| pearljammer said: I really do hate getting involved in debates about religions, but I'm genuinely curious about something. In the case where God had punished this particular man by allowing his neighbour to have his way with his wife, does God pretty much strip the (apparently?) innocent woman of her free will and has her raped by another man? I'm unsure how anyone could accept that simply as chaulking it up to context? Fighting barbarism with barbarism. It's a rather ineffective and primitive line of thinking if your goal is to change behaviour. Even if I'd believed that God existed, this'd be something far too ridiculous for me to think that a benevolent being had decided. My intention isn't to come off as confrontational, just curious if what I had based my judgments on are accurate or not. The rest are just my thoughts based on my interpretation of what I'd read, there's no need to feel compelled to respond to it. |
Ok, let's look at cultural context and so on. Understand the time period the text was written, and to whom. Take 20th century sensibilities and apply them on there. People wouldn't respond, and women wouldn't get any sense of liberation then at all. It just wouldn't happen.
Secondarily, you are very likely modern and western in your thinking, and you think in terms of people as individual agents and likely operate under the concept of rights, and think of personal freedom. Well, that is just one mindset. There is also a tribal mindset to, where people are judged by who they belong with, and everything is by group identity. This is the mindset seen in the Old Testament, and things would seem to be barbaric to people now was how people thought then. Now, the question is whether or not a tribal thinking is wrong. Is it more wrong than people not thinking of themselves as belonging to any particularly group, and deciding they need to relate to others. In that set, who cares for the least of those in a group?
Beyond here, look at how things actually work. Individuals do things, but nations tend to rise and fall as entities, not as individuals. Communities suffere collectively, and you see families bear similar attributes and have similar values, and they all go through the same... just because they are members of the group.
