Atheist Devotional Reflections on תּוֹרַת יְהוָה – Pre-Marital Sex

In the previous ethical reflection on Pentateuchal legislation, I pointed out the inadmissibility of indirect evidence in biblical jurisprudence. In both testaments it was shown that direct evidence in the form of witnesses is required to indict a man of an accusation. I mention "man" in this previous sentence not to be sexist but rather because there are exceptions when a woman cannot invoke the need for witnesses to protect herself from punishment for promiscuity. One of these cases already covered relates to the "spirit of jealousy" and a trial by ordeal prescribed in Numbers 5 in which the accused wife is made to drink a potentially lethal or sterilizing solution to "determine" her innocence. The man who is suspected of being her accomplice is not required to submit to any trials by ordeal, and, unless there are witnesses to adultery, he gets away without consequence. The next case is prescribed in the following:

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a virgin: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth [the tokens of] the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel's father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech [against her], saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these [are the tokens of] my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him; And they shall amerce him in an hundred [shekels] of silver, and give [them] unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. But if this thing be true, [and the tokens of] virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).

Tokens of Virginity

In case the reader is not familiar with this term, "tokens of virginity" (בְּתוּלִים, plural for virginity) refers to the custom of keeping a stained garment or sheet from the deflowering of a virginal bride. This sheet becomes an acknowledgement that the virgin bride's hymen was intact until the wedding night and hence is deemed an evidence of the bride's virginity. This passage presumes this practice which is otherwise not directly prescribed in the Pentateuch.

The quality of this evidence must be openly questioned. The hymen is a poor attestation to the virginity of a woman. The hymen does not always create a full obstruction and may even remain intact after years of intercourse. Additionally, the hymen will often break or tear from non-sexually related activities. Hence, the hymen is not a reliable barometer of sexual activity. Unfortunate for the Israelite bride, her life may depend on the integrity of her hymen—a membrane which she may have no control over. The admissibility of the "tokens of virginity" in this case represents a break from the general Pentateuchal requirement for direct witnesses and places many a potentially innocent bride at risk with no risk to any potential male accomplice.

The Elders..Shall Chastise Him

This passage does prescribe a punishment for the husband who wrongfully accuses his wife of pre-marital unchastely behavior. He is required to pay off a monetary fine and he is required to maintain his wife without the possibility of divorce. Though, honestly, divorce at this point seems a mercy to the wife, it allowed for her financial security in a patriarchal society where men owned property and the means of production.

Stone Her with Stones

If the "tokens of virginity" cannot be produced to absolve the bride of guilt, she is punished with loss of life. There are a number of telling descriptions here. Christians generally accept that pre-marital sex is forbidden in the Bible. Though they are partially correct in assuming this, few would be willing to accept the biblical qualifications for why the act is evil. This text plainly states that her fault is in bringing shame to her "father's house." Hence, the woman's action is not a violation of personal dignity or value as it is seen today in post-feminist cultures; rather, it is defined by the impact that it has on male or patriarchal prestige. In reference to this passage and others, Brueggemann (2002) states,

…the way in which the laws in Deuteronomy 20:14, 22:13-20, and 24:1-5 "construct" sexual roles of man and woman … are profoundly sexist. While evidences of partnership exist, for the most part the laws articulate the woman as the property of the man, certainly subordinate and without equal entitlement. The prohibition against coveting (Exod. 20:17, Deut. 5:21) thus parallels "wife" to "field," indicating the two prize possessions that are to be honored and respected as the man's possession (p. 192).

In the same vein, it is worth noting that Pentateuchal adultery is qualified by the marital status of the woman, not the man. Brueggeman (2002) notes,

Indeed, adultery committed by a man is not adultery if with an unmarried woman. The act is only adultery if it is committed with the wife of another man, whereby the affront is fundamentally against the husband of the woman… (p. 193).

The Pentateuch is hardly sexually egalitarian. It prescribes one set of standards, albeit both risky and strict, for the woman and then does not apply the same to the man. The married man is able to have sexual relations with any unmarried woman. The married woman must remain exclusive as the property of her one husband. The married woman can be accused at any time of infidelity and punished without direct evidence. The man can only be punished with direct witnesses to his misconduct.

I realize that most Christians distance themselves form the "old Jewish law" and now look to the "law of Christ" as their guide. They are often willing to accept the fact that the Old-Testament God is cruel and sexist, but the Jesus of the Gospel is merciful and egalitarian. I do not buy into this paradigm. If the Paul of the New Testament can declare, "…the law [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good" (Romans 7:12), then truly Paul would not have accepted such a frame of God as bipolar or schizoid. The God of the Old Testament is the theologically the God of the New Testament. I know that Jews and Christians do not apply Deuteronomy 22:13-21 in their congregations, but I ask biblical theists to consider the ethics of a God who is partial against the plight of the woman. The atheist is morally free from the regressive implications of this passage, where the theist is forced to ignore the same.

Sound Off 02-22-09

Today's Question:

Which of the contributors or readers of this blog do you identify with the most?

Sound Off 02-21-09

Calling all Bible Scholars!

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has a Bible quiz. If you get time this weekend, I'd ask you to take a couple of minutes to answer their 50 question. Here's the link:

http://ffrf.org/quiz/bquiz.php. I scored 38 (not bad for an ex-Catholic, right?).

How'd you score? And, how jaded or out-of-context do you feel the correct answers were?

Atheist Devotional Reflections on תּוֹרַת יְהוָה – Law of Witnesses

Pentateuchal jurisprudence is characterized by the inadmissibility of indirect or circumstantial evidence. That is, only direct evidence is permitted in legal matters, and this direct evidence is always in the form of two or more witnesses. Notice Deuteronomy 19:15:

One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth; at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall a matter be established.

Clearly, punitive means can only be implemented in the presence direct evidence in the form of witnesses. Hence, any of the sins in the Pentateuch for which there are prescribed community punishments (e.g., Sabbath breaking, adultery, rape, murder, anal intercourse between men, etc.) can only acted against in the event that there are witnesses. Hence, if a murder is committed, the guilty party can only be punished by execution if she was seen committing the murder. If she is found with a "smoking gun" seconds after the crime, such evidence is inadmissible in a Pentateuchal court as indirect and circumstantial.

Rabbinic jurisprudence, building upon the inadmissibility of indirect evidence and the requirement for witnesses, develops extreme case laws as illustrations. In one Talmudic case, a murder is committed with a projectile weapon inside of a house. The supposed guilty party and the victim are in the house, and there are two people outside on opposite sides of the house. One of the outside people observes through a window the supposed murderer trigger the weapon in the direction of the victim. The other outside person observes the victim fall over and die after being impacted by the projectile. Neither observer sees the entire act with the guilty person triggering the weapon and the victim dying. The rabbis ubiquitously rule in this case that the supposed guilty party cannot be tried for murder because both her action and the death of the victim were not witnessed by two witnesses. This is an example of the developments of biblical jurisprudence.

As the scientific understanding of the human psyche has improved, it is well understood that events witnessed while under stress or while experiencing anxiety are quite unreliable. How often is a crime witnessed (e.g., hit-and-run accident) after which the observers' stories exhibit irreconcilable incongruence and extreme malleability? Modern courts now admit indirect evidence such as DNA, credit-card histories, Internet history, etc. to indict a criminal. Pentateuchal and deutero-Pauline jurisprudence (see I Timothy 5:19) do not allow such evidence under theocratic rule.

I recall discussing this with a Messianic lady while I was in the Messianic community while on a walk. For whatever reason, we were discussing rape and the biblical punishment for rape. I brought up the fact that a rape, in biblical law, would require two or more witnesses in order to be punishable. She objected to this requirement from every possible angle. What if there was DNA evidence to indict the guilty? What if the woman testified against the guilty as a sole witness? What if the guilty told someone about it after the fact? In every case this lady's sense of justice cried out against the limited horizons of biblical jurisprudence, finding justice only in a system that would allow indirect evidence and the testimony of one witness. This leads me to the next observation.

In my ongoing account of Pentateuchal ethical blunders, it will be noted that there are three instances in the Bible where non-witnessed based, indirect evidence is admitted to indict a "guilty" party. In all three instances it relates to female promiscuity with the same "evidence" having no relevance to the man. I find it ironic that the Israelites found loop-holes in the need for direct evidence and allowed indirect evidence in situations that relate to male control over female sexuality. I have already addressed one of these ethical blunders in my post on Numbers 5. Many biblical theists are not aware of this the biblical need for direct witnesses in order to indict the guilty. How odd, in my observations, that so many Christians are in support of the biblical death penalty but are unwilling to apply the biblical requirements for witnesses?

The biblical law of witnesses is another example of where biblical ethics are regressive and exhibit limited horizons. This is an example of where freedom from scriptures releases society into higher levels of justice and greater ethical accountability.

Sound Off 02-20-09

The Darwin quiz was set up in the format of the game "Two-Truths, One-Lie" with two non-Darwin quotes and one Darwin quote. On a more personal note, we thought it would be fun to play a bit of "Two Truths." So, post three items about yourself. Write two true statements and one untrue. Hint: Mix up the order of your statements.

Today's Challenge:
Two Truths, One Lie

Everything I Ever Needed to Know About God I Learned From Watching "Stargate SG-1"

[The following is re-posted from my old blog at Scriptulicious's request]

Some people just don't get science fiction. They believe sci-fi is escapism for nerds, and they prefer stories that portray "real" characters in "real" conflicts arising from "real" situations. Personally, I love sci-fi, and believe that the majority of science fiction does deal with what's "real". The only difference is sci-fi treats "real" life in an allegorical way. Real issues of the here and now may be projected into a futuristic setting, but they are no less real. Take, for example, one of my all-time favorite sci-fi series: Stargate SG-1.

SG-1 is the story of a top-secret detachment of U.S. Air Force personnel who travel the galaxy through a network of interconnected stargates. These stargates allow instantaneous travel from one point in the galaxy to another by creating a "sub-space wormhole" between two gates. They were created by an ancient race of humans whom we now refer to as The Ancients. The members of SG-1 use the gate system to explore the galaxy, procure alien technologies, and combat the alien enemies of the earth.

The most piquant feature of earth's alien enemies is that they are in the habit of posing as gods. So, you could say that SG-1's prime directive is to protect the earth from false gods. While the false gods of the SG-1 universe included typical pagan deities such as Ra, Athena, Amaterasu, Yu Huang, Ba'al, etc., I propose that, since all gods are false gods, the lessons of SG-1 can be applied to any human religion. Here are some of those lessons:

Miracles Have a Scientific Explanation. Well, at least a science-fictional explanation. I grant you that SG-1, or any other science fiction story for that matter, tends to give some outlandish explanations for improbable things and events. Their scanners will often pick up "strange energy readings" or "an exotic form of radiation"; their laptop computers can interface Windows XP with completely alien operating systems; and, most curiously, the English language evolved identically on hundreds of different planets.

But the point is well taken: there is no magic, there are no miracles. However strange or improbable something might seem, it has a rational explanation. And, given a proper understanding of the scientific principles behind that improbable something, anyone can duplicate its effects. The SG-1 series starts out, in season 1, at a level of technology equal to modern day America. Ten seasons later, after a gradual accumulation of alien science and technology, we earthlings had garnered such miraculous abilities as intergalactic travel, teleportation "beams", force fields, cloaking devices, etc.

A Real God Would Not Concern Himself With Human Affairs. Even heaven is explainable rationally. The Ancients, the race who created the stargates, are conspicuously absent from the SG-1 universe. They were so technologically advanced that they were able to find a way to shed their mortal bodies and exist as energy in another plain of reality. This is a process known as "ascension".

While ascension provided the Ancients with eternal life and extraordinary powers, they followed a strict non-intervention policy with regards to the affairs of us mortals. The key insight of the ascended ancients is that, if all-powerful and all-knowing beings were to meddle in the affairs of ordinary humans, then they would necessarily rob us humans of any freedom to choose our own path. Robbing someone of their free will is immoral, a lesson that Yahweh, Allah, and Jesus seem impervious to.

God Does Not Care About Your Salvation. If ascension is the SG-1 equivalent to heaven, the Ancients, by dint of their no-meddling policy, had no intention of sharing ascension technology with us mortals. But the Ancients are not the only ascended beings in the galaxy. The Ori are another race of ascended beings (read "false gods") in the SG-1 menagerie. Unlike their Ancient cousins, the Ori rather enjoy meddling in human affairs and, what's more, have found a way to augment their power by feeding off the "strange energy" created by human worshippers. So, in order to increase the number of their worshippers, the Ori created a "bible" called The Book of Origin.

The Book of Origin is a collection of charming stories and moral wisdom that promises ascension (heaven) to anyone who follows the Ori religion. This, by the way, is an example of how religion piggybacks our notions of beauty and goodness. By this I mean that art and morality are human creations; but, throughout history, religion has usurped their authorship. Religion attempts to make us believe that god is the source of truth, of goodness, and of beauty.

However, in the hands of a god, truth and beauty have an evil underbelly: they are used as tools to awe and impress and, finally, subjugate humanity. The believer must proselytize her beliefs. If rational non-believers refuse to be proselytized, they are considered enemies of god and must be dealt with severely.

The followers of the Ori crusaded against the heathens in our galaxy. They used superior technology to instill fear and The Book of Origin to instill awe. They murdered those who refused to believe in the Ori as true gods. But the fate of the believer was almost as bad. The Ori had no intentions of ascending their followers.

God Is a Parasite. Not only are false gods not interested in sharing their power with mortals, but belief in god doesn't even benefit humanity. Here we have the most important insight of the SG-1 series: gods are parasites. Besides the Ori, another alien race posing as gods are the Goa'uld. The Goa'uld are a race of intelligent parasites, little snake-like creatures that attach themselves to the base of the brain of a human host and control the host's actions. The idea that a parasite can control the behavior of its host is not a fiction, it actually occurs in nature by means of what's called an extended phenotype.

In his book, The Extended Phenotype, Richard Dawkins shows how an organism's genes can effect not just the organism itself, but the organism's environment as well. We can clearly see this when we look at a beaver dam or a spider's web. But since the environment of a parasite is its host, the parasite's extended phenotype often manifests itself as behavioral changes in its host.

Take, for example the nematomorpha, or horsehair worm. They live in the water as adults, but their larvae must incubate inside the body of a cricket. Once the larva matures, the cricket is driven to drown itself in the nearest body of water where the horsehair worm wriggles out of its host and into its new environment.

Like the Goa'uld, the gods themselves -- or at least the concept of gods -- are like parasites infesting the brains of human hosts and changing their behavior. The beneficiary of this behavioral change is not the host, but the parasite. Like a cricket driven to suicide, the host of a religious belief is driven to deleterious behavior. In the best of circumstances, the host merely wastes time and energy talking to an invisible man, donating hard-earned money to the church, and trolling the internet. But in the worst case scenario, the parasite can drive the host to the ugliest of atrocities: bombing abortion clinics, crusades and jihad, suicide bombings, 9/11.

~Philosobot

Sound Off 02-19-09

The Disevangelists have made a quiz. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and take your best shot. There are 10 "challenges"; each challenge contains one quote from Charles Darwin and two quotes from other people; correctly identify the Darwin quote in each challenge.

Use today's Sound Off to let us know how you scored (I only got 80%) and to give of us feedback.

Credit goes to Scriptulicious for compiling the quiz.

~Philo