Evangelical Alliance: "We aren't homophobic women-haters"

[abaris]

They used to hang horse thieves. You could kill a person by stealing his horse. This isn't moral relativism, but the same morality being applied to the situation at the time. God was purposely separating the Jewish nation, which he needed to remain whole, from the surrounding nations. The strict law was one of the ways to keep the pagan influences from working their way into the Israelite nation.

Never underestimate the bending power of a theist. Like a rubber doll actually. Instead of claiming the obvious that half nomadic desert dwellers made up some barbaric laws, which by the way are still followed by some tribes in the larger vicinity, it's god's infinite wisdom to protect his special hobbits.