1 Timothy 5:11-15
As for younger widows, do not put them on such a list. For when their sensual desires overcome their dedication to Christ, they want to marry. Thus they bring judgment on themselves, because they have broken their first pledge. Besides, they get into the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. And not only do they become idlers, but also busybodies who talk nonsense, saying things they ought not to. So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.
Discuss.
Yep, that’s me. I’m idle and go from house to house and am a well know busybody whose sensual desires have overcome my dedication. Honestly, my late companions wouldn’t want it any other way. So don’t put me on that list.
This is exactly why we can’t let women inherit property. God said it, not me.
So Paul sends some blather to his buddy Tim. Pretty soon, it gets canonized as My word?
Christians are just lucky that Paul did not have email!
Imagine what will happen when the Newer Testament emerges based on the emails of the Prophet David?
I am That I Am.
@3 Blather is absolutely right.
As someone once said, if God didn’t exist, Prof. Steve would have to invent him.
I mean, really, why is such import projected on these 2000 year old texts of dubious provenance? Particularly when they are so manifestly patriarchal and misogynistic.
Let the Christian bashing begin! (That was for the whiners out there – my prejudice is directed toward mythology in general, though Christians do present a particularly target-rich environment for hypocrisy to ridicule.)
This is just too nutty. I don’t even know what to say.
What’s so confusing? Makes perfect sense to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....AAAAAAAAAA
Considering that evangelicals and righties tend to watch a whole lot of porn, isn’t Santorum alienating his base?
Get thee to a nunnery???
re 8: They asked for the Lord’s foregiveness, so it never really happened.
I think being ‘born again’ means never having to say you’re sorry.
Puerto Rico is part of America…
A Mormon picks up 82% against a couple of Catholics in Puerto Rico! The culture war is over folks.
Mythology is important, powerful, and very cool stuff. Mythology helps us understand who we are and why we do the things we do. But, you must understand that myth is not literal fact. Personally, I think regarding myth as literal fact robs it of it power.
And even though I’m an atheist and understand that myth ≠ literal truth, I do go a little out of my way to keep the old Norse (my people!) Gods happy. I’m pretty sure Freyja could wipe the floor with me.
@12
That first bit is a reference to West Side Story, incase you’re wondering.
@14: Norse mythology and musical theater…
Who knew!? (;-)
You oversimplify.
Is the Iliad not a myth just because Troy existed and there was a war with the Achaens?
Is the Great Emancipator story a myth because Lincoln only belatedly recognized that Africans were human .. sort of?
Is the city of Ur a myth because it is mentioned in Genesis? Is Moses not real because we have no evidence other than the Torah for him?
Are you willing to state that Krishna and Jesus never existed just because we have no independent sources for them?
There is however, a very odd exception amongst myths .. that is the Roman (aka Christian) … there is nos statement that a deity revealed this to humans … merely the certification of a body of officials. Is this much different than the Soviet canonization of Marx?
Liberal Scientist …
Have we met?
I am not sure why you address me. “if God didn’t exist, Prof. Steve would have to invent him.”
First, if we have met I assume you know that I am an evangelical atheist. I Regard the “god
worshiped by most Americans as an excuse for evil, that is as a devil. If we want to do evil, we should fess up!
Second, your grammar is odd … do you really mean to write that if there was no God, I would have to invent myself? Was this a faux pas, freudian slip????
It’s snowing!
If anyone’s wondering where all the trolls went I think they’re all being shot to pieces on the season finale of The Walking Dead.
19 *just kidding* Ann Coulter humor you know..
If you read through one of Paul’s letters from beginning to end instead of the selected verses that get into typical liturgies, you’ll find a fair amount greetings to people he knew personally, idle gossip and funky inside jokes. If Paul were around in our present age, he might well be a stand-up comic.
re 15: A cape, an eye-patch, and a Raven on my shoulder. I should have won the fashion competition.
One thing to remember about Old Testiment era is that it was a time when young men frequently were sent off to war. Or war was thrust upon them, as various empires criss-crossed Israel and Judea which found itself frequently in the middle of conflicts between various empires. This created a demographic and cultural crisis, because there were a lot more young men than women. To not accomodate this situation, and require the women to go childless, would result in a declining birthrate and eventual loss of the tribal, national and racial identity.
So the men took multiple wives, and a brother had an obligation to take his sister-in-law as a wife if her husband (the brother) died. This provided for safety and needs of the widow, without bringing an unmarried woman into the household.
The quoted passage from the New Testiment continues this tradition of a sort, except it places it into a new context – as a method of removing temptation. Although Paul talks about the temptations in the context of the women, the bigger danger (in the eyes of early church theology) might be the temptation young widows might provide to young men – either single or married.
@22
“Like”
Myths change in the mind depending on the telling- there is no overall correct version.
-A.S. Byatt