Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Ezekiel 16 and 23

It is obvious to anyone who pays attention to the foundation of Biblical ethics that God's demands for criminal justice hinge on specific sins deserving legal penalties and the legal penalties not being degrading.  After all, Lex Talionis ("eye for eye") clearly does not extend to any kinds of sexual assault addressed in Mosaic Law, anything more than 40 lashes is condemned, and even some treatments of an executed criminal's corpse are prohibited.  Still, other parts of the Bible outside of Mosaic Law either provide accounts of people carrying out unjust actions in response to other sins or allegorical stories that might feature a behavior that is unjust while using the story to emphasize something else.

In Ezekiel 16, God tells Ezekiel a story of a woman who commits adultery, betraying her husband.  The woman represents Israel.  Ezekiel 23 tells a story of two sisters that is very similar.  Both stories eventually have the women become promiscuous, after which they are stripped naked and killed as somewhat of a punishment.  Some people might read these chapters and mistakenly conclude that the Bible prescribes different punishments for men and women, when this is not the case in Mosaic Law.  Some people might read thse chapters and think that the Bible is saying this is the just way to react to infidelity (which, for the sake of clarity, is nothing but physical adultery).  Still others have read this and thought Ezekiel 16 and 23 say the women were raped, which, as false and idiotic of an interpretation as that is, needs to directly be addressed.

The first two of these objections or misinterpretions can be addressed jointly.  An action--and an action with no corresponding obligation to carry it out in Mosaic Law--mentioned in an allegorical retelling of Israel's wandering from Yahweh has nothing to do with what is just or unjust in legal or other interpersonal treatment of fellow humans.  Mosaic Law is where the details of justice are found, not in Ezekiel!  In fact, the parts of Ezekiel that allude to Biblical justice hinge on Mosaic Law, not the other way around.  No one with the right understanding of Christian theology, whether or not they are even a Christian, would look to comparatively vague, secondary parts of the Old Testament as dictating what the Bible says about justice more than Mosaic Law.

Rape is nowhere to be found; even forced nudity with the intent to make someone feel humiliated or degraded in a sexual sense is not rape.  Only someone delusional or with an assumption-driven ideology--which is its own kind of delusion as it is--would read either chapter of Ezekiel and think rape is present anywhere at all.  On the contrary, rape is a particularly extreme sin that is punished with death in Biblical law.  Even though forced nudity is never prescribed as a punishment and doing so would contradict part of Deuteronomy 25:3, it is far lesser of an offense than rape and thus comparing them as if they were similar beyond occasional superficialities is wholly irrational.

No, neither Ezekiel 16 nor Ezekiel 23 prescribes any particular course of action except perhaps not straying from Yahweh, but even then, looking to either chapter as text to ascertain what the Bible says about the morality of sexual abuse as a whole is misguided at best.  Its only real significance in this sense is in contrasting with Mosaic Law and giving people an example of something that Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy do not actually prescribe, but in fact would condemn.  When Deuteronomy 25:3 forbids entire types of punishments to avoid cruelty (meaning more than 40 lashes is one of many things that is never justified, unlike killing) and Deuteronomy 4:2 says not to add to God's commands, only a fool would think that forcibly exposing someone's nude body against their will, man or woman, is Biblically just.

1 comment:

  1. Elitist, often expensive & excessive throughout history, Clothing is vain; being stripped Nude, whether it be it as Divinely predicted for Christ on the Cross ( despite historical artistic “cover up” crimes against our Humanity/God Blessed Pro•Creative/Life•Giving Organs ) or for those exiles prophesied, & exampled by the prophet HisSelf, stripped barefoot naked for three years, in #IsaiahXX2, is a conspicuous physical stripping away of prideful self indulgent vanities, which revert the Nude/Person back the God’s Original humble yet glorious template, Adam.1.0 & Eve, more than an aim to humiliate & denigrate.

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