July 2nd, 2009
So about 6 months ago my friend Alan blogs about real life superheroes. That is, those who might dress in superhero costumes and lurk the streets looking for a victim to save. One idiot actually failed to save a woman screaming because he took too long to put on his costume. A good laugh was had at his expense (as well as a shudder at the evil of his intentions being thwarted by his theatrics). Then it was forgotten, until about a month ago, when an actual superhero vigilante showed up in the comments. He makes the world better by performing/threatening violence on evildoers, so how dare the public make fun of people like him? And “what the fuck have you done for the world lately?”. That last one is a direct quote. The comments got entertainingly heated but they didn’t address the larger issue of vigilantism.
There’s something terribly romantic in our perception of vigilante justice. Entire industries (eg. comic books) are based on our expectation of said romance. Public outrage abounds at criminals being acquited on “technicalities” (whatever that means) as well as a howling for extra-judicial blood. The archetypal vigilante is one who seflessly takes on great risks and goes against a stodgy legalism to bring “true justice” (whatever that means). I think these perceptions couldn’t be more wrong. Now, certainly there is a place for say a neighbourhood patrol in every country. And if you’re in a place where police are unresponsive/belligirent/human rights abusers, sometimes a community’s response of, say, beating up a rapist caught red-handed is all but inevitable. But vigilante justice is a distant runner up to actual law and order, not an ideal. In fact, the ideal of vigilantism (as a mass system of criminal justice) raises a few questions…
- We know police are prone to systemic bias/corruption/inefficiency. Is there any reason to think a vigilante group is any less prone to these same things? Besides a our gut feel of course.
- A government department may have terrible bureaucracy. But a vigilante group is more likely to rely on the personal charisma of its leaders. Would these leaders not be prone to the same cognitive biases that the rest of us — just more so with unchecked power and no public oversight or procedure for complaints? Can we really trust them to just magically stop engaging in (say) racial profiling, if that’s where their biases go? Especially given what we know people to be capable of…
- What about the actions they see as crimes? Why wouldn’t we expect a vigilante group to just as easily start targeting things that are perfectly legal, or even engage in honour killings? After all, these are the crimes vigilantism often “prosecutes”. That and interfaith/intercaste marriage.
- Vigilante groups need confidence in their ability to accurately determine who is in fact guilty. Given how many biases the jury system is prone to, how can we expect an unstructured system to even be as good (let alone better)?
This relates to the problem with anarchy: rather than getting rid of an oppressive ruler, it merely creates a vacuum for anyone to fill. Compared to a modern day democracy, that “anyone” is likely to be more oppressive (ie. a thug). The historical data discussed very well by Pinker in The Blank Slate is eye-opening. Vigilantism typically starts taking over in frontier areas where traditional law and order doesn’t reach, as people strive to bring some kind of justice to their life. The resulting institutions typically place high value on honour. A great example from The Wire: Omar says he’s never harmed a “civillian” because a man’s gotta have a code.
Of course, honour is actually not that great since it’s tied into machismo. Vigilante justice is typically doled out by men as part of a worldview that treats women as anything from damsels in distress to property. The vigilante sense of honour is also what drives murderous vendettas. What’s a prime example of a vigilante society with all these ugly features? The Cosa Nostra, which developed in Sicily as an extrajudicial substitute for the law and order that was missing. It is the perfect experiment for what happens when people step up to protect their families in a manner free of outside bureaucracy.
Finally, why should we avoid violence as best we can in the first place? Because engaging in violence means relying on the ability to physically beat someone up. But why should this arbitrary characteristic give your argument extra weight? There’s no correlation between having the just cause and winning the fight. If there really was a God that ensured the “right” person would win, violence (specifically trial-by-combat) would be perfectly acceptable ways of resolving disputes. Of course that does not mean pacifism is the way to go. It really ain’t. But once violence is used, we cannot expect the person attacked to forego self-defence. All bets are off.
If a vigilante starts beating up someone he thinks is a drug dealer, can we really fault the person for turning the tables on the vigilante? So I say more power to vigilantes that refuse to engage in any violence — but for those that do, they are in effect throwing the cause into the arbitrariness of the fight’s outcome. That’s not justice. How the state’s monopoly on violence fits in is another story. But I think this all of this really shows that vigilantism should be strongly avoided and is very often unjustified.
June 30th, 2009
Your work has a good atmosphere, good people, good salary. You take pride in your work and it’s interesting. Your lot is better than 90% of workers. Much of it stems from how your boss Sandra runs the place. Hence, you like Sandra and often show her your appreciation. One day Sandra starts to get an inkling of doubt: is your praise sincere or a mere case of the pedestrian “great idea boss” mentality? Surely if you like her for who she is, your appreciation wouldn’t rest merely on your great working conditions? She decides to put you to the test with a rather radical solution.
As you walk to your car in the office carpark late at night, you are surrounded by thugs she has hired. They proceed to beat you to a pulp, taunting you, taking your wallet and making off with your car. But not before saying “this is from Sandra”. You’re bleeding on the ground. Shivering and in shock, you manage to make your way to the emergency room where you’re stitched up and examined. Turns out your injuries aren’t permanent or life-threatening. You’ll live.
Can Sandra still expect your praise as a boss (and a human being)? A crazy question — but the [flawed] analogy parallels Job 1-2. Job is a wealthy tycoon of the Ancient Near East. The sheep and oxen alone (7000+500) would make him a millionaire today, he’s an uber-millionaire for the time. With kids. And he’s righteous, to the point of being God’s pride and joy. At a heavenly boardroom meeting, God gloats about how great Job is. “That’s only because he has everything,” says Satan with a wry smile. He gets God’s permission to “test” Job, destroying all his property and killing all his children as an “act of God”. This isn’t enough to get Job to curse God so Satan gets God’s permission to afflict Job’s body with horrible diseases.
This is supposed to be the setup for one of the most “profound” books of the Bible. The book that asks the Deepest Theological Questions about the problem of evil. The one that contains some of the most beautiful poetry and most meaningful ruminations about the transitory nature of existence and suffering. Shenanigans. I agree with Eliezer Yudkowsky that the story is absolutely and irredeemably horrible. My main problem with the setup is it’s a repetition of the old unconditional love canard: we’re supposed to love God no matter what happens. However as the Sandra story shows there’s no reason to accept such absurdity. There are other problems that I’ll try point out as I blog my way through Job.
Even critics of the Bible are soft on this book. Eons before biblical criticism, Thomas Paine wrote a great takedown of the Bible (Part 2 of Age of Reason) absolutely demolishing almost all books. Not Job:
The book of Job differs in character from all the books we have hitherto passed over. Treachery and murder make no part of this book; it is the meditations of a mind strongly impressed with the vicissitudes of human life, and by turns sinking under, and struggling against the pressure. It is a highly wrought composition, between willing submission and involuntary discontent; and shows man, as he sometimes is, more disposed to be resigned than he is capable of being.
Actually, the whole setup is precisely treachery and murder. But Why do we see Job as more profound than it is? I think it’s that the mind naturally associates suffering with the profound. Think of the cliched tortured soul that’s meant to be a great artist. Think of the counterweight cliche of this artist’s work becoming worse as he/she becomes happier. And of course it really is easier to write angsty teen poetry that’s good over happy teen poetry. So it is with Job. I’m not a fan of Shakespeare: rumours of his profoundness have been greatly exaggerated. But he’s got the perfect description for this situation: “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport”.
June 25th, 2009
I listen to a great counter-apologetics podcast called Reasonable Doubts. They’re running a segment called the Gospel of Doubt, where you send in a recording answering these questions (in 200 words or less):
When did you lose your faith? Why did you lose your faith? Did you ever have faith? What are the arguments you ran into that started you down your path to disbelief? What books did you read, what friends did you make, or what events did you go through that helped you embrace the natural over the supernatural?
Thought I’d give it a crack so here’s a transcript of what I’m sending in — in story book form…
I was born in the Soviet Union, where I was told there was absolutely no god, and that I was one with Lenin.
I moved to Australia where a liberal Jewish school told me there was a God, and that I was one with His Love.
Then a more conservative Jewish school told me I was actually one with Rabbi Akiva. I was skeptical.
I got into Eastern mystical woo, the Buddhist interpretation of quantum physics telling me I was one with everything.
I even learned more about Judaism and dabbled with the idea of being one with rational Talmudic enquiry. But I couldn’t condone caging an animal and starving it to death.
I saw it was all rubbish, that I am definitely not one with you.
But I thought anti-religionists were “shrill”.
A few years ago I realised they were mostly right. And that religions have some of the most nonsensical and contradictory concepts around: souls, uncaused free will, morality somehow being objective just ’cause God said so. Not to mention Eliezer putting his hand on Abraham’s penis to take an oath
Thus I am now one with Dennett.
June 22nd, 2009
[Uni coursework is over so woo-hoo to more blogging!] Milgram’s experiment is one of the most popularly known psychology experiments. Basically, a subject was to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity to a student (who was really an actor taking fake shocks). The student began to scream in pain and eventually wished to cease the experiment. If the subject expressed doubts about continuing, an assistant was to chime in that they “must”. The initial estimate was that something like 25% of subjects would administer the maximum shock (450V). The results shocked Milgram: over 65% obeyed the authority of the assistant all the way to the end.
It seems hard to believe that most people would follow the authority of the experimental setup to the end (where the “student” appears unconscious or dead). Studies show that when people are told about the Milgram experiment results, most believe they would have acted differently. Of course, all this shows is how poor we are at self-assessment — at least for certain aspects of our behaviour. Whether we like it or not, Milgram’s results are very solid and were replicated about 6 months ago (more here).
Earlier this month, Sheril Kirshenbaum wrote Silence is the Enemy: a blog initiative with the idea of speaking out about rape to avoid the wall of silence. I think part of the problem is a tie-in with Milgram. If you live in a western democracy, it’s hard to believe most people will perform the 450V shock given certain circumstances. Similarly, it’s hard to believe that most men will perform the act of rape given certain circumstances. But again, the results seem solid. A new study from South Africa shows 1/4 men have committed rape. And for a western democracy (where law and order is indeed much better), over 50% of US Vietnam soldiers raped.
So what to do about it? Other than denying these aspects of our shared human nature at all costs, or shooting the messenger? The data that makes us uncomfortable is the same data that might save us. Most don’t rape and don’t give 450V shocks — because their social circumstances don’t bring out that part of their nature. It is much safer to acknowledge your violent potential since then you’re better placed to watch out for signs things are going wrong. And to help maintain social circumstances that curb violence in others.
I was walking home on Fri (10:30pm) and heard a yelp across the street: a man was pulling on a woman to snatch her bag. Once he threw her to the ground (only then did it become obvious that it was an attack as it was dark and a bit far away) I started running towards them to try help. Curiously, what was going through my mind was a blog post by Greg Laden where he describes an anthropologist who decided not to intervene in a gang-rape within the culture he was studying. The discussion that followed reinforced the absolute unacceptability of doing anything but helping immediately. Greg mentioned that he himself has been able to stop rapes in the field (he’s also an anthropologist) by using his wits, or perhaps sometimes even by letting the attacker know someone was watching. Now, I don’t think the discussion caused me to try help — but it made the social expectation of urgency (and the possibility of helping by any number of methods) fresh in my mind. This might have caused me to react slightly faster.
On a similar note: in Milgram’s experiment, when there was 1 dissenter in the room it did not help much. When there were several (creating a culture of refusing-to-administer-electric-shocks), almost all subjects dissented as well. It is up to us to create a culture where the expectation is as anti-Milgram’s-experiment (and as pro-assistance) as possible. It’s our only hope. The Chinese philosopher Mencius used this example to show human nature is good: if you’re walking on the street and a child is drowning in a river, your gut reaction is to run and help the child. That may be true, but Mencius hadn’t read Milgram. There are circumstances in which most of us probably wouldn’t save the child (example). So we shouldn’t underestimate social expectations as a factor that helps us reach the bar set by Mencius. This shit works. That’s why silence is the enemy.
June 15th, 2009
No True Scotsman is one of my favourite fallacies. The most common example is No True Christian:
Person A: Christianity has been nothing but a source for good!
Person B: But what about the Crusades?
Person A: Oh, they weren’t true Christians.
Person A is attempting to show that Christians are moral by defining them as moral. The trick A uses is to slide in a characteristic (being moral) as a necessary part of the definition — even though there’s no agreement about whether this should be part of the definition (and A does not attempt to argue for it).
With religions it’s especially messy. Most religions have many factions, and each one often calls the others not-True-Believers. But there’s no good reason for an outsider to take any side’s definition as objective. So the only reasonable position seems to be letting people self-identify: eg. if you say you’re a Christian, you’re a Christian. This will make many very uncomfortable (eg. are Jews for Jesus practicing Judaism?). But the alternative is to grant just one of the factions ownership of the label — for no good reason.
An example is when Christianity combines with tribal customs. 96% of the Papua New Guinea population is Christian, yet there’s plenty of brutal blood feuds that would be called “un-Christian” by outsiders. However, part of Christianity’s success has been its ability to be reinterpreted in a huge number of contexts. I think there’s no basis to argue that Christianity contributes directly to a blood feud. But it’s also fallacious to just try define these people out of Christianity.
Nor does tracing the “historical roots” of a religion help. You can’t decide on whether the Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox Church is the “true” church without deciding on the theological disputes that caused their historical split. Which makes no sense for an outsider. Similarly, talk of whether “true Islam” supports terrorism or not is completely vacuous for a non-Muslim: how can someone who does not believe any interpretation of Sharia decide which one is correct? There really is no choice but to call Osama bin Laden as much a “true” Muslim as the most radical reformist.
June 9th, 2009
A few months ago there was some trouble a-brewin about the Karzai government’s new Shia Family Law in Afghanistan. It follows all the worst stereotypes of fanaticism: a husband can expect to have sex with his wife every 4 days, if the wife refuses he is allowed to stop feeding her; women need a man’s permission to leave the home except in an emergency, etc etc.
The law has sparked protests with counter-protest violence as well as international outrage. As a result, Karzai has promised to review the law. It appears to still be in review, and although I wouldn’t hold my breath for it being turned into a sane legal act, some of the clauses have already been softened.
Now, the only outrage I’ve seen about this shitty law is at the level of it being repressive to women and contrary to every principle of human rights imaginable. But it goes way deeper than that. This law was enacted by Karzai as a political move to appease the Shia community. It is the Shia Family Law and as such is designed to only apply to Shiites in Afghanistan (all 6 million of them), not to Sunnis. To me, this is as offensive as the contents of the legislation itself, if not more so.
The most relativist interpretation of multiculturalism is that ethnic/religious/minority communities should be allowed (and encouraged) to maintain some degree of self-governance. Even when these go against the law applied to the rest of the population. To supporters of this, Karzai should be seen as a great multiculturalist, a paragon of tolerance for the Shiite “minority traditions” within Afghanistan.
If we allow society to become so “tolerant” that law is influenced by community membership (think sharia courts in the UK), universal human rights is dead. There’s just the rights granted to you by the “cultural community” you happen to be born into. As encouraged to by the “tolerant/inclusive” government. When groups start being given rights that trump individual rights, the Shia Family Law is the logical conclusion.
June 1st, 2009
(I’ve been swamped with uni and will be for 2 more weeks so posts are sparser and lighter.) If you haven’t heard of Conservapedia, give it a visit — it’s wonderfully amusing. Built on the same software as Wikipedia. It’s supposed to be an alternative to Wikipedia since Wikipedia is so obviously anti-conservative (eg. Wikipedia doesn’t flat-out state that evolution is a conspiracy theory).
Conservapedia truly exemplifies Poe’s Law. When I first saw it, I was sure it was a great parody. I mean even going by article titles, who can make up something better than http://www.conservapedia.com/Suppression_of_alternatives_to_evolution? But alas, alas, the website is all too real.
A 3 min inspection of the site reveals an interesting selection of articles:
Now, something tells me they might have some kind of agenda. But I’m not sure what it could be. Any ideas?
PS. The concept behind this Wikipedia article is also a classic.
May 25th, 2009
I rarely get shocked or surprised. But it happened. I was listening to talk radio by the Minnesota Atheists, which usually has some good stuff. In this episode, their guest was Sunsara Taylor, a communist who’s been doing the media rounds promoting “Away With All Gods!”, Bob Avakian’s vision of atheism as being crucial for social liberation.
A lot of what she said seemed dubious. But this particular answer to a question absolutely floored me. I had my mouth hanging open — and it was so egregious I just had to transcribe it word for word for posterity. I won’t even bother commenting (her answer doesn’t warrant a refutation). Still, it’s a very revealing answer. Sunsara kept repeating that being an atheist doesn’t automatically stop you from committing fallacies in other areas of life (when referring to non-communists). How true that is.
We do have a question from Mike: “Sunsara, despite its call for atheism, the history of communism as practiced relies on authoritarian elevation of its leaders to a god-like status. We saw this in the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s as Mao became the all-knowing leader. In trying to achieve the New Soviet Man, the Russians used religious symbology to push for republics and collectives to sacrifice for the people. Hasn’t communism substituted one ideology for another?”
Sunsara: “Ok well Mike, I appreciate the question. I think there’s a lot of different parts of history there to unravel, but I would say that communism in its foundation. It is a[n] ideology, but I think that the way people understand ideology is flat — everybody has an ideology and just because somebody has an ideology does not mean it’s unbeholden to fact or reality; or it’s religious. And communism actually is opposed to religion starts from a study of the actual world, the actually existing world. How it could — why it is the way it is and how it could be changed in the real world. And then, there’s a fight for people to understand that and act on that consciously. And, just as in any field of endeavour, especially something that’s new and going against the current, and going against entrenched interests, discoveries and breakthroughs tend to be concentrated in the hands of a minority at first; and then there’s a fight to popularise them. And sometimes they’re concentrated in an individual who makes a breakthrough.
“Marx did this when he discovered — you know — when he first brought forward his theories. And that was a revolution in human thought. Similarly Mao made certain advances and breakthroughs in communist theory and in communist leadership. And one of the things that happened is that there was a fight for the understanding he brought forth to be popularised,. And that understanding in opposition to understandings that were trying to develop China at that time more along capitalist lines because it would be more efficient, or — and actually, that’s what we see in China today is capitalist development and the horrendous — you know — emiseration of the sweatshop of the world. And so, there is a kind of diction involved in communist revolution, where individual leaders who bring forward new ideas do have disproportionate influence. But the contradiction is not: should you have leaders or no leaders, but what’s the nature of that leadership. And is it one that actually enables the masses of people who are being led to increasingly understand themselves. And not just the truths but why they’re true and how to think critically and how to be scientific, and to break down that division between leadership and led. And I think this is something that — you know has — is a historic contradiction, and is one that will be with us.
“But this is something that Bob Avakian, including in his book, has paid a lot of attention to. Including: this is something Mao began to understand but Avakian has taken further. That you can’t legislate when you’re running a new society, you can’t legislate worldview, you cannot dictate to people what they will or will not believe. You actually have to foster debate and ferment in society and try to win people over to your understanding of how the world works. And based on: does it correspond to reality or not? And I think that as long as we’re for quite some time, as long as we’re living in [a] class society, and the transition to get beyond it, there are going to be individuals who come forward and play a disproportionate influence — and –and for good. But the question is how do you actually have the dynamic with it? Division is being broken down and I think, just to wrap this up, is that today people are being led every day by bourgeois representatives, by somebody like Barack Obama, who has everybody — you know — he’s waging murderous wars but everybody thinks in his heart he doesn’t really mean it. He’s — ‘he’s saying let the torturers go, let’s not prosecute them’ and everybody’s going ‘but he’s different!’. No he’s not actually that different.
“But people are being led every day by one person or another, by one outlook or another and I think this is one of the myths, is that communists don’t construct the need for leadership. We’re recognising that unless people are led, they will be enslaved by both the thinking and the workings of this system, that that thinking reflects and reinforces. And so — there’s more to be said but that’s how I’d go at that.”
May 18th, 2009
In Part 1 of this post I quoted the passage about subjecting a suspected adulteress to a supernatural “faithfulness” test. It’s too obvious to spend a whole post condemning such blatant misogyny (’twould be an applause light). So I want to continue looking at ways harsh Biblical passages are softened by rabbinic Judaism. To look at such passages in their historical context doesn’t excuse them — but gives us better tools for tracing how such beliefs influence society. Even from the ancient Israelites’ view, the law is very unequal:
- Adultery is a capital offense for both husband and wife. Only a wife is tested with the bitter water. Only a husband has the dubious privilege of experiencing the “spirit of jealousy”.
- It’s a capital offense for both the wife and her paramour [Deut 22:22]. But the water is only described as striking down the woman, not her paramour (which would only be appropriate since the whole procedure’s miraculous).
This too much for the rabbis to bear; so they dispose of both inequalities. According to the Talmud, the husband is meant to first warn his wife “don’t seclude yourself with Joe Bloghs”. A major opinion is that it’s actually forbidden for a husband to issue this warning (since it sows marital discord), so Numbers only speaks of the husband who illegally warned his wife. From my perspective, it’s a bit weak to give YHWH a pass in issuing husbands with such a powerful legal instrument — and then lament when husbands actually use this instrument. However it does show a level of rabbinic discomfort at the Sotah procedure. The second point is dealt with much more swiftly: according to the Talmud, the magic water is meant to strike the woman’s paramour as well (though it’s not mentioned explicitly in the Bible).
The Talmud goes further. In the ritual, the curse scroll is erased by the bitter waters. But the curse contains YHWH’s name. So, the reasoning goes, God is so merciful he’s willing to let his name be erased to bring reconciliation between husband and wife, to restore normal marital relations! [Source: 2.L.3] Now, imagine the couple going home after the wife drank the water and lived (and hence was proved innocent). Something in me seriously doubts their future marriage will be blissful. But the Talmud’s implication is that most of the time the husband’s accusation is unfounded and the magic water is used to exonerate the wife not condemn her. Thus the transformation is complete and the Sotah passage magically becomes a milestone of feminist history and how protected the Israelite wife was…This is the my main problem with having a holy text: with enough interpretation, war is peace.
Now for my take: this is almost an extra-judicial procedure. The normal penalty for adultery is death but the plain text of this passage implies the woman will “merely” end up humiliated and barren (as opposed to dying). So I agree with the rabbis that the passage is meant to cover cases where the death penalty can’t be applied (eg. no witnesses). But it’s definitely engineered very deliberately to humiliate the wife as much as possible and thus serve as a means of extra-judicial social control — something that can be even more binding than an ineffective legal system. And of course even if the ritual was performed, how many times would the magic water cause a woman’s “thigh to sag”? Thus the passage brings a sense of stability and certainty (through the mere threat of supernatural intervention) into a [male-led] Israelite marriage.
May 14th, 2009
The sotah is the woman referred to in Numbers whose husband suspects her of adultery. She is made to drink bitter water by the priest which causes her to become childless (or to die depending on interpretation) if she’s guilty. Conversely, by failing to act, the water establishes her innocense. Here’s the KJV passage which I’ve abridged a bit (Num 5:12-28).
If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him[...]And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband[...]and there be no witness against her[...] And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled. Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy[...]
And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water[...]and uncover the woman’s head[...]and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse. And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman: “If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse. But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband” — then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman — “the LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot”. And the woman shall say, “Amen, amen”.
And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water. And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter[...]And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
I’ll opine in the next post, in the meantime the text stands…
