We’ll start with the bit that the
meme references as being the verse atheists use to make the accusation.
Specifically, it’s Numbers, Chapter 31, Verses 17-18, which reads:
“31:17 Now therefore, kill every male
among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by lying with
him. 18 But all the young girls who
have not known a man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”
For context, these are the orders
that Moses gave to the Israelites after discovering that they had spared the
lives of some of the Midianites he had previously ordered them to kill (for the
crime, bu the way, of accepting the Israelites into their community,
intermarrying with them, and inviting them to their religious ceremonies).
Aside from the explicit genocide, there are clear implications for what will
happen to the virgin girls who the fighters are to “keep alive for yourselves,”
but it’s not explicitly stated. This gives the Christian a bit of wiggle room
to claim that this verse is not calling for rape. But, interestingly, it’s the
very verses the meme calls in defense that clarify exactly what is going to
happen to those young virgins.
Let’s jump to the most relevant:
Deuteronomy 21, verses 10-14:
“10:14 When you go out to war against
your enemies, and Yahweh your god gives them into your hand and you take them
captive, 11 and you see among the
captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, 12 and you bring her home to your
house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. 13 and she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and
shall remain in your house and lament her father and her mother a full month.
After that you may go into her, and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.
14 But if you no longer delight in
her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for
money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her.”
The meme presents this as “the
captive women are allowed a time to mourn before they marry,” which is clearly
disingenuous. They are allowed a period of mourning before their captor rapes
them, after which they may be kept as a wife or turned out of the house. Requiring
a waiting period before raping a captive does not make it not a rape. Calling
her a wife does not make it not a rape. This is clearly going to be the fate of
the captive virgins from Numbers 31. At no point in any of this is it even
remotely suggested that the woman’s consent is desired or required; they are
captives. When people accuse the Bible of condoning rape, they aren’t
“conveniently ignoring” this verse; it is part
of the accusation.
And what of the laws regarding rape
in Deuteronomy 22 that the meme also claims we ignore? Are they clearly against
rape, as the meme suggests? Let’s take a look at them, starting with
Deuteronomy, Chapter 22, Verse 23, which is the first verse that appears to
directly address rape.
“22:23 If there is a betrothed virgin,
and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them out to the gate of the city and you
shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry
out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his
neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
So this is a very specific
situation: the rape of a betrothed woman. Note that the offense with which the
rapist is charged is not presented as being against the woman, but against her
fiancé/husband. Note also that if the woman didn’t call for help, the sex is
assumed to be consensual and she is therefore also put to death. Which means
any woman who is sexually assaulted under these laws is in a terrible position:
she can attempt to call for help and risk her attacker killing her, or she can
stay silent in the hopes that her life will be spared and nobody else will find
out. She is then forced into the position of having to collude with her rapist
to keep the assault secret, because at that point her life is forfeit.
Moving on to the very next verse:
“25 But if in the open country a man
meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her,
then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no
offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and
murdering his neighbor, 27 because
he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for
help there was no one to rescue her.”
Again, this is specifically the rape
of a betrothed woman. The rape itself is not the issue, it’s the violation of
another man’s property. Also, it’s worth pointing out that elsewhere in the law
it is specified that a man may not be put to death on anything less than the
testimony of two witnesses. Given that this rape law very clearly specifies
that it only applies when there are no witnesses around, how would it ever be
prosecuted? It can only ever be one person’s word against another, and it seems
impossible to see how this law could ever be justly applied.
But the final rape law is the most
damning, and it comes in the very next verse.
“28 If a man meets a virgin who is not
betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, 29 then the man who lay with her shall
give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be
his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.”
Here we find out what happens to
virgin women who are not betrothed or married. And again we see that the
offense is not against the woman, but against the man who owns her: in this
case, her father. All that is required is that the father be financially
compensated for the loss of a marriageable daughter. The woman herself is
handed over to her rapist to be assaulted at his leisure for the rest of his
life. Again, nowhere is it implied that the woman’s consent is desired or
required for any of this. If anything, this law incentivizes men to rape eligible women whom they are otherwise
unable to convince to marry them.
Incidentally, there is no law that
says anything about raping non-virgin, unmarried women (which would include
widows).
I would contend that none of these
laws are actually “against rape,” so much as being against violating the sexual
property rights of the men who own the victims. When atheists say that the
Bible condones rape, we don’t “conveniently ignore,” the verses this meme calls
on to defend the Bible. Those verses are evidence
for the accusation.
I’m not bringing this up to score
points against Christians. I sincerely believe that the vast majority of
Christians are absolutely opposed to rape. I sincerely believe that the vast
majority recognize that compelling a woman into a forced marriage before (or as
a result of) raping her is still rape. If anything, the desperation with which
such dishonest memes attempt to deny that these verses say what they so clearly
say betrays how deeply their creators understand the monstrousness of these
instructions. In order to think of their religion or their God as moral, the
only recourse is to deny these instructions or pretend they don’t mean what
they plainly say. Most religious folks are better people than their holy books
would have them be.
I’m bringing this up because these
defenses are dishonest. It offends me
to see people telling outright lies, especially when they are so easily
checked. It derails conversation and inhibits understanding. I understand why
they may feel the need to do it – why they may even be lying to themselves –
but that doesn’t mean I think it’s excusable. What good is it to hold a faith,
if holding it is based on a lie?
