Strange things in the Bible

[_MrStakhanovite]

How about this excellent excuse not to go to Church:

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.
Deuteronomy 23:1

lol- Good one.

[_Shulem]

I'd love to hear the Bible apologetic for this crap. Oh how the Bible is a shining source of morality!

You have to remember that Moses was not only a brutal tyrant -- he was a murderer. His religion was utterly ugly and full of abomination -- brutal, sick, cruel, and so forth.

Then came Christianity which was just another take-off of the whole Abraham sacrifice Isaac saga. The doctrine of the atonement is really sick stuff. The God of the Bible is a God lacking in compassion and is blood thirsty and wants to see suffering before he can settle down and show a little love. He is brutal and violent to the extreme. This whole business of having to sacrifice his beloved son just to work up enough courage to forgive us sinners is utterly stupid. Shame on the God of the Bible! He needs to repent! Doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible that even God repents? I believe it does.

Paul O

[_Equality]

I'd love to hear the Bible apologetic for this crap. Oh how the Bible is a shining source of morality!

You have to remember that Moses was not only a brutal tyrant -- he was a murderer. His religion was utterly ugly and full of abomination -- brutal, sick, cruel, and so forth.

Then came Christianity which was just another take-off of the whole Abraham sacrifice Isaac saga. The doctrine of the atonement is really sick stuff. The God of the Bible is a God lacking in compassion and is blood thirsty and wants to see suffering before he can settle down and show a little love. He is brutal and violent to the extreme. This whole business of having to sacrifice his beloved son just to work up enough courage to forgive us sinners is utterly stupid. Shame on the God of the Bible! He needs to repent! Doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible that even God repents? I believe it does.

Paul O

Yes, but when God repents, people die. I believe it references God "repenting" that he ever created man. So he killed them all (except Noah and his family, natch).

[_ludwigm]

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.

Well, the tenth generation of a bastard is responsible for the g-g-g-grandparents deeds, the eleventh is not. Has some logic.


........................................................................................
More beauties:

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:

... the tenth generation thing again...

But:

1:1. Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons.
1:2. And the name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehemjudah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there.
1:3. And Elimelech Naomi's husband died; and she was left, and her two sons.
1:4. And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth:
...
1:16. And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:
1:17. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
...
1:22. So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter in law, with her, which returned out of the country of Moab: and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.
...
3:7. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn: and she came softly, and uncovered his feet, and laid her down.
3:8. And it came to pass at midnight, that the man was afraid, and turned himself: and, behold, a woman lay at his feet.
3:9. And he said, Who art thou? And she answered, I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman.
3:10. And he said, Blessed be thou of the LORD, my daughter: for thou hast shewed more kindness in the latter end than at the beginning, inasmuch as thou followedst not young men, whether poor or rich.
3:11. And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest:
...
13. So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bare a son.
...
17. And the women her neighbours gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi; and they called his name Obed: he is the father of Jesse, the father of David.
...
22. And Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse begat David.

So, David was a third generation of a Moabite. and Salamon, who has build the Temple, was of fourth...

........................................................................................
by the way Boaz was a beau ideal for Joseph Smith; he went to lie down at the end of the heap of corn with Fanny Alger and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her conception. (or the LORD gave her the anger of Emma...)

[_Shulem]

ludwigm,

Oh my God! Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith had sex in a corn field? I didn't know that. Wow, Mormonism is pretty deep stuff. I wonder if Brigham Young would have had sex with Fanny too.


Paul O

[_ludwigm]

ludwigm,

Oh my God! Fanny Alger and Joseph Smith had sex in a corn field? I didn't know that. Wow, Mormonism is pretty deep stuff. I wonder if Brigham Young would have had sex with Fanny too.

Paul O

Corn field? Barn? Haystack?
Are these words mean the same place or similar places only? Or simply a description of an agrarian environment?
You know, I am not a native english...

Anyway, there is no flaming sword involved.

From Fanny_Alger/Discovered_in_a_barn :

Criticism
How did Emma learn about Joseph's marriage to Fanny Alger? I've heard they were discovered together in the barn. Was Fanny pregnant?
...
McLellin’s account here refers to the Fanny Alger incident as “where the first well authenticated case of polygamy took place.”
...
G. D. Smith avoids labeling Fanny a wife since this weakens his thesis that Joseph was sexually driven.
...
The facts seem to be that Emma became aware of the marriage at some point, probably involved Oliver and perhaps other church leaders, and was upset enough to eventually insist that Fanny leave her home.
...
Conclusion
The bulk of the evidence seems to show that Fanny and Joseph were regarded as married, even by hostile witnesses.

Boaz ****** Ruth, so they became married.
The bulk of the evidence (The Bible...) seems to show that they were regarded as married.

[_Tator]

Gotta love Ludwigm

always have

always will.

[_ludwigm]

Boaz ****** Ruth, so they became married.

It was filtered out, OK. Rule is rule. Or orders are orders. (Hungarian saying, translate it anyway You can.)

OK, Boaz didn't ****** (read as sex star or whatever) Ruth.
In fact, I didn't remember the original verb I've written. The Hungarian language is very rich in four-letter words, and every translation to other languages can be incorrect. Or aproximate.

So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her

Boaz took Ruth.
Boaz went in unto Ruth.

I hope biblical verbs are acceptable in any environment.

I do ask as nonenglish ... does in unto mean into?
Or is it Jacobean English?
Was called Jacobean the era of king James? Is James the equivalent of Jacob?
Should pronounce first character of the name of Jesus as Y, G, or J?
(Hebrew speakers pronounce it as Y - I think...)

What about IPA?

______________________________________
I should start some threads about translation - something Joseph Smith was obsessed.

[_maklelan]

I found this strange passage

Deuteronomy 25:11-12 "If two men are in a fight and the wife of the one man, trying to
rescue her husband, grabs the genitals of the man hitting him, you are to cut off her
hand. Show no pity."

So much for standing by your man

Deuteronomy was written during the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian period, and a lot of the rhetoric is amped up in an effort to stoke Israelite fires of nationalism, especially after the Babylonians destroyed the temple and deported tens of thousands of people. This was done in a few ways. First, the things that the Assyrians and Babylonians did that the Israelites didn't like became prohibited for Israelite kings (after the fact, of course; there were no more Israelite kings). Second, the standards that were viewed as necessary for the survival of Israelite identity were retrojected into the nation's origin narratives (specifically, the Exodus tradition).

Next, Israel's national enemies and any Israelites that stirred up insurrection or infidelity vis-à-vis Yahweh were said to be subject to the harshest of penalties. The same was true for any that interfered with hereditary and reproductive processes. In that time period, children weren't had for fun. They not only helped in the fields, but they became your care-givers when you got old and they gave you someone to pass your land down to so it stayed in the family. In the Exile, children made sure you had another generation of faithful Israelites to protect your ethnic identity. To rob someone of their fertility was a serious issue, especially in a time period when Israel's identity was dependent upon insularity and heredity. The book of Deuteronomy used hyperbolic rhetoric to overemphasize those points.

At the same time, the laws in Deuteronomy and Exodus are based sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly on other national literature and law codes. Hammurabi is the most popular of these codes, but there are several others that are more chronologically proximate to the writing of Deuteronomy (the NEo-Assyrian law code, for instance). Here's a Neo-Assyrian potency incantation. Imagine someone today chanting this during a pre-coital ritual:

Let the wind blow, let the orchard sway,
Let the clouds gather together and the raindrops fall!
Let my potency flow like running river water!
Let my penis be taught like a harp string,
Let it not slip out of her!

Much of Deuteronomy and Exodus have casuistic law, which was common for the time period. Here's one from the Laws of Hammurabi:

If the finger is pointed at a man's wife about another man, but she is not caught sleeping with the other man, she shall jump into the river for her husband.

"Jump into the river" refers to the river ordeal, which was a test by which someone's guilt or innocence was determined. They would literally jump into the Euphrates, and if they survived, the gods had declared them innocent. If they drowned, the gods had declared them guilty and punished them accordingly. Lex talionis was also quite common. Another from Hammurabi:

If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.

A lot of the laws in Hammurabi's code prescribe cutting off hands as penalties, usually for things like botching a surgical operation or for hitting your father. Here's another creepy one:

If a man give his child to a nurse and the child die in her hands, but the nurse unbeknown to the father and mother nurse another child, then they shall convict her of having nursed another child without the knowledge of the father and mother and her breasts shall be cut off.

The laws in Deuteronomy seem pretty weird to us, but they wouldn't really have stood out at all in the time period in which they were written.

[_maklelan]

Boaz ****** Ruth, so they became married.
The bulk of the evidence (The Bible...) seems to show that they were regarded as married.

I disagree that Ruth and Boaz slept together at the threshing floor. He offered to take her into his home, but he also stated that they had to see if the closer next of kin wanted to exercise his right to marry her. Having sex with her doesn't make much sense in that context, and there's nothing in the text that demands such a reading (especially in light of the text's emphasis on Ruth's propriety). In fact, the statement that they slept together and she conceived in the next chapter kinda mitigates understanding the threshing floor episode as sexual. In the ancient Near East, sleeping together and not conceiving is not the literary norm and doesn't go unmentioned.