David Barton is doing some of his famous crack research to support one of his loopy theories — crack research meaning asking a wingnut rabbi a question. This time he’s fondly reminiscing about the days when people got married at 12 or 13 and went to work, as God wants them to do.
Green: Isn’t that the difference between the Founding Era and ours today in terms of expectations? They expected you to do a lot while you were young. You didn’t wait until you were 40 to figure out what God had for you in your life.
Barton: They didn’t know what the word “adolescent” meant. And, by the way, I checked with Rabbi [Daniel] Lapin, he says that is not a word that appears in Hebrew because it’s not in the mind of God. God wasn’t into adolescence, He was in to having you become productive, having you be fruitful, having your produce and so that’s why there was no adolescence in the Founding Era; that’s a modern phenomenon, that’s a progressive liberal phenomenon is adolescence.
Yep, adolescence is ungodly. And I think every church youth group should disband immediately rather than shake its fist in the face of God and prompt his wrath.
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Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
August 6, 2012 at 10:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Adolescent” isn’t in the mind of God? He must not be a very good Scrabble player.
Yes, “adolescence” is in the Bible. It is in the Bible… in code.
Fight fire with fire until their heads asplode.
nigelTheBold, Venomous Demonic Hater
August 6, 2012 at 10:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, Hebrew is a complete subset of the mind of God? Any word that is not in Hebrew is necessarily not of the mind of God? This implies that Hebrew maps completely to the mind of God, at least as far as the mind of God can be expressed in human language.
That’s a lot of stupid packed into one sentence.
Skip White
August 6, 2012 at 10:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So I guess David Barton should get off the radio, since Hebrew in the “Founding Era” didn’t have a word for radio. Or something.
Stevarious
August 6, 2012 at 10:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You what other two words are not in Hebrew?
America and Barton.
That’s right, America is by definition ungodly, and so is David Barton. In fact, in Hebrew ‘David’ means ‘King’ so in the mind of god, David Barton is the King of the Ungodly!
blindrobin
August 6, 2012 at 10:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They couldn’t wait till they were 40 to do much of anything because they weren’t likely to live that long.
Michael Heath
August 6, 2012 at 10:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The argument that young people should be marrying younger than the trend is one argument I’ve observed gaining traction within evangelicalism and fundamentalism the past couple of years. So Barton isn’t leading but pandering here. In spite of the fact such behavior makes it far more difficult for those young people to get a sufficient education and make the type of career choices at a young age necessary to eventually support a family in an economy much different than the one in the 20th century and prior.
The motivation appears to a concession that church leaders are incapable of getting young people to avoid pre-marital sex after the age of 18 or 19, therefore the need to get them married-off prior to that regardless of the negative consequences to those young people. Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face comes to mind.
A couple of years ago a local pastor of our town’s largest evangelical church, considered the least wacky of the several our town suffers from, argued on the radio that young people were increasingly immature, as evidenced by their delaying marriage into their mid- to late-twenties. Yes, he was equating marriage with maturity rather than the financial wherewithal to support a family.
It would be interesting to see a study on the trend in positions by the leaders within evangelicalism and fundamentalism relative to what their young members are actually doing. While we know these leaders abuse their children by promoting ignorance and not optimizing their education and career opportunities; I wonder what the actual trend is when it comes to education, career, and marriage. I sure hope the Palin family is not the representative illustration but instead the example for those who listen to their church leaders.
Are these young people rejecting their leaders’ advice like they’re increasingly rejecting their leaders’ hatred of gays and their children? If it correlates with conservatism overall it appears young people are increasingly rejecting such delusional counsel but the ones who keep it are even dumber and crazier with far worse opportunities in the past. Worse opportunities which should make it ever easier for young people abused by being in conservative churches from rejecting such counsel.
raven
August 6, 2012 at 10:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
God didn’t have much to say about the Germ Theory of Disease or the Theory of Gravity either.
I guess those don’t exist either.
The bible also claims the earth is Flat, the center of the solar system, and the stars are just lights stuck on the sky dome.
So according to Barton and Lapin, the stars, germs, gravity, and the round earth don’t exist.
There is another possibility though. The bible is just fiction made up by iron age sheepherders and has nothing much worthwhile to say to modern humans. This theory is held by the vast majority of the earth’s population.
Randomfactor
August 6, 2012 at 10:34 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yes, “adolescence” is in the Bible. It is in the Bible… in code.
Adolescence is certainly in the Bible. Genesis 3.
eric
August 6, 2012 at 10:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Heath:
I really HOPE he’s pandering to that group. Because otherwise, the subtext of his comment sounds a lot like: “I want to have sex with a 12 year old and am looking for a way to justify it.”
Who Knows?
August 6, 2012 at 10:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
FFS. Really?
raven
August 6, 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The average life span in Jesus’s time was 20. Even the rich died young by our standards.
raven
August 6, 2012 at 10:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That will all but guarantee them life long poverty.
Teen age pregnancy is highly correlated with and causal to life long poverty. This is why so much effort is made to reduce this number.
Without too much success. Over 20% of US children grow up in poverty. Barton’s home state of Texas is highest at about 25%.
Fundies set their kids up to fail. Then they fail.
imrryr
August 6, 2012 at 10:50 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
David Barton, circa the late 18th century:
“They didn’t know what the word “democracy” meant. And, by the way, I checked with the Archbishop, he says that is not a word that appears in Hebrew because it’s not in the mind of God. God wasn’t into democracy, He was in to having you become productive, having you be fruitful, having your produce, not wasting your time trying to govern yourselves when you have enlightened and divinely appointed lords to do that for you. And so that’s why there was no democracy in the Founding Era of England; that’s a modern phenomenon, that’s a progressive liberal phenomenon is democracy.”
Ellie
August 6, 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Life span and life expectancy are two different things. Life expectancy for a child at birth might have been 20, but if that child survived to age 5, her life expectancy would increase. Again, if she survived to age 15, it would increase even more.
None of that makes David Barton anything but a moron Lying For Jesus and I do wonder what he wants to do with 12 year olds. I’m assuming the females should breed when they bleed and the males should be put to work because there’s nothing about child labor laws in the Bible, either.
leftwingfox
August 6, 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Liberals are to blame for teenagers? Their perfidy knows no bounds!!!!1!
richardelguru
August 6, 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“some of his famous crack research”
That’s research done whilst on crack?
That explains everything!!
otrame
August 6, 2012 at 11:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The whole thing is bullshit. Young women did not get married in their early teens in “the Founding Era” unless they were very wealthy, and even then they married a much older man–usually 25 or older, and they did so for monetary and political reasons not because of Twoo Wuv.
The average young man of those days was either still an apprentice until his late teens or working as a laborer on his family farm. He was very unlikely to marry until his twenties unless he got a girlfriend pregnant.
KG
August 6, 2012 at 11:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The average was of course pulled down chiefly by high infant mortality. Death rates then, as now, would have been lowest in the teens and twenties, so do not provide a reason for early marriage. If you were well-off and made it to adulthood, you could expect to live into your 50s, 60s or 70s. The philosopher Isocrates (who was born into a wealthy family, but later had to earn his living and amassed a considerable fortune from teaching), apparently lived into his late 90s.
nigelTheBold, Venomous Demonic Hater
August 6, 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
leftwingfox:
Not just liberals, but Rebecca Watson, in particular. Just after she turned 13, she invented ennui.
Bronze Dog
August 6, 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It weirds me out that the usually sex-negative culture is celebrating tween and teen marriage, here. Lowering the marriage age that much also triggers a hell of a lot of rape culture red flags, since I imagine we’re all confident that will lead to older adults forming abusive marriages with kids.
raven
August 6, 2012 at 11:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That is part of it.
Child birth was also dangerous and frequently fatal for the mother, high maternal mortality.
But even the rich frequently died young. I just finished a book on ancient Egypt. A lot of the Pharoahs died in their 20′s and 30′s.
matty1
August 6, 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Leaving that preference for his followers.
Reginald Selkirk
August 6, 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually, ‘Barton’ would be in the Bible, but it is considered so offensive in Hebrew that God substituted the word fuck.
raven
August 6, 2012 at 11:17 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Like the FLDS and Branch Davidians.
One suspects that if Barton wasn’t restrained by our laws, police, courts, and prisons, he would be a monster.
So far anyway, there are already people like him in prison i.e. Kent Hovind or Warren Jeffs.
brocasbrian
August 6, 2012 at 11:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
- 6 (Michael Heath )
True. It’s also a great way to avoid collage and all the learnin stuff.
busterggi
August 6, 2012 at 11:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Barton is quoted on the internet.
The internet a dn the English language are not mentioned in the bible.
Therefor Barton didn’t interview the rabbi (certainly not in English!) or write about said interview – its biblically impossible.
yoav
August 6, 2012 at 12:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As in one pulled out of a certain cavity located within a crack?
A lot of religious groups push for low marriage age because it help in binding people to their little cults, a lot of people start questioning their faith as teenagers and if they are already married and have kids by the time they finally break free it’s much harder to walk away so they are more likely to just keep quiet and pretend they still believe to avoid being separated from their family.
Akira MacKenzie
August 6, 2012 at 1:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The argument that young people should be marrying younger than the trend is one argument I’ve observed gaining traction within evangelicalism and fundamentalism the past couple of years.
Funny this should come up now: One of my Biblically-named, entirely -home-schooled cousins, just got married at the ripe old age of 18 to a acceptably Christian Steppford Wife of the same age just this weekend! They are both unemployed and neither have any interest in higher education (or, as his fundie father would put it, a breeding ground for Communism and secularism). Apparently either the Lord or the food stamp office is going to provide, or they counting on the Rapture happening after the Honeymoon.
raven
August 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, look at it on the bright side.
The lord will provide. The divorce rate is high in this age group and that includes fundies. Their divorce rate isn’t higher than the general population but the general population is something like 50%.
iknklast
August 6, 2012 at 2:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“having your produce”
God wants my lettuce? He can’t have my lettuce. I need my lettuce – and my tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, etc.
grumpyoldfart
August 6, 2012 at 3:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
In a hundred years from now gullible (and powerful) Americans will still be reading Barton’s books and putting his ideas into practice.
timgueguen
August 6, 2012 at 3:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder if this is also about getting rid of pesky things like child labour laws. After all if there is no such thing as adolescence older kids should be out working. Think of all the money that would be saved, because you could hire them for lower wages than adults, and you wouldn’t have to provide higher education for as many of them as is done now, since a lot fewer would be in school.
lofgren
August 6, 2012 at 4:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well what red blooded man wouldn’t want to trade up to a younger, hotter, more pliable wife every few years? This sounds like a fundie’s dream. Plus the sluts deserve it for getting themselves pregnant in the first place.
I don’t know what book you were reading but it is my understanding (don’t quote me on this) that for a wealthy society the upper classes of ancient Egypt had an unusually restrictive diet. While Romans, Greeks, and the aristocratic classes of many other societies broadened their diets with imports, the Egyptians did so to a much lesser extent and so the normal correlation between wealth and nutrition (one of the key elements of the stark difference between the life expectancies of the wealthy vs. the commoners in many ancient societies) was not as pronounced amongst the Egyptians.
Dr X
August 6, 2012 at 9:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
According to Wikipedia, by the 1880s most states had set the age of consent at 10-12 years, though Delaware kept it at a Barton-pleasing age 7 until 1895.
Noadi
August 6, 2012 at 11:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The most famous Pharoah in history (Ramses II) lived into his 90s but he was a pretty extreme outlier. A lot of the Pharoahs died as a result of genetic disorders, the level of inbreeding was astonishing even for royalty since marrying sisters and half-sisters was common. Wealthy Egyptians who weren’t of the royal family lived longer though not as long as other ancient people, the Nile may be fertile but what it can grow is restricted plus mosquito-born illness is rampant to this day. Not a good place to live.
In general once you survived childhood your life expectancy was less than today but not as bad as most people think, living into your 60s or older wasn’t that uncommon.
John Phillips, FCD
August 7, 2012 at 6:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Tim Gueguen #32 said on August 6, 2012 at 3:50 pm
What with Gingrich’s stance during his campaign run on hiring kids as janitors and various GOP state governments trying to weaken child labour laws since 2010, this was my initial reaction as well.