The God Of Sex

You are making this personal. Please stop or there will be suspensions.

Phat, I really did want to know what you consider to be an "eye opener" about this book. I'm familiar with Peter Jones, have a lot of his books, including this one though I haven't read it because it is still in storage after moving last Fall.I suspect it isn't much about Old Testament law as others on the thread are claiming, but I really don't know. I read the part of it you linked but didn't really get much out of it, should probably read it again though you could spare me by just telling me what you get out of it.By the way, it is not right for a Christian to call Christians "homophobic." That is Political Correctness, in other words a term from Cultural Marxism designed for character assassination and otherwise meaningless. Homosexual acts are sin according to the Bible so if we obey God we don't treat them as normal sexual options, but that doesn't deserve the ridiculous epithet "homophobia." In iother words, it's a species of sin, and since we are all sinners in one way or another it certainly does not justify any kind of mistreatment of homosexuals as people.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The discussion about rape in the OT is just the usual attempt to malign Christian belief, lacking all sense of cultural context etc., and I didn't take it seriously enough to check out the references. But afterward I did go look up some of the references to rape in the Bible and see that I got some facts wrong: if the woman is raped in the CITY she's expected to cry out because she could be heard there, but in the country nobody could hear her. In that case the man is punished for raping her but I didn't find out how the facts were established. I should just not answer these accusations at all I guess.Here's a reference though I haven't read it thoroughly.
What does the Bible say about rape? | GotQuestions.orgEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

That's some rather twisted thinking that belies the realities of rape. There's no good reason to assume a woman could be heard in the city -- e.g., say she's sexually assaulted at a party with loud music -- any more than in the countryside. Not that I would expect the OT to capture the reality of rape very well, given its disturbingly patriarchal origins.

We're talking ancient Israel here, not a modern city. Not much likelihood of a party with loud music. Given the culture of the times there is a lot of focus on justice for the rape victim.And the context is that she'd more likely be heard where there are lots of people around than in the country where there aren't. Given no loud music.And no woman would be alone at a party in ancient Israel anyway.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not at all. The focus is on "justice" for the man who "possesses" the rape victim as his property (e.g., a father or a husband), given that -- under the patriarchal system delineated by much of the OT -- women were viewed as property. Non-consensual sex with a woman was thus hardly seen as an injustice against her, but rather as an injustice against another man. That's why a woman who still lived in her father's home and had consensual sex with other men was to be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:13-21): she has done an "outrageous thing" by violating her father's honor. Like you said in an earlier post, context matters -- and, in this case, the context is a viciously patriarchal society which is bolstered by the laws of the OT.Not a good model for justice today, and it wasn't a good model for justice ever.

That's quite irrelevant.

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Given the culture of the times there is a lot of focus on justice for the rape victim.

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Really ? That doesn’t sound like a focus on justice for the victim at all.

To hell with mute rape victims, I guess.‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal." - Leviticus 20:15"Hey, now wait just a minute!" - Billy Goat

Considering the patriarchal nature of the society, the raped woman is given quite a bit of protection and justice. Not in a way a modern person would like, but in terms of her situation within that culture. For instance we abhor the idea that her rapist has to marry her, which is the judgment in the case of the rape of a virgin who is not betrothed, but it provides her with support and protection for the rest of her life, whereas sending her back to her parents would leave her as a despised woman open to all kinds of abuse by others. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

it's simply a matter of being able to prove it was rape and not adultery. It helps to have proof you know.

what makes you think that a man who values a woman so little that he would rape her would then turn around and support and protect her just cause he was forced to marry her? Rapists aren't husband material, they're rapists.

It was the law, probably enforced by the community too, and even if she was mistreated it was better than being a defiled single woman in that patriarchal society since no one else would marry her and often even her parents would reject her. But there is no particular reason to think she was mistreated in the marriage. As a matter of fact there are two famous rapes in the Old Testament described as motivated by passionate love of the woman: the rape of Jacob's daughter Dinah, by a man who wanted to marry her; and the rape of David's daughter Tamar by her half-brother Amnon, whose love turned to hatred afterward so she was not rescued from her defiled condition and went to live with another brother.Applying our current views of these things to that ancient culture just doesn't work.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The laws we're talking about do seem to have the woman's welfare in mind within those patriarchal parameters. If she was betrothed the rapist would be stoned to death and it was expected that her betrothed husband would marry her, there is no hint that he wouldn't. And if she was not betrothed the rapist would be required to marry her and take care of her. Nobody is arguing that men owning women is a model for justice, it is the cultural context in which justice is being sought and within that context the law aims to provide for her what the society would take away from her if she was raped, that is, the protection of a man and the acceptable status of marriage. Those rules wouldn't apply today but the principle of providing protection and justice for the woman is there and that's the part that holds over to the present.

Don't rape women was also a law, if he broke that one what makes you think he won't break another? yeah because a rapists are well known for treating women with respect.