Why no commandment against rape?

[Oneironaut]

What does the Bible say about rape? A lot of Christians don't read the Bible so they don't know, but they assume that somewhere in there is an explicit statement that rape is always immoral. And of course, if we do a little digging, we're bound to come up with something like that...right?

The closest I could find was this passage from Deuteronomy 22, where God is laying out his laws to the Israelites and instructing them on how to deal with cases of rape.

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.

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;

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.

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.

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:

For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.

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;

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.

A few comments on this verse. First of all, if the woman is raped and does not scream loud enough and she is in a populated area, she is to be killed. This was because it would be presumed that she willingly had sex with the man, and they had some strange idea that having sex for fun is bad and people who do it outside the context of marriage should be killed. Obviously this cannot be a law that was cooked up by a moral being, yet the Bible is claiming these are the words of an infinitely moral God. How can that possibly be?

If the woman is married, it is considered a serious crime worthy of the death penalty for the rapist. Why? Because in ancient Israel, wives were basically considered property. If you read the Old Testament through, this is very clearly what marriage means in their society. Women are property, and if you rape another man's wife, that is defiling his property. Nobody cares about the woman, but defiling another man's property is considered a serious offense.

As if to prove this point, it goes on to say that if the woman is not married to anyone, the punishment for the rapist is to pay her father some money (daughters as well as wives are considered property), and then the woman is bound to be married to the rapist.

How come God doesn't come out and say "Thou shalt not rape"? In his list of Ten Commandments, he considers it important to prohibit breaking the Sabbath or coveting your neighbor's donkey, but he doesn't consider it important to prohibit sexual abuse? How come? If I were pressed to come up with a list of ten laws I wanted everybody to follow, surely "don't rape people" would be more important than "take one day out of seven to worship me" or "don't want things other people have, even though humans are incapable of exercising conscious control over their desires". Why is rape not on that top ten list? Why isn't it ANYWHERE? Surely everyone agrees rape is one of the most immoral possible actions a person can do. Why is the Bible completely silent about it?

Three to six percent of the Catholic priests in this country are raping children. USCCB - The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States I don't think that's a coincidence. I think that number would be much lower if God explicitly condemned rape a few times in these priests' scriptures, and especially if a prohibition on rape was on that list of Ten Commandments they clergy's got plastered everywhere.

The fact that the Bible does not condemn rape (or slavery for that matter) is one of the most obvious reasons, to me, that it could not have possibly been penned by a moral genius of any sort. It is simply a compilation of common moral beliefs of the time, before we ourselves, without the help of God or the Bible, advanced our own moralities to the point that we all now abhor rape and slavery.

Oneironaut Reviewed by Oneironaut on 08-27-2007. Why no commandment against rape? What does the Bible say about rape? A lot of Christians don't read the Bible so they don't know, but they assume that somewhere in there is an explicit statement that rape is always immoral. And of course, if we do a little digging, we're bound to come up with something like that...right? The closest I could find was this passage from Deuteronomy 22, where God is laying out his laws to the Israelites and instructing them on how to deal with cases of rape. A few comments on this verse. Rating: 5

[Matt the Funk]

Religion is BS dude. You aren't convincing people who want to believe in it. You aren't changing anyones views. It just starts flaming. Although for me it was a fun little read.

[Oneironaut]

I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm asking a question here out of real curiosity. I want to know how the Christian mind overcomes this huge hurdle. I know the Christians have some rationalizations on why the highest moral authority has failed to condemn one of the most immoral things you can do. I want to hear it.

[rebgirl420]

I dont know, I always thougt it was a common sense thing. BUT I think that if someone does indeed rape or molest anyone that they should be killed in a horrible, atrocious way. Slowly too. But thats just my 2 cents

[MadSativa]

I could have swore their was a sex before marriage commandment. I think that would fall into that however it would be crazey if some guy married her just to rape her. Not that raping her is not psyko in the first place.

[Sleepyhead1]

Honestly during all the copying and rewritting of all bibles. Man has left out many books and stories for us to read. You've heard of "The lost Books of The Bible" correct? Even practicing rasta like myself I still wonder what are in those lost books and during mans translation. What have we miss translated and or left out. Its just a thought im not hear no tread on anyones religion.:thumbsup:

[Oneironaut]

I could have swore their was a sex before marriage commandment. I think that would fall into that however it would be crazey if some guy married her just to rape her. Not that raping her is not psyko in the first place.

Yes, that's true. In the same chapter I quoted above, actually right before the passage I quoted, is the bit where it says that a woman is to be stoned to death if on her wedding night her husband discovers she has already had her cherry popped.

Sex was basically the purpose of marriage in Israelite culture. You didn't ask your wife's permission to have sex. You owned her. Marriage and the virginity commandments were just a way to make the sexual relationship exclusive, so that if the woman got pregnant the man could be assured that he was the father. If the woman was not a virgin when she was married or if she committed adultery during the marriage, the man would not be assured that he was the father. That's why they considered it such a heinous crime.

In fact, if a man had his eye on a virgin that he wanted to be his, all he had to do apparently was rape her, pay 50 shekels of silver to her father, and badda-bing badda-boom she's required to marry him. That commandment is in there because a non-virgin would have no chance of marrying anyone else, and would actually have to be stoned to death if she did. So "God" (i.e. whoever was making this shit up) decided it was more merciful for her to be forced into marriage with a rapist than to be unmarried forever, or even worse, for her to enter into marriage with someone she did not lose her virginity to.

[Oneironaut]

Honestly during all the copying and rewritting of all bibles. Man has left out many books and stories for us to read. You've heard of "The lost Books of The Bible" correct? Even practicing rasta like myself I still wonder what are in those lost books and during mans translation. What have we miss translated and or left out. Its just a thought im not hear no tread on anyones religion.:thumbsup:

It's all man's writing. I have yet to be convinced that there is any divine substratum to these stories. Why would God write a story that he knew would be corrupted and to future generations would look like something no god could have written?

By the way, if you're looking for cool texts they left out of the Bible, check out The Apocalypse of Peter. It was part of most of the earliest Christian Bibles, but eventually they took it out because it describes in graphic detail the torments that the damned suffer in Hell. As a consequence, the Bible now says very little about Hell. But the ideas of the Apocalypse of Peter were powerful. They influenced Dante's Inferno and other popular visions of what Hell is like, and a lot of them survive to the modern day, even though the churches do not recognize it as officially part of the Bible.

The Apocalypse of Peter

[Oneironaut]

I could have swore their was a sex before marriage commandment. I think that would fall into that however it would be crazey if some guy married her just to rape her. Not that raping her is not psyko in the first place.

I forgot to mention that the commandment against premarital sex applies only to women. Men are basically allowed to have all the sex they want. If a man is not a virgin on his wedding night, no big deal.

In fact, according to the chapter immediately preceding the one I quoted in the original post, a man in battle is allowed to take a woman captive to marry her (women don't have a choice in marriage in the Bible) and essentially rape her. If he doesn't like his new rape toy, he can let her go, and the only reason he can't sell her for money is because he screwed her. Isn't it amazing how much barbaric sexism the Bible can cram into just a few pages?

Deuteronomy 21:10-14

When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;

Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;

And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.

And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.

Note that "thou shalt go in unto her" means exactly what you think it means.

[couch-potato]

I dont know, I always thougt it was a common sense thing. BUT I think that if someone does indeed rape or molest anyone that they should be killed in a horrible, atrocious way. Slowly too. But thats just my 2 cents

Being that I do not support rape in any way (except in cartoons, as it is generally humorous), killing them in that matter is makes you no better than they are. Although they do deserve punishment... it's a fragile topic. See my quote by Mr. Nietzsche.