My honest review of Christianity

[Aractus]

I'm not so sure about Joseph being so young. He's apparently dead by the time Jesus begins his ministry. The apocryphal 'History of Joseph the Carpenter' has him as a 90-ish widower with Mary as a young servant charged with caring for one of his sons. It IS apocryphal, but it neatens up the story considerably:

Joseph has a girl, Mary, about 12 years old, in his household. She is betrothed to him, but he is not supposed to consummate the marriage in advance. At 14 or 15, she becomes pregant. Mary was supposed to be under his protection, so how to explain her getting pregnant? She could be stoned as an adultress if he admits he got her pregnant, and it's not unlikely that he was fond of her. A story is concocted, and he takes her out of town to have the baby for the safety of all concerned.

It's just a scenario, but my guess is that Joseph was considerably older than 17--maybe not ninety, but probably well over 17.

The bible doesn't say how old either of them were. I do not think, as a sceptic, you can take a single word of the nativity as historically based, however the one thing that is true is that Jesus had two parents and they were Joseph and Mary, and he had siblings, and some (or all) of his brothers were James, Joseph, Jude and Simon. I think that much is true and can be said with a reasonable degree of confidence.

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18 But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately.

This is not talking about pedophilia. They were keeping alive the young virgins so they could eventually be brides. This isn't allowing them to rape these girls.

Or concubines (sex slaves). You have to acknowledge that much - and the wording (elsewhere where women are also to be taken as plunder by the Jews) strongly suggests the women will end up as concubines and not wives because they are "taken as plunder" - i.e. the men are taking ownership of them, and women could never be freed from slavery under the Law of Moses.

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Do you think it was pedophilia for a man to marry a 16 year old girl in ancient times?

Even today that's not paedophilia. It may be illegal, it may be statutory rape, but it's not paedophilia.

Paedophilia only refers to when an adult at least 10 years older than the victim, has sex (or sexual contact) with a prepubescent child. It is a tangible sexual orientation - i.e. some people are sexually attracted to prepubescent children, and generally speaking it makes no difference what gender the child is to the paedophile.

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Pedophilia is postpubescent sexual and/or romantic attraction to prepubescence.

Making life long commitments at 16 are, in my opinion, imprudent in any times. Unions too. Then, now, and in the future, attraction between the mature and the postpubescent immature is almost always purely sexual for the mature and (if consentual) heavily romantic for the immature. It almost always leads to a very hurt young person.

Exactly, it cannot lead to a lasting relationship because once the child hits puberty they are no longer attractive or desirable to the paedophile.