Why are these inappropriate stories in the Bible?

Question

In order for the verses to be the word of God, it needs to fulfill the following: doctrine, reproof, correction, and instructions to righteousness, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness..." (2 Timothy 3:16)
How do these stories fit in light of these facts?
Book of Numbers, Chapter 31, verses 17 and 18:
". . . kill every woman who has known man by lying with him,
but all the female children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."

Deuteronomy 21:10-14:
"When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands and thoust has taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire unto her, that though would have her to be thy wife, then though shalt bring her home to thine house . . . and after that you may go into her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. But if though have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go".

1 week ago
Do not give the answer that God is fickle and he had a mood-swing and now he is loving.
“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19)
Why did God condone the raping of women?

Do not ignore the OT
“Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law" (John7:19)

Answer 1

Because the original bible was basically screwed over by the Romans who didn't appreciate losing control of the people. So, they incorporated things like christmas trees and easter bunnies into the system to keep some type of control and still control finances. You might want to post the one about Lot with his daughters and the whole angels and incest thing. Then you might want to post the one about the woman wishing her lover were her brother so she could take him home and sleep with him there.

Answer 2

You are quite well studied in the B~ble, but you missed some of the juicier ones. Judges is chock full of stories that I question the usefulness of... Until I realize that I do exactly the same thing in different ways. There is one story about a Levite (the group of people charged with leading Israel in spiritual matters) who goes into a city with his concubine. He is invited into an old man's house to stay the night but a gang of men come to the door and demand that the old man surrender the Levite so the can... play with him. The Levite decides the best way to save his own skin is to shove his girlfriend out the door. She was gang-raped to such an extent that she died. The Levite then took her, chopped her into 12 pieces, and send one to each of the tribes of Israel saying, "Has such a thing as this ever happened from the time the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until now?" (Judges 19) Now, what possible value can this sordid tale have? It makes me sick as I'm sure it does you. I had to take a long time to thing about it before I realized that the many churches today do the exact same thing. They push out those who should have their protection and allow them to be brutalized. After these oppressed have fallen to the ravages of a disgusting world, the church holds them up and says, "Look at this. Isn't it terrible?" I think you misunderstand the fact that just because something is in the B~ble does not mean it is acceptable or even condoned. You must also remember that the concept of restricted warfare is reletively new. All wars were total wars at this time. Study up on what the Philistines were like, or the Babylonians. They relished in torturing their enemies. Finally, the concept of rape is nothing new to warfare. At least in this way, the young women who were spared were also taken as wives instead of just being violated and left to fend for themselves. It does not seem right to our ethics, but in this time it was much different than what was customary. Peace be with you

Answer 3

As for the events recorded in Numbers 31:17-18, that was God's judgment against the Midianites for seducing Israel to sin. God ordered the destruction of all males, children, and women (save those who were virgins) so that the chance of their posterity arrising to seduce Israel into sin again is blighted.

And as for the instructions in Deuteronomy 21, God is not commanding or condoning rape. In fact, the same book you're quoting from (i.e., Deuteronomy) states that those who rape are to be put to death (Deuteronomy 22:25-28). Deuteronomy 21 needs to be read & understood in its historical context.

According to ancient war customs, a female captive became the servant of the victors. Moses was given instruction to deal in a kind way with such issues. In the event her conquerors were captivated by her beauty and contemplated marriage with her, one month was required to elapse, during which her troubled feelings might settle, her mind would be reconciled to the new conditions of conquest, and she could sorrow over the loss of her parents as she left home to marry a stranger. One month was the usual mourning period for Jews, and the features of this period, e.g., shaving the head, trimming the nails, and removing her lovely clothes (ladies on the eve of captivity dressed to be attractive to their captors), were typical signs of Jewish grief. This action was important to show kindness to the woman and to test the strength of the man’s affection. After the 30 days, they could marry.

Answer 4

The bible is an outdated fairytale. Anyways most of the Christians will probably point out that most of the bad scripture comes from the old testament and much of the old testament was based on laws. Second off they might cite that these scriptures have been misinturpreted. Or they might say that God works in mysterious ways.

Answer 5

Go here and research all your questions on Scripture and it will give you an answer in context and more detail than I can provide here. The one I listed below is specific to the Deuteronomy reference. The source attached speaks to all Scripture commentary and explanations.


http://www.soniclight.com/constable/notes/pdf/deuteronomy.pdf

Answer 6

alot of the stories in the bible had been distorted by the time they were printed because of word of mouth, and they lost thier true meaning. The reason why its hard for us to understand many of the stories today is because they were written in that day and time and they had a very important meaning behind them. One example was the passage about pork and how you shouldn't eat it. The reason why it says that is because they didnt have any system of keeping meat fresh and they saw that many people would die and get sick from eating it, so they told people not to eat it. Many stories were made to have meaning for that period of time.

Answer 7

I'm sorry, I don't find the raping part..I see the part where it says to kill them, but can't find where it says to rape them???
Killing them is a part of righteousness. I would say that they were idol worshippers and probably full of sexual diseases and that is why they killed the ones that had lain with a man..

Answer 8

No stories in the bible are inappropriate !! You just don't understand the bible because you do not have the Holy Spirit to guide you into truth !!!!

Answer 9

That's Christian porn, they **** off over it every night.

Sickos, get a life, god doesn't exist. And your story telling book doesn't prove a d*** thing, I've seen Angela Lansbury solve and prove more things then Christians.

Answer 10

this is very simple:
There is no God, never was.
These rules were made by people, who claimed these were the words of God.
These people dictated rules that were acceptable at the time they were written.
and today we still do the same.