God says... if you get raped.. marry the rapist?

Question

If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her. - Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NAB

Answer 1

Who gives a damn what god says... he is as existent as mickey mouse.

Answer 2

Actually, the word rape is used wrongly, what it means is if a young woman has sex with a man before marriage, he darn well better marry her. The translation of the word rape was a bit confusing. There is an instance in the old testament where the guy did actually rape the girl, and the girls family forced all of the men in his family to get circumcised, and then he was suppose to marry her. Since the rape was not an elicit romance, but a true rape, the morning after the painful circumcism's, all the men were murdered, thus saving the girl from having to marry a rapist. Course, having the rapist as a relative was pretty darn unlucky.

Answer 3

In that day, a woman, having been raped, had a very bleak future ahead of her. The man had not just raped her, but taken away her future security, as she would probably not marry. The idea behind this law is that, having ruined the girl's future support, you must take responsibility for supporting her.

Given the time period, what other options would exist for the law?

Incarceration didn't exist. The only other type punishment that would be possible would be death, but how does that take care of the woman? This made sure that the woman was at least taken care of, was a huge improvement over no law, gave the family a way to get justice (in other words, no vendettas), acted somewhat as a deterrent, and allowed for a way that if it were consentual (which would still at that time have been classified as rape) everything could be made as right as possible. In this day of arranged marages, women didn't have a right to pick her husband, so it wasn't as if the woman is losing the chance to marry her true love. She would be forced to marry someone of her father's choosing anyway.

All in all, given the time period, this was about as good a law as you were going to get. Today, a woman who has been raped can still go on to a life that's not a guaranteed life of poverty or dependance on family; we have incarceration as a deterrent (we also have the death penalty, which they had the option of too, but even today that's more used when there are agrivating conditions, although I'd have no problem with it being the defacto punishment, but I'm rambling.) And there is more cultural awareness of the rights and value of women now. Not to say that God didn't value women, but that society as a whole didn't, and this was the best law He could institute in that society without mass rebellion. This is similar to God allowing divorse, while hating it, under OT law because, as Jesus said, "your hearts were hard".

Would there be many scenarios where this means that a woman has to spend the rest of her life with a person who violated her and who she hates? (and, as seen in the case of David's sons and daughter, possibly hates her, as rape isn't about love and rape causes the rapist to despise the victim, even if he cared for her beforehand.). Yes. But given the time period and the situation that the rapist had created, this was still preferable to leaving the woman with no means of support and no hope for the future.

Best possible law at the time: possibly.
Best possible law now: no, but noone is claiming that it is. It was the law set down for Israel at that time. It also is not saying "If you are raped, go seek out and marry the rapist or you will be sinning." It is saying "If you rape someone, you are responsible for that woman's welfare for the rest of their lives, and you are to marry her in order to do so, or else you will be sinning.". It's a command to the rapist, not to the woman.

Answer 4

speaking form the point of view of the woman: this is the worst that can happen. imagine that u would have to live in the same hause and raise the childrens of the person that made you feel miserabe in the worst way. plus that this brought him joy. uhh,the worst, as i said.
maybe it's out there a law, written or not written, but i believe that once happened a damadge what in the world must be continued? it happened and that's it! no woman should pay a priece for something that she didn't decided: be born a female.

Answer 5

hmmm..

Deuteronomy 22
28: If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;

29: Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.


Well, I guess that could include rape, but it also includes pre-marrital sex. Also, during the time of Moses (who was the one who told the people of those laws) if a woman was not a virgin, she was considered undesirable to wed.

Answer 6

The bible does not say "caught in the act of raping". You really need to not do stuff like that. I don't know what the NAB is, but get the KJV and read what it says there.

Answer 7

Before Jesus came to the earth to show us the way to worship God properly, the worshipers of God, the Israelites, followed the directions that their great-grand father, Moses, gave them. They were influenced many times by their neighbours who, did not know God at all. There were rules such as like getting whipped when one did something wrong.

Some Israelite guys went and slept with ladies from Palestine. These boys were killed because, as a rule, they were forbidden from mingling with unbelievers. Palestine and all neighbouring lands around Israel, did not worship God, They built idols and worshiped them. Today, they have come to know Israel's God, whom they call, Allah. They worship Him too.

Answer 8

In the old testament, they protected and cherished their young women from other men. If she was unwed or unbetrothed, they assume that the man must have forced her into having sex ... sort of like statutory rape now.

The solution they came up with for statutory rape was to make the man marry her. If you think his life was easy after that lol, you have another think coming!

Answer 9

It is good that you are reffering to Jewish tradition, but tradition, no matter who or what, does not nessisarily hold to be fact in this day and age. After all, if you were raped, would you want the guy around who did the act, as a constant reminder?

Answer 10

Well I guess I would have been married at 5, do you think I could get a rebate on my taxes? Oh and where are my 50 pieces of silver?

Answer 11

It's part of the law set down in the old testament, and believe it or not it's something that Christians are still supposed to follow.

“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:18-19)

The laws in the Old Testament are still to be followed by Christians today. Even Jesus said so himself.