mightychurch.com

This might be a bit of a stretch, but let me run with it ;)

Firstly, what’s up with people defending Roman Polanski?

It makes me feel dirty, but I’m going to link to a Miranda Devine piece: Repulsion: Polanski’s horror story

I’m not sure why fame or talent makes you above the law.

Now let me try and segue to the bible:

Polanski is getting called a pedophile for having sex with a 13 year old girl, and fair enough. Anyone who drugs and rapes someone - especially a child - deserves to be locked up for a long time.

However, what is Polanski married (and subsequently slept with) the girl? Would he still be a pedophile?

The reason I ask is girls were often married at the same at that age as that girl in ancient times, eg in Jewish culture (or even younger at 12 - 11 year olds were considered minors, and urged to use contraception if married!), and often to significantly older men.

What do we make of this today?

The increase it marital age is relatively recent, and now if you, as an adult, ‘married’ & slept with a girl the law sees as a minor, you would be committing a major crime and face a long stint in the big house (and fair enough too).
But this is the kind of thing I imagine Jesus, Paul and others had in mind when they were discussing marriage - at least the possibility of it, as it wasn’t uncommon.

So, is the bible wrong for it’s tacit approval here, or are laws wrong and we should allow girls to be married off once they hit puberty?

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Personally, I think this (along with slavery) is a good example of how our understanding has improved over the past several thousand years, and therefore sets precedent for us organising as a society in away that can be different from the ancient ME, or Rome/Greece.

Thoughts?

In general: Glad to see a change in societal perceptions on child abuse towards a more intolerant-of-sin viewpoint (some may just see this as conservatism, but in my view conservatism within reason is a good thing).  Why can’t society adapt on other issues to a similar intolerant-of-sin viewpoint?

Specifically Luke: I’m not so sure the Bible allowed people of much older age to marry pre-pubescent partners.  Got any specific sources to state that old-time marriage was often between people of such ages as opposed to the exception? 

I always thought it was between two people of similar age, so like 14yo and 12yo for instance.  That’s not to say it definitely wasn’t wrong for those times, but it would substantially lessen concerns over child abuse today.