Expert: Jim Miller - 12/27/2006

Question
I think you turned left when my question was straight forward.  Rehab was a prositute and helped the Isrealites.  I'm sure other unholy women did also.  Do you know of any in the bible?
------------------------------------
The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
In the old testament some prostitutes and concubines where mentioned.  Some had important roles in the ways of Israel then and did wonderful great things for the nation.  Why are these same females looked down on today?
-----Answer-----
Prostitutes were despised then as well.  That was the point.
   Proverbs 23:26-28 and 29:3 advise the (male) reader to avoid prostitutes.  Deuteronomy 23:18 states the principle that a prostitute's wages cannot be brought to the Sanctuary.  A father cannot market his (legitimate) daughter (Lev 19:29) and a Priest's daughter who becomes a prostitute is to be executed by burning (Lev 21:7-9).  1 Kings 22:38 identifies a disreputable place as the place where prostitutes go to wash.  Jepthah is thrown out by his half-brothers because his mother is a prostitute (Jud11:1-2), and Simeon and Levi excuse their slaughter of the Shechemites because their sister was being treated "like a prostitute" (Gen 34:31).  Also in 1 Kings 3:16 the two mothers are first identified as prostitutes before they are identified as mothers.  The idea was that even the lowest members of society (namely prostitutes) have access to the king of Israel for judgement, thus showing the king to be just.
    Concubines were far, far more respectable than prostitutes.  They were a type of wife, a second-class wife who were required to have sex with no other males, who were called widows when their husband dies and whose children could inherit from their father's estate.
   BTW, what "important roles" for prostitutes were you thinking of?

I hope this is helpful
Jim Miller  

Answer
Matthew 1:1-16 places four women -- all questionable women -- in the genealogy of Jesus.  They are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba (the wife of Uriah).  Tamar was a Canaanite woman who pretended to be a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law in order to bear him heirs (Genesis 38).  She disproved adultery by proving incest.  Rahab was also a Canaanite and a prostitute (not an Israelite prostitute) who betrayed her people to join with the Israelites.  She also saved her family, which included her father and mother.  This means she was a legitimate child.  This is a slur on Canaanite culture that they would place legitimate daughters into prostitution.  Ruth was another foreigner, a Moabite woman.  Bathsheba was the women with whom David committed adultery.  Eventually she bore him Solomon.  These women are included in Matthew's genealogy not because they were respectable, but rather because they were not.  They were foreign and, except for Ruth, sexually disreputable.
The point is that God can redeem disreputable people, and that the genealogy of the Messiah need not be pure (indeed it cannot be, as all his ancestors were sinners).
Incidently, Jepthah's mother, a prostitute, bore one of the leaders of Israel, and Hosea was commanded to marry a woman of prostitution so his life could be an object lesson of God's relationship with Israel.
Will this do for starters?
Jim Miller