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#Deuteronomy 21:18-21
Killing disobedient children
Here’s a marvelous example of a biblical law so manifestly unacceptable by virtually any standard that it almost single-handedly challenges the notion of the Bible as an ethical or moral guide to be read absolutely literally.
Killing disobedient children
Here’s a marvelous example of a biblical law so manifestly unacceptable by virtually any standard that it almost single-handedly challenges the notion of the Bible as an ethical or moral guide to be read absolutely literally.
No one follows this law. I don’t think anyone even suggests that we follow it. Those who shill for a literal reading, and an application in real-world policy, for other biblical laws (you know which ones) don’t even come close to doing the same for this one.
And that’s not true only of today: the rabbis of the Talmud, in their discussion of this law, spent basically the whole time making it impossible to follow, by narrowing what counts as “stubborn and rebellious” until it was a bar that could never be reached.
Just what a shitty ridiculous law this is. But also what a fine opportunity to see how readers interpret inconsistently from passage to passage, because we all read to bring the Bible into line with our values, not the other way around.
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