Empathy with the female captive Midianite girls: If you were one, would you have some hope for a better future when you heard Israel read of their laws such as -
When you reap your harvest in your field and you forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not turn back to gather it; it shall be for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow, in order that Jehovah your God may bless you in all of your undertakings. (Deut. 24:19)
You might say " Those these people conquered my nation and took this land to be theirs there is hope and empathy here for me."
Then you heard more of their law.
When you beat down the fruit of your olive tree, you shall not go over the bough afterward; it shall be for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow.
When you cut the grapes from your vineyard, you shall not glean afterward; it shall be for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow.
And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing. (See Deut. 24:17-22)
Though your situation is tragic as to the loss of perhaps a soldier father or brother or slain sister, I think you would realize that you were among a people who were just and who worshiped a just God.
The post that was quoted here has been removedIn fairness, I wasn't logged into the site.
No, I do not view sonship as a troll, even in the thread where he lost his cool and made a personal insult in my direction. If we're honest, we've all don't that on occasions (you and I included). So, unless we are all trolls, no sonship doesn't merit that label. This doesn't mean that I don't find him disingenuous at times, but that it still not a qualifier for the label you placed on him.
For what it's worth I think you have allowed 'troll' to become too prevalent in your everyday language here where just about anybody (it seems) earns that title in your eyes if they continue to disagree with you in a given discussion. Are there people on this site who deserve the troll label? Yes, a few. Are you seeing trolls where trolls do not exist? Absolutely.
It annoys me a little to be honest. In this thread, for example, you have in my opinion completely out argued sonship and put forward a much more credible position. But this has been tarnished by the tiresome and unnecessary troll thing.
Empathy for the Midianite virgin girls?
You were spared. Though you may have had a slain mother or sister. And you did not understand. But now you are among a people and you hear and learn of their laws given to them by God.
You this in their reading of their laws:
There shall not be a cult prostitute among the daughters of Israel, nor shall there be a cult prostitute among the sons of Israel. You shall not bring the payment for a harlot or the price for a dog into the house of Jehovah your God for any vow, for both of them are an abomination to Jehovah your God. (Deut. 23:17,18)
Then you might be older now and understand how your people sought to defeat this nation by sending in mass promiscuous cult prostitutes and harlots to bring idolatry to them and fornication and homosexuality to destroy their culture.
Then you may compare your lot then with your lot now and sense God has had mercy on you in spite of the defeat of the Midianite society.
Then you hear this among their laws.
You shall not oppress a poor and needy hired servant among your brothers OR AMONG THE SOJOURNER WITH YOU, who are in your land within your gates.
On the day he earns it, you shall give him his wages, and the sun shall not go down upon it (for he is poor and his life depends on it); lest he cry against you to Jehovah and it become sin in you. (Duet. 24:14,15)
I think the Midianite girls hearing these things would take hope that their future would be with the empathy of God and His nation upon you.
So you are among the spared virgins now living among the Israelites. They were the conquerors of your land. Perhaps you saw them kill your father. Perhaps you saw them kill your mother.
The tragedy of loss is great. Yet gradually you learn of their laws. And you learn that their God is empathetic and merciful to sojourners, widows, orphans, poor, and needy among them.
I insisted that the law said the captive women could not be raped. I pointed to the laws saying that they must be married to those soldier IF they desire them. They were not sex slaves.
Then you perhaps you hear of the laws of marriage among these people.
When a man takes a new wife, he shall not go out with the army, nor shall he be charged with any duty; he shall be free at home for one year, and he shall make his wife happy, whom he has taken. (Deut. 24:5)
The captive woman must be allowed to mourn her family loss for one month. And only then may she become a man's wife. And he must remain out of combat to develop her happiness for one year.
Maybe the virgin girl captive Midianite might surmise that there is some hope in her future among these people.
She hears their God reminds them that they were once sojourners in Egypt. It may come to mind that she is better off casting her lot in with Israel.
The Canaanite society was a nightmare of immorality, child sacrifice, religious prostitution, and worship of demons masquerading as deities.
Duchess64,
I am not a woman. And I know these are sensative issues for a woman. That particular shoe I do not have to wear when coming to the Bible.
But I have other things which are sensitive to me. Your particular shoe I don't know about walking in. But I have another situation which I think is as sensitive to me.
So I do have some empathy for the women but from probably another angle.
@sonship saidI disagree sonship. I think that is a shoe we 'all' have to wear, irrespective of our gender.
Duchess64,
I am not a woman. And I know these are sensative issues for a woman. That particular shoe I do not have to wear when coming to the Bible.
But I have other things which are sensitive to me. Your particular shoe I don't know about walking in. But I have another situation which I think is as sensitive to me.
So I do have some empathy for the women but from probably another angle.
In the words of Daniel H. Pink. "Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate, but it makes the world a better place.'
Edit: Or if you prefer, this beautiful passage from a sermon made by a Baptist preacher Joseph Smith:
'But if I am going to do battle in the world, and especially if I am going to do battle for peace and justice, I need to walk a mile in other shoes. I need to feel what it is like to carry somebody else’s burdens and to accept somebody else’s responsibilities. I need the kind of shoes Paul spoke about in his passage about the full armor of God.'
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Okay. Certainly I have raised girls in my household.
There are women I love in my family.
Speaking of empathy, Moses showed some when five women persuaded him to amend the law from Mt. Sinai.
The five daughters of Zelephahad persuaded Moses to amend the law to include a more fair provision for women who had ownership issues with their land? - Numbers 27
Zelophehad’s daughters, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, pleaded their case to Moses.
They sought claim to their father’s land, and Moses, in turn, argued this landmark case before God.
“God said: ‘The plea of Zelophehad’s daughters is just; you should give them a hereditary holding
among their father’s kinsmen; transfer their father’s share to them.’” (Numbers 27:7)
Five women made a huge difference on behalf of generations of women to follow. Their unified
voice for justice changed the laws of Torah. Even Adonai was not pleased that daughters had no
voice up to that point. Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah stood together and planned,
sought and successfully claimed their property. In so doing, they stood up for the rights of all
women to own family property! They made a difference in Torah just as WRJ has made a
difference in understanding Torah through the historical collaborative effort of women to create
and publish The Torah: A Women’s Commentary.
From http://www.wrj.org/sites/default/files/Divrei%20Torah%20-%20Daughters%20of%20Zelophehad.pdf
@sonship saidKinda conflicts with your fairy tale god being the same today, tomorrow and forever.
Speaking of empathy, Moses showed some when five women persuaded him to amend the law from Mt. Sinai.
The five daughters of Zelephahad persuaded Moses to amend the law to include a more fair provision for women who had ownership issues with their land? - Numbers 27
[quote] Zelophehad’s daughters, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah, pleaded their case to ...[text shortened]...
From http://www.wrj.org/sites/default/files/Divrei%20Torah%20-%20Daughters%20of%20Zelophehad.pdf
This is evidence of a human created "divine" entity. 😲 😲 😲 😲
So I'm putting some balance on the matter of War Crimes in the Bible.
Some comparison to other ANE descriptions of their war victories.
For one thing, the aftermath of Joshua's victories are featherweight descriptions in comparison to those found in the annals of the ancient Near East's major empires: Hittite and Egyptian (second millennium BC), Aramaean, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, or Greek (first millennium BC). Unlike Joshua's brief, four -verse description of the treatment of the five kings (10:14-27), Assyrians exulted in all the details of their gory, brutal exploits.
The Neo-Assyrian annals of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC) take pleasure in describing the flaying of live victims, the impaling of others on poles, and the heaped up bodies for show. They boast of how the king mounded bodies and placed heads into piles; the king bragged of gouging out troops' eyes and cutting off their earts and limbs, followed by his displaying their heads all around a city."
[ Is God A Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God, Paul. Copan, Baker books, pg. 179. ]
The kings of the Israelites had a reputation of being merciful kings. (1 Kings 20:31)
Many of us Bible believers recognize that God's displeasure with Israel indicated that they did not always keep the laws given to them. Soldiers probably did at times break the laws given to them.
The book of Amos records God scolding some of the nations that punished other nations for their excess. Israel is included in the condemnation along with other nations as if God played no favorites in the matter.
In the conquest of Canaan, it was the hardest of the hard that were left to be slaughtered. God's main instructions were to DRIVE OUT the societies.
This is why they circled Jericho seven times. It was to give the repentant people time to disperse, leave, or make peace with Israel. Had they just wanted them to wait there to be killed, they would not have used seven days (at God's instruction) to silently circle the city. These were the last solemn warnings from God.
Women and children and repentant men were given seven days to leave Jericho.
On the seventh day they circled seven times. I suspect this was their last opportunity. Probably the hardest of the hardest stubbornly stayed to do hopeless battle with "the army of Jehovah".
@sonship
'And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.' (Joshua 6:21).
'And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.' (Joshua 6:21).
I did say that the Amalakites, Midianites, and here Jericho received harsh conquest.
Jericho being the first in the good land of Canaan established a principle. I said they circled the city solemnly seven days - ONCE a day. On the seventh day - seven times.
I said this was the last of the warnings.
Rehab the harlot was saved in the battle of Jericho. Rehab's household was saved. It was probably a house of prostitution.
Rehab told the spies that the people of the land knew about the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and that God Almighty was surely with this nation.
The term "drive out" is used many more times in connection with what Israel was to do to the Canaanites then kill.
And latter we will look in more detail at what is written there.
Dr. Copan compares the military speak of other nations from that time.
The writing indicates that it was a military speaking person who wrote the book of Joshua.
In other ANE they spoke of not leaving anything to breath and other hyperbolic expressions. Sometimes he says, it is hard to take exactly literally this military battle talk from ancient times.
After some of these people were supposedly wiped out to the last, they appear in the Old Testament. So we know that hyper-literalism probably cannot be assumed.
As for the animals, perhaps it is because they had been dedicated to demons or had had sex with humans. I keep focused on the fact that God was seeking long term to bring salvation to the whole world. These societies' sins were so serious that they were a threat to the whole history of humanity on earth.
It is His goal to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham's fulfilled promises, that the nations most possessed by Satan had to be so severely dealt with.
@sonship saidDid you just say all the ox and sheep and donkeys had perhaps been dedicated to demons or had sex with humans, hence their annihilation?
@Ghost-of-a-Duke'And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.' (Joshua 6:21).
I did say that the Amalakites, Midianites, and here Jericho received harsh conquest.
Jericho being the first in the good land of Canaan established a principle. I said they ci ...[text shortened]... ham's fulfilled promises, that the nations most possessed by Satan had to be so severely dealt with.
I think I misheard you.