Comment by Galen on March 8, 2010 at 3:06am

Well, I have to say, she IS right about you taking that passage out of context. It makes a big difference if it's a king saying "watch out for the women!" and God saying it! She was right, but rather than conceding that point, you called it a cop out and then proceeded to tell her what she feels. Yeah, you kinda were being disrespectful there.

Comment by Kristi on March 8, 2010 at 9:28am

If Matthew has taken his quote out of context, so has she. Christians do this all of the time. "They're doing God's work" when they quote the Bible and when we quote anything from the Bible, "we're taking it out of context."

I hate this double standard. No matter how respectful we can be when disagreeing with Christians, any sort of disagreement is taken by them as an assault. I think the only thing we can do is keep trying to open and maintain peaceful dialogue.

Comment by Apple on March 8, 2010 at 9:59am

I also feel that it's a cop out in the sense that there are MANY verses in the bible which show that god thinks women are worth less than men. It's not just one line out of context. I think instead of saying that it's a cop out you shoul have dumped a pile of bible quotes on her.

Let me guess, every one of them "taken out of context?"

Comment by A. Okafor on March 8, 2010 at 10:35am

Yeah. There is a "Bible" passage that basically states that a married man MUST KILL his WIFE if he finds out she wasn't a virgin at the time of their marriage. Yeah, God really loves women *sarc*

Comment by Shine on March 8, 2010 at 11:31am

I really despise how when Christians quote flowery passages from the Bible, their interpretations are always correct. Yet if an atheist references a controversial passsage, we are always "taking it out of context." It is a complete double standard.

However, I do have to wonder at the reading of the passage about strength that you quoted:

1 The sayings of King Lemuel—an oracle [a] his mother taught him:
2 "O my son, O son of my womb,
O son of my vows, [b]
3 do not spend your strength on women,
your vigor on those who ruin kings.
4 "It is not for kings, O Lemuel—
not for kings to drink wine,
not for rulers to crave beer,
5 lest they drink and forget what the law decrees,
and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.

It does seem like the passage is directing a man not to spend his energy "chasing girls" rather than a decree against empowering women; I am led to think this because of the subsequent warning against overindulgence in alcohol. Still, the rest of the entire passage (31:10-29) is incredibly degrading towards women as it is essentially just a long list of menial household duties and physical labor. There is no mention of any intellectual, artisitic, or emotional merit of "The Wife of Noble Character."

But I think that this point is moot because you raise a very valid point that many fundamentalists have interpreted that "strength" passage to refer to women being divinely ordained as weaker than men. In the end, this just raises the point that the Bible is ultimately a piece of literature and must be treated as such. Because literature is art, it is really impossible to negate anyone's personal interpretation of a work of literature; it is up to the individual how they interpret art. The danger arises when religious people try to assert some cosmic veracity in a piece of art. In my eyes, touting the Bible as the inerrant work of God is the same as claiming that we must live according to the Canterbury Tales or Beowulf.

(Edit: I don't have my Oxford Annotated Bible with me at the moment, and I just found a New International Translation online to reference.)

Comment by Matthew on March 8, 2010 at 10:01pm

Dosent mean that what I said wasnt true, and I was not intending to be disrespectful, if she thought it that way, then that is the person who is reading it problem.

Comment by Shine on March 9, 2010 at 12:09am

But I think Matthew raised a valid point that the passage is misused regardless. I mean, the original passage that the woman quoted is itself taken out of context; she is touting Proverbs 31:30 as though it is some compliment of women, when in reality it is just the closing line of a giant to-do list for wives. She asserts herself as a strong, independent woman, yet quotes an incredibly misogynistic part of the Bible.

Comment by Galen on March 9, 2010 at 2:36am

She started off the conversation by posting that quote out of context. I think you'd have been better off to respond to her "out of context" comment by pointing out that SHE did it first!

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