Is the old testament Anti-Women

[JesusLives]

I have to be honest....in the Old Testament and sometimes in the New Testament there are verses that I wonder about....Why did whole nations get killed including women and children sometimes even the animals? Does not seem right.

But then I remember God's thoughts are not my thoughts nor are His ways are not my ways. But I do know that God has our best interest at heart and when I do get confused or even mad at the way parts of the Bible is written.....I think what would Jesus have done?

I look at how he treated the woman caught in adultery those men had brought her to Jesus to be stoned to death and instead Jesus started writing things on the ground and one by one the men left and Jesus asked the woman if there was anyone there to condemn her and she said no then Jesus said to her neither do I condemn you go and sin no more.

Jesus also treated the Samaritan woman with respect when He asked her for a drink at the well when most Jews hated the Samaritans and would not even speak to them.... as a result the whole village came out to hear Jesus speak words of salvation to them.....

So for myself I look at the actions and how Jesus treated women and not so much the way the Bible is written and even as Jesus was dying on the cross He spoke to John and made sure His mother was taken care of after He died......

My conclusion is because of sin in this world many people aren't treated the way they should be and God loves us all equally, but in this world we live things aren't always right or fair, but God is just, fair and good we have misunderstood His intentions and historical fact is women and children don't fare so well in a man run world......led by satan and evil forces.... sin kills as the wages of it is death.

 

[PennEd]

One of the most passionate issues I have is that there are too many verses that condone extreme acts of violence towards women. The verse that I added
"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silvers, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

This essentially acknowledges the raping of a girl. The girl is subsequently considered now tainted and of zero value. The rapist pays the father some money and then marries the girl he's raped. She has no say in this as her worth is zero. The thought of being raped and then forced to marry that rapist and bear his children is to me sickening. To then expect me to be a loving and dutiful wife to my rapist is just insane. Really why would any woman put up with these verses. Its disgusting.

Hi Zoii, I see you really struggling with these issues. Whenever I struggle with God's words I quickly turn to Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;

Hosea 12:10 I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets.

We see things in the temporal. Sometimes the Holy Spirit can help us see part of God's eternal plan. The law is absolute. Part of what God is trying to get across in verses like the one in Deuteronomy is that the law is the law and cannot be broken without a price. The law says an unmarried woman cannot have sex. REGARDLESS if she had it not under her own desire. From our perspective this is patently unfair. But sin done purposefully, or unaware, or even NOT by our own accord is STILL sin in God's eyes. A sloppy analogy may be if you were driving your mom to the hospital for a snake bite, and she WILL die if you don't get her there in 10 minutes for the antedote, and you drive 1 mile over the speed limit, you have just broken the law, REGARDLESS of the circumstances. Don't you think God knows this is unfair? Praise God He does!!
We know He does because He sent His Son to die for us breaking the law.

Getting back to Hosea, I'd urge you to read the 1st couple of chapters that deal with the similitude(or model) of how incredibly awful Hosea's wife was to him, and how he kept taking her back. Even after numerous adulterous relationships. This is a similitude of how God keeps taking back His people even after WE keep committing sin.

I pray in Jesus name this helps a bit with your difficulties accepting the totality of God's word.

 

[Misty77]

Hey, Christian teens!

Sometimes we think "it's in the Bible" so it must be what we need to do. People who teach patriarchy do that a lot; since they see sexism through out scripture, they try to pass it on today. What they fail to realize is that patriarchy is the setting for most of scripture.

We started out as equals, both sexes being made in God's image. We were both told to create and sustain life, to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. The word "helpmeet" in English doesn't do the Hebrew "ezer" justice. We aren't cute little assistants but fellow warriors. God create a symbiotic relationship of equals with both sexes having a variety of strengths.

But in Genesis 3:16, God predicted (not cursed) that women would be dominated by men afterwards. He cursed the ground and the snake, and He supernaturally increased female fertility which was necessary now that death had entered the world. But he predicted that men would eat by the sweat of their brow and that women would dominated by men. This was not a "curse" that women would desire to rule their husbands: that is a GROSS mistranslation. Rather, it is a prediction of the way that women for millennia would be treated like property and abused by the the men who claim to love them.

So the rest of scripture is set in extremely patriarchal societies. But the same way that man is never faulted for trying to alleviate the curse relating to work (like making tools or even air conditioning), women should not be blamed for alleviating the weight of sexism. Jesus came to lift curses and became the curse for us.

In fact, the over arching theme of scripture is the full redemption of fallen mankind. All of creation broke when sin entered the world. Jesus isn't just redeeming our lost souls, but all of creation--including the broken relationship between men and women. For insight into the extreme way that women were mistreated, read ancient literature and study history. Women were property. BUT Judaism offered women more rights than most of the pagan cultures around them. It was a step toward redemption. Then Jesus elevated women further by having women disciples, teaching a woman at his feet, having women as the first witnesses to his resurrection--all things that would have been culturally forbidden to women.

God is pro-woman. It pains me to see the atrocities that have been done to my sisters throughout the ages, but I now realize that it hurts God's heart, too. Jesus declared that he had come for the oppressed and the down trodden. The early church was commissioned to take care of the poor, abandoned women (widows), and the fatherless--society's most vulnerable people. First century Christians were known for rescuing and adopting female babies who were unwanted and left to outside to die.

We are most like Christ when we are elevating and loving each other, not trying to keep each other down.

 

[zoii]

Gee Misty that was a great answer. So what do we do with the ugly sexist verses then Misty. Are you suggesting we mentally exclude them n focus more on the new testament?

 

[Misty77]

Gee Misty that was a great answer. So what do we do with the ugly sexist verses then Misty. Are you suggesting we mentally exclude them n focus more on the new testament?

ALL scripture is important, so we don't ignore it; but we do need to look at it in context with the WHOLE counsel of God and in light of cultural context. For example, modern westerners read the verse "let your women learn IN SILENCE" so we tell women to be quiet. But when it was written, the emphasis was on "LET YOUR WOMEN LEARN." That was something new. They weren't allowed in the Torah schools or welcome in the exchange of information in the markets. Letting them learn was new and fascinating, a step toward repairing the damage done to human relationships after the fall.

We also have to look at the verse in its literary context. 1 Cor 14 is about orderliness of services. The new believing women were excited to learn and of course had a lot of questions. Telling women to ask their questions to their older, more educated husbands at home was to keep the service moving and on topic.

Some of the verses about women not teaching men occur in letters to cities where pagan worship was led by female temple prostitutes. And some of it is still highly debated. Do keep in mind, however, that much popular theology for the last few millenia was written from a sexist perspective; and on the flip side,, there is now a lot of revisionist theology from both feminists and misogynists.

Over all, make sure that cultural, historical, and literary context are taken into account when interpreting gender-related issues in scripture and pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit.

 

[Angela53510]

Zoii, there is a whole field of study, called hermeneutics, or Bible Interpretation, which really answers a lot of your questions in the OP. I won't go through each verse separately, as other people have already done that.

But for an overview, Bible interpretation, done properly, means we do not take verses from 1500 BC and apply them to today. They were written by someone in that culture, for that culture. That means that part of what is written is a reflection of how that culture operated. But God was always moving his people forward.

It may seem like women were oppressed in the OT, but compared to surrounding cultures, women had respect and God's love was for them, as well as the men. For instance, when the daughters of Zelophehad in Number 27 complained that their faither had no sons, they were given an inheritance of land. This was unthinkable in the surrounding cultures. Women were less that property, but from the Conquest of Israel, women were allowed to hold property.

So instead of taking those verses out of context, we need to study and find out what was happening at that time, in that culture, and in the surrounding cultures. That means knowing the history, the geography, the rulers and what was happening in other cultures at that time.

After the fall, humanity degenerated into a dog eat dog life. Life was cheap, there was little respect for people, especially women. Yet, God was patient and gradually moved his people forward. He used women as well as men in the OT for his purposes. He forgave their sins and their evils.

The Old Testament is the history of the Jews, but it is also our salvation history. It is the story of how God called Abraham and the constant failures of his people, but the grace of God to forgive and the coming of a Saviour to bring forgiveness to all people who believe in Him.

As for the rape, I think someone already mentioned that a raped woman was a woman with no future and no hope. It may seem weird to us, but for the woman, having a husband, even her rapist, was the only way to stay alive. She would have been cast out and died if they did not have this in place. It was a way to help the woman, in a day when no one would help her, because life was tough enough, trying to support the family in the desert and then in a barren land.

My suggestion to you is that you focus on Jesus. Read the gospels over and over and see how Jesus treated people, not just women. Jesus came to save us, but also to teach us how to live. We cannot live that way, without the power of the Holy Spirit to help us. In the Old Testament, they only had the prophets whom the Holy Spirit directed to teach them. Today, we have the full Word of God AND the Holy Spirit to show us how to walk in the ways God would have us go.

You are asking some serious questions about the Bible, but I assure you, there are answers. The verses in the New Testament which SEEM to say women are less then men, also need to be interpreted in light of the culture, especially the books to the Ephesians (Ephesians, 1 & 2 Timothy) and the Corinthians (1 Cor. esp.) But we can find principles which are universal.

As far as women learning in silence, the learning is the important part. But in fact, learning IN SILENCE is also a real compliment to the women. The male rabbinical students of that time were to learn in silence. So rather than this being prescriptive of women shutting their mouths, it meant they were to learn with their hearts, minds and souls, the Word of God. Like the rabbis' students, the women were to be given the opportunity to using the same method to study God's word. It is not a prohibition for church or for all time.

Hope my long answer helps a bit!

 

[zoii]

TY Angela that was a helpful response. I cant say just yet I'm comfortable about it, but you've been very helpful. TY for giving me your time
Zoii