GOD RAPED MARY

[Aroura]

I'm not saying it's out and out rape, but I am saying this isn't what anyone nowadays would call clear consent, either. If a very overbearing father tells his 12 year old daughter that he's going to impregnate her, she might have the same response.  Would we call it consent, then?

The glaring difference is that a modern 12 year old isn't able to give consent.  Mary, on the other hand, was already engaged to Joseph when the angel appeared, so she was clearly old enough (at the time) to give consent.

According to the account in Luke, Mary didn't resist, she didn't seem afraid at the news - she merely asked how a virgin could be made pregnant.  And, as a soon to be bride, it seems silly to presume that getting knocked up and giving birth held any special terrors for her.

Sorry, but you'll really have to go all round the houses for the story to depict a rape, statutory or otherwise.

Boru

Well, I'm not even talking about her age though, more like her station compared to God's station.  She could be 35 and it isn't really consent when God simply tells you it's gonna happen.
Also, Mary is described as afraid and troubled, until the angel tells her not to be.  And poof.  Suddenly she's not.

Again, I'm not really arguing it's fully rape, just that I'm not sure anyone can give consent when the very God of the universe simply announces that something should be so (again, it isn't as though anywhere was she ever asked if she wanted to be the mother, she was just told she would be, and she meekly accepted, not like she had a choice.)

Even rape isn't a black and white thing.  There are grey areas (like when people are under the influence, or drugs or of persuasion).

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IDK, it wasn't like he was asking permission.  He was just saying what would happen. And as there was a sort of slave/master relationship between God and humans, meaning disobeying God just isn't something you can do, did she really have a choice?  Or was she just informed of what was going to happen, and then accepted it like an obedient little slave girl.

I'm not saying it's out and out rape, but I am saying this isn't what anyone nowadays would call clear consent, either. If a very overbearing father tells his 12 year old daughter that he's going to impregnate her, she might have the same response.  Would we call it consent, then?

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Maybe Jesus is made of midichlorians.

Agreed. I wouldn't call this rape, but Mary's response definitely wasn't consent, but rather submission. She had no other option but to reject and therefore be "demonized" just like Zechariah, John the Baptist's father. It's not like she could've just said no to God.

Yes this.  You phrased it much better.  She submitted, which isn't the same as consented.

Also, we have no other way to judge past societies except by our own standards, as we cannot truly understand the context of their own.
When we look back on how some things in the past were acceptable, slavery for instance, we don't say "Well, it was normal back then, so it wasn't really slavery".  Yes, it was still slavery, it is only how socially acceptable it was then and now that has changed.

We can and should judge how moral all the stories were.  That's how we get better morals in the long run, by deciding things that happened in the past are no longer acceptable, and should not be repeated in the future.