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dean_issov's review
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
đź“š Description
The Bible Now is a book by Old Testament scholar Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky, it's about what the Hebrew Bible says about Homosexuality, Abortion, Women, Capital Punishment, and the Earth.
✔️ What I liked
1. Each chapter is precise and goes straight to the subject matter.
2. Each topic is well researched and nuanced
3. It is unbiased, the authors are always politically neutral.
❌ What I didn't like
1. They could've added more topics such as Slavery and how the Bible viewed the Earth as a planet (since many flat earthers claim that the Bible supports their views).
2. They could've found a New Testament scholar to co-author with them, the book only covers the Hebrew Bible.
🧠What I learned & Highlights
1. Sodom and Gomorrah is NOT about homosexuality, it's about rape.
2. King David and Prince Jonathan are NOT homosexuals, they are platonic friends.
3. There are at least four separate authors of biblical law (J, E, D, & P) writing over a period of centuries in ancient Israel. The laws that prohibit male homosexual acts (prohibition of female homosexual acts is nowhere to be found) is only in the latest one (P). The other three (J, E, & D) contains no laws at all about homosexuality. And the only reason why P prohibits male homosexual acts is because it is seen as offensive in their group or culture, the reason is NOT because it is immoral.
4. Although history shows us that same-sex relations have always been a part of human culture and society around the world, the idea of categorizing people according to sexual preference is actually a modern invention. In most ancient societies, homosexuality is not a distinct and separate category of identity or existence. Sexual preferences were certainly acknowledged, but they did not serve as a means by which to classify people. In fact, historical texts from Europe and the Mediterranean show that identity was not defined in terms of sexual preference before the seventeenth century CE, and homosexual activities were simply viewed as temptations of the flesh to which certain people may have been more prone than others.
5. Although children were considered a gift from God and a blessing, the reality was that infant and child mortality rates were high in ancient Israel. Many women died in childbirth. Having more than one wife, in addition to concubines by which one could sire more children, simply made sense in this world. On the other hand, a way of life that did not encourage the production of many offspring, such as gay marriage, would not. Now this may not explain the Holiness Code’s firm prohibition on male homosexual acts, but it does provide some insight into the societal emphasis on heterosexual marriage found throughout the Bible and elsewhere in the ancient world.
6. As in the Bible, there are actually very few laws from the rest of the ancient Near East regulating homosexuality. Extant legal collections from Babylon and Egypt are silent on the matter. A Hittite Law from the mid-seventeenth century BCE prohibits sexual relations with mother, daughter, or son, but the context indicates that kinship, rather than gender, is the basis for this prohibition. But the existence of this law suggests that male homosexuality was known, and the lack of other laws prohibiting such activity may indicate that same-sex relations were simply not subject to legal regulation.
7. In contrast with the ancient Near East, a wealth of material relating attitudes toward homosexuality survives from ancient Greece and Rome, including literature, philosophy, art, and legal texts. From this evidence, it seems that erotic love between males was socially sanctioned, if not expected, among the Athenian aristocracy, from at least the sixth century BCE through the fourth.
8. In Greece as in the Near East, to be on the receiving end of sex with a male was considered shameful, reserved only for those of lower status (including all women). It was not the homosexuality. It was being the man who was penetrated by another man.
9. In the Holiness Code there can be no homosexual acts at all in Israel, since by cross-cultural perception such intercourse would necessarily denigrate the passive partner and violate his equal status under God’s law. The laws in Leviticus thus make no distinction between the penetrating male and the passive male the way the other ancient law codes do. The entire range of homosexual acts is forbidden, and both males are equally instructed not to do them.
10. God regrets. God changes divine decisions. God listens to humans and reconsiders. The idea that God must be absolute and unchanging seems to be more an application of Greek logic to religion. That is pretty ironic, since the Greeks classically pictured many gods, and the gods were changeable.
11. The law really does forbid homosexual sex—between males but not between females. And one should recognize that the biblical prohibition is not one that is eternal and unchanging. The prohibition in the Bible applies only so long as male homosexual acts are perceived to be offensive.
12. Genesis 2:24 is not a commandment or a definition. It is a part of a two-chapter section of the Bible that contains stories of the origins of things. These are called etiologies. It contains the etiology of why people wear clothes, why snakes do not have legs, why women have pain in labor, why roses have thorns, and why men work. This verse, too, is an etiology, telling a story of why men and women mate. It has no bearing on whether humans might have homosexual mates as well. It also does not prevent a man from having multiple wives.
13. Abortion as such is not discussed in the Bible.
14. The word that Jeremiah uses for abortion, the only word used in connection with abortion in the Bible, always refers to “killing” and never to “murder.” Conversely, the Hebrew word that is used in the Ten Commandments specifically means murder. The implications of this are serious: it means that the Ten Commandments cannot correctly be cited in support of present-day anti-abortion positions. It means that abortion does not constitute murder by the biblical definition.
15. Opposition to abortion is grounded in a belief—or a desire to believe—that a human life has value and has some meaning. The cases of Jeremiah and Job, broadened by the wisdom of Qohelet, question that belief. They still do not make it acceptable to take the life of a living breathing human being, because we have an explicit commandment against that. But we have no explicit commandment prohibiting abortion. These passages taken collectively, therefore, challenge the belief that every life has some inherent value that cannot be prevented from coming into existence.
16. In biblical terms, those who did not have the breath of life were not alive. If one were to draw an inference, then, from the biblical authors of when they thought life began, it would be difficult to make the argument that they thought it began at conception or at any point prior to the birth and drawing of the first breath.
17. If we learn anything from the Bible’s small treatment of abortion, it is that it is not mentioned in the law but is mentioned as a question of human existence. Whichever position we take on abortion, the Bible prods us to elevate our thinking and our debates to that level.
18. The story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit is an etiology. The story does not imply that men ought to dominate women, it is not a prescription.
19. The snake in the story is not the devil, the devil does not appear anywhere in the Hebrew Bible.
20. The biblical law is unequivocal; unless the woman is presumed innocent by the fact that the adulterous sex takes place outside of the city, both parties are executed. There are two important differences from other ancient Near Eastern laws here: first, there is no exception for a man who pleads ignorance of the woman’s marital status; and, second, the husband has no say in the punishment. He can neither mitigate it nor carry it out himself. Why are these differences important? Because it seems that the law in the Bible has entirely removed a husband’s authority to inflict punishments on his wife.
21. Premarital sex is not prohibited anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. Women who are not virgins are free to marry. In biblical law, there is only one man who must marry a virgin, and that man is the High Priest of Israel.
22. Women are not property. The only humans who are property are slaves. Wives cannot be sold. They can influence a family’s affairs (or a nation’s). They can own property. Some laws are written in their favor.
23. The poetry that is the oldest work in the Bible (the Song of Miriam and the Song of Deborah) and the work that is the oldest prose in the world (In the Day) may come from women. A very large part of the Bible may well have been written by one or more women; and both the female and the male writers spent more time and space on males, true, but they were very much interested in women’s roles.
24. Some scholars mistakenly declare that the Bible, as a text produced in a patriarchal context, not only describes the inferior position of women but actively advocates the oppression of women. But we have not seen evidence of this in the poetry, prose, or legal texts that we have considered here.
25. To break an oath that is made in YHWH’s name is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments, which forbids taking YHWH’s name in vain. This commandment does not mean that one cannot say things such as “God damn it” as people often think. It rather means the very thing that Saul is said to have done: to violate an oath in which one has explicitly invoked the divine name YHWH.
26. The most likely reason why the Bible has execution for so many crimes is that there were no prisons. Archaeologically, we have never found evidence of prisons in ancient Israel. And the Bible’s prose narratives speak of no institution that is comparable to present-day prisons. And the Bible’s laws never call for imprisonment for any crime.
27. We therefore conclude that we are best advised to act with humility and—even for those who have thought this through and concluded that they favor capital punishment—to be extraordinarily hesitant to perform executions until we reach the kind of wisdom that the Bible encourages us to pursue.
28. The point of all this is that the consistent picture of this human multiplying in the Hebrew Bible is that it is always pictured as a blessing, not as a commandment. And there is never a suggestion that the blessing is infinite, that humans can just keep on multiplying until they are shoulder to shoulder all over the earth.
29. In poetry, we find the same basic theology expressed by the biblical prophets. Human behavior is causally connected with the state of creation. When humans sin, the whole earth suffers.
30. Sacrifice is the Hebrew Bible’s regulation of how humans are to treat the animals that we eat. In biblical law, if you want to eat lamb chops, you cannot just take your sheep out in the field and butcher it. You must take it to the central altar, a priest must supervise you, and you must kill the animal yourself. The Bible is clear that an animal's life is sacred and taking its life should not be done casually.
31. The very fact that there are principles established in the biblical laws about animals and plants reflects the fact that the human dominion over the earth is not a free-for-all. There are limits. And the dominion must be for good. Whether one turns to the Bible as authority or as a guide or just to see what is there, the point of the texts in this matter seems clear enough and consistent: humans have acquired enough power in the earth to do huge good or huge harm. Having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, they know the difference. Humans have a choice, and humans have the knowledge necessary to make that choice. As it says in Deuteronomy: choose life.
âť“ Would I recommend this book?
Yes. This book, although only covers the Old Testament and not the New Testament, is very informative and accessible. I recommend this to all Christians, especially the conservative and fundamentalist ones. I also recommend another book as a follow up: "Did The Old Testament Endorse Slavery?" by Dr. Joshua Bowen.
The Bible Now is a book by Old Testament scholar Richard Elliott Friedman and Shawna Dolansky, it's about what the Hebrew Bible says about Homosexuality, Abortion, Women, Capital Punishment, and the Earth.
✔️ What I liked
1. Each chapter is precise and goes straight to the subject matter.
2. Each topic is well researched and nuanced
3. It is unbiased, the authors are always politically neutral.
❌ What I didn't like
1. They could've added more topics such as Slavery and how the Bible viewed the Earth as a planet (since many flat earthers claim that the Bible supports their views).
2. They could've found a New Testament scholar to co-author with them, the book only covers the Hebrew Bible.
🧠What I learned & Highlights
1. Sodom and Gomorrah is NOT about homosexuality, it's about rape.
2. King David and Prince Jonathan are NOT homosexuals, they are platonic friends.
3. There are at least four separate authors of biblical law (J, E, D, & P) writing over a period of centuries in ancient Israel. The laws that prohibit male homosexual acts (prohibition of female homosexual acts is nowhere to be found) is only in the latest one (P). The other three (J, E, & D) contains no laws at all about homosexuality. And the only reason why P prohibits male homosexual acts is because it is seen as offensive in their group or culture, the reason is NOT because it is immoral.
4. Although history shows us that same-sex relations have always been a part of human culture and society around the world, the idea of categorizing people according to sexual preference is actually a modern invention. In most ancient societies, homosexuality is not a distinct and separate category of identity or existence. Sexual preferences were certainly acknowledged, but they did not serve as a means by which to classify people. In fact, historical texts from Europe and the Mediterranean show that identity was not defined in terms of sexual preference before the seventeenth century CE, and homosexual activities were simply viewed as temptations of the flesh to which certain people may have been more prone than others.
5. Although children were considered a gift from God and a blessing, the reality was that infant and child mortality rates were high in ancient Israel. Many women died in childbirth. Having more than one wife, in addition to concubines by which one could sire more children, simply made sense in this world. On the other hand, a way of life that did not encourage the production of many offspring, such as gay marriage, would not. Now this may not explain the Holiness Code’s firm prohibition on male homosexual acts, but it does provide some insight into the societal emphasis on heterosexual marriage found throughout the Bible and elsewhere in the ancient world.
6. As in the Bible, there are actually very few laws from the rest of the ancient Near East regulating homosexuality. Extant legal collections from Babylon and Egypt are silent on the matter. A Hittite Law from the mid-seventeenth century BCE prohibits sexual relations with mother, daughter, or son, but the context indicates that kinship, rather than gender, is the basis for this prohibition. But the existence of this law suggests that male homosexuality was known, and the lack of other laws prohibiting such activity may indicate that same-sex relations were simply not subject to legal regulation.
7. In contrast with the ancient Near East, a wealth of material relating attitudes toward homosexuality survives from ancient Greece and Rome, including literature, philosophy, art, and legal texts. From this evidence, it seems that erotic love between males was socially sanctioned, if not expected, among the Athenian aristocracy, from at least the sixth century BCE through the fourth.
8. In Greece as in the Near East, to be on the receiving end of sex with a male was considered shameful, reserved only for those of lower status (including all women). It was not the homosexuality. It was being the man who was penetrated by another man.
9. In the Holiness Code there can be no homosexual acts at all in Israel, since by cross-cultural perception such intercourse would necessarily denigrate the passive partner and violate his equal status under God’s law. The laws in Leviticus thus make no distinction between the penetrating male and the passive male the way the other ancient law codes do. The entire range of homosexual acts is forbidden, and both males are equally instructed not to do them.
10. God regrets. God changes divine decisions. God listens to humans and reconsiders. The idea that God must be absolute and unchanging seems to be more an application of Greek logic to religion. That is pretty ironic, since the Greeks classically pictured many gods, and the gods were changeable.
11. The law really does forbid homosexual sex—between males but not between females. And one should recognize that the biblical prohibition is not one that is eternal and unchanging. The prohibition in the Bible applies only so long as male homosexual acts are perceived to be offensive.
12. Genesis 2:24 is not a commandment or a definition. It is a part of a two-chapter section of the Bible that contains stories of the origins of things. These are called etiologies. It contains the etiology of why people wear clothes, why snakes do not have legs, why women have pain in labor, why roses have thorns, and why men work. This verse, too, is an etiology, telling a story of why men and women mate. It has no bearing on whether humans might have homosexual mates as well. It also does not prevent a man from having multiple wives.
13. Abortion as such is not discussed in the Bible.
14. The word that Jeremiah uses for abortion, the only word used in connection with abortion in the Bible, always refers to “killing” and never to “murder.” Conversely, the Hebrew word that is used in the Ten Commandments specifically means murder. The implications of this are serious: it means that the Ten Commandments cannot correctly be cited in support of present-day anti-abortion positions. It means that abortion does not constitute murder by the biblical definition.
15. Opposition to abortion is grounded in a belief—or a desire to believe—that a human life has value and has some meaning. The cases of Jeremiah and Job, broadened by the wisdom of Qohelet, question that belief. They still do not make it acceptable to take the life of a living breathing human being, because we have an explicit commandment against that. But we have no explicit commandment prohibiting abortion. These passages taken collectively, therefore, challenge the belief that every life has some inherent value that cannot be prevented from coming into existence.
16. In biblical terms, those who did not have the breath of life were not alive. If one were to draw an inference, then, from the biblical authors of when they thought life began, it would be difficult to make the argument that they thought it began at conception or at any point prior to the birth and drawing of the first breath.
17. If we learn anything from the Bible’s small treatment of abortion, it is that it is not mentioned in the law but is mentioned as a question of human existence. Whichever position we take on abortion, the Bible prods us to elevate our thinking and our debates to that level.
18. The story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit is an etiology. The story does not imply that men ought to dominate women, it is not a prescription.
19. The snake in the story is not the devil, the devil does not appear anywhere in the Hebrew Bible.
20. The biblical law is unequivocal; unless the woman is presumed innocent by the fact that the adulterous sex takes place outside of the city, both parties are executed. There are two important differences from other ancient Near Eastern laws here: first, there is no exception for a man who pleads ignorance of the woman’s marital status; and, second, the husband has no say in the punishment. He can neither mitigate it nor carry it out himself. Why are these differences important? Because it seems that the law in the Bible has entirely removed a husband’s authority to inflict punishments on his wife.
21. Premarital sex is not prohibited anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. Women who are not virgins are free to marry. In biblical law, there is only one man who must marry a virgin, and that man is the High Priest of Israel.
22. Women are not property. The only humans who are property are slaves. Wives cannot be sold. They can influence a family’s affairs (or a nation’s). They can own property. Some laws are written in their favor.
23. The poetry that is the oldest work in the Bible (the Song of Miriam and the Song of Deborah) and the work that is the oldest prose in the world (In the Day) may come from women. A very large part of the Bible may well have been written by one or more women; and both the female and the male writers spent more time and space on males, true, but they were very much interested in women’s roles.
24. Some scholars mistakenly declare that the Bible, as a text produced in a patriarchal context, not only describes the inferior position of women but actively advocates the oppression of women. But we have not seen evidence of this in the poetry, prose, or legal texts that we have considered here.
25. To break an oath that is made in YHWH’s name is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments, which forbids taking YHWH’s name in vain. This commandment does not mean that one cannot say things such as “God damn it” as people often think. It rather means the very thing that Saul is said to have done: to violate an oath in which one has explicitly invoked the divine name YHWH.
26. The most likely reason why the Bible has execution for so many crimes is that there were no prisons. Archaeologically, we have never found evidence of prisons in ancient Israel. And the Bible’s prose narratives speak of no institution that is comparable to present-day prisons. And the Bible’s laws never call for imprisonment for any crime.
27. We therefore conclude that we are best advised to act with humility and—even for those who have thought this through and concluded that they favor capital punishment—to be extraordinarily hesitant to perform executions until we reach the kind of wisdom that the Bible encourages us to pursue.
28. The point of all this is that the consistent picture of this human multiplying in the Hebrew Bible is that it is always pictured as a blessing, not as a commandment. And there is never a suggestion that the blessing is infinite, that humans can just keep on multiplying until they are shoulder to shoulder all over the earth.
29. In poetry, we find the same basic theology expressed by the biblical prophets. Human behavior is causally connected with the state of creation. When humans sin, the whole earth suffers.
30. Sacrifice is the Hebrew Bible’s regulation of how humans are to treat the animals that we eat. In biblical law, if you want to eat lamb chops, you cannot just take your sheep out in the field and butcher it. You must take it to the central altar, a priest must supervise you, and you must kill the animal yourself. The Bible is clear that an animal's life is sacred and taking its life should not be done casually.
31. The very fact that there are principles established in the biblical laws about animals and plants reflects the fact that the human dominion over the earth is not a free-for-all. There are limits. And the dominion must be for good. Whether one turns to the Bible as authority or as a guide or just to see what is there, the point of the texts in this matter seems clear enough and consistent: humans have acquired enough power in the earth to do huge good or huge harm. Having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, they know the difference. Humans have a choice, and humans have the knowledge necessary to make that choice. As it says in Deuteronomy: choose life.
âť“ Would I recommend this book?
Yes. This book, although only covers the Old Testament and not the New Testament, is very informative and accessible. I recommend this to all Christians, especially the conservative and fundamentalist ones. I also recommend another book as a follow up: "Did The Old Testament Endorse Slavery?" by Dr. Joshua Bowen.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abortion, Death, Miscarriage, Homophobia, Sexism, and Slavery
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