Anyone care to comment on this? Esp Christians?

Question

Care to comment on this page?
http://www.evilbible.com/Rape.htm

Yes I know he uses some objectional language etc, but look at the gist of what he is saying...what do you think about it? How can that be justified?

I was brought up in a Christian home, I had no choice but to obey, to go to church and read the Bible.
I was so programmed to accept it all that I never realise the gist of those passages in all the times I read them. It has taken two years of "un-brain washing" myself to realise how truly disgusting those passages are. As a rape victim the rage is indescribable.

Dear "I Speak The Truth"
You need glasses.

Dear Cricket
Ever been raped? Well I have. You have no idea how terrifying it is. Many women faint, are physically paralysed or are otherwise incapable of fighting back "or crying out".
So its still inhumane

Answer 1

Very good question.

I would like to be proven wrong but I am sure that you wont get a good answer, or the answer you are looking for from any Christian.

I have been aware of these and many other considerably heinous passages within the bible, and for such a reason would refuse to swear on the bible if ever asked to do so.

I would believe that many of the answers you would get from Christians would be from apologists stating that to take it as condoning rape or anyother heinous crime such as premeditated cold blooded murder, would be taking it out of context with consideration of the whole book. Having said that most Christians refer mostly to the new testament and in comparison to the old one was a walk in the park. For want of a better explanation, Jesus was a decent bloke compared to his father(?). But wasn't Jesus, like the holy ghost one and the same as his father.

Should you feel inclined to do further research on the good and bad of the bible, just type misogyny into google and follow the religious prompts.

Have fun with it.

Answer 2

I think The_Cricket, MiD, and misty have done a nice job of explaining why we see some of this in the Bible. One of the interesting things about the Old Testament is that the Israelites did not hide or alter their history. I think culture, society and time period must be considered when reading the history of any people. I too have suffered sexual molestation as a child and multiple rape as a young woman. The horror of rape cannot adequately be described. I have thought on more than one occasion I would be dead. I think we should consider how our view of women has changed throughout history. I can remember in the 80's when marital rape was first being looked at because many did not consider it rape for a husband to force sex on his wife. Women have come a very long way in the terms of being seen as whole human beings with rights in a very short time. It would be very hard for me to understand how it felt to be a woman living during a time when I would have been nothing more than property and so it can be very difficult to understand the context of these actions.

Answer 3

Well, I can cover a couple of them without even digging for answers, just by reading each passage within context.

On the site, they use Deuteronomy 22:28-29 and Deuteronomy 22:23-24. Let's look at the first one (NIV):
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.

Ouch, sounds horrible, doesn't it? Well, why not read the whole chapter? Please note that in these verses it says that if the woman does not cry out, she's sinned. In other words, how could it be rape if she doesn't protest? If she cries out, she is not punished.

A rape victim would ONLY have to marry her attacker if she didn't cry out. Makes sense to me.

In 2 Samuel, God does not give David's wives to anyone. David merely receives the threat. As for the child, that was punishment. Doesn't mean it's right, but consider who David was. Many Christians call him "a man after God's own heart." David lost his child, God sacrificed his son. And why did their offspring have to die? For sin. With God's Son, it was the sin of the world. With David's child, it was his own sin. It actually makes sense. David wanted to be a godly man, and God allowed David to understand things because of this.

As for the passage in Zechariah 14, one must read the whole thing. This is a prophecy. What exactly is being prophesied? Well, when *I* read it, I gather that it's actually a prophecy of the end times. What it basically says is that nations will rise up against Jerusalem (or Israel), and God will allow it. Why would God allow Israel to be attacked so badly? Well, if one reads the entire Old Testament, it has MANY instances of Israel's disobedience to the will of God.
Zechariah 14 goes on to say that after Israel has been humbled by being attacked, God will then punish Israel's enemies.


So I've done three of them now, just by reading the entire chapter, or at least the few verses surrounding the passage, while applying what I know of the Bible to it.

That's what EVERY person is supposed to do if they want to understand the Bible. But if all they're looking for is a way to justify not following the Bible, then all they're going to see is the horrible stuff, without recognizing why it's in there.

Edit: Actually, YES, I have been raped, thank you. I know some women are terrified into silence, and some are threatened with weapons, but I think these scriptures aren't talking about rape as we know it now. THAT kind of rape (in the Bible) was about sex, not about dominance. The way WE define rape now means that it's violent. I think the correct word for "rape" in the Bible would actually be more like "ravishing."

Answer 4

The Old Testament was written over thousands of years. The Jewish people were originally pagans...and their laws and rules prior to the understanding of God, were much worse then what is in the Bible.

The Old Testament is a historical account of these pagans becoming followers of God. As they grow in their understanding God, so does their understanding of life, murder, rape etc.

"Numbers 31 (verses 7-18 in particular)

Notice here, that Moses did NOT give instruction to take the
women alive originally, but is faced with the Israelites
choosing to do so in Numbers 31:15.
Moses is in a no-win situation because he is not a ruler in
the sense of a king, (notice how quickly the Israelites
betray him multiple times elsewhere!).
The Israelite men are after wealth here.
Moses doesn't want a riot -- but he also doesn't want the
corruption caused by greed. So he compromises.
God's anger would be the most fierce if the Israelites married
women who would seduce them with Pagan incestuous
rituals -- hence Moses chooses to allow them to keep
the women who might not be initiated into that yet.

Judges 5 (verse 30 in particular)
Judges 21 (verses 10-24 in particular)

The scriptures do not comment favorably on these passages.
The tribe of Benjamin was being wiped out for sin itself.
In essence, the tribe of Benjamin was considered no better
than the Pagans. It was a mercy to allow the tribe of
Benjamin to live *at all*, as well as the Pagan women who
had not yet been initiated into incestuous pagan worship
rituals. (See Lot and his two daughters... from Sodom).

The Israelite reasoning here is more of a least of all evils
approach rather than approval of taking women for spoil."

Taking our 21st century views on rape etc. and applying it to the Old Testament will never give us satisfactory explanations. You have to read the entire Old Testament as well as books on pagan history and rituals to understand what was going on then. These writings show the slow but progressive turn from pagan ways to the ways of God. It didn't happen overnight but over thousands of years. God continually calling all of us to come to him....and you can follow that progression right into the New Testament and the teachings of Christ.

God is perfect and incapable of error. What is written is true and good because God is true and good. If we see evil in it, then it is because we misunderstand and misinterpret the Word of God. You cannot take your personal views and experiences and apply to the Old Testament writings. The Old and New Testaments go together...you must read both to understand the overall spirtual history and growth of the people of God.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

It is not only objectionable, it is the some of the most misinformed and misrepresented material I have ever read, It is obvious to me that whoever wrote that has not very much knowledge of what the Bible actually says about these things. No this misrepresentation cannot be justified.The gist is way off, and I mean WAY OFF!!!!

Answer 7

yes people really need to realize that god did not write the bible people did and that's why christians should use it as a reference but shouldn't follow everything it says.

No wonder why so many priests mollest boys and are such hatefull people, they are murderers and rapists.

They can try but they can't drive me into that.

Answer 8

The easiest one is Judges 5:30. Those are the words of Sisera's mother. Sisera wasn't a Jew anyway. He was killed by having a tent peg run through his temple by Jael. Deborah prophesied it. Jael was the wife of Heber, the Kenite. Sisera trusted her because the Kenites had good relations with Jabin, his king. Jabin was eventually destroyed by the Jews.

The fact that he's gone overboard with talking about "rape" is just an indication of the fear factor, I think. Most of these cases are talking about something akin to arranged marriages, except that they're arranged by the husband, not the parents. (The parents were probably dead by this stage.) The thing about law is that it doesn't rouse up otherwise placid people. It's there to create sense out of the chaos.

As for slavery, it does not mean sex slave. A slave is somebody who works for food, lodging and privileges, rather than for money as an employee would. They are supposed to have full rights under law, just the same as anybody else. Another way of translating the New Testament word for it is bondservant. The scripture from Ex 21 shows that the girl might marry the son or the father, but either way, there was no going back to treating her as a slave of the household after the marriage, even if another wife was taken as well. She now had the status of wife and continued to be eligible for food, lodging and privileges.

Apparently, the conduct described in Amos 2:7, 8 is the sort of behaviour that was being reverted to and it was prophesied against. Galatians 6:7 says that God is not one to be mocked. Whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap. The analysis of the Old Testament commands seems to follow a line of logic where if somebody tells you what's allowed in the circumstances, and you decide to use it as an excuse for evil, it's the fault of the law-maker. As the apostle Paul said, "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." (Romans 3:20)

Amos says:
They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.

And yet a lot of "spiritualist" people seem to think that this kind of amour is "interesting" whereas the bit where people just want to find a nice girl after they've taken over the land from perverts and settle down and have a family lends itself to accusations of ill will against women.

This is one of my favourite quotes. It's from Nietzsche. He says that philosophers tend to mummify their subjects. They are interested in the being, not the becoming, including subjects like growth and procreation. Personally, I find the following kind of rhetoric difficult to take about women. "... symbolically expressed by the presence of male figures, luminous sons of the energetic transformation taking place in the maternal uroborus." I looked up uroborus. It seems to be the same as "ouroboros" which means "a circular symbol of a snake or dragon devouring its tail, standing for infinity or wholeness." In Colossians 2:18 it says that those who have left Christ in which people grow (the Old Testament equivalent might be that agriculture was the most prestigious occupation to be involved in, unless you were a priest) worship angels. The word for "worship" here is "threskeia", which means "external religion, ceremonies etc." Angels are messengers. This is how mothers are treated. They are bearers of good tidings, but they are expected to just be philosophical and keep on stretching things out. The myth of Dionysus has him with two mothers. Zeus is the saving mother. Men, especially doctors and business-minded people, like to get involved in childcare issues right from the get-go. Mothers are treated as if they should be happy to just have ceremonies performed around their messenger status. Never mind the messages that are coming through.

Deuteronomy 13:1-3 says to be wary of those who present signs and wonders. The word for "wonder" derives from one that means "bright or handsome." The Jews were warned that this is no sign of good fortune for the future. It was a test to see if they loved God. Growth in the moneyed system and growth in theocratic terms are two completely different things.

It was possible to be a righteous Jew although few were. The apostle Paul was saying that, if anything, the law showed to Jews how much they needed to put in on a personal basis due to the tendency to fail to do what is right.

Zechariah 14 was a prophecy, not a command. It was a warning to individuals to mend their ways if they wanted to escape this fate.

If you look at the CASA website, there are a few conditions in Australia where, technically, any consent obtained to sex is invalid.
False imprisonment
False information given as to identity
Person under the influence of drugs or alcohol
Mental illness
False information given as to medicine or hygiene requirements
Person is underage

If you were a Jewish guy and you decided to try any of these things on to get a girl (and apparently they didn't have to anyway), then it would be rape. But otherwise, what else are the girls going to do? They've still got the rest of their lives to live.

Answer 9

That's pretty scary stuff.

It's great that you've posted this.

I'm sure if more christians read these things, they may start to question their faith a little more.

Answer 10

i congratulate you in your un-brainwashing, i'm sure it wasn't easy for you to go against what you were brought up to believe was a good, kind, peaceful religion.

everyone should star this question so many people can see it!