From our twenty-first century perspective, there
are many strange laws in this section of Deuteronomy. In fact, there are many
laws that are offensive to us, especially regarding the treatment of women.
However, one thing we must keep in mind is that some of these laws probably
represented an improvement in the treatment of women generally from what was then current in surrounding
cultures.
For example, Friedman has this comment on
Deuteronomy 21:11,
But what pervades the elements of the law is an
extraordinary sensitivity to the humanity of a captured woman. Contrary to one
of the most common practices of war, the Israelite soldier is not permitted to
rape her…. Again Israel learns from its experience of enslavement. Israel not
only celebrates its own release, but it learns to have compassion for others as
well.[1]
Deuteronomy 22 contains a complex mixture of
moral and ritual laws. This makes it difficult if not impossible to distinguish such laws from one another as is commonly attempted in Protestant theology. Protestant
theologians for the past five hundred years have tended to say that the ritual
laws of the Old Testament are not binding on Christians, but the moral laws
are. This is a difficult position to follow consistently and I doubt whether
it has ever been done.
Many of these laws follow the general principle
of not mixing unlike things. Friedman explains:
Why does mixing different seeds in a vineyard make the
resulting crop holy? Several of the laws regarding mixtures have possible
explanations having to do with the realm of the holy. The law against cooking a
kid in its mother’s milk may be because that was regarded as a food for a
deity, since a Ugaritic text pictures the chief god, El, having kid cooked in
milk…. The law against wearing wool and linen together may be because they were
both used in the Tabernacle…. (Even the law against men wearing clothes of the
opposite sex may have to do with pagan myths in which the gods and goddesses do
that.) [This, by the way, shows the danger of trying to apply these texts to
various sexual minorities in our own day.] And so it may be in the case of
mixed seeds, as well: the prohibition of mixing them may not be because the
mixing is bad in some way but rather because some mixtures are regarded as
divine. This is only a speculation, since the meaning of this law (and of other
laws concerning mixtures) has stymied scholars for centuries. But this
speculation at least has the advantage of coming to terms with the word “holy”
in this law.[2]
Another curious practice is referred to in
Deuteronomy 22:17, namely, demonstrating a daughter’s virginity by a cloth. What
is this all about? Again, Friedman helpfully explains, “It is either the
clothing she wore on the wedding night or the cloth or sheet beneath the couple
that night, on which a bloodstain would be evidence of her virginity.”[3]
Yet another curiosity appears in Deuteronomy
22:19. Most Christians in generations past were taught that premarital sex is
forbidden by the Bible. However, as Friedman notes regarding this verse:
“Premarital sex is not forbidden elsewhere in the Torah, and men marry women
who are not virgins. Only the high priest is absolutely required to marry a
virgin (Lev 21:13-14).”[4]
Laws concerning sexual relations are also covered
in Deuteronomy 23. In 23:1 we read, “A man shall not take his father’s wife, so
he will not expose his father’s hem.” Friedman explains that this applies:
Before or after his father’s death. This law appears as
part of the list of prohibited sexual mates in Leviticus (18:8; 20:11), but
here it stands alone. Its apparent special significance is that this issue
comes up several times in Israel’s royal family….expose his father’s hem. Meaning: the son would have contact with
the woman to whom the father has been exposed. “Exposing nudity” is the
euphemism for prohibited sexual unions (see Leviticus 18).[5]
Deuteronomy 23:3 says that “A bastard shall not
come into YHWH’s community.” However, Friedman provides this important
clarification: “This has not been understood to mean someone born out of
wedlock, but rather someone born from one of the forbidden sexual
relationships.”[6]
Moabites and Ammonites are also forbidden from
coming into YHWH’s community in 23:4. Yet, as Friedman notes, “Ruth, a Moabite
woman, marries an Israelite, and their descendant is King David—and all the
royal line of Judah! Elsewhere, however, we have seen that biblically a woman
automatically takes on her husband’s religion. Therefore, it is only a Moabite
or Ammonite man who is prohibited from marrying an Israelite woman. A Moabite
or Ammonite woman may marry an Israelite man.”[7]
Friedman makes another interesting point
regarding the laws concerning sexual relations in the Hebrew Scriptures. While
sacred prostitution (Temple prostitution) is forbidden, “Regular prostitution
is not necessarily prohibited by law in the Tanak,
but it is disdained. The symbolism of the prophet Hosea’s marriage to a
prostitute indicates this (Hosea 1-3).”[8]
Deuteronomy 23 also introduces another law that is
almost universally disregarded today. Israelites were forbidden from charging
one another interest. They could charge interest on a loan to a foreigner but
not to a fellow Israelite.
C. S. Lewis comments on this in Mere Christianity,
There is one bit of advice given to us by the ancient
heathen Greeks, and by the Jews in the Old Testament, and by the great
Christian teachers of the Middle Ages, which the modern economic system has
completely disobeyed. All these people told us not to lend money at interest:
and lending money at interest—what we call investment—is the basis of our whole
system. Now it may not follow that we are wrong. Some people say that when
Moses and Aristotle and the Christians agreed in forbidding interest (or
“usury” as they called it), they could not foresee the joint stock company, and
were only thinking of the private moneylender, and that, therefore, we need not
bother about what they said. That is a question I cannot decide on. I am not an
economist and I simply do not know whether the investment system is responsible
for the state we are in or not. This is where we want the Christian economist.
But I should not have been honest if I had not told you that three great
civilisations had agreed (or so it seems at first sight) in condemning the very
thing on which we have based our whole life.[9]
I think this reveals just how selective we are in
following the laws of the Bible. We teach others to follow these laws when the laws are convenient or acceptable to our particular group, and we ignore these laws
when they are especially inconvenient.
Deuteronomy 24 deals, among other things, with
laws regarding marriage and divorce. Friedman comments:
…there is no law in the Torah telling how to get married
and no law telling how to get divorced. Here, the divorce procedure appears to
be assumed, as a known practice.
The absence of marriage and divorce procedures has been
used as a proof of the existence of oral law that was given along with the law
that is written in the Torah. But the case may be rather that these ceremonies
were not regarded as having been given in detail by God—as few ceremonies
outside of the sacrifices at the Tabernacle are so given. The divine interest
is in the marriage relationship
rather than in the ceremony…[10]
The same holds true for the New Testament. We are
never presented with a marriage ceremony. In fact, the only ceremonies we are given any instruction about in the New Testament are baptism and The Lord's Supper. Suffice to say, Deuteronomy 24 presents one more reason why it is not so easy to define
“biblical marriage”.
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