Don't uncover your father's skirt!

Deuteronomy Chapter 27 is another quick chapter.  Here's the basic message:

1. When you're passing Jordan and going into the land of milk and honey, build an altar of whole stones on Mount Ebal.
2. After burning offerings at the altar, write on the stones the following commandments.
3. First, Seimeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin should stand on Mt. Gerizim to bless the people.
4. Then Rueben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali should stand on Mt. Ebal to curse.  Who do they curse?  I don't know.
5. Don't make molten images, or display the works of craftsmen, or put such works in secret places.
6. Those who set light by their parents will be cursed.
7. Those who remove their neighbor's landmark shall be cursed.
8. People who make blind people wander out of the way shall be cursed.
9. Anyone who perverts a stranger's judgment shall be cursed.
10. Anyone who has sex with their father's wife will be cursed because he "uncovered his father's skirt??".
11. Anyone who has sex with an animal ... you guessed it.  Cursed!
12. Sex with sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother.  Cursed!
13. Anyone who has sex with his mother-in-law shall be cursed.
14. Anyone who "secretly smites his neighbor" shall be cursed.
15. Anyone who does not confirm these laws is also cursed.

Okay, big problems here.  What a incoherent group of laws!  And why carve it into some rocks at an altar on top of a mountain?

And, isn't a person who causes blind people to wander out of the way simply "an asshole"?  Cursing people doesn't do anything. 

And how is having sex with the father's wife "uncovering the father's skirt"?  Is it because the father's wife is actually the father's property?  More than likely!

Rule 15 is the clincher.  It hermetically seals the deal.  But I would argue that anyone who does not confirm these laws is actually wise. 

Deuteronomy 24 is fun, because it is weird.  There is no unifying message behind this chapter, except maybe advice on how to resolve disputes.  I think.

1.  The first lesson is about divorce and remarriage.  If the man doesn't like her for some "unclean" reason, he can divorce her and then she can remarry.  But if the second husband doesn't like her for some "unclean" reason, then the first husband CANNOT take her back.  I wonder what situation occurred where such a rule should ever even be addressed?

2.  The second lesson is that a newly wed man can not go to war or be bothered with business matters.  He has to spend the whole year trying to make his wife happy.

3.  Anyone who steals slaves should be executed.

4.  Do what the priests tell you to do, or you'll get leprosy.  That's an awesome rule, and such a guilt trip!

5.  Don't oppress the poor, whether they be slaves or just poor.  That's actually a decent rule!

6.  You shouldn't kill the father for the crimes of the child, and vice versa.  This is such a good rule, but it contradicts other Biblical teachings that the criminal's progeny should be punished.  That's the whole concept of original sin, isn't it?

7.  Finally, the last rule is to treat kindly strangers, orphans, and widows; and share whatever you have with them.  Another nice thing to practice.

In summary, we went from divorce and marriage; to treating strangers kindly.  And there isn't a real thread of unity between the two subjects.  I think that this document was an attempt to legislate random occurrences that just happened.  But the solutions are so arbitrary and don't really solve the problem, or are just completely ignorant.