Hi Sketcher, thanks for the reply. How do you view negative statements in the bible? Such as the quotes jay1 mentioned? I have not been to a church yet so I'm not sure how statements like those are viewed by Christians. How do I separate the positive from the negative when reading?
Thanks for the help.
It's all about context, really. Many atheists and agnostics rip verses out of context, misquote them, and are just plain uneducated about the meaning. The antidote to this is to quote them accurately, respect both the immediate and greater context, and educate yourself about the meaning.
So, first of all:
"Stone disobedient children" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.
This is a son who is so thoroughly rotten that both the mother and the father, after having disciplined him all they can, have both given up on him - if Mom and Dad disagree, it is not lawfully done - and brought him to court. What they say to the elders indicates an adult son, or a son near adulthood.
In any case, I am not a Jew. This is a law that was given to Jews by God for a purpose, but not all humanity. God gave some laws to all humanity (i.e. the laws of Noah) but the Law he gave to Jews included the universal laws plus many others. This is one of the others.
Men are worth more than women - Leviticus 27:1-7
The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'If anyone makes a special vow to dedicate persons to the LORD by giving equivalent values, set the value of a male between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel; and if it is a female, set her value at thirty shekels. If it is a person between the ages of five and twenty, set the value of a male at twenty shekels and of a female at ten shekels. If it is a person between one month and five years, set the value of a male at five shekels of silver and that of a female at three shekels of silver. If it is a person sixty years old or more, set the value of a male at fifteen shekels and of a female at ten shekels.
Now, if one were to read the rest of the chapter, one would also see that a piece of land that you could sow 6.5 bushels of barley seed on was also worth 50 shekels of silver (v.16). Is that worth a man's life? No! This passage clearly needs study.
An oath of equivalent values was something uncommon - out of zeal, someone might swear his life or his family member's life to the Lord. Now, rather than sacrificing the person on an altar, the person would work in service to the tabernacle/temple for a time, until he or she earned the proper amount of money. In an agrarian economy, a man was capable of doing much more than a woman could because of his size and strength. Therefore, the output of a man's labor was worth more. This is not a teaching on the worth of a person, it is a fixed estimate (which prevents exorbitantly high prices due to greed or ill will) on what the person's work can earn.
This also only pertains to the Jews (see verse 1). I do not know of any place in the Law that said a Gentile could pledge himself or anyone else thusly.
Prostitution is punished by burning the woman alive according to Leviticus 21:9
If a priest's daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.
Note that this only pertains to a priest's daughter. Priests were held to higher standards in general. Priests who defiled the altar were killed by God himself as an example, because God is holy and not to be profaned - especially at such a holy place as his altar! Priests also had other standards that needed to be met, because God is a holy God. These standards applied to themselves and their families, as the priesthood was passed on from generation to generation. So this wasn't just prostitution. This was also a desecration. Furthermore, in order for this to happen, she would need to be tried by the jury of the Sanhedrin and convicted.
"If a man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also he cannot be my disciple" (Jesus in Luke 14:26)
Since that verse was actually quoted in its entirety, I don't need to re-quote it. I'll just give the correct interpretation which has stood throughout history - it's a comparative term. We are of course not to hate any of these people, or our own lives in the absolute sense. But we must love God so much that our love for our lives and families might as well be hatred. Our hearts are not to be darkened with hate for our families at all, but our love for God should be so much the brighter. Rather than our families keeping us from living for God, we should put God first and our families second. Of course, lest somebody leave his wife and kids behind in a moment of radical zeal, we must also remember the commands to love one another (John 15:12) and to care for our families (Colossians 3:18-21) and honor our parents (Mark 7:9-13).
