Law of Moses on Menstruation

[Ed Hurst]

There is a trend among Christian Men's Red Pill teaching to which I take exception, and I felt the need to explain myself, since I'm the odd one out. I'm referring to the strong note of repulsion for women during their monthly discomfort. Some go so far as to say, "Don't touch her!"

It does seem to be a major issue in the Old Testament, in particular. It's mentioned in the prophets and arises from two chapters of Leviticus, 15 and 18. If you take the time to read them carefully, you'll notice two distinctly different attitudes in each of those chapters. In 15, the whole thing is merely a matter of ritual purity. Sex with a woman in menses means you have to wait until tomorrow to go to worship in the Tabernacle. Yet, in 18 it suddenly takes on a much stronger tone. That's because the chapter itself stands in a different context referring to pagan worship practices.

It comes as a surprise to many Westerners that in the Ancient Near East, all kinds of normal human activity can take on a pagan taint. It's not just the worship of Baal and Astarte, but a whole range of weird pagan beliefs that we find hard to imagine. Yes, sex with your spouse during menses could be a pagan religious ritual. It could also just be ordinary love making. That's why those two chapters in Leviticus take on a different tone. The question becomes one of motives, not the act itself.

So, with all those comments from the prophets about this subject, I take them to be references to the pagan ritual sex, not the ordinary behavior of couples in private. I noted this when I wrote my study guide on the Law of Moses. Having a strong attitude of repulsion is one thing, but to misuse Scripture to justify it is wrong, and I see this common teaching as an abuse. Sure, avoid it for the 24 hours prior to formal worship with others, but I don't believe the act of sex with a woman in menses is some kind of primal sin in itself.

[jaybreak]

Do you think maybe Moses was addressing two different attitudes that people in his camp had about it? That may be why the answers are different. One of them concerned the ritual aspect, obviously, but in 18 there might have been a non-negligible faction concerned about the paganness of it, outside of the ritual purity of it, similar to the concern of eating meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians. I don't know.

[Ed Hurst]

The penalties are distinctly different. In chapter 15 sex with a menstruating wife is just a matter of the husband taking a bath and waiting seven days to do anything social. The whole chapter is about discharges from the body. In chapter 18 the same action merits expulsion from the nation. The key is 18:3:

You shall not do like the doings of the land of Egypt in which you lived. And you shall not do like the doings of the land of Canaan, where I bring you. Neither shall you walk in their ordinances.

The word "ordinance" here in this context refers to the demands of pagan gods.

The whole of chapter 18 is a list of things that, according to outside sources, were pagan ritual sex acts. The Egyptians were notorious for inbreeding, and their own hieroglyphics explain that it was at the behest of their pagan gods. Indeed, Egyptian hieroglyphics can be quite pornographic. The Canaanites left almost nothing in writing, but we know from how other nations described them, and the ritual objects found in archaeology, that they were among the most depraved people that we can find in history. The likes of Sodom and Gomorrah were quite influential in that part of the world.

Sex magic was a major element of pagan worship in that part of the world. It wasn't a mere matter of depraved desires; it came from messing with demonic worship. Lust would draw you in, but it was distinctly the matter of violating Creation. Everyone in the camp knew what this was about. The only difference in attitude was that way too many Israelis were ready at the drop of a hat to engage in any number of pagan practices. Their own prophets kept saying how quickly they wandered off into the most degrading practices.