biblical views on rape
In another post about my departure from contemporary Christianity, I mention that there are a few ideas that I don't appreciate in the Bible. One of these is its attitude toward women. This is, by extension, god's attitude toward women, according to the presuppositional views of evangelical Christians. While there are certainly redeemable passages about women in the Bible, there are far more that don't seem to line up with what Jesus represents. In this post, I would like to examine some of the depictions of rape in the old testament. The main theme I've gathered about the old testament's views on rape is that god is scarcely concerned with the actual rape victim. It's always about the man who's involved. Here are three ways this theme appears throughout the old testament.
The first way the theme of favoring men appears is that the man that owns the woman who was raped (father or husband) is always treated like the main victim. This is shown through the punishments, depending on how men are involved, in the explicit laws about rape in Deuteronomy 22:23-29. In verse 25, god does indeed sentence the rapist to death. That's only because the victim is betrothed to a man, though. In verse 29, god lets the rapist live. Not only that, but she must be forced to marry her rapist. The only difference here was that she did not belong to a husband. She belonged to her father, who would now be compensated as though he's the primary victim. Clearly these laws are more concerned with how the rape affects any man involved than the woman who experiences it.
The second way the old testament shows that men are the primary concern is that god uses the raping of women as punishments for men. This happens on multiple occasions, with multiple women. When David slept with Bathsheba, god said he was going to "give David's wives to his neighbor to lie with" as punishment to David. The wives presumably would not be able to say no (2 Samuel 12:11). As a woman in old testament times, should your soon-to-be husband disobey god, god will send another man to rape (שָׁגַל šāgal) you as punishment to your betrothed (Deuteronomy 28:30). Based on the usage of this Hebrew word elsewhere, it's pretty clear that the word means rape. That same Hebrew word (שָׁגַל šāgal) appears in Zechariah 14:2 and Isaiah 13:16, when god says armies that he controls will rape the women of the cities being judged. These inexcusable depictions show that god did not hesitate to use women as the objects of horrific punishment, even when they were not the ones at fault.
The third way the old testament shows that men are the main concern is that god commands rape. In Numbers 31:18, god (via Moses) commands the army of Israel to "keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately." There is simply no excuse for this being present in a religious text. Even in that culture, the parents would generally give consent for their daughter marrying someone, which is better than nothing. Not even that is happening here. The argument that "rape would have violated the command in the next verse" is invalid. The next verse simply means they would have to wait a bit before commencing the sexual abuse. This was undeniably a lifetime sentence of abuse for those women. Deuteronomy 20:14 also gives a similar command for the women of Israel's enemies be taken as plunder (and used as such, according to the NIV translation Deu 20:14 NIV).
All of these cases appeal to the men involved when determining the legality of rape. God is depicted dishing out harsher punishment when the woman is betrothed, using women as mere objects of punishment for men, and even commanding that women be used as plunder by the men of his armies. It's always about the man, never about the women who were the actual victims of the rape. This abhorrent view of women is one major reason I believe it's time to re-evaluate whether the entirety of the evangelical Bible is actually god's word.