Has anyone read the commentaries on Exodus and Genesis (the other commentaries for the rest of the Torah are forthcoming) by Dennis Prager? His “Rational” Bible aims to show why how the Bible is still relevant in the 21st century and consistent with rational thought. I consider it in some ways an exercise in apolegetics but there are some sections which made me think differently about certain topics which before I found barbaric, take this passage for example:
There is a Torah law that says if you have a particularly bad—a “wayward”—son, you may take him to the elders (the court) of your city; and if they find him guilty, they are to stone him to death. When modern men and women read that, they dismiss it as morally primitive: “What do you expect from something people wrote 3,000 years ago?”
But since I don’t believe it’s “something people wrote,” I don’t have that option. Consequently, I have had to look for rational explanations for seemingly irrational laws and passages and for moral explanations for seemingly immoral laws and passages.
And I have almost always found them. In this case, for example, I came to understand this law was one of the great moral leaps forward in the history of mankind. In this law, the Torah brilliantly preserved parental authority while permanently depriving parents of the right to kill their children, a commonplace occurrence in the ancient world and even today (for example, “honor killings” in the Muslim world). The law permits only a duly established court (“the elders”)—not parents—to take the life of their child. And we have no record of any court in Jewish history ever executing a “wayward” son.
Prager, Dennis. The Rational Bible: Exodus (p. xxii).
Special pleading. Today we consider it outrageous to regard the following as capital crimes: disobedience to parents, kidnapping, failure to confine a dangerous animal, doing work on the Sabbath, homosexual acts, false prophecy, refusing to obey a decision of a judge or priest, false claim of a woman’s virginity at time of marriage, sex between a woman pledged to be married and a man other than her betrothed. These and many other cases are punishable by death in the OT. It is not a moral book.
It’s funny to hear the Torah honored because it was marginally less brutal than its predecessors and congratulated because it wasn’t actually followed!
I have had to look for rational explanations for seemingly irrational laws and passages and for moral explanations for seemingly immoral laws and passages.
And I have almost always found them.
Surprise surprise!
I do believe that the Torah is “something people wrote,” but I go along with Prager (Apparently. I haven’t read his book.) when he looks for a rational explanation for what looks like an immoral law. Clearly the Torah is a milestone in the moral development of humankind, and this particular “rationalization” seems particularly insightful and smells a lot like the truth.
…a rational explanation for what looks like an immoral law…
The most rational explanation is that we don’t share an ancient sense of morality. Morality evolves. We learn and adapt. Nobody in the Bible had the moral intuition that slavery was an intrinsic evil. It took the secular Enlightenment for the pious to make this discovery although they are more than happy to claim credit for it. The idea that an ancient document can be the summa of moral insight is ludicrous.
Stephen said
…a rational explanation for what looks like an immoral law…The most rational explanation is that we don’t share an ancient sense of morality. Morality evolves. We learn and adapt. Nobody in the Bible had the moral intuition that slavery was an intrinsic evil. It took the secular Enlightenment for the pious to make this discovery although they are more than happy to claim credit for it. The idea that an ancient document can be the summa of moral insight is ludicrous.
First time poster!
What Stephen said is 100% correct. Making up excuses and twisting meanings to make scripture (any scripture) fit into our modern sensibilities is, in my opinion, a disservice (or in a religious context, disrespectful) to the text itself. People wrote, redacted, and copied, and studied these texts under specific circumstances for specific purposes – keeping that in mind, one can still find wisdom from the words, even if the wisdom is “we don’t do that anymore because now we know better”.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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