by tall penguin 35 Replies latest watchtower bible
think on this--- according to mosaic law, a married MAN could not commit adultry UNLESS he was having sex with someone who was either married to another or engaged to another. if a MAN had sex with an unattached woman like a prostitute and got caught, his penalty was to marry the gal or pay the father [if the father refused] a bride price for damaging the goods....
while a married woman was guilty no matter who she had sex with, her penalty was always death
fair eh?
so sorry tall penguin GAL.
My sincere appologies,
Excellent post, TallPenguin. Reading it makes me want to re-read the biblical account so I can be as skeptical as you were. Bravo!
the most interesting part to me about the story is that there are many more bible characters that are these great people with REALLY crappy things they have done (ie: King David, Paul, Rueben....just to name a few). its always amazing to see double standards on ppl, especailly when they are screwing, killing or some type of sinning against someone.
Greetings,
There is no contradiction or ethical/moral disparity here.
Joseph refused relations with Potiphar's wife because she belonged to him. To have had sexual relations with her would have been the equivalent of stealing from Potiphar - a definite crime and already socially taboo, especially for a trustee. The issue was not about fornication but about theft and a property issue. (The Society's and others' interpretations along these lines are wrong in implying that Joseph was acting based upon some insight into future sex attitudes or laws.)
PROSTITUTION (and having more than one wife) are only recently socially taboo and even more modernly illegal (crimes) in many places. In bible times, prostitution was not a social taboo and was generally accepted. Why do you think Tamar was able to sit outside the gates in the first place!?
Thus it was not a sin for Judah to go to a prostitute under both social customs/taboos of the time and later under Mosaic law. Only with the advent of Christianity (and beginning during the Maccabbean period of Judaism) did it start to become socially taboo to either be a prostitute or to go to one. Jesus' "one-wife" statement and Paul's & the other Apostles comdemnation of "fornication" went a long way to making prostitution a sin. This of course has been reflected in later Christianity and the larger cultural view of prostitution.
-Eduardo Leaton Jr., Esq.
PROSTITUTION (and having more than one wife) are only recently socially taboo and even more modernly illegal (crimes) in many places. In bible times, prostitution was not a social taboo and was generally accepted. Why do you think Tamar was able to sit outside the gates in the first place!?Thus it was not a sin for Judah to go to a prostitute under both social customs/taboos of the time and later under Mosaic law. Only with the advent of Christianity (and beginning during the Maccabbean period of Judaism) did it start to become socially taboo to either be a prostitute or to go to one. Jesus' "one-wife" statement and Paul's & the other Apostles comdemnation of "fornication" went a long way to making prostitution a sin. This of course has been reflected in later Christianity and the larger cultural view of prostitution.
-Eduardo Leaton Jr., Esq.
That pretty well sums up why most of the bible cannot be used as a modern guide for living. Social customs/taboos/norms change.
Jez
There is no contradiction or ethical/moral disparity here.
You GOTTA be kidding! Apart from the fact that numerous "righteous ones" were doing the dirty with everything but sheep....not to mention planning murder, etc, etc, etc....we find that by merely leaving the WTS is tantamount to any or all of these things......
AND, that these people are now treated as if they were DEAD.....personally I see a whole lot more than "contradiction" or ethical/moral disparity.... here.
Yeah, Judah did all of that, and you can have your entire family ripped away from you for smoking a ciggarette!
And how about what's his name who turned over his concubine to the mob of men, in order to protect the holy servant of Jehovah staying in his house? Then the mob of men gang raped her to death, and left her lifeless corpse on his doorstep. So he chops her up into pieces and ships her to the far corners of Isreal......but if I accept a blood transfusion, I'm damned to eternal death and having my eyeballs plucked out.
The main discrepancy imo is not where modern morality expects it. Judah mistook disguised Tamar not for a mere zonah (prostitute in the generic sense, v. 15) but for a qedeshah (a "holy girl" = a temple prostitute, v. 21-22 -- although this word is cleverly put on the lips of his Adullamite "friend"). And such qedeshoth were a big no-no in Deuteronomistic Law, for religious rather than moral reasons (Deuteronomy 23:18). However the main flaw of Judah, by the text's own assessment, is not going to a prostitute, but breaking his word and not applying the Levirate custom (v. 26, cf. Deuteronomy 25). And the text implies many other contraventions to the Deuteronomistic Law: Judah marries a Canaanite, v. 2; Tamar seems to be a Canaanite too (and so later Jewish tradition has her). By introducing such a multiple "disorder" into the ancestry of David Genesis 38, just as the book of Ruth (where a mixed marriage with a Moabite also enters into the Davidic line), may be discreetly fighting Deuteronomistic exclusivism.
And how about what's his name who turned over his concubine to the mob of men, in order to protect the holy servant of Jehovah staying in his house? Then the mob of men gang raped her to death, and left her lifeless corpse on his doorstep. So he chops her up into pieces and ships her to the far corners of Isreal......but if I accept a blood transfusion, I'm damned to eternal death and having my eyeballs plucked out.
When I was a MS I had to do the bible highlights on this one. I was just blown over. I looked for info in the WT crap. They had some ludicrous explanation, so I used it in my talk. Nobody seemed to think it was odd. Mrs. Kessel was visiting us at the time and I asked her about it, since she's such a dyed-in-the-wool dub. She said women didn't have any value in those days. Anybody have the specicif bible reference?
