Posted on 08/10/2005 10:48:11 AM PDT by curtisgardner
I'm certainly not trained in either Hebrew or Greek but yes, let's say I'm fairly certain - but not so certain that I'm not interested in hearing what somebody else has to say on the matter. Essentially, the Children of Israel were held to a higher moral standard than the practiced by the people around them - because nakedness does not necessarily involve sexual relations but sexual relations do involve nakedness (unless we are talking about the Clintoon version of sex - just kidding as even that still involves nakedness on the part of at least one of the participants). I believe too that this position is consistent with passages elsewhere. Otherwise, how does one interepret the story of Noah and his sons when he accidentally got drunk on some fermented grapejuice? It would be ridiculous to suggest that there was any kind of sexual angle to this story. It was simply a story of how two of the sons who observed the strong moral code averted their eyes when they covered over their sleeping father.
Genesis 9(King James Version) 21 'And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.'
As well, why would scripture go to all this trouble of describing specific people that one should not have sex with when the commandment was already issued of 'sexual relations only being allowed with one's lawfully wedded spouse'? This would be totally redundant and throw into question, the intent and validity of the original blanket commandment. My thinking is that the intent of the passage (not all of it since other things are also referred to in this chapter) was simply to say that people were not to parade around naked - especially in front of those people that one was close to but not married to i.e. father and daughters, mother and sons etc. This was specifically spelled out because these other people were always close by because of shared living quarters etc. What scripture is saying is that modesty must still be observed even if it is difficult because of living arrangements. I'm sure that someone will then say 'so then it's ok to parade around people who one isn't close to?' I'm sure I could find other places in scripture where this would also be forbidden but for different reasons.
The Bible is this amazing collection of writings that encompasses virtually every subject known to man - not just a moral code, history book, marriage instructions, science topics and a path of salvation for sinful mankind to gain forgiveness with his Creator but everything else in between. So you don't think that it is the literal word of God? You would think that if it wasn't, it would be full of errors but so far none have ever been found. Why would that be unless in fact it is the inspired Word of God. Here a challenge to you. Find one (yup, just one) irrefutable error in the Bible. My only request is that you don't bring forth examples from some phony baloney translation written by who know who. Stick to something solid like the King James Version. Incidentally, scripture itself says in numerous places that ALL scripture was inspired by God. It also says that God is infallible - which pretty much makes it impossible for scripture to have errors. Good luck in your search.
hardcore fundamentalists
BTW I am one of those "hardcore fundamentalists"
but I could tell right away from your attitude
I might as well save my breath and cool my coffee
with it.
"BTW I am one of those "hardcore fundamentalists"
but I could tell right away from your attitude
I might as well save my breath and cool my coffee
with it."
Well said. And I would certainly not expect to sway you from your core beliefs, nor you will sway me. But we do know where we stand and the tent is big enough for all of us. Discussion is great, civil discussion even greater. Enjoy that cuppa joe
And what on earth version are you quoting from? Quoting scripture is great but it must be done accurately. 'Uncovering one's nakedness' is not the same as 'sexual relations'.
The Bible in total is pretty good advice and I don't much care if it is inspired by God or by godfearing people...
The results are far and above any alternative I've witnessed to date.
(Just my opinion)
SPOTREP
Intersting speculation. DOes it come with a bumper sticker that proclaims My Jewish Carpenter can beat up your forgotten Rabbi?
You make some good points--and the Jewish attention to
nakedness was something Hitlers goons attempted to exploit
in the death camp experiments. But IMO the term is an idiom
and in most languages people like to use different terms for the expression of thought. So I would disagree about any invalidation of blanket prohibition. Rather like Americans when Washington was Commander of the Army and their several ways to speak bout the unspeakable unnatural
sexual behavior -some calling that prohibited Sodom--others
mearly adressing it as an "unspeakable act.".
I'm going to have to do look into it a bit more because it's interesting that the various translations certainly seem to have a different view of how the original should have translated. I'm out of town and not near some of my materials to do that right now but will take a look on the weekend.
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