Deuteronomy 18-22

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

18:10 - No one shall make their son or daughter pass through fire.

Deuteronomy 19 - No mention of any women.

20:7 - (The priest addresses troops before battle) "Has anyone become engaged to a woman but not yet married her? He should go back to his house, or he might die in the battle and another marry her."
20:14 - If a town does not submit to Israel peacefully then they shall kill all the men and may take as booty all the women, children, livestock and everything else in the town.

21:10-14 - When you capture a city and see a beautiful woman among the captives whom you wish to marry, you may bring her to you house. She will shave her head, pare her nails, discard her captive's garb and remain in your house a full month, mourning for her mother and father. After that she may become your wife. But if you are not satisfied with her you shall let her go free, you may not sell her for money nor treat her as a slave.
21:15-17 - If a man has two wives, one disliked and the other loved, and if they have both borne him sons, the firstborn being of the one he dislikes, then on the day he wills his possessions to his sons he is not permitted to treat the son of the loved wife as the firstborn in preference to the son of the disliked, who is the firstborn. He must acknowledge the son of the disliked as the firstborn, giving him a double portion of all he has.
21:18-21 - If a father and a mother has a son who will not obey them and does not heed their discipline, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders of the town at the town gate. They shall tell the elders that their son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey them and he is a glutton and a drunkard. Then the men of the town shall stone the son to death.

22:5 - A woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall a man wear a woman's. Whoever does such a thing is abhorrent to the Lord.
22:6-7 - If you come across a bird's nest with fledglings or eggs, with the mother sitting on them, you shall not take the mother with the young. Let the mother go, taking only the young for yourself, in order that it may go well with you and you may live long.
22:13-21 - If a man marries a woman and after going into her decides he dislikes her and makes charges against her the father and mother of the young women shall bring evidence of her virginity to the elders. If they can produce the sheets which prove her virginity to the elders then the man shall be punished and fined 100 shekels (to be paid to the wife's father) and the woman shall remain his wife. The man shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives. If the father and mother cannot produce evidence of her virginity then the woman shall be punished, and she shall be taken to the entrance of her father's house and stoned to death by the men of her town.
22:22 - If a man is found laying with another man's wife then they shall both be stoned to death.
22:23-29 - If a young virgin, already engaged to be married, is met by a man in town and he lies with her then they shall both be taken to the town gates and stone them both to death, the woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. If the man meets the engaged woman in the open country and lies with her then only the man shall die. You shall do nothing to the young woman since she was out in the open country and if she had cried out then no one would be around to hear it. If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged to be married and lies with her and they are caught, the man shall pay 50 shekels of silver to the woman's father and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.
22:30 - A man shall not marry his father's wife, thereby violating his father's rights.

My Comments

Okay, I guess I asked for actually woman type stuff to write about and I guess the Bible gave me exactly what I wanted. Ask and ye shall receive, right?

We'll start from the top. Deut 18 states simply enough "do not sacrifice your children." Fair enough, but is this the same God who told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (which he later took back, I guess. Just a test, right?) and who allowed Jephthah to sacrifice his daughter? Seriously, God, this is really making you look like a two faced douchebag.

Deut 21. There is not end to how much it must suck being a woman in these times. If your town is captured you can simply be whisked away by some stranger, taken to his house, your head shaved and your nails ground down, and then forced to be his wife. No questions asked. No thought given to your feelings or anything. And this is all sanctioned by this guy's God. Yeah, I imagine it was REALLY hard to get these women to feel like worshiping the God of the Israelites after he's allowed this bullshit to happen. I guess you can always hope that your new husband/rapist dislikes you and throws you out. You know, so you can wander the desert or whatever without any supplies or anything until you maybe happen upon another village or town that may or may not treat you just as crappily as the Israelites did. Honestly, if I was a woman and my town got invaded I'd be searching for something sharp to go ahead and end my life before any of that shit could happen to me. I'm almost certain Sheol has to be better than that shit.

And I love the addition of the disputes between the firstborns of two wives, a loved and a disliked one. That means that this happened enough that it needed to be put into the Bible. The laws of God himself. How awesome would that be? Stuck in a marriage to some asshole who hates your guts and loves your "rival" more than you. And you have NO WAY to get out of it since (so far) it seems only men can initiate a divorce. Right on.

And random side note: how easy would it be to be a parent if you could just kill the kid that pissed you off and never listened? I mean, there would be WAY less children around now a days but come on, super easy parenting there.

Deut 22. Sooo... does any woman who wears pants now a days automatically set for hell now? Or does this only apply to the garb of these times, which I can imagine is VERY different from the clothing we wear now? And clothing is all cultural, not biological, so how does this work between cultures? Is there just one set plan of clothing and anyone who strays from it gets the boot out of heaven? Or does this part of the Bible change with a culture? But then how can the rest of the Bible not change with a culture? And why the hell does this even matter? Oh, right, I forgot, God cares about stupid shit like what clothes you wear, whether you have a wet dream, and how exactly you cut up his meat before burning it as his sacrifice.

And now we get to the good stuff. The real meat of the issue here. First, the rape passages. Apparently whoever wrote this shit has no idea how exactly rape works for a woman. It doesn't matter where a woman is when she is raped, when a woman is raped by definition she basically has NO CONTROL over the situation. Whether she is in a town or in the country she may be forced to not scream. The rapist may be covering her mouth. The rapist may be holding a knife to her or threatening her in some other way to keep her quiet. I mean, the whole "stone them both if they're in a city" law only matters if someone finds out abut the rape. If the rapist keeps the woman quiet and no one happens upon them then the rapist can get away no issue. So the rapist would probably want to do anything he could to keep her from screaming. And YET, if a woman is raped in a city, no matter what, she gets stoned to death with her rapist. The funny thing is, even if she does scream, and for some reason no one hears her or comes to her aid, and someone finds out about the rape she will still be put to death. This has nothing to do with her screaming and everything to do with whether someone helps her or not. And how exactly her rapist feels like approaching the rape that night. Completely bullshit.

Oh, but that only matters if your engaged to be married. If you're NOT then hey, good for you, you get to marry your fucking rapist and be his wife FOREVER. Because apparently the rapist's punishment is he cannot divorce his victim. What kind of punishment is that? Seriously? Polygamy is RAMPANT at this time and in this culture. That is not a fucking punishment. All he has to do is marry some woman he actually does like, and then we get the all to familiar scenario of the loved wife v. the disliked wife. Complete bullshit again.

If a man is found with another's wife they both get stoned. Really? This is fairly clean cut so I guess this does not account for rape. So if a man rapes another man's wife the man and the woman are stoned, no questions asked. Doesn't matter where is it, what time it is, nothing. Apparently women who are not virgins are so easy to throw away just because they have been "soiled." Bullshit bullshit bullshit.

AND THEN MY FAVORITE ONE! The proof of virginity passage. What a load of horseshit this one is. If a husband sleeps with his wife on their first night and dislikes her he can go straight to the elders and tell them all about it. First off, I like how only the husband can complain about the wife and not the other way around. Is a woman simply not allowed to have any say in her marriage and whether she is actually happy in it or not? (Answer: Duh.) And then after the husband has gone to the elders the mother and father of the wife have to produce proof of her virginity. Because, you know, that is what the husband bought and paid for. He didn't pay for a wife to love and cherish and to give him children, he apparently paid for a fucking hymen. So the parents must produce the bloody sheets, and if they do then the husband is given a fine, and if they cannot the wife is stoned to death.

How fucking fair is that shit? A fine v. stoned to death. Seriously, what the fuck?! B.u.l.l.s.h.i.t.

The best part about this, the reason I love it so much, is that not every woman bleeds her first time having sex. A woman can be a virgin and not have an intact hymen. Hell, some woman don't have hymens at all. A hymen is thin and easily broken, and many women break them just doing normal every day tasks, or from a fall or whatever. (For more information and links ) So the whole having to produce blood to prove she is a virgin is complete and utter horseshit. I have to wonder how many women died needlessly just because they didn't happen to bleed that first night and the asshole who bought them decided he didn't want "used goods." I wonder how many douchebags looked down after they consummated their marriage, didn't see any blood and just threw their wives to the dogs.

Every passage it's woman as property. You can't sleep with your neighbors wife because you defile his property, not because she is a human being. You can't marry your father's wife because you'd be violating your father's rights, not because she is a person with thoughts of her own who may not want to marry her "son." A woman deemed not a virgin by her husband and the elders shall be stoned to death because she is used goods and therefore was bought under false pretenses. She is not a real person who can voice her own side at a hearing or who can stand on her own without a husband. A virgin who is raped in a city will either be killed if she is engaged to be married or will be forced to marry her rapist. She is not a human being who has just been violated beyond words and now either has to face death right after or face a lifetime of trauma married to her rapist.

What kind of God is this who would say such things? Who would treat woman like this? Who would ALLOW men to treat women like this? Women are not fucking things to be bought and sold and discarded when they are broken or spoiled. Women are people who have emotions and thoughts and ideas and dreams and aspirations that I'm sure went far beyond being some man's baby dispenser, even in those days. But they would have never been given the chance. They didn't have opportunities like the men did to be something else. They couldn't be shepherds or priests or soldiers or farmers or elders. They were simply property to be used.

Seriously. I think I've said bullshit enough this entry. I think I'm done. I'll never complain about NOT having any passages about women from now on. Apparently the Bible is the fucking Monkey's Paw.

Tomorrow: Deuteronomy 23-27