Non-virgin wives

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Does the Catholic Church believe this nonsense?

Quoted from the Catholica online bible…

Deuteronomy
Chapter 22

13- "If a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, comes to dislike her,
14- and makes monstrous charges against her and defames her by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I first had relations with her I did not find her a virgin,’
15 (3)- the father and mother of the girl shall take the evidence of her virginity and bring it to the elders at the city gate.
16- There the father of the girl shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man in marriage, but he has come to dislike her,
17- and now brings monstrous charges against her, saying: I did not find your daughter a virgin. But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!’ And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the city.
18 (4)- Then these city elders shall take the man and chastise him,
19- besides fining him one hundred silver shekels, which they shall give to the girl’s father, because the man defamed a virgin in Israel. Moreover, she shall remain his wife, and he may not divorce her as long as he lives.
20- "But if this charge is true, and evidence of the girl’s virginity is not found,
21- they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsmen shall stone her to death :eek: , because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

Footnotes
3 [15] The evidence of her virginity: the bridal garment or sheet stained with a little blood from the first nuptial relations.

4 [18] Chastise him: flog him, as prescribed in Deut 25:1-3.

Sincerely
Cdn.freethinker
 
As a freethinker, you should be able to understand context. The context this was written in, this kind of thing actually was happening. This was written down in order to give guidelines of how to deal with this situation.

Nonsense? I am sure it was truly a God-send to the virgin accused of this since not being a virgin constituted a death sentence in that time period.

If you choose to read the Bible through ethnocentric eyes, much will appear to be nonsense. If however, you choose to read it through the eyes of history and the culture of the time, it will at the very least give you and accurate idea of how people used to think. Actually, how some still think. Look at some Middle Eastern countries today. Many women would not consider this “nonsense”.

And if you choose to open your mind up to possibilities, there is a whole another world of faith in action in the Bible. Try the New Testament, John.

By the way, did you know that for historical purposes today, historians accept as fact something that has at least 2 different sources from different areas? Did you know the New Testament has 63?

May God Bless you and keep you safe,
Maria
 
And no, today this is not practiced in the Catholic Church. The Church does not condone “stoning”. Nor does the Jewish Faith.
 
It would be interesting to see the traditional Jewish interpretation of this text. For myself, it seems clear that the required evidence is easy to produce in most cases. Further, perhaps it is easy to fabricate. So I suspect the likely outcome from this passage is that the man will publicly be flogged. Thus perhaps it operates as a deterrent to a man complaining about his wife after marriage.

No, there is no stoning statue in the Catholic canon law!
 
Context?

It seems pretty black and white to me.

The bible is held up as the inspired word of god.

Is it or is it not?

Or is the church picking and choosing to suit the occasion?

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

– Epicurus,
 
My initial reaction to this question was to be sarcastic and say, 'Well, yes. Part of every SUnday mass is a huge communal stoning of nonvirgins. Didn’t you get your invite?" :ehh: Luckily, I decided that I would take the more mature route.

The moral laws of the Old Testament still hold true, but, due to Christ, the ceremonal and legal rules no longer apply. For example we no longer keep the kosher laws but we do follow the ten commandments. Does that make sense?
 
Deb1

No it doesn’t make any sense. And Im happy you took the mature route with your answer because I am very serious in my non-beliefs.

You will need to produce something better than that for me to accept that the bible something more than a collection of barbaric stories and rituals practised by an ancient small tribe in the middle east.

“To be an atheist
requires strength of
mind and goodness
of heart found in
not one of a
thousand.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772-1834)
English poet, critic, journalist, philosopher
 
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Cdn.freethinker:
Does the Catholic Church believe this nonsense?

Quoted from the Catholica online bible…

Deuteronomy
Chapter 22

13- "If a man, after marrying a woman and having relations with her, comes to dislike her,
14- and makes monstrous charges against her and defames her by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I first had relations with her I did not find her a virgin,’
15 (3)- the father and mother of the girl shall take the evidence of her virginity and bring it to the elders at the city gate.
16- There the father of the girl shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man in marriage, but he has come to dislike her,
17- and now brings monstrous charges against her, saying: I did not find your daughter a virgin. But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity!’ And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the city.
18 (4)- Then these city elders shall take the man and chastise him,
19- besides fining him one hundred silver shekels, which they shall give to the girl’s father, because the man defamed a virgin in Israel. Moreover, she shall remain his wife, and he may not divorce her as long as he lives.
20- "But if this charge is true, and evidence of the girl’s virginity is not found,
21- they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her father’s house and there her townsmen shall stone her to death :eek: , because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

Footnotes
3 [15] The evidence of her virginity: the bridal garment or sheet stained with a little blood from the first nuptial relations.

4 [18] Chastise him: flog him, as prescribed in Deut 25:1-3.

Sincerely
Cdn.freethinker
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First, you should realize that you are analyzing one of the somewhere around 620 different laws that can be found in the Old Testament. These laws, or commands, were applicable for those in the Old Testament under the Jewish faith. These commands would include dieatry laws, sacrafical laws, purification rites, etc etc etc…Now even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals that these laws have been, as Jesus puts it in Matthew 5, “fufilled.”
 
So none of these laws are applicable today?

Homosexuality is considered sinful based upon tracts in the OT bible.

The church seems to take great stock in this.

You can’t have it both ways. Either the book is the complete and inspired word of god as believers say or it is not.

Sincerely,
Bob

BELIEVING IS EASIER THAN THINKING
 
Cdn.freethinker said:
Context?

It seems pretty black and white to me.
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You seem surprised that anyone would suggest reading the Old Testament in context. Why would that be surprising?. Who might most accurately understand an Old Testament passage, an expert with an understanding of the culture, time and literary genres in use at the time of the writing of the passage or someone thousands and thousands of years removed with no understanding of the cultural, historical or literary context?
The bible is held up as the inspired word of god.

Is it or is it not?

Or is the church picking and choosing to suit the occasion?
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Yes, the bible is the inspired word of God. I’m not sure how that’s relevent to your point.

In Christ,
Nancy 🙂

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

– Epicurus,
Click to expand...
 
Nancy

You agree with everything that is in the bible?

Bob 🙂

What proof do you have that Poseidon, Neptune, Zeus, Osiris, and thousands of other gods are not the correct god? :confused:
 
Yes it is completely the inspired word of God. No one said it isn’t.

But we also believe that in the Bible Jesus gave Peter, and therefore the Catholic Church to make and change the rules. That rule has changed. Other have not. Some rules can change others can not.

Catholic Christians, unlike some other fundamentalist christians hold that the Bible while God’s inspired word is meant as a spiritual Truth. The spiritual truth it contains is good for all time. However, the bible also has made up stories in order to convey spiritual truth. Some of the stories are true others are not. Whether or not the earth was made in 6 literal days or over the course of millions of years does not matter in a spiritual sense, only that we know and understand that God did it.

If you truly wish to look into it, you do not have to agree with the Church on the rules, but there is logic and order to it all. I hope you actually choose to *think *about the issue.

And so yes, context is important. The “rules”, beyond the ten commandments are subject to change as per the authority we believe was given to first the Jews, (Old Testament) and then transfered to the apostles by Jesus.(New Testament).

If the Bible says it is raining cats and dogs we are not required to believe cats and dogs fell from the sky. Context.
 
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Cdn.freethinker:
So none of these laws are applicable today?

Homosexuality is considered sinful based upon tracts in the OT bible.

The church seems to take great stock in this.

You can’t have it both ways. Either the book is the complete and inspired word of god as believers say or it is not.

Sincerely,
Bob

BELIEVING IS EASIER THAN THINKING
Click to expand...
Homosexuality is immoral according to the Old Testament–it’s immoral according to the New Testament–nothing changed. Prostution is immoral in both the Old and New Testaments. Morality dosen’t change but the “price” does. In the Old Testament the Jews had specific sacrafices for specific sins. In the New Testament we have been granted to wonderful grace of the Perfect Sacrafice-the Sacrafice of Jesus Christ.

If you attempt to make the New Testament parallel with the Old Testament you’ve missed the message. The New Testament completes the Old Testament. You say that you can’t have it both ways–but what the Church teaches is not “having it both ways.” You must understand the New Testament in light of the Old Testament and vica versa. The Old Testament and the New Testament were not, and are not to be understood as parallel in their existance.

Furthermore, you seem to be attempting to come up with some legalistic argument against the Church based on the Bible–the Catholic Church would view this as highly irregular as the Bible is, in fact, a Catholic work–and the Church holds the sole authority to make definitive and authoritiave interpetations. (which there are only a few of). Not all of what the Church preaches as immoral is based soley on scripture–the Church itself is the LIVING teacher.

Pax,
 
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Cdn.freethinker:
Nancy

You agree with everything that is in the bible?

Bob 🙂

What proof do you have that Poseidon, Neptune, Zeus, Osiris, and thousands of other gods are not the correct god? :confused:
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My we are busy aren’t we…you should know, since you’re new to the fourm that we usually start a new thread for a topic so different than the original post…but I’ll go ahead and give you a bit of an answer:

As for Proof of God–there is none necessary…why?
Well, because there can be no agreed standard upon which you can determine proof—if I could prove that God exists then there would be no atheists—AND if atheists could prove that no God exists there’d be no theists…a belief in God is fostered first by faith…as faith is above thought it does not require “proof” but it is above reason. For the theist there is proof of God’s existance in everything and for the atheist there is proof of God in nothing. For the beliver no “proof” is necessary and for the unbeliever no proof is enough. This is why we, who have faith, rely constantly on God’s Grace, and you without it–have cut yourself off from it. After all the faith of Catholicsm is not determined on, nor do we want it to be a simple legal argument–that’s why it’s faith…though if you’re looking for good Catholic Philosophy and Catholic Logic studies look into the Summa.
 
“Furthermore, you seem to be attempting to come up with some legalistic argument against the Church based on the Bible–the Catholic Church would view this as highly irregular as the Bible is, in fact, a Catholic work–and the Church holds the sole authority to make definitive and authoritiave interpetations. (which there are only a few of). Not all of what the Church preaches as immoral is based soley on scripture–the Church itself is the LIVING teacher.”

Now that is a scary concept. I hope I’m not around when the church re-interprets the bit about burning heretics.

(Remarks edited for lack of respect for teh beliefs of others)
😦 Bob

“Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established”.–

The Essence of Christianity (1841)Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872)
German philosopher
 
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Sanctus:
My we are busy aren’t we…you should know, since you’re new to the fourm that we usually start a new thread for a topic so different than the original post…but I’ll go ahead and give you a bit of an answer:

As for Proof of God–there is none necessary…why?
Well, because there can be no agreed standard upon which you can determine proof—if I could prove that God exists then there would be no atheists—AND if atheists could prove that no God exists there’d be no theists…a belief in God is fostered first by faith…as faith is above thought it does not require “proof” but it is above reason. For the theist there is proof of God’s existance in everything and for the atheist there is proof of God in nothing. For the beliver no “proof” is necessary and for the unbeliever no proof is enough. This is why we, who have faith, rely constantly on God’s Grace, and you without it–have cut yourself off from it. After all the faith of Catholicsm is not determined on, nor do we want it to be a simple legal argument–that’s why it’s faith…though if you’re looking for good Catholic Philosophy and Catholic Logic studies look into the Summa.
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I appreciate that you were able to bend the rules a little, though I am not to keen onn the “my we are busy aren’t we” comment.

I agree with you that it is impossible for anyone to prove the existence of god(s). I do not have to prove anything. It is for the person who tells me that there is a divine being to offer proof. Faith is not enough for me. I prefer evidence. And I have heard nothing but dogma.

In any event I appreciate your reply.
 
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Cdn.freethinker:
Now that is a scary concept. I hope I’m not around when the church re-interprets the bit about burning heretics.

(Remarks edited for lack of respect for the beliefs of others)

😦 Bob
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I’m sorry you have such a hateful view of my Church. Unfortunantly it dosen’t appear that you’re coming here with a terribly open mind…I’ve noted that you’ve negelected to truly respond to my posts or share what you think Christian/Catholic theology actually is. This is a shame because it does hinder the truly open and meaningful dialogue with those who do. I also know that you have no clue as an obestnant atheist what kind of true freedom I experience by practicing my faith and nurturing my relationship with God–I am now much more free than when I went through my little agnostic stage…if you want to have meaningful dialogue then re-group and try again on a thread…
(Remarks edited for response to lack of respect for the beliefs of others)
 
originally posted by** Cdn freethinker**
(Remarks edited lack of respect for the beliefs of others).
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The rules of this forum require charity. (Remarks edited for response to lack of respect for the beliefs of others)
originally posted by Cdn.freethinker
What proof do you have that Poseidon, Neptune, Zeus, Osiris, and thousands of other gods are not the correct god?
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Since you are the dissenter here, I suggest you provide to us proof that these gods are the “correct” gods.
 
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Sanctus:
Unfortunantly it dosen’t appear that you’re coming here with a terribly open mind…
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“Free” thinking is to open mindedness as pasta is to calculus.

– Mark L. Chance.
 
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