Are the laws in the Old Testament divinely inspired, or do they simply reflect the primitive superstitious culture that produced them?
I remember when a middle-aged couple in my practice found out that the wife was unexpectedly pregnant. The panicked pair asked me about an abortion. I honestly replied that I did not know the options in our community other than one clinic which was the site of occasional protests. At the time it did not cross my mind that the day was coming when some states would consider laws making it illegal for a doctor to even discuss abortion with a patient and it might lead to arrest and prison. Not doing it, but simply discussing it. (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/01/1158364163/3-abortion-bans-in-texas-leave-doctors-talking-in-code-to-pregnant-patients ) When I read Orwell’s novel 1984 I never believed that “thoughtcrime” would become a reality in this country. I was so naïve. If you think about it, before the Enlightenment many people were imprisoned or even executed for advocating ideas contrary to the church or the monarchy. So what makes us think it can’t happen again? Since some of our laws seem to be turning back the clock, let’s turn our discussion all the way back to ancient Israel.
For some reason many people hold up the Ten Commandments as a great standard of morality, some going so far as to claim they are fundamental to modern law, including the laws of the USA. There have been legal battles on behalf of those who want them displayed in schools, public buildings and courthouses. I feel like the little boy who pointed out that the emperor was naked, but the Ten Commandments aren’t all that great. There! I said it!
First, take a piece of paper and from memory jot down the Ten Commandments, not word-for-word, but just the main point of each. Don’t cheat by looking ahead. Please do this right now. I’ll wait…
Did you get all ten? Let’s see:
1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make an idol or likeness of anything in heaven or earth; you shall not worship them nor serve them.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
How many did you get? Read Exodus 20 for the exact wording. Of course, if you belong to certain denominations you may have come up with a slightly different list. Some, like the Lutherans, combine the first two, and expand the last one so that 9 says to not covet your neighbor’s house, and 10 says to not covet your neighbor’s possessions, like his wife. That seems strange, as the text seems to make all the coveting part of the same commandment, especially when you consider the restating of the commandments in Deuteronomy 5.
The first odd thing to note is that the first commandment concedes the existence of other gods. It does not say, as some people think, that there is only one god. It simply says you are to worship only one god, Yahweh, because He saved you from slavery in Egypt. He’s not the only god; just the best. This is fairly common throughout the Old Testament, that the existence of other gods is taken for granted; but you are to worship only Yahweh. This is not actually monotheism, the belief in one god; it is henotheism, the worship of only one god among many.
As for making a likeness of anything in heaven or on earth (literally, a carved or graven image), what does that say about all those crucifixes hanging around, not to mention all the statues of Mary and other saints? For that matter the famous Ark of the Covenant that Indiana Jones and many others have been searching for was said to contain the tablets of this law but was topped by two golden cherubim (winged heavenly beings); that seems a bit contradictory. I know some will argue that such things are allowed because they don’t worship them, but read Exodus 20 again. First it says don’t make such images. Then it says do not worship them. It does not say it is okay to make such images as long as you do not worship them.
As for keeping the Sabbath Day holy, most Christians do not even attempt to keep this one. First of all, by the modern calendar Saturday is the seventh day, not Sunday. The Seventh Day Adventists will certainly argue for this point. But even if you view Sunday as the Christian Sabbath I do not know any Christians who “keep” it as prescribed in the Law of Moses. Moses had a man stoned to death for collecting firewood on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32f). Have you ever done some yard work on Sunday? Cooked a meal? Caught up on school work or job work? Thou shalt be stoned! And depending on whether you view Saturday or Sunday as the Sabbath, either college or pro football has to go!
Contrary to popular belief, the Commandments do not forbid lying. They only forbid a specific type of lying: bearing false witness against a neighbor. This is like giving false testimony against someone in court; it is not telling your wife that you like her new hairdo, even though you don’t, because you value your peace and quiet. More seriously, it does not forbid you telling the Nazi soldiers that you haven’t seen any Jews, even though you have some hidden in your attic. For you hard-liners who insist that God forbids all lying I refer you to 1st Kings 22, especially v. 23, as well as the situation in Exodus 3 mentioned in the previous post where God encourages Moses to deceive Pharaoh. This is the first commandment among the ten that is actually incorporated into modern law, but it is not unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is simply a good moral principle: do not give false testimony against another person.
The only sexual sin mentioned is adultery, which is a married person breaking the marriage bond by having sex outside of the marriage. There used to be laws in America about adultery, but no longer. People realized it might be a good principle, but it is not practical to enforce it by law (half of Congress would be in jail!). This commandment does not forbid premarital sex. It does not forbid polygamy, which was fairly common in the Old Testament. It does not even forbid rape, which seems to be treated more as a violation of social protocol than a crime, incurring a fine, as in Deuteronomy 22:28, 29. There is nothing in the Commandments to protect children from sexual or physical abuse. Rather, the abuse of underage girls even seems to be encouraged in other passages (Numbers 31, Deuteronomy 21, possibly even in the very next chapter, Exodus 21:7). So this commandment really has little to nothing to do with modern law.
Some women object to the last commandment, about coveting, and for good reason. The neighbor’s wife is lumped together with his other possessions including his ox and donkey. This does not denote a very high status for women. What about a woman coveting her neighbor’s husband? Not even mentioned. These commandments were written by men, for men.
There are a lot of things notably absent: protection of women and children, drunkenness or drug use, cruelty to animals, indifference to human suffering, taking bribes, arson or assault. I am sure you can think of other things.
Murder and stealing are outlawed, but that is not specific to and predates the Judeo-Christian tradition and is common in other religions. So, out of ten only three actually have bearing on modern law: murder, stealing and bearing false witness. Good laws, but hardly the foundation of our system of jurisprudence and not unique to the Bible.
So, the Ten Commandments are found in Exodus chapter 20, but the Law of Moses had many laws besides these first ten. Few people turn the page to see what the next set of laws say in chapter 21: see post #12 for a full discussion of these next ten commandments. Things like how to handle your slaves, selling your daughter as a slave, and fines for abusive livestock. Really? The important things are valuable possessions like slaves, oxen and donkeys. This sounds like the law of a primitive society, not that of a divine eternal being looking forward to all of human history.
Let’s switch gears and get medical, since I am a physician, after all. Over the years various authors and authorities have claimed that the Bible is full of good information about science and in particular about health. Horsebuckey, if you’ll pardon my language. The Bible represents the common beliefs and practices of its day, nothing more. It took many centuries for medical science to mature, but now we know that the Bible offers nothing of use in that field. Let’s start with one of the scourges of ancient times: leprosy.
If you have ever watched a movie about Biblical times you have probably seen represented the disease that is now called Hansen’s disease. It is an infection caused by a bacteria in the Mycobacterium family, related to tuberculosis. It affects various body parts but especially the nerves, and it can lead to loss of sensation and blindness. If you’ve seen it in a movie then you are familiar with its potential to affect the skin and extremities. However, it is not as contagious as once thought, and it is now treatable with antibiotics. But in the ancient world it was considered a death sentence. The ancients at least figured out that it was contagious, and so isolation of lepers was a common practice. In the Law of Moses as cited in Leviticus 13 one who might have leprosy was to go to the priest. Not a doctor, the Bible never says anything about having a doctor around or how to become a doctor, just a lot about being a priest. Besides, illness was usually connected to sin or demon possession, at least by their way of thinking, so going to a priest made sense. The priest would examine the patient and decide if it was truly leprosy, and if in doubt would quarantine them for a period of time to be sure. If it appeared to be leprosy then the person would be considered “unclean,” which meant other people could not come in contact with him. If you read the passages about leprosy I suspect a lot of people who had inflammatory skin conditions like psoriasis or severe eczema, which are not at all contagious, were classified as lepers and therefore those people were ostracized for no good reason. Thus goes the medical wisdom of the Bible.
Lest you think that the concept of quarantine or isolation to avoid contagion is some evidence of divinely inspired guidance, be aware that other ancient non-Biblical societies also recognized the importance of avoiding contact with sick, dying and dead people. It is not hard to figure out that people who come in contact with sick people are likely to get sick themselves, and so one should avoid contact with them. Duh. Ancient people were intelligent; they just didn’t have the accumulated knowledge we do today.
Of course, there is no hint that this disease, or any other disease, is caused by germs (bacteria, viruses or fungi). I think it is a very important point that God did not give even a hint as to the true nature of disease, leaving people to think it might be the result of sin, or demon possession, or they often attributed disease to God Himself. Here is a passage illustrating this:
If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. Also every sickness and every plague which, not written in the book of this law, the Lord will bring on you until you are destroyed.
Deuteronomy 28:58-61
Whoa! Even the sicknesses that aren’t written in the book! If you read the books of the prophets you will see this theme repeatedly: disease is often a punishment from God for your disobedience.
If God had taken the time to explain to His people that some disease is caused by germs, and some by genetics, and some by other factors (like overeating or too much wine) then medical science would have been advanced hundreds of years, advanced by several millennia, in fact. If God had given more precise methods of diagnosing various diseases and more specific treatments then think of the misery that people could have been spared over the centuries. If God had told His people the truth about germs then we would not have had to wait until the 1800s (about 3,000 years after Moses) to figure it out, so that doctors wouldn’t do things like go from one pregnant woman to another without washing their hands, passing along deadly infections. Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) is generally credited with pioneering antiseptic techniques in hospitals, contributing to a huge decrease in mortality, especially among new mothers. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) in the mid 1800s also helped develop the germ theory of disease. But they were both too late to save the millions who died unnecessarily since the time of Moses, because God wanted His people to think disease had a mystical basis rather than a scientific one.
Given the mystical basis for disease in Biblical times, consider this procedure for how one could be declared clean of leprosy, found in Leviticus 14: To summarize:
Get two live birds. Kill one and dip the other into its blood. Sprinkle the patient with blood seven times. Let the blood-soaked bird fly away. Have the patient shave off all his hair, and wash himself and his clothes. Bring two male lambs and one ewe lamb along with flour and oil. The cake made with flour and oil is a sin offering. Sacrifice one of the male lambs as a guilt offering. (The priest gets to keep the cooked lamb and the flour and oil, by the way). Wipe some of the lamb’s blood on the patient’s right ear, thumb, and big toe. Sprinkle seven times with oil and wipe some of the oil on his right ear, thumb and big toe. Wipe the remainder of the oil from the priest’s hand on the patient’s head. Sacrifice another lamb and then offer the third as a burnt offering together with the grain offering. And “he will be clean” (v.20).
Really? Well, at least one of the birds gets to live and fly away. And does bird blood have some sort of curative power? I can just see the infomercials now advertising the latest miracle cure: bird’s blood in a bottle! Note that the main part of this procedure involves sin and guilt offerings. Why? Because disease is caused by sin, not genetics and germs. This is the kind of warped thinking about disease that people were saddled with for centuries because God chose not to tell His people the truth about disease. Better to keep people yoked by guilt of their sin than teach them the truth of how disease works.
Here is another law which relates to medical issues. In Numbers 5:11-31 there is a procedure to be followed if a man suspects his wife has been unfaithful to him. He takes her to a priest (of course, there being no doctors). The priest takes some dust from the floor of the tabernacle and puts it in some holy water, while the woman holds in her hands an offering of barley meal. The priest has the woman recite a curse that if she is guilty of unfaithfulness “may Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people by Yahweh’s making your thigh shriveled and your belly swollen; and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, to make your belly swell up and your thigh shrivel.” The priest writes this curse on a scroll and then washes it off into the water. The woman drinks the water and if she is not guilty then she will be “immune [or free] and conceive children.” But if she is guilty then as the curse says, her “thigh” [probably meaning genitalia] will shrivel and her belly [womb?] will swell.
My guess is that this was contrived to put a scare into women that might contemplate adultery: we’ve got a test and we will find you out! A terrible curse will come on you as a result, and you will never be able to bear children! (One of the worst fates men could conceive of for women in that culture.) I can see a terrified woman confessing before drinking this mystical potion. Basically a form of psychological torture to produce a confession from a guilty woman. Yes, this is a combination of jurisprudence and medical science at its finest.
Of course, if the woman is pregnant as a result of adultery the implication is that this procedure will cause her to miscarry. After all, the husband doesn’t want to be saddled with raising another man’s child. Today some argue that even in cases of incest or rape the woman (or girl) should not get an abortion because the child still deserves life and love. This adultery test says otherwise. The child conceived in adultery is to be terminated; the husband wants his own children, not somebody else’s. So sayeth the Law. Please note verse 31: “The man, moreover, will be free of guilt, but that woman shall bear the consequences of her guilt.” And there is no test to see if a husband has been unfaithful to his wife. Want to guess who wrote these laws: men or women?
Let’s mention a few silly laws just for fun. You may know that certain animals were considered “unclean” and an “abomination” and therefore not to be eaten (Leviticus 11, e.g.). Among them were pigs, catfish and shrimp. I promise you that if you follow any large group of Christians out to lunch after church on Sunday a good number of them (at least in the South) will have pork barbecue, catfish or shrimp. Apparently such things were only an abomination to God if Jews ate them, not if Christians eat them. Of course, the Christians will argue that Jesus declared all foods “clean” (Mark 7:19. Acts 10:15). But if that is the case, why were such foods called “abominations” in the Law? Maybe when Jesus took human form and tasted these foods he realized they weren’t so abominable after all, in fact, quite tasty! So he declared them “clean,” to our benefit.
What about tattoos and body piercing, or even fancy haircuts and beard trimming? Leviticus 19. That same chapter forbids planting two different seeds in a field, or wearing clothes made of two different materials. How many different plants do you have in your vegetable garden? Ever worn clothes made of a blend, like cotton/polyester? Oh, thou sinner! You abomination! Seriously, do you think with all the problems in the world the Supreme Being is concerned with the fabric you wear or the food you eat? Doesn’t He have some bigger fish to fry? (Well, not catfish.)
Also from Leviticus 19 is this gem: “‘Now if a man has sexual relations with a woman who is a slave acquired for another man, but who has in no way been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment; they shall not, however, be put to death, because she was not free. He shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord to the doorway of the tent of meeting, a ram as a guilt offering.” For those who deny that there were slaves in the Law but merely servants, read this passage carefully. She was “acquired” and has not been “redeemed” (“ransomed”) or given her “freedom” and she is clearly not treated the same as a free woman. There are so many laws and other passages condoning sex slaves in the Old Testament (see post #8). Is this your source of morality? No wonder the history of the church is so stained with sexual sins, from adulterous popes and pastors to pedophile priests.
To be fair, there are some good laws mixed in. In that same chapter it says not to curse a deaf man or trip a blind one; I like that. And when you harvest your crops or vineyard you are to leave the droppings and uncut edges for the needy. Excellent!
Now, the good news about that all the questionable laws is that they did not really govern Israel through most of its existence. The priests and scribes after the destruction of the northern tribes of Israel which led to the rise of Judah wrote this law and then put it on the lips of their great legendary figure Moses to give it credence and strength. To help create a national identity and to curry favor with Yahweh lest they also be destroyed. If you doubt me, go back and read the history books in the Old Testament. You will see an obvious absence of any knowledge of these laws. Take for example King David, who is not a Levite or a priest and yet is said to offer sacrifices to God and wear a priestly ephod. Because the Law did not really exist in his day. Also consider 2nd Kings 23:21-23 in which it admits the Passover had not been celebrated for many generations: because those laws were not enacted until around the time of King Josiah. The festivals were not celebrated. There is no organized priesthood or high priest. There is no evidence that the people of Israel actually knew these laws until late in their history. They were developed later and then put into Moses’ mouth to give them the official stamp of approval.
Please, Christian apologists, stop trying to justify the immoral and crazy laws of the Old Testament. It is not hard to say, “Slavery is wrong and has always been wrong.” Try it; say it: It is wrong to treat another person as a possession, particularly as a sex slave. It is wrong to sell your daughter to another person. It is wrong to take a foreign virgin girl as your wife after killing her family. God is not concerned about what type of seafood you eat, or the material you wear, or your style of beard. Do you really think the Supreme One is concerned about such matters while war, genocide and child abuse are regularly taking place? I would not expect a god to be that petty. These laws are of human origin, and it is an insult to the concept of a wise and benevolent God to say otherwise.
Listen: there is no substitute to going back and reading these laws for yourself and evaluating them. Exodus through Deuteronomy. I know it is tedious (particularly Numbers), but if you believe the Law is from God then certainly you must want to know what He says! Read them for yourself and tell me whether they are from a divine all-knowing being looking ahead to the future of humanity, or just the best a primitive superstitious culture could come up with at their time and place.
Thinking exercises:
1. List a few laws that you would like to inflict on society that are not already in place. Any that you would like to delete?
2. If you were God, what would you tell primitive people about the nature of disease? Would you tell then the truth about germs and genetics, or let them believe it’s all about sin and disobedience in order to get them to toe the line?
3. Considering that sex slaves (concubines) were part of the Mosaic Law, do you think we should revise our laws about prostitution?
4. Why do people insist that the Mosaic Law is from God and is the basis for American jurisprudence yet don’t work to incorporate all of the laws into our judicial code, but just pick and choose?
5. Wouldn’t reinstituting slavery help a lot of people who are struggling in poverty now, as well as men who are having a hard time finding a wife through conventional means? (How much for that daughter of yours?) We have politicians claiming that slavery had benefits to those who were enslaved in America. Do you agree? If so, were we wrong to end slavery? Is it an institution approved by God, after all?
One response to “18: Loopy Laws”
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