Fortuna

Very simple, you have been misled into it You are correct, your adversary has misled you.

Here is your verse
The key words here are, "who is not pledged". This girl is technically the property of her father, as she is not pledged to be married. Thus, the man who rapes her, commits a wrong against the father.

Your adversary now quotes a completely different case.

Notice that in this case, the girl is pledged to be married. The man who rapes her, commits a wrong against both the groom to be and the father. He is severely punished for this.

He also took this completely out of context, in an attempt to defend, well, probably his own faith in the Tanakh.
Here is the complete passage, taken from the JPS Tanakh ;
Notice the difference in the translation wording between JPS and the NIV. JPS is considered, by Jewish scholars, to be a far more accurate translation than NIV or KJV. "Rape" is implied by the words, "laid hold of her", and, there is the added distinction of whether or not she cried out. The assumption is that if she cried out, then it was a forcible, if not, the implication is that it was consentual.

I am Jewish, and I am always amazed by the Chrisian translations, and sometimes by their concordances as well. This is one of those cases. The forcible part is implied by the crying out. Note also here the "lie with" translation is used. To the best of my knowledge, there is no single word that distinguishes a forcible rape from a consentual one in ancient hebrew. It was always explained by an additional phrase. I therfore seriously question the concordance that your adversary is using, and his usage of it in this case.

I cannot tell if this is a case of an apologetic concordance that is being intentionally deceptive, or if your adversary is simply misleading you.

Remember that in the Torah, the meaning of about 30% of the words is disputed anyway. also, remember that words are tied to cultural and colloquial usage, so, the time period in question might also be very relelvant to the meaning implied.

Hinduwoman makes some accurate observations about the condition or state of womens rights in these ancient cultures. women wer chattel, or porperty. It was between men that wrongdoings usually occurred and were corrected.

Edited - Corrected my poor placement about Hinduwoman's words of wisdom.

[ October 27, 2002: Message edited by: Fortuna ]</p>

Jeremy Pallant

So in other words, Fortuna, the rape is an act that insults either the father or the groom, but not the woman.

Oh, and if no-one hears her cry out, it's consensual, right? Too bad if she screams and no-one hears her.

Am I understanding you correctly?

Do you, as a Jew, consider virginal, unmarried women to be nothing more than property?

[ October 27, 2002: Message edited by: Jeremy Pallant ]</p>

Benjamin Franklin

Hi Fortuna

What about the verse Exodus 22:16. Should that be translated as seduction or rape. Thanks

BF

hinduwoman

Jeremy fortuna does not support the above. she is only pointing out that in ancient cultures the concept of human rights or independant woman did not exist.

Bible Humper

Are these laws claimed to have been dictated by the deity himself? They sound like they are just records of secular laws to me.

I think it should be kept in perspective that these men were barbarians, so these sorts of laws are consistent with the attitudes of the day.

The christians only need to be embarrassed if Yahweh himself is said to have dictated these laws, but I've never heard of the deity putting a price-tag in shekels on misdeeds!

Jeremy Pallant

My bad.