THE BIBLE'S "MOST HORRIFYING" MORALITY
Anonymous
(Investigator 91, 2003 July)
THE MOST HORRIFYING
Some
critics call the morality of the Bible "utterly repugnant". In this
article I will examine what one skeptic called the "most horrifying of
all".
It was a test for adultery under the Law of Moses and applied to Israel during the 40 years in the desert after the Exodus.
If
an Israelite man suspected his wife of sexual unfaithfulness but had no
proof he brought her to the "tabernacle" or tent of worship. Then the
following happened:
And
the priest…shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of
the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the
water…
Then
the priest shall take an oath saying, 'If no man has lain with you…be
free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you
have gone astray…may this water that brings the curse pass into your
bowels and make your body swell and your thigh fall away.' And the
woman shall say, 'Amen.'
Then the priest…shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness…
And
when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself
and has acted unfaithfully against her husband, the water…shall enter
into her and cause bitter pain, and her body shall swell, and her thigh
shall fall away, and the woman shall become an execration among her
people.
But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.
(Numbers 5:11-31)
The magazine of the Australian Skeptics says:
Much
of the morality in the Bible is (or should be) utterly repugnant…
Perhaps the most horrifying of all, if "a spirit of jealousy" came
across a man, he could force his wife to drink a poisoned potion. If
she died, her guilt was proven, but if she survived, she was presumed
innocent (Numbers 5:11ff). After being found innocent, Numbers 5:28
states that the woman must then "be made pregnant with semen". (Is
there any other way?)
(the skeptic. Volume 15. No. 1 p.4)
PRELIMINARY POINTS
A few preliminary observations:
Firstly,
the phrase "pregnant with semen" used in the Skeptic is a literal
translation. The translation I quoted has "conceive". Nor is "pregnant
with semen" a redundant phrase. It’s informative because many
"primitive" peoples — even in the 20th century — did not realize the
causal sequence whereby sexual intercourse precedes pregnancy.
Secondly,
some scholars interpret repetitions in the text as proof an ancient
editor combined several earlier sources. (Apparent repetitions are in
verses 16 & 18, 19 & 21, 24, 26 & 27) Other scholars see it
as repetition to make a point. (Ashley 1993) The repetition in Numbers
5 may also be due to the two possible situations — when the woman is
innocent and when she is guilty.
Thirdly, there is no mention of a "poisoned potion".
A bit of dust in water is not "poison". A testimonial, I read, of
Hitler’s concentration camps described a starving inmate who eased his
hunger pangs by swallowing sand — and lived decades after doing this!
Fourthly,
the Bible presents the Law of Moses as a contract between God and
Israel which applied to no other nation. (Psalm 147:19-20) The general
reasons and principles behind specific commands remain valid but the
specific clauses no longer apply. For example, one reason for the Law
of Moses was health — to avoid the "diseases of Egypt" among
Israelites. (Deuteronomy 7:15; 28:60) Human biology hasn’t changed
since ancient times and what hurt people then will likely hurt people
today. Proverbs and the New Testament also oppose immorality and give
mental and physical hazards as reasons. However, the specific clauses
and punishments in Moses’ Law do not apply today.
TRIAL BY ORDEAL?
Medieval
"trials by ordeal" are common knowledge. Such trials often killed the
accused whether innocent or guilty. For example a woman accused of
being a witch might be tied up and thrown into a river. If she drowned
she was innocent; if she floated she was declared guilty and burned as
a witch.
Can we legitimately compare the ritual in Numbers 5 to "trial by ordeal"?
Ashley (1993) comments:
The
trial by ordeal was a common feature of the ancient world. This method
was "an appeal to divine judgment to decide otherwise insoluble cases
that cannot be allowed to remain unsolved." Thus the ordeal was related
to divination as a method for discovering the divine will for a course
of action. The most common ordeals in the ancient world seem to be by
water (e.g., plunging into rivers), by heat (e.g., carrying a red-hot
object or plunging the hand into boiling liquid), and by the action of
some potion. These similarities have led virtually every modern
commentator to call the ritual in Num. 5:11-31 a trial by ordeal…
The
present ritual differs in important ways from the typical trial by
ordeal. First, in the ancient Near Eastern ordeal the agent of the
ordeal (the fire, water, etc.) was dangerous to innocent and guilty
alike. Here the water probably poses no threat at all to the innocent
party. Second, in the ordeal the accused had to survive something
inherently harmful. If the accused was harmed by an inherently harmful
agent, that person was guilty. Thus, the accused was guilty until
proven innocent. Here the case is genuinely open, as vv. 12-14 show…
Finally, the punishment in the ancient Near Eastern ordeal is manifest
immediately. Here we have no statement of how long it will take for the
liquid to do its work. (p. 123)
In
the present case the whole matter, from beginning to end, is placed in
God’s hands. There is no punishment on top of divine punishment…
Rather, the divine punishment is limited to the "fallen thigh" and the
"swollen belly," whatever those expressions may mean… (p. 124
Note, there was "no punishment on top of divine punishment…"
With matters left in the hands of God the woman returned to her family free of further censure.
FALLING THIGH AND SWOLLEN BELLY
Some
Bibles speak of the woman’s thigh "falling" rather than rotting — i.e.
"thy body to swell, and thy thigh to fall away…" (5:22)
What
is meant? "Thigh" is a figure of speech and refers to the reproductive
organs, and "body to swell" can mean pregnancy. Therefore one
explanation is:
The same root nepel, "a falling," is rendered untimely birth in Job 3:16; Ps 58:8,9; Eccl 6:3. Thigh or loin (yarek)
is used similarly as the seat of reproductive power, in Gen 46:26… So
her thigh shall fall could mean "she will give birth." That napal, "fall," can mean "born" is clear from its usage in Isa 26:18… (The Wycliffe Bible Commentary)
By this interpretation the guilty woman gave birth prematurely and the baby died.
There are other interpretations:
1 It might be just a "curse", and no more, with no physical consequences, whatsoever, intended.
2
The "thigh" or reproductive organs "falling away" can mean the loss of
their function i.e. the woman would be barren/childless.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS?
After the wife drank the water with added dust and heard the curse what happened?
She would have returned to her family.
Were there any further consequences?
Fear
can kill. Walter B Cannon, a Havard Medical School physiologist, showed
that a curse from a medicine man in primitive culture can kill the
cursed person. Death can be immediate or gradual.
Fear can also kill modern people. An article in New Scientist (6 March, 1994) estimated that 100 Californians died from fear during the January 17, 1994 earthquake:
"Not
because they were crushed by houses or struck by debris, but because
they literally died of fright… If you are terrorized by a God-awful
stress, it can take you out…" (p. 35)
If
we discount the supernatural then any physical consequences to the
woman, if guilty of adultery, would be of psychological origin — due to
fear and anxiety. If the background in Numbers 5, such as the Ten
Plagues of Egypt and other fantastic events, is accurate then the
guilty woman would have had good reason to fear!
The
Law of Moses required at least two witnesses to convict someone of a
crime (Deuteronomy 9:15) but with adultery there would rarely be two
witnesses. The solemn ceremony in Numbers 5 assured that a guilty woman
would not completely escape — at the very least she'd have serious
anxieties.
A PROTECTION
The procedure in Numbers 5 was a protection for women. It was not, as the skeptic claimed, "most horrifying". Ashley explains:
It
prevents a jealous husband from punishing his wife on the basis of
suspicion alone. This complex ritual must be exactly performed…so that
the woman might be protected from a husband's whim in an age in which
protections for women were admittedly few and far between. (p. 124)
When
discussing "The Bible On Slavery" (Investigator 76-84) I argued that
the Law of Moses did not invent totally new ethics from scratch. The
Law eliminated/avoided harmful institutions humans had invented such as
torture, idolatry, female circumcision, human sacrifice, etc. Other
institutions that could be made benign with extra legislation, for
example slavery and polygamy, were for a time retained but with
safeguards. The retained institutions included the harmless parody of
"trial by ordeal" in Numbers 5 — a parody that benefited women.
The
principle of framing laws around already existing institutions may also
explain why no comparable ritual was prescribed for husbands suspected
of adultery. Due to the pre-existing social set-up women needed
protection more than men did.
When
a male committed adultery with a female both, according to the Law of
Moses, faced execution. (Deuteronomy 22:22) In that instance the
seeming discrimination is removed.
IMMORALITY—UTTERLY REPUGNANT
Part
of the reason for the Law of Moses, as already stated, was to avoid
disease. The Law forbade adultery and other forms of sex not
legitimised by marriage. (Exodus 20:14) The Book of Proverbs and the
New Testament also link immorality to sickness. In the 20th century
thousands of millions of people caught sexually transmitted diseases
and around 200 million died. (Investigator 48 & 85) AIDs alone is
now killing near four million people yearly.
The
label of "utterly repugnant" for Biblical morality is false. That label
is better reserved for standards that promise "freedom" and then injure
or kill people by millions.
REFERENCES:
Ashley, T. R. (1993) The New International Commentary on the Old Testament The Book of Numbers. William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan. pp. 117-126.
Pheiffer, C. F. & Harrison, E. F. (1962) The Wycliffe Bible Commentary. Moody Press, USA. p. 120.
Urbaniak, L. (1990) Rotten Thighs And A Swollen Belly. The Christian Quest, Volume 3, No. 2, pp. 39-48.