Sunday Sermonette: More rules

Deuteronomy is probably the most tedious book of the Bible, certainly of the Torah. It ' s basically a laundry list of rules, interspersed with references to events in Exodus through Numbers, though often inaccurate. The rules range from some which seem morally salutary to modern readers, to strange in modern context, to arbitrary and ridiculous, to depraved. Chapter 24 is mostly in the contextually strange category, I would say. Fortunately we ' re getting near the end. There ' s more action in Joshua, for better or (mostly) for worse. 24 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,2 and if she goes and becomes another man ’s wife,3 and the latter husband dislikes her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife,4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before theLord, and you shall not bring guilt upon the land which theLord your God gives you for an inheritance. This is very puzzling, to say the least. If they decide to reconcile, what ' s wrong with that. Note, BTW, that the wife has no reciprocal right to initiate divorce.5 “When a...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs