re: #16 Jimmah

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Although it’s certainly true that there has been a recent rise in fundamentalism among followers of all three major abrahamic religions, and that their understanding of their own fundamentals may often be highly questionable, there is nevertheless no doubt that the ancient world was very different to that of today’s, especially with regard to attitudes about women and sexual equality, and that fundies do feel more comfortable with that world.

Or, what they imagine it might have been.

I think you’re actually making it far too simple. The ancient world was a complicated place, and in many times and places, women’s status was quite a bit better than it would be later on.

This obsessive fear of women’s sexuality may be projected into antiquity, but the origin of modern customs tend to be more complex and recent than that.

A note: the Biblical text says that Dvorah, the prophetess, ‘judged Israel’. A modern interpreter from an extremely conservative school will tell you this cannot be taken literally, since later Jewish writing says that a woman cannot act as a judge, and therefore, we are to understand that Dvorah was instructing judges in their task, rather than herself acting as a judge.

Who is more benighted here? The ‘ancient world’, or the modern interpretation?