Near East

Tamar's torn colorful coat was actually, or it became a cover-up for Absalom's ambition.

In the ancient Near East, shame was a very real part of that culture.

And Tamar's shame became Absalom's shame, became their mother's shame, became their family's shame.

But Absalom would ultimately come to profit.

There we read that making graven images affects Israel's knowledge and worship of God.

In the ancient Near East, the surrounding religions did not share Plotinus' own aversion to images.

Their contemplative ascent, if we can call it that, consisted of fashioning small idols that became objects of worship.

The prohibition in Exodus is meant to demarcate Israel from the surrounding nations and pagan practices.

We have one interpretation of this passage that suggests any sculpted image or representation of anything within creation violates the intent of this commandment.

And then we have the Catholic interpretation that has a, a narrower read.

Um, the church indicates that this prohibition is contextualized to the pagan worship of the ancient Near East where graven images were made of false gods.

The surrounding people who did not know the true God used their imaginations to construct images of false deities that they worshiped.

But let's talk about virginity, purity culture, how it evolved, and how it protects people like this.

In the ancient Near East, marriage was a property transfer between two men, a father and a husband, and it carried a price.

In Hebrew law, that payment is the mohar, the bride price paid by the groom to the bride's father.

In Acadian, it is the turhatum.

Verses 28 and 29 of the same chapter, "A man who seizes an unbetrothed virgin and lies with her pays her father 50 shekels of silver, marries her, and may never divorce her." The victim is sentenced to a lifetime of cohabitation with her rapist.

Her father is paid for the depreciation in the price of his property.

There is no equivalent male scrutiny of virginity anywhere In, in any of these laws, the Laws of Hammurabi, which Leviticus and Edi- Exodus and all of the Deuteronomy laws are based on, the ancient Near East, they do not track male virginity at all.

This is exclusive to women.

Let me just ask about that, because Jacob is not the first man to marry in the Hebrew Bible, nor the last.

And normally, when a man marries a woman, throughout the Bible, I think throughout the ancient Near East, it's understood that she is now leaving the domain of her father and entering into the domain of her husband.

And he now... has title to her and all of her offspring are his offspring, not his father-in-law's offspring.

So why does this issue require clarification and emphasis more than any other marriage anywhere in the Hebrew Bible?

In case you don't understand, if you know a little bit of the history of the Jewish people, how the Assyrians took them away and the Babylonians took them away.

A lot of people's blood was mixed biologically with the nations in the ancient Near East.

Paul belonged to a particular tribe that he kept.

They stayed in Judah when the northern kingdom came.

So we'll take fish, it's a useful word.

But that said This great fish, this great creature, this monster is still as dangerous as the ancient Near Eastern nations feared.

And we left Jonah last week at the end of chapter 1, not merely in this beast's jaws, but trapped in its stomach.

Now, what we're about to look at over these next few minutes are the trauma reflections of a believer.

We may not know what that is, but there is a plan.

And his plan is to bring some good purpose in the horror of it.

Secondly, secondly, what do we learn from chapter two? I want you to notice that Jonah is convinced that even in the depths of the ocean, and for an ancient Near Eastern person, the depths of the ocean is what we're talking about.

We're talking about the theme of loneliness, actually.

I do wanna make it right." You know? And I think that speaks to maybe the conscience of the person who was involved in this situation, where it's like, "I need to fix this." So yeah, this is, this is a person who, uh, I think usual- in a general sense of it, you know, they care about the things of God, and they want to do things God's way.

This is a very different, um, punishment than we see in a lot of the Near Eastern, ancient Near Eastern cultures.

Like, you always hear, "If you steal something, what happens? You get your hand chopped off."

Yeah, exactly.

[coughs]

...

I think in ancient Near Eastern culture in compared to modern culture, I think because w- when we think of stealing today, um, we often think in Robin Hood type terms.

[laughs]

people like this.

In the ancient Near East, marriage was a property transfer between two men, a father and a husband, and it carried a price.

In Hebrew law, that payment is the mohar, the bride price paid by the groom to the bride's father.

In Akkadian, it is the terhatum.

Verses 28 and 29 of the same chapter.

There is no equivalent male scrutiny of virginity anywhere.

In any of these laws, the laws of Hammurabi, which Leviticus and Exodus and all of the Deuteronomy laws are based on the ancient Near East, they do not track male virginity at all.

This is exclusive to women.

I'm going to read the mission.

It says to enhance security in the Near East and South Asia by building sustained mutually beneficial relationships, fostering regional cooperation on security issues and promoting effective communications and strategic capacity through free and candid interaction in an academic environment.

Well, that's cute.

I miss those days, don't you?