Why does the bible require a rape victim to marry her rapist? Stay tuned and find out on Unapologetic.

If you ever hear about the bible and it's stance on rape, you'll probably hear about it from an atheist. This is one of the arguments that they will generally tout out against the Bible, and God, and Christianity, to show that Christianity is immoral because the bible condones and seems to even endorse rape, “it requires a rape victim to marry her rapist, right?” Actually, no.

You probably guessed that was going to be the answer, and that is the answer but we really need to cover why that is the answer. This objection comes from a superficial reading of some Old Testament passages. We're going to look at a few different Old Testament passages that talk about rape and sex outside of marriage. The first that we're going to look at is Exodus 22:16-17, which says,

“If a man seduces [patah] a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.”

Now, this word seduces, it's the Hebrew word “patah", I'm not a Hebrew scholar, I'm relying on the work that other notable people who are experts in their field have done in this area. “patah" is not the strongest word that could be used here as we will see.

What we do see is this man seduced this woman who was a virgin, and was not engaged. Now, unless the father absolutely refuses, they're going to have to marry each other. That's one passage that we're going to look at. Why would this be the case? Well, a non-virgin is going to have a very hard time in that society getting married in the future. What's also noteworthy is he could not divorce her - the man that seduced this woman - he could not divorce her after they got married. Which is contrary to the fact that generally divorce could happen in that culture though it was not looked favorably upon and certainly not God's design, but he was paying for his crime. You might say, "He seduced her, why does she have to stay with him for the rest of her life?" Well, it's not an ideal system, that is for sure. However, this at least provides for her physical security, she's going to be married, she's not going to be on her own; it's going to provide for her financial security which she would also not have necessarily, if she were on her own.

It's making the best of a not great situation, but it's not rape. The word there is not as strong as the word might be for “forces”, when the word that's used is “seduces”. Let's look at another passage, Deuteronomy, chapter 22,

“If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city [i.e., where her screams could be heard], and the man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.”

This is not rape, that's not what's being described here, this is adultery that's being described, sex outside of marriage.

You'll see that no-one is having to marry someone else in this case, because they're both going to be dead at the end of the story. Adultery was a capital crime. It warranted the death penalty in the Israel theocracy. You might say “well, how do you know that this was consensual?” The passage says she didn't cry out. "Oh, so she has to cry out in order for it to be consensual?" No, it does reason that a woman might not cry out if she's being raped. However, this was a standard in place that tried to do the best it could in a day where there weren't security cameras, and cellphone cameras, and DNA…

Does the Bible condone, or even endorse slavery?

You can't look at the news in recent months or even years, without seeing the racial tensions that exist in America. White rights, black rights, racial supremacy. All of these terms get tossed about. When you start talking about race, what often comes up is the historical fact that Christians often owned slaves long ago. Sometimes this was couched this in terms of slavery being talked about and provided for in the Bible. The question we want to address today is, “is slavery actually condoned, or even endorsed or encourages by the Bible?”

Before we get there, there are a couple concepts I want to address. The first is something called the “Is-Ought Fallacy.” This is to mistakenly believe that something ought to be a certain way, because it is that way.

Here's an example. Jesus gives a provision for divorce. In Mark 10:5 he says, "Abraham wrote this commandment for you because of your hard hearts.” He's not saying you should get a divorce, he's saying that this happens, but that doesn't mean it should be that way. We're going to see this same type of thing when we talk about slavery.

The other concept is something that C.S. Lewis coined. Chronological snobbery. That's to mistakenly think that the thought, morality, art, or science of an earlier time period is inherently inferior to that of our current time. It's really easy for us to look back and say, "Gosh, how did they get it so wrong?" I wonder who's going to look back at us and think, "How did they get it so wrong?"

On to slavery. When people think about slavery, that often envision something like this quote from Frederick Douglas, and here's what he says.

"He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave holding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I've often been awakened at dawn by the most heart-rending shrieks of my own aunt of mine, whom he would tie to a joist and whip upon her naked back until she was literally covered with blood. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I remember it well, and I never shall forget it whilst I remember anything. It was the first of a long series of outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it."

That's Frederick Douglas writing.

He accurately captures very vividly the picture of what we often think about when we think of slavery. We think of antebellum, pre-civil war south. We think of chains and slave ships, and subjugation of a race, and kidnapping, and forced labor, and all of these types of things. When we come to the Bible and we see the word “slavery,” we bring all of this baggage with us, and that's a mistake.

The slavery in the old testaments, specifically with regards to Israel, was servitude. This is the same type of servitude that was in play when Britain brought people over to the colonies. In fact, 2/3 of the white immigrants to the colonies were indentured servants. They had said, "Well if you take me over to the new world, I will work for you for this length of time. You "own me" when it comes to my work product, what I'm going to produce, and who I'm going to work for."

We actually use terms today like, "Buy, sell, acquire," And we don't think of these as slavery endorsing terms. Someone will buy a sports team, well what is that? That's a group of people. Players will be traded, or acquired. This doesn't mean that they're treated poorly. This same type of language is used in the old testament of serv…

Does the Bible condone, or even endorse slavery?

You can't look at the news in recent months or even years, without seeing the racial tensions that exist in America. White rights, black rights, racial supremacy. All of these terms get tossed about. When you start talking about race, what often comes up is the historical fact that Christians often owned slaves long ago. Sometimes this was couched this in terms of slavery being talked about and provided for in the Bible. The question we want to address today is, “is slavery actually condoned, or even endorsed or encourages by the Bible?”

Before we get there, there are a couple concepts I want to address. The first is something called the “Is-Ought Fallacy.” This is to mistakenly believe that something ought to be a certain way, because it is that way.

Here's an example. Jesus gives a provision for divorce. In Mark 10:5 he says, "Abraham wrote this commandment for you because of your hard hearts.” He's not saying you should get a divorce, he's saying that this happens, but that doesn't mean it should be that way. We're going to see this same type of thing when we talk about slavery.

The other concept is something that C.S. Lewis coined. Chronological snobbery. That's to mistakenly think that the thought, morality, art, or science of an earlier time period is inherently inferior to that of our current time. It's really easy for us to look back and say, "Gosh, how did they get it so wrong?" I wonder who's going to look back at us and think, "How did they get it so wrong?"

On to slavery. When people think about slavery, that often envision something like this quote from Frederick Douglas, and here's what he says.

"He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave holding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I've often been awakened at dawn by the most heart-rending shrieks of my own aunt of mine, whom he would tie to a joist and whip upon her naked back until she was literally covered with blood. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I remember it well, and I never shall forget it whilst I remember anything. It was the first of a long series of outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it."

That's Frederick Douglas writing.

He accurately captures very vividly the picture of what we often think about when we think of slavery. We think of antebellum, pre-civil war south. We think of chains and slave ships, and subjugation of a race, and kidnapping, and forced labor, and all of these types of things. When we come to the Bible and we see the word “slavery,” we bring all of this baggage with us, and that's a mistake.

The slavery in the old testaments, specifically with regards to Israel, was servitude. This is the same type of servitude that was in play when Britain brought people over to the colonies. In fact, 2/3 of the white immigrants to the colonies were indentured servants. They had said, "Well if you take me over to the new world, I will work for you for this length of time. You "own me" when it comes to my work product, what I'm going to produce, and who I'm going to work for."

We actually use terms today like, "Buy, sell, acquire," And we don't think of these as slavery endorsing terms. Someone will buy a sports team, well what is that? That's a group of people. Players will be traded, or acquired. This doesn't mean that they're treated poorly. This same type of language is used in the old testament of serv…

Is anyone actually in favor of marriage equality? 

It has become politically incorrect to say that marriage is only between a man and a woman and that no other type of interpersonal relationship qualifies. People will say, "You're being discriminatory. You're being a bigot. Marriage should be marked by equality. We don't treat black people differently than white people so we shouldn't treat same sex attracted people differently than opposite sex attracted people." But the question that should immediately form in our minds is, “why is marriage something that government is involved in to begin with?” What's the compelling state interest in the government being involved in the interpersonal relationships in our lives in general? 

This comes down to the family, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but I want to return to our central question. Is anyone actually for marriage equality? I would put forth to you that I don't think anyone actually is for marriage equality, because marriage equality would mean that all relationships are looked at equally and they are all equally valid in terms of being able to be called a marriage or not. It's not just a man and woman. We're told now that it could be a man and man or a woman and a woman or a man who thinks he's a woman and a man, maybe. Transgendered issues come into this. To be equal, we need to treat everyone the same way. 

Okay, what about if I love my dog so much that I want to marry it? It wouldn't be treating me equally to say that I can't do that, because marriage equality means marriage for everyone. Anyone who wants to get married, right?  We've talked about intersex relationships, same sex relationships. What about intergenerational or cross generational love? Someone who's forty with someone who's twelve. If we're going to be in favor of marriage equality and giving the same options to everyone, we should say to the forty year old, "Yes, you can marry a twelve year old. You can marry your daughter. You could marry your mother." That's what marriage equality would mean based on the definition that's been advanced today. Hopefully what you see is that if marriage means everything, then marriage means nothing. 

All of this should bring us to the question of why is government involved at all? Why has government seen fit to promote marriage? When it comes to any issue, government has three options. It can simply prohibit something and say you cannot do that, it can permit it and say that's acceptable or it can promote it and give it elevated status or a tax break or other benefits. Traditionally, government has promoted heterosexual unions for a specific reason. It has not prohibited same sex unions, it has permitted them. It has not been illegal in this country to be gay. In some countries it has been and there's certainly been a social stigma associated with it. But government has permitted those type of relationships. 

It has not promoted them until recently. This should raise the question, “why has government promoted heterosexual relationships”, long term ones and monogamous ones, which is what marriage means. The reason for that is because as a group and as a rule and by nature, heterosexual unions provide for the next generation, literally. They provide a stable environment for a couple to create and raise a child. Fathers and mothers, two parent households are best for raising children, but it's not just two parents. It's a mother and father. It's not two individuals. Studies have borne this out. More than that, having a father in the home, specifically, has a salutary effect on reducing the likelihood that child will act out poorly in school or commit crime when he or she is older. 

What we see is the family is really the social foundation for our whole socie…