Peanut Gallery - Does Yahweh Command Male Rapists to Purchase Their Voiceless...

[pshun2404]

Bluelightening said...

Let us begin.

"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 her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." -- Deuteronomy 22:28-29

The above passage is from Deuteronomy, a book of laws given by Yahweh to Moses to the Hebrew people - supposedly his chosen people. Now in the event that a young girl who has never had intercourse is raped by a man, what is Yahweh's decree that must occur? Well, the man, be he fifteen or twenty, thirty or seventy, must purchase the girl, be she eight or nine, twelve or fourteen, from her father. Her worth is fifty shekels of silver, for she is property like cattle or oxen. And then, in one of the worst decrees in any of the major religions, the rapist is required to marry his victim.

Think about that for a moment and let it sink in. The rapist is required to marry his victim.

The whole debate is a contrived erroneous issue...

Neither the Hebrew or the Greek of the LXX say anything here about "RAPE"...
the word is speaking perhaps of one who intimidates, persuades, or even possibly charms the virgin to lay with him...nothing in the language suggests he violently forced the young woman against her will

Paul

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Another post is up: #5

 

[SolomonVII]

It was good form in Post 5 to steer away from the emotionally laden terms of the rabbit trail laid out in the previous post. Talk about Canaanite war gods and moo-cows really add nothing to an analysis of the actual text being referred to. Such language may serve a rhetorical purpose to rally the atheist or modern day Marcionites to the cause but only by avoiding a substantive and educated examination of the actual text being discussed.

 

[BL2KTN]

Submitted my response to Mark yesterday morning... not sure what the hold-up is.

 

[squint]

It requires the rapist to financially and socially support his victim in a society where a raped woman would find no hope for a husband, and therefore no hope for survival once her father died.

Charge of sexism thrown on the above.

Most women who have been abused wind up extremely independent and not 'in need' of man or his financial mercies.

As to the (supposed) law in question, in usual fashion there are much deeper matters to probe than the petty surface/social/external actions/requirements of any given law.

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

Are you guys trying to do an informal debate of a formal debate? You rebels you.

 

[SolomonVII]

Mostly just throwing peanuts I think, to keep the debaters honest and on track.

 

[SolomonVII]

Originally Posted by ChristsSoldier115 View Post
In other words, you can't help but be biased to ancient middle eastern laws and customs with a 21st century western understanding, with the assumption that your morals are superior. Am I correct?

No.

The opposite in fact. Soft morals are inferior and not up to standard for hard times. It is an open question if they are even up to standard for soft times

EDIT:

Upon re-read of your post, I now see that my initial understanding of what was being said was wrong.

In which case, the answer is not "No", but YES. In order to do a fair assessment of this law, it becomes necessary to recognize our own biases, and that our own frame of reference will prejudice our answer. A fair judgment of the goodness or badness of the law in question must first take in account the frame of reference of ancient Israel, and look at the utility of such a law not from the perspective of all the choices avaiable to us, but from the perspective of all the choices available to them.

..

 

[DogmaHunter]

Being raped and being completely abandoned and shunned is not just infinitely more hard on the victim, but deadly in a world where women looked to men for survival.

If this god truelly has the moral highground, he would have commanded the people to NOT abbandon and shun the rape VICTIM. And if the law was supposed to be "hard", then he could have also added that those who DID abbandon and shun the victim should be gravely punished.

THAT would be a sensible commandment.
That would be the kind of law I would expect from the "most moral" being.

Instead, he comes up with a law that by any and all accounts, looks suspiciously like a law that a wicked human male would come up with in a man's society.

 

[DogmaHunter]

It requires the rapist to financially and socially support his victim in a society where a raped woman would find no hope for a husband, and therefore no hope for survival once her father died.

Perhaps your god should have told the people to not treat a rape victim like someone who's infected with the black plague, instead...

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

I guess my argument is missed by some people, except Solomon.. he figured it out

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Perhaps your god should have told the people to not treat a rape victim like someone who's infected with the black plague, instead...

First, that's not was the Torah says to do.

It was the ancient world. There wasn't exactly an open job market, nor was there a modern welfare state. If the rapist isn't going to financially and socially support his victim, who should?

 

[BL2KTN]

Again, still waiting for my rebuttal to go up. Not sure why it's taking forever.

 

[DogmaHunter]

First, that's not was the Torah says to do.

It was the ancient world. There wasn't exactly an open job market, nor was there a modern welfare state. If the rapist isn't going to financially and socially support his victim, who should?

I don't even know how to respond to that.

The rapist should be punished and the rest should go on with their lives.
Instead of accomodating the barbarism, perhaps your deity of choice should have learned them some basic manners and how to treat your fellow human beings.

Instead of coming up with ridiculously immoral rules that treat women like cattle and people in general like property and such... what with the whole condoning slavery and all.

That's something that always amazed me... people yap on and on about how "loving" and "moral" their god is, but what I read in the OT is all about accomodating barbarism instead of consistently promoting civilised behaviour. It's exactly what I would expect if the whole thing was invented by humans in a man's society in that time.

It's not what I would expect from the most moral being one can conceive off.
I mean... I'm more moral then that...

 

[Achilles6129]

Easy answer: the law isn't talking about rape.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I don't even know how to respond to that.

The rapist should be punished and the rest should go on with their lives.
Instead of accomodating the barbarism, perhaps your deity of choice should have learned them some basic manners and how to treat your fellow human beings.

Instead of coming up with ridiculously immoral rules that treat women like cattle and people in general like property and such... what with the whole condoning slavery and all.

That's something that always amazed me... people yap on and on about how "loving" and "moral" their god is, but what I read in the OT is all about accomodating barbarism instead of consistently promoting civilised behaviour. It's exactly what I would expect if the whole thing was invented by humans in a man's society in that time.

It's not what I would expect from the most moral being one can conceive off.
I mean... I'm more moral then that...

You can't exactly legislate a job market into existence wherein an independent woman could find gainful employment. In that time a woman needed a male provider because trade skills were passed down from father to son with no educational provisions for women, because there were no public schools. And even if she acquired such skills (which she surely could have, being that women and men are truly equal in ways ancient societies did not fully recognize), what person would hire her, a woman?

I bet you're one of the same people that relishes in reminding us that the US cannot go in and impose its way of life on Afghans or Iraqis. Healer, thyself.

You simply have unrealistic expectations about what law can and cannot accomplish in society. Law doesn't impose ideal situations upon society; it regulates society as it exists, within the social structures and markets that exist. Attempts to reconstruct societies through legislation are not necessarily doomed to failure, but in an ancient society without the provisions and resources of the modern industrial state, they almost certainly are.

And of course, that's what we need to recognize about the Torah: it is a law code for an ancient society that humanized the legal code within its ancient context. It is not, and can never be, an ethical code for all time.

 

[SolomonVII]

Again, still waiting for my rebuttal to go up. Not sure why it's taking forever.

Yea, my hands are all loaded up with peanuts, and nobody to throw them at.
I am going to have to start taking aim at all those glasses of beer that Mark has lined up.

He still does have all those beers lined up doesn't he? I have had that feature turned off for quite some time now.

 

[TheDag]

If this god truelly has the moral highground, he would have commanded the people to NOT abbandon and shun the rape VICTIM. And if the law was supposed to be "hard", then he could have also added that those who DID abbandon and shun the victim should be gravely punished.

THAT would be a sensible commandment.
That would be the kind of law I would expect from the "most moral" being.

Instead, he comes up with a law that by any and all accounts, looks suspiciously like a law that a wicked human male would come up with in a man's society.

the problem is that it has not been established that the passage is talking about rape. It just is not logical that it is. The issue has been raised that it means something else. All that has been done is that one person has come along and said this word today means this so therefore back then it must have meant the same thing. No adequate rebuttal has been made. If you don't get that point then let me ask you this. How many people in the 1940's would think you were calling them a homosexual if you described them as gay? None is the answer. All BlueLightningTN has done is looked at a couple of verses and ignored others.

 

[squint]

Easy answer: the law isn't talking about rape.

Isn't the guy making the anti-God case an unbeliever anyway?

The first order of the day is to point out that unbelievers don't understand the law. Believers know the law is SPIRITUAL.

No, the law is not just so simple as to look at the surface external matters of the law. The law is made to penetrate the INTERNAL TOPICS of lawlessness.

To read or understand the law as external rape, which is NOT the case anyway, and to disregard that topics of law are not based on merely externals is a bad argument out of the gate.

And the gentleman making the counter has rightfully pointed in this direction, refusing to go down the rape ally only.

Let's face it, some paraphrased versions of the text are BAD translations often done by blindmen. And when picked up by other blindmen they become sensationalist nonsense.

s

 

[Mama Kidogo]

Easy answer: the law isn't talking about rape.

Not in the modern sense. But rape still means without permission. In those days only a father had the authority to give that permission.