2And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.
That's gotta be one big family if you don't know your own brother,
3In like manner shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his raiment; and with all lost thing of thy brother's, which he hath lost, and thou hast found, shalt thou do likewise: thou mayest not hide thyself.
And really, you should steer well clear of your brothers ass.
4Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt surely help him to lift them up again.
No, I am still going no where near my bro's ass.
5The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.
So cross dressing is a no no ......What about unisex clothing ? Besides as an impoverished English biker I know that wearing a couple of pairs of tights under your jeans is a cheap way of keeping your legs and wedding tackle toasty during those cold winter months.
6If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young:
But its ok to murder parents and children as long as they live nearby ??????
7But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days.
What the fuck is a dam anyway besides a construction to retain water ?
And my partner knows all about retaining water.
8When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.
The style of city houses in these times required entry through the roof a wall surrounding the roof was a good idea.
9Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled.
Fair enough
10Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.
Otherwise you would be ploughing in an ever decreasing spiral till you disappeared up your asses or ox's ass.
11Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.
That's a blow to the fashion industry.
12Thou shalt make thee fringes upon the four quarters of thy vesture, wherewith thou coverest thyself.
That has completely passed me by any ideas anyone.
13If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her,
That'll be about 90% of married men.
14And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid:
That'll be about 98.8% of married men
15Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate:
Tokens of the damsels virginity, what's that letters from any number of males declaring they have not fucked her ?
16And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her;
17And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.
Ah ! now I think I understand. Until fairly recently, maybe 200 years or so it was the custom in some parts of england that the bride was gathered up by the village and carried to the marriage bed, a bed with spotlessly clean sheets the groom was also thrown on to the bed, the following morning the sheets would be examined and blood from the loss of her virginity was expected.
I am not sure as I cannot remember were I got this from but I think if there was no blood then the marriage was void.
18And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him;
That I believe is as near to women's rights as it got.
19And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.
20But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel:
21Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.
Wow sexual equality at its best. Just think if girls if your new husband had a little dick(as is implied as a family trait of the family of Abraham) and you laughed you could be stoned if he did not make you bleed on your wedding night.
22If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
So .... does this mean if someone catches someone raping someone they both must die ?
23If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
24Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
Betrothed../...wife surely there is a difference
25But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die.
So if a girl goes out with the intention of being raped she had better do it in a field.
26But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:
27For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.
28If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;
29Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.
So if she is not betrothed (promised by her father to someone) and she is raped and he is caught for the princely sum of fifty shekels, he keeps her as his wife. Well thats fine as long as the father profits and don't go forgetting the levites cut.
30A man shall not take his father's wife, nor discover his father's skirt.
What was said in verse 5 again ?
By the way . This is not me.(Wrong shade of pink).
2 comments:
What good timing you have! Just a couple hours before you sent your comment, I had logged on to leave a response to one of your earlier comments (which I can't seem to find any more - I thought I had posted it...) and had re-visited your blog for the first time in a while.
I must confess I had subscribed to your blog and followed a couple posts as I said, but I have struggled knowing exactly what kind of comment, if any, to leave. Reading your perspective as someone who doubts the existence of God and cannot reconcile how a God who claims to be loving could act in the ways demonstrated in the Old Testament has been beneficial for me and sharpened my perspective as someone who has no doubts about Jehovah's existence, about his love for me {through the person of Jesus) and is working to accomplish his purpose in the world. I guess I must confess to being lazy. Lazy because to attempt to answer the questions that you raise about God and His character would take a good amount of writing and preparing time on my part and I'm not sure I wanted to do it. So forgive me for that. As someone who claims to represent a loving God, that is pretty selfish on my part and not a good representative of Him at all.
I'm sure you've heard the story about the blind men and the elephant. Three blind men were brought to an elephant and asked to describe the elephant as best they could. One touched the legs of the elephant and proceeded to describe the elephant as course and wrinkly. The second touched the tusks of the elephant and then described the elephant as smooth and hard. The third touched the tail of the elephant and described it as thin and hairy. And while all three blind men were right in how they were describing the elephant, they were also wrong too. With the senses they had, none of them were able to completely get their heads around what an elephant is.
Let me try to briefly give you my perspective on God and the Bible. The Bible is the story of God and what he is about. Many religious people have turned it into a book of moral teachings or wonderful stories or pithy quotes but that is not what it is. If preachers today were forthright in their telling of some of these stories they would be censored because many of the Bible Stories are rated R or even worse. Rape, genocide, just to name a few. The Bible starts with God's creation of the universe (let's not get sidetracked with the whole creation/evolution thing - I mean, couldn't God speaking the whole universe into existence have been a "Big Bang"? Do I really want to claim monkeys as my ancestors? A hateful, vengeful God makes much more sense to me...I digress) it shows how we rejected his plan for living, decided to go our own way, and our entire world has been paying the price ever since.
In our modern culture, we can relate very well to a loving God who is like the laid-back grandparent, who looks the other way while the grandkids are off doing whatever they want to whomever they want to. What we have a difficult time relating to is a holy God whose holiness demands justice. We've lost a perspective on justice and holiness in our culture. I'll tell you this though. If someone were to break into my home and molest my wife and kids, I would want justice done. I would want to see that person pay the price for what they've done to my family. And that same longing for justice that I would have for someone "violating" my wife, is the same justice that God's holiness demands for Himself and for our "violation" of his holiness.
When Adam made the fateful decision to do things his way instead of God's way he brought a curse on himself and on all of us who follow. Part of our curse is the constant longing to do things "our way" instead of God's way. Matter of fact, the 10 Commandments was God spelling out for his people specifically what his way was (His way is also written on our conscience which is why we know that murder, stealing, child molestation is wrong.)
But from the very moment of mankind's Fall, God had already began to put a plan in motion that would allow his people to be brought back to Him (see Genesis 3:15b which hints at it) God choose men such as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, imperfect men, but men chosen by God to carry his plan to fulfillment. God then chose the people of Israel, gave them the Law to serve as a school teacher for the right way to live, as a picture pointing to their coming Messiah. I believe this Messiah has come, in the person of Jesus, to fulfill the Old Testament (as described in the Gospels and the New Testament) and reveal that God's plan of "redeeming" the Jew (as the Jews saw it) is available to everyone and not just to the Jew (or those who adopted the Jewish tradition.) One day, the resurrected Jesus will return again to gather his people again for eternity and bring final judgement on those who have not been "redeemed." [Redeem meaning buy back]
Now I'm painting with a broad brush stroke but hopefully that gives you a picture of where I'm coming from. Most of my life has been spent exploring this and has taken me through different faith traditions along the way as I have sought truth. And while I may not be able to answer every question, I don't doubt the truth of what I am telling you to the very core of my being.
Now after reading this, you may think I'm a crazy. You may think that I have a beard and wear weird things around my head. I'm really not. I love my wife and three kids, I would do anything for them. I love football (both American and European); I eat too much, and I enjoy TV and Movies (Big fan of Battlestar Galactica, The Shield to name a couple; do you have those in the UK?)
I know this doesn't even begin to answer any questions that you have posed but hopefully it helps a bit. I must confess the other thing that I struggle with in reading your blog is not so much the material but the sarcasm. Having a teenager, I get my fill of sarcasm and sometimes it is just too much for me when I'm reading your blog. Again, if you can handle reading my blogs about a loving God, I guess I should be able to handle the sarcasm, right?
Oh, and by the way, I do actually believe everything I've said. I would not put up with having to hold to some doctrine that I don't personally believe or just to make certain people happy. For a paycheck or otherwise. I just wish I could do a better job of explaining myself.
Your friend,
Paul
p.s. you can email me direct at ptedder@gmail.com
It's good to hear from you again Paul.
I will endeavour to answer your points, but before I do can I say how refreshing it is to meet what appears to be an intelligent and eloquent christian. I was beginning to think that an intelligent christian was a mythic oxymoron.
Our previous dialogue is here
Nothing has been removed by me.
You say you have no doubts of your gods existance.
Really ? Not ever ?
The elephant/blind men thing doesn't take into the fact that these men could also use their other senses not to mention their brains and tools to understand what the elephant was.
But that does allow me to point out that the men that wrote the bible were like your blind men when they tried to explain the world around them, just using touch and only standing at one point.
We now have learned to make tools that allow us to see more than they could in almost every direction you can name and yet we still are only just beginning to scratch the surface.
Ancient man invented the idea of god(s) to explain his world veiw we now use science not only to search for the right answers but also for the right questions.
Can I just point out that I once had very similar beliefs to you, until I first read the bible. It was the bible that saved me.
You say the bible is the story of god, surely if that were the case it would be much older( Hinduism is unbroken for at least 5,000 years possibly much older) The bible story is also much reduced in content when compared with other comparative sources.
You say that if preachers were forthright in telling these stories they would be censored, maybe over in your country but not here. The reason they are omitted from live church is most christians are really only church goers and they do not really know what is in it.
Monkeys as ancestors ? No one claims that, just that we share a common ancestor a really long time ago. If you go back even further we share a common ancestor with almost every living thing on this planet.
You say we rejected gods plan, excuse me I thought he was supposed to be omniscient,omnipotent and omni prescient if that were the case how could any thing be outside his plan. You believe he designed us, if that's true then he fucked up not us we could only behave the way we were designed.
Continuing down you say how god is now the more laid back grandparent type rather than the vengeful despot of old.
Why do you think that is ?
I think it's because our culture has changed, most people we will come into contact are not struggling to feed and clothe themselves, not living in fear all the time, a vengeful god has lost its effect in the modern west and would not bring in the coffers, after all that is what its all about.
I certainly don't have a problem with justice I fully agree on your sentiments there.
Paul really, Adam making a decision? Even if the story were true, he was as an innocent child.I ask you, as a loving father would you condemn all the descendants of one of your kids that as a toddler failed to do as he was told.
I will bet the answer is no.
That being the case I would consider YOU more worthy of worship than your god.
Post a Comment