The good news is that superior attitudes in otherwise intelligent, reasonable and pleasant people repel the unwashed masses. If you call that good news; did Aeschylus or Euripides ever do a play built around koros, hubris, ate, nemesis--and re-genesis? Maybe ignoble Solomons comment about haughty spirits is more appropriate, but either way I had higher hopes for RAFO (of course, some people think I'm naïve).

1. I’ll retract the statement that Solomon was the holiest king; Josiah leads the list of those more entitled to that designation (IIRC Hezekiahs record is equally unblemished, but the text affirms Josiah). That does not make Solomon a demon with a crown; that he was chosen over his father to build the Temple says something about the character of both. Whether or not we think the text accurate, it portrays Solomon as beginning his life and reign in humble piety but not "finishing the race", as Paul would say. Like several Judges (and Jacobs father-in-law), he embraced paganism due to his many pagan wives ( the very thing the law against foreign wives sought to prevent, which opens the door to debate whether Solomons marriages are allegorical) but he did not abandon God. Contrasted with Josiahs constant humble piety there’s no question who was more holy, but in terms of overall greatness (which, rightly or not, is the ideal most of Israel and Judahs kings pursued) the text clearly states Solomons domestic security, military strength, tribute and admirers from around the ancient world were far in excess of either Davids or Josiahs.

Calling Josiah the ideal king is reasonable, but calling David the greatest is not. Solomon ruled more territory, faced fewer insurrections/invasions and had more wealth than his father. He also didn't spend nearly a decade as a King in Exile with his peoples most implacable foe, avoiding return to Israel by periodically convincing THEIR king that he was a traitor, drooling lunatic or whatever it took. Josiah’s the theological ideal, but not the one to which kings aspired nor the one whose fame remains the most enduring; he’s the “Chronicles” ideal but not the “Kings” ideal. That probably says more about human nature than it does any king, but by most standards of “greatness” the text presents Solomon as well above any other king.

Of course, documentation is important.

Josiah is the standard for obedience to God, but Solomon is the standard for virtually everything else and, despite the consensus that it’s the more priestly and less royalist account, II Chronicles is even more emphatic about Solomons royal stature than I Kings is. While we're quoting scripture: Two books of the Tanakh and part of a third are attributed to Solomon; how many are attributed to Josiah? The bottom line is that, except for Hebrew scholars, virtually everyone knows Solomon and virtually no one knows Josiah. The text shows Solomon was not the “holiest” (a poor choice of terms regardless) so I erred in calling him “greatest, wisest and holiest” but both the text and “common sense” show him as “greatest” so you erred in saying, “he was only the holiest”. If we must accept the “common sense” meaning of “evangelical” that didn’t exist a generation ago the “common sense” meaning of “greatest” that’s existed for millennia (and is supported by the text) ought to hold as well.

2. I was being facetious when I said, “it’s just adultery for a married man to have sex with anyone but his wife”, because you’re insisting the concept of “fornication” is a neologism barely 1000 years old, 2000 tops (an odd position when you later also insist “evangelical” be used in the novel “common sense” manner). Common prostitution may not be explicitly prohibited but, as you said, “whoring” is mentioned often, often in ways hard to separate from general extramarital sex. Whether we look at one sentence in Deuteronomy or the whole section that view is supported:

You say
The section begins, “If a man takes a wife” and uses ishah to mean wife, as well as three more times (once as “woman” and twice more as “wife”) rather than exclusively using na'ara bethulah. What’s more important, however, is that she’s accused of “playing the harlot” (zanah) WHILE UNMARRIED! This isn’t dealt with by simply demanding the bride price of and marrying her to the man who slept with her, but by stoning her as no more nor less than a zanah, with no regard for the circumstances (and certainly not for adultery, since she was unmarried at the time). One might almost think equating extramarital sex in general with harlotry means the Torah opposes it as firmly as it does adultery. Saying that it refers only to young virgins completely misses the point that extramarital sex was not opposed categorically, not just for married people. The text refers to young virgins because it allows only unmarried girls only two statuses: 1) virgin or 2) harlot; if she is found upon marriage not to be the first she is automatically the second. Since you insist that the Torah was exhaustively comprehensive and covered every possible situation that must mean that none of the NON-sexual ways a womans hymen can be ruptured occurred in ancient Israel.

Deuteronomy 22s view is far from an aberration; we can’t go even one more chapter without finding Deuteronomy 23:18, “You shall not bring the wages of a harlot or the price of a dog to the house of the LORD your God for any vowed offering, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God”. So the text doesn’t CONDEMN a female harlot (again referred to as zanah, even though the previous verse uses qedesha for TEMPLE prostitute) their money’s just not welcome at the Temple, and the phrase “or the price of a dog” is considered by many (e.g. Strong) to put it on the same level as male prostitution (which was unequivocally a capital crime). Leviticus 19:29 warns, “’Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry, and the land become full of wickedness.’” Not “lest the land fall into harlotry with people who aren’t widows or divorced or rape victims” but “lest the land fall into harlotry, and the land become full of wickedness”. Seems like the Torah says that falling into harlotry would fill a place with wickedness, hardly a blanket endorsement of extramarital sex (reading chalal as “prostitute” due to the elaboration of zanah doesn’t exactly put prostitution itself in a great light either).

We can go on and on and on like this; it’s not part of the Torah, but my personal favorites are the MANY passages in Proverbs where even the lecherous Solomon categorically condemns patronizing prostitutes. His insatiable desire for women led to MARRIAGES that in turn led to idolatery and forever fractured the kingdom, but he calls PROSTITUTES the door to Hell. By far the most common biblical metaphor for idolatry is “whoring after other gods”; it’s illogical to say the text condones a practice that furnishes the bibles preferred metaphor for its most condemned sin. I think you'd have better luck arguing that "whore" doesn't necessarily mean "prostitute" because it can also simply mean "promiscuous person", but, regardless, even if the Torah only explicitly condemns some forms the Tanakh condemns it as such in several places and by implication throughout, with no need to resort to Paul or any other NT author.

3. “Verbal diarrhea expressing your unique spin on reality”? You want to “USE THE SOURCE TEXT as a basis of making” determinations—but only when it suits you; other cases are mentioned only by way of preemptive dismissal for no reason except NOT suiting you. When a text makes a term its preferred metaphor for the thing it condemns most and calls the literal practice a gateway to Hell it’s difficult to believe that text condones the literal practice under some circumstances (the bible's certainly explicit enough about exceptions in things like the dietary laws). You don’t have to believe the stories historical fact but, as you note, we do have to adhere to what they say when that’s the debate. In general I don’t object to the “anything not prohibited is permitted” philosophy, but it’s not a green light, it’s an amber one, and in this case even that is dubious.

4. A great example of you doing the same thing with archeological and historical research that you did with the bibles usage of “whoring” and “harlotry”: “Find a genocide from antiquity that is adequately documented and proven” so you can call me stupid for citing any such documentation, which we KNOW is all falsified. HTF do I reason with that? You’re right that “At no point did the Romans say ‘we are going to crucify every inhabitant in every settlement where Punic is spoken and destroy the population that comprises the Carthaginian Empire’" but “Carthago delenda est” captures the sense of it well; after that we’re just discussing methods (unless you’re seriously suggesting it means “Carthage, and only Carthage, none of its dependents and supporters in the immediate vicinity or the rest of its empire, must be destroyed” ). How many places was Punic spoken even two centuries later? Even when we KNOW entire settlements were expunged from the Earth, you dismiss it as episodic aberrations rather than systematic campaigns. When’s the last time you talked to a Carthaginian? Or a Philistine? Or a Mede? Or an Assyrian? Did they get wiped out by a plague, or just lose interest in breeding? What’s really interesting is that they vanished as a people around the same time they were conquered by a foreign power; might there be a connection? Nah….

I called the genocides “well documented” to forestall someone rushing to “inform” me of the biblical accounts as “proof” Christianity and all religion are evil. I’m not married to those genocides, though not really divorced from them either, but the all important source text claims they happened whether or not they actually did. My point is that whether or not we credit those claims, they exist (you alluded to them before I even joined this thread) and the same source texts claims the motives were 1) wiping out paganism in Canaan (i.e. genocide) and 2) preventing Israel from mingling with Canaanites and thereby becoming pagan (i.e. racial purity). That’s the same theme we see in the accounts of Solomons marriages and subsequent paganism, and again when post-Exilic Israelites are ordered to abandon their foreign wives. Sure, the bible lists Bathsheba, Ruth, Rahab and Tamar in Christs family tree, but since it does so in purporting to list all Jesus’ ancestors, since only one would be considered a prostitute (and only prior to becoming part of Israel) and since all of them, including Rahab, became wives, “traditional” or not, that seems a lot more indicative of the priority the bible places on clear bloodlines than it does a vindication of prostitution.

Is this what history has been reduced to now, searching for evidence to support our indulgences and/or disprove the conclusions based on existing evidence? Your talents are wasted on the CMB; the folks rewriting history books down in Texas would be forever grateful for your services.

5. The paternity issue is relevant to things like lesbians and female masturbation (and VERY relevant to this sidebar on extramarital sex, of course) because a reaction to affirm male parental rights naturally involves male sexual rights and responsibilities in general. That makes FEMALE sexuality less of a priority; it’s reduced to no more than an afterthought in relation to male sexuality. Reproduction in general is relevant to a lot more things (like masturbation and homosexuality), but if you want to get back to lesbians and female masturbation specifically you’ve already referenced the likelihood of lesbians being a consideration in polygamous marriages. Purely lesbian women are a reproductive issue, but bisexual women married to a single man don’t inhibit reproduction. Likewise, female masturbation is no obstacle to reproduction, but a man who’s already ejaculated alone five times that day is less likely to impregnate a woman.

6. Wow. I think this is the first time I’ve heard anyone say Christianity was more “oppressive” than Mosaic law. How many times does Jesus take the Pharisees (the LIBERAL sect) to task for their legalism? The bible represents Jesus as claiming to FULFILL the law, not overlay it with additional requirements, because legalism had supplanted spiritual harmony with God in favor of a body of rules no one observed perfectly. That’s why it “oppressed” people by offering inclusion Judaism denied them from birth. When asked whether Gentile Christians had to keep Mosaic law the Apostles boiled the legal requirements down to: 1) Don't screw around, 2) don't eat blood and 3) don't eat food offered to idols or strangled. Paul sarcastically suggested Jewish Christians demanding circumcision for Gentile Christians go all the way and castrate themselves. This is more oppressive than Jewish legalism, which was so light most of Judaism hasn't demanded all of it in centuries? Is this some strange new meaning of "oppressive" that means Christians believe Jesus "makes things so much easier" by "doing all the heavy lifting?"

No set of written laws can cover every contingency; I’d expect a lawyer to know that, and to bear it in mind when railing about how ignorant, confused and stupid someone is. Did it ever occur to you, for example, that maybe the reason no one but Levites had to marry virgins isn’t that widows and divorced women were expected to have sex with anyone willing, for pay or not at their discretion, but precisely because divorced women and widows without brothers-in-law weren’t meant to become prostitutes? I don’t recall any biblical stories of widows (or anyone else) righteously becoming prostitutes to support their families; that doesn’t seem to be the message in Ruth.

7. I wasn’t seizing an opportunity to proselytize or evangelize, I was rejecting a small sects attempt to radically alter the meaning of “evangelical” into something condescending and combative (based on your tone here, perhaps combative condescension doesn’t bother you as much). I’d not have thought I’d have to tell such a learned scholar that speaking of “St. John the Evangelist” doesn’t equate him to Pat Robertson. It’s truly baffling that you reject “fornication” for having a pedigree of only a couple MILLENNIA with inadequate textual support, but assert a “common sense” meaning of “evangelical” with a pedigree of a few DECADES and no textual support. That seems like (more) picking and choosing. If we’re sticking to the text as written rather than how peoples agendas have tried to warp it, Matthew 28:18-20 claims, “And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, ‘All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.’” That means saying, “evangelical Christian” is like saying, “liquid water”; the latter word by definition includes the former, and drawing a distinction where none exists is either conceited, insulting and/or ignorant.

You’re welcome to respond with copious citations affirmed as authoritative and unassailable when they support you but preemptively dismissed as irrelevant and misguided when they contradict a “unique spin on reality” but I leave you to it, and it to you. We both know who'll win a research pissing contest (or is that the point?) but if that's the sole arbiter of accuracy perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to dismiss everyone from Paul down to the last century as biased and ignorant just because 20th and a few 19th Century scholars biased against them said so. If you were interested in imparting knowledge, increasing understanding, reaching a consensus or anything constructive rather than being belligerent, insulting and condescending I might care, but I’ve no desire for you to bludgeon me with a book like Oral Roberts at a strip club, yelling “only pay attention to the parts I show you, read only AS I tell you!” If learned scholars were infallible the push to revise two millennia worth of scholarship would have no legs. In future I’ll try to stick to either requests you share your vast knowledge and understanding or positions on which I know we’re in agreement, if the “temerity” to disagree is inherently offensive to you. The privilege of quibbling about on a message board isn’t worth a stream of insults and verbal abuse. An honest difference of opinion is one thing, but suggesting I'm just an idiot who pulled things out of thin air, even as you cite supporting views just for the pleasure of dismissing them as the fever dreams of naught but religious bigots, is beneath us both, or should be. It’s a true shame that an admitted elitist holds himself to such low standards; again, I can only hope that becomes less rather than more recognized as the nature of RAFO or, if not, that the legal trade is very good to you so you can be very good to Ben. Then again, I’m just hoi polloi, so my thoughts and opinions (obviously) don’t count for much.

Have fun with your next salvo.