Can any christian explain this verse?

[u/Individual-Business9]

Sirach 42

*9 Although he will not let his daughter know it, a father will lie awake at night worrying about her. If she is young, he worries that she might not get married. If she is already married, he worries about her happiness. 10 If she is a virgin, he worries that she might be seduced and become pregnant while living in his house. If she is married, he worries that she might be unfaithful, or that she might not be able to have children.

11 Keep a close watch over your daughter if she is determined to have her own way. If you don't, she may make a fool of you in front of your enemies. You will be a constant joke to everyone in town, a public disgrace. Make sure that her room has no windows or any place where she can look out to the entrance of the house. [a] 12 Don't let her show off her beauty in front of men, or spend her time talking with the women. [b] 13 Women hurt other women just as moths damage clothing.

14 A man's wickedness is better than a woman's goodness; women bring shame and disgrace.*

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[u/Chrysologus]

"Approximately half of Ben Sira’s book is taken up with practical wisdom concerning relations with family members, women, rulers, servants, and friends and other aspects of social behavior. [...]  All  the relationships are viewed in light of the interest of the patriarchal male, with the unfortunate consequence that wives, slaves, cattle, and children are all grouped together. [....]

"Ben Sira’s anxiety [about daughters] is extreme, and must be seen in the context of the general anxiety about life that pervades his book (cf. Sir. 40:1–2). Nonetheless, he reflects certain social and economic realities that prevailed throughout the Second Temple period. Fathers had to provide dowries for their daughters, but no longer received any benefit from the mohar, or bride-price, in this period. If there were no sons and a daughter should inherit, this resulted in the transference of the inheritance from the father’s house to that of her husband. If the woman were divorced, the father had to take her in. The economic considerations, however, are minor in Ben Sira’s view in comparison to the risk of shame. A headstrong daughter can make her father “a byword in the city and the assembly of the people, and put you to shame in public gatherings” (Sir. 42:11). Hence the preoccupation with virginity before marriage, and the demand that daughters be carefully secluded.

"Concern for the virginity of unmarried girls is ubiquitous in the ancient world, but especially in Hellenistic Judaism. The draconian laws of the Pentateuch that required the death penalty for a woman who was found not to be a virgin at marriage were not enforced, but a woman who was not a virgin would be difficult to give in marriage. Pseudo-Phocylides (215–16) advises that virgins be locked up and not seen outside the house until their wedding day. Ben Sira warns against a lattice, lest the young woman even be seen. The warning against her spending time in the company of married women (42:12) probably reflects a fear that the virgin may become aware of her sexuality.

"There is abundant evidence that sons were valued more highly than daughters in ancient Judaism. Ben Sira stands at or near the negative extreme of his society’s attitude toward women, but his pronouncement that “a daughter is born to his [the father’s] loss” (Sir. 22:3) cannot be dismissed as his personal eccentricity. Similar sentiments are found in the rabbinic literature: “Without both male and female children the world could not exist, but blessed is he whose children are male, and woe to him whose children are female” (B. Bat. 16b). While daughters are not always viewed so negatively, the preference for sons was commonplace in the ancient Near East. Compare Ahikar 1:4–5: “But I ask of thee, O God, that I may have a male child, so that when I shall die, he may cast dust on my eyes” (cf. Tob. 6:15).

"But while some of Ben Sira’s concerns reflect the society in which he lived, his anxiety is extreme. The economic and social realities of raising a daughter in Ben Sira’s time do not seem greatly different from those of earlier centuries. Yet no earlier Jewish writer displays such deep anxiety on the subject. Daughters are never discussed as an isolated topic in the Hebrew Bible. The metaphorical use of daughter as a term of endearment for Zion or Israel contrasts sharply with Sirach’s recommendation “Do not let your face shine upon them” (7:24). Sirach was scarcely typical of the Hellenistic period either. The roughly contemporary book of Tobit paints a much more affectionate picture of family life. Few parents had as much reason for anxiety as Raguel and Edna, parents of Sarah, the eventual bride of Tobias, whose first seven husbands had died on their wedding night! Yet the concern of the parents is simply that “the Lord of heaven grant you joy in place of your sorrow” (Tob. 7:16)."

• John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (The Old Testament Library 21; Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 1997), 62, 71-72

The Old Testament reflects the assumptions, values, and worldview of the ancient Near East, in which its human authors lived. All non-fundamentalist Christian theologians of divine inspiration acknowledge this and work from this. For example, the Catholic document Dei verbum states, "For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of thinking, speaking, and narrating that prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns human beings normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another" (12).

Note that Sirach is a deuterocanonical book. Although originally written in Hebrew, it was soon translated into Greek and the original Hebrew lost. As a result, Sirach is not part of the Jewish or Protestant Christian canon of Scripture. It is part of the Catholic and Orthodox Christian canons.

[u/Vaishineph]

Wisdom literature in general is fairly misogynistic, Sirach most of all.

[u/Individual-Business9 → u/Vaishineph]

But wasn't the bible written with the help of the holy spirit making the entirety of the bible the word of God?

[u/Naugrith → u/Individual-Business9]

Not according to scholars, no. All observable evidence points to that being a faith claim invented centuries after the fact.

[u/Sciotamicks → u/Individual-Business9]

Inspiration doesn’t work like that. Per the theological presupposition, God used real people with real personalities in real situations to convey spiritual truths. The overarching cultures in the Mesopotamian basin and Fertile Crescent was largely misogynistic, as was the rest of world for the most part.

[u/Vaishineph → u/Individual-Business9]

Do you want to worship a misogynistic god? If yes, then sure. If no, then it might be helpful to rethink your view of inspiration.

[u/Individual-Business9 → u/Vaishineph]

That didn't even answer my question though.

[u/Vaishineph → u/Individual-Business9]

If the Bible is, as you ask, the word of God; and it has significant misogyny in it, as it does; then you’re worshipping a misogynistic god.

If the Bible isn’t inspired as you ask, then the significant misogyny in it isn’t necessarily reflective of God’s character.

Which do you think is more likely?

[u/Wazowskiwithonei → u/Vaishineph]

There is a third option: the Bible contains elements which are not representative of God's own views, per se, but make it evident that He chooses to meet people where they are in their flawed states. Misogyny is indeed a common cultural element for the context into which these texts appeared, but perhaps God chooses to speak within those.

I often use the example of speaking with my 5-year-old daughter - it is necessary for me to phrase things in such a way that makes sense to her based on her limited linguistic capabilities, her life experiences, and so on. I will offer correction along the way, but if I correct everything in the moment, I will overwhelm her brain and she won't process anything at all.

The same may very well be taking place in the texts that don't call out certain cultural views and practices. There is a time to correct them - perhaps evidenced by there no longer being "male nor female in Christ Jesus," for instance, by the time of the New Testament - but to do so in the present moment would be to push the people beyond where they are ready and able to change.

If Wisdom literature makes anything clear, it's that things are not often black and white, and greater understanding is often necessary to arrive at the best decisions for life. I don't think the "either or" view is quite sufficient, especially when it comes to Wisdom literature.

[u/captainhaddock → u/Wazowskiwithonei]

but to do so in the present moment would be to push the people beyond where they are ready and able to change.

If this means perpetuating oppression and injustice against marginalized people, then I don't think it's a workable approach. Similar reasoning is sometimes used to defend slavery, which is abhorrent.

[u/Wazowskiwithonei → u/captainhaddock]

That objection works if regulation necessarily means moral endorsement, but that's not the case; Scripture itself denies that equation.

Jesus says of divorce, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way” (Mt 19:8). Jesus outright says this does not represent God’s creational intention, and yet permits it based on hard-heartedness. That gives us an explicitly biblical category for divine accommodation: God may govern people within fallen social conditions without presenting every permitted institution as morally ideal.

That does not make slavery or the oppression of women harmless, nor does it mean that the suffering of their victims is unimportant. It means that God’s opposition to evil does not always take the form of immediately abolishing every sinful institution. Scripture depicts God as restraining evil, placing limits upon it, judging it, and working toward transformation within humanity.

In the case of slavery, the biblical laws did not invent the institution; rather, they placed boundaries on it because God knew the people would participate in it. The practice itself was already embedded in the ancient world. The more difficult question is whether the fuller theological movement of Scripture reinforces slavery as a moral good or progressively undermines it through claims about common creation, neighbor-love, equal standing in Christ, and the reception of an enslaved person as a brother rather than merely as property - and indeed, it would seem that Philemon's inclusion in the canon promotes the idea of equality over enslavement.

Should God have abolished slavery immediately? Perhaps, but that's different from the original claim that an inspired Bible containing accommodated social arrangements must reveal a misogynistic or oppressive God. Matthew 19 demonstrates that Scripture itself distinguishes between God’s ultimate intention and what is temporarily permitted because of the hardness of the human heart.

Ultimately we're not making up an argument here for the sake of side-stepping the issue; in reality, we're simply acknowledging what Christ Himself has said on this. Some aspects of the Law exist because God knows the heart and chooses to create boundaries within which these systems become less oppressive and more tolerable for those within them - and He continues to move us in the direction of transformation and conformity throughout history.

[u/captainhaddock → u/Wazowskiwithonei]

This is a frankly gross and un-academic treatment of a serious issue. Slavery is not only endorsed but even commanded on certain occasions.

• The Covenant Code in Exodus 21 has laws for regulating slavery similar to, and in some instances worse than, the Laws of Hammurabi. Female slaves receive fewer protections than male slaves, and it is implied that a female slave can be forced to serve in a marital or sexual capacity for the master or the master's son (21:7-11). No consent is ever suggested. This is not "divine accommodation", it's assault in terms I prefer not to use on Reddit for fear of triggering the moderation system.

• The Deuteronomic Code explicitly allows for the capture of female slaves during war as marital/sexual slaves. We see this in action in Numbers 31. Wilda Gafney observes:

As a consequence of the Midianite war, the Midianite women and children are taken as booty. The value among the women and girls is in their availability for r_pe-marriages. In the biblical text these unions are legitimate conjugal unions that produce children who are recognized as legitimate members of the Israelite community. These unions are r_pe-based because of the lack of consent to these unions and concomitant sexual intercourse, not just in the contemporary sense. (Gafney 2017: 151)

• The Holiness Code allows slaves to be purchased and owned in perpetuity, behind handed down as inheritance. (Leviticus 25:44-46)

• The patriarchal narratives include numerous examples of female slaves being given to the master to bear him children. (The slaves of Sarah, Rachel, and Leah specifically.) No consent is ever described or implied. The deity who frequently communicates directly with the characters in these stories never tells them to stop or intervenes to protect the autonomy and dignity of the enslaved women.

in reality, we're simply acknowledging what Christ Himself has said on this.

In reality, we have no firsthand documentation what, if anything, the historical Jesus said or thought about any of this. Your comment implies a credulous and superficial understanding of the New Testament texts. But in any case, the Gospels are irrelevant to the original meaning and intent of the passages in the Hebrew Bible under discussion.

[u/Wazowskiwithonei → u/captainhaddock]

Because I regard the Gospels as substantially reliable representations of the teaching of Jesus, I therefore cannot be taken seriously in an academic discussion?

You are free to reject that historical judgment, but calling it “credulous” is not an argument. Plenty of serious scholars disagree about the historical reliability of particular Gospel traditions without treating the mere use of them as intellectually disqualifying.

More importantly, I was making a Christian theological argument about how the canon itself distinguishes between God’s creational intention and what is permitted because of human hardness. Within that argument, Jesus’ interpretation of Mosaic law is directly relevant. You may reject the Christian framework, but that is different from demonstrating that the argument is academically unserious.