anticipated.

Suppose a woman invites my son to her place for dinner, and he accepts. If I follow the Bible's teaching, then the correct response is for me to murder her entire family, plunder her family's wealth, and, if she has any younger sisters who are still virgins, then to keep them as sex slaves.

Are we to assume that anything that Satan does is automatically wrong?

I think this is a reference to the verse in 1 Corinthians that said that "a woman is not allowed to speak in the church, and must be in submission". However, it also goes on to say that a man must submit to the church.

As for women's rights as we know them today, the Bible does not speak against it. In fact, in mainline Protestant denominations, women are often ordained as pastors.

The only instances where men and women would be unequal is when applying for job positions that require a great deal of physical agility (i.e. police officer, firefighter, etc.), but this is because men and women are built differently.

How do "women's rights" differ from human rights?

ruveyn