One of my childhood friend was posting a picture about the commandment of stoning a women in the Old Testament if they were found guilty of fornication in Deuteronomy 22:13-21. He was seeking for some clarification so I texted him back this note:
When anyone quotes the Old Testament of the Bible, we have to know their cultural and historical settings of their time, and not interpret it from our modern perspective.
One huge mistake that skeptics/Christians alike make about the Bible is to read it as a modern book (we can't expect that from the ancient past) and so, we have to read the ancient background of their culture and history.
Yes, the Bible is God's word (or we as Christians claim it to be) but we have to also know that it was written to a culture that was sinful and corrupt. The Law esp. in the Old Testament seems really harsh if we read some of the commands by God to annihilate all their enemies (for example; King Saul was commanded by God to completely wiped out all Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15:18). (This was a literary style/device of the ancient times), because even after the battle, we see the Amalekites attacking the Israelites again).
So, studying the culture of the Bible times is so important in understanding the text and not merely reading it plainly as one would read the newspaper/megazines/devotionals today...
And the act of violence ordered by a good God is something which is opposite to what many people perceive of God to be.
God is kind, loving, merciful and forgiving (popular thinking about the nature of God, but that's just one side of his attributes) ....
The full character of God is revealed in the Bible...
He is holy, just, pure and righteous (Isa. 6). He cannot tolerate sin and sinners (the bad news is, humans are not clean and pure).
So, there arises the need for sacrifices and all other commandments...
The Old Testament was written primarily to the Jewish people (not just for their political, ethical and morality but even the concerns of their day-to-day rules and regulations) and so,
Some websites can give better explanation to this kind of questions:
crossexamined.com
gotquestions.com
carm.org
But the law here was meant to keep both the bride and the bridegroom clean before marriage. In one way, it is like a preventive act for the people to keep themselves both pure for one another.
"It would be a deception for the woman to claim that she is virgin when she is not" (as noted by Matt Slick in carm.org)
And these laws are a preventive measure for the people to stay within the periphery of God's law.
The Law of stoning to death is purely culturally-based (ANE culture as you will be aware) and was followed in the ancient culture to keep the community from contrary behavior and activities.
Can the harsh Law be misused? (obviously, as we also see in our modern times, misusing the law to jail someone for 20-30 years).
So, in that sense, yes, to the modern mind, it is weird and even unthinkable but it was the norm of those days so, the Bible has to be read not just as a modern book but an ancient book that needs to be interpreted from the ancient's perspective....
Thanks!
