echidna

Actually the King James that I found lists ... I'm not sure that I necessarily see rape in that. "lay hold on her" ? Maybe in a PC kinda way.

Maybe someone with better Biblical history than me can explain the various translations from the Hebrew.

I can't help but draw the analogy between interpreting various 2000 year old English translations of the Bible, with a 2000 year extrapolation of Engrish.com.

christ-on-a-stick

I'm not sure what else "lay hold on her" could be interpreted to mean.

Either which way, doesn't the guy paying the girl's father for her and marrying her (doesn't say "if she agrees" - looks like no matter what here) qualify as selling a human being? Something akin to slavery? That strikes me as pretty morally reprehensible too.

I'm actually not surprised that none of our resident theists have touched this one. It's pretty damning to the "omnibenevolent God" concept.

echidna

Hmmm, here’s another. Did my best, but nope, no case for OT apologists. Here’s some more … Charming stuff. And people swear legal oaths on this ???

Old Man

The Levitical law is a moral code. It cannot cater for every situation. As with any legal code, one can always find a factual situation which is hard to reconcile with the code. In such cases, one has to consider the context and the other laws of the moral code as well.

The situation in those days was that there was an oversupply of women due to the frequency of war. Therefore men could discriminate. Most men wanted to marry virgins. There was a danger that a woman who was not a virgin would be unmarriable, simply because of that fact. Since no-one could be forced to marry her, the one who defiled her was commanded to. It was a very dishonourable thing in those days for an unmarried woman not to be a virgin - indeed it was perceived as a greater wrong not to marry a woman you had defiled that to defile her in the first place (see Tamar and Amnon 2 Sam 13).

Frequently, of course, there was a degree of complicity between the man and the woman. Here there was no moral issue. It was impossible for anyone to tell whether there was complicity or not. So whether you see the word "rape, seduce, defile" it invariably refers to the same thing. Exodus puts the situation in a more neutral light:

16 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. 17 If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.


In such situations, the father always had ultimate say in the matter, and could refuse to permit his daughter to be married in such circumstances. It is unlikely that in the case of rape by a complete stranger, a non-Israelite, or if the woman was not post puberty, the father would have permitted marriage.

Another thing to bear in mind, is that the bible does not recognize the "age of consent laws". The bible's view is that women are marriable post puberty. This attitude was adhered to until only a century or so ago by most countries and even today many countries don't bother with such hypocritical laws, or set them at 12 to 14.

Further, many women of marriable age in those days were already betrothed, if not already married, and where a woman was already betrothed, the penalty for rape was death.

But, the sad fact is, that the average number of men a woman sleeps with in the US before marriage is ranked at about 10 or so (if you can believe various statisics), and so the ancient Israelites would probably look upon the morals of the modern US as little different from those of the heathen Canaanites, or debauched worshippers before the golden calf. The US standard of morality is nothing to boast about.

Jack the Bodiless

You seem to have entirely omitted the most important issue there:

According to the Bible, rape is OK.

There was no Biblical punishment for rape. It's treated basically the same as consensual sex. Raping an unbetrothed virgin is no worse than seducing her. The death penalty for raping a betrothed or married woman is due to the adultery involved, not the rape.

It was also customary for a generous host to offer a guest the use of a woman.

Women were property. Consent was not an issue.
And it's virtually certain that consent was sought and granted in all those instances.

Biblical morality is for savages.

echidna

This is a case where I see the Bible as a fascinating historical text, but as a moral code for today, the OT is simply irrelevant.

Old Man

Modern society makes a big distinction between a man seducing a woman and sleeping with her (OK), and a man raping her (not OK). The bible chooses to allow no such distinction. So what. I think that's a reasonable approach. It can be argued that modern society favours "seducers", and indeed, when you see many men who claim to have slept with hundreds of women but whom are "above the law", it is clear there is something wrong.

Essentially marriage is a contract and the bible recognizes that fact. It also recognizes that marriage is based upon "being one in flesh", and that once two people are "one in flesh", they can never become "not one in flesh".

The man had to pay the bride price, and probably would not have got the woman anyway if he had been a modern-day typical rapist. Israel also had judges and it was quite within their power for them to levy additional penalties where there were aggravating circumstances, even banishment from the nation of Israel in the case of non-Israelites.

And if it was a rape by a stranger, since betrothal was no more than a contract, it must have been pretty easy for the girl's father to come up with evidence of a betrothal to one of his acquaintance's sons ex post factor and have the man put to death.

Rape by a stranger would have been a pretty dangerous occupation in those days. I can't see it happening much.

That's baloney. The bible commands men not to turn their daughters into prostitutes.

Lev 19:29 Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.

(The US education system/government would do well to heed that injunction.)

Talulah

So, you are saying that he seduced the women he slept with, which is somehow equivilant to rape? Some people call seduction 'coertion' while others call it 'a good strategy to get laid.'

Whether or not the woman was coerced, she made a choice. And, there is a good chance that both partners were willing and very much wanted to engage in sex.

I get the impression that you don't think women want or like sex. That is totally untrue.

Child molestation is dangerous too. You could go to jail for a very long time, not to mention if it was my child, you might find yourself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

That doesn't seem to stop the perverts.

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Old Man
Modern society makes a big distinction between a man seducing a woman and sleeping with her (OK), and a man raping her (not OK). The bible chooses to allow no such distinction. So what. I think that's a reasonable approach.

I'm just curious - would you prefer a man having consensual sex with you or raping you? Since it's reasonable that there is no such distinction, should you mind being raped (as long as the man pays your father for the privilege)?

Or perhaps this only applies to women?

Jack the Bodiless

Then you have serious problems.
Not to me, it isn't.

There can't be many men who actually have slept with hundreds of women. But, if some have (with the consent of the women): why is this wrong?

I don't get it.