Biblical Standards of Consent

General Chat
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This was about whether she would leave immediately, not about whether or not she would leave, but even if it were, this situation is compatible with either positive consent or negative consent interpretations. It’s also worth noting that it’s compatible with no consent at all being required. The problem with using an instance where positive consent is given as an example, is that the only models it would disprove are models that say you can only marry people you do not agree to marry, which would be a rather odd view to say the least

Of course, there’s also the disanalogy that this is about marriage, not intercourse, but it’s probably fair to assume similar rules would apply in the absence of reason to assume otherwise

In the Philemon case, it’s Paul requesting Philemon send Onesimus to minister to him in prison, which is a completely different context. Are you thinking my position is that no situation whatsoever ever requires positive consent? Because I’m only making the claim as regards acts of passion with another

Insults the reader…

and then proceeds to say stuff everyone knows

It does not follow from two cultures being different that a given think from one will not transfer to the other

That’s about engaging in idolatry. I did notice that word in reference to Rebecca, so if you’re right on the definition, it would establish there was positive consent in that situation. But it still wouldn’t generalize, and even if it did it wouldn’t affect the original claim

Something being common does not imply everything similar is false. It could be common because the truth is in that ballpark

The word of the LORD came to me: "What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge’? As I live, declares the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.

"If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of menstrual impurity, does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord GOD.

"If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things (though he himself did none of these things), who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself. "Now suppose this man fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewise: he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, does not oppress anyone, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no interest or profit, obeys my rules, and walks in my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity.

"Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

"But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die.

"Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just? When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die. Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

“Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.”

— Ezekiel 18 (ESV)

‘The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now."

Numbers 14:18-19 (ESV)

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God?

Joel 2:12-14 (ESV)

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

Micah 7:18-20 (ESV)

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:22-24 (ESV)

And he prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

Jonah 4:2 (ESV)

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the LORD, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds.’ "But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

"Therefore thus says the LORD: Ask among the nations, Who has heard the like of this? The virgin Israel has done a very horrible thing.

Jeremiah 18:7-13 (ESV)

That’s why you consult multiple translations and stay aware of translator biases like calling it “repentance” when humans change their mind, but “relenting” when Yahweh changes His mind. Compare with the LXX and DSS, which is what translators do. I think there are some places they should look to the LXX more, such as the numbers in Genesis 5 and 11. None of this is remotely a justification for dismissing it

What I’m quoting is included by all remotely significant Christian groups today. Whether or not it’s a limit to canon (whether you take the canon to be larger, or simply a fuzzier thing than many protestants treat it as) has no bearing on discussions not appealing to books outside of it

That’s exactly what happened. Prophets and miracles like there’s no tomorrow, but they would not listen

What miracles did Joseph Smith perform? What prophecies did he fulfill? What was the Egyptian tablet he claimed to have deciphered actually about? (unless there’s some John Smith I’m unfamiliar with, I assume you’re referring to Joseph Smith)

I am not arguing for applying Israel’s laws. I am arguing for drawing out principles from them for application today, which may or may not manifest as implementing analagous laws today

If you want to argue what I’m doing is wrong, then we can’t outlaw murder, because ancient Israel outlawed murder. You need to evaluate each law individually for application

So fallen angels laughing at God is good evidence against Yahweh now?

As you know, Israel never even conquered all the land that was promised them, because they could hardly strap their sandals without prostituting themselves to other gods (there’s a hilarious line in Ezekiel 16:31-33 where Yahweh points out that there’s one difference between Israel and a whore: a whore gets paid instead of doing the paying!). So Yahweh changed His plans and grafted in the gentiles to carry out His plan of blessing all nations

Seriously? The Tanakh is one big compilation of Yahweh trying everything He could for His vineyard, but Israel rejecting Him over and over again (with some good spots in between). He only sends other nations to deport them when all else fails, after hundreds of years of trying and trying and trying. And what was promised Israel was not the whole world. But we never got to see the original next step of the plan, because Israel couldn’t get its act together long enough to complete step one

Points 1a, 1b, and 2b I agree with, more or less. Which is why we should use our God-given faculties to interpret and build on the Scriptures, not contradict them

You’re assuming He chose them for their great faith, rather than because of His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Unless you’re talking about God choosing those three, but they did stay faithful (more or less)

Why Abram instead of, say, Shelah, is one of the most important choices God made in history? What gives you the impression it was that deep? You’re attributing an awful lot of importance to the reason something was one way and not another for seemingly no other reason than that there doesn’t appear to be a clear answer

Yeah, He tried more frequent direct intervention for millennia, and it barely got off the ground until Christianity. Do you think he’s some definition of stupidity who will do the same thing forever even if it’s not working? He’s patient, not stupid

Those are different domains

no

That’s not the principle. If it were, you would also stone both if they were in the field, just to be certain. You’re normally much better at steelmanning than this

How do you know the woman in the field was telling the truth? She could have approached him and suggested such a laison

There are similar scenarios covered in regards to theft, it’s a different domain with different laws

Yes, that’s a fair description of the view of positive consent popular in today’s culture

So tldr, you don’t like it?

I don’t like all the implications, but you can’t dismiss something just because you don’t like it

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This is true, but it is also a fact that humanity eventually moved on from the “smiting type deity” so either the deities changed or what humans found impressive and likely in the divine or both.

On this, a clarification, I didn’t claim that God was like that all the time in OT, but those where characteristics that were exhibited very often, in stark contrast with the NT, where Jesus doesn’t seem to possess those kinds of behaviours in any noticable way.

I should like to also note that in the Christian Orthodox church, the OT is not used in the leturgical part in its entirety (I think 4 books are used entirely, some books appear in part and most of them are ignored), and it is the New Testament that is first and foremost in terms of what defines the leturgy, faith and what is read within the mysteries that the church holds.

In that regard most people here, me included, do not have much knowledge of the OT, other than the books used in church and any potential additional knowledge gained via school. Most of us do not care about the OT, at all, and it is there for “historical reasons”.

No, but it is a reason to be very wary of what you can consider “the word of God”. Within two thousand years (in the case of the NT) and three thousand years time (for the OT) there is plenty of leeway for honest mistakes and quite a few dishonest additions.

You are correct, it was my mistake. :slight_smile:

According to him, quite a few. But in reality, probably none. :sweat_smile:

I see what you mean now. Certainly adding an extra point of reference in an ethical judgement doesn’t hurt, but I am not sure if there is any useful relevance now, which would justify the time spent on such an endeavor.

For example, we are talking about the laws of an ancient culture that had:
a) an agrarian lifestyle
b) Small populations.
c) No interconnection and communication technology
d) No modern police or any forensic science
e) No advanced due process of examination, imprisonment or investigation

Sure, it might be interesting to look into what ancient people thought about crimes and justice, but is it useful, considering the vast difference of our societies, especially on the legal, scientific and organisational/governance level?

I am not sure what you mean by that, but in my case it was a joke on how the Chinese were - even back then - incredibly more numerous in comparison to the populations around the mediterranean.

I wouldn’t personally mind that, but any scriptural expansion has two issues:
a) By definition deviates from the “God given revelation”, since it is called to interpret and expand it and
b) opens the door to everyone doing that. Why is your interpretation better than someone elses and why shouldn’t they have their own?

So, even if done with care and knowledge it probably leads to most people would call a “herecy” or if done by everyone it leads to a mess where each “two bit biblical studies interpreter” has their own flock and parish (I think that happens a lot in some denominations - especially in Baptists, if I recall correctly).

Therefore it sounds like a good idea theoretically, but practically it is just leading down to a couple of troublesome results.

Yeah, that’s what the school teacher told me… :sweat_smile:
but really though, if we take the “spreading the word/blessing through the nations” goal, then wouldn’t it make sense for God to pick the most suitable/pious people? :thinking: Why would God (all-powerful and all-knowing, according to out theology) self-sabotage that goal and pick people that “couldn’t get its act together long enough to complete step one”.

So, if not for the fulfilment of the divine plan, why else would God even pick favorites in the first place? And if God knew that it was a bad choice, why did God make it?

No, why Abraham instead of, say, someone called “Itlaxil the Aztec” or “Ma the Chinese” or “Tanaka the Japanese” or “Anaxandrosos the Greek” or “Julius the Roman” or “Sven the Viking” or “N’gombo the Zulu” or “Pakooma the Australian” and so forth.

Finding the reason why God chose these people and not others, is important to decipher.
Far more important a question than legal minutiae. On that decision hangs the entirety of the premise of whatever divine plan exists. Comparatively, almost nothing else matters theologically, even though we tend to hyper-focus on everything around the “salvation of the individual” due to our self-interest.

Eh, I find it hard to believe that an all-powerful and all-knowing deity somehow decided to go mute right after His Son came to earth and brought us - according to our theology - salvation.

Incidentally, most other Gods of the time, seem to have gone silent too, around the same era. One of my favorite authors of all time, Lucian of Samosata (120 AD - after180 AD), has some scathing remarks in his texts on that.
All those cosmogonical clashes of power, the meddling and appearance of deities in the lives and battles of mortals, all progressively stopped once things like writing came about.

Have you noticed how the “Greek Gods” went from all-powerful and all-meddlesome in the pre-writing era of epics and tales to the “oh, well, why bother?” kind of Gods, in the era of writing?

Once a society advances and there is need for proof and writing and the whole thing to make sense, somehow Gods - and especially their powers - seem to vanish. I wonder why… :wink:

It seems that after a certain point in history, in most cases the divine powers are something that most believers are called to remember via tales, but never get to witness themselves.

I had to google “steelmanning” I didn’t know what it was. :slight_smile:
In any case, my point is that in one of the two cases, both perpetrators are considered equal partners in crime and thus get equal punishment, without any nuance.

Nuance like:
a) Tricking the other person in getting out of town (your husband called me, he wants you in the field to help him out)
b) Cajoling/convincing the other person in getting out of town (come with me and I will help out your husband or pay the debts of your father)
c) Threatening the other person in getting out of town (come with me or I’ll have my servants destroy your field and you and yours will starve in the winter)
etc

There is really a wide array of things and tricks which would add nuance in favour or against each of the participants because, indeed, as you point out right after, someone can lie about them too, in order to get a lighter sentence.

The system, in that particular case, does away with all those problems, without examining them, and just “stones them both”. This is not the kind of ethics and justice we (want to) have today. It is maybe the best they could do at the time, considering the era, society and technology available, and I am not judging them for the solutions they came up with, but I cannot refrain from pointing out that on an ethical basis it is not anything to write home at, in regards on what we can do in modern times.

Ethics, by the way, is something that eventually gets applied to everything. It is the overarching reasoning that “governs” the laws so…

…while you inform us that stealing is covered by an other law, the concept of applying that set of ethics in the stealing example and coming up with something distasteful, is still leading to valid questions like:
a) Why does stealing get a different set of laws, ethics and ideas?
b) Why doesn’t this case count as stealing, but instead of a thing of value what is stolen, it is a person or attribute of value.
c) Are the laws for stealing more lenient or more cruel? So, the law practically gets to define whether chastity and fidelity are worth more compared to physical/valuable items and if so, at which point does the penalty of stealing outweigh or equals the penalty of infidelity?
d) Are the ethics that govern the laws of stealing better than the ones that govern the laws of potential adultery, if not then maybe those ethics should be re-examined and the ones that are decided to be the best should apply to both cases or to more laws?
and so forth…

… These are not simple issues and questions. Once there is some severy ethical or reasonable pitfall within a law making instance, then this opens the pandora’s box to whether this issue exists in other laws or if the solutions provided by other laws that do not share this issue, should govern this issue as well.

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If we grant that He picked Abraham Isaac and Jacob, then He didn’t know at the time that He picked them and their descendants that their descendants would turn out to be so bad (Isaiah 5:1-2ff). Classical theology interprets “all-knowing” in an extreme sense of knowing every event which ever has or ever will happen, but that’s not what the Bible says

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; and he looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

Isaiah 5:1-2

The argument that He did not send revelation to any other groups is one from silence, and a doubtful one at that since Yahweh influencing nearby nations is mentioned on occasion

It doesn’t in the field

Your points are feeling increasingly in bad faith. What would be the point of a revelation that could just be derived from first principles?

This is sounding more and more like you just want to argue for the most wooden possible exegetical principles so you have an easier piñata to argue against

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If we were to do away with that characteristic, then I will agree that some pretty serious issues are solved. Others - not belonging in this topic -, however, rise to take their place.

I won’t argue with that, however the question remains.
Why not a revelation elsewhere?
Why not multiple revelations in each continent?
Why not revelations in each nation?

Those are mostly questions that I’ve had since I was at school. I understand that the written form might give my musings some stubborn or even taciturn quality, but those are questions that I’ve always honestly discussed, explored and liked to have an answer to.

I do understand that a lot of people are not very keen on those issues and might think that religion or theology should maybe have a different focus, but if you’ve ever tried to paint a painting you might know that most techniques apply a wide-brush foundation and then you turn into the details of the matters and what you want to paint.

For me, ignoring the big questions, is like people that like to ignore the existence of the painting and focusing on some detail under a magnifying glass.

Carl Sagan lamented on why children eventually turn away from the fundamental questions of science like “why is the grass green?”, “why is there air?”, “where do clouds come from?”… maybe boring, contrived questions for adults, but all important and basic in terms of understanding nature and science.

Theologically those are my “why is the grass green?” questions.
Why there? Why then? Why not elsewhere? Why not more people? What happens to the people that didn’t receive the gospel for centuries or thousands of years? What happens to us that did recieve it? Is it a blessing or did it just add extra requirements for us to go to Haven? Why does the NT ommit the answer that Jesus gave to Pilate when he asked “what is the Truth?”? and so forth…

I do not see what is “wooden” about real problems that have arisen from such practices.

Are 45.000 different denominations not enough? :thinking:
Wouldn’t it be really funny if some fringe denomination of a few hundred people turned out to be the most correct one?

I do not discuss to “kill my time”. I do not have any spare time to kill and I do not care whether a discussion is “easy or not”, but whether it is interesting or not. For me, those questions are interesting and thus time spend re-thinking and re-formulating them in words, is time well spent.

Maybe you find my questions boring or contrived, in which case I apologise and I will leave them at that. :slight_smile:

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That figure is based on a method of counting which does not align with what anyone associates the word “denomination” with

Yes, it would be funny, and not inconceivable. But as Yahweh is merciful and quick to forgive, the rest of us would not be thrown out of the kingdom for not getting Summa Cum Laude on the theology test

I am referring primarily to your trying to argue that deriving things from Scripture is somehow blasphemous

Wanting an answer does not entail you should rationally expect one, at least in this life. And what you refer to as “big questions” are not the forest, but the trees. There are other Christians interested in such discussions, but until you respond to the actual big question and join the kingdom of God, it is you who is missing the forest for the trees

The existence of questions proves what, exactly? that you’re not strongly omniscient?

We’re only “doing away with” what was never supposed to be there in the first place. The “problems” of Open Theism are not Biblical, they’re Platonistic and Gnostic

Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he observed that the city was full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What could this scavenger of tidbits want to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.” (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’ Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.”

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We shall hear from you again concerning this.” So Paul went out from among them. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Acts 17:16-34 (NASB2020)

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Even if we were to reduce this to a few hundred ones, they are still too many.

It can be, if you get it wrong.
All those denominations cannot be correct at the same time, so, at best, there is one denomination that is “more correct than the others” while the rest are less correct than that denomination.
At worst, most of them are off the mark and the quest for Truth has given birth to a sea of lies. We happen to live in a quite civilised era, but a few centuries earlier, a lot of bloody wars could have been derived by just one such deviation going to far and getting branded as a heresy.

An added issue is that you could be trying to derive “divine guidance” from the parts of the Scripture that are not part of any direct divine guidance. (yes, yes, I know that most denominations, the Orthodox church included, accepts that the whole of the Bible is a “divine revelation”, but that is what is expected of any religion to claim. In reality, there are parts where quite mortal hands have put their words in it).

Are those not real issues?

What is the “actual big question” that you talking about here?

Oh, that is to be expected, but I am not a deity.
The problem is that it seems to indicate that either God is neither omniscient nor fair or we have no idea what God’s plan really is. Both prospects are worrying.

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Oh, got it. Thanks for clarifying! I did take your comment to mean that you were rejecting the idea of positive consent in relationships altogether, so I appreciate the correction.

I guess I’m still confused about what’s motivating your perspective. Is it something grounded in your church tradition, a particular pastor or teaching, or more your personal interpretation? The notions that “silence = consent” or that “autonomy kicks in only when someone protests” don’t really sound like mainstream Christian thought, even in fairly conservative circles. (Totally open to being wrong here, so please tell me if I’ve misunderstood.)

Even if the commentary I cited rubbed you the wrong way, the core idea—that biblical laws are often context-specific, culturally bounded, and fulfilled in Christ—was a pretty standard part of my education even at a conservative evangelical Bible college. What you’re describing feels kind of at odds with the biblical themes of human dignity, mutual desire, love, and respect (thinking of Genesis 1, Proverbs 31, Song of Songs, the epistles, “love your neighbor,” etc.). It just leaves me wondering if the framework you’re using might be coming from somewhere else and getting a biblical veneer only after the fact.

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Then become Eastern Orthodox if that’s an important issue for you

Yes, they’re reasons to take seriously the pursuit of truth. If they were reasons to not engage in interpretation and application of the Tanakh, then why did Jesus argue from David’s men eating the showbread? Our moral exemplar drew out application from narrative

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’

Matthew 22:1-4

I see in modern American society that the situation related to dating and marriage is horribly screwed up, and it all seemed to start going wrong after our society rejected the Biblical idea of marriage. So what could fix it? The Antifeminists et al? Their stronger polemic was valuable for jerking me out of my naivete, but eventually I came to the conclusion that while Antifeminism is more sympathetic in our gynocentric culture (which is slowly getting better, to be fair, in my estimation), it ultimately makes the same fundamental error feminism does of viewing the world as a fight between men and women rather than treating people as individuals. So obviously I needed some middle ground, and Christian Complementarianism provided that. And the final authority on that is not what is popular, but what the Bible teaches, which I hope to ever be on the path of more accurately understanding

Incidentally, if I were writing, without reference to or regard for the Bible, laws for how to deal with he said she said situations in cases of alleged sexual misconduct, I would write laws which favored the men more than the biblical standard. Specifically, I would write laws that in the absence of any proof concluded nothing untoward went on, with no special privileges given to women (or men, for that matter). The Biblical standard gives some degree of special privilege to women that men don’t get. That is not something I would write. But I think the Bible is teaching it, so I affirm it. This disconnect between what I affirm and what I would affirm sans the Bible gives me confidence that I’m taking it seriously and not just eisegeting existing beliefs

A lot of true things are unpopular, even within Christianity. Whether from fear of being called heretics by other Christians or sexists by the secular culture, or from carrying misconceptions unwittingly taken on by them, a great many false beliefs are extremely popular even within Christianity (I could give a whole list of things I affirmed from childhood until decades later, but which I eventually found out were false, taken on by me through a desire to be approbated by others rather than take the Bible seriously)

It’s very difficult to divorce my God-given conscience’s view on love and the like from my desire to fit in with the culture. So while in many areas I think the conscience is a stronger argument than many Christians give it credit for, I’m too skeptical of its reliability in this area. So I try to lean more heavily on the Bible in these areas

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Holy moly.

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I’m American, to clarify. If this were in Pakistan, I’d be saying the opposite, for example

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That’s a refreshingly honest admission. But you make Scripture sound like a limitation on your view rather than a corrective. If biblical law restrains male sexual initiative more than you’d naturally think to, that suggests it’s doing something intentional: restraining power, not enabling it.

Well, that helps me understand where you’re coming from. If you see a severe cultural breakdown, then it makes sense that you’d read Deuteronomy 22:23–27 as a kind of timeless sexual ethic rather than as more of a forensic legal presumption tailored to ancient evidentiary standards. I don’t read it the first way. I see it as a category mistake. That might explain our interpretive gap.

That concern is totally reasonable. Cultural drift is real, and it’s wise to be cautious. But I’d also say: a biblically formed conscience isn’t the enemy of truth but one of its intended fruits. As Romans 2 says, what biblical law requires is written on our hearts, and our own conscience also bears witness. (vs. 14–15.) It’s not infallible, obviously, but it’s not just a cultural echo chamber either.

Anyway, if we hold to a model where only overt protest invalidates consent, we invite a world where fear, silence, and power disparities erase the voices of the vulnerable. That’s not justice, and I don’t think Scripture requires it.

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Being Greek, I already am “Eastern Orthodox”, at least in name.
Thankfully we have mostly moved forward from the “faith purity tests” era, else I’d probably be hiding on some mountain cave or something. Quite a rich tradition on that over here. :sweat_smile:

If I am not mistaken they crucified Jesus for far less than that.
If Jesus had stood there and posed even a single question about the veracity of the scriptures, he’d need the aforementioned caves too and pretty fast legs to get to them.

Yes, I expect that I’ll probably receive the Matthew 5:17-18 treatment, but then we are back to the “ok, so why aren’t any of us following the OT, then”?

If you’ve ever tried to teach a class you will see what Jesus habitually does in His teachings.
He adapts to the audience.
To the money-hungry and rich Jesus gives analogies with money.
To the farmers he talks about parables with vines and fields.
To the young he talks about marriages and feasts.
To the pious he talks about tradition and duty.
and so forth…

Jesus adapts to the audience, but the people that try to study the Bible, don’t, and they try to mash all those things together or cherry-pick them. This is how we get such wild results like the “prosperity gospel”… another such wild result is isolating that passage like a fortune cookie and proclaiming that the OT should be followed in its entirety, by Christians (there are some Baptist denominations like that which have made the news - and not for good reasons).

So, the pursuit of truth is indeed something that needs to be taken seriously, but it is not about only whether the veracity of the truth existing in the scriptures, but whether we are equipped and worthy to decipher it.

Another similar and important issue/example is this one. You mentioned earlier this part:

But is this true?
After I asked that question at school about “why didn’t God pick a more pious people” I gave it some thought through the years (mostly prompted to re-think my points while I was writting them in similar discussions like this one) and realised that the facts do not align with the OT.

Here are the facts:
Jewish people are still holding to their original faith 2000 years after Jesus arrived on earth and, this time, without any direct guidance or miracles or help from God (since there are no new scriptures and revelations and prophecies, as we earlier mentioned). Jewish is one of the few languages/scripts that persist from the “pre-Jesus” times and those are only a handful of them, as far as I know (Chinese, Greek, various Hindu scripts). These are very rare feats achieved only by a handful of nations in modern history and those people the OT is claiming that are fickle in faith and perseverance? That doesn’t sound correct, because the facts prove otherwise.

Something is wrong here. Those people cannot have changed so drastically and become more pious, after losing divine guidance. Logic would dictate that the opposite would have been true or that those people were extremely pious on their own in the first place. This leads to the obvious hard question: Why would their own religious texts, written by their own religious leaders, demean their own people so severely? :thinking:

Have you given this any thought? :slight_smile:

Oh, you meant this one. It is very important to many denominations to “accept Jesus” or something similar to achieve “salvation” (whatever that is, in each denomination - most of them disagree even on that), but over here it is a trivial issue since you get baptised before you can even talk.

This is mainly the difference of a religiously homogeneous country (around 90% Orthodox) and countries where there is a religious flock flux (horrible wordplay intended - sorry couldn’t resist). Where there is a “battle to gain more people in your congregation” you need to emphasise in issues and questions of acceptance, because that belonging is the main instrument of your catechism. When you are just born to it, you don’t have to ever think about it in your lifetime.

How so?

But here we return to the issue of the different values within which the text was written.
In the original case of the topic the OT is very specific on where and why it attaches that extra value, by mentioned “a betrothed virgin”, “neighbor’s wife”, “a young woman who is betrothed”.

It is fidelity and chastity that hold the value that the law is trying to protect, not the people/genders themselves. They are readily expendable (which is why the law so easily condemns them to stoning :wink: ).
But our society doesn’t value those attributes much any more, so you might end up conflating the valuable attributes with the valueless genders.

It is a bit like that tale I wrote with the fireflies on the memories topic (hmm… using it that why will now turn into a parable :sweat_smile:). The “town boy” had never heard of fireflies even existing so he thought that the lights were some illness or something mystical. If we divorce the truth from its original context and we apply our own context to it, the result is more likely to be wrong, than any representation of “the truth”.

I am not usually so indiscreet, but I think that I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t point out that exchanging the need to get affirmation from a group of people with getting affirmation from a book, however holy, is more or less the same situation. Just my two cents on that.

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I suppose you are referring to the phenomenon that Plutarch (45 to c. 119 A.D.) discussed in his famous essay “The Passing of the Oracles.” I don’t remember what he attributed that to (I read the essay almost 50 years ago), but many people have noticed that it coincided roughly with the advent of the Christian era. In any case, it certainly can’t be attributed to the advent of writing. We have Mesopotamian cuneiform, Hittite cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Linear A and B, and other scripts that all long antedate the decline of the oracles, sometimes by thousands of years. Lest it be thought that writing was the exclusive domain of aristocrats, the overwhelming majority of cuneiform texts, for example, are commercial documents (invoices, bills of sale, etc.). These were written by educated servants, not aristocrats or priests. Moreover, later writing systems did not preclude the simultaneous belief in gods and oracles, as in the case of the Mayan hieroglyphics.

Yes, many objections can be answered by the fact that God has not revealed everything (Deut. 29:29).

The question is obviously rhetorical sarcasm, so Jesus sees no reason to answer it.

I think the more accurate formulation, logically and historically, is “silence = ambiguity.” See below.

We don’t have to speculate on the “invitation.” We had such a world up until about 45 or 50 years ago. The ambiguity gave rise to flirtations enjoyed by men and women alike: an interested look, compliments and courtesies, a touch of the hand, and so on. If a man crossed the line (a “stolen kiss,” a wandering hand), the response might be a firm no and/or a hard slap. (No, I’m not speaking from experience; I was always a gentleman.) The change in mores gave rise to jokes and cartoons, such as couples signing a contract before jumping into bed.

An excellent document testifying to the old status quo is the proposal scene between Mr. Collins and Elizabeth in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Collins does not believe Elizabeth’s rejection, observing that women (at that time) often declined the first proposal. Consequently, Lizzie has to say “Please believe me!” and repeats the rejection. Unpleasant, no doubt, but not grounds for a legal action, which might occur today. Like anything, it was a system subject to abuse (typically by lecherous males). But the new system doesn’t seem to have reduced the abuse.

In the U.S., the consequence of this change in mores (as well as many other factors disadvantageous to males) is that something like 50 percent of males in their twenties have given up dating.

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I should have been more specific, but I meant to say writing being more available and resources for it being expended for things like essays.

Indeed we have even ancient mesopotamian stone tablets that seem to be complaints about “bad shipments of copper” or things like that, and that is the rank and file of a bureaucracy at every era, apparently.

However once you get to the point where writing materials are available and accessible enough so that people can actually get an education or read a tale or an essay, then it is at that point where people can stop, ponder, think and debate more readily.

Imagine being in the ancient times and finally you get a “minstrel” to appear at your town and recide the Illiad or the Orphics. You’d hardly interrupt their performance to argue with them, would you? But once you have it in writing, you gain the time to form your own thoughts. You can slowly read it, analyse it, interact with it, research it and so forth…

Certainly, written materials and books where very expensive until the advent of printing, but at least they had progressed from writing in stone for quite a few centuries before that, so a lot of other, less practical things, were getting recorded and examined, like Plutarch’s essays. And once that process begun, as far as I can tell,people tended to be more reticent to believe in divine revelations.

In a sense, the more advanced a civilisation becomes the less likely the phrase “hey, God spoke to me last night…” is going to be taken seriously.

I have heard of that before, but it seems like an evasion to me.
If it was “rhetorical sarcasm” why was it recorded? It seems pointless.

Even supposing that Jesus didn’t answer Pilate, the gospel is not a video recording. That was the exact perfect moment for Jesus (or the disciple that wrote the gospel) to tell us, unequivocally what is “the Truth”, but they skip this all-important part.

What do you think is more likely, that Jesus really skipped the question (something that He is not very keen to do in any gospel) or that the people compiling the Bible a few centuries later didn’t like Jesus’ answer and opted to keep it out? :wink:

Here is the passage where Pilate and Jesus speak to each other, as it is recorded in John 18 (bolding the words indicating the exchange of who is talking):
Εἰσῆλθεν οὖν εἰς τὸ πραιτώριον πάλιν ὁ Πιλᾶτος καὶ ἐφώνησε τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων;
ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ σὺ τοῦτο λέγεις ἢ ἄλλοι σοι εἶπον περὶ ἐμοῦ;
ἀπεκρίθη ὁ Πιλᾶτος· μήτι ἐγὼ Ἰουδαῖός εἰμι; τὸ ἔθνος τὸ σὸν καὶ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς παρέδωκάν σε ἐμοί· τί ἐποίησας;
ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου· εἰ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου ἦν ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμή, οἱ ὑπηρέται ἂν οἱ ἐμοὶ ἠγωνίζοντο, ἵνα μὴ παραδοθῶ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις· νῦν δὲ ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐντεῦθεν.
εἶπεν οὖν αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος· οὐκοῦν βασιλεὺς εἶ σύ; ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· σὺ λέγεις ὅτι βασιλεύς εἰμι ἐγώ. ἐγὼ εἰς τοῦτο γεγέννημαι καὶ εἰς τοῦτο ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα μαρτυρήσω τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. πᾶς ὁ ὢν ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας ἀκούει μου τῆς φωνῆς.
λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Πιλᾶτος· τί ἐστιν ἀλήθεια; (here the reply is missing and the entire scene changes) καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν πάλιν ἐξῆλθε πρὸς τοὺς Ἰουδαίους καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἐγὼ οὐδεμίαν αἰτίαν εὑρίσκω ἐν αὐτῷ·

They were having a perfectly normal conversation, the Pilate seems to be taking everything very seriously and suddenly when he inquires “what is the Truth”, the entire scene changes and he goes out of the room and talks to the gathered Jews and proclaims that he finds no fault with Jesus.

This is what in movies would be called “a bad cut” in a scene and, since he find no fault with Jesus, why would he suddenly be “rhetorically sarcastic” with him earlier? :thinking:

Unless we want to believe the highly unlikely chance that a Roman governor suddenly went “sassy” and employed a “talk to the hand” attitude in the middle of a civic crisis, then the reasonable conclusion of all the above is that Jesus’ reply has been “cut” from the Bible. I’ve never found anyone that speaks Greek, that could read the passage and not agree that this is a very odd and very abrupt cut in the dialogue.

(edit: Also, if you want to be rhetorically ironic in writting, then you usually reverse the question. “Αλήθεια; Τι έστιν τουτο;” (Truth? what is that?). When the question is posed normally and with the correct sequense of words, then it is understood that it is not ironic).

Pepe le Pieux comes to mind…

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Is there any reason you’d want to use the Bible as a point of reference for standards of behavior? For one, the books chosen are by men - mortal sinners
For another, you must have about 100 passages that you could pick out and claim were relevant to the matter.
I mean even the 10 commandments gets disputed. Thou shalt not kill.
Well, when you say kill, what do you mean exactly

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Because uncertainty is terrifying. People need a point of reference to guide their lives, especially when they feel like traditional institutions are failing them. There is a reason why Moses had to sell Israelites a story to convince them to cross the metaphorical parted sea - and there is a reason why they chose the jump of faith instead of going back to Pharoah slavery. Stories are powerful - and they can bring people from very different backgrounds to work together. It’s a powerful tool to convince people to believe in an arbitrary moral code that secures social harmony. Think about killing animals or invading natural habitats for our benefit; How’s this different from medieval imperialism, for instance? it’s extremely hard to justify this morally by rational reasoning. Obviously, modern culture has reduced human life into mere numbers and computations, but even then those computations are faulty and face backlash from people who crave even more certainty. Mysticism is also a natural consequence of neoliberalism that led to concentration of wealth in very few hands at the top while leaving most of the population in precarious economic situation.
(I have very high respect of religious people. I highly admire selfless religious people who act for the common human good. This is only my personal opinion as to why religion arises in human societies - and I welcome any corrections to my view.)

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I have heard it said that the Hebrew means “thou shalt not murder”, and that, if that sounds rather tautologous, the point is that this is a reminder that there is a whole bunch or rules elsewhere about when killing is allowed.

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Yeah, it’s murder if it kills us and just killing if it hits them.

Tom Gauld - our blessed homeland vs. their barbarous wastes
Tom Gauld - our blessed homeland vs. their barbarous wastes800×508 77.7 KB

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“For one, the books chosen are by men” - note the last word in the quote. The word has multiple readings. This ranges from all of humanity to a section. This chat is all a game of telephone through multiple languages and a lot of years along the way.

One could surmise that a section of the ogs forum readers may be dying inside each time this thread bumps up. While discussion could be deep and wide, folks may be forgetting that any intellectual exercise may be offputting for a variety of reasons.

Since language is cool talk sometimes (like that ikken tobi thread), one may wonder if ye modern english is dripping with different connotations and contexts that could render new interpretation. With humanity, past to present, bias is hard to remove. What one would want to the case should be treated with internal suspicion before external inquiry. Consider “the contrapositive”, “the null hypothesis”, “occam’s razor” whatever.

There is a crass colloquial phrase, within the last decade (a short blip in the multi millennium scheme of things), that captivates the potential feelings of a lurker in a succinct way. Any one who knows JPEGMAFIA song titles would know. To put in a more thread fitting filter: this intercourse is alienating those of the oldest profession.

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I think this can cut both ways: when decent people get religion, they can become wonderful, but it makes obnoxious people even worse. I think the reason is largely that religion gives people the courage of their convictions, with the result that it acts as a sort of morality amplifier.

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