Both are excellent points... but look at it this way:
The angry mob outside Lot's door wanted the two angels disguised as males... now Lot didn't know them from Adam, so to speak, but he offered the mob (his friends and neighbors) the opportunity to turn from their disobediant behavior and walk according to God's plan for men and women to be together in marriage (alluding to the idea of "marriage" loosely). Lot was at least trying to lead this mob back on track anyway. By offering his daughters to the mob he was saying, "Stop your disobediant behavior towards God and straighten up!! Here are two beautiful women!! This is what God had in mind for you!!"
When the mob turned down the offer of women for men, they were saying that they preferred their disobediant stand against God. They knew exactly what they were doing and they chose to continue. It's not detrimental towards women, as much as the story is about disobedience and the choice wehave tomake regarding God in our lives.
And as far as Moses is concerned, he wrote what God said from HIS PERSPECTIVE. Remember he was raised in Pharoes household and then he killed someone and ran away. He also stuttered and had a hard time getting his guts together to do what God wanted him to do. He argued with God when God told him to set His people free by the bush. He's no different than the rest of us. God used HIM! A stuttering, angry, lost, Jewish by birth not tradition, man who had to learn how to be Jewish from other Jews! God's law extended to all humanity, but Moses was a MAN living in the culture of his day and for him, it may have been a mixed culture in his mind. That's why I love the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus came and restructured all of God's laws to include all people. It's like he came and told everyone what God meant... <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />.
With God all are included and none are discarded. But with humans, sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees...
And, in my opinion, it's not who said what, it is what was said. I hear God speaking to me in every word, every verse and every story in the Bible. I love how he used some of the most incompetent and other wise offensive people to deliver his message. It's like we have to get past our own prejudices in order to hear Him. It's a lesson I think we all have to learn all the time. God loves us all and to steal a line from "Bruce Almighty", "That's how (He) made you". All the differences and all the conflicts that we have are just human conflicts. In God's eyes we are all equal to one another whether we like it or not.
Think about Paul. The very thing that irritates you about his writing, may be the very thing God wants you to get over so you can hear HIM. So He can use you.
That which drives you nuts about the references to women in the Bible may well reflect your own feelings of inadequacy. You may feel inside that God couldn't possibly love you completely because maybe you don't love yourself completely. I tell you now, you are a woman worth dying for. I know a guy who died for you and I'll take His word for it.... <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Last edited by BiblBasixEditor; 09/14/06 12:16 AM.