Monday, March 3, 2014

The Biblical view of women



The God of the Bible decrees that woman must submit to the dominance of man:

"The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about… all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance… A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce… the wife called her husband Ba’al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king. The Decalogue includes a man’s wife among his possessions… all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession."
-Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest
Also…

1.In the Bible’s book of Deuteronomy it says that if a man marries a woman and then decides that he hates her, he can claim she wasn’t a virgin when they married. At that point her father must prove she was a virgin. (How is not explained.)  If he can’t, then the girl is to be stoned to death at her father’s doorstep.

2. If you see a pretty woman among your captives and would like her for a wife, then bring her home and “go in unto her.” Later, if you decide you don’t like her, you can simply “let her go.” (Deuteronomy) 

3. If a betrothed virgin is raped in the city and doesn’t cry out loud enough, then “the men of the city shall stone her to death.” (Deuteronomy)

4. In the book of Esther the king apparently decrees a sex contest among young virgin women to see who can best please him. (There is debate on how.)  He eventually chooses Esther. However, since women are viewed as inherently dirty, Esther must be “purified” for twelve months before she can be made queen. (Esther)

5.  Paul points out in New Testament Romans that “the natural use” of women is to provide men with sex. (Romans)

6. Heaven is to be inhabited by 144,000 virgin men who have not been “defiled” by women. (RE 14:1-4) [One wonders how this squares with God’s command  to, “Be fruitful and multiply…(Genesis )]

7. A group of sexual depraved men beat on the door of an old man’s house demanding that he turn over to them a male house guest. Instead, the old man offers his virgin daughter and his guest’s wife: “Behold, here are my virgin daughter and his concubine (wife); let me bring them out now. Ravish them and do with them what seems good to you; but against this man do not do so vile a thing.” The women were subsequently ravished and killed. (JG))

8.  In Exod. we see that it is permissible to sell one’s daughter (but apparently not one’s son) into slavery..

9. According to St. Jerome, “Nothing is so unclean as a woman in her periods; what she touches she causes to be unclean.”  In Leviticus it states, “If a woman conceives and bears a male child, she shall be ceremonially unclean seven days…if she bears a female child she shall be unclean two weeks….” 

10. "A woman dropped a stone on his head and cracked his skull. Hurriedly he called to his armor-bearer, ‘Draw your sword and kill me, so that they can’t say a woman killed me.’ So his servant ran him through, and he died." (Judges)

11. Under God’s direction, Moses’ army kills all the adult males, but they mercifully just take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some women and children alive, he angrily says: “Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.” Throughout Bible history God is said to demand that thousands, if not millions, of men, women and children be slaughtered.  And they are.

12.  A man has an obligation to produce a child with his brother’s widow. If he refuses, his sister-in-law is to spit in his face in front of the elders. (Deuteronomy 25:5-9) And in case you are Jewish, you may be familiar with the Jewish prayer: “Blessed be the God who has not created me a heathen, a slave or a woman.”

We’ve only listed a dozen Bible quotes of this type, but there are many more.
Would we be wrong in assuming that even Bible literalists wouldn’t want these verses read to their children in Bible School? Plus, what parent would want their children reading Bible verses comparing the size of men’s penises to donkey genitals and their sperm flow to that of horses?  Books are commonly banned from school libraries for much less.

Most Old Testament law dates back centuries to Jewish tribal law and would be considered not only immoral but illegal today.  At the same time, fundamentalist, Bible-carrying  Christians claim they are the for-all-time, inviolable Word of God.

No comments:

Post a Comment