Rape in the Bible

[Chad32]

It's funny how the colonists cried no taxation without representation, while also filling in political seats with white men. Thus began the long hard struggle for equality for anyone not a white man.

[abaris]

It's funny how the colonists cried no taxation without representation, while also filling in political seats with white men. Thus began the long hard struggle for equality for anyone not a white man.

Don't forget, it was still a gentry insurgency. The taxation without represantation thing is about english law and that meant at the time, only land owners. having a certain income, could vote and run for political office. It wasn't in any way representative.

[robvalue]

If they got raped, they must have deserved it. God only orders the rape and enslavement of evil people. Satan made evil people. God doesn't kill satan because of free will. Man makes himself evil. God had to treat people in their cultural context.

And the Big Bang can't have given us any morals, because monkeys would never have invented DNA.

That'll be £2000 please. What? Even God has to pay the bills.

[Nope]

I think that it would be easier to give bible god a pass if his followers hadn't given him so many omnis. If someone worshipped Zeus, that person could reasonably say that the ancient times had different rules and so their god shouldn't be judged for being a product of his time. Zeus could experience some kind of personal revelation and realize that raping virgins while in the guise of a swan is wrong. Although I suppose he can keep giving women golden showers if they agree to it.

The bible god is all powerful, all knowing and everywhere. He knows past and future and can not change or grow. The same god that said that rape is an acceptable by product of war is the same today, at least according to the bible.

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If they got raped, they must have deserved it. God only orders the rape and enslavement of evil people. Satan made evil people. God doesn't kill satan because of free will. Man makes himself evil. God had to treat people in their cultural context.

And the Big Bang can't have given us any morals, because monkeys would never have invented DNA.

That'll be £2000 please. What? Even God has to pay the bills.

Or one very sick rational that I heard is...it would be punishment for the poor man to be married to his rape victim because she would hate him and make his life miserable.

That doesn't take into account that if the victim had as much power as her attacker, she wouldn't have been raped in the first place. A man that will rape a woman to get a wife, will also beat her if she speaks out of turn and probably continue to rape her during the marriage.

[Chad32]

I think claiming Yahweh was perfect really hurt in the long term, even if there was a short term benefit. You can cut some slack for a fallible god, since he's not all powerful and doesn't see into the future. An omnipotent god doesn't have any excuses for letting current human culture dictate what he believed was right and wrong.

[abaris]

That doesn't take into account that if the victim had as much power as her attacker, she wouldn't have been raped in the first place. A man that will rape a woman to get a wife, will also beat her if she speaks out of turn and probably continue to rape her during the marriage.

Not trying to defend it, but that was the normal in most ancient societies contemporary with the Israelites. With the laudable exception of ancient egypt where women were mostly allowed to be their own persons.

Everywhere else at the time, women were property to be sold.

[robvalue]

Yeah, no one seems to care about the "free will" of rape victims. As long as the raper is free to rape whoever he can pin down.

Sure, the bible contains the "morality" of the people who wrote it. Big surprise that it has nothing to do with our morality now.

"Do unto others..."
Wow thanks Jesus, I never could have figured that out. Hey, didn't people start speaking like that long after Jesus was dead? Unto, shalt, thou...

[Nope]

That doesn't take into account that if the victim had as much power as her attacker, she wouldn't have been raped in the first place. A man that will rape a woman to get a wife, will also beat her if she speaks out of turn and probably continue to rape her during the marriage.

Not trying to defend it, but that was the normal in most ancient societies contemporary with the Israelites. With the laudable exception of ancient egypt where women were mostly allowed to be their own persons.

Everywhere else at the time, women were property to be sold.

Don't worry, I know that no one is trying to defend the practice...except the idiot who told me marrying the victim was more of a punishment for the attacker(Yeah, I am still annoyed over that one.)

I think Christians could get a pass if the bible is seen as the literary work of a bronze age people and not as the words of an all knowing god. As a historical work of literature, it has interesting stories and poems with some valuable insights into the minds of the Hebrews. The Old Testament has some surprisingly compassionate rules about how to treat the poor that would cause hard core conservatives' heads to explode.

When someone believes that the bible is both the word of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent god and also literally true than it becomes harder to say that times were just different. It really doesn't matter what the Hebrew neighbors did because their god wanted them to be different. He gave them rules like not mixing fibers but no rules about not raping women. IF he was real, it would be reasonable to think that bible god cares mainly about men and views rape as acceptable.

God could have just popped over to the nonHebrews and said,"Hey, I am THE GOD, let's not have wars and rape. Leave the Hebrews alone. Oh and by the way, I know everything anyway so treat women like they are good for something other then sticking your penis in and having your babies. I know it is hard to believe but they have feelings too. God out."

[John V]

@OP: If you read further, you'll find regulations regarding the treatment of females captured in war. They were to be brought into the captor's house, given 30 days to mourn, then married. In that culture, that wasn't rape. By today's Western consent standards, yes, you can say it was rape. Of course, considering the prevalence of arranged marriage across time and cultures, by those standards the majority of women who have lived were raped. And maybe you think that, but I don't think most people are so judgmental of other cultures.

[Cato]

In that culture, that wasn't rape.

Why? Because the men of the times said it wasn't?