Ted Walther's Private Diary

• Exodus 12,21-23,25-30,34,35
• Leviticus 1-7,11-27
• Numbers 5,6,8-10,15,18,19,27-29,30,35
• Deuteronomy 4-8,10,12-28

There are bits of the Torah scattered throughout the rest of the Tanakh, but if you read the 73 chapters above, you will have some foundation for understanding the rest of the Bible. Everything else in the Bible illuminates and expands on the Law, which is mostly found in the chapters listed above.

A few days ago Thomas Adkins sent in a thoughtful response to my recent article titled Why didn't King Solomon Kill the Two Prostitutes. I disagree with Thomas on two points; I don't think rape was common in Israel or today, and I don't think Solomon was in any doubt toward the womens status as prostitutes. The Bible doesn't say the women were "called" prostitutes. It says they "were harlots". The reasons for their harlotry may well have been neglect on the part of their menfolk in defending their interests. Or it may have been that they were rebellious women. The Bible doesn't tell us. Readers may also want to read my recent article What is Harlotry? Harlotry or prostitution in the Bible may not involve the exchange of money or sex at all; it is a broader word than English usage leads us to believe.

From: Thomas Adkins <neothomas@comcast.net>

I have considered your explanation as to why Solomon did not put either of the two "prostitutes" to death. And the reasoning seems valid.

However, I would like to suggest another, somewhat similar, way of looking at this situation. Consider 1st Samuel 28:15 where the identity of the one speaking is mentioned as "Samuel": "And Samuel said to Saul, Why has thou disquieted me, to bring me up? ..."

Personally, I don't think the writer of this verse wanted us to conclude with certainty that it was Samuel in person, but was that this entity was recognized as Samuel. In a similar way, references to the two women referred to as "prostitutes" might not actually mean that they were, in fact, prostitutes, but that they were women who were called prostitutes by others at that time.

Any woman who doesn't have a husband and who is seen near a man will be referred to as a prostitute by others, especially in a religious community. Any woman seen spending too much time with or seen being friends with a "prostitute" will be termed one by association. After a (possibly short) while, no man who can afford a wife will marry her because of the stigma which would be attached to him as a result. At this point, a woman may have no choice but to make out whatever life she can.

I imagine that some women recognized that they could prostitute themselves, even becoming pregnant, and escape punishment by taking advantage of the rape clause at Deuteronomy 22:27 "For he found her in the field, [and] the betrothed damsel cried, and [there was] none to save her". It is a very sad reality, however, that women of that time really were raped during that just as today, and whenever this resulted in pregnancy, the woman would likely be branded a "prostitute" for the rest of her life by an extremely heartless assumption of guilt.

The upshot is that the term "prostitute" might not really imply breaking the law to the Hebrew mind; it might not necessarily imply a reaction of law. Thus, Solomon, realizing the plight of such women, would resist assuming these women broke the law simply because the women were branded as "prostitutes".

For years everyone on the Left has made jokes about President Bush, calling him "stupid" and other names. I've never met the man, and I don't follow politics, so I don't have a position one way or another. A phone call this morning gave me a very positive perspective though.

John Sokol called and said "Did you know they have nukes in Iran?" Of course I did, don't be silly John. Why wouldn't Iran have nukes? Between the two of us we finally figured out what the Afghan and Iraq wars were about. Bush was stabilizing the countries on each side of Iran before he went in. Iraq and Afghanistan weren't much as threats by themselves, but as allies of Iran they would have made life pretty miserable. With Iraq and Afghanistan taken out, now the United States can go in and take care of Iran's nuclear facilities.

Here is what I think will happen. The US will go into Iran. Russia may lend assistance to Iran. If it does, the US aircraft carrier fleet will be taken out in one day by the Russian designed Sunburn missiles. If Russia doesn't help Iran, the USA will disable all nuclear plants in Iran, destroy all factories and mines that could be used to manufacture nukes, or even the precursors to nukes. And finally, as was done at the end of World War II, all Iranian nuclear scientists will be imported to the USA to work as highly paid but captive prisoners of the state, as was done with the Nazi scientists.

With Iran's nukes taken away, Pakistan will be the only nuclear Muslim power left in the world.

Genius. Let us see what happens.

As for North Korea, I don't think anyone wants to take on all of mainland China right now, so it is safe. For now.

Judge Sampson of Israel killed a lion with his bare hands, and threw the body in the bushes. When he came back a short time later, some bees had built a hive in the lions dead body. Sampson thrust his hands in and drew out delicious honey, which he ate.

Judges 14:5-9 Then went Samson down, and his father and his mother, to Timnath, and came to the vineyards of Timnath: and, behold, a young lion roared against him. And the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon him, and he rent him as he would have rent a kid, and he had nothing in his hand: but he told not his father or his mother what he had done. And he went down, and talked with the woman; and she pleased Samson well. And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion. And he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion.

Three months ago my cat started walking around with a large open sore on her head that refused to heal. Then she disappeared, leaving behind a litter of four kittens. Two weeks ago my roommate pulled apart the straw bales on the porch. A few bones and a little bit of fur were all that remained of her. And right in the middle of them was a beehive. The gentle bumblebee set up shop on my porch. Without the straw bales to insulate them from temperature swings they have to work extra hard to compensate for wind and rain, so I put up some shelter for them.

Gordon Watson said that bumblebees get fixed on the location of their nest, and that they will abscond if you move it. I found that if I move the container that covers their nest away several feet, the returning bees go into it. So there is definitely some room for movement. Perhaps when I get some courage I'll move the hive. I haven't tried to touch the hive, but no matter how close I get to it, the bees leave me alone. They really are busy getting on with their lives and working hard to make honey while spring pollen season is on.

I found the bumblehive the same day I brought some empty JHH frames to a local farmer to get filled with brood. There are hardly any wild bees left in Canada. I am fortunate to have the bumbles. They die so easily. Supplementing their diet is a tricky business. If you give them honey, they get stuck and die. If you put the food in a deep dish, they get stuck and die. If you make the liquid too deep, they drown, even if it isn't sticky. If this is the result of experimenting with a bee colony, with the best of intentions, can we really blame our politicians for mucking up when they try to "help" their constituencies? Doctors have the right idea. "First, do no harm."

Colin McCormack of Australia pointed out this website today: Why Does God Hate Amputees. The website is intended to destroy faith in God and the Bible. It does it by attacking what I consider to be straw man arguments. However, there are many branches of Christianity which preach and believe the very fallacies under attack. Anyone who has built their faith on these foundations of straw probably will lose their faith after reading the website. If you have a mature, grounded faith in God and the Bible, it won't affect you at all.

Prayer. Does God answer prayer? Sometimes. Many Christians pray to God as if they were pumping quarters into a candy machine. God is the ultimate living being; he isn't a robot, and he isn't predictable. He decides what he wants to do, and sometimes answers your prayers, and sometimes not. Your odds of having your prayers answered are raised tremendously if you know the types of prayers he is likely to answer, and if you are busy beavering away on the tasks that he has assigned to you. I know almost noone today who is doing God's Will, mainly because most people don't know what his Will is. It is impossible to prove the effectiveness of prayer with statistics; yet the website tries to destroy your desire to pray by using statistics.

Free Will. Another fatal flaw in most people's thinking is that every thing that happens is part of God's plan, fixed and irrevocable. Indeed, God knows everything that is happening as it is happening. But he did give humans and animals free will. We were made in his image. Just as God is not a machine, neither are human beings. We must make choices and take the consequences. Often it is others who receive the consequences of our actions. God's plan is fluid and changing. God controls the overall picture, but he usually delegates the working out of the smaller details to us. Only when we see the world as an organic whole do pain and suffering, joy and laughter make sense. God set things up to work a certain way, and they do. He set things up so they work out for the best overall, not necessarily the best for any one individual. But when he especially loves an individual, he'll make sure things come out all right for them, even if they have to wait for the resurrection when all the dead come back to life.