Extraterrestrial Iron

But the LORD selected you and brought you out of Egypt's iron furnace to be a people for His inheritance, as you are today." ~ Deuteronomy 4:20 

I thought this was strange to mention iron furnaces during the Bronze Age, but it is cooler than that. By 3200 BC, Egypt had begun smelting iron meteorites, 2000 years before they figured out how to smelt native iron.

Accidental Same-sex Marriage?

Photograph of a married couple believed by medical men to both be gonadally male.  Caption to the original reads: "A.S. [shown on the left], married for sixteen years, male hypospade. Error of sex."[1]

If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves. ~ Lev 20:13

Hypospadias is a condition where the urethra exits somewhere else on a man than his glans.  About 1/100 to 1/200 of men are hypospades. When the penis is small and the urethra exits at the base of the penis sometimes a baby can be misidentified as a girl. These misidentified hypospades can either be attracted to men, women, or both.

In Numbers 1:46 there are 603,550 Israelite men ready for the army.  About 3,017- 6,035 of them would have been hypospades. These would just be the ones correctly identified as male.  If Western Europeans were having trouble correctly identifying hypospades well into the 20th century, we can assume that those in the Ancient Near East also had trouble identifying them.

In ancient Israel, these pseudo-women risked breaking at least three Old Testament commandments.

•  Cross-dressing - A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor should a man dress up in women’s clothing, for anyone who does this is offensive to the Lord your God. ~ Deuteronomy 22:5
• Same-sex male sex  ~ Leviticus 18:22, 20:13
• In Deuteronomy 22, a woman and presumably a pseudo-woman who did not bleed during first marital intercourse could be stoned at her/his fathers doorstep.  

A strict interpretation of the Law demands the deaths of both partners involved in a same-sex marriage with a hypospade.  However it is unclear if there would be mercy and it is doubtful that the Law was followed strictly.  Even in 19th century France and England, a minority of doctors did not have the heart to break up happily married pseudo-women and men.**

*It is also unclear what God regards as the correct sex.  For millennia, genitalia was really all they had to go on.  Then there were the gonads which largely reside inside the body.  Sex chromosomes were only discovered in 1905.  Perhaps God would regard a mother/priest/judge/father/doctor's best guess as the correct gender.

**It is not always clear what makes a woman and a man.  There are at least three criteria*** (genitalia, gonads, chromosomes)  and generally two out of three confirms a gender.  A hypospade has male gonads, XY chromosomes, but an ambiguous genitalia. However, this is just the person's sex.  Gender and sexuality can differentiate from the sex norm.  A hypospade can be identified as a female sex and can identify with the female gender.  This also does not factor in the sexuality and who the hypospade is attracted.

***Over 99% of people will have no conflict with their sex and their gender.  99% of people will have their genitalia, gonads, and chromosomes line up.  Most hypospades are correctly identified as the male sex.  About 95% of people will primarily desire someone of the opposite sex.

[1]Dreger, Alice Domurat Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998) 121

Monday Myths: Virginity Tests Work

Point one would have to be that hymens can remained intact during intercourse.

A separated hymen is not an indication of having had intercourse, nor can it prove a loss of virginity. In fact, some women must have their hymen surgically removed before the birth of their first child because it is so flexible or small that it remains intact during intercourse.[1]

Point two would have to be that not all women have hymens.  Point three would have to be that hymens can break in several different ways.  The University of California Santa Barbara's sex information site has the following information.

The problem with reading too much significance into the presence of the hymen is that a woman may still be a virgin even if she does not have an intact hymen. A woman may not have a hymen for a variety of different reasons. First and foremost, she may have been born without a hymen, or without much of a hymen. In addition, many women tear their hymen, enlarging the hole, through nonsexual activities-- such as engaging in sports, horseback riding, insertion of tampons, etc that put tension on their hymenal tissue. Women are often not even aware that their hymen has torn, since there may be little or no blood and no pain. Sexual intercourse is only one of many reasons why a woman may not have a hymen. 

In many societies, however, people think that the only way a woman breaks her hymen is through sexual intercourse. As a result, if a woman does not have a hymen she is immediately thought to not be a virgin. Problems arise in countries whose values and beliefs place great importance on a woman's virginity. In some Middle Eastern countries, a woman is not supposed to lose her virginity until her wedding night. It is then custom for the husband to show off the blood stained sheets that supposedly prove his bride was a virgin. But what happens if the woman does not have a hymen, or simply does not bleed for some other reason? She may risk being shunned by her family and new husband. The woman may even be returned to her family as "used goods," stoned to death, or banished from her society. 

The hymen carries a great deal of importance and symbolism even in the United States. Men and boys alike are sometimes eager to "pop the cherry" of a girl, though the reasons for this are unclear. If a girl does not have a hymen, but loses her virginity to her boyfriend, did he in fact "pop the cherry?" In this case, the word "cherry" is clearly associated with virginity. This is obviously a false association, but unfortunately one that lingers. We can only hope that as more people begin to understand the basics of human sexuality, these false myths will be eradicated.[2]

Point four would need to be that even if a hymen tears during intercourse, not all women bleed.  Therefore many women would be unable to produce the bloody sheets.

When the hymen is separated, whether during first intercourse or at some other time, there may be some slight bleeding and a little pain. Both the bleeding and the pain are quite normal and both usually stop after a short time. Some women experience no discomfort at all during this process that is commonly referred to as "losing your cherry".[1]

Below the fold are some reasonably graphic pictures of anatomy: 

Deuteronomy 13

13:6 Suppose your own full brother, your son, your daughter, your beloved wife, or your closest friend should seduce you secretly and encourage you to go and serve other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have previously known, 13:7 the gods of the surrounding people (whether near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other). 13:8 You must not give in to him or even listen to him; do not feel sympathy for him or spare him or cover up for him. 13:9 Instead, you must kill him without fail! Your own hand must be the first to strike him, and then the hands of the whole community. 13:10 You must stone him to death because he tried to entice you away from the Lord your God, who delivered you from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. 13:11 Thus all Israel will hear and be afraid; no longer will they continue to do evil like this among you.

Punishment of Community Idolatry

13:12 Suppose you should hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you as a place to live, that 13:13 some evil people have departed from among you to entice the inhabitants of their cities, saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods” (whom you have not known before). 13:14 You must investigate thoroughly and inquire carefully. If it is indeed true that such a disgraceful thing is being done among you, 13:15 you must by all means slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock. 13:16 You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin forever – it must never be rebuilt again. 13:17 You must not take for yourself anything that has been placed under judgment. Then the Lord will relent from his intense anger, show you compassion, have mercy on you, and multiply you as he promised your ancestors. 13:18 Thus you must obey the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am giving you today and doing what is right before him.

Deuteronomy 12:31

You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! For everything that is abhorrent to him, everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods! ~ Deuteronomy 12:31

Deuteronomy 11 - You have seen

11:1 You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments at all times. 

11:2 Bear in mind today that I am not speaking to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments of the Lord your God, which revealed his greatness, strength, and power.

This reminded me of 1 John 1.

1:1 This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the word of life – 

1:2 and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us). 

1:3 What we have seen and heard we announce to you too, so that you may have fellowship with us (and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ). 

1:4 Thus we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.