What are some justifications Christians give for approved rape in the Bible?

Question

My last question was too broad, and most stated they did not know of any instances in the bible in which certain acts are approved. I will limit this question to rape and provide a few examples to hopefully eliminate this response. (Deuteronomy 22--stoning of rape victims, rape victim must marry the rapist; Deuteronomy 21:10-14; Judges 21:10-24-"catching wives") One instance is analagous to a child molester being allowed to adopt his victim, with no punishment. Others are God's word about how to treat captive females. I'd like to obtain popular justifications from Christians and non-Christians alike that aspire to resolve this apparent cognitive dissonance. What are some things Christians have told you? As a Christian, what are some things you use/think? Thanks again to all respondents in advance!

Answer 1

As long as you ask for forgiveness, anything goes...

Answer 2

There were allot of things done in the Bible that were not done at the command of God and if you read the entire chapter that you are finding your facts I am pretty sure more than likely there was a punishment for someone who killed in God's name under false pretenses. If people would stop reading the Bible simply to find contractions and read it to get understanding and find the true word of God you would know this.

Now the scripture you quoted says this....


Deut 22:13-21
13{Regulations for Sexual Purity--} "Suppose a man marries a woman and, after sleeping with her, changes his mind about her
14and falsely accuses her of having slept with another man. He might say, 'I discovered she was not a virgin when I married her.'
15If the man does this, the woman's father and mother must bring the proof of her virginity to the leaders of the town.
16Her father must tell them, 'I gave my daughter to this man to be his wife, and now he has turned against her.
17He has accused her of shameful things, claiming that she was not a virgin when he married her. But here is the proof of my daughter's virginity.' Then they must spread the cloth before the judges.
18The judges must then punish the man.
19They will fine him one hundred pieces of silver, for he falsely accused a virgin of Israel. The payment will be made to the woman's father. The woman will then remain the man's wife, and he may never divorce her.
20"But suppose the man's accusations are true, and her virginity could not be proved.
21In such cases, the judges must take the girl to the door of her father's home, and the men of the town will stone her to death. She has committed a disgraceful crime in Israel by being promiscuous while living in her parents' home. Such evil must be cleansed from among you.
(NLT)

Now where does it say God commanded this? Or that he approved? David believed that he was justified in the murdering of all the people he killed while he rein as King, but he was wrong and this is what kept him from building the temple for God he had too much blood on his hands. Try and find understanding and wisdom not contradiction and error....

Answer 3

We can't answer honestly for God and how God handled things in the Old Testament days. I don't question God's motives or reasoning at all.

As one poster said, we don't live under the Law of Moses anymore, the Old Covenant; we live under the New Covenant, which came when Christ was born and taught here on earth.

Muslim/Islamic sects still live under the Old Covenant, even the Jews do.. because they don't believe in the New Testament at all.

It wasn't the man who raped or committed adultery that got punished, but the victim. Praise God we live in society today where the criminal is who receives the punishment, not the victim; in most cases.

Answer 4

blest and favrd- read the bible if you are going to say you believe it. You should be embarrassed that people who do not believe the bible have read (and can find passages) that you seem to miss.

When I asked my bro (christian fanatic), he pointed out that girl (king David's daughter) in the O.T. that was raped and was crying that the rapist would not marry her. I could not figure out what my bro was trying to say- rape is okay because this particular victim wanted to marry her rapist as opposed to being stoned (in accordance with "god's" law at this point in time). I don't know. That is the only answer I have ever gotten, and it did not make sense.

I am going to predict that you can't get a good answer that makes sense (at least not from someone who believes in the bible or the O.T.) because there is none.

I would say that these verses were written into the bible by men that thought of women (as well as children and foreign men) as property to be bought and sold. If you can't get a good price from your property, why continue to pay for it to exist? Why not kill it?

The ironic part is the fact that christians quote the bible when they tell others they need to value life (of fetuses).

Answer 5

I have read some of these morally questionable issues in the Bible. Most christians like to shy away from them, as do I, but it does come down to "Why did God condone, if not sometimes order things that seemed morally reprehensible". The order of Israel to kill out entire societies. I don't know. I think many times it is because the alternative is worse. For example, what do I know about Jewish culture of that time and how they handled women who were raped? How easily was it in that society to be in a position to be raped? Were crimes like rape so taboo in that culture that a woman would be untouchable if she had lost her virginity to a rapist? I don't know. I don't know enough about the topic to really answer thoroughly. I have to be honest though, it does not change my feelings about who I think God is. I hate to give you such a flimsy answer but I can't help it. I trust that what God ordered is just and right and the laws man comes up with are imperfect. How many of these laws were created by human beings trying to right a wrong, doing so in an imperfect way. How many things were condoned by God because to stop them would alter the overall plans? Too many questions unanswered for me to judge God. AND...I know too much about humanity to not judge them. Sorry if this seems like a cookie cutter answer "Just trust God" but I can't really help that. That is what I truly believe.

Answer 6

Actually it doesn't.

Also, your quotes are inaccurate.

22:25 But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die:
(Deuteronomy
22:26) But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:
22:27 For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.

The stoning your talking about, speaks of consensual sex
Read carefully
(Deuteronomy
22:22) If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
22:23 If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;
22:24 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.

See guys. I like the bible!

Answer 7

Their society and their assumptions were different from ours. Remember, women were property, chattel, and did not have the rights of modern women. Therefore, as property, they cannot BE victims. Only their possessor was victimized, which is the reason that the rapist had to pay the father or husband for 'services' provided, with or without permission. As to the stonings, that only happened to women who voluntarily lost their virginity without permission of her owner. Why should that be surprising in that culture? The Bible was not written in the 21st Century. It is unreasonable to expect 21st Century values to be reflected there.

The Bible was designed to move mankind forward. It should not be surprising that the early rules were what we would call barbaric. It takes time to move a society from ancient savagery to modern savagery. I'm sure they would be horrified to know that we legalize the abortion of children in the womb for the 'health' of a woman, and even to preserve her 'right' to use her body as she pleases, even to the destruction of an innocent life within.

Answer 8

It seems to me like you are distorting the sense of those passages. In Deuteronomy 22 it differentiates between a woman who broke her pledge to remain pure until her wedding date but who had sex with another man of her own free will and a woman who was raped.

23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor, 27 for the man found the girl out in the country, and though the betrothed girl screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

In the book of Judges it describes a time when "25In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." and does not put God's seal of approval on what went on.

In Deuteronomy 21 you have God's provision for captive women whose husbands have been killed to become members of the tribe of Israel.

10 When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11 if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails 13 and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

It isn't like God says you can tear a screaming woman off the body of her dead husband and rape her and leave her to fend for herself. There is time for mourning and the woman is given rights and protection. Back in those days when a tribe was conquered by the pagans they didn't give any humanitarian provision or protections like these to captured women.

Answer 9

In the account you are mentioning (Deuteronomy 21:10-14) Jehovah gives the reason for the general prohibition concerning foreign wives, as follows: “They would turn your sons from following me to serving alien gods.” Also divine warning was sounded against “marrying your sons to their daughters, who will desert to their gods and make your sons desert also”. (Ex. 34:16, Mo; Deut. 7:4, AT) The prohibition was based on no racial prejudice nor any nationalistic grounds, but it was solely for the purpose of protecting the Israelites from religious contamination. It was to avoid contacts that might jeopardize the purity of worship rendered to Jehovah.

But notice how the special circumstances involved in the case discussed at Deuteronomy 21:10-13 eliminate this danger of contamination: She cut off her hair, which was the usual sign of mourning. (Job 1:20; Isa. 15:2; Jer. 7:29; Amos 8:10; Mic. 1:16) She either cut her nails close, which would remove this means of adornment, since they were stained to be attractive; or she let them grow to become unkept, without their usual manicured attractiveness. (Deut. 21:12, Knox; Le) She put off the raiment in which she was taken captive, since the women of defeated forces put on their finest dresses and ornaments in the hope of finding favor in the eyes of their captors. For a month she was in mourning, bewailing the loss of her loved ones, thus possibly indicating the thoroughness of the war’s destructiveness at the time of her capture.

The captive women were possibly the only survivors, and the heathen gods were doubtless destroyed by the Israelite warriors. So no ties were left with the pagan nation, either socially or religiously. There were no heathen in-laws for the Israelite man to mix in with. Hence to marry a foreign woman so completely severed from connection with false gods and false worshipers was permissible. It was quite different from marrying a foreign woman not a captive whose relatives were living, whose religious gods were still worshiped by her family, who would from time to time have some contact with her heathen relatives and their gods, and who might bring her Israelite husband into contact with them also, thereby exposing his pure worship to contamination. So it was the special circumstances of Deuteronomy 21:10-13 that allowed for an exception to the general prohibition of intermarriage with foreign women.

This got nothing to do with rape.

Answer 10

I don't know what bible you are reading but clearly it is not the Holy Bible. I think maybe you should either get a Bible(NIV version) that will help you to understand the letters and words or get someone to read it to you. I have read the Bible before and upon viewing your question, I read it again and I still cannont find what you are saying. Blasphemy God's Word is also a sin.What makes matter worse is that you have given an open invitation for other unlearn people to join in.May God Bless

Answer 11

blest and favrd, what bible are you reading, I did a google search of Deuteronomy 22 and found the passage just as indicated by the questioner?