Prepubscent Marraige in Bible

8/13/2019 Prepubscent Marraige in Bible

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Before one of our brothers or sisters get into conclusion, thinking this is an

article bashing Judaic-Christian faith, this is not true. The main reason I took

to task to write this article, is in response to some individuals who are of

Judaic-Christian faith, who constantly bash, twist Islamic scripture claiming

that the uran somehow sanctions !"repubescent marriages#. This is a lie, far

from the truth. I will address this fictitious claim very soon, $od willing. It isonly right to write this article and give these individuals %missionaries&, who

spread lies about Islam, a taste of their own medicine. 'et#s see what their

(oly Bible, $od breathed scripture have to say on pre-pubescent marriages.

)oes the Bible sanction pre-pubescent marriages or is it forbidden* +e shall

find out shortly.

+ebster#s Bible Translation umbers /0-1

ow therefore kill every male among the little ones %taph&, and kill everywoman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the female children

%taph&, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for

yourselves.

In order for me to go further on the verse, let#s first show the part where the

(ebrew word !taph# is used in verse 0 and 1 for chapter of umbers

that, it only refers pre-pubescent girls and boys. Below is the te2t in (ebrew

for umbers / 0-1

(ebrew word taph %or taf&, pre-pubescent

+hat does the word !taph# %or taf& in verse 0 and 1 for chapter of

umbers mean* 3ccording to +ebster#s Bible translation it means !children#

or !little ones#, meaning pre-pubescent girls or boys. (ebrew le2icons on the

word !taph#/

"rofessor 4elig ewman/

Child , an infant an offspring, get with- 56


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7arl 8eyerabend/

(taf& ., i.p. .., w.s . coll. Children, little ones. 596

4amuel "ike

little ones or children mincing in a childish manner, Isai. Iii. :. ; to drop, or distil to prophecy, or distil instruction,


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=nglish Bible translationA all the modern Bible translations have blatantly

crossed out the word. The word I am referring to is !lakhem# %or lacham&, this

word is left une2plained. This same word %lacham& is used in many other

passages such as/ =2d /, )eu /, Jos /D, Jdg /1, 4a /, 7i 9/9,

Isa E/9, in all these verses mentioned, when the (ebrew word !lacham# is

used , it means/- !fight#, !fought#, or !warred#. (ere is (ebrew te2t for thementioned passage/

(ebrew word laFach or lakakh, meaning, fight, warred, fought, se2ually,

se2ual

Gou can see I have circled in red, where the word !lacham# is used in them

verses. If you go to any Judaic-Christian website, where they give definitions

for any word from the Bible, they have always left the word !lacham#

une2plained for umbers /1. Hsually when I do research on certain words

which are disputed from Biblical verses, I visit these sites such asA

Blueletterbible.org, biblestudytools.com, and they have always given an

e2planation in detail, what a word means. But when I started e2amining

umbers /1, what caught my eye was the word !lacham#, it was left blank.

+hat made it even strange is, I was not allowed %able& to click on the word, to

see what the meaning of the word is. I have many 4cholars who agree, that

umbers /1 is referred to se2ually and there is no doubt about it. 8irst in

line of e2perts, who gives their view is 4haye J. ). Cohen who is a renowned

"rofessor, he writes/

>


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>I do not know why the new Jewish version omits !for yourselves#A the (ebrew

lakhem is unambiguous. That the intent of !8 GH4='K=4# I4 4=LH3'

The !one woman, one man# relationship of =ve and 3dam becomes one man

and two women in $enesis /E, = $od has left it to humanity to decide who are appropriate intimate

partners and under what circumstances.? 4he was referring to the pre-

pubescent girls, in other words, she is saying $od left it to humanity to decide

whether it is ok to cohabit with a pre-pubescent girls or not. Gahweh did not


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forbid it. 3ctually as you have read so far, he sanctioned it in umbers /1

for men to marry pre-pubescent girls.

3nother "rofessor by the name


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>+here the te2ts have a concern for the circumcised status, this clearly does

not apply to womenN 3nd where there is a concern for lineage the importance

of patrilineal descent meant a lesser concern regarding the potential

mothers. 4o, in the war against wait lads, you can

keep the females for yourselves, but wait until they grow up?, such a

command does not e2ist. The command in umbers /1 is straight forward,

the soldiers can be with the female pre-pubescent immediately, se2ually.


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you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you

were despised.

: >!Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay

there in your blood I said to you, >'iveN? 0 I made you grow like a plant of the

field. Gou grew and developed and entered puberty. Gour breasts had formedand your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.

1 >!'ater I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old

enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered

your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant

with you, declares the 4overeign '), and you became mine.

3ccording to the above passage cited by missionaries, they say that $od

!forbids pre-pubescent marriages#.

uestions for missionaries/

. owhere in the above verse does it say !that you are forbidden from

marrying pre-pubescent females#, where does it say that >you are forbidden

from marrying pre-pubescent girls? from the Bible* +here are the verses that

abrogate umbers /1 e2plicitly*

9. (ow is =Mekiel :/-1 3 "33B'= %not a command& override %abrogate&

umbers /1* +hen in umbers / 1, it e2plicitly states that you can

!take for GH4='K=4#, marry female captives by force.

. (ow is =Mekiel in anyway relevant to


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old.

"rofessor of 4ociology The possession of Children by their parents was also given religious sanction

in the teachings of both the Talmud and the Bible. ush %11& states that the

Talmud teaches that a girl of !three years and one day# could be betrothed

through an act of se2ual intercourse.?

=ven "rofessor $eMa Kermes who is a well known and highly respected

scholar comments that "re-pubescent marriages were allowed/

> the $reek parthenos could also mean that the girl was young andOor

unmarried. In fact, in the 4eptuagint translation of the ld Testament

parthenos was used to render three distinct (ebrew words, !Kirgin#, !girl# and

!young woman#. 3lready abbis in the Tannaitic era %first to second century

ad& subscribed to further nuances, and there is no reason to think that all

these were invented by them. =ven the word betulah, which normally means

virgo intact, when used by them could carry the laternal sense of bodily

immaturity with the conseFuential inability to conceive. In abbinic

terminology this type of virginity in a woman ceased with the physical onsetof puberty. The


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>The longest ew Testament passage on marriage is found, not in =phesians,

but in Corinthians chapter 0. In stark contrast to the legal positions and

social e2pectations of the first century, here the rights and responsibilities of

man and woman are upheld as eFual. 3lthough marriages were arranged byparents, who often espoused their pre-pubescent daughters to much ')=

ne might counter that the e2pression mohar habbetulot %=2. 99/:506&refers rather to the pretium virginitatis. In this case, the mohar would be

compensation to the girl for the loss of her virginity. This e2planation,

however, is unacceptable, since it proceeds on the assumption that the term

betula means !virgin.# This may doubtlessly be the case in many passages,

but in @oel /1, betula thus refers to a married woman who had been

!possessed# by her husband %ba#al&A betula thus refers to a marriageable girl

who was physically able to cope with a man, !taking her into his possession.#

(ere the term betula says nothing about her virginity. =2.99/: %0& %kesep

yisFol kemohar hab betulot& can thus be translated !he shall weigh out as

much silver as is reFuired for marriageable girls.# In this conte2t we shouldpoint out that ancient (ebrew custom did not associate marriageability with

puberty. In contrast to the marriageable girl %betula&, the . 3lma refers to a

girl in puberty capable of conception. $irls could in fact already be given

marriage long before actual physical maturity, perhaps even as young as five

years old %cf. 'ev. 90/D&, and it did happen that marriages were already

consummated with prepubescent girls.?

otice how all these Jewish and Christian e2perts agree that pre-pubescent

marriages were approved of in ancient Israel and as the in the


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men to marry female captives by force and the girls were all pre-pubescent. I

also cited 4cholarly references that agreed that, umbers /1 is about

marriage with pre-pubescent girls, the scholars agreed that the passage is

referred to se2ually. +hat I mean is, when the words in umbers /1 are

used as !keep alive for GH4='K=4#, this meant that soldiers can keep alive

the female pre-pubescent for their own pleasure. 8urthermore I went over oneob@ection raised by the =vangelists, it was of no value whatsoever, the

passage cited nowhere condemned pre-pubescent marriages. +hy I say it

was of !no value#, because =Mekiel was born 0 years after


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516 eframing (er/ Biblical +omen in "ostcolonial 8ocus 5Copy ight 96 By

Judith =.

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Prepubscent Marraige in Bible