Leviticus chapter 15 , part 2

*When a woman menstruates, she is automatically unclean for seven days, or as long as any bleeding lasts.  It can vary wildly from woman to woman. During this time, anything and anyone who touches her, her bed, or anything she sits on will become unclean. A person who touches her must wash their clothes and themselves, but they will still be unclean til evening. A man who has relations with her during this time will be unclean for seven days, and any bed he lies on will also be unclean. Here's the kicker: After the bleeding stops, a woman is still ceremonially unclean for another seven days! In this passage, a woman is not required to wash before she is considered clean again. On the eighth day, she has to take a couple of birds to the priest to sacrifice as a sin offering and a burnt offering. This is how atonement is made for the uncleanness of her discharge, as if it is her fault.

*Wouldn't the God who made women be responsible for the way their bodies work? Menstrual blood is not a sign of disease or misbehavior, it is completely natural and normal. It does not contaminate another person in any way to come in contact with a menstruating woman. Plus, every healthy woman on earth is subject to a menstrual cycle for almost 40 years of her life. Just these regulations alone would have made a woman unclean half of every month. Then add in the days after her husband exercised his marital rights and the months after childbirth, she could be unclean over more than half her lifetime. At least she had  other women to commiserate with. But why should she have to live with such a stigma for something she has no choice in?

*I am also struck by the irony of these regulations. Obviously the ancient Israelite men who made these regulations had no idea what happens inside a woman's body on a monthly basis. (Yes, men, why would a god care?) For example, they must have been completely unaware of ovulation times or they might not have decided a woman was unclean for so long, if they wanted children. Most women with regular cycles ovulate on or about the 14th day of the cycle, just when an Israelite woman would be considered clean again. If a woman tended to ovulate early by a just a couple of days, she might never have children, especially if she or her husband are concientious rule followers.  Other women would seem to be much more fertile when it was really just a matter of timing.

*All these clean and uncleanness rules make me wonder about unbroken chains of uncleanness. How could you know for sure that a particular thing or person hadn't been touched by someone who had touched someone, who had touched someone else unclean, ad infinitum? Seriously, you could go crazy thinking about this stuff. Plus, could you imagine trying to enforce these rules on a population the size of Austin, Texas?

*Something else to think about: What kind of people today are concerned with imaginary contamination, rituals, repetitive washing, and counting?

*Verse 31 implies that Israelites who don't separate themselves from things that make them unclean deserve to die for defiling the dwelling place of God. This chapter has basically  told them that sex makes people unclean, so they're toast.

Edited.