Four questions for Christians

[older]

I have some questions for any Christians that may be passing through here. I’ve been wondering about a few Bible stories and am hoping you can clear up some things I’m curious about.

 

 

Question 1:

In Deuteronomy it says that if a woman is raped in the country, she can be allowed to live because when she cried out there probably was no one there to rescue her. But if she is raped in the city she must be stoned to death because she obviously did not cry out.

 

The question is, what if the woman is raped in the suburbs? Suburbs are kind of between city and country. There quite possibly could have been people who heard her, but if you know anything about suburbs, people tend to mind their own business. A woman hollering could be a common occurrence in some neighborhoods. So it wouldn’t be fair to stone her to death, but on the other hand if the neighbors are close by she should get some sort of punishment. Perhaps she should just get a thorough whipping (The number of lashes could be calculated by the distance between her house and the neighbors.). What do you think?

 

 

Question 2:

Adam and Eve were the first humans so their children were the first kids, right? Genesis says that Eve was the mother of all, so all of Adam and Eve’s kids were brothers and sisters. So in order to populate the planet those kids had to practice incest. I think that’s kind of icky, and according to the rules in Deuteronomy it’s a no-no and if you do it you’re in big trouble with The Man. So how can this work?

 

 

Question 3:

In Exodus, a few paragraphs after the 10 Commandments, it says that if a man beats his slave and the slave lives at least two days before he dies, the man is not responsible for his death because the slave is the man’s property.

 

Now there are rules about women slaves and what to do when you sell your daughter as a slave, but there is nothing in that section about wives. So the question is: What if you beat your wife and she lives two days before she dies? Since the Bible has lots of info on buying and selling wives, a wife is therefore the man’s property, so shouldn’t it be the same as when you beat your slave?

 

 

Question 4:

In the book of Numbers, the Israelites were commanded to kill all the Midianites including all the men, pregnant women, wives, and little boys; however, the Israelites were told to keep the virgin girls for themselves.

 

Now I can’t imagine what a bunch of soldiers would want with virgin girls, but the question is this: The Bible says there were 12,000 soldiers and 32,000 virgins. Doing a little math, if each soldier got two virgins, there would be 8000 virgins left over. How, then, were these girls divided up? Having some of the soldiers share a virgin ruins the concept of having a virgin. Giving some of the soldiers three virgins each leaves 4000 soldiers with only two virgins each. That doesn’t seem fair, particularly since these guys risked their lives in a war to get this. Would the girls be distributed by rank? If so, I’d hope that the privates would be the ones to get the bonuses since they are usually the ones who do all the dirty work. But the Bible is silent on this. What could the answer be?

 

Thanks to anyone who takes time to clear up these issues for me. I’ve been confused about them for years.

 

 

 

[mwc]

4 hours ago, older said:

I have some questions for any Christians that may be passing through here. I’ve been wondering about a few Bible stories and am hoping you can clear up some things I’m curious about.

 

 

Question 1:

In Deuteronomy it says that if a woman is raped in the country, she can be allowed to live because when she cried out there probably was no one there to rescue her. But if she is raped in the city she must be stoned to death because she obviously did not cry out.

 

The question is, what if the woman is raped in the suburbs? Suburbs are kind of between city and country. There quite possibly could have been people who heard her, but if you know anything about suburbs, people tend to mind their own business. A woman hollering could be a common occurrence in some neighborhoods. So it wouldn’t be fair to stone her to death, but on the other hand if the neighbors are close by she should get some sort of punishment. Perhaps she should just get a thorough whipping (The number of lashes could be calculated by the distance between her house and the neighbors.). What do you think?

     For this one the answer should be pretty straight-forward (unlike the others).  Unlike more recent times there was a more defined line between city and country way back when.  Cities had walls and outside the walls populations got pretty sparse fairly quickly.  No real suburbs as we have them.  As cities grew beyond the walls people would build nearby and a sort of suburb would appear but it was still fairly dense in population but probably not what was something that was considered when the whole thing was written.

 

     If we imagine a law that was written for the ages, as opposed for its times, then it's pretty bad since it failed to include all the types of living conditions that would exist.  I would think the woman in the suburbs should be not be whipped but pelted with tiny pebbles until annoyed.   

 

 

4 hours ago, older said:

 

Question 2:

Adam and Eve were the first humans so their children were the first kids, right? Genesis says that Eve was the mother of all, so all of Adam and Eve’s kids were brothers and sisters. So in order to populate the planet those kids had to practice incest. I think that’s kind of icky, and according to the rules in Deuteronomy it’s a no-no and if you do it you’re in big trouble with The Man. So how can this work?

     It works the same as all other sex except the two people are brother and sister.

 

4 hours ago, older said:

 

Question 3:

In Exodus, a few paragraphs after the 10 Commandments, it says that if a man beats his slave and the slave lives at least two days before he dies, the man is not responsible for his death because the slave is the man’s property.

 

Now there are rules about women slaves and what to do when you sell your daughter as a slave, but there is nothing in that section about wives. So the question is: What if you beat your wife and she lives two days before she dies? Since the Bible has lots of info on buying and selling wives, a wife is therefore the man’s property, so shouldn’t it be the same as when you beat your slave?

     If you beat your wife and she lives two days before she dies you know she's going to make sure you're going to eat a lifetime of shit during that time.  Whoever wrote this knew it was just best to sell her right away. 

 

4 hours ago, older said:

 

Question 4:

In the book of Numbers, the Israelites were commanded to kill all the Midianites including all the men, pregnant women, wives, and little boys; however, the Israelites were told to keep the virgin girls for themselves.

 

Now I can’t imagine what a bunch of soldiers would want with virgin girls, but the question is this: The Bible says there were 12,000 soldiers and 32,000 virgins. Doing a little math, if each soldier got two virgins, there would be 8000 virgins left over. How, then, were these girls divided up? Having some of the soldiers share a virgin ruins the concept of having a virgin. Giving some of the soldiers three virgins each leaves 4000 soldiers with only two virgins each. That doesn’t seem fair, particularly since these guys risked their lives in a war to get this. Would the girls be distributed by rank? If so, I’d hope that the privates would be the ones to get the bonuses since they are usually the ones who do all the dirty work. But the Bible is silent on this. What could the answer be?

     The answer is in the bible.  We go to Solomon with his amazing wisdom and cut the remaining girls in half.  Plenty for everyone.

 

          mwc

 

[older]

Thanks for some clarifications, MWC. But I still have some problems understanding this.

 

Q1.

I can understand the walled city vs. country. Now that I think about it, I’ve seen movies that show this — everyone inside the walls living tight together, and nothing right outside for a ways. But what if she’s outside and gets nailed when pushed right up against the wall? You’d think that the guards atop the wall could hear something, unless they were on break.

 

Q2.

Artificial insemination? But did they have syringes in those days?

 

Q3.

Hm. So just sell her and save your rage for your kid who talks back to you? (But that doesn’t work either since you’re supposed to report the kid to the community and they do the stoning. You just get to watch.)

 

Anyway, if you sell her, what do you think a used wife is worth? (I got $1500 for my used VW Beetle. It had 250,000 miles on it; I think the value of a used wife would be also based on use.)

 

OTOH, Deuteronomy says that if you find uncleanliness in your wife you can divorce her, but you’d also think that before a man buys a wife he’d check to be sure she showers regularly. This is just getting more confusing.

 

Q4.

That’s not going to work, MWC. If there are 8000 leftover virgin girls and 12,000 soldiers and you cut the girls in half, then you have 16,000 girl parts, so there is still an uneven number. And also, how would you cut them? If it’s horizontally across the middle, who gets the part that counts? If it’s vertically, top-to-bottom, well, then the part that counts is ruined.

 

This is just too confusing. I’m going back to bed.

[mwc]

2 hours ago, older said:

Q1.

I can understand the walled city vs. country. Now that I think about it, I’ve seen movies that show this — everyone inside the walls living tight together, and nothing right outside for a ways. But what if she’s outside and gets nailed when pushed right up against the wall? You’d think that the guards atop the wall could hear something, unless they were on break.

     I think we've all been up against a wall at one point or another.  Everyone pretends they don't know what's going on when you're in that position.

 

2 hours ago, older said:

Q2.

Artificial insemination? But did they have syringes in those days?

     I suppose they'd need that if poking your sibling didn't work.  All animals are apparently inbred this way according to the bible.  It's part of the design.

 

2 hours ago, older said:

Q3.

Hm. So just sell her and save your rage for your kid who talks back to you? (But that doesn’t work either since you’re supposed to report the kid to the community and they do the stoning. You just get to watch.)

 

Anyway, if you sell her, what do you think a used wife is worth? (I got $1500 for my used VW Beetle. It had 250,000 miles on it; I think the value of a used wife would be also based on use.)

 

OTOH, Deuteronomy says that if you find uncleanliness in your wife you can divorce her, but you’d also think that before a man buys a wife he’d check to be sure she showers regularly. This is just getting more confusing.

     If your wife has 250,000 miles and you're beating her until she nearly dies I imagine she ain't worth much at that point.  If I saw your VW at a quarter million miles and you had recently beat the shit out of it I think we're looking at parting that thing out at best.  It's not like you've shown yourself to be a good owner.

 

     I will add, on a more serious note, that divorce happened a lot and it was easy.  The man basically just told the woman to hit the bricks and that was that (technically he had to give her a decree which was just a note that said it).  Only some societal pressure (ie. small, close-knit towns for example) kept this from happening all the time.

 

2 hours ago, older said:

Q4.

That’s not going to work, MWC. If there are 8000 leftover virgin girls and 12,000 soldiers and you cut the girls in half, then you have 16,000 girl parts, so there is still an uneven number. And also, how would you cut them? If it’s horizontally across the middle, who gets the part that counts? If it’s vertically, top-to-bottom, well, then the part that counts is ruined.

     Solomon isn't one to trifle with.  Cut them up then hide the pieces like an easter egg hunt?  Or maybe try a sort of evil santa with them?  Lots of fun for (just about) everyone?

 

          mwc