Bad, Bad Babylonians

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I came home from church yesterday with three spanking new books: Humility by C.J. Mahaney, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church by D.A. Carson, and Contending for Our All, Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the Lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen by John Piper.  These books were given to the guys that went to the Shepherd’s Conference and are now available for loan.  I didn’t mean to be a book glutton, really, but no one else took them.  I left several on the table that looked interesting. I’m so excited about Piper’s book, because Athanasius is one of my favorite heroes of the faith, one I am anxious to meet in heaven.

I had a few hours to get some great reading in and was weighing my choices. In a most inconvenient manner, my conscience started to yawn and stretch and become a bit animated.  My son is on track with school reading and I am woefully behind.   How am I going to get  the 624 pages of Herodotus read if I don’t start?  Oh, bother.  I wish I could tell you that after reading 5 pages I was enthralled, entranced, bewitched, engaged, eager for more.  Actually it was a book to plod through, to keep at it when I didn’t want to keep at it.  

The point is: I’m glad, overjoyed, I’m not a Babylonian woman living in the 5th century B.C.  Can.  You.  Imagine? 

In every village once a year all the girls of marriageable age used to be collected together in one place, while the men stood round them in a circle; an auctioneer then called each one in turn to stand up and offered her for sale, beginning with the best-looking and going on to the second best as soon as the first had been sold for a good price.  Marriage was the object of the transaction. The rich men who wanted wives bid against each other for the prettiest girls, while the humbler folk, who had no use for good looks in a wife, were actually paid to take the ugly ones…

Every woman who is a native of the country must once in her life go and sit in the temple of Aphrodite and there give herself to a strange man…Gangways are  marked off running in every direction for the men to pass along and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her seat she is not allowed to go home until a man has thrown a silver coin into her lap and taken her outside to lie with her.  The woman has no privilege of choice — she must go with the first man who throws her the money. When she has lain with him, her duty to the goddess is discharged and she may go home.  Tall, handsome women soon manage to get home again, but the ugly ones stay a long time before they can fulfill the condition which the law demands, some of them, indeed, as much as three or four years.

5 thoughts on “Bad, Bad Babylonians”

  2. WOW…that would suck! lol! Babylon was a bad place to live anyway! so yeah i don’t plan on visiting the 5th Century Babylon so i’m good! 😀

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  3. Oh yuck, would not like to be a Babylonian woman. I was searching for John Piper on the blog site, and came across your site, hope you do not mind my subscribing. Nice to find someone about my own age with similar interests.
    Heather

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  5. Carol, I’ve been reading about Sparta under Lycurgus.  I give what is appropriate for  the Jr. Hi class, but really, there is a lot left out.  When a society has thrown out the fact that we (mankind) are made in His image, the value of people, the value of a person is exponentially (sp?) degraded: be they “beautiful” or “ugly”, “healthy” or “unhealthy”, “old” or “young”, a contributing member to society or one who is in need.  Praise God for the Light of His Gospel!!

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