Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jclark@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (John Clark) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: St Paul and Women Message-ID: Date: 30 May 91 04:12:14 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of California, San Diego Lines: 39 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article James.Quilty@comp.vuw.ac.nz (James William Quilty) writes: + +Slavery is wrong, just as discrimination is - and may be shown +PHILOSOPHICALLY to be so. If Paul supported slavery then Paul was +WRONG ! (personaly I like to think the best of Paul until his intent I am free to make any opinion I choose regarding the 'wrongness' of Biblical writers. But then I am a non-believer. There seems to be a certain amount of 'smorgasboard' approaches to Bible writers. My prejudices are based more on reading the Bible and take essentially at face value the statements. Some conclusions I have come to are that a number of statements of morality and existentialism that are given in the Bible are WRONG. However, if one beleives the Bible to be the word of the Diety, one can not dismiss the statements of one author while holding some other dear. If you wish to accept a 'canon' which has these writers expunged then be ready to accept complaints from those who do not agree. The Bible does teach, for certain classes of people, discrimnation even genocide. A 'tour' of ancient Israelite history will have at every turn "Distroy and lay waste" as how to deal with other non-Israelites. On some occassions certain of the 'enemies' were granted a stay of execution, "take the un-married women for wives, but distory the rest". Some of the OT statements have been interpreted to be only for these ancient Hebrews, but in many cases, such as 'morality' laws, these are accepted as 'for Christians' as well. Where the 'it applies to Christians as well' stops has been much debated relative to setting up earthly kingdoms by force of arms. It seems the only thing Christians can agree on is that they need not sacrifice animals or gather at the temple in Jerusalem. -- John Clark jclark@ucsd.edu