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Germania, Tacitus

andrew said:
Unwise, but not illegal. Some actions provide their own punishment in the natural consequences of the act....


Point well taken. At the same time, much religious behavior is organized around deciding who to hate and who should be punished (something Jesus had a few things to say about), and much opposition to polygyny from Christians, when they realize they can't find the verse that prohibits it, is something about "God's best" or "ideal", like we're all required to strive to live perfect lives according to their definition of 'perfect'. Jesus also had a few things to say about the traditions of men....
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Thanks for the fuller clarification and development of the thought. I agree that it should be on the entry page to the forums. I often don't have gobs of time to post full thoughts, so drive by posts are sometimes my norm.

That's one reason why I posted "mind of God" in my reply.

Whether it's polygyny, concubinage, or levirate marriage, God has ways of providing avenues for our dear sisters to survive and thrive in this wicked world. They may not match our ideals, but we don't get to make the rules. Our conditioned minds might find polygyny or prostitution reprehensible, but God may have not seen them the same way we do. Is it a stretch for us to apply "ends justify the means"? (I don't mean it in a subversive, Machiavellian way)

I personally don't condone prostitution for a whole host of reasons, but if I am completely true to scripture, we don't find God instituting a capital punishment for it, therefore we can't see it as abomination, either.

My mortal understanding might be as a "necessary evil" in times of famine or war, etc. If you've got no food for your orphaned children and no land or goods to sell, God will not condemn you if you use your only resource to feed your children.
 
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eye4them said:
I am not aware of any law prohibiting a woman from from prostituting herself.
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Contrast this silence with Leviticus 21:9...

"Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire."
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my comment got cut off....

It would seem God was taking severe steps to ensure that there would be no temple-sex-worship taking place as the nations around were wont to do. I think this is also why prostitutes couldn't give their profits to the temple, but were not enjoined from their occupation. It was about preventing arms-length sex-worship.
 
Mojo said:
My mortal understanding might be as a "necessary evil" in times of famine or war, etc. If you've got no food for your orphaned children and no land or goods to sell, God will not condemn you if you use your only resource to feed your children.
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Can't think of the name right now, but back in the '90s one of our inspirations for street ministry was a group in England delivering hot coffee (or maybe it was tea...) and food to streetwalkers at night, and working to help them get off their backs and back on their feet, so to speak. Achieving pretty good results, too.

There aren't many women that grew up wanting to be a hooker some day. However that gets rationalized, and however much "sex workers" get celebrated in our perverse culture, hooking is almost always a "desperate people do desperate things" move. You do what you have to do to get by. Good opportunity for Christian charity and ordinary human empathy.
 
andrew said:
Can't think of the name right now, but back in the '90s one of our inspirations for street ministry was a group in England delivering hot coffee (or maybe it was tea...) and food to streetwalkers at night, and working to help them get off their backs and back on their feet, so to speak. Achieving pretty good results, too.

There aren't many women that grew up wanting to be a hooker some day. However that gets rationalized, and however much "sex workers" get celebrated in our perverse culture, hooking is almost always a "desperate people do desperate things" move. You do what you have to do to get by. Good opportunity for Christian charity and ordinary human empathy.
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Excellent!
 
rockfox said:
A lot of people cite Tacitus as proof that the Germanic people, or all Europeans in general, were monogamous. It is looking like that isn't true, even of the Germanics that Tacitus wrote about.
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What everyone forgets about Tacitus is that he was writing to criticize Roman culture and to try and inspire Romans to return to their roots. He had no direct contact with the Germanic tribes and might not have known who had. He should not be taken as an accurate chronicler of the Germanic peoples.
 
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