1 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,The argument goes like this: Ezekiel's stating that metaphorical Jerusalem was ready for sex with God after her breasts had formed and her public hair had grown, necessarily implies that Israel in the days of Ezekiel, and thus likely also in the days of Moses, generally believed that the minimum age a girl must reach before she can be legitimately married and engage in sexual relations, was puberty, or about 12 years old. And since God is speaking through Ezekiel here, that's the age God himself thinks is the appropriate marriageable age.
2 "Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations
3 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem, "Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
4 "As for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloths.
5 "No eye looked with pity on you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you. Rather you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born.
6 "When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you while you were in your blood, 'Live!' Yes, I said to you while you were in your blood, 'Live!'
7 "I made you numerous like plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall and reached the age for fine ornaments; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown. Yet you were naked and bare.
8 "Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at the time for love; so I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. I also swore to you and entered into a covenant with you so that you became Mine," declares the Lord GOD. (Ezek. 16:1-8 NAU)
But there are numerous problems with using the text that way:
1 - God is concluding that the presence of boobs and pubic hair on a girl makes her ready for sex (v. 8), and yet today, if we hear anybody say girls are ready for sex after their boobs and pubic hair have grown, we assume the speakers are just stupid inbred rednecks who lack common sense and don't realize that readiness for sex is a complex thing that involves far more than what features the girl has developed. Is your god an inbred redneck for thinking her signs of puberty means she's "ready" for sex?
2 - Ezekiel was an exilic prophet, the Israel he represented were captives of Babylon (about 600 b.c.). Yes, he could well be representing a tradition here that goes back to Moses, but since Moses lived around 1300 b.c., you'd have to say that Ezekiel's view on this minimal marriageable age, properly represents what the Hebrews from 700 years previous also believed about the minimum age of marriage. If you insist the tradition is consistent, you leave yourself little reason to complain that the Rabbis and Sages of the Babylonian Talmud (700 a.d), who permitted adult men to use sexual intercourse with three year old girls to achieve betrothal, properly represented the earlier Jewish beliefs of the first century and before. And given that Judaism itself evolved many theological ideas and caused many factions (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Samaritan Jews), the only person who would say Ezekiel is representative of the earlier Judaism from 700 years prior, would be fundamentalists who have their suicide guns at hand, ready to the pull the trigger if the least bit of imperfection should show up in the bible.
3 - I don't say marital pedophilia was normative in ancient Judaism. All I claim is that there is no evidence from the bible that God viewed the act as "sin". In that case, there is no problem accepting Ezekiel's view as normative of ancient Jewish morals. What he doesn't address is how far this model could be deviated from without going off into sin. And since James Patrick Holding has specified that he was allowing for some deviation one way or the other from the 12-year old age he proposed as the ancient Hebrew age for marriage, it would appear that where the minimal boundary age or conditions be, is more or less a subjective thing, and for that reason, Christians cannot use their subjective judgment call on the matter and pretend this is God's own view. God thinks it normative to set the age of marriage at 12, but the question whether God views marriage below this age as "sin", is not answered.
Once again, the issue is not what was normative among ancient Jews. The issue is whether the god of the bible views sex within adult-child marriages as sin. Showing what God thinks is "normative" does not automatically require that any deviation from this would be viewed as "sin". Sin is never defined int he bible as deviation from the norm, but only deviation from God's law.
And under the absolutist reasoning of Romans 13:1, it must have been God that enacted the secular 19th century Delaware rape-law that set the age of sexual consent at 7. I've argued elsewhere that Paul appears to have meant that it truly is God who sets up even the secular governments whose laws violate the divine law. Romans 9, God "raised up Pharaoh".
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