From: bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Adam Trent Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Child abuse ordered by god.
Date: 9 Jan 1993 07:06:25 GMT
Organization: no, I prefer a messy desk
Reply-To: bb099@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Adam Trent Phillips)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc4.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, starr-daniel@yale.edu (Daniel Starr) says:

>In article <11065@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Robert Beauchaine) writes:
>
>>
>>   Then would you care to explain to us in painfully exquisite
>>   detail exactly what kind of rebellious child deserves death?
>
>>   Flames pending.
>
>Oh, please, give the barbarians a break!
>
>(1)  The passage does not say "child" as in "young and innocent" but
>"child" as in "of the family and authority of the father".  In, for example,
>the Roman republic and empire, the head of the family (paterfamilias) had
>almost total authority over his children NO MATTER HOW OLD THEY WERE until
>he died.  The principle is similar here.  Note that a "young and innocent"
>child is not going to be a profligate and a drunkard!  Unless I am gravely
>mistaken (which is always possible), this section of Deuteronomy refers to
>punishment of a legal and probably physical adult who is rebellious against
>his family head.  Get this image of 10-year-olds being stoned to death out
>of your mind.  Hmph!  
>
>(2)  LOTS of things deserved death in those days, not just in the eyes of
>the ancient Jews but also in the eyes of the Romans, the Greeks, etc.  The
>environment these laws were enacted for was harsh, and the concept of
>punishment was not for rehabilitation or even emotional vengeance but
>spiritual cleanliness.  That is, 'an eye for an eye' blots out the stain
>of the unmerited evil; and crimes that pollute sacred authorities such as
>the family must be cut out like a cancer.  One of the main themes in Jewish
>law is ritual/spiritual cleanliness... this we why we see the phrase,
>"you must purge the evil from among you" -- it is a phrase denoting ritual/
>spiritual purification.  
>
>(3) As a reminder, note again that the tone of the passage indicates a child
>_habitually_ rebellious.  The passage does not say, "if your son, one day,
>doesn't take out the garbage when you tell him to, stone him to death"; it
>refers to someone who will not mend his ways.
>
>(4) Anyone who claims Deuteronomy perfectly mirrors our own morality without
>injecting context and/or interpretation is being foolish.  Anyone who claims
>it _should_ mirror our own morality may not be foolish, but has some work to
>do.
>-- 
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>|Daniel Starr                | "Wait! Wait! Maybe THIS will work!" |
>|dstarr@minerva.cis.yale.edu |                                     |
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>

	If this is what god ment, why didn't god say it ?

	Or as my old man likes to say ......

	"Say what you mean and mean what you say !"

-- 
A. TRENT PHILLIPS |" A mirror is a negative space with a frame and a place for
  also known as   | your face, it reveals what the rest of us see. It conceals
   WHITE  ROOK    | what you'd like you to be."--Blue Oyster Cult
-------bb099@cleveland.freenet.edu-----aa1439@freenet.lorain.oberlin.edu-------
Xref: sparky alt.atheism:25654 talk.religion.misc:25829