I have written extensively on the issue of rape and the Bible, and rape and Atheism for that matter—see here and here.
Since I am currently discussing the issue of rape in the Bible with some Atheists (the results of which I will post as soon as our discussions are over—which is generally when the Atheists get tired of running away from the actual facts and focus solely on calling me names) and inevitably, they focus exclusively on Deuteronomy 22:28-29 which states:
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.
Now, issue one is to ask the Atheist if they are condemning rape. If they are then issue two is to ask upon what premise they do so (and no, they are not allowed to beg, borrow or steal from the Judeo-Christian principles). After all, various celebrity Atheists have argued that rape played a beneficial role in human evolution. Richard Dawkins has affirmed that rape is only arbitrarily immoral. Thus, what does it matter what an accidentally and temporarily existing hairless ape does to another accidentally and temporarily existing hairless ape?
Atheists will complain that the text has the woman being forced to marry her rapist—and her father gets some money out of the deal no less!
I quoted the King James Version but the various translations matter not as the issue is the original languages and the context: grammatical context, genera, etc. You will note that the Atheists read “lay hold on her, and lie with her” and they invent the idea that this is about rape. Now, before asking “Well, what else could it possibly be” we must affirm just that: the Atheists read “lay hold on her, and lie with her” and they invent the idea that this is about rape. Now, I say “invent” rather than simply “interpret” because well, I should admit that I have not read everything that anyone has ever written on this issue for the past three and a half millennia or so. However, I say “invent” because a key question to ask the Atheists is why it is that, at least to my admittedly limited knowledge, no one for the past three and a half millennia even imagined that the text is stating that which neo-Atheists de jour demand that it means.
Why is it only within the past few years, and mostly as promulgated by anonymous online activists this text has been (mis)understood as such? It is that the anonymous online activist is the greatest Bible scholar to have ever existed? Or, is it that Atheists are reading their presupposition of rape into the text and in doing so they are taking a text out of context to make a pretext for a proof-text?
But that if this was, indeed, a text which demanded that a woman be forced to marry her rapist (which her dad makes a few shekels off of the deal)? Well, then the Atheists conclude that this means that the Bible is immoral and thus, not to be followed. Of course, this means that they are judging the Bible by a moral standard which is why I noted that their presupposition on that point must be challenged.
But now, I find that Atheists will explain that this is an issue of “that was then, this is now” so that it is immoral now but was not then. Logically, one could not condemn past actions since they were not immoral back then but could only say that “by today’s standards” it is only now immoral—this, of course, means that their condemnations are discredited.
You see, they appeal to the moral zeitgetist but what happens when it shifts into a poltergeist? What is to guarantee that rape will not make an evolutionary and therefore moral comeback? After all, perhaps in locations devastated by a natural disaster people will need to reproduce quickly and men could accomplish this much faster via rape.
Now, I will only touch upon the text lightly since I dealt with that and the surrounding statements, the immediate context, within my reply to utterly everything that evilbible.com has to say about it (found within the links above). The genre of the text is a litigious one. Thus, it provides general rules the details of which would be adjudicated at trial on a case by case basis. The key portion of the chapter deals with a man doing something with or to a woman. There are different Hebrew words used for her approach to her: whether he is grabbing her by force, whether the two are coming together mutually, etc.
Also, different circumstances are considered such as whether the encounter took place within the city where a yelling woman could have been heard, our in the country where she would not have been, etc.
This text refers to a mutual sex encounter and yet, since she is a virgin and was not betrothed then since her virginity was given up due to the encounter then what we would call a “shotgun” wedding takes place. When you are the relevant portions of the chapter—and maybe even my elucidation of the details—you will recognize that this is the case. Then, if you want to see what the chapter actually states about rape, you want to read verse 25 which is an actual case of rape which proves that the biblical view of rape is that it is a crime punishable by the death penalty.
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