[published on July 13, 2005 in "The Flatland Oracles", my previous blog]
A Marginal Christian Looks at Corporal Punishment, Sexual Assault, Transvestitism, Divorce, and Crushed Testicles in the Old Testament
Someone pointed out to me that my discussion of the Bible isn't exactly authoritative. "You aren't a Biblical scholar," he pointed out. "You really aren't qualified to say what it means."
No, that's right. But I am engaging in a little exercise called "Imagine the world if we took the Bible literally just based on what it seems to be saying and didn't read selectively or with regard to its context" That's pretty much what certain right wing Christians do. I'm doing what they do: going through and cherry-picking the particular parts of interest to me.
I will always think it surprising that the Church Fathers saw fit to keep the parts of the Old Testament that didn't directly relate to Jesus. I know---or I think I know; let's say I've been told----that the early church split very early on between the Church led by Jesus's brother James and between the Church led by Paul (who never met Jesus, or at least not while Jesus was alive). The Church of James still followed the law of Moses; Paul decided because, according to him, he had the direct authority of Jesus to do so.
Jesus frequently cited the law of Moses in his disputes with the pharisees and scribes and such, but it's always seemed clear to me----I am telling you my perception, not what know or even "know"-----that in his disputes, he was constantly reinterpreting that law. Indeed, it seems obvious that he was; otherwise, why would they have been trying to nail him on charges of blasphemy. I don't think in sober truth that there is much of it left if you read his remarks closely; he quotes scripture constantly, but he is spinning it toward completely different conclusions, or so it seems. His statement that he came to fulfill the law I take as meaning something entirely different than the fundamentalists I know take it to mean. I understand it to mean---this is just me, unaided by Biblical scholarship----"Now that I am here, you don't need it anymore" or (possibly) "Now that I am here, I will tell you its purpose; if you achieve the purpose, you need not follow it to the letter."
I say all this because----again-----I am continually astonished at the ease with which certain Christians I know (including certain churches I shall not specifically name) jump back and forth between old and new testaments without really seeming ever to read them together.
At my church, there was always an Old Testament lesson and a New Testament lesson on Sunday. Sometimes, if the priest was good at his job, the sermon would discuss and attempt to reconcile them.
But I say you cannot reconcile them, not really. At a certain point----perhaps during the first century when James led the Jerusalem branch of Christianity----it might have been possible to hear a coherent explanation of how Christ's teachings fit in with the Old Testament. I understand why it was important to James to show that they did and to Paul, to show that they didn't (or not so much). I think it's pretty clear that Pauline Christianity won the day; and perhaps it's because I don't understand the other or have the knowledge to see the connection between what Christ was saying and what the Old Testament says that I just can't bring myself to believe that the Old Testament has much relevance to Christianity.
But let's assume that they do. A lot of fundamentalists Christians sincerely believe that they do. Which is why they and I don't get on (or rather, is one of the reasons).
More close reading of what's meant to be the best [Christian-based] reading currently available of the actual text. Again, I am using the New English Bible, which makes the whole verse/chapter thing difficult to discern. I am providing citations, but that's the best I can do. Remember: I am a marginal Christian.
Some people---people who have never read the Bible--- wonder where right wingers get their notions of family life, a woman's place, capital and corporal punishment, and the like.
I give you.....Deuteronomy! And I particularly give it to right-wing Christianists, some of whom might like for it, or parts of it, to apply now. But before starting my compilation of Old Testament quotes for modern Right-wing Christians, I want to say that in CONTEXT, considered in light of the practices that applied elsewhere at the time, the Old Testament laws are very reasonable, insistent on fairness and on giving due regard to the rights of one's neighbors.
For example---and there are lots more that relate to being just and kind to your neighbor---"When you see your fellow-countryman's ass or ox lying on the road, do not ignore it; you must help him to lift it to its feet again." Deuteronomy Ch. 22, New English Bible (1971 ed.) at 220. And this is sweet and also environmentally friendly:
When you come across a bird's nest by the road, in a tree or on the ground, with fledgling or eggs in it and the mother-bird on the next, do not take both mother and young. Let the mother-bird go free, and take only the young, and then you will prosper and live long.
Deuteronomy Ch. 22, New English Bible 1971 at 219.
In context, these laws were also protective, possibly extraordinarily protective, of women (in their way). But they also portray a way of life I for one would not wish to see restored. I imagine that most right wing Christian women would be with me on that score, though possibly Ann Coulter---author of Godless-- would only agree if an exception were made for her.
Here's an instruction to the menfolk on the treatment of captive women. To be fair, it is no doubt extraordinarily compassionate by the standards of those days that applied elsewhere.
Of course it does assume that women are property and that a man who gets hold of one in the course of warfare is entitled to 'have his will of her.' I can't see most of the Christian women I know feeling comfortable about it.
When you wage war against your enemy and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take some of them captive, then if you see a comely woman and you take a liking to her, you may marry her. You shall bring her into your house, where she shall shave her head, pare her nails, and discard the clothes which she had when captured. Then she shall stay in your house and mourn for her father and mother for a full month. After that you may have intercourse with her; you shall be her husband and she your wife. But if you no longer find her pleasing, let her go free. You must not sell her, nor treat her harshly, since you have had your will of her.
Deuteronomy Ch. 21 (?), New English Bible (1971 ed.) at 219 [subsequently cited as New English Bible 1971].
Let's read on:
When a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, if they both bear him sons, and the son of the unloved wife is the elder, then, when the day comes for him to divide his property among his sons, he shall not treat the son of the loved wife as his first-born in contempt of his true first-born, the son of the unloved wife.
Deuteronomy Ch. 21 (?), NEB 1971 at 219.
Again, the above is eminently fair. I included it mainly to point up the context in which these laws applied, specifically a context in which a man takes (as we know from various Biblical stories) multiple wives, some loved and some unloved.
Now I don't think certain people on the right would entirely object to this next one; they probably are too soft and civilized to do it to their own offspring, but might be quite happy to see it applied to someone else's. At any rate, a soppy liberal like me can't help but be impressed by the ancients' idea of 'tough love.'
When a man has a son who is disobedient and out of control, and will not obey his father or his mother, or pay attention when they punish him, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of the town at the town gate. They shall say to the elders of the town, "This son of ours is disobedient and out of control; he will not obey us, he is a wastrel and a drunkard." Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death, and you will thereby rid yourselves of this wickedness.
Deuteronomy Ch. 21, NEB 1971 at 219-20.
That is some tough love right there.
Man, and to think I used to feel sorry for my dad. When he or his brothers got out of control, they were beaten with switches, hard enough to leave (shallow, or so I assume) cuts. My dad said that he had to go outside and cut them himself. And nowadays everyone moans about, I don't know, the odd occasional assault on a small child! And we think that BOOT CAMPS are tough.
This next one was still being brought up when I was a child and was frequently cited at the turn of the last century, when women had begun to wear 'bloomers' under their skirts.
No woman shall wear an article of man's clothing, nor shall a man put on woman's dress; for those who do these things are abominable in the sight of the Lord.
Deuteronomy Ch. 22, New English Bible 1971 at 220.
I quoted the above partly because of the intriguing picture it gives of ancient life before they got the Word. Nobody would have had to forbid transvestitism if there weren't a lot of it around. But it puts the kibosh on Dame Edna, Eddie Izzard, drag queens, and little old ladies in pantsuits.
Here are a couple of good ones. If we put the next back into effect, we wouldn't HAVE to teach girls about condoms.
When a man takes a wife and after having intercourse with her turns against her and brings trumped-up charges against her, giving her a bad name and saying, "I took this woman and slept with her and did not find proof of virginity [presumably an unbroken hymen] in her," then the girl's father and mother shall take the proof of her virginity [presumably bloodied sheets?] to the elders of the town, at the town gate. The girl's father shall say to the elders, "I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, and he has turned against her. He has trumped up a charge and said, 'I have not found proofs of virginity in your daughter.' Here are the proofs."
They shall then spread the garment before the elders of the town. The elders shall take the man and punish him: they shall fine him a undred pieces of silver because he has given a bad name to a virgin...., and hand them to the girl's father. She shall be his wife: he is not free to divorce her all his life long. If, on the other hand, the accusation is true and no proof of the girl's virginity is found, then they shall bring her out to the door of her father's house and the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has committed an outrage...by playing the prostitute in her father's house: you shall rid yourselves of this wickedness.
Deuteronomy Ch. 22, New English Bible 1971 at 220-21.
Here are some laws on rape, which---again in the context of the age---seem to make reasonable distinctions, though they may seem a bit hard on the girl who is attacked 'in the town' and gagged, or who is too injured or frightened to scream. Note that there is none of that liberal whinging about 'not blaming the victim.'
When a virgin is pledged in marriage to a man and another man comes upon her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them out to the gate of that town and stone them to death; the girl because, although in the town, she did not cry out for help, and the man because he dishonoured another man's wife...
If the man comes upon such a girl in the country and rapes her, then the man alone shall die because he lay with her. You shall do nothing to the girl; she has done nothing worthy of death...for the man came upon her in the country and, though the girl cried for help, there was no one to rescue her.
Deuteronomy Ch. 22, New English Bible 1971 at 221.
At least if no one could hear you scream, they didn't stone you. And the stoning only applies to a girl who has been pledged to a man. If an un-pledged girl (and she's have to be awfully young, I believe) is raped, they don't get stoned; they get married "because he has dishonoured her."
When a man comes upon a virgin who is not pledged in marriage and forces her to lie with him, and they are discovered, then the man who lies with her shall gie the girl's father fifty pieces of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has dishonoured her. He is not free to divorce her all his life long.
Deuteronomy Ch. 22, New English Bible 1971 at 221.
On divorce:
When a man has married a wife, but she does not win his favour because he finds something shameful in her, and he writes her a note of divorce, gives it to her and sismisses her; and suppose after leaving his house she goes off to become the wife of another man, and this next husband turns against her and writes her a note of divorce which he gives her and dismisses her, or dies after making her his wife---then in that case her first husband is not free to take her back to be his wife again after she has become unclean. This is abominable to the Lord.
Deuteronomy Ch. 24, New English Bible 1971 at 222.
A law for widows:
When brothers live together and one of them dies without leaving a son, his widow shall not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall have intercourse with her; he shall take her in marriage and do his duty by her as her husband's brother. The first son she bears shall perpetuate the dead brother's name so that it may not be blotted out from Israel. But if the man is unwilling to take his brother's wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to perpetuate his brother's name...He will not do his duty by me."
At this the elders of the town shall summon him and reason with him. If he still stands his ground and says, "I will not take her," his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of his elders; she shall pull his sandal off his foot and declare: "Thus we requite the man who will not build up his brother's family." His family shall be known...as the House of the Unsandalled Man.
Deuteronomy Ch. 25, New English Bible 1971 at 223-24.
I have to believe that the above is an exact transcription of an actual event which was subsequently written into law.
Here's one for the menfolk:
No man whose testicles are crushed or whose organ has been seered shall become a member of the assembly of the Lord.
Deuteronomy Ch. 23, New English Bible 1971 at 221.
Which no doubt explains this:
When two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes near to drag her husband clear of his opponent, if she puts out her hand and catches hold of the man's genitals, you shall cut off her hand and show her no mercy.
Deuteronomy Ch. 25, New English Bible 1971 at 219.
I have heard Right-wing Christians who say that the Old Testament---most particularly the declarations that homosexuality and transvestitism are abominations--- is fully binding because Jesus stated he came to fulfill the law of Moses.
So my question is this: what about all the rest of it?
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