Monday 26 August 2013

The History Of Biblical Honor Killing

By Debra Cooley


Biblical honor killing started 300 years ago as discussed in the Old Testament of the Bible. It is prudent to start off by trying to understand the meaning. Honor killing may be described as a killing which is allowed under the law.

God gave Moses these laws at Mount Sinai. This law required that the women to preserve themselves and to maintain them self as pure as possible. The question whether the woman had maintained her virginity was being proved at the time of marriage.

The tradition required that two senior people from both the two families who are getting married. That is the one from the groom side and the other from the bride side. It was mandatory that the couples to consummate the marriage the same day at night. This consummation would help the elderly in proving weather the woman was a virgin at the time of the marriage or not.

This law required that all women should remain pure before being married. Engaging in sexual intercourse before marriage was considered as committing a crime. When one was found to be guilty of the crime, then the punishment was death. In this regard, the law provided that if a man and a woman is married, there was to be presumption that the marriage will be consummated the same night of the marriage as per the traditions.

Therefore chosen individuals would scrutinize the sheet to establish whether there was any token of virginity. The token of virginity was considered as the presence of blood on the sheet. This would indicate that it was the first time she the man was penetrating into her and therefore some blood came out. It was so unfortunate if the token of virginity was not available in the sheet which the couple used in their first nigh as this would show that she was not a virgin and therefore she is considered as being impure.

The other incident worth mentioning is found in the book of Judges. The book of Judges is in the Old Testament of the Bible at Chapter 11 talks about Japhthah on how he killed her daughter and offered her to God as a sacrifice. Japhthah was to go to war with the Ammonites. He wished that he could defeat them in the war. He therefore asked God to help him to win the war.

The other instance is found in the book of Judges at Chapter number 11. This chapter gives the story of Japhthah when he killed his daughter to offer her as a burnt sacrifice to God. Japhthah had asked God to give him the Ammonites.

This meant that he had to sacrifice her daughter to God. He informed her daughter of the intention to offer her as sacrifice to God. The daughter then asked his father for permission to go and enjoy with her friends before being sacrificed. This kinds of deaths are therefore considered as one of the biblical honor killing.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment