Rape in the Bible 2?

Question

Moving forward from this question... please read it first.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aq4005xz8tA4dVmYZ8WiK7Xsy6IX?qid=20061222143405AAoXYQi

If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NIV

I'm still getting answers that "It was the culture back then..."

Well, wasn't it God that made the culture in the first place by establishing these laws?

He could have said, "If a woman is raped, you will not look down on her for it, and you shall treat her as if she were still a virgin," yet He doesn't say that. If He had said that, then the culture of the people would have been different, right? Because they did as God told them, right?

So, why would God create such a misogynistic culture at ANY time?

"Everything changed when Jesus came," is no explanation for why God would ever, at ANY time, have knowingly inflicted such pain on women.

Answer 1

The circular reasoning of Christians ultimately yields a big zero.

If god wrote the rape law then he could have just as easily wrote a different law. If it was unlawful to marry a non-virgin, that was because god made it unlawful and he could have made it lawful.

While it is true (at least in that never never land that the god lovers live in) that to maintain free will god could not "make" a culture, it is also true that god chose what laws to make and what laws not to make.

I could have come up with a better set of laws than god did. So could many of the people in Yahoo Answers. So what happened?

I guess somebody missed his Venti Redeye that century.

Answer 2

That is only one of many examples of misogyny in the Bible. Anthropologists think that the Bible reflects the culture and attitudes of the times. The Old Testament advocates slavery, infanticide, and stoning, . God also commands the tribes of Moses to abandon the sick and disabled out in the wilderness to die. If you read the letters of Paul to the Christians, you will find that he also was a misogynist. Women on the whole are denigrated throughout both the Old and New Testament. Hence I see no New Covenant for women.

Answer 3

I understand what you are getting at, and you are right. The bible is a collection of writings that expresses man's ideas about God, many of them convenient to protecting a male dominated societies interests.

The most gross manifestation of this is when God supposedly tells his "chosen" people to commit genocide and take the land which we now know as Israel. It is interesting to note that though Gods "chosen" people were supposed to kill every man, woman, child, infant, animal, tree, and burn the buildings to the ground (and if they did not they were gravely sinning) God had a temporary moment of having a soft spot by allowing them to keep the virgins for themselves. Hhhhmmmm, how convenient.

If you recognize the bible for what it is you can actually glean some cool stuff from it while leaving the rest of the dysfunctional crap behind.

By believing the bible in its entirety is the holy word of God is two steps away from crashing an air plane into a tower in the name of God, and one step away from drinking the poisoned cool-aid. By believing anything the books says sets the indoctrinated up to do some pretty nasty things without thinking things through.

In essence by being reasonable alleviation of suffering from the adherents of such a literal interpretation of the bible and those they prosecute can be achieved.

Answer 4

Girlie! The Bible is a very difficult book which mixes tradition with religion just like the Quran.
Do Jews today still obey Deuteronomy 22:28? No. Because they recognize it as tradition; however, some Muslims still keep the old Arabic tradition of stoning women to death.

Answer 5

Well in the 10 commandment he also said "thou shalt not commit fornication", which is having sex before marriage, which shows that he does truly care about his people and that there are rules that they need to follow. One of his other commandments is "thou shalt not judge", which tells his people and everyone else who decides to read the bible that they should not judge the girl that was raped, but help her by keeping her in our prayers.

Answer 6

God didn't make the culture. Mankind did.

We sinned. Our ancestors did what you are doing. They blamed God for man's sins. "The woman YOU gave me..." "The serpent (YOU created) deceived me..."

Ever since, we live in a fallen world. God placed upon us a curse that has haunted us ever since. People do what they want. They sin against God and each other daily.

God gave commandments that fit the culture at the time to provide for people. He didn't create welfare agencies and battered women's shelters for people who, at the time, were a wayfaring nation.

When Jesus did come on the scene, He treated women better than anyone else had. He even went to women first after His resurrection. In that time, a woman's testimony was considered half as valid as a man's, and yet He chose them.

He told the leaders of His day that it was ungodly to divorce a woman except for infidelity. That really ticked a lot of men off, who would trade-in women like people do cars today.

And yet you sit there in judgment of God. Amazing.

Answer 7

Well, when God created the earth 6,000 years ago, he had been lonely for billions and billions of years. Should we really blame the Dude for being a bit sexually frustrated after all those billions of years?

Seriously though: people claiming that 'our' morals came from God, and at the same time can't see that God's First Laws were just plain sick....well...eh...*cough*

Answer 8

These were laws not to embarass a women they were made to protect that women. You reall need to look at a concordance and look up the word taphas {taw-fas'} which is to lay hold of. It has no sexual meaning. In fact it could be translated like this...

If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and "to grasp in order to use skilfully" and to "lie (of sexual relations)" with her and they were "found out," then he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."

You see the original text never says Rape. That is a word that is not in the hebrew text. I am not sure if that is what this passage is refering to...

But anyways this law was made to protect the woman. Becuase no one can marry a woman who is not a virgin in that culture, the man would have to marry her. So she wouldn't be left alone for the rest of her life, and possibly with a child that has no father...

Answer 9

It's just anthropomorphism: people create gods in their own image. Primitive patricarchal societies create primitive patriarchal gods. Often these aren't even very original as the primitives have no imagination and have to steal ideas from other cultures.

Answer 10

Was it "God" that established the culture or was it men who placed themself in authority using the comman man's fear of God?