Henry – If there is much ado about nothing, then we can just say anything we want and forget any effort to figure out what the text actually says. I suppose most Christians do that anyway but at least you are honest about it.

Barton wants us to believe that these verses mean that the people voted for their leaders and the leaders represented them in some kind of representative government. The “rulers” weren’t rulers, they were judges who help decide disputes. Whereas some people may have made recommendations for judges, Moses did the appointing. How about we do the upcoming election that way? We can vote but in the end Obama appoints the leaders. Much ado about nothing.

Thanks for putting this all on the record, Warren. Merry Christmas too.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the monarchial governments in Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The Heathens paid divine honors to’their deceased kings, and the christian world hath improved on the plan by doing the same to their living ones. How impious is the title of sacred majesty applied to a worm, who in the midst of bis splendor is crumbling into dust…

I searched the rest of the book and found nothing about Israel being a republic. What are you referring to?

There are also some references in Ezekiel and Isaiah to human poop as a symbolically filthy substance, but not to the actual process of excretion. (In Ezekiel ch. 4, God threatens to punish the Israelites by forcing them to use their own dried “dung” as fuel for their cooking fires, instead of animal dung; and in Isaiah ch. 36, an enemy messenger warns the besieged inhabitants of Jerusalem that they will be reduced to drinking their own urine and eating their own feces out of starvation, if they do not surrender.)

Finally, there are verses about properly cleansing oneself after a “discharge”, but as far as I know, the term “discharge” does not include defecation or urination, although it does include semen, menstrual blood, and pus from infections. Thus, the verses about “uncleanness after discharge” are NOT related to using the porcelain throne.

So, basically, the only comment in the Bible about “using the restroom” has to do with latrines for military encampments, but the topic is not totally omitted.