Ordering the death of your daughter-in-law

Bring her forth, and let her be burnt." Genesis 38:13-18
Judah has sex with his daughter-in-law and then orders her to be burned to death. (verse 24)

This whole chapter is full of God killing people, but in this part of the story, Tamar, his daughter- in -law tricks Judah into sleeping with her so she can have children since she is his son's widow.  Tamar  followed Judah to where he was shearing sheep.  She covered herself  with a veil so Judah could not recognize her.  Judah sees her and thinks that she is a prostitute because her face was covered.  He proposes to pay her to have sex with him and asks how much it would cost to buy sex.  She wanted his ring and his staff and bracelets as a pledge and she agrees to have sex for a baby lamb.  Judah agrees to the price and sleeps with her.  Tamar gets pregnant from this whole episode.  She puts back on her garments of widowhood and goes back home and about her business.  When Judah goes back to find her to pay her and give her a sheep from his flock he could not find  "the harlot".  He wants his property back that he left in pledge. He began to ask, "Where is the harlot?"  The sheep shearers replied that there was no harlot. According to the story,  three months passes and Judah finds out that Tamar tricked him into sleeping with her and finds out she was pregnant.   In verse 24 upon hearing what Tamar had done Judah orders her to be brought forth in order to be burned to death.  He eventually relents and let's her have her babies and leaves her alone, but it got pretty tense for Tamar, his widowed daughter-in-law for he was going to kill her by burning her to death.

In this story several glaring truths come out.  It is OK for Judah to sleep with a prostitute, but it is not OK to take matters into your own hands in you are a widow.  For Tamar,  it  meant death.  Secondly,  Judah, as the head of the patriarchal tribe of sheep herders has the right to pronounce judgement and have Tamar killed in a violent death for tricking him.  In the old testment the stories are told from the man's perspective and the tribal leader makes up his laws as he goes along.  Women are worth less than the animals and have no more rights than a slave.  The rights of women are irrelevant and not considered.  They are invisible.  Patriarchal societies, religions and church organizations always make women invisible and without value.

Eventually, in the story, when Tamar showed that Judah was the one who impregnated her by bringing him his ring, staff and bracelets, Judah relents and lets her live and bear his children.  The  Bible stories always end with the women having male offspring to carry on the family line.  Female offspring were just as disregarded as their mother's.  The pressure was always on a woman to have male babies.  Tamar was lucky to have her life spared by the patriarch of the family who should have allowed her to remarry anyway.  Females in the bible are just vessels to propagate your tribe.  In male dominated societies women are excluded and disregarded.  Patriarchy brings women universal violence and despair.  All patriarchal religions sap female energy and all patriarchal religions hold to books authored by men and for men and hold to every view from a man's point of view.  Women have suffered under Judaism, Islam and Chrisitanity long enough.  Our creative vital force has been silenced for 4,000 years.  Man made religion breaks the heart of all wise women everywhere simply seeking a right to exist.

Ordination of women priests a "grave crime" according to the vatican.

On Thursday, the Vatican issued new rules and made the “attempted ordination” of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, lumping it in the same category with — wait for it — the clerical sex abuse of minors. Women attempting to be priests and those who ordain them already risk automatic excommunication, but the decree goes further and labels the action “a crime against sacraments.”


My favorite feminist is Mary Daly.  Forced to study  theology in europe because no american catholic university would admit her to a doctoral program she exposed the male dominance of the church.  She helped women to see that the church did not represent them or care about them.  Women were useful only as long as they reproduced faithful offspring brought up to be loyal to the church.  Under such a system, birth control and sterilization are strictly forbidden as not having children would free women up to the pursuit of education, commerce and self expression.  Mary, the mother of Jesus is worshipped for her obedience to God to be willing to have a child for God.  Mary is also worshipped for her virginity.  This is a big guilt trip for a modern woman to uphold.  Mary is by and large a silent participant and no doubt God and the priesthood above all else admire obedient silence from the women that they wish to dominate and control.  The protestant movement also excludes women and prefers obedient silent women as well.  Do all these men really speak for God?  Does God see women as inferior and incapable of leading congregations and worshippers?  I think women have been "had" for thousands and thousands of years by male dominated societies and religions.  Christianity has not furthered the cause of women.  Christianity has hindered it.