Does the Bible Condone Rape?

QUESTION:  Why does the Bible promote rape, in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 by commanding a rape victim to marry her rapist!

RESPONSE:  This is one of those Bible problems where we read back into a passage all of our current cultural sensitivities and run into deep misunderstandings as a result.  Let’s just read the passage in question to begin:

Deut 22:28-29:  When a man comes upon a virgin who has never been engaged and grabs and rapes her and they are found out, the man who raped her has to give her father fifty pieces of silver. He has to marry her because he took advantage of her. And he can never divorce her.

At first glance, this seems to command that a rape victim must marry her abuser! Could anything be more cruel or unfair?  Looked at this way, this passage has been pointed to by many skeptics and atheists as evidence that the Bible is immoral, and misogynist.  How can the law that comes from this ancient Tribe be considered the law of an all-good God?

But wait.  Before we settle on the premise of your question, namely that this passage condones that which is evil, we have to objectively understand it first.  To do that, we have to get out of our own perspective and travel back into a very different world, the world of the ancient near east.

In many ways we might say this world is morally inferior to our own, because it tolerated slavery and patriarchy and polygamy.  People in this strange world aren’t assumed to be equal before the law, and personal liberties aren’t taken to be the most important part of public policy.  Isn't this horrible and wrong?

But these kinds of thoughts lead to an interesting side conversation with three points to make:

First, on what basis do we judge this law as immoral?  The skeptic who rejects the idea of God and objective moral absolutes is in a bit of a conundrum here.  They presume that morals are relative to different times and cultures, built into us by social and chemical evolution, with no objective basis.

But then they look at this sex law of the ancient Israelites and make the bold claim that it’s wrong.  Not just ineffective or inconvenient to us, but actually wrong in an objective sense.  But how can one make such a claim unless they know what good actually is?  And if there is no objective right, then by what standard do we called this rape law backward, regressive or immoral? 

Secondly, the modern, Western critic of Mosaic Law rarely realizes that their basis for critiquing the Bible is the Bible itself.  In other words, the development of Western sensibilities regarding things like personal liberty, sexual boundaries, and individualism are built on premises which would not be self-evident to us, unless the Bible had first paved the way.

Moral developments we take for granted, do not pop into the world out of nothing.  We can thank the work of primitive revelations through figures such as Moses, which lead most today to believe that might does not equal right - an idea which was decidedly not “self-evident” to most people at most times in human history.

Third, the modern critic of Moses usually has no handle on the moral excesses of their own era when they make sport of the excesses of another.  We most recoil at Mosaic Law in the places where that law describes a people bent severely toward honor and chastity and tribal security.  We might see these as “lopsided moral developments” not because they are evil, but because some part of the good objective moral code, which we all acknowledge, has gotten out of whack.

But if we see ourselves as truly objective, we ought to be able to see similar lopsided moral developments inside our own culture – developments which might also stem from some piece of the objective moral law.  Yet, out of whack, they lead us into all kinds of evil as well – evil which people in Moses time would spot easily and criticize us for.

Turning now to those cultural moral excesses of Moses time, we must realize they put a high value on virginity. This is in contrast to our own age, whose commitment to sexual restraint hovers somewhere near zero.  Also, their culture believed women needed to be protected under the oversight of a leading male (their husband or father), in part because the world was filled with rapacious and predatory men whose power is only checked by other powerful men.

Once you understand that context, you can begin to understand why the rule above could be considered fair and just - benevolent even!  When considering Mosaic Law, the modern believer (or skeptic) never has to accept the temporal conditions as ideal or good.  We don’t have to love patriarchy or polygamy or slavery.  No!  We are however, trying to discern whether, given the non-ideal temporal cultural conditions, the law’s transcendent principles can legitimately be considered good.

The evidence says yes. 

First, note that the woman raped does not have to marry the man, the man has to marry the woman.  You might think this is mere semantics – they are married in either case, the victim and the abuser!  Yes, but the way the law puts its demand helps us realize that the consequence is a punishment to the abuser and a grace to the victim.

This is further spelled out by the following rule: he cannot divorce her.  This means the rape exempts the man from being able to make use of the divorce permission Moses would give later (Deut 24:1).  Marriage in this culture was not a romantic institution (though marriages could be very loving) so much as one of economic and social stability.  And women had very few tools to sustain themselves economically on their own, unlike today.  

So to be forced to marry the woman he violates, the man is forced by law to take on the responsibility of providing care for her – forever.  He can’t even make use of the “out clause” which Moses gave for “impurity”.  The rape means he is on the hook to provide for her, no matter the state of her future fidelity to him!

Again, given the high value of virginity, the man has not only violated her physically, but he has taken away from her a primary “dowry” she brings to any marriage union. Having stripped her of that, if he doesn’t marry her, it is likely no one else would.  And thus a raped woman is left to a life of poverty and likely prostitution or slavery to survive.

Interestingly, we have an example of just how in that cultural context, it would be the rape victims who might covet such a law, as a benevolent provision for justice.  In the time of King David, his daughter Tamar is raped by her half-brother Amnon.  In 2 Samuel 13:13 she very much seems to have wanted Amnon to marry her after the rape!  Why?  Because she knows that in that culture it would be very difficult to find someone to marry her and she would rather be married to Amnon and have lifelong security than to be desolate and single.

In fact, this is exactly what happens to Tamar because Amnon – to add to the enormity of his crimes – disgustedly rejects the very woman he, seconds ago, could not live without (2 Sam 13:15).  So she lived without marrying the rest of her life (2 Sam 13:20). 

But one may still protest, even if she gains a lifetime of security in compensation for her honor being violated, surely that is a life sentence of awkwardness and bitterness, even if she is cared for.  We must understand another piece of accompanying Mosaic legislation that mitigates this concern.  For in Exodus 22:16-17 we read:

“If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride price for virgins."

If we put the laws together, this addendum clearly states that the woman does not have to marry her rapist if her father refuses to give her to him.  And even in that culture, as in ours, it is difficult to imagine a dad granting permission for her to marry a man that she utterly hated.  Even under the absolute jurisdiction of their fathers, women in the Ancient Near East could have some say in their own marriage decisions (Gen 24:57).  If the father then refused to grant permission, the rapist would still have to pay the bride price (since he had stolen her marriageability by his action) and not get a bride.

So in fact, the Bible does not condone rape, since it clearly commands the death penalty for a man who rapes a married or betrothed woman (Deut 22:22-27).  And as for young virgins so violated, God’s law actually spared them the double cruelty of a lifetime of destitution, sold into slavery or prostitution.

What Was the Pillar of Cloud and Fire?

QUESTION:  I’m really struggling in reading the Old Testament.  It’s hard, so much that seems weird or wrong!  What I am I supposed to do or learn with all this?  A problem from Numbers 9:15-23, I am trying to understand the Cloud of the Tabernacle.  I do get that this is God working thru a cloud.  However, I don't understand why the verses speak of how the cloud stays overnight, or can go on for a few days, a month, or a year in verse 22.  Was this for 'obedience'?  Especially when it said it could linger there for a year.  How in the world can they stay inside for a year?  It doesn't speak of how long the cloud was there from beginning to end.  Nor does it say the purpose.  Was there something going on in the region that God was protecting the Israelites? 

ANSWER: Thanks for your question.  As you read the Old Testament keep one thing in mind:  you believe in its inspiration and authority ONLY because Jesus did.  Jesus is the lens through which we Christians read and understand the Jewish Scriptures.  Our whole faith is built on what God did after this, in fulfilment of all this.  It’s a set up, and an opening act; it’s not giving us the whole story of who God is, but rather it’s anticipating the full work of Jesus. 

And so the laws especially must be read through the lens of a post-Law covenant which we have in Christ.  This is the record of God’s agreement with one people, the Gospel is a record of God’s agreement with ALL people.  The early apostles were clear that what you’re reading here are “shadows” of the good things we have in Christ.  Read Hebrews 10:1-18 and 1 Cor 10:1-6, to set your mind in a correct posture for your reading of the Old Covenant.  These are not our laws nor our covenant, these are now examples for us, illustrations of the Christian life, inspiration for our journey.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit and useful for correction and training?  Of course!  But only when “used properly” – as Paul says in 1 Tim 1:8.

This won’t take away all the difficulties you read about, but it will help you hold them with a looser hand, as you rest in the knowledge that whatever else God may be, and whatever he was up to with the Israelites, He cannot be different than what I see in Jesus who said, “The Father and I are One”.  Whatever God was up to must have always been pointing at Jesus.  Whatever confusion comes from how God acts in the early stages of biblical revelation, clarity is found in Christ. 

A good article to help you with the Old Testament is:

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/where-is-jesus-in-the-old-testament

So about Cloud of the Tabernacle in Numbers, no one knows what that was.  I think you are right that the point of the Cloud moving is simply that the Israelites are learning obedience.  God says go, we go, and it doesn’t matter if we only set camp for a day.  Likewise, God says stay, we stay, even if that’s years at a time in one location.

The other reason for this direct physical manifestation of direction was likely so that they built their trust in Moses as God’s servant.  Moses received so many direct communiques from God that maybe a resentment would build in the people (as it would toward a cult leader, for example).  We know this happened in the Community from time to time (Number 12:1-2).  How can we trust you, Moses, if you’re the ONLY one getting the “messages”??

Now, God disciplined Aaron and Miriam for rebelling against Moses, but that’s only because that they failed to accept the very public confirmations of Moses that God gave, which is exactly what I’m talking about.  To be skeptical of a prophet dictating from God without such confirmation is actually a GOOD reaction, not a bad one!  Historically, with Mohammed in a cave or Joseph Smith with the angel Moroni and golden tablets, few in those movements really challenged the veracity of the messages.  It was just, “trust me, God speaks to me, and you listen.”

Well, unlike those false religions, true religion always has multiple vehicles to attest to the revelation.  True religion is done out in the open.  Biblical faith is built on events, not merely ideas.  With Jesus, we have 4 gospels and the record of hundreds of witnesses to his resurrection.  And when God was calling the people out of slavery he used Moses in a special way – yes – but he did not shy away from proving himself publicly and openly to the WHOLE community.  The point would be to give them confidence that in fact it was God leading them and not just the hair brained scheme of one man, Moses, getting revelations in secret.

So at Sinai we see God proving himself in thunder and provoking awe in Ex 20:18-19, to ALL the people.  So much so, the people want LESS proof, not more!  When was the last time you heard a person say, “I want God to stop talking to me so much in public acts that prove his godhood and power”??  Well, the cloud is another device just like this (a more gentle one perhaps!) that again proves to the community that God is leading them, not Moses.

As to why they moved so much, no one knows.  It seems arbitrary.  Some speculate that the cloud and fire refer to the volcanic activity of the Sinai range.  If you’ve been to Hawaii and observed the active volcanoes there, you know that during the day, all you see of a live volcano from a distance is the smoke, but at night you don’t see the smoke, but rather the fiery glow of molten rock.

Some would therefore say hovering “over the tabernacle” should be read as a euphemism for the connection between the mountain of God and God’s direction to the congregation.  I don’t know if that’s the right way to see it, but it may mean the movement of the pillars were tied in some way to something going on geologically in that region and as you speculate, might therefore have been about their safety.  Other references to the pillars of cloud and fire seem to indicate it could not be connected to the Mountain of God, but was truly mobile, a supernatural phenomena of some kind (Ex 13:21).

The main lesson of the cloud remains a very simple one:  when God says “go” we go.

Finally, I think you might be confused by the KJV reading of verse 22.  When it says they “remained in their tents”, that means more accurately, “They stayed at that campsite and did not move on” as long as the cloud remained over the tabernacle. They did not literally stay “in doors” for months or a year at a time!!

The NLT helpfully renders the verse like this:

Num 9:22-23: Whether the cloud stayed above the Tabernacle for two days, a month, or a year, the people of Israel stayed in camp and did not move on. But as soon as it lifted, they broke camp and moved on.

Why Is Moses' Life Saved by His Wife Circumcising His Son?

QUESTION: Why is Moses saved by Zipporah circumcising his son in Ex 4:24-26?

On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the Lord confronted him and sought to put him to death. 25 So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, and threw it at Moses’ feet. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me!” 26 So He let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision. (HB)

ANSWER: No matter how you slice it, this passage is a little strange!  We seem to be plunged into some kind of weird spat that lacks any description of prior context, and without detail of important preceding action that might tell us what this is all about.  So even the best scholars are left with a fair amount of speculation to fill in those blanks.  This answer will therefore have plenty of speculation, but a core lesson is still very clear.

We begin to make sense of it, if we consider a few of the bare facts of the story:  Moses has had two sons.  They are clearly several years old by this point, and yet they have never been circumcised.  Why not?  This is a critical question but it's never answered in the text.

Moses is a Hebrew, and circumcision is what they do – it was a command given to their forefather Abraham and all his descendants (Gen 17:9).  Some have speculated that the Jews, living under Egyptian oppression, weren't allowed to for hundreds of year, so Moses also didn't do it.  But this cannot be true since there is no mention of a society wide neglect of this sign of the Abrahamic covenant for hundreds of years.  In fact, we do know the Hebrews neglected this rite when the freed slaves lived through the desert wanderings for forty years (Joshua 5:5).  But that very verse also notes that the previous generation that first came out of slavery were all circumcised.

So it might have come from family pressures, from Zipporah and/or Jethro (his father-in-law).  They were Midianites and thus probably ‘outsiders’ to circumcision.  Zipporah`s harsh reaction in 4:25 seems to indicate that the whole thing is arcane, disgusting, strange or unnecessary to her.  But Moses is not an outsider to circumcision; he must know it's a required sign of his participation in the Abrahamic covenant with Yahweh – the God his mother no doubt taught him about, the God he met personally in Midian at the burning bush.

Therefore, there is an implicit disobedience being exposed in this story.  And that begins to explain the seeming blindside God gives Moses as he travels from Midian to Egypt to challenge Pharaoh.  What if this is no blind side at all?  What if this is the culmination of a long standing tension between Moses and God and perhaps also between Moses and his in-laws?  What if Moses has not circumcised his sons, to please his in-laws ahead of pleasing God?  A God whose character and laws he is going to represent to the world in very short order!  And yet he, the law giver, hasn’t obeyed the first, most simple law!?

It’s like a preacher getting ready to go on a church planting tour and he’s never been baptized himself!  Or he’s never explained the gospel to his own family! 

Now, the weird thing is, Zipporah knows God is about to take his life for this offense.  So Moses' predicament can’t be a private revelation known only to himself.  Somehow, Zipporah knows that Moses is on death’s door.  And she also seems to know immediately what will turn away the curse.  This is interesting because it probably mitigates the horror we feel that God "sought to kill" the very man he, moments ago, chose graciously to be his instrument of liberation.  We should ask, how does she know Moses life is in danger?  How does she know it's God who is threatening that life?  And how does she know what to do about it?

I would suggest, all this implies that God had not made a verbal confrontation with Moses (as he had at the burning bush), but that perhaps Moses had become deathly ill on the journey.  The English says "God confronted him" which sounds like a harsh, physical fight, or a private threat.  But the Hebrew word simply means "came in contact with" - pagash.  So "confront" is not a bad translation, but I think we can put out of mind any kind of physical fight like the one between Jacob and the Angel.  There's no record of any words spoken in this confrontation.

Instead, a circumstance like a deathly illness would clearly be interpreted by them both as the hand of God and not some random event - especially since they were on such a great mission directly from God.  So perhaps Zipporah might have asked Moses why God was seemingly against them.  It might have been that Moses might then have confessed the problem:  “I haven’t done the simplest act of obedience to the Lord and his hand is against me.”

There's a subtle but important difference if we view the events unfolding like this.  To read that God sought to kill Moses, seems like God would off him for what we think of as a minor misdemeanor, meanwhile jeopardizing the much more important mission of liberating the Israelites without a care for either.  But what if the situation was more like Jonah?  The storm is a threat and directly allowed by God, and it was potentially deadly.  And Jonah knows it's deadliness is directed at him (Jonah 1:5).  It looks to Jonah and the men of the boat that God has come to kill the negligent prophet.  But no matter what it looks like in the short term lens, we know God has great plans for Jonah and the deadly storm will not end in death, and killing Jonah was never the point.

So likewise, here in Exodus, if circumstances came about which were potentially deadly, and were interpreted as discipline from God, the ancient author might look at the potential end (death) and speak of it as the end God was seeking.  But in reality it merely would be the threat of death which God wanted, in order to bring about change in Moses, before his great calling could come to pass.  The end of the story proves the threat of death was God's true aim, not to actually kill the man he has just commissioned.

So, if you are Zipporah and the threat of the death of your husband is before you, and he, (or you by some revelation) are told that disobedience in circumcision is the cause, you might feel manipulated!  Especially if it's your resistance to the rite which you know is the reason Moses hasn't performed it on his sons.  "You're going to die unless we do this repulsive thing?  Great!"  But now, what choice does she have?  So in anger she does the deed – is none too happy about it judging by her comment in verse 25!

You might ask why, if Moses knows the problem, can’t he fix it himself?  Well, this is another reason to presume a deathly illness has fallen on him that they interpret as God's death threat: if he’s literally on death's door, he can't do it himself… so she has to.  Then, she brings the evidence and throws it at his feet with her comment about him being a "bridegroom of blood".  In other words, “you have become a husband who required of me a strange, bloody sacrifice to keep you alive.”  The threatening plague (or whatever it was) lifts, Moses is healed, and off he goes to his greater mission, having finally (by force!) taken care of business at home – his first mission.

Now, regarding her phrase, “bridegroom of blood…” one scholar I read had a much softer and more romantic interpretation.  He also speculates that Moses has somehow come under a curse, an illness perhaps… but he says that it is Zipporah alone who is given insight from God as to the reason for this plague or curse of imminent death.  She is therefore heartbroken at the potential of losing her husband, and also that there is a standing offense against God in their home!

So, resolutely, she circumcises their son, and she touches Moses feet with the foreskin to associate the act with the father.  Not in spite or anger (the more natural reading), but rather as a request to God to graciously accept it as coming from Moses whose responsibility it should have been to do it.   All of this is an act of servanthood and love on her part.

But what about her comment, “Bridegroom of blood”?  This interpreter said it was a way of saying, “you were on death’s door, you were lost to me, but now, by this blood, its like you were given to me all over again, my ‘bridegroom of blood’.”  In other words, it's a reference to her gratitude in getting Moses back from the dead, "From Blood (Death), a Groom!".  Or yet another way: her marriage was threatened with termination but it's renewed through blood and she’s relieved and happy to have her husband back.

This second view is a much nicer way to read Zipporah’s attitude, certainly!  She’s a loving wife who hears God, takes action, and saves the day and is thrilled with her husband’s recovery vs. begrudging rescuer not at all thrilled with her man.

But either way, the passage has this to say:  Moses has clearly been disobedient about 'first things first'.  So you can see that this strange little story contains a profound lesson for ministers of the gospel needing to attend to their first ministry before they ever seek to venture into their larger Kingdom callings.  As Paul says to Timothy, when examining potential elders – make sure their "house is in order" first.

Is God Arrogant for Wanting Glory?

Maybe you've heard this one before:  God wanting honor and Glory makes him arrogant and I'd never worship a being that desired honor and glory for himself. 

What is the proper response to this?  This is a common objection and I think it’s built on the skeptic's inability to imagine a truly perfect being. The atheist builds this objection on a limited platform of what it means to be human – any person we know of, no matter how great, would be considered an egotistical megalomaniac if he demanded others to tell him how great he is. But God is not a human, not fallen, not in any way imperfect. God is the greatest conceivable Being. Therefore the atheist is here guilty of a failure of the imagination to consider the motivations and actions of a being of truly infinite power, wisdom and love.

So if we do start with such a Being, what should we make of a repeated desire that he be worshiped and that glory be ascribed to him? Well, if we reach in our minds for a PERFECT being, we reject out of hand a motivation as base as arrogance or insecurity. An all-sufficient being has no need to prop up a sagging ego. The atheist has in mind the flighty, petty deities that inhabited Mount Olympus when he sees the God of the Bible being worshiped. He thinks of a schoolyard bully who demands homage and we know why: he fears his own weakness.

But the God of the Bible never comes across like this. Instead, his glory (literally, his “weight”) is simply said to be a fact of his all loving, all holy, all powerful nature (Ex 24:16). His glory is not first a thing he seeks from us, it is first an unalterable fact of his very being. God IS glorious, whether you or I acknowledge it or not. So in that sense, his seeking to be worshiped by us, is not arrogance but a desire to teach a primary lesson in the nature of reality. If God is aback all things, this God is glorious, and when we align ourselves with this fact, we come into truth, and then it goes better for us. Far from being selfish then, God’s desire for glory is a gift to us.

Example: A person can live their life without ever knowing fully electricity really is. They see it, but maybe ascribe it to unknowable forces. But the more they find out what electricity is, the more they develop a healthy fear of its power, while at the same time developing more awe of the benefits of that power if channeled correctly. You can live OK without a really accurate view of electricity, but when you bring your life in line with reality, life takes off. If electricity had a “will” to bless us, it might instruct us to “glorify” the lightning bolt – for our own sake!

Just like that, it is God’s gift to us to show us (in Creation and Redemption) that behind the Universe is a First Cause, who necessarily must be all powerful, self-existent, eternal and spiritual. In a word, Glorious. When we get in line with this reality, we find the Source of our being, the Source of meaning, the Fountainhead from which we sprang, the Source of eternal comfort.

Moses, after being faced with the awesome power of God in the Egyptian plagues, had only one request, to see more of the glory of God (Ex 33). This request was not born out of a man being an obsequious runt, playing to Yahweh’s pathetic need to be feel “great”! Far from it.  Read the text, the OPPOSITE is true. His desire to see the glory of God was born out of God bringing him along in relationship and intimacy – in short, his desire to see more of God’s weighty splendor came as a result of God deciding to share that splendor with him.

How is this arrogant? This is the opposite of petty arrogance or insecurity. This is generosity! God wants to share who he is (his glory) with his creation. And only people who hunger for that glory, will get in on it – again a natural consequence of living in line with reality. Paul says that the people who will not so hunger (IE who did not glorify God) received in themselves all manner of troubles (Romans 1:21-25). Their chief error is that they believed a lie – and certainly if there is a God responsible for this grand universe, to ignore his existence and nature is a terrible oversight and will naturally lead to life not working right – and that's just how Paul's describes those who diminish or deny God’s “glory” (Romans 1:29-31).

As for people being somehow bullied by God into giving God this glory, two misunderstandings are probably happening.

Number one, the skeptic is probably incorrectly interpreting a specific Calvinistic branch of Christianity. They perhaps have a vague idea that Calvinists talk about God’s glory being the sole purpose of all his activity. And when one hears (as some Calvinists believe) that this God has pre-selected people for an eternity in hell, all for the “sake of his glory”, it’s not hard to imagine they have a problem with such a God. I won’t chime in here in on the debate within the church about predestination to hell, but suffice to say that most Calvinists struggle with “double predestination” (election to hell) and so the whole objection to God seeking Glory by sending people to hell, is probably a gross misunderstanding of A) how election works and B) God’s motives within election. We should rightly look at predestination as a separate problem to work out aside from the problem of God’s glory.

Number two, they probably are imagining this God saying time after time, “give me glory!” Perhaps some psalm or proverb in the Bible puts this sentiment in God’s mouth just like that… but I can’t think of even one time myself.  I’m ready to stand corrected on that point.  But the larger point is the repeated examples in Scripture of those human agents who have experienced the glory of God, who willingly and energetically “give God glory” and encourage others to do the same (Ps 29:1,2). Again, most of the time God’s glory is simply described as a simple fact of his perfect, splendorous and weighty nature – and how is that arrogant?

When the call is made to glorify the Lord, it’s usually not (if ever) God’s demand, but the fellow traveler’s plea to us: "I've seen the glory of the King, bring him worship, he’s worthy of it." This is therefore the furthest thing from an arbitrary, self centered demand from a petulant Deity. In Scripture we never find this formula from God’s mouth: “I'm great, say it, say it!"  Rather, the formula is something closer to, “I have greatness within my very Being, and if you will align with it, you will share in it.” (Romans 8:17)

So God's glory turns out to be awesome good news and speaks to God’s awesome liberality, not conceit.

Why the longer purification period for girls than boys in Lev 12?

Question:

In Leviticus 12 a women must be purified for 8 days then 33 more days for the birth of a boy and then double those numbers if she gives birth to a girl............why the difference?

Answer:

This one has scholars a bit stumped. The first assumption of some scholars was that because the period of time was about purification for uncleanness, the longer waiting period indicated a greater uncleanness in the thing that defiled you. Thus this longer purification period meant that girls made you twice as "dirty" as boys. They assumed this was about women’s inferior status in Hebrew society.

However, this view has mostly been rejected today because of it`s inconsistencies with everything else in Mosaic law. For example, touching a dead human defiles you for 7 days more than touching a dead pig! (Lev 11:31 vs Num 19:11). So clearly, the length of purification had nothing to do with the inherent "worth" or lack of worth of what defiles you. And the fact that both women and men get to offer sacrifices, and were subject to exactly the same penalties for uncleanness as men (chp 15) shows a remarkable equality of worth and value in ancient Israel for men and women – far more than the surrounding nations, for sure.

So what is the answer? Some possibilities:

1. It`s a refection of Eve`s role in the fall. This view ties itself to 1 Tim 2:15-17 for support, but there`s no connection made to Eve in Leviticus at all. A similar view refers to apocryphal Jewish writings that had Adam entering in the Garden of Eden on week one and Eve after two weeks - and thus girls had to be quarantined longer... But both these views suffer from being too speculative and reading later material back into an older work...

2. It`s a reflection of medical views current at the time... For example, it might have been assumed that the birth of a girl was commonly believed to be accompanied by more complications than a boy, and/or that the vaginal discharge was greater or lasted longer for girls than boys. That would fit with the fact that usually uncleanness is related to the touching of blood (Lev 15:25). It`s not birth that makes you unclean, after all, it`s the blood involved in the birthing process.

3. It`s a refection of the anticipation of the baby girl`s future role as a mother. Meaning? Well, motherhood was so critical and valuable in those days that they would look at the birth of a daughter as involving TWO mothers - the one giving birth, and the one being born. Thus because two women (who are generators of uncleanness by their menstrual cycles AND their birthing role) are involved in the birth of a girl, the period of purification had to be twice as long.

4. Another view is that male children`s purification is shorter because of circumcision. They bleed only once in their life, on day eight, and are thus more formally included in the covenant community and come under God`s grace more explicitly, therefore, their purification is half as long as that of girls who are not circumcised.

No one knows for sure why the double waiting period for girls... but I think the 3rd view is the strongest or perhaps some combination with the 2nd and 4th. Without a reason stated in the text we are left to speculate. However, behind all of these purification laws, despite their confusing details, is something amazing: Here is God commanding fastidious washing for his people 3500 years before we found out how much disease is spread through micro organisms found in blood and unclean conditions... that’s pretty cool!