I want to thank Dave for pulling together all of the Talmudic references that I had planned to gather for a post here. I have but little to add to his excellent compendium.

Most scholars believe that the Book of Daniel was first committed to writing sometime between 170 and 160 BCE, making it the last to be written of those books included in the Christian version of the Old Testament. It, of course, describes events that took place during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar (reigned c.605 to 565 BCE). The Book of Daniel is believed to have been compiled from legends that were current at the time about events that were supposed to have happened 350 to 400 years previously. ("Legend" here in the technical sense of a story that is told as true, believed as true, but cannot be confirmed by external evidence.)

At the time that the Book of Daniel was compiled, the positions given to Daniel and to his three companions were understood to be filled exclusively by eunuchs. If Daniel really existed and if he held the position, which is attributed to him, he would have been a eunuch.

The same can be said for Nehemiah (of the book of the same name in the Old Testament). Nehemiah was said to have been the "cup bearer" (i.e., poison taster) of the king. His position would have required that he accompany the king into the women's quarters, where only eunuchs would have been allowed. There is no need to say that he was a eunuch. He had to have been castrated to serve the king in that role.

There would have been no need to tell the readers (or hearers) of the texts at the time they were written that those described were eunuchs. They would have known from their own experience of people in those positions.

I have spent some time with the fresco painter who has been toiling for over 30 years at our local Eastern Orthodox church. The last time we talked he told me about his next project -- a depiction of Daniel that will be over the main door to the church. The adult Daniel will be beardless and macroskeletal. He will be shown as a eunuch because that's the way that he is interpreted in the faith.

There is a very nice illuminated bible in the collection of the Museum Meermanno in The Hague, Netherlands. At the beginning of the Book of Daniel there is splendid miniature painting showing the castration of Jewish youths with King Nebuchadnezzar looking on in approval. It shows a naked boy stretched out on a table with the surgeon holding a knife to his scrotum:

http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB% ... 3A222v_min

Was Daniel a eunuch? We don't even know for certain whether or not he existed. If he did exist and if he did hold the position attributed to him, he was a eunuch....

What about Isaiah? Why is the Book of Isaiah important to the Book of Daniel?

That's the last link that brings it up to the First Council of Nicaea and Constantine.

Dave (imported) wrote: Tue Jun 02, 2015 8:54 pm What about Isaiah? Why is the Book of Isaiah important to the Book of Daniel?

That's the last link that brings it up to the First Council of Nicaea and Constantine.

grumble to y'all - -

The Council of Nicaea made the Divinity of Christ a matter of faith (Dogma) and it uses many of the prophecies of Isaiah to support that article of faith.

When Isaiah make prophecy about Babylon, the story of Daniel reading the words on the wall (Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin) in judgement of NEbuchanezzar or his other name Belshazzar, it is the end of the Jews time in Babylon and their return to the Promised Land.

So the prophecy of Isaiah - - By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down yea we wept - - the fall of Jerusalem for disobedience to the Almighty and then subsequent fall of Babylon have to link together to buttress the prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus (not our Jesus) is the Son of God and therefore Divine.

Since Isaiah is a major influence and Daniel the buttress of that influence - when the Book of Daniel says

"Nebuchadnezzar ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility-- 4 young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king's palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. 5 The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king's service. 6 Among these were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

That is sufficient for some modern evangelicals to draw the conclusion that Daniel was an ascetic and a eunuch and that his eunuchism took away the distraction of sex. Therefore, modern boys can be "cured" of the distraction of sex by castration - - either symbolic, mental, or actual castration.

oops, added: Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials for Nebuchadnezzar was a eunuch. All of Babylon's court people were eunuchs. Interpreters assume that the young men taken into the court were first castrated and then fed good food form the king's table.

I do not have much to add because I do not know a lot about these history, it is extremely interesting.

Tx all, for posting this, incl links !

Vesal.

Losethem (imported) wrote: Thu May 28, 2015 8:00 pm Again, I didn't say it was correct. What I have trouble with is people are ready to burn this guy at the stake for something he did as a minor. What if the situation had been reversed and it was one of the girls doing this to him? Would we be burning them at the stake?

That's mostly the problem I have with it. I have very little use for anything Duggar, but in this case I think it's a mass overreaction to an adolescent doing something wrong. If this had continued into adulthood I would certainly have a different opinion. But frankly, I'm getting tired of society treating all males like lustful cock monsters that should either be put to death or thrown in jail forever, while letting women who do similar things off with a slap on the wrist and told not to do it again.

It's a double standard. While not the original subject, it's something that bothers me about the equal rights debate between men and women - women seem to want equal rights with regard to the good stuff, but the bad stuff they don't want any part of. And when I tell feminists that I'm all for equal rights so long as it is TRUE equal rights (read you're taking the good as well as the bad) they tell me I have strange ideas. Frankly, they are the strange ones, insisting on this some animals are more equal than others attitude towards sexual crimes.

--LT

I am not trying to hijack the thread, the religious history - learned a lot, thanks. That said...

The double standard eats at me, also.

I did some searching on my own and found this: the duggar homeschool programs terrifying advice on sex (http://gawker.com/the-duggar-homeschool ... 1706406324). If you scroll to the bottom of the article there is a scanned in document, "Lessons From Moral Failures in a Family". The last paragraph of the first page leads to the fourth item under "Recommended changes based on this report", on the last page: "Do not allow boys to change diapers, especially of baby sisters."

I dated a girl in highschool who lived with her sister for a while. The sister was married with two very young daughters (3 and 5). My girlfriend had been molested when she was very young, the sister knew about it but, because my girlfriend was a girl, there was no fear in thinking she now had a live-in babysitter. I do not know what happened when I was not over there but the girls behavior became sexualized over time. When my girlfriend first moved in I was just another person, like any other person, to interact with as kids do. In time these kids started doing different things like trying to peep on me when I was in the bathroom and grabbing at my crotch to get my attention (when standing, talking to someone).

One day the kids parents were out. We were teenagers, the kids were down for a nap, she had her own bed, in her own room. We went to her room and got naked, I got under the covers and she said she had a surprise for me, put on her bathrobe and left the room. I had no idea what she was up to. She came back, as far as the door and said, "close your eyes", with nothing to fear I did. When she told me I could open my eyes I did.

There were now three naked people in the room. Myself - thank God I still had the sheet over myself - and two little girls, my girlfriend was still in her bathrobe.

She wanted me to have sex with the girls. She believed that I would be better to them than her molester was to her. In her own -sick- way she was trying to help them.

I got the kids to leave the room and left the house with repeating waves of anger and fear pouring through me.

I gave my girlfriend an ultimatum. If she wanted to continue dating me she had to leave that house. She did, but we did not really date much longer after that.

==========

I have a friend today, a girl. She told me that when she used to babysit, when she was young, she would touch the infants in ways that were not necessary to change a diaper. When she described what she did I told her she molested them.

She said it was not the same thing, "... I was just curious so it wasn't like it was all sexual, not like a guy would do..."

==========

Girls know that girls do these things, then they drink their own Kool-aid. Only boys do those horrible things, etc. Society wants it to be true, but it isn't.

According to a 2011 CDC report there are an estimated 4,403,010 female victims of sexual violence that had a female only perpetrator. (link (http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/p ... 2010-a.pdf))

In 1996, the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) investigated more than two million reports alleging maltreatment of more than three million children. More than one million of these children were identified as victims of abuse. Of the one million children, 12% were sexually abused. The sexual abuse of children by women, primarily mothers, once thought to be so rare it could be ignored, constituted 25% (approximately 36 000 children) of the sexually abused victims. This statistic is thought to be underestimated due to the tendency of non-disclosure by victims. This paper examines the statistical data regarding sexual abuse by women, the psychological profiles of these women, how and why society excuses female abusers, the impact on the sexually abused children, and available treatments for the perpetrators.

(I do not know where the article can be found today, the above came from here: link (http://web.archive.org/web/201103200652 ... archtype=a)

I am betting that this issue could be dealt with better if it was handled as a societal issue instead of a "blame the Y chromosome" game where all men lose and women do no wrong.

Wow! That ^^^ (previous post) explains a lot. I see some parallels to my own growing up..... wow!