Did God err in making Adam ruler over Eve?

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Evidence please.

Regards
DL

Oh, here we go again. Avoiding the question by asking if Jesus ever existed. Classic!

I guess we can restart the count. That’s post #1. I’ll be waiting, as usual. I wonder if I have time to go out for donuts...

http://www.shipleydonuts.com

Reciprocity is fair play.

I see that you do not like your own garbage thrown back at you.

Get better or get lost.

Regards
DL

Matthew let it slip about the wisdom of serpents.
Matt 10:16 " So be wise as serpents and yet harmless as a dove."

Post #2. Still waiting.

I wonder if “shrewd as serpents” wasn’t some idiom, something possibly of Hebrew origin that might only have made sense to the Aramaic speakers of the time, or a common phrase.

I once heard a Cajun man use a French phrase that literally made a reference to “gravel trucks” (concrete mixer). It had to do with my pitiful ability to translate French-to-English and back via Google. If you’re a Francophone near New Orleans, you’d understand what he meant.

I wonder if “shrewd as serpents” isn’t like that in some way. The context of that is Jesus predicting persecution of His disciples. The word for “shrewd” can be translated as “wise,” but I think “cunning” would be more accurate. Don’t make trouble. Know when to run, know the law and your rights, be prepared to share the gospel with authorities when you are caught and brought to trial. And know when to keep your mouth shut, too. Given the context, I think that’s what it’s referring to.

Paul was an excellent example of this. In the face of persecution, he was in a position in which a court couldn’t really find against him and probably would have let him go. What does he do instead of waiting it out? He makes an appeal for a change of venue to get a free ticket to Rome.

Oh, I missed this one. Make that post #3.

Evidence, yes. I already took care of that. I quoted your entire post as I customarily do. You didn’t give sufficient context for the Bible quote, which means you copied it in such a way to be read in a manner as it was not intended. The context makes that plain. If you include that, it changes the meaning of the verses you picked.

You’ve misquoted me in a similar way, too.

Thing is, this discussion isn’t about me. You’re avoiding your own topic at this point.

Still waiting...

Quoting myself this time in what might be a vain attempt to get back on track. If anyone else is watching this, notice how I’ve been quoted out of context. He uses this to somehow show “why Christians are misogynistic.” My question is a simple one. Where does Jesus teach Christians to do this? My opponent here seems to believe that Christians are misogynists, never mind that many of us happen to be women and have no problem at all with Christ’s teachings. So if that’s what Christians believe and practice, then Jesus MUST have taught His disciples this, amiright? Also notice Gnostic didn’t qualify his use of the word “Christians.” He didn’t say “some” or “most” or “many.” He’s making a broad generalization. If he didn’t intend to do this, he needs to make that clear.

“Some” or “many” are arguably weasel words, yes, but it beats broad-brushing an entire movement. You won’t find any major, sizeable religion that doesn’t possess some conflicting elements. Those that don’t are often cults or minor sects too small to be relevant. Saying “Christians are misogynistic” applies the term to the entire movement, Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, maybe even the liberals who don’t actually believe the Bible. “Some” Christians, indeed. Is there a scriptural basis for Christian misogyny? If so, where can I find it and refute it?

That’s why I keep repeating calls for evidence. Gnostic wants to keep making anti-Christian assertions but refuses to support his arguments.

Many of those marriages may have been loveless and abusive right from day one.

Read Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Then read Deuteronomy 21:10-14

Imagine being married to the man who killed your family.

Oddly enough there are parts of the OT that warn against marrying foreign girls with their pagan religions yet Deuteronomy 21:10-14 seems to encourage marrying of foreign girls.

Anyway at worst it's barbaric and at best it's irrelevant to modern life.

I imagine modern day apologists will have a lot of clever ways to justify these passages but if their justification is it was ok back in those days, that suggests they're saying it's not relevant to modern times.

If the apologists say, that was the best morality man could come up with back in those days, that suggests that Biblical morality comes from man and not from God.

If they say that was the best morality man could come up with back in those days and then say Biblical morality is sourced from God and therefore objectively perfect, I'd call that a bait and switch.

Many present-day marriages that are "for love" are loveless from day one, too.

Like I said before, when you're talking about the ancient world, you're talking about a time when the status quo did marginalize women and considered them property. That same society also traded in human slavery of all kinds. Men were slaves, too, and also traded as property. It seems cruelty in the ancient world was equal-opportunity.

The Old Testament shows how God uses a chosen group of people to relate to the world in a different way than it relates to itself. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt; the new order would do away with slavery as the Israelites had known it. Slavery was acceptable as repayment for criminal behavior. Nomadic people couldn't incarcerate criminals, plus incarceration removes one's usefulness to society. Slavery is preferable because it allows someone to live, it allows a certain degree of freedom, it grants restitution, and it grants restoration of the slave to society once the criminal debt to society is repaid.

The ancients maintained slavery in such a way that it formed a cornerstone of society, the abolishment of which would cause societal collapse. The Old Testament did not abolish it as it had become necessary, yet did make it an institution within which slaves did have rights. You could legally escape a cruel master and serve a new master who'd treat you decently. The OT also has laws outlining how a slave may choose to permanently devote himself to his master (they literally nailed you to the door), plus much of it describes professional servants as well as involuntary servitude.

The two Bible passages you mentioned are set against the backdrop of the evil human nature of mankind as a whole. Taking women as spoils of war is still practiced now, so you can't hand wave it as an exclusively ancient practice. It's evolved in the West in recent decades. Invading Russians in WWII raped German women and girls. It still happens on the African continent. ISIS. And now you have the underground trafficking of women. We're talking about ongoing practices that were practiced in the open in pre-Christian and even pre-Hebrew times and which happens in secret now. God allows humanity to choose good over evil, or not. Humanity always has time to make good choices before God makes those choices for us. Slavery now is non-existent as an accepted institution and mostly driven underground. The status of women, likewise, is largely changed from how secular society viewed them in ancient times. I like to think maybe Hebrew laws represent a turning point in how women are perceived and treated. With that in mind, let's take a look at those two Bible passages.

Marriage has always been about unions of families, not just joining two people who love each other. As such, they can be viewed as a business transaction. I don't accept the premise that marriage is ideally an emotional choice. It should be a rational one. I don't mean that marriage should be loveless. I just mean that often two people who make an emotional choice based on feeeeeelings of love fail to consider the consequences of their decisions on others, plus they don't account for how their decisions affect each other in the long term. I don't know if I actually believe the stats on divorce, but I do know that many marriages do fail. Rash marriages are set up to fail, whereas marriages that have a bit more substance than what we miscall "love" have a better chance in the long run.

In ancient Israel they believed that a man continued his existence after death through his male children. He wasn't considered truly "gone" until his name died out. According to this view, a bride's virginity was important because it guaranteed that the bloodline would continue. To take a betrothed woman's virginity was tantamount to attempted murder. I'm not saying they were right, I'm just saying this was the thought process at the time.

The context here is violations of proper sexual conduct and pertains to Israelites.

This passage is especially interesting against the backdrop of arranged and "loveless" marriages. To arrange a marriage, assuming the two love each other, a man would have to "buy" the bride from her father. Her father wouldn't be obligated to agree to it. What I want to know is why would a man rape a woman where they'd be discovered? This law creates a situation in which a father could be forced to give his daughter away in marriage. The couple who are in love simply have to have sex, have two friends "discover" them, and bring their case before the city elders. The husband only has to pay the bride price and they can be together. Or if he can't afford the 50 silver shekels, he can work for his father-in-law until the price is paid off or forgiven.

It also saves the girl and her father a lot of shame in the whole affair. Doesn't matter if they were in love. Doesn't matter if the truth was that sex was actually consensual. She was being a good little girl and this MAAAAAAN tricked her and seduced her. By making a claim of rape, neither the girl nor her father or her family have to openly admit to her promiscuity. It allows her family to save face. Dad HAD to give her in marriage because now he can't give her to anyone else. It's out of dad's hands now. So when dad's friends make fun of them for her daughter's apparent bad behavior, all he has to do is politely remind them that she was "raped."

Virginity, I think, is actually a bigger deal among certain present-day Christians than it was among the ancient Hebrews. Sexual purity is IMPORTANT and the Bible treats it as such. But sexual activity between two people who either are married or are intended to be married is winked at in Old Testament laws. This passage in context is an example of that way of thinking. Besides that, if they love each other, what better way to celebrate their intentions than to create a situation that would bind them for life and forfeit their rights to a divorce?

Different context. Women as spoils of war.


Agreed, that's pretty horrifying. But that's just the reality of an ancient world that's foreign to us.

The custom of women shaving their heads, trimming nails, changing clothes is indicative of a religious conversion and assimilating into Hebrew society. It may seem cruel to us now, but back then this would have been advantageous to conquered women. It granted them a free status and special protection that unmarried prisoners of war wouldn't have. If the husband divorced her, she was free to go as an Israelite woman, which meant she could not be treated as property.


Yeah, because paganism had a negative influence on conquering forces. This seems to be an oft-repeated historical pattern, that invaders often adopt the customs and religion of the people they conquer either to their benefit or their detriment. Christianity, for example, was dominant in the Mediterranean by the time of the fall of Rome. The church never left. In fact, the church was the only institution left to unify what was left of the ancient world. It was the invading barbarians who eventually converted to Christianity, even though they held the kind of power that they could have resisted or eliminated Christianity. But no, Christianity flourished among barbarians, and the two together made the transition to the feudal system and modern Europe.

The Old Testament prefigures this in a way with the events of the Jewish exile. Losing their homeland sparked a Jewish revival which was ultimately shown to affect domestic and foreign policy through successive administrations, or rather overthrows by foreign invasions. lol. Because, y'know, war is much easier than popular elections, right?

Bad joke, sorry.

Anyway, back to the point: Intermarriage with foreigners often does impact culture because accommodating the religion of your partner often results in compromise. My wife and I are both Christians, but we come from different traditions. I'm SBC, she's UMC. I agreed to attend a UMC church with her and she agreed to attend my church; we could alternate. She made the decision first to join the church I attended and go through baptism for her own reasons without any pressure from me. I really was prepared to attend a church of her denomination, but she said she saw something in my church that she never got from her own, hence why she decided to change.

However, coming from different Christian traditions doesn't make one "more" or "less" Christian. We still had our core values in common. What about tradition that celebrates sacrificing infants vs. a religion and ethnic group that will put you to death for practicing human sacrifice? I'd say those are a bit incompatible.

Marrying foreign girls as spoils of war in the Israelite historical context can only work IF the girl converts. Shaving her head, trimming her nails, disposing of her clothes along with any other remnant of her former cultural and religious practices are a few things that signify conversion and commitment to her new adoptive nation and way of life.


Barbaric compared to the quality of life we're used to. Unusually equitable for the ancient world.

Irrelevant to modern life? Eh...yes and no. I'd say for a theocracy it's a bare minimum. For a free, inclusive society that's already incorporated and expanded the spirit of these laws in day-to-day life, many of these laws are moot. We don't take women as spoils of war. We don't practice arranged marriages (although I think this is a mixed blessing). We don't force everyone to practice our religion at all, much less adopt any one particular tradition. The west is a society of plurality, of foreigners. The only remaining vestiges of the ancient world is the family unit itself, and the decision to follow these laws lies with parents. There are ways of subtly arranging marriages for like-minded families, and sexual purity can conceivably be encouraged and supported within the family unit.


I wouldn't say "ok back in those days." I'd just say that's just how things were. If we felt that anything was ever OK, those kinds of things wouldn't have changed now. Sexual purity IS still a feature of modern society. It's just understood more as a way of staying safe, not as a means of belonging to your husband or wife or pleasing God for its own sake. It's important because it safeguards against unwanted pregnancy and disease, not because it's reflective of the best relationship with God. We can test for paternity, so guaranteeing your progeny are yours is no longer relevant. And attitudes towards children and their importance have changed.

The relevance is strictly to the establishment of a theocracy composed of a specific ethnic group devoted to Yahweh worship. How useful those laws are to modern society are up for debate, but I think it's really up to the individual and up to individual families to what degree these laws are important and how closely they should be followed. The problem you run into is if you want to practice righteousness consistent with the OT, you have to apply ALL the laws. All 613 of them. Some laws are moot because the conditions for practicing them are impossible, i.e. temple worship. No one is perfect, so sacrifices are required, yet there is no temple at which to sacrifice. Taking captive women as wives is moot because we don't practice taking women as loot. Slave laws are moot because slavery is an abolished institution. Involuntary servitude laws are moot because our corrections (rehabilitation) systems have replaced medieval incarceration which replaced forced labor among nomadic tribes. Ethical treatment of professional servants, however, is still in place and expanded in modern society.


I'd question whether someone sources his morality from himself or from God. Biblical morality is sourced from God, yes, and is therefore perfect. But I also think Torah laws are reflective also of the times during which they were given just from the way they're worded. The spirit of the laws is eternal, timeless. So does man choose to follow a morality of his own whimsical design, or does he want to be consistent with what God wants for creation? If you have the ability to choose which moral patterns to follow, then "the best morality man could come up with" is ruled by a sinful nature and, among other things, marginalizes human beings: the weak, the children, the women. If you choose morality patterned after God's will for mankind, you end up fighting the evil status quo and making human life more equitable for all. I think modern society in which Judeo-Christian values are predominant has done more towards realizing a way of life more in line with what God intended. It's not perfect, no. People are still evil. But better this than, say, the ancient world or even the medieval world.

Indeed.

Christianity purged almost everything positive about the feminine out of scriptures as well as the positive attributes of the serpent.

Regards
DL

Well put. + 1

I do not think morality is objective. I think it subjective and no one has ever come up with an objective moral tenet that I could not show to be subjective.

Regards
DL

Nomadic people couldn't incarcerate criminals and when they settled in Israel they still didn't. Neither did neighboring kingdoms or any other nation for the next 3,000 years. Incarcerating criminals is a modern idea. They didn't practice because they were nomadic, they didn't practice it because the practice hadn't been invented yet, not even for settled people.

The OT prescribes different punishments for different crimes but I can't recall any part of the OT that says criminals should be punished with enslavement. I believe this treatment was used for debtors, not other types of criminal. Enslavement was also used for POWs of course.In that case the Israelites should have been happy to be slaves in Egypt, satisfied that they were the cornerstone of society. Did they cause societal collapse in Egypt when they left?Yep the Hebrew slaves could choose to leave on Jubilee year or stay with master so they wouldn't have to leave their wife and kids. On the other hand foreign slaves weren't given this choice. They were permanently slaves no matter what. Hey, do you like cartoons?




They did it too!
They did it too!

Next you're going to be saying "but he started it". Saying "they did it too" is about the worst justification I can think of.

Do I expect this ancient people to create laws that live up to modern standards? No. Definitely not. They couldn't possibly think of modern ideas.

But I expect the perfect and wise God to create laws that vastly exceed modern standards. Instead we get the sort of laws that we would expect an ancient people to think up by themselves.

I've heard people say that the objectively perfect morality of the Bible is a gift that could have only come from God. What I see is the subjective and average morality that ancient people could easily think up by themselves.

This is fine for an ancient people but when I hear people say the Bible should be used as a source for objectively perfect morality I get concerned because they may be mistaking the Israelites subjective and average mortality for objectively perfect morality.

I know that if the ancient Israelites had had better laws, some people would disobey them. I'm sure people disobeyed their laws anyway, just as people disobey the laws in modern times. That is to be expected. Yet the law can still serve as a guiding light to the people who aren't criminals.I'd say for most of the world the status of women has changed a great deal since ancient times, unless you're exclusively cherry picking the status of women in certain parts of the middle east to compare with ancient Israel.A turning point? They came out of Egypt, a land that had the best women's rights record in the ancient world. The ancient Israelites didn't have the best women's rights, even when measured against other countries that existed at that time.I can understand that. I wouldn't want to raise another dudes kids. If I lived thousands of years before the invention of contraceptives of and paternity tests I would want my bride to be a virgin. I wouldn't want to risk her carrying another man's child on our wedding night.

I can understand why they'd make a law against sex outside marriage because they didn't want pregnancy out of marriage. Back then there were no contraceptives.

Thousands of years later, certain Christians would claim contraceptives are immoral because they make it easier to have sex outside of marriage without being impregnated outside of marriage.

To make a rule against contraception because it encourages people to break another rule (by eliminating the problem the original rule was designed to prevent) suggests that some churches are more concerned about rules then consequences.

I think in the absence of modern contraceptives the rule that brides must be virgins and that sex cannot take place outside of marriage is reasonable. Some people who read the OT expect modern people to remain virgin outside of marriage.

The trouble is, the OT doesn't change. It had some good ideas for the time but it doesn't change. You've got people saying the Bible is still relevant today (parts of it are but not that part). You've got people saying God's morality, as recorded in the Bible is objectively perfect. Even if it was perfect for ancient times it's not perfect for modern times. To call it objectively perfect suggests that it's perfect for all time and encourages people to use it today.

Attempted murder sounds like a pretty serious crime. I'd expect a crime that is tantamount to attempted murder to have a much larger penalty than a fine of 50 shekels. A fine of 50 shekels (payable to her owner) sounds like the penalty for destruction of property (the girl), not the penalty for attempted murder.

Also which part of the passage says the girl was betrothed? It just says she's a virgin.I thought you said "Her father wouldn't be obligated to agree to it." Now you're saying "a father could be forced to give his daughter away in marriage."

Which is it? Is her father not obligated or is he forced into it?That's a clever trick but this law also applied in actual cases of rape too, right?You may be right yet a lot of modern Christians say they got their morality from the Bible. They don't say they improved on God's morality by placing a greater emphasis on virginity.I know it's a different context. I was citing two different things from the Bible.That sounds like a big advantage for her. But was she given a choice about whether or not she wanted to avail herself of this advantage?

Was the forced marriage followed by a forced consummation? To be raped is bad enough but to be raped by a foreign enemy, someone you saw killing your own people and possibly your own family is just adding to the trauma.



Was she given a choice in the matter? Or was it a forced conversion as well? hat would happen if she refused to convert?

Even if she was given marriage and conversion to Judaism as a choice, what if the choice was "convert and get married or starve". Not a very good choice, is it.Are you sure the surrounding kingdoms didn't have similar laws? Have you studied the laws of the surrounding kingdoms? No, neither have I.

As I said before, it's about as good as I'd expect for ancient people. But if they got their laws from a perfect God, as they claimed, as some people still claim, their laws should not only exceed ancient standards but they should also exceed modern standards by a very wide margin. Yet they fall in line with ancient standards.So why do some churches say sex education shouldn't mention contraception? Did they not hear that the modern version of sexual purity is a way of saying safe and involves contraceptives? Since we can test for paternity why do we need to use the old fashioned way of ensuring the kid is yours (impregnating a virgin).

If the modern way is better, why do some churches still want to do it the virgin way? I guess rules is rules.They're not up for debate according to some people.Not up do individual families according to some people.

I'm not saying you're like this and I'm not blaming you for the actions of some of the stubborn Christians.



The problem you run into is if you want to practice righteousness consistent with the OT, you have to apply ALL the laws. All 613 of them.[/quote]Yep. You are right. It's a shame no one told the guys who like to cite Leviticus 18:22 that they should also obey the other 612 laws.

Or the people who want everyone to follow the ten commandments. Should they follow the other 603 laws as well?I'd question it too but I've heard a few Christians say their morality comes from God himself.

Even the Bible says none of you are righteous. Perhaps they should read it.

I'm not trying to condemn all Christians or even the majority of Christians but I've met a few who seemed act as though they sourced their morality from the Pharisees.As you say, modern society is better than ancient society or medieval society. Who deserves credit for this improvement? Man or God?

Did we get a better society because we became more skilled at interpreting God's ancient law and changing it to suit modern times? Or did society become better because we started paying less attention to the Bible?

Retro: good stuff. I was hoping to respond by now, but it seems I’ve got some routine meatspace fires to put out. I was hoping to contain the discussion to the New Testament, which would have been much less time-consuming. But since a New Testament response from Gnostic doesn’t seem to be forthcoming in the near future, a diversion doesn’t strike me so bad for the time being.

Do help me with one minor thing, though: Avoid bringing up Biblical passages such as Lev. 18:22. That’s running into protected-class territory and there’s no fair way for me to address it. For what it’s worth, though, I’ll just say that anyone who gives anyone else a hard time over any one given law, just because THEY don’t struggle with that ONE law, should really examine themselves against the other 600+ laws. I believe Jesus called them “hypocrites.” I believe we are all born with the capacity for sin and are each predisposed to a select few. I may not be a Lev. 18:22 person, but, say if I were in private someone who got turned on by Lev. 18:23, or some other moral failing, then I hardly have any right to condemn the person in 18:22. We all possess that in some form. So casting the first stone always has a deeper rational than simply being sinless. Most of the time, we don’t enforce secular laws based on our perfection but rather to keep people safe in an orderly society. What are the goals of a theocracy? What does God’s exemplary theocratic society look like? That’s where the friction begins between God’s righteousness and a secular world with protected classes. I’d enjoy discussing it further, but site rules won’t allow it.