Wife-beating justified by Bible?

[PeaceWolf]

I was browsing around Google the other day, as I tend to do while procrastinating from homework =), and I came across this forum:
http://www.landoverbaptist.net/forumdisplay.php?f=24

Yes, clearly marked MEN ONLY, and probably for a good reason! There were threads where men talked about giving their wives black eyes and nosebleeds for failing to clean the dishes or for burning their filet mignon. And they said the Bible justified beating your wife to 'keep her in line' and to 'punish her for her sins.' They claimed they beat their wives out of love, to save them from hell. They even claimed that it's their DUTY as men to beat women into place.

Where, specifically, in the Bible does it instruct men to physically hurt their wives? I'm aware of the suspected sexist passages, where it claims that women should submit to their husbands, but how does wife-beating play into this, especially with "Love thy neighbor as yourself"?

Sorry if I seemed overly angry, but really, I was appalled. And anyone who stepped in for the women were told to toughen up and be men, and the girls who argued were called witches. Is this even morally right, or am I dealing with the loony-toons here?

[cnorman18]

I am aware of how one may go through a few slightly convoluted steps to make the case here, and that has of course been done in order to justify the corporal punishment of children, etc.;

I am pretty sure there was a single scripture in there that justified the corporal punishment of children, no convolution necessary.

Point taken; you are quite right.

whether it can with anything like intellectual integrity be used to justify undisputed abuse is another question. But I concede the point anyway. Some find justification in Scripture for massacres; I don't dispute that some may as easily find justification for slapping the wife around, as if anything, including Scripture, justifies such things.

I find it hard to intellectually justify any part of dogmatic belief with any integrity, but that is a side point.

Chill, dude. Don't mistake me for a dogmatist. You evidently haven't read many of my posts.

Didn't you catch my remark, "...as if anything, including Scripture, could justify such things"?

Just because it's in the Bible, that doesn't make it right.

The point I was making here is that the bible most definitely condones violence against subordinates and children and places the wife in the category of subordinates.

Okay, no argument there; the fact is, I relate more to the Jewish tradition than to the literal text of the Bible, as most Jews do, and those derivations were rejected pretty early on. From the beginning, in fact. The Oral Torah (today, the Talmud) is pretty harsh on those who abuse subordinates OR family.

I find it difficult to accept that anybody would think that the bible is a moral document considering all of the things our culture now finds absolutely unacceptable that are not only allowed but often demanded in the bible.

That's why those brutal interpretations were rejected, and why some passages - the massacres and whatnot - remain a problem for us today. In Jewish thought, murdering children (e.g.) is an abomination, even if God supposedly orders it.

In any case, my interest was more in the primary claim above, that "there are MANY verses in Bible that state against the ten commandments." That, I have yet to see.

You are aware that the entire New testament is meant to undo the damage to the human soul done by the mosaic laws of the old testament and the ten commandments.

Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way, nor do I think many Christians would either; but, to be frank, I often pay little attention to the fact that the NT is part of most people's Bibles. It's not part of mine.

Jesus claimed to be dying to fulfill the covenant so that mortal and imperfect men are no longer bound to it and he left humanity with only 2 commandments:

Matthew 22: 36-40

36Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38This is the first and great commandment.

39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

In doing so, Jesus not only deleted all of the old commandments but replaced every part of the mosaic law with 2 simple rules.

I don't think that's true. He pronounced those Commandments the most important (and he wasn't the first Jew to do so), but he clearly didn't "delete" the other Commandments; murder, theft and adultery, for instance. He was equivocal on Sabbath observance, by the standards of the time, but the others seem pretty much still in place in his thinking. Plus, there's that "jot and tittle" business; he was pretty clear elsewhere that the whole of the Law was still in effect.

So my question to you - Why was this necessary?

If not entirely self evident, the reason he needed to do that is because the mosaic law was so contradictory and convoluted that no human could follow it.

That's one Christian interpretation; it isn't a Jewish one. For starters, you should bear in mind that, for Jews, (1) keeping the Commandments was an ideal, not an absolute requirement; no one is expected to keep all of them perfectly (Paul was wrong about that); (2) keeping the Commandments was about ethical behavior for its own sake, not about getting to Heaven (that's not a Jewish concern); and (3) Jews are devoted to the tradition and the teachings of Judaism, not to the Bible.

And, of course, we do not recognize Jesus as Savior, God, prophet or teacher, and we don't think any of what he is said to have done was or is "necessary" at all.

For a specific example of the ten commandments being contradicted, lets talk about the seventh commandment, adultery

Adultery = bad
Exodus 20:14, Deuteronomy 5:18
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Hebrews 13:4
Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

Adultery = okay
Numbers 31:18
But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Hosea 1:2
And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms....
Hosea 3:1
Then said the Lord unto me, God yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress

Most of those are about unconventional marriages, not adultery. Unconventional in our time, that is; getting a wife through war was common in the ancient world. The Hosea references are generally regarded as a parable. Adultery, as such, is endorsed nowhere in the Hebrew Bible.

Then of course there is arguable the most important commandment of those not pertaining to worshiping God (which account for half of them mind you) - The Sixth Commandment

Killing = bad
Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17
Thou shalt not kill.
Exodus 23:7
The innocent and righteous slay thou not.
Mark 10:19, Luke 18:20
Do not kill.
Matthew 19:18
Thou shalt do no murder.

Killing = required by God
Exodus 32:27
Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side ... and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.
Numbers 15:35
And the Lord said unto Moses, The man [who was found picking up sticks on the sabbath] shall be surely put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones.
1 Samuel 15:2-3
Thus saith the Lord of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare him not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

The proper translation of the Sixth Commandment is "Thou shalt not murder," not "kill."

The distinction is not a fine one. Murder is killing that is not justified. We may not agree with the justifications presented in the Bible for many of the killings there, but the writers evidently did, and did not classify them as "murders."

It's worth noting that some, even many, of those killings didn't happen, even in the text itself; Midian was supposed to have been exterminated, but they show up later in Joshua in sufficient numbers to rule over the Israelites for some years.

Also for the record, the death penalty was virtually abolished in ancient Israel from the very beginning; a Sanhedrin that imposed it more than once in 70 years or so was called a "bloody-handed court," and as far as we know, none ever was. The standards for imposing it were set so impossibly high that it was very rarely done indeed, and then only for murders of the most heinous kind.

I hope that satisfies you because these take some time to dig up, even with the internet.

I appreciate your efforts; but the Jewish perspective on Scripture is, as I hope you begin to see, very different from the Christian one.

[Goat]

I just visited the site referred to in the OP. Am I the only one who thinks it's some kind of joke or parody?

The landover baptist web site is a well known parody, there is no need to guess about it.

I mentioned it.. peacewolf was ignorant of that.

[Bio-logical]

Chill, dude. Don't mistake me for a dogmatist. You evidently haven't read many of my posts.

You are quite right there, this is my third day on this site.

Didn't you catch my remark, "...as if anything, including Scripture, could justify such things"?

Just because it's in the Bible, that doesn't make it right.

I did not catch that "including scripture" part. I see that you are a very progressive Jew, neither of which was I aware of before this post. Most of the ammunition I have is against Christianity since I know more about the Christian bible than the Torah or the Talmud, particularly the Hebrew translations.

Okay, no argument there; the fact is, I relate more to the Jewish tradition than to the literal text of the Bible, as most Jews do, and those derivations were rejected pretty early on. From the beginning, in fact. The Oral Torah (today, the Talmud) is pretty harsh on those who abuse subordinates OR family.

That's why those brutal interpretations were rejected, and why some passages - the massacres and whatnot - remain a problem for us today. In Jewish thought, murdering children (e.g.) is an abomination, even if God supposedly orders it.

Good to know. I greatly appreciate people who are intelligent enough to say that scripture is wrong, unfortunately not everybody is as forward thinking as you and your denomination.

You are aware that the entire New testament is meant to undo the damage to the human soul done by the mosaic laws of the old testament and the ten commandments.

Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way, nor do I think many Christians would either; but, to be frank, I often pay little attention to the fact that the NT is part of most people's Bibles. It's not part of mine.

[/quote]

Again, I was unaware that you were Jewish, but as I went through RCIA I was taught just that about the purpose of Jesus's life. Jesus was sent here by God to save the human soul since no human was able to fulfill the mosaic law and therefore by the covenant they were damned to hell. The purpose of Jesus giving his sinless life to death (which is the punishment for sin) was to fulfill the covenant and create a new one of love and forgiveness.

I am not saying that this is what I subscribe to, I now am an atheist, but that is what most Christians believe if you ask them why Jesus is their "savior". Their answer is that He died for their sins so that they could be forgiven and still go to heaven.

John 3:16 "for the lord so loved the world he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish from this Earth but shall have eternal life. (from memory so it may not be a perfect quote)

Jesus claimed to be dying to fulfill the covenant so that mortal and imperfect men are no longer bound to it and he left humanity with only 2 commandments...

...In doing so, Jesus not only deleted all of the old commandments but replaced every part of the mosaic law with 2 simple rules.

I don't think that's true. He pronounced those Commandments the most important (and he wasn't the first Jew to do so), but he clearly didn't "delete" the other Commandments; murder, theft and adultery, for instance. He was equivocal on Sabbath observance, by the standards of the time, but the others seem pretty much still in place in his thinking. Plus, there's that "jot and tittle" business; he was pretty clear elsewhere that the whole of the Law was still in effect.

I am curious where he was clear that the mosaic law was still in effect? not terribly important though because I think this sums up the two commandments stance:

If you love God above all else, you are fulfilling the first 5 commandments and being a lovingly faithful person.

If you love thy neighbor as thyself, you would not kill, steal from, adulterate or harm in any other way that person because you would not do those things to yourself, therefore it works like an umbrella policy basically telling you to not be a ****bag.

So my question to you - Why was this necessary?

If not entirely self evident, the reason he needed to do that is because the mosaic law was so contradictory and convoluted that no human could follow it.

That's one Christian interpretation; it isn't a Jewish one. For starters, you should bear in mind that, for Jews, (1) keeping the Commandments was an ideal, not an absolute requirement; no one is expected to keep all of them perfectly (Paul was wrong about that); (2) keeping the Commandments was about ethical behavior for its own sake, not about getting to Heaven (that's not a Jewish concern); and (3) Jews are devoted to the tradition and the teachings of Judaism, not to the Bible.

And, of course, we do not recognize Jesus as Savior, God, prophet or teacher, and we don't think any of what he is said to have done was or is "necessary" at all.

Again, I know the Christian standpoint since 99% of those I meet on a regular basis take that stance, I am not from an area with a Jewish population large enough to interact with on any more than a rare occasion. I was fully aware that the Jews do not see Jesus as any sort of savior, but I am fully aware that Baptists do, which was the original topic for this thread.

For a specific example of the ten commandments being contradicted, lets talk about the seventh commandment, adultery

Most of those are about unconventional marriages, not adultery. Unconventional in our time, that is; getting a wife through war was common in the ancient world. The Hosea references are generally regarded as a parable. Adultery, as such, is endorsed nowhere in the Hebrew Bible.

That being true, ow is it we can say that those were referring to things common then but now considered unconventional [and often illegal] without applying the same logic to all of the bible/torah/talmud/qu'ran? I take issue with people using the different times cop-out when the now outdated rules and regs set forth in these holy books are now being used as justification to change or create legislation and the like or claim that they are moral documents. You cannot possibly accept one piece as correct and the other as out-dated without recognizing that everything may be outdated at some time if it is not already therefore the text itself is more of a historical document than something to put faith in and live your life by.

A good example of this would be the US constitution. Saying that something is outdated in that negates the effectiveness of the entire document, the very reason we created it with the ability to intentionally altered. We put no faith in the work, we put it to the test constantly so that we can know it is the best it can be. The same approach to a moral text would yield something much more progressive and there would surely be amendments to remove the passages I posted earlier in today's world.

Then of course there is arguably the most important commandment of those not pertaining to worshiping God (which account for half of them mind you) - The Sixth Commandment

The proper translation of the Sixth Commandment is "Thou shalt not murder," not "kill."

The distinction is not a fine one. Murder is killing that is not justified. We may not agree with the justifications presented in the Bible for many of the killings there, but the writers evidently did, and did not classify them as "murders."

It's worth noting that some, even many, of those killings didn't happen, even in the text itself; Midian was supposed to have been exterminated, but they show up later in Joshua in sufficient numbers to rule over the Israelites for some years.

Also for the record, the death penalty was virtually abolished in ancient Israel from the very beginning; a Sanhedrin that imposed it more than once in 70 years or so was called a "bloody-handed court," and as far as we know, none ever was. The standards for imposing it were set so impossibly high that it was very rarely done indeed, and then only for murders of the most heinous kind.

I am not arguing that killing people is wrong, I was just establishing that the bible is unclear as to its demands on the subject. I personally would have no problem with the punishment fitting the crime in any case and I believe it should be more severe than the crime itself. I would have no problem with knowing a rapist is not only violently raped (gorilla pheromones might be a good start) and then killed if he survived the process. I am no pacifist when it comes to these matters, but my point was that the bible is not either even when it tells us that every life is sacred and killing is bad.

I do feel it necessary to point out that you cited another situation where a society collectively made a moral decision that most would consider "higher" than the standards of the bible and yet they argument is continually made that without religion there would be no morality. I feel that without religion there would be no dogmatic justification for otherwise obviously immoral acts.

I hope that satisfies you because these take some time to dig up, even with the internet.

I appreciate your efforts; but the Jewish perspective on Scripture is, as I hope you begin to see, very different from the Christian one.

I m well aware of that now, but my argument was posed as an answer specifically to a question on the bible, which would be more than simply the Torah or the Talmud and the OP was bringing it up due to a (albeit satirical) Baptist website. The reason I post these things is to clarify that sometimes satire doesn't need to be made up, just made public to become satire.

[cnorman18]

Chill, dude. Don't mistake me for a dogmatist. You evidently haven't read many of my posts.

You are quite right there, this is my third day on this site.

No harm, no foul. I don't have a big enough ego to hand you a reading list, but on some of the issues here, you might be interested in "The Bible as it Is" and "What the Bible DOESN'T Say" over on the "Civil, Rational & Tolerant" forum - which usergroup you are welcome to join, by the way.

Didn't you catch my remark, "...as if anything, including Scripture, could justify such things"?

Just because it's in the Bible, that doesn't make it right.

I did not catch that "including scripture" part. I see that you are a very progressive Jew, neither of which was I aware of before this post. Most of the ammunition I have is against Christianity since I know more about the Christian bible than the Torah or the Talmud, particularly the Hebrew translations.

Just FYI, the Torah consists of the first five books of the Christian Bible. The Talmud is a separate work, fifty (huge) volumes or so in English. The core document, the Mishnah, is in Hebrew, but much of the rest in is Aramaic. I have read a lot about it, but I am no Talmud scholar; it's truly a field for experts.

I don't read Hebrew either. I use study Bibles and commentaries and other works.

Okay, no argument there; the fact is, I relate more to the Jewish tradition than to the literal text of the Bible, as most Jews do, and those derivations were rejected pretty early on. From the beginning, in fact. The Oral Torah (today, the Talmud) is pretty harsh on those who abuse subordinates OR family.

That's why those brutal interpretations were rejected, and why some passages - the massacres and whatnot - remain a problem for us today. In Jewish thought, murdering children (e.g.) is an abomination, even if God supposedly orders it.

Good to know. I greatly appreciate people who are intelligent enough to say that scripture is wrong, unfortunately not everybody is as forward thinking as you and your denomination.

I've written elsewhere on a basic principle of Torah study, which can be applied to the whole Bible; "If you see something in the Torah that you absolutely know to be wrong, there are two possibilities; either you are not reading the Torah correctly, or the Torah is in error." The third alternative - overruling your own common sense, rationality, or moral sense in favor of dogmatism - isn't, you'll notice, available. That rule I got straight from my rabbi.

You are aware that the entire New testament is meant to undo the damage to the human soul done by the mosaic laws of the old testament and the ten commandments.

Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way, nor do I think many Christians would either; but, to be frank, I often pay little attention to the fact that the NT is part of most people's Bibles. It's not part of mine.

Again, I was unaware that you were Jewish, but as I went through RCIA I was taught just that about the purpose of Jesus's life. Jesus was sent here by God to save the human soul since no human was able to fulfill the mosaic law and therefore by the covenant they were damned to hell. The purpose of Jesus giving his sinless life to death (which is the punishment for sin) was to fulfill the covenant and create a new one of love and forgiveness.

Suffice it to say that I disagree. For starters, nobody was ever bound by the Mosaic law but Jews anyway, and that had nothing to do with Hell. We don't have one.

I am not saying that this is what I subscribe to, I now am an atheist, but that is what most Christians believe if you ask them why Jesus is their "savior". Their answer is that He died for their sins so that they could be forgiven and still go to heaven.

John 3:16 "for the lord so loved the world he gave his only begotten son so that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish from this Earth but shall have eternal life. (from memory so it may not be a perfect quote)

That's pretty close. Substitute "God" for "the Lord," drop "from this Earth" and put in "everlasting" for "eternal" and you've about got it.

I was a Methodist minister when I was younger.

Jesus claimed to be dying to fulfill the covenant so that mortal and imperfect men are no longer bound to it and he left humanity with only 2 commandments...

...In doing so, Jesus not only deleted all of the old commandments but replaced every part of the mosaic law with 2 simple rules.

I don't think that's true. He pronounced those Commandments the most important (and he wasn't the first Jew to do so), but he clearly didn't "delete" the other Commandments; murder, theft and adultery, for instance. He was equivocal on Sabbath observance, by the standards of the time, but the others seem pretty much still in place in his thinking. Plus, there's that "jot and tittle" business; he was pretty clear elsewhere that the whole of the Law was still in effect.

I am curious where he was clear that the mosaic law was still in effect? not terribly important though because I think this sums up the two commandments stance:

If you love God above all else, you are fulfilling the first 5 commandments and being a lovingly faithful person.

If you love thy neighbor as thyself, you would not kill, steal from, adulterate or harm in any other way that person because you would not do those things to yourself, therefore it works like an umbrella policy basically telling you to not be a ****bag.

(Side note: watch the foul language. In my personal life I use that word often, but this is a family site and we have strict rules about that - and I am a moderator as well as a member here.)

That's an interesting way to look at it, but I doubt if it's a formal doctrine in any Christian denomination. It seems to be related to the famous saying of the great rabbi Hillel, from around Jesus's time (and whose thought seems to have influenced Jesus himself: when asked to explain the whole Torah while standing on one foot - that is, briefly - he replied, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go and study."

One might regard it as a foundational principle of Biblical ethics. As a specific law, it won't do. What if you don't particularly care if you wife cheats? Both Biblical and civil law have principles behind their specific rules, but they aren't substitutes for them. Notice that the Golden Rule is not actually among the Commandments, in any form.

As far as Jesus on the Law, I am moving at present and my Christian Bibles are packed; but he said that not a "jot or tittle," that is, not the least punctuation mark, of the Law would pass away. There are several such references in the Gospels which remain problematic for some Christian scholars. They were apparently overruled by Paul.

So my question to you - Why was this necessary?

If not entirely self evident, the reason he needed to do that is because the mosaic law was so contradictory and convoluted that no human could follow it.

That's one Christian interpretation; it isn't a Jewish one. For starters, you should bear in mind that, for Jews, (1) keeping the Commandments was an ideal, not an absolute requirement; no one is expected to keep all of them perfectly (Paul was wrong about that); (2) keeping the Commandments was about ethical behavior for its own sake, not about getting to Heaven (that's not a Jewish concern); and (3) Jews are devoted to the tradition and the teachings of Judaism, not to the Bible.

And, of course, we do not recognize Jesus as Savior, God, prophet or teacher, and we don't think any of what he is said to have done was or is "necessary" at all.

Again, I know the Christian standpoint since 99% of those I meet on a regular basis take that stance, I am not from an area with a Jewish population large enough to interact with on any more than a rare occasion.

Probably wouldn't matter if you were. Jews don't, as a rule, casually discuss their religion with non-Jews; it's regarded as akin to proselytizing, which we don't do.

I was fully aware that the Jews do not see Jesus as any sort of savior, but I am fully aware that Baptists do, which was the original topic for this thread.

Understood.

For a specific example of the ten commandments being contradicted, lets talk about the seventh commandment, adultery...

Most of those are about unconventional marriages, not adultery. Unconventional in our time, that is; getting a wife through war was common in the ancient world. The Hosea references are generally regarded as a parable. Adultery, as such, is endorsed nowhere in the Hebrew Bible.

That being true, how is it we can say that those were referring to things common then but now considered unconventional [and often illegal] without applying the same logic to all of the bible/torah/talmud/qu'ran? I take issue with people using the different times cop-out when the now outdated rules and regs set forth in these holy books are now being used as justification to change or create legislation and the like or claim that they are moral documents. You cannot possibly accept one piece as correct and the other as out-dated without recognizing that everything may be outdated at some time if it is not already therefore the text itself is more of a historical document than something to put faith in and live your life by.

A good example of this would be the US constitution. Saying that something is outdated in that negates the effectiveness of the entire document, the very reason we created it with the ability to intentionally altered. We put no faith in the work, we put it to the test constantly so that we can know it is the best it can be. The same approach to a moral text would yield something much more progressive and there would surely be amendments to remove the passages I posted earlier in today's world.

You'l get no argument from me. Like the Constitution, the basic principles that lie at the heart of Biblical ethics don't go out of date; specific laws do (e.g., slavery and the male-only franchise in the Constitution).

The Bible, to Jews, is the starting-point for debate about ethical laws, not the end of it.

Then of course there is arguably the most important commandment of those not pertaining to worshiping God (which account for half of them mind you) - The Sixth Commandment

The proper translation of the Sixth Commandment is "Thou shalt not murder," not "kill."

The distinction is not a fine one. Murder is killing that is not justified. We may not agree with the justifications presented in the Bible for many of the killings there, but the writers evidently did, and did not classify them as "murders."

....

I am not arguing that killing people is wrong, I was just establishing that the bible is unclear as to its demands on the subject.

That's why we Jews keep debating it and why the tradition is subject to continuous change and revision down to the present day.

I personally would have no problem with the punishment fitting the crime in any case and I believe it should be more severe than the crime itself. I would have no problem with knowing a rapist is not only violently raped (gorilla pheromones might be a good start) and then killed if he survived the process.

Wow! Never thought of that one. Can't say I entirely disagree, but I think that might be classified as "cruel and unusual."

Here in Texas, we've had more than fifty convicted felons released and pardoned when DNA confirmed their innocence long after the fact - most of them for rape. Maybe we better let the gorillas stick to doing other gorillas.

I am no pacifist when it comes to these matters, but my point was that the bible is not either even when it tells us that every life is sacred and killing is bad.

I would put it like this: killing is always bad, but sometimes it's necessary. Every life is sacred - Jewish law allows almost any Commandment to be broken to save a life - but sometimes one sacred life must end to protect other innocent lives that are just as sacred, or in retribution for taking them.

My own position is pretty obvious; I carry a handgun (legally - I'm licensed) every day of my life. It's not to blow away people who cut in front of me at Wal-Mart. It's to defend my own life and those of others. When two guys broke into my home at 3 AM some years ago, their lives became a whole lot less sacred (the incident ended without bloodshed, but I make no promises about future ones).

I do feel it necessary to point out that you cited another situation where a society collectively made a moral decision that most would consider "higher" than the standards of the bible and yet the argument is continually made that without religion there would be no morality. I feel that without religion there would be no dogmatic justification for otherwise obviously immoral acts.

I don't think that morality is dependent upon religion. As you say, clearly immoral acts are often justified by religion; but that doesn't necessarily invalidate religion itself, only those perversions of it. Hitler used logic to justify euthanasia for the mentally defective, but that doesn't invalidate logic.

I hope that satisfies you because these take some time to dig up, even with the internet.

I appreciate your efforts; but the Jewish perspective on Scripture is, as I hope you begin to see, very different from the Christian one.

I'm well aware of that now, but my argument was posed as an answer specifically to a question on the bible, which would be more than simply the Torah or the Talmud and the OP was bringing it up due to a (albeit satirical) Baptist website. The reason I post these things is to clarify that sometimes satire doesn't need to be made up, just made public to become satire.

No argument there either. Religion isn't the only area where views become so extreme that they become self-parody. Have you ever heard the "modern classical music" of John Cage, or seen an exhibition of "conceptual art"?

[puddleglum]

This is what the Bible teached about how husbands should treat their wives:

"Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherished it, just as Christ does the church."
Ephesians 5:28, 29 ESV

[cnorman18]

This is what the Bible teached about how husbands should treat their wives:

"Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherished it, just as Christ does the church."
Ephesians 5:28, 29 ESV

That would be authoritative for Christians, of course, and very much to the point; so thanks. But I feel compelled to note that Ephesians is not included in my Bible.

[Bio-logical]

What the bible says about how to deal with a wife who is not a virgin on your wedding night:

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate.... But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you. -- Deuteronomy 22:13

and about how wives should act around their husbands

But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 14:34-36

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
Ephesians 5:22-24

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Colossians 3:18

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.
1 Timothy 2:11-15

Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing.
1 Peter 3:1

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands

Not all warm fuzzies in there.

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Violence Against Women
What Is the Bible’s View?

Violence Against Women—A Global Problem

NOVEMBER 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This day was recognized by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1999 with a view to raising public awareness of violations of the rights of women. Why was this step deemed necessary?

In many cultures women are viewed and treated as inferior or as second-class citizens. Prejudices against them are deep-rooted. Gender-based violence in all its forms is an ongoing problem, even in the so-called developed world. According to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, “violence against women is global in reach, and takes place in all societies and cultures. It affects women no matter what their race, ethnicity, social origin, birth or other status may be.�

Radhika Coomaraswamy, former UN Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on violence against women, says that for the vast majority of women, violence against women is “a taboo issue, invisible in society and a shameful fact of life.� Statistics issued by a victimology institution in Holland indicate that 23 percent of women in one South American country, or about 1 in 4, suffer some form of domestic violence. Likewise, the Council of Europe estimates that 1 in 4 European women suffers domestic violence during her lifetime. According to the British Home Office, in England and Wales in one recent year, an average of two women each week were killed by current or former partners. The magazine India Today International reported that “for women across India, fear is a constant companion and rape is the stranger they may have to confront at every corner, on any road, in any public place, at any hour.� Amnesty International describes violence against women and girls as today’s “most pervasive human rights challenge.�

Do the statistics mentioned above reflect God’s attitude toward women? This question will be discussed in the next article.


How Do God and Christ View Women?

HOW can we have a complete picture of how Jehovah God views women? One way is to examine the attitude and conduct of Jesus Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God� and who reflects perfectly God’s view of matters. (Colossians 1:15) The dealings Jesus had with the women of his day show that Jehovah and Jesus respect women and that they certainly do not approve of the oppressive treatment that is so common in many lands today.

Consider, for example, the occasion when Jesus spoke to a woman at a well. “A woman of Samaria came to draw water,� says John’s Gospel account, and “Jesus said to her: ‘Give me a drink.’� Jesus was willing to talk with a Samaritan woman in public, even though most Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. According to The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, for Jews “conversation with a woman in a public place was particularly scandalous.� Jesus, however, treated women with respect and consideration and was neither racially prejudiced nor gender prejudiced. On the contrary, it was to the Samaritan woman that Jesus for the first time plainly identified himself as the Messiah.—John 4:7-9, 25, 26.

On another occasion Jesus was approached by a woman who for 12 years had been suffering from an embarrassing and debilitating flow of blood. When she touched him, she was instantly healed. “Jesus turned around and, noticing her, said: ‘Take courage, daughter; your faith has made you well.’� (Matthew 9:22) According to the Mosaic Law, a woman in her condition was not supposed to be in a crowd of people, let alone touch others. Yet, Jesus did not berate her. Rather, he compassionately comforted her and addressed her as “daughter.� How that word must have put her heart at ease! And how happy Jesus must have been to cure her!

After Jesus was resurrected, his first appearance was to Mary Magdalene and another of his disciples, whom the Bible refers to as “the other Mary.� Jesus could have appeared first to Peter, John, or one of the other male disciples. Instead, he dignified women by allowing them to be the first eyewitnesses of his resurrection. An angel instructed them to inform Jesus’ male disciples about this astonishing event. Jesus said to the women: “Go, report to my brothers.� (Matthew 28:1, 5-10) Jesus was certainly not affected by the prejudices common to Jews of his day, according to which women could not serve as legal witnesses.

So, far from being biased against women or condoning chauvinistic attitudes toward them in any way, Jesus showed that he respected and appreciated women. Violence against them was completely contrary to what Jesus taught, and his attitude, we can be sure, was a perfect reflection of the way his Father, Jehovah, sees things.

Women Under Divine Care

“Nowhere in the ancient Mediterranean or Near East were women accorded the freedom that they enjoy in modern Western society. The general pattern was one of subordination of women to men, just as slaves were subordinate to the free, and young to old. . . . Male children were more highly esteemed than female, and baby girls were sometimes left to die by exposure.� That is how one Bible dictionary describes the prevailing attitude toward females in ancient times. In many cases, they were almost put on the same level as slaves.

The Bible was written at a time when customs reflected this attitude. Even so, divine law as expressed in the Bible showed a high regard for women, which was in marked contrast with the attitudes of many ancient cultures.

Jehovah’s concern for the welfare of women is evident from the several instances in which he acted in behalf of his female worshippers. Twice he intervened to protect Abraham’s beautiful wife, Sarah, from being violated. (Genesis 12:14-20; 20:1-7) God showed favor to Jacob’s less-loved wife, Leah, by ‘opening her womb,’ so that she bore a son. (Genesis 29:31, 32) When two God-fearing Israelite midwives risked their lives to preserve Hebrew male children from infanticide in Egypt, Jehovah appreciatively “presented them with families.� (Exodus 1:17, 20, 21) He also answered Hannah’s fervent prayer. (1 Samuel 1:10, 20) And when the widow of a prophet faced a creditor who was about to take her children as slaves to pay off her debt, Jehovah did not leave her in the lurch. Lovingly, God enabled the prophet Elisha to multiply her supply of oil so that she could pay the debt and still have sufficient oil for her family. She thus preserved her family and her dignity.—Exodus 22:22, 23; 2 Kings 4:1-7.

The prophets repeatedly condemned the exploitation of women or the use of violence against them. The prophet Jeremiah told the Israelites in Jehovah’s name: “Render justice and righteousness, and deliver the one that is being robbed out of the hand of the defrauder; and do not maltreat any alien resident, fatherless boy or widow. Do them no violence. And do not shed any innocent blood in this place.� (Jeremiah 22:2, 3) Later, the rich and powerful in Israel were condemned because they had evicted women from their homes and mistreated their children. (Micah 2:9) The God of justice sees and condemns as evil such suffering caused to women and their children.

The “Capable Wife�

An appropriate view of a capable wife is presented by the ancient writer of the Proverbs. Since this beautiful description of the role and the status of a wife was included in Jehovah’s Word, we can be sure that he approves of it. Far from being oppressed or being viewed as inferior, such a woman is appreciated, respected, and trusted.

The “capable wife� of Proverbs chapter 31 is a vigorous and industrious worker. She works hard at what is “the delight of her hands� and engages in trade and even real estate transactions. She sees a field and proceeds to buy it. She makes undergarments and sells them. She gives belts to the tradesmen. She is vigorous in her strength and activity. Moreover, her words of wisdom and her loving-kindness are greatly appreciated. As a result, she is highly esteemed by her husband, by her sons and, most important, by Jehovah.

Women are not to be the oppressed victims of men who take advantage of them, mistreat them, or subject them to abuse of any kind. Instead, the married woman is to be the happy and accomplished “complement� of her husband.—Genesis 2:18.

Assign Them Honor

When writing to Christian husbands about how they should treat their wives, the inspired writer Peter urged husbands to imitate the attitudes of Jehovah and Jesus Christ. “You husbands, continue . . . assigning them honor,� he wrote. (1 Peter 3:7) Assigning honor to a person implies that one values and respects such a one highly. Thus, the man who honors his wife does not humiliate her, downgrade her, or treat her violently. Rather, he demonstrates by his words and his deeds—in public and in private—that he cherishes and loves her.

Honoring one’s wife certainly contributes to happiness in a marriage. Consider the example of Carlos and Cecilia. At a certain point in their married life, they often found themselves arguing without ever coming to a conclusion. At times, they just stopped talking to each other. They did not know how to resolve their problems. He was aggressive; she was demanding and proud. When they began studying the Bible and applying what they learned, however, things began to improve. Cecilia observes: “I realize that Jesus’ teachings and the example he left have transformed my personality and also my husband’s. Thanks to Jesus’ example, I have become more humble and understanding. I have learned to seek Jehovah’s help in prayer, as Jesus did. Carlos has learned to become more tolerant and show more self-control—to honor his wife as Jehovah desires.�

Their marriage is not perfect, but it has stood the test of time. In recent years they have had to face serious difficulties—Carlos lost his job and had to undergo surgery for cancer. Yet, these upheavals have not shaken their marriage bond, which has grown even stronger.

Since mankind’s fall into imperfection, women in many cultures have been treated dishonorably. They have been physically, mentally, and sexually abused. But that is not the treatment Jehovah intended for them. The Bible record clearly shows that no matter what cultural views may prevail, all women should be treated with honor and respect. It is their God-given due.

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