An Atheist Explores the Bible.Part 36: The Law Book of Weird Statutes (Deuteronomy 21-25)

Deuteronomy 21-25
The Law Book of Weird Statutes.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. 

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Deuteronomy 21
“And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her”

The grab-bag of laws continues, and in this instance pretty much all of the laws given here have, well, let’s say they haven’t dated well, and cover them one by one.

First, if a mysterious corpse appears within the dominion of a city, the elders of the city should kill a heifer and wash their hands in its blood, so as to expiate the city of any guilt of causing the death of the mystery corpse, so that the innocent aren’t held accountable for the acts of the guilty.

Second, if a man takes a woman captive in war he has to allow her a month to mourn her family before he is allowed to take her as a wife. And if he gets bored of her, he can’t sell her but has to let her go. I wonder if this was considered to be a very generous thing?

If a man has two wives, each with sons, and he hates one of the wives and/or sons, the inheritance must always go to the firstborn regardless of favour. Which, polygamy aside, seems fair enough, except it does beg the question about all the second-born (or later) sons who ended up inheriting their father’s birthright back in Genesis, like Jacob and Joseph. Guess they don’t count?

If parents find that their son is dissolute and disobediant they can have him stoned by the whole city. So let that be a lesson to you!

Lastly, if a miscreant is hanged from a tree the body must be interred the same day – there’s a confusing inconsistency here, in that the body of a hanged man is accursed, but leaving him up will defile the land, which I would have thought would have been the case if he was buried. Death by hanging is often symbolically a way of denying the soul access to the afterlife as the body is between heaven and earth. A little confusing in terms of metaphor, perhaps, but nothing too strange about the law itself.

Deuteronomy 22

“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.”

Another mix of laws, including a proscription against cross-dressing (see above), how to take eggs from a bird’s nest and also what is probably the first health and safety law ever, V8 “When thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thine house, if any man fall from thence.”

There’s a collection of laws against intermingling things, of which the transvestitism rule is one. There’s no reason given for these (such as not sowing mixed crops), and also no punishment given for what happens if they are transgressed, which makes them kind of pointless as laws.

The rest of the chapter concerns itself with virginity, or lack of, or forcible taking of. A man can accuse his wife of not being a virgin and cause her to be stoned to death; the burden of proof being upon her family (mention of “tokens of virginity” is made, but the Bible is coy on what this means, implication seems to be a bloody sheet). As well as this charming intrusion, if a woman is raped in a city both she and her attacker are stoned, but if she is raped in the country only the man gets killed (because, you see, in the city she should have called for help whereas in the country there’s no-one to help anyway). Yeah, that all sounds fair and equitable, I don’t think.

Last law in this chapter, a man may not “discover his father’s skirt”. Well, no, especially if that means the father has been cross-dressing.

Deuteronomy 23

“He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD”

The random laws continue with still no particular grouping. As well as eunuchs (see above), bastards, Moabites and Ammonites cannot worship God either (and we get another mention of comedy donkey-rider Balaam) again. However, Edomites and Egyptians can be allowed to worship God if they are third generation.

There are rules concerning toilet hygiene “And thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be, when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn back and cover that which cometh from thee” which is, shock, sensible. There are rules against usury. There are rules on what to do if someone else’s servant runs away and wants to work for you (you keep him on). There are rules for keeping vows. You can eat what you like from your neighbour’s produce as long as you don’t take any away with you. There are rules on sexual morals (no whoring or sodomy).

V18 “Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the LORD thy God” is a strange one – does this mean don’t offer up money that has come from these transactions as a tithe?

As with most chapters of this ilk, some of these laws are amusing to the modern reader, some still form the foundation of laws today, some seem overly harsh or judgmental, and on balance I think I prefer a legal system that is constantly under review, rather than one that is rigorously adhered to because “it is written”.

Deuteronomy 24

“When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken”

I like that, “cheer up”, how quaintly expressed! And here we go again with another collection of laws. The chapter starts with uxorial laws, like the one above, but largely spends several verses on re-marrying (or not – you don’t get a second chance with a woman you have already divorced). What’s kind of interesting with these is that, although it seems to imply that the decision to divorce is only available to men, no stain or dishonour seems to be attached to the divorced woman – she can freely remarry if she likes.

The second part of the chapter mainly concerns itself with charitable acts to the poor – if you lend someone something you can’t go into their house to collect it, and also if they are poor you must give it back by the end of the day; leave some of your harvest for the poor to collect, other rules of this ilk. This chapter seems, by and large, to be more fair than some of the previous ones.

One thing – “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.” Talk about one rule for me and another for you, how many times has God cursed the descendants of some malefactor in previous chapters? What about mankind forever being doomed to work and suffer in childbirth because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience? Or are we splitting legal hairs here because the punishment wasn’t death? Hm.

Deuteronomy 25

“If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked”

Some really odd laws in this one, although it starts off innocuously enough, with disputes to be brought before the judges, who can invoke up to forty strokes of a rod for punishment. But then we get into the territory of the strange and esoteric.

Don’t muzzle an ox whilst it is trampling corn. Is that a thing that happens? And what would happen if you did? Or is it a proverb, like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?

A man must marry and impregnate his sister in law if her husband dies, with any child being classed as the descendant of your dead brother. The Onan story comes back here, and a man must testify if he doesn’t want to do this, and if he doesn’t he gets his shoe taken off and becomes known as the Man Without A Shoe (well, more or less what it says). Maybe this was a pun in Hebrew?

If a woman tries to interfere in a fight and accidentally touches the “secrets” of one of them, she loses a hand. It’s a very specific case, that one, not to mention cruel and unfair.

Finally we get back to more solid ground. I thought at first that “Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small” was another of the strange “don’t mix things” laws that we had in Deuteronomy 22, but on second thought it, and the following lines, are actually rules about keeping honest weights and measures, which I concede is a reasonable law.