What Was God's Rationale In This Instance?

[2PhiloVoid]

Like I said, I think it's conquest bragging. The Israelites were known for that. Some people worshipped fertility goddesses, but the Israelites worshipped a warlord deity. So of course they would invent stories about winning wars and raping women. But if you set aside whether it is true or false and just evaluate the story itself, the virgins were clearly raped. No, they didn't get into every specific detail and they didn't even have a word for rape.

... yeah, it can be seen as "conquest bragging," as you've put it. The theologians and expositors I've looked at, like Copan and Flanagan, call it "hyperbole," although they usually (but maybe not always) stop short of imputing 'rape' as a necessary given of the text here in question. But you call it whatever you want to call it. I have a feeling you'll do that no matter what, regardless of what anyone else says. On my part, I'm just going to go with what the text says, and my imputation and inferrence will instead be that these virgins were "made into" Jewish wives, with whatever expectation and/or privileges went with that for Israelite women.

But let's just lay down some facts here. The Israelites had no law against raping their own women, so they surely had no law to protect prisoners of war. Human rights are thousands of years away. Rape was common in ancient history. And only the virgins were allowed to live.

Of course Human Rights are thousands of years away. You speak as if I've never had a course or read a book on any of this. One has to wonder why you'd downplay what I claim about my own education. It's social philosophy and social science, remember? And by Social Science, I don't mean: "... yuh, I'd was a 'Merican Historee teacher" said with the deepest, most Red Neck American drawl one can muster.

At this point, I feel like I'm talking to Slick Willy about what the meaning of "is" is. I feel like you think this is a joke. "Yeah, plenty of atrocities were committed in the OT. Genocides-a-plenty. But here it doesn't explicitly state what the soldiers did with those virgins, so I'm off the hook! Lol."

NO, I don't think any of this is a joke. I might be tempted to think that your education on the concepts and development of Modern Human Rights thinking might be a joke though.

I for one, knowing what I know, am just not going to acquiesce to the theoretical rights regime thinking of today which is so prevalent simply because someone in power currently, "Said So!" Yeah, that's not how truth about political reality works, and since it doesn't work that way, I'm not going to IMPORT any of it reflexively back in upon the O.T. text as I do Hermeneutics.

This isn't to say that I think Christian Liberty as presented in the New Testament is against a more general 'human rights,' but somewhere along the line, one is bound to trip up on a HUGE ROCK ...

If anything, it's time for people to wakey, wakey to the present World as it is, as well as to what the O.T. text says ON THE WHOLE and not just in part as they like to, as you imply, "slickly" slice and dice the texts here and there.

Your thread about the mark of the beast? Yeah I watched the first few minutes of the video and lost interest to be honest. 666 refers to Nero, I thought that was case closed. Revelation is not prophetic. I've explained to you already that Christians don't understand how prophecy works.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if everyone was looking for and expecting the wrong thing in all of this? But you've indicated that my other thread isn't for you, so I'm not going to get into the contrast it reveals with what you're stating here.

[NV, what did they do to you at that church of yours so many years ago? ]

 

[Halbhh]

Now is good, but not here. You're not hijacking the thread. Please stop. Just answer the simple question:

What's the thinking behind "Take the virgins for yourselves"?


Gosh, I've had to ask this question so many times that when I merely pressed "T" my phone had the rest of the sentence ready! Sad. So very sad.

Instead of killing them or leaving them to starve (as I bet you heard somewhere already!)...would you like to hear more?

That's a real question. Sometimes people have their mind 100% closed.

I'll assume you meant a genuine question.

Here's the law from God to Israel on this:

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, ...

[let's pause to consider whether sitting safely fed in a home for a month, given by law a month to mourn also -- does that fit the suggestion of 'rape' that some imagine onto the situation of war and captives here? Well, if one has to answer yes or no, then...just, well, no, a month to mourn doesn't really fit the thing we normally think of as a "rape". It's....well, it's something else, some other thing....]


(continuing)
"...then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. "

[let's pause again. Did you see the world "wife" there? Not to belabor, but for some that read this, it might not be easy to see, since sometimes an idea can take over, and make people blind. But it's definitely a key piece of this entire picture...]

14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

Well, that's tough, but it's not slavery, and....what is the situation for someone freed into Israel, and not a slave? It's like this:

Leviticus 19:34 You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

wow, right? It's like...some Americans could learn a bit right there, on that one....

Do you agree? It's an odd situation. Here we are 3,500 years or so later, and still...some people in our own nation aren't living up to this standard from "sheep herders" to treat foreign immigrants with complete neighborly love.

Are you not quite sure what you saw above, about what it would mean to be a freed alien now residing in Israel?

Ok, here's a guidance:

Leviticus 24:22 You are to have the same standard of law for the foreign resident and the native; for I am the LORD your God.'"

Seems He thought of some of the pieces, eh?

 

[Halbhh]

What if one of these freed women from defeated cities didn't like her marriage and so becomes a freed foreign alien living in Israel now as a free citizen but...what if she has trouble earning enough to live on for whatever reason?

28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands."

Today we call this Food Stamps, eh?

It's 10% of the harvest every 3 years, stored for those without means, to eat. That's about 3.3% of all food grown, over time.

Or this is sorta better than Food Stamps in a way.

Again, God has given detailed, micro rules to Israel, to help them learn how to do right by others in peacetime.

So, along with --

1) total equality under the Law

2) freedom

3) Love from Neighbor...

they also have a social welfare backup plan(!).

I thought that was interesting.

Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do right, seek justice, correct the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow."

 

[cvanwey]

Yes. I can understand that, and to some degree, I think that is fair and useful and even needed. But if on some passages and topics, the INFO we'd all like to have just isn't IN the text, then there's really little or nothing any apologist can just dish out for you to mull over and say, "By Jove, My Dear Watson, I think you've solved the case!"

What do you think about that, Sherlock? (...and don't mind me. I'm just a philosopher, not a detective. )

In regards to my specific conclusions, no other information is necessary.

Again, if you address post #205, in it's entirety, you would see that. I've asked several times now.

 

[Halbhh]

... yeah, it can be seen as "conquest bragging," as you've put it. The theologians and expositors I've looked at, like Copan and Flanagan, call it "hyperbole," although they usually (but maybe not always) stop short of imputing 'rape' as a necessary given of the text here in question. But you call it whatever you want to call it. I have a feeling you'll do that no matter what, regardless of what anyone else says. On my part, I'm just going to go with what the text says, and my imputation and inferrence will instead be that these virgins were "made into" Jewish wives, with whatever expectation and/or privileges went with that for Israelite women.

Of course Human Rights are thousands of years away. You speak as if I've never had a course or read a book on any of this. One has to wonder why you'd downplay what I claim about my own education. It's social philosophy and social science, remember? And by Social Science, I don't mean: "... yuh, I'd was a 'Merican Historee teacher" said with the deepest, most Red Neck American drawl one can muster.

NO, I don't think any of this is a joke. I might be tempted to think that your education on the concepts and development of Modern Human Rights thinking might be a joke though.

I for one, knowing what I know, am just not going to acquiesce to the theoretical rights regime thinking of today which is so prevalent simply because someone in power currently, "Said So!" Yeah, that's not how truth about political reality works, and since it doesn't work that way, I'm not going to IMPORT any of it reflexively back in upon the O.T. text as I do Hermeneutics.

This isn't to say that I think Christian Liberty as presented in the New Testament is against a more general 'human rights,' but somewhere along the line, one is bound to trip up on a HUGE ROCK ...

If anything, it's time for people to wakey, wakey to the present World as it is, as well as to what the O.T. text says ON THE WHOLE and not just in part as they like to, as you imply, "slickly" slice and dice the texts here and there.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if everyone was looking for and expecting the wrong thing in all of this? But you've indicated that my other thread isn't for you, so I'm not going to get into the contrast it reveals with what you're stating here.

[NV, what did they do to you at that church of yours so many years ago? ]

If you look at the 2 posts just above -- #242 and #243, you'll see how...in a way, many of the details of these situations are really...the opposite of what atheists are suggesting.

Why is that?

I don't think they personally realize their talking points are mistaken (or worse, sometimes opposite of the reality).

I'd guess usually they are just repeating some anti-Christian talking points made up on some anger driven website, or from some angry writer, without realizing it's all full of holes and wrong guesses.

 

[Halbhh]

I have to ask you @2PhiloVoid .... If morals ARE objective, what IS God's stance on taking virgins in warfare? Does He change His mind?

Here're the laws from God to Israel regarding these female virgin captives:

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, ...

[let's pause to consider whether sitting safely fed in a home for a month, given by law a month to mourn also -- does that fit the suggestion of 'rape' that some imagine onto the situation of war and captives here?

Well, if one has to answer yes or no, then...just, well, no, a month to mourn doesn't really fit the thing we normally think of as a "rape". It's....well, it's something else, some other thing....]


(continuing)
"...then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. "

[let's pause again. Did you notice the word "wife" there? That comes with specific legal rights in Israel. Not to belabor, but for some that read this, it might not be easy to see the word "wife" since it's not quite what they expected. It's a part of the full picture though.]

14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

Well, that's tough, but it's not slavery, and....what is the situation for someone freed into Israel, and not a slave? It's like this:

Leviticus 19:34 You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

wow, right? It's like...some Americans could learn a bit right there, on that one....

Do you agree? It's an odd situation. Here we are 3,500 years or so later, and still...some people in our own nation aren't living up to this standard from "sheep herders" to treat foreign immigrants with complete neighborly love.

Are you not quite sure what you saw above, about what it would mean to be a freed alien now residing in Israel?

Ok, here's a guidance:

Leviticus 24:22 You are to have the same standard of law for the foreign resident and the native; for I am the LORD your God.'"

Seems God thought of some of the pieces, eh?

What if one of these freed women from defeated cities didn't like her marriage and so becomes a freed foreign alien living in Israel now as a free citizen but...what if she has trouble earning enough to live on for whatever reason?

28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands."

Today we call this Food Stamps, eh?

It's 10% of the harvest every 3 years, stored for those without means, to eat. That's about 3.3% of all food grown, over time.

Or this is sorta better than Food Stamps in a way.

So, along with --

1) total equality under the Law

2) freedom

3) Love from Neighbor...

they also have a social welfare backup plan(!).

I thought that was interesting.

Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do right, seek justice, correct the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow."

Hope you're having a good day!

 

[cvanwey]

How about we consider this instead: A Father tells His young Son to become vulnerable to the ruffians down the street, and the Son says, "Yes, Father!" Is the Son delusional, or sane if He complies?

Well, if I considered 'this instead', I would be ignoring my request, and instead addressing an entirely different scenario; or a false analogy. But to appease your sensibilities, let me at least demonstrate....

I am not questioning the mere existence of 'fathers' and 'sons', and such interactions between two humans as such.... I'm pretty sure both exist. Thus, your question about if this hypothetical 'son' is delusional, becomes a non sequitur.

Again, anyone can claim they speak to God. HOW might one determine if such a claim is actually valid??? (i.e.) 'God told me to.... (fill in the blank)'...

A shinning example lies within post #209. Care to actually partake this time?

 

[cvanwey]

Can you see how you are tripping all over yourself? Can you also see that you have just handed me 'evidence' on a 'silver platter'? It would appear you possess the typical cognitive dissonance, that few others possess. I did not bother to address your entire thread, for the reasons posed below, highlighted in bold red. Meaning, it does not seem necessary to continue further... Let's be sure to follow your specific path to 'common sense' consistently, shall we?

Here're the laws from God to Israel regarding these female virgin captives:

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, ...

Captive - (basic definition) 'a person who has been taken prisoner or an animal that has been confined.'

I have just ONE question.... Is she allowed to leave if she wants? (see below)...

Because according to this 'law', it would appear not. And on a side note, what do you think, 'if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife'. Again, as @Nihilist Virus has eluded to, it would appear these are merely sham marriages, and it is a form of 'rape'.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

If you look at the 2 posts just above -- #242 and #243, you'll see how...in a way, many of the details of these situations are really...the opposite of what atheists are suggesting.

Why is that?

I don't think they personally realize their talking points are mistaken (or worse, sometimes opposite of the reality).

I'd guess usually they are just repeating some anti-Christian talking points made up on some anger driven website, or from some angry writer, without realizing it's all full of holes and wrong guesses.

Yep. And I kind of figure there's something like this going on (...2PhiloVoid assumes his best Captain Kirk impression to convey the following):

 

[Halbhh]

Can you see how you are tripping all over yourself? Can you also see that you have just handed me 'evidence' on a 'silver platter'? It would appear you possess the typical cognitive dissonance, that few others possess. I did not bother to address your entire thread, for the reasons posed below, highlighted in bold red. Meaning, it does not seem necessary to continue further... Let's be sure to follow your specific path to 'common sense' consistently, shall we?



Captive - (basic definition) 'a person who has been taken prisoner or an animal that has been confined.'

I have just ONE question.... Is she allowed to leave if she wants? (see below)...

Because according to this 'law', it would appear not. And on a side note, what do you think, 'if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife'. Again, as @Nihilist Virus has eluded to, it would appear these are merely sham marriages, and it is a form of 'rape'.

Yes, she could leave -- the additional verses above give the rules for her rights, her protection as equal under the laws to any Israeli, and for even her welfare as needed, easy to read....

Who's trying to maintain ideas past the verses here...? Be more neutral if you want to understand better.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

... yeah, it can be seen as "conquest bragging," as you've put it. The theologians and expositors I've looked at, like Copan and Flanagan, call it "hyperbole," although they usually (but maybe not always) stop short of imputing 'rape' as a necessary given of the text here in question.

Of course they stop short. They have an agenda. They force skeptics to work for every last inch of truth we can possibly squeeze out of them.

But you call it whatever you want to call it. I have a feeling you'll do that no matter what, regardless of what anyone else says. On my part, I'm just going to go with what the text says, and my imputation and inferrence will instead be that these virgins were "made into" Jewish wives, with whatever expectation and/or privileges went with that for Israelite women.

Right, yes, they were taken as wives. And they were raped. Are you getting it now?

Of course Human Rights are thousands of years away. You speak as if I've never had a course or read a book on any of this.

Actually, you're the one who speaks as though you have never had a course or read a book on it. Nice try, though. Absolutely nobody in the field of history just reads the text and says, "There you have it, they didn't explicitly say that X happened and we can't make any inferences whatsoever beyond what's written."

One has to wonder why you'd downplay what I claim about my own education. It's social philosophy and social science, remember? And by Social Science, I don't mean: "... yuh, I'd was a 'Merican Historee teacher" said with the deepest, most Red Neck American drawl one can muster.

NO, I don't think any of this is a joke. I might be tempted to think that your education on the concepts and development of Modern Human Rights thinking might be a joke though.

You must be Reza "Shut up I have a PhD" Aslan's long lost brother. You are exactly like him so often.

Or at least you try to be.

I for one, knowing what I know, am just not going to acquiesce to the theoretical rights regime thinking of today which is so prevalent simply because someone in power currently, "Said So!" Yeah, that's not how truth about political reality works, and since it doesn't work that way, I'm not going to IMPORT any of it reflexively back in upon the O.T. text as I do Hermeneutics.

This isn't to say that I think Christian Liberty as presented in the New Testament is against a more general 'human rights,' but somewhere along the line, one is bound to trip up on a HUGE ROCK ...

If anything, it's time for people to wakey, wakey to the present World as it is, as well as to what the O.T. text says ON THE WHOLE and not just in part as they like to, as you imply, "slickly" slice and dice the texts here and there.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if everyone was looking for and expecting the wrong thing in all of this? But you've indicated that my other thread isn't for you, so I'm not going to get into the contrast it reveals with what you're stating here.

[NV, what did they do to you at that church of yours so many years ago? ]

Again let me just reiterate that I'm fully willing to be corrected on this issue of whether the hostages were raped. But for you to pretend that there is absolutely no reason to think this might've happened is just ludicrous.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Instead of killing them or leaving them to starve (as I bet you heard somewhere already!)...would you like to hear more?

How are they going to starve in the land flowing with milk and honey? Would you like to hear more?

That's a real question. Sometimes people have their mind 100% closed.

Then you asked a silly question because obviously these women would rather live off the resource-rich land than have sex every day with a guy who killed their entire family.

I'll assume you meant a genuine question.

Here's the law from God to Israel on this:

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, ...

[let's pause to consider whether sitting safely fed in a home for a month, given by law a month to mourn also -- does that fit the suggestion of 'rape' that some imagine onto the situation of war and captives here? Well, if one has to answer yes or no, then...just, well, no, a month to mourn doesn't really fit the thing we normally think of as a "rape". It's....well, it's something else, some other thing....]

So... after a month goes by they're just supposed to forget that their whole life was destroyed?

A couple years ago (I think in Ohio) there was a bus driver who had kidnapped three women and held them hostage for ten years, raping them daily. He didn't even kill their whole family first and those women still desperately wanted to escape and finally managed to do so. Perhaps if he had first given them a month to mourn the end of their lives as they knew it before raping them, they would have not wanted to escape. He screwed up!

(continuing)
"...then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. "

[let's pause again. Did you see the world "wife" there? Not to belabor, but for some that read this, it might not be easy to see, since sometimes an idea can take over, and make people blind. But it's definitely a key piece of this entire picture...]

14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

Well, that's tough, but it's not slavery, and....what is the situation for someone freed into Israel, and not a slave? It's like this:

I missed the part where she is free to go if she wants to go. Is it in there? Nope. If the man is satisfied with the arrangement, then her desires don't matter. Right?

Leviticus 19:34 You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

wow, right? It's like...some Americans could learn a bit right there, on that one....

That's irrelevant. It's not referring to slaves. See Leviticus 25:44-46. Foreign slaves were property.

Do you agree? It's an odd situation. Here we are 3,500 years or so later, and still...some people in our own nation aren't living up to this standard from "sheep herders" to treat foreign immigrants with complete neighborly love.

Are you not quite sure what you saw above, about what it would mean to be a freed alien now residing in Israel?

Ok, here's a guidance:

Leviticus 24:22 You are to have the same standard of law for the foreign resident and the native; for I am the LORD your God.'"

Seems He thought of some of the pieces, eh?

Nice cherry picking. Keep it up.

What if one of these freed women from defeated cities didn't like her marriage and so becomes a freed foreign alien living in Israel now as a free citizen but...what if she has trouble earning enough to live on for whatever reason?

You failed to establish that the slave-wives were allowed to dissolve the marriage.

28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands."

Today we call this Food Stamps, eh?

It's 10% of the harvest every 3 years, stored for those without means, to eat. That's about 3.3% of all food grown, over time.

Or this is sorta better than Food Stamps in a way.

Again, God has given detailed, micro rules to Israel, to help them learn how to do right by others in peacetime.

Kind of a pointless gesture if the land was flowing with milk and honey, and fruit clusters the size of nuclear warheads.

Maybe those accounts of the holy land weren't true. What can we actually trust from the Bible?

So, along with --

1) total equality under the Law

2) freedom

3) Love from Neighbor...

they also have a social welfare backup plan(!).

I thought that was interesting.

Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do right, seek justice, correct the oppressor, defend the fatherless, plead for the widow."

None of this mitigates the mass murder and rape of children that occurred.

You have an omniscient being creating these laws and all you can do is say, "Oh wow! Look over here! They actually made progress as a society!" I guess you expect them to never advance on their own...?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Regarding post #235 just above, about the accuracy of the Gospel of Mark --

I was just going to look up something I learned about on NPR one day, a teacher of an english class talking about how some of her students had an uncanny ability to perfectly recall everything that happened accurately, though most could not. These students, a few, nailed it, with perfect memory, while most did not have that. Searching, I found at the top of the results a 60 Minutes video on the same topic, which is always fun. I recall 60 Minutes fondly from youth, when I used to turn on the TV sunday evenings so that I could see it as a 12 yr old and a teen.

(Most people don't have that this kind of perfect memory, but one more fuzzy, so that it takes multiple witnesses to compare their memories to get a confident view about something in the past).

In a trial, it will always be more convincing to a skeptical juror when they hear more than one witness recalling common details. Of course thousands heard Jesus when He preached, and that's part of why the religious authorities wanted him dead.

Man, the things I could have done in life if I had that kind of memory!
But such as mine is, I have to repeatedly do refresher learning .......

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Of course they stop short. They have an agenda. They force skeptics to work for every last inch of truth we can possibly squeeze out of them.

How dare they perform that kind of torture upon skeptics ... it must be more painful than being in an Iron Maiden.

Right, yes, they were taken as wives. And they were raped. Are you getting it now?

I guess we'll just have to infer with our respective differences: you say they were 'raped,' I think they were 'spared.' Neither of us knows for sure.

Actually, you're the one who speaks as though you have never had a course or read a book on it. Nice try, though. Absolutely nobody in the field of history just reads the text and says, "There you have it, they didn't explicitly say that X happened and we can't make any inferences whatsoever beyond what's written."

Sure, one can make inferences, but it would be foolish to insist that all possible inferences that could be made at various points in a text have equal justification.

Here's the thing: IF I concede that those virgin females were raped, THEN it would be incumbent upon us to taxonomize for the sake of clarity the differences between what you THINK transpired back then from the kind of pedestrian rape that we see on the nightly news where some person today may have been nabbed and brutalized. I'm not aware of any situations where women are nabbed and then marry the guy who perpetrated the crime. (And please don't derail this taxonomic distinction by then alluding to the fact that within marriage today, rape can still happen and all that ... )

You must be Reza "Shut up I have a PhD" Aslan's long lost brother. You are exactly like him so often.

I didn't even know Aslan had a long lost brother. I don't read a lot of fiction. Hardly any, really.

Or at least you try to be.

No. I have the degrees that I have, and they are what they are. This doesn't mean I have nothing yet to learn. I was an Education major, too, for crying out loud.

Again let me just reiterate that I'm fully willing to be corrected on this issue of whether the hostages were raped. But for you to pretend that there is absolutely no reason to think this might've happened is just ludicrous.

 

[cvanwey]

Yes, she could leave -- the additional verses above give the rules for her rights, her protection as equal under the laws to any Israeli, and for even her welfare as needed, easy to read....

Who's trying to maintain ideas past the verses here...? Be more neutral if you want to understand better.

No, she can't leave. The only way she could leave, is if the male decides as such. Let's explore these verses again.... You know, the ones you hand-selected, in an attempt to 'teach' me:

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, .....then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. "14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

Such instruction is for what the man is allowed to do, NOT the woman. It is not a two-way street.

Thus, I again ask you.... What if the woman alone decides she is not pleased with the man, but the man still likes the woman? Can she still leave? --- Well, not according to the text you provided....

Please provide the Biblical law stating the female has the same rights as the male in this particular regard/instance/situation listed above?

Furthermore, after one month, what if the woman is still repulsed by their captor? I'll tell you, according to such 'law', it would appear that under the law of marriage, it was no longer considered any type of 'rape'. - Even though I'm sure there were many of cases where the woman did not consent. Hence, my previous response stands.... These appeared to be sham marriages.

 

[Halbhh]

How are they going to starve in the land flowing with milk and honey? Would you like to hear more?



Then you asked a silly question because obviously these women would rather live off the resource-rich land than have sex every day with a guy who killed their entire family.



So... after a month goes by they're just supposed to forget that their whole life was destroyed?

A couple years ago (I think in Ohio) there was a bus driver who had kidnapped three women and held them hostage for ten years, raping them daily. He didn't even kill their whole family first and those women still desperately wanted to escape and finally managed to do so. Perhaps if he had first given them a month to mourn the end of their lives as they knew it before raping them, they would have not wanted to escape. He screwed up!




I missed the part where she is free to go if she wants to go. Is it in there? Nope. If the man is satisfied with the arrangement, then her desires don't matter. Right?



That's irrelevant. It's not referring to slaves. See Leviticus 25:44-46. Foreign slaves were property.





Nice cherry picking. Keep it up.



You failed to establish that the slave-wives were allowed to dissolve the marriage.



Kind of a pointless gesture if the land was flowing with milk and honey, and fruit clusters the size of nuclear warheads.

Maybe those accounts of the holy land weren't true. What can we actually trust from the Bible?



None of this mitigates the mass murder and rape of children that occurred.

You have an omniscient being creating these laws and all you can do is say, "Oh wow! Look over here! They actually made progress as a society!" I guess you expect them to never advance on their own...?

This appears the only true thing you said above: "None of this mitigates the mass murder and rape of children that occurred."

That's right -- any Israeli that raped someone will burn in the "second death" in the Lake of Fire (usually called 'hell' in the American vernacular), (unless they changed so much through real repentance they became a totally new person, hard to even recognize as if they had been the old person). Is that clear? I don't want to be accidentally unclear on that.

Meanwhile, all children and innocent people who die -- regardless of when or how, war, fire, famine, you name it; and it's good to remember that is going to be 100% of us in time; you too -- will all, every last one, awake from that sleep.

God will awaken all who have died.

Is that clear? I don't want to be accidentally unclear.

If you are going to use some selected verses in the Bible as true, then you are putting all the Bible on the table....

All the rest.

If you say "look God commanded the slaughter of women and infants in the Bible"...

...then since you are using the Bible as if these verses are true, then immediately it follows from the Bible that also death is only sleep, because God awakens all who die to face an accounting.

The innocent and forgiven to eternal life,

unrepentant wrong doers to the lake of fire for the 'second death'.

 

[Halbhh]

No, she can't leave. The only way she could leave, is if the male decides as such. Let's explore these verses again.... You know, the ones you hand-selected, in an attempt to 'teach' me:

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, .....then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. "14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

Such instruction is for what the man is allowed to do, NOT the woman. It is not a two-way street.

Thus, I again ask you.... What if the woman alone decides she is not pleased with the man, but the man still likes the woman? Can she still leave? --- Well, not according to the text you provided....

Please provide the Biblical law stating the female has the same rights as the male in this particular regard/instance/situation listed above?

Furthermore, after one month, what if the woman is still repulsed by their captor? I'll tell you, according to such 'law', it would appear that under the law of marriage, it was no longer considered any type of 'rape'. - Even though I'm sure there were many of cases where the woman did not consent. Hence, my previous response stands.... These appeared to be sham marriages.

If he forces her, rapes her, then for him the outcome just above in post #256.

If he lets her choose instead, she might marry him, being a wife, or if she instead refuses him, then he can not keep her but by God's command she is to be freed, and also has all the rights of any Israeli. if they marry but it fails, again she is freed and has specific extra rights. As shown above in post 246.

For her: freedom, equality under the law, and even food if and when needed, from then on. Good Himself commands these and that his people love her as one of their own.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

This appears the only true thing you said above: "None of this mitigates the mass murder and rape of children that occurred."

At least we agree on the main point of the thread then.

That's right -- any Israeli that raped someone will burn in the "second death" in the Lake of Fire (usually called 'hell' in the American vernacular), (unless they changed so much through real repentance they became a totally new person, hard to even recognize as if they had been the old person). Is that clear? I don't want to be accidentally unclear on that.

Your statement is clear, yes, but your justification isn't. Why would they be punished for rape when there is no commandment which condemns rape?

Meanwhile, all children and innocent people who die -- regardless of when or how, war, fire, famine, you name it; and it's good to remember that is going to be 100% of us in time; you too -- will all, every last one, awake from that sleep.

God will awaken all who have died.

Is that clear? I don't want to be accidentally unclear.

Not relevant.

If you are going to use some selected verses in the Bible as true, then you are putting all the Bible on the table....

All the rest.

Nope. Not here on this thread.

If you say "look God commanded the slaughter of women and infants in the Bible"...

You forgot to mention rape.

...then since you are using the Bible as if these verses are true, then immediately it follows from the Bible that also death is only sleep, because God awakens all who die to face an accounting.

This stoic approach falls flat in reality. I don't think there are many Christian parents who rejoice when their child dies because they believe the child is with Jesus. In most cases, reality sobers you up pretty quickly and hits harder than your indoctrination can handle.

If you want to take this approach, let me be clear: I will only respect you if you sell all that you have, give the money to the poor, and wander the world doing good works and preaching the gospel. Have you done this? Are you using your home computer or a library computer to communicate with me? If you haven't done this, why not?

And we're getting off topic. Again.

The innocent and forgiven to eternal life,

No one is innocent though. At least I thought so. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, right?

unrepentant wrong doers to the lake of fire for the 'second death'.

OK. But why is rape wrong?

Killing is "wrong" in the Bible only contextually. It depends on who is being killed by whom. Right? Rape is the same thing in the Bible. It depends on who is being raped by whom. In some circumstances, it's perfectly fine, and it's not outright condemned. Why? What's God's rationale there?

 

[Moral Orel]

I didn't even know Aslan had a long lost brother. I don't read a lot of fiction. Hardly any, really.

Just the Bible... OOOOHHH!!! *rimshot*

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Just the Bible... OOOOHHH!!! *rimshot*

Sorry. I couldn't resist.

Ok. I'll let that one roll..................me on the floor!