Tamar was not spared due to some obscure Israeli law.
Oh yes, she was, Terry. The Bible makes it very clear.
6 Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death.
8 Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother."
That is pretty clear. If that was just some obscure tribal law that God didn't like, the Bible should have commented on the undesirability of this law.
Onan refuses to do his duty, however:
But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also.
Onan didn't do his duty, so God killed him.
But now that Judah had lost two sons who had tried to produce offspring with Tamar, he was afraid of letting her have offspring with his youngest son, even though she had that right according to the law.
Judah then said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Live as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up." For he thought, "He may die too, just like his brothers." So Tamar went to live in her father's house.
Judah denies Tamar the right to have offspring by forcing her to live as a widow in his house.
13 When Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law is on his way to Timnah to shear his sheep," 14 she took off her widow's clothes, covered herself with a veil to disguise herself, and then sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. For she saw that, though Shelah had now grown up, she had not been given to him as his wife.
Tamar covers her face and pretends to be a prostitute as she is waiting for Judah.
15 When Judah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, for she had covered her face. 16 Not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by the roadside and said, "Come now, let me sleep with you."
And Judah doesn't hesitate to ask for the service of a prostitute. So now Tamar might get pregnant. But she needs to get proof that it was Judah who slept with her.
"And what will you give me to sleep with you?" she asked.
17 "I'll send you a young goat from my flock," he said.
"Will you give me something as a pledge until you send it?" she asked.
18 He said, "What pledge should I give you?"
"Your seal and its cord, and the staff in your hand," she answered.
Now Tamar has the proof that she needs. And she did indeed get pregnant.
About three months later Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant."
Judah said, "Bring her out and have her burned to death!"
Judah didn't hesitate to go to a prostitute himself. But if his daughter-in-law Tamar has prostituted herself, Judah can put her to death.
But Tamar has proof that she is pregnant by Judah.
As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. "I am pregnant by the man who owns these," she said. And she added, "See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are."
Judah recognized them and said, "She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah." And he did not sleep with her again.
So Judah doesn't kill her. And why not? Because he would go to a prostitiute himself, so he is no better than her? No, it is because he knows that the law of the land demanded that he give Tamar to his son Shelah. He refused to do it, so he broke the law, and Tamar got the offspring she was entitled to from Judah himself.
But under other circumstances the man who would go to a prostitute would certainly honor-kill his daughter-in-law if she prostituted herself.
I certainly stand by what I said in my previous post:
In a society ruled by the Bible, Terry, women would not necessarily have any more rights than they have in a typical Muslim society.
In my opinion, the fact that Christianity reveres one woman, Mary, most certainly doesn't guarantee that it will revere other women or even treat them well. It is not like other women will be the mother of Christ. Anyway, Terry, if we speak about the Bible only, Mary doesn't have a prominent position there at all, and Jesus himself never speaks of his mother as if she was something special. Luke 11:27-28 is typical:
As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you."
28He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."
And in Mark 3:31-34 Jesus comes close to denying that Mary is his mother:
Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."
33"Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.
34Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."
And in John 2, Jesus speaks almost disrespectfully to Mary, as he calls her "woman" instead of "mother":
3When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine."
4"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied, "My time has not yet come."
There are other passages in the Gospels where Mary is treated with more respect. But it is still true that she is not a central character in the Gospels, and she is not held up as an example for others to follow. Interestingly, Paul never mentions her once.
Terry, you also said:
Women are prominently mentioned throughout the New Testament as people who were just as important as any man (such as Aquila and his wife Priscilla, Lydia the seller of purple in Phillipi, Apphia the wife of Philemon)
You are right that an important distinction between the Bible and the Koran is that the Bible mentions several good and brave women who do what is right. In other words, there are several heroines in the Bible, and there are none in the Koran - none, interestingly, except Mary, the mother of Jesus. On the other hand, there are also many bad women in the Bible who do what is wrong, and some of them are horribly punished because of it. There are no stories in the Koran about bad women who get horribly punished.
You are quite right that the New Testament mentions Priscilla the wife of Aquila, Lydia the seller of purple in Phillipi and Apphia the wife of Philemon. I agree that it is a very good thing that the Bible mentions these good and active women, but it does not mean that the Bible puts women on a par with men and gives them the right to do the same thing as men. For a long time there was a bitter fight here in Sweden over whether women could be ordained as clergy. Today it is seen as a natural thing that women can be ministers and even bishops, but it was not so thirty years ago. Those who opposed female ministers argued that Jesus only chose male disciples, so only males are allowed to "represent" him. And recently, fascinatingly enough, the Pope condemned active pedophilia among priests by saying, in effect, that a priest who molests a child is as sinful as a woman who tries to be a priest.
So indeed, Terry, I stick by my assertion that a society ruled by the Bible might indeed oppress women as much as women are oppressed in most Muslim societies.
Ann
