The quote tree game is becoming unwieldy, so I shall try to address your main points instead of point for point rebuttal. If you feel I skipped over an important main point, let me know and I will try to address it.
Adultery is sex with a woman who is 'married' according to the Bible.
This is incorrect: See Matt 5:27-28. Adultery can be committed with no sex involved. moicheia refers to infidelity. Infidelity refers to betrayal, being disloyal, or breaking a covenant relationship. Idolatry is referred to as adultery many times throughout the Bible. (Jeremiah 3 is a fun example) Idolatry did not necessarily involve sex, but did involve betrayal, disloyalty, and breaking a sacred covenant with God.
Even if it mentions the word 'IS", my point is still valid. The Golden Rule is very general, but if you factor in ALL of Jesus' teachings then you'd see that Jesus is presupposing a moral commandments of God.
Jesus says "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you."
You seem to be claiming that what Jesus really meant was "In everything, do what the 5 books of Moses say to do, except for the parts that have to do with ceremonial laws, cleanliness, dietary restrictions and anything else determined by the mainstream religious zeitgeist to fall outside the scope of "moral law."
This seems like an extraordinary leap to me. I like to think that Jesus generally said what He meant, and am very cautious about assuming that He meant something else.
"In everything" has a very straightforward meaning. Ir doesn't mean "in some things but not others" or "in most things with a few exceptions." It means that the Golden rule is applicable in every situation.
"Do to others as you would have them do to you" also has a straightforward meaning. It means that the things that you would have others do to you are the same things that you should do to others. To paraphrase, you should treat others in the way that you yourself want to be treated.
"for this is the Law and the Prophets" Also has a pretty straightforward meaning. The Law (the rules you should follow) and the Prophets (the will of God as imparted through prophecy) consists of doing to others as you would have them do to you.
If you think it means "do to others as commanded by the books of Moses, even if that isn't actually how you would want to be treated" then Jesus may as well have said "In everything, do to others as red firetruck ice cream muskrat."
So lets say even if you did have to pay only a bride price but for some reason you still don't get the girl, well having to pay the bride price is still a penalty. If premarital sex was morally right, why would someone have to pay a penalty for doing right? You'd say because of property damage (or ruining the girls virginity) but it would still be wrong to do, especially when it's done on purpose.
Sure, if you go around deliberately damaging other people's property, that isn't very cool. If you tell someone you will take care of their livestock, and then you neglect it, you should make restitution for the livestock that they lost because of your neglect.
My point was that women are no longer property, and so deflowering them does not rob anyone of wealth. No penalty is imposed aside from restitution to a girls owner. If the girl has no owner, there is no penalty. There is no penalty because there is no crime.
Deuteronomy 22:20-21 wasn't about getting duped, the verse clearly mentions it's because the girl was PROMISCUOUS or a harlot.
"If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “
I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,� 15 then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin." - Deut 22:13-15
The story here is clearly about a man who accuses the girls previous owners of delivering used goods and claiming they were new.
It doesn't make sense that a widow who remarries should have to provide proof of virginity, because she obviously is not a virgin, and if a man knows going into the relationship that she is no a virgin, there is no crime. He also doesn't pay a bride price to the widow's father if the widow is no longer the father's property.
Suppose a girl has sex with a man, the man offers to marry, but the father refuses. The man still has to pay the bride price to the father, but she remains unmarried. Are you claiming that by refusing to let her daughter marry, the father is sentencing her to death?
If another man knows ahead of time that she is not a virgin and still wishes to marry her, can he not do so?
Look at Exodus 22:17 again:
"If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money
equal to the bride-price for virgins."
If there is a specific bride-price for virgins, it is implied hat there is also a different, (lower) bride price for non-virgins.
You mention for me to post an example so I'd say Leviticus 19:29 would apply to your request.
I would say i doesn't. I am not talking about sex for hire. I am talking about sex for intimacy with someone you care about but aren't married to.
Menstration would fall under the laws that have to do with clean and uncleanliness (Leviticus 15:19 and Leviticus 12:2). Also, it seems that the laws on clean/unclean were also made for ceremonial purposes (Leviticus 5:2-6). So from the passages I mentioned in my comment you quoted me from, I'd say that Matthew 15:1-16 esp. vss. 16-20 deal with Jesus saying how cleanliness and uncleanliness don't apply today.
“Are you still so dull?� Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.�
Eating with unwashed hands is not the same as menstruating. Also, eating with unwashed hands has noting to do with OT law. Eating with unwashed hands was from the Talmud, not from Mosaic Law. Jesus wasn't saying that OT laws about cleanliness didn't apply, he said that Jewish traditions that never came from God to begin with didn't apply.
The only thing I can say about Jesus not following all of the laws is that some of the laws he considered unnecessary. Instead of sacrifices from priests, Jesus was our sacrifice and priest. I believe the logic for Jesus deeming SOME laws inapplicable has to do with a similar logic in the previous sentence. But what Jesus does not violate or say doesn't apply are the laws on sexuality, etc.
The conflicts with this:
Jesus was not a moral relativist since his message was not to sin and that the law was the knowledge of sin.
If the law is the knowledge of sin, then we know by the law that menstruation is a sin. We know by the law that wearing cotton/polyester blend clothing is a sin. We know by the law that gathering food on Saturdays is a sin.
"For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." Matt 5:18
If Jesus believed that some parts of the Pentateuch were unnecessary, it can only be that He did not consider them part of the Law. Perhaps they were bits that the lying pen of the scribes had rendered falsely.
In any event, just cause it was in Exodus doesn't make it part of the law. Jesus consistently corrected what the teachers of law were teaching. "You have heard it said X, but I tell you Y."
He has already established that He is not changing the law, he is telling people what the law ACTUALLY IS, because the scribes (the people who wrote down the 5 books of Moses) and the teachers o law, were butchering it.
Can you show me where and how God was involved with Absalom sleeping with David's concubines? There's clearly some figurative language at play here because God did not literally grab David's concubines and physically hand them over to Absalom especially if you read how that event took place. The passages in 2 Samuel 12 could just mean God allowing it to happen.
Ok, supposing you were right, which you aren't, but supposing you were. It still demonstrates sex outside of marriage that God was ok with. It was sex outside of marriage that God had told David He would make happen as a punishment for David's one and only sin.
Since God planned for it to happen, allowed it to happen, and
explicitly made a point of taking credit for it happening, we can safely say that Go was ok with it.
I know what God is said to have said but if you continue reading you'd see that he did not follow through with what he said. Absalom slept with David's concubines based on advice from a man. There's no mention of God in that event or God causing it.
Ok, well if God said he was going to do something and then didn't follow through with it, that pretty much makes Him a big liar.
Seems to me that the intuitive reading of the passage is that God made it happen by hardening heart, manipulating events, etc...