Is it kool to rape a girl?

[Satanist]

Moral relativity.
In one age you can kill you mother
and in another the same culture could say something like
"we always given our mothers respect full funerals".

In one age a God is a killer and in the next he is forgiving.

You shouldn't let this affect your faith.

What really change is not the god or the holy scripture,
It is the rediscovery of your God,
the new, brave and bright faith in how you god was all druing all those ages.

Don't confuse you history with religion,
your religion's (no mater which religion) old versions
were always another religion than your.

Most of the bible come from other religions even before Judaism,
but that doesn't make Judaism less valid.

But don't deny moral relativty or the fact that your religion has changed through the ages.
You should se it as becoming more true,
belive becouse you belive in something
not becouse of legacy.

[PluckyAli]

Hi all,

Can I suggest interjecting something like <sarcasm> in the future because I really did believe that you were serious and it put a bad taste in my mouth.

Yes,but it would be no fun.It's hard for me to get serious at times but i know since we can't see each other we don't know which mood are we in.The lack of emotions on net make it a limited place.

it sounds like you were baiting people .... "according to plan, I wanted ..."

Not really.I was just not serious.If I were or wanted to bait people i would never had written "according to plan...I wanted" statment.

too bad because that takes away from the process of real dialogue and understanding

It sometimes help to take things lightly on net.

as for alternative interpretations it doesn't sound like that was even your interest or inclination.

Yes,but now i have changed my mind to listen to every alternative explanations.

while I still believe there is an inner meaning that can be gleaned I'll not bother to continue with my above posting

Go on with your explanation.Many folks are waiting...

[PluckyAli]

if you look earlier up in verse 25, which is a similar case at first glance, you see the additional phrase "WeHeHiZiQ-BaH HaIYSh" - literally "and the man overpowers her", which is far more obviously a rape. this sense of "overpowering" is absent in verse 28, so you're talking about two different situations. what the commentators suggest here is that we're talking about a woman who is "not engaged" (and therefore available) and we're also talking about their being discovered, which means it's in the city and not in the field (because the assumption is that if something takes place in the city and the girl was *unwilling*, she would have cried out and been overheard (see verse 24) and rescued, which wouldn't be possible in the countryside - see verses 25-6,

I would love to comment but unfortunately i could not find any of these verses you wrote.Could you be more specific about references.Could you give direct reference from www.biblegateway.com or any other website.I could not find the bold face letter references.I can't continue without them.

[bananabrain]

I would love to comment but unfortunately i could not find any of these verses you wrote.

you started by quoting some verses from deuteronomy chapter 22. these references are from the same chapter, ie deuteronomy 22:24-6; i'd have thought it would be simple enough. what i have done is look at the hebrew original and done a fairly rough job of explaining the difference between whatever translation you are working from and the intent of the original language. the transliteration is my own.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[PluckyAli]

Originally Posted by bananabrain

hi pluckyali,

i think what we have here is an extreme example of bad translation. what the original hebrew says is "WeThuPhShaH WeShaKhaW 'IMaH" - "and takes (not "seizes") and lies down with her". clearly, we're talking about sex taking place here, but it isn't explicitly rape. that's part of the point. if you look earlier up in verse 25, which is a similar case at first glance, you see the additional phrase "WeHeHiZiQ-BaH HaIYSh" - literally "and the man overpowers her", which is far more obviously a rape. this sense of "overpowering" is absent in verse 28, so you're talking about two different situations. what the commentators suggest here is that we're talking about a woman who is "not engaged" (and therefore available) and we're also talking about their being discovered, which means it's in the city and not in the field (because the assumption is that if something takes place in the city and the girl was *unwilling*, she would have cried out and been overheard (see verse 24) and rescued, which wouldn't be possible in the countryside - see verses 25-6, where the man is punished with the same penalty as murder, incidentally, while the girl is considered innocent. so what we are talking about here is sex taking place (which is one of the ways in which a marriage can be formalised, albeit not preferable) but it being unclear whether they are married or not. what this is basically trying to prevent is the "love rat" (as they are called in the tabloids) having his way of the girl and then her being unable to get a husband subsequently because everyone knows about it and she's not a virgin without having been properly married. normally, you see, a man can divorce his wife as well as the other way round, but in this case, because he has acted dishonourably in the first instance (by not having a proper wedding) he is punished by not being able to initiate a divorce. however, this does not stop her agreeing to the marriage (thereby retroactively legitimising her loss of virginity) and then subsequently divorcing him (even without seeing him ever again) thus becoming entitled to alimony (even in the bronze age, people!) and the status of divorcée, which makes her available to marry someone else even though she's not a virgin.

but then again, if you read a translation of one verse in isolation, you're not going to understand the issues!


yeah, but they're still being used now and even then, as i think i've made clear above, the individual was even then and is still very much protected.

b'shalom

bananabrain

Hello bananabrain and everyone else.

I will comment on bananabrain explanation.
Let's assume your translation is correct.If we are talking about just sex there then it's going to be big problem for men.hOW?. Read below
In verse 25-6 we came to know that the punishment for rape is death(although this is not accurate as i will explain in my another message).Which clearly rules out any possibility of rape in the above verse because the men has not been ordered to killed.They are just having sex with the permission of women and men(without either men or women permission it's termed as rape which is not the case here).
Unfortunately i have to admit there is some sense of men overpowering the women in the above verse,because we see it talks about men violating a girl and not the reverse.It asks man to pay the girl's father and not vice versa.
If both are having sex with each other(with the girl and boy permission) then it should not just blame men for violating her.Both have broken the law by having premartial relationship.Both should be punished instead of only guy(guy is punished cuz he must marry the girl,pay his father and he can never divorce her).Why should a guy be punished for just having sex with her permission.Why not both be punished or why not both be left free?.

Now girls can misuse this interpretation by having a sex with their mate(assuming the guy don't know anything about christianity) and then allowing themselves to be discovered.Consequently guy had to marry her and he could never divorce her(ofcourse girl will never want to divorce her cuz that's what she wanted).
One thing more,it is not possible to find the place of sex or rape in the above verse.Although rarity,but they can be very well discovered in the fields.About screaming of women it's not necessary that women should scream when she is being raped because a man can shut her mouth by various methods.One can derive that the sex is taking place in the city because no girl would go alone in the field,but again it maybe she lives there and it's normal for her to go to the fields.Or it maybe the girl is driving across the fields and the guy happens to meet her.So,It's unreasonable to make any comment about the place.
Finally banana brain talks about their being married or not.It's unclear from the verse whether they are already married(to differ persons) or not but it's sure they are not married to each other.If polygamy is not allowed in the bible then one can suggest both are not already married.
From all this discussion it seems neither of the interpretation of the verse makes sense.There must be some third interpretaion or is it just contradiction?.

b'shalom

p.ali

[Nogodnomasters]

Originally Posted by PluckyAli

Hello bananabrain and everyone else.

I will comment on bananabrain explanation.
Let's assume your translation is correct.If we are talking about just sex there then it's going to be big problem for men.hOW?. Read below
In verse 25-6 we came to know that the punishment for rape is death(although this is not accurate as i will explain in my another message).Which clearly rules out any possibility of rape in the above verse because the men has not been ordered to killed.They are just having sex with the permission of women and men(without either men or women permission it's termed as rape which is not the case here).
Unfortunately i have to admit there is some sense of men overpowering the women in the above verse,because we see it talks about men violating a girl and not the reverse.It asks man to pay the girl's father and not vice versa.
If both are having sex with each other(with the girl and boy permission) then it should not just blame men for violating her.Both have broken the law by having premartial relationship.Both should be punished instead of only guy(guy is punished cuz he must marry the girl,pay his father and he can never divorce her).Why should a guy be punished for just having sex with her permission.Why not both be punished or why not both be left free?.

Now girls can misuse this interpretation by having a sex with their mate(assuming the guy don't know anything about christianity) and then allowing themselves to be discovered.Consequently guy had to marry her and he could never divorce her(ofcourse girl will never want to divorce her cuz that's what she wanted).
One thing more,it is not possible to find the place of sex or rape in the above verse.Although rarity,but they can be very well discovered in the fields.About screaming of women it's not necessary that women should scream when she is being raped because a man can shut her mouth by various methods.One can derive that the sex is taking place in the city because no girl would go alone in the field,but again it maybe she lives there and it's normal for her to go to the fields.Or it maybe the girl is driving across the fields and the guy happens to meet her.So,It's unreasonable to make any comment about the place.
Finally banana brain talks about their being married or not.It's unclear from the verse whether they are already married(to differ persons) or not but it's sure they are not married to each other.If polygamy is not allowed in the bible then one can suggest both are not already married.
From all this discussion it seems neither of the interpretation of the verse makes sense.There must be some third interpretaion or is it just contradiction?.

b'shalom

p.ali

Bananna Brain is correct. Let me say something that is commonly missed by fundie Jesus people who read the OT. The OT was NOT a complete book of laws. The laws of the Jews were known and kept by the community and passed down orally until the Mishna was written. The Bible "laws" referred mostly to odd-ball cases that the Jewish common laws did not address.

If one looks at the Arab culture today, a woman who claims she is raped is shunned and considered the problem, not the victim. I would suggest a similar view was held in ancient times and women typically did not scream while being raped as it was something they would prefer to hide.

[bananabrain]

first of all, thanks, NGNM - it makes a refreshing change for us to agree about something! long may this continue. although i wouldn't use this to criticise arab culture; it's not actually germane (and you could say the same about the "she asked for it" argument which is widely deployed in western societies)

pluckyali - good questions. let's have a look:

In verse 25-6 we came to know that the punishment for rape is death ... Which clearly rules out any possibility of rape in the above verse because the men has not been ordered to killed.

i think you're misunderstanding a basic principle of Torah, which is that juxtaposition of cases is there to illustrate important distinctions between superficially similar situations which are (as NGNM has pointed out) generally there to discuss exceptions to the general, tacit rule. what you are failing to distinguish between is two different death penalties - one for rape and one for adultery. i don't think they're both stoning offences, which means that one (rape) is seen as comparatively worse than the other.

They are just having sex with the permission of women and men

which puts it into the category of whether or not it is a permitted marriage - as having sex is one way that a marriage can be established, albeit not one that is encouraged. it's not actually considered pre-marital sex, but sex that establishes a marriage. if the couple's marriage would have been one prohibited by the law for some reason, then you're in the "adultery" space. the english word, however, doesn't convey the complexity of the halachic situation.

Unfortunately i have to admit there is some sense of men overpowering the women in the above verse, because we see it talks about men violating a girl and not the reverse.It asks man to pay the girl's father and not vice versa.

again, you're confusing two different situations - the word translated as "violate" has a connotation in english which is essentially that of rape, which is not the same in english. thus the situation is created by the translation, not the original text, which uses a different word for the *actual* rape case which has the correct connotation.

Both have broken the law by having premartial relationship. Both should be punished instead of only guy(guy is punished cuz he must marry the girl,pay his father and he can never divorce her).Why should a guy be punished for just having sex with her permission.Why not both be punished or why not both be left free?

in the case where the guy has to pay the girl's father, we are probably talking about an elopement - ie, a situation where the father objects, so the couple establish their marriage by having sex and present him with a fait accompli, then the fifty shekels (verse 29) become a sort of "reverse dowry" which is necessary because the father has been "shamed" by being made a fool of, which is a serious issue in jewish law. this is probably why the guy is not allowed to subsequently divorce her, in order to prevent rich men being able to legally shame fathers all over the place.

Now girls can misuse this interpretation by having a sex with their mate(assuming the guy don't know anything about christianity) and then allowing themselves to be discovered.Consequently guy had to marry her and he could never divorce her(ofcourse girl will never want to divorce her cuz that's what she wanted).

possibly, in christianity (though i doubt it) but this would be impossible in jewish law.

One thing more,it is not possible to find the place of sex or rape in the above verse.

maybe not for you. it is not a matter of dispute for the jewish legal commentators, however.

Although rarity,but they can be very well discovered in the fields. About screaming of women it's not necessary that women should scream when she is being raped because a man can shut her mouth by various methods.

yes, but that's your interpretation. "in the field", in Torah, has the connotation of "out of earshot" - so even if she did scream, perhaps nobody would hear it - which is not the case in a city.

One can derive that the sex is taking place in the city because no girl would go alone in the field,but again it maybe she lives there and it's normal for her to go to the fields.Or it maybe the girl is driving across the fields and the guy happens to meet her.So,It's unreasonable to make any comment about the place.

actually, it's precisely the opposite, for the exact reason that it is normal (biblically speaking) for women to be doing agricultural work. it's not to do with something like "nice girls don't wander around fields by themselves" - that would put the burden of proof on the woman, not on the man, because if it was about the location, once that was agreed, that would be the end of the argument. does that clarify matters?

It's unclear from the verse whether they are already married(to differ persons) or not but it's sure they are not married to each other.

er, yes it is. verse 24 mentions the woman as "his neighbour's wife" - hence she is married. regardless of whether he is married or not it is still adultery.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[PluckyAli]

Hi /Salaam & Shalom to everyone!

i think you're misunderstanding a basic principle of Torah, which is that juxtaposition of cases is there to illustrate important distinctions between superficially similar situations which are (as NGNM has pointed out) generally there to discuss exceptions to the general, tacit rule.

That is fine,we all know deutronomy 22 is discussing the odd ball cases and I maybe misunderstanding your own translation of your own torah,but i am not misunderstanding many things about the new james version or international version of bible found in the www.biblegateway.com.

one for rape and one for adultery. i don't think they're both stoning offences, which means that one (rape) is seen as comparatively worse than the other.

Did I mention stoning offences for rape or for adultery?.Anyway in verse 23 adultery is taking place not explicitly rape but it's still given punishment of stoning to death.

which puts it into the category of whether or not it is a permitted marriage - as having sex is one way that a marriage can be established, albeit not one that is encouraged. it's not actually considered pre-marital sex, but sex that establishes a marriage. if the couple's marriage would have been one prohibited by the law for some reason, then you're in the "adultery" space. the english word, however, doesn't convey the complexity of the halachic situation.

It's not actually considered pre-martial sex?,where it's written in the bible?.It's sure in the adultery space according to verse 23.I will explain it below.

again, you're confusing two different situations - the word translated as "violate" has a connotation in english which is essentially that of rape, which is not the same in english. thus the situation is created by the translation, not the original text, which uses a different word for the *actual* rape case which has the correct connotation.

So hebrew is so complex that you can't translate it in english or the translation i am reading is from a dump source.?.If former is true then one can guess torah is only for people who know hebrew and has nothing to do with people of other races,culture and society.It's simply incompatable for people other than jewish.

in the case where the guy has to pay the girl's father, we are probably talking about an elopement - ie, a situation where the father objects, so the couple establish their marriage by having sex and present him with a fait accompli, then the fifty shekels (verse 29) become a sort of "reverse dowry" which is necessary because the father has been "shamed" by being made a fool of, which is a serious issue in jewish law. this is probably why the guy is not allowed to subsequently divorce her, in order to prevent rich men being able to legally shame fathers all over the place.

Verse doesnot say father objects and it doesnot say men is rich or not,it can be reverse women is rich and having sex before marriage with some other men,consequently how could a poor man pay her father,ofcourse some girls can make this their new business.I mean it simply doesnot make sense that guy should pay his father assuming sex was taking place.

possibly, in christianity (though i doubt it) but this would be impossible in jewish law.

How?

maybe not for you. it is not a matter of dispute for the jewish legal commentators, however.

I am interested in logical interpretaion of the bible by applying bible verses in the present age.And my interpretaions have nothing to do with jewish legal commentators.

yes, but that's your interpretation. "in the field", in Torah, has the connotation of "out of earshot" - so even if she did scream, perhaps nobody would hear it - which is not the case in a city.

That's fine but that's another prob then,how could one know she actually screamed or not which is very important to know cuz based on screaming you have to decide only guy should be stoned to death or both.

actually, it's precisely the opposite, for the exact reason that it is normal (biblically speaking) for women to be doing agricultural work

You mean bible is talking about something of it's age and that's fine.

er, yes it is. verse 24 mentions the woman as "his neighbour's wife" - hence she is married. regardless of whether he is married or not it is still adultery.

That's so important to understand.Let's look at verse 24

24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
Doesnot make sense let's look at 23.

23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
To understand 24,we need to read 23,in 23 man is meeting a virgin who is promised to be married and thus not already married.Infact this means another man's wife is used as a symbol in bible,it could mean a women who is pledged to be married to some men and she is regarded as his wife without actually being married to her.

b'shalom
p.ali

[bananabrain]

hi pluckyali,

i am not misunderstanding many things about the new james version or international version of bible found in the www.biblegateway.com.

well, that may very well be the case, but it is not for me to say whether either the new james or the international versions are any good as translations. all i can say is that from my PoV, merely the text ot the Torah in isolation, let alone a translation of it, will lead a modern reader like yourself to conclusions entirely at odds with the conclusions drawn in jewish law, precisely because they are reading it without the benefit of commentaries and the Oral Law.

adultery is taking place not explicitly rape but it's still given punishment of stoning to death.

that's right - it's a stoning offence, but firstly it is effectively impossible to actually get a conviction even assuming you had an authorised court in capital cases such as this. even so, the stoning itself is very difficult to carry out without falling foul of the restrictions on it; basically the Oral Law makes it so difficult to execute someone that it is hard to see, despite the number of capital crimes in the Torah, how anyone ever *was* executed.

It's not actually considered pre-martial sex?,where it's written in the bible?.It's sure in the adultery space according to verse 23.

it's considered "sex that establishes a marriage" - ie you're not married before, but by the end of it you are, providing the woman is not already married, in which case it would have been adultery. i hope i've made the distinction clear.

So hebrew is so complex that you can't translate it in english

not exactly - it is complex, but when you translate it you are effectively interpreting it. it's like the difference between reading a surah of Qur'an and what would actually happen if you were up in front of a qadi in a shariah court; he would use the hadith, commentaries, precedents, all of that. either way if i read an english translation of the Qur'an and then tried to work out how muslims ought to behave based on that, i'd make some pretty large mistakes i expect. does that make sense?

or the translation i am reading is from a dump source?

it's not really for me to say except insofar as it makes you draw the conclusions - and, actually, i think your conclusions are based on a lack of knowledge of the Torah's interpretative methodology rather than translation issues.

If former is true then one can guess Torah is only for people who know hebrew and has nothing to do with people of other races,culture and society.It's simply incompatible for people other than jewish.

that's not exactly how i'd put it. i would say the Torah's *primary* intended audience, certainly as far as commandments are concerned, is the jewish people and, as such, it should be studied as far as possible in the original in order to approach the thought of its Source. however, that does not say it is not a source of inspiration and guidance for non-jewish people, only that 606 of the laws in it are *not binding* on them; the other 7, the "noahide" laws, are. without the Oral Law that accompanies and in some cases predated the giving of the Written Torah, it is basically impossible to live according to only that which is explicitly mentioned, which doesn't stop people trying, both inside judaism and without it. historically, however, these attempts have not been successful. and, even if you do take it upon yourself to follow the whole thing correctly, it is really, really hard work - and if you've not been saddled with the commitment by your ancestors, like us, why take it on? this is why judaism is not a proselytising religion.

Verse does not say father objects and it doesnot say men is rich or not,

i know it doesn't say that; i'm interpreting it according to the stuff i know from the Oral Law about this subject, which would also have to be considered.

it can be reverse women is rich and having sex before marriage with some other men,

i suppose so except that in such a case, if either a woman or a man was having sex to establish a marriage, you wouldn't end up having more than one partner, otherwise the first one would count as marriage and the others as adultery, with the attendant penalty.

consequently how could a poor man pay her father

that is a really good question, pluckyali! as it happens, when the marriage occurs by contract, the man becomes financially obliged to support his wife, so i think this stipulation must be the way to ensure that the man has sufficient funds before he thinks about getting married this way without the consent of her family. plus, of course, it is an additional disincentive if you're poor.

of course some girls can make this their new business.

no they can't - once you start talking money either it's prostitution, which is not allowed, or the divorce process has to be gone through each time. i suppose theoretically you could be a serial monogamist, but the financial disincentives on the man are extremely stringent and unless you were very rich, you would end up paying a hell of a lot of alimony, even 3000 years ago. nowadays it would be prohibitive. and, before you ask, alimony does have that long a history; it's not a recent addition. wow, you're really making me think!

And my interpretations have nothing to do with jewish legal commentators.

i realise that, but when you ask how something could make sense to me that doesn't make sense to you the logical thing for me to do is to refer to the things that bridge this gap - in other words, the jewish legal commentators.

how could one know she actually screamed or not which is very important to know cuz based on screaming you have to decide only guy should be stoned to death or both.

another excellent objection. what you would do is first look at what counts as a "scream" - the answer the interpreters would undoubtedly come up with is anything that can reasonably be considered an objection, even if it's not an actual scream. then, when the case comes before the court and the woman says, "well, i didn't scream, but i did throw something out of the window to alert the passers by", the court would count it as a "scream equivalent" and get her off.

You mean bible is talking about something of it's age and that's fine.

well, yes, but you'd also have to consider that in a modern situation, you'd have to judge the case based upon what constituted a modern interpretation of a "city" or a "field" as legal categories. so, an alley or another area where there are few people might count as a field and so on.

To understand 24,we need to read 23,in 23 man is meeting a virgin who is promised to be married and thus not already married.In fact this means another man's wife is used as a symbol in bible,it could mean a women who is pledged to be married to some men and she is regarded as his wife without actually being married to her.

now you have done something *really* 'talmudic' - in other words, you have hit upon the precise way that the Torah thinks about such things. the question becomes "when might there be a doubt about whether she is married or not?" and the answer is that jewish marriage is made up of two ceremonies - betrothal and marriage. breaking an official betrothal is actually more or less as complicated as getting divorced, which is why nowadays you get officially betrothed a few minutes before the marriage, but in ancient times a year or so might have elapsed between the two, during which, i imagine, the couple might actually have even got to "know" each other (although this would be frowned upon) - therefore this situation might arise if a betrothed girl started effectively cheating on her fiancé, whether the man involved knew about it or not. either way he would have to make dam' sure that the girl he was about to get entangled with was permitted or not!

i have to say, pluckyali, that you and i are engaging in a process that is almost exactly similar to the conversations that make up the Oral Law - if you were to read the Mishnah or Gemara, the two parts of the Talmud, you'd find discussions in there exactly like this one!

b'shalom

bananabrain

[silverwolf]

King James Version:

Deuteronomy Chapter 21 Verses 10 to 14

Verse 10: When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

Verse 11: And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;

Verse 12: Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;

Verse 13: And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother for a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband and she shall be thy wife.

Verse 14: And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whiher she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

I am sure the first argument will be: well ah gee your king james version is not correct you must read the older texts

This is the bible of hundreds of thousands of people who read it and beleive in it, if any of it is to be discounted, then the whole book should be rewritten so it makes sense.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by silverwolf

King James Version:

Deuteronomy Chapter 21 Verses 10 to 14

Verse 10: When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy god hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

Verse 11: And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;

Verse 12: Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;

Verse 13: And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother for a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband and she shall be thy wife.

Verse 14: And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whiher she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

I am sure the first argument will be: well ah gee your king james version is not correct you must read the older texts

This is the bible of hundreds of thousands of people who read it and beleive in it, if any of it is to be discounted, then the whole book should be rewritten so it makes sense.

It does not condone rape. It is describing how to acceptably acquire a concubine (secondary wife by common law). And if she should not accept his ministrations, he must let her go. And if she does accpept his ministrations but later, rejects him, then again, he must let her go. It is a law that was given by God, to deal with a weakness in men.

Abraham never condoned this practice by the way. However he did not question God on the issue either, he presented the law as it was given him.

v/r

Q

[silverwolf]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

It does not condone rape. It is describing how to acceptably acquire a concubine (secondary wife by common law). And if she should not accept his ministrations, he must let her go. And if she does accpept his ministrations but later, rejects him, then again, he must let her go. It is a law that was given by God, to deal with a weakness in men.

Abraham never condoned this practice by the way. However he did not question God on the issue either, he presented the law as it was given him.

v/r

Q

The Verses I gave, said nothing about "Acceptably acquire a concubine" and certainly not by "common law" and you say that if she should not accept his ministrations, he must let her go? whare does that come from? certainly not
Deuteronomy chapter 21:10-14 I must have missed that.
t.y.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by silverwolf

The Verses I gave, said nothing about "Acceptably acquire a concubine" and certainly not by "common law" and you say that if she should not accept his ministrations, he must let her go? whare does that come from? certainly not
Deuteronomy chapter 21:10-14 I must have missed that.
t.y.

Really? are we such robots that we can't read between the lines? She is not a piece of meat. She is not disposable (her life is not forefit). God made that quite clear. This is a bad situation, brought on by a soldier, and God is telling the soldier how to deal with his mistake. The thirty days are a grace period, wherein she may or may not return the attraction that the soldier had for her. She also may or may not get over the loss of her previous life and family, but is given a set amount of time to try. It is not a set of rules that other conquestors adhered to Silverwolf. This sets the Hebrews apart from the rest.

And I did not get my idea of concubine out of thin air. That is a rabbinical explaination of the passage.

Please, cut me some slack.

Q

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by silverwolf

This is the bible of hundreds of thousands of people who read it and beleive in it, if any of it is to be discounted, then the whole book should be rewritten so it makes sense.

Personally I think it's very much in error to try applying literal English translations to a more complex Hebrew text that has an accompanying commentary for clarification.

If you're angry at literal English translations, that's your beef - but as elsewhere, this isn't a forum for people to simply bash others with small-minded fallacies.

Anyway, I think this thread has more than run its course and is simply attracting diatribe rather than discussion - closed.