Are Women's Rights Against The Bible?

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God could have promised them a land that was empty. That would have avoided genocide. In 40 years the Israelites could easily have walked down the coast of Africa and built boats to cross over to Madagascar. There were no human inhabitants at the time.


Say the people who wrote the history. Or possibly the guy who gave the order for genocide, depending on who you believe the author is. And didn't that order say to kill all, including even livestock, but excluding virgin girls? Those were to be prizes for the conquerors.


Opinions differ on who the author is.

Back to women's rights. Compare these two:
Exodus 21:2 "If you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve for six years; but on the seventh he shall go out as a free man without payment."
Exodus 21:7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do."

The Bible condones slavery, and gives a worse deal to women.

Here are two more interesting verses:
Deuteronomy 22:28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,"
Deuteronomy 22:29 "he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."

Making a rape victim marry her rapist does not look like an enlightened view of women's rights to me. When you try to work out how this rule could possibly make sense, there is a solution: the Bible treats rape as a property crime. The raped girl is damaged goods, and the rapist must compensate the owner and take the damaged goods off him. It's pottery rules: if you break it, you buy it.

It's more than a deterent - you hurt her, you have to finance her for her entire life. It takes care of her, as "marrying" her means having to pay her. She doesn't have to live with him or whatever. The Bible knows women were considered property, and "damaged". While acknowledging this fact, what's better, a place where raped women are considered damaged goods, or a place where women who are hurt have to be taken care of and compensated for their entire life?

Now, as I'm native to (modern) Hebrew, I decided also to check the original version - wow, it looks different... "He can't sand her away" - it doesn't mean that she isn't allowed to divorce. Although again, I'm not sure the concept of marriage is what you think of.

Other than that, it says something that sounds more like "because you tortured here" rather than "violated". And that she should be stoned if she agreed to have sex before marriage (both of them should), but that if she says she didn't, you mustn't punish her, because her soul is killed. That doesn't sound like speaking of property to me. It says it's the same as murder. If she has a husband already he should be stoned, it says.

So yes - relative to its time, it's very enlighted. Even today it's enlightened, I think. It says that if it happened "in the field" - you shouldn't even question her. If she says she didn't want to, it means she didn't want to. If it happened "in town"? It tells women to shout. Once they do, the people have to help, according to the law. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that if she says she did shout, but there was no one to hear, that means go with her version.

Just look at the difference. The translation you found:

My translation:


By the way, it says in Exodus that if he doesn't rape her, but "only" seduces her, and tricks her into to believing he will marry her (what happens after sex, according to the bible) - he should also "marry" her, and pay her for the rest of his life - if her father agrees (and again, she can resist either), and otherwise he just has to pay a fine. Not really anti-women.

Last edited by Omerik on 07 Feb 2010, 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Good thing I don't live in a country where I'd have to believe in that crazy stuff.

Most dogmatic religion is really a cop out for guys and another social game of hierarchy.

1. Madagascar would not have been an ideal place for the Isrealites to live. Besides, God's goal was to pt them somewhere where the rest of the world could see them, so that they would worship him too. cramming them on an island off the coast of Africa would have been counter-productive.

2. The Greeks and Romans also said that the Baal-worshipers practiced child sacrifice. of course, the greeks and romans where all also enemies with Baal-worshiping states like Carthage, but you have three acconts of child sacrifice from three different nations. Also, archeologists have uncovered a religious site that contains burnt bones of both animals and small children in Carthage, which again worshiped the same pantheon as the canaanites. there are those who oppose the idea, but I'd say we have a pretty strong argument that the Canaanites sacrificed children.

and No, that was not what was said at all. God said that under absolutely no circumstances where any of the Isrealites to marry any of the Canaanites.

3. That is a self-refuting argument. If you do not believe that whoever wrote the bible was providing an honest interpretation of religious events to the best of their ability, then yo cannot claim that anything God says or does in it is an argument against him, because it could have been the author.

4. You are cherry-picking your information. Yes, the old testament has some laws about slavery, but it's overall attitude about it is negative. the Isrealites cold not keep their countrymen as slaves, and where forbidden to abuse slaves, because they had themselves once been enslaved. as for "why not just outlaw it altogether", those where different times, and different economic conditions. with all our technology we can produce a huge amount of goods with relatively small labour requirements and little risk of error. and even if we don't make quota, there is little chance our entire civilization will collapse. having a large, reliable workforce was a matter of life and death. everyone was practicing slavery at that time. how many people had laws about not abusing their slaves?

casiusclay: having varying interpretations of information =/= making it up as you go along. Scientists disagree about the meaning of data all the time. are they "making it up as they go along"?

Just two things, because it's late:

"Not ideal" justifies genocide?


The motivation for worship being what? It is difficult to demonstrate mercy by ordering genocide. Is the motive intimidation?


If we go along with the settlers and say that all the area under Israeli military control is part of the promised land, then Madagascar is over 21 times as large as Israel. That is hardly cramming.


That's not a problem for me, because that is not my claim. If the authors of the Bible are humans writing about their enemies, there is bias often enough that the accounts of the victors should not always be taken at face value. If the author is a god, we have to ask what sort of god. If the only evidence for a story being true is the word of the guy who tells it, and who ordered a genocide, how sure would you be that you hear the truth? Are gods by definition unable to tell lies? I ask how reliable the information about the Canaanites is, and I ask whether even divine authorship guarantees truth.


So you say there is independent evidence for the Canaanites being bad people. That is better than relying on history written by the victors. Shall we compare the moral merits of the Canaanites and the Israelites, based on what you have said so far? You say the Canaanites sacrificed children. And you say the Israelites killed them all, not just some of them. That sounds like "We had to destroy the town in order to save it."


It may not have been the Canaanites, but one of the other tribes. I don't remember the wording well enough to find the quote, but I do think I have read a passage giving the instruction I mentioned. Are you saying that nowhere in the bible were the Israelites told to keep the virgin girls for themselves, or are you only saying they did not get that instruction with regards to the Canaanites?


I was trying to get back to the question the OP asked, about women's rights.


But they could keep their countrywomen as slaves? That was the point. Men were released after 6 years, women not.


The drawback of that argument is that if conditions were different, slavery would again be justified. And slavery still exists today. If those keeping slaves could show you they do this for the same reasons the Israelites kept slaves, would you say that's OK?

[Insult removed - M.]

Can we please all act with decorum and in accordance with the TOS, (which specifically excludes calling each other insulting names)?

Madagascar may be big, but a lot of that is jungle. The ancient Isrealites where not prepared to live in a jungle. a jungle can be a very good place to live, but only if you know how. God promised the Isrealites a land they would prosper in.

The motivation for worship being the Isrealites faith in God, and all the things God had done for them.

you are missing the point in disputing the authorship. he have independent evidence. as for wether or not that justifies genocide, if God was going to give his people a land, he might as well give them the land of the baby incinerators. besides, that was not the only thing the canaanites did wrong, it is just the worst from a secular point-of-view.

You are most likely thinking of the time when the tribe of Benjiman was ransacked in a tribal war and the other tribes agreed to let the Benjimites kindnap their daughters to repopulate. however, none of that was orchastrated by God, but rather during a period when the Isrealites had both abandoned God and didn't even have any secular authority: everyone was doing as they pleased.

You are missing the point. What other nation at that time had rights for slaves?

I'm sorry; he deserved it.

To quote the context related to the meaning of the word "rape" of the examples in question, it would be,



The use of the word "rape" could, more properly refer to fornication being called "rape" by the woman later when both are caught, so as to only have the dude killed. In this current culture fornication is considered acceptable, I know this already, and by today's standards of morality and acceptability one judges that of the past.

You mean God can't inform people on how to live in the jungle?

Additionally, they haven't really "prospered", but rather have been conquered by various groups throughout history and are under attack in that location to this very day. I think they would have probably been better in Madagascar.


Israelites killed children too.

Exo 22:29-30 "You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. (30) You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.c ... ifice.html

It's throughout scripture too. So, I don't think this excuse really works.



You are missing the point. Why would the holiest of people under a perfectly good God have slaves? If they could be prevented from having bacon, then they could *surely* be prevented from having slaves. I'd pick bacon over slaves most days of the week.

...

Which days of the week do you eat slaves on?

That Israelites had offered children as sacrifices was against the law actually. Most cases it was to Molech and Dagon. Only in one recorded case was it to God and it wasn't at God's command but due to a foolish oath during the time of the Judges.

I don't eat slaves. I'd just prefer to be able to have bacon than I would want to own a slave.

Whether you think they 'deserved' it or not, it is against the site rules. Please cease with the personal attacks.


M.

Umm..... you're just asserting what my verse and this link outright contradict.

The Jepthah case was mentioned in the link though, and even then that seems silly. It is still a case where God had a person sacrificed to him, and if God can stop Abraham, then he could stop Jepthah.