(October 5, 2018 at 11:42 am)Drich Wrote:(October 5, 2018 at 7:35 am)unfogged Wrote: Yes, and it's obviously much more important to codify something that everybody knew or would find out the moment they tried it than to order them not to have slaves or that women should be treated equally. Why is it that the book records only things that people of that culture could be reasonably expected to understand and already believe? It hasn't been given the name "the goat herder's guide to the galaxy" for nothing.
The implication goes much further than that bright side.. maybe into areas where people would not think to not pair something or people unequally. The idea is if this law pertains to the lowly donkey and ox then it also applies to things of greater status. Perhaps this is a way to give a sect of people rights, in a way that would be ignored or cause civil anger otherwise. Like don't pair a young strong slave with an old weak one and expect the same work to be done, or this could also carry over to a woman not being expected to do things that a man could more easily do in such a society.
Which doesn't address the point at all. I do not deny that that there are lessons to be taken from many biblical stories just like there are lessons to be taken from Aesop's fables and the Oddyssey and Shakespeare and Dickens and just about any other piece of literature out there. The point is that there is absolutely nothing in the bible that isn't reasonably expected from the culture that produced it.
