My first wife was a self-proclaimed feminist.\u00a0 I tried with everything in me to treat her as an equal, which I too often mistook for \u201cthe same\u201d in my twenties.\u00a0 One night, lying in bed on our backs talking, my affection for her surged.\u00a0 I reached under the small of her back with my hand, used my elbow as a fulcrum, lifted her, rolled her over, and plopped her down on top of me face-to-face.\u00a0 She was livid.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t sure what sin against feminism I had just committed so I tried to talk to her about it.\u00a0 When she calmed down enough to think, it turned out that she wasn\u2019t really upset that I had lifted her up, rolled her over and plopped her down on top of me.\u00a0 She was angry that I was able to lift her up, roll her over and plop her down on top of me with one arm.\u00a0 \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be that strong!\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not right!\u201d\u00a0 I did what I could to express my love for her, and said that whatever strength I had was for her protection, not something I would use against her.<\/p>\n
<\/a>After Amnon overpowered and raped Tamar<\/a> he greatly despised her<\/em>, the text continued.\u00a0 His disdain toward her surpassed the love he had previously felt toward her<\/em>.\u00a0 Get up and leave!<\/em>1<\/sup><\/a> Amnon said.<\/p>\n No I won\u2019t<\/em>, Tamar replied angrily, for sending me away now would be worse than what you did to me earlier!<\/em>2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>Though this sounds strange to contemporary ears, it makes perfect sense in the socially constructed reality<\/a> Tamar inhabited.\u00a0 She already believed (or said) that her father David would have given her to Amnon as a wife if Amnon had but asked. \u00a0She was not engaged to another man.\u00a0 The relevant legislation she had in mind was: Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered.\u00a0 The man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has violated her; he may never divorce her as long as he lives<\/em>.3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>Tamar did not perceive Amnon as a woman-hating sociopath but as an overly-eager potential mate.\u00a0 The feminist movement was not part of her socially constructed reality.\u00a0 Initially she looked to the law to protect her from being violated, then to restore her honor after Amnon violated her.\u00a0 But Amnon cared very little for the law the Lord Jesus<\/a> gave to Moses.\u00a0 He called to his servant who threw Tamar out of the house and bolted the door behind her.<\/p>\n <\/a>My wife came home late one night several weeks after she told me she wanted a divorce.\u00a0 I heard her getting ready for bed in the next bedroom.\u00a0 I got up and started to walk toward the door.\u00a0 Before I crossed the threshold of my bedroom door I heard that still small voice, \u201cWhat are you doing, Dan?\u201d\u00a0 I stopped in the doorway.\u00a0 I was calm, not angry, lucid, and I was going to kill my wife. \u00a0I started to shake and sweat as I made my way back to my bed.\u00a0 I don\u2019t recall how long I sat there.\u00a0 Finally I made my way to my wife\u2019s bedroom and half-confessed, half-blamed her for bringing demons into our home.\u00a0 It had to be demons, surely I could never kill my wife.\u00a0 I loved her. I said I loved her.<\/p>\n <\/a>The next morning I set out to make my word true, not unlike Jephthah.\u00a0 I copied Paul\u2019s definition of love on a piece of paper: Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious.\u00a0 Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. \u00a0It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. \u00a0It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. \u00a0It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.\u00a0 Love never ends<\/a> <\/em>[Table<\/a>].4<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 I tacked it up on my bedroom wall by the door so I couldn\u2019t leave that room without seeing it.\u00a0 I showed it to my wife.\u00a0 I promised her that this was my new law, that this is how I would love her.<\/p>\n Now King David heard about <\/em>[Amnon\u2019s treatment of Tamar] and was very angry<\/em>.5<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But there is no indication in the text that he did anything about it.\u00a0 The note<\/a> in the NET is as follows: \u201cThe LXX and part of the Old Latin tradition include the following addition to v. 21, also included in some English versions (e.g., NAB, NRSV, CEV): \u2018But he did not grieve the spirit of Amnon his son, because he loved him, since he was his firstborn.\u2019 Note David\u2019s attitude toward his son Adonijah in 1 Kgs 1:6.\u201d \u00a0And that is, Now <\/em>[David] had never corrected<\/em> [Adonijah] by saying, \u201cWhy do you do such things?\u201d <\/em>[Adonijah] was also very handsome and had been born right after Absalom<\/em>.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n It paints an image of David as a lenient father, favoring his sons, and an interesting image of God who found David<\/a><\/em><\/strong> the son of Jesse to be a man after my heart<\/em><\/strong>.7<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 But David was not only a father but the king.\u00a0 What about Tamar who trusted God\u2019s law to protect her before she was raped, and to vindicate her after?\u00a0 Was there any justice for her?\u00a0 As a king administering the law what should David have done?\u00a0 Collect fifty shekels of silver from Amnon?\u00a0 Give them to Tamar?\u00a0 Give Tamar to Amnon as a wife?\u00a0 The law was intended to dissuade a young man from overpowering and raping a young woman.\u00a0 Once it was broken, the law offered no justice, only retribution and fear.<\/p>\n The famous phrase \u201can eye for an eye\u201d is found three places in the law.\u00a0 If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman\u2019s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides. \u00a0But if there is serious injury, then you will give a life for a life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot <\/em>[Table<\/a>], burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. If a man strikes the eye of his male servant or his female servant so that he destroys it, he will let the servant go free as compensation for the eye. \u00a0If he knocks out the tooth of his male servant or his female servant, he will let the servant go free as compensation for the tooth.<\/em>8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n If a man inflicts an injury on his fellow citizen, just as he has done it must be done to him \u2013 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth \u2013 just as he inflicts an injury on another person that same injury must be inflicted on him <\/em>[Table<\/a>]. \u00a0One who beats an animal to death must make restitution for it, but one who beats a person to death must be put to death. \u00a0There will be one regulation for you, whether a foreigner or a native citizen, for I am the Lord your God<\/em>.9<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n If a false witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime, then both parties to the controversy must stand before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges who will be in office in those days. \u00a0The judges will thoroughly investigate the matter, and if the witness should prove to be false and to have given false testimony against the accused, you must do to him what he had intended to do to the accused. \u00a0In this way you will purge evil from among you. \u00a0The rest of the people will hear and become afraid to keep doing such evil among you. \u00a0You must not show pity; the principle will be a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, and a foot for a foot<\/em>.10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>I reflected on my own experience with my wife.\u00a0 I was far from perfect loving like God by attempting to keep the definition of his love as if it were law.\u00a0 But my wife survived it.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t raped.\u00a0 Even after our divorce she thought of me as one of the kindest men she knew.\u00a0 In fact, before we were actually divorced she acknowledged that our main problem was my religion.\u00a0 I regret that, but I couldn\u2019t see through my religion then.\u00a0 I thought my religion was the only thing standing between me and a murder rap.\u00a0 But it did make it possible for me to see eventually that justice for Tamar wouldn\u2019t come from any law, but from the love that fulfills the law, the love that is patient and kind and doesn\u2019t rape a sister, or any woman, in the first place.<\/p>\n Where David left a vacuum by his inaction, Absalom his firstborn (Tamar\u2019s full brother) stepped in.\u00a0 He said to her, \u201cWas Amnon your brother with you?\u00a0 Now be quiet, my sister.\u00a0 He is your brother. Don\u2019t take it so seriously!\u201d\u00a0 Tamar, devastated, lived in the house of her brother Absalom\u2026But Absalom said nothing to Amnon, either bad or good, yet Absalom hated Amnon because he had humiliated his sister Tamar<\/em>.11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Absalom waited two years, but after that time at a dinner he gave for all the king\u2019s sons Absalom instructed his servants, \u201cLook!\u00a0 When Amnon is drunk and I say to you, \u2018Strike Amnon down,\u2019 kill him then and there. Don\u2019t fear! Is it not I who have given you these instructions? Be strong and courageous!\u201d <\/em>[Table<\/a>] So Absalom\u2019s servants did to Amnon exactly what Absalom had instructed<\/em> [Table<\/a>].12<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Addendum:<\/strong> December 23, 2020
\nI hesitate to call the tables below Paul\u2019s \u201cquotations\u201d of scriptures so much as they are a lesson in how he utilized the Hebrew Scriptures as factual data in his address in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch.<\/p>\n