Does the Bible Condone Rape?

QUESTION:  Why does the Bible promote rape, in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 by commanding a rape victim to marry her rapist!

RESPONSE:  This is one of those Bible problems where we read back into a passage all of our current cultural sensitivities and run into deep misunderstandings as a result.  Let’s just read the passage in question to begin:

Deut 22:28-29:  When a man comes upon a virgin who has never been engaged and grabs and rapes her and they are found out, the man who raped her has to give her father fifty pieces of silver. He has to marry her because he took advantage of her. And he can never divorce her.

At first glance, this seems to command that a rape victim must marry her abuser! Could anything be more cruel or unfair?  Looked at this way, this passage has been pointed to by many skeptics and atheists as evidence that the Bible is immoral, and misogynist.  How can the law that comes from this ancient Tribe be considered the law of an all-good God?

But wait.  Before we settle on the premise of your question, namely that this passage condones that which is evil, we have to objectively understand it first.  To do that, we have to get out of our own perspective and travel back into a very different world, the world of the ancient near east.

In many ways we might say this world is morally inferior to our own, because it tolerated slavery and patriarchy and polygamy.  People in this strange world aren’t assumed to be equal before the law, and personal liberties aren’t taken to be the most important part of public policy.  Isn't this horrible and wrong?

But these kinds of thoughts lead to an interesting side conversation with three points to make:

First, on what basis do we judge this law as immoral?  The skeptic who rejects the idea of God and objective moral absolutes is in a bit of a conundrum here.  They presume that morals are relative to different times and cultures, built into us by social and chemical evolution, with no objective basis.

But then they look at this sex law of the ancient Israelites and make the bold claim that it’s wrong.  Not just ineffective or inconvenient to us, but actually wrong in an objective sense.  But how can one make such a claim unless they know what good actually is?  And if there is no objective right, then by what standard do we called this rape law backward, regressive or immoral? 

Secondly, the modern, Western critic of Mosaic Law rarely realizes that their basis for critiquing the Bible is the Bible itself.  In other words, the development of Western sensibilities regarding things like personal liberty, sexual boundaries, and individualism are built on premises which would not be self-evident to us, unless the Bible had first paved the way.

Moral developments we take for granted, do not pop into the world out of nothing.  We can thank the work of primitive revelations through figures such as Moses, which lead most today to believe that might does not equal right - an idea which was decidedly not “self-evident” to most people at most times in human history.

Third, the modern critic of Moses usually has no handle on the moral excesses of their own era when they make sport of the excesses of another.  We most recoil at Mosaic Law in the places where that law describes a people bent severely toward honor and chastity and tribal security.  We might see these as “lopsided moral developments” not because they are evil, but because some part of the good objective moral code, which we all acknowledge, has gotten out of whack.

But if we see ourselves as truly objective, we ought to be able to see similar lopsided moral developments inside our own culture – developments which might also stem from some piece of the objective moral law.  Yet, out of whack, they lead us into all kinds of evil as well – evil which people in Moses time would spot easily and criticize us for.

Turning now to those cultural moral excesses of Moses time, we must realize they put a high value on virginity. This is in contrast to our own age, whose commitment to sexual restraint hovers somewhere near zero.  Also, their culture believed women needed to be protected under the oversight of a leading male (their husband or father), in part because the world was filled with rapacious and predatory men whose power is only checked by other powerful men.

Once you understand that context, you can begin to understand why the rule above could be considered fair and just - benevolent even!  When considering Mosaic Law, the modern believer (or skeptic) never has to accept the temporal conditions as ideal or good.  We don’t have to love patriarchy or polygamy or slavery.  No!  We are however, trying to discern whether, given the non-ideal temporal cultural conditions, the law’s transcendent principles can legitimately be considered good.

The evidence says yes. 

First, note that the woman raped does not have to marry the man, the man has to marry the woman.  You might think this is mere semantics – they are married in either case, the victim and the abuser!  Yes, but the way the law puts its demand helps us realize that the consequence is a punishment to the abuser and a grace to the victim.

This is further spelled out by the following rule: he cannot divorce her.  This means the rape exempts the man from being able to make use of the divorce permission Moses would give later (Deut 24:1).  Marriage in this culture was not a romantic institution (though marriages could be very loving) so much as one of economic and social stability.  And women had very few tools to sustain themselves economically on their own, unlike today.  

So to be forced to marry the woman he violates, the man is forced by law to take on the responsibility of providing care for her – forever.  He can’t even make use of the “out clause” which Moses gave for “impurity”.  The rape means he is on the hook to provide for her, no matter the state of her future fidelity to him!

Again, given the high value of virginity, the man has not only violated her physically, but he has taken away from her a primary “dowry” she brings to any marriage union. Having stripped her of that, if he doesn’t marry her, it is likely no one else would.  And thus a raped woman is left to a life of poverty and likely prostitution or slavery to survive.

Interestingly, we have an example of just how in that cultural context, it would be the rape victims who might covet such a law, as a benevolent provision for justice.  In the time of King David, his daughter Tamar is raped by her half-brother Amnon.  In 2 Samuel 13:13 she very much seems to have wanted Amnon to marry her after the rape!  Why?  Because she knows that in that culture it would be very difficult to find someone to marry her and she would rather be married to Amnon and have lifelong security than to be desolate and single.

In fact, this is exactly what happens to Tamar because Amnon – to add to the enormity of his crimes – disgustedly rejects the very woman he, seconds ago, could not live without (2 Sam 13:15).  So she lived without marrying the rest of her life (2 Sam 13:20). 

But one may still protest, even if she gains a lifetime of security in compensation for her honor being violated, surely that is a life sentence of awkwardness and bitterness, even if she is cared for.  We must understand another piece of accompanying Mosaic legislation that mitigates this concern.  For in Exodus 22:16-17 we read:

“If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride price for virgins."

If we put the laws together, this addendum clearly states that the woman does not have to marry her rapist if her father refuses to give her to him.  And even in that culture, as in ours, it is difficult to imagine a dad granting permission for her to marry a man that she utterly hated.  Even under the absolute jurisdiction of their fathers, women in the Ancient Near East could have some say in their own marriage decisions (Gen 24:57).  If the father then refused to grant permission, the rapist would still have to pay the bride price (since he had stolen her marriageability by his action) and not get a bride.

So in fact, the Bible does not condone rape, since it clearly commands the death penalty for a man who rapes a married or betrothed woman (Deut 22:22-27).  And as for young virgins so violated, God’s law actually spared them the double cruelty of a lifetime of destitution, sold into slavery or prostitution.

Is the God of the Old Testament different than the God of the New?

QUESTION: How do you reconcile the Old Testament to the New Testament picture of God? Specifically I'm reading Deuteronomy 28 and the God of this book just does not seem anything like Jesus. In verse 63 it even says he will get pleasure from it... It just seems so different than Jesus and everything he was about.

RESPONSE: This is a very common issue when reading the Bible.  There’s this seeming difference in God's character between the two covenantal periods.  Specifically, the Old Covenant God of Moses is full of wrath, the New Covenant God revealed in Jesus is full of grace.

There are two main things to say about this apparent discrepancy.

1. When we look more deeply, the differences are not as glaring as they first appear.  In other words, when we look inside, everything that is revealed about God's character in the Old Testament is still seen in the New, (and vice versa) even if there's a different emphasis.
2. The different emphasis in God's attributes fits with a well-established pattern of "progressive revelation".  Which is to say that God does not reveal all of himself or his plans at the earliest stages of his interactions with the chosen people.  God's revelations progress in content and depth over time, so we should never, from our position here in the "last days," consider the earliest revelations to be complete or interpret them in isolation from the later stuff.

In dealing with Deut. 28 specifically and this list of blessings and curses, we are getting insight into God that consistently runs across both Old and New testaments.  The holiness of God is revealed inside this moral order: obey and be blessed, disobey and be cursed.  As in physics, so in ethics:  for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  The message is simple:  attune your life to moral reality, just as you do to physical reality.

You might think that outlining (repeatedly) the specific consequences reveals a harshness in God, but would we think a parachuting instructor was harsh if he detailed the graphic results of failure to obey his instructions?  Would we think his lengthy, redundant, legal waiver meant that he was being mean?  No, once we understand the stakes involved, the graphic warnings are actually seen as a kind of mercy.

This teaches us that not only is God a merciful parent (laying out consequences up front), but also God is just, and holy for he follows through with discipline (every curse mentioned here ACTUALLY HAPPENED!).  Also, the stark warnings reveal that God is fair, because God is treating them the same as the nations they would be displacing in the Land.

The point is, what the Jews are learning about God here is not diminished by the arrival of Jesus Christ.  This is Jesus' Father:

• no respecter of persons or nations, impartial and fair (Deut. 10:17).  
• whose rules are not arbitrary but based in his good, fair, and loving character.  So his law is built on love, forbidding unfettered self-interest, protecting the weak, foreigners, children, orphans, widows (10:18-11:1).  
• who chooses his children not based on their pedigree but because of His love! (7:13).  
• How is this inconsistent with the God revealed in Jesus' gospel which teaches us that God adopted us out of no goodness in us, but purely by unmerited favor (Eph 1:3-6)?

Christians did not stop believing in this Lawfulness, and Holiness of God just because Jesus revealed God's grace in a supreme way.  Look at Galatians 6:9 - "do not be fooled, God is not mocked, a man reaps what he sows."  In fact, the Cross makes no sense apart from these characteristics of justice and holiness revealed in the Law.  As much as the Cross shows off God's grace, the pain of it also reflected the terrible, ultimate punishment for sin.   No, the cross is God's grace AND justice together (Rom 3:26).

So to my first point:  there is justifiable wrath in the New Testament (Romans 1:18, 2:5, 5:9) and in the teaching and actions of Jesus (Matt 3:7, Luke 21:23, John 2:15), which is consistent with the picture of God we get from Moses.  Also there is amazing tenderness and grace in the God of the Old Testament which is consistent with Jesus (Hosea 2:14).

The consistent picture of God is simply that God is completely "other" - holy and perfect and hating sin.  Also there is one consistent picture of sin separating people from people and people from God and ultimately diminishing human life and leading to terrible outcomes; in the Old and New Testament.

To underline this, remember that the picture Jesus paints of the sinner apart from his Grace, is probably worse than the picture Moses paints of his People who are disobedient!  The Old Testament warned of people being pillaged and suffering greatly for disobedience, and yes death for many... but for Jesus, the disobedient will suffer eternal death (Luke 12:5)!

And look at the curses of Deut. 28, and how it paints the disobedient as groping, blind, oppressed, robbed, hungry, and powerless.  This isn't a contradiction of the New Testament, rather, it sets it up beautifully!  For how can we see the sacrifice of Jesus as a Rescue unless we can see in our own disobedience, the same kinds of helplessness God predicts for disobedient Israel?  We too were disobedient and wrecked and helpless when Christ came into our lives.  This is painting one consistent picture of human nature, and God's nature.

But perhaps you still struggle with the language Moses uses - in the language of Deuteronomy, it looks like God is sort of deliberately inflicting suffering on them (and gleefully!).  Yet who is the one who ACTUALLY decides to invoke the consequences God warned about?  The people do!  See, Moses didn't care to separate the primary cause from the secondary cause in his language, which makes it seem to us like God is more callous than he actually is.

Imagine primary and secondary causes like this:  I set up a booby trap in my home for robbers.  I say to you, don't go in there, you'll get smashed by my trap, it's for robbers.  Then you go in anyhow.  And guess what?  You get smashed!  Who smashed you?  Well, in a sense, I did, I set up a trap to smash - it was MY trap after all, so clearly I caused it.  But truth is, YOU caused yourself to be smashed, because I warned you away, and you went in anyway!

It's just like that here in Deut. 28.  It feels really rough because God says, I'M doing curse X, Y, or Z.  But God's actually simply allowing natural consequences to flow, rather than deliberately inflicting arbitrary terror.  In fact, God is only a secondary cause of the curse, we ourselves are the primary cause of the cursing.  In the New Testament Paul will put it like this, "God hands the disobedient over..." (Romans 1:28) so He releases them to do what ought not to be done, and then they suffer according to their choices.

So God's holiness, and his judgment on sin is consistent throughout the Bible.

Ok, now my second point.  There is progressive revelation here.  Yes, we can see judgment and wrath in the New Testament and even at the heart of Jesus very mission to save because it borrows the same language of God cursing the disobedient sinner to separation... (See John 3:36).  HOWEVER, in Jesus we get no sense of God “delighting” in the judgment which you pointed out (Deut. 28:63).  So do we have reason to think this may be not the whole story on God's attitude?  Yes, because of what ELSE is said about God LATER in revelation history.

For example:

Ezek. 18:23-24: Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Instead, don’t I take pleasure when he turns from his ways and lives?

Because of progressive revelations, we can see Deut 28:63 as hyperbole.  We can see this in the context of the sarcastic, dramatic way that the ancient Middle Eastern mind would think and talk, not as proof of God's callousness.

If we take all Scripture as one, we rest assured, God is not happily cursing his people.  We don't interpret one verse in isolation or in violation of another.  So we learn from LATER revelation that God must have been speaking in Deut. 28 like an exasperated parents speaks.

In fact, I have said something similar to my kids - "If you don't put your bike away, I am going to run over it someday and I won't even be sad, I will not shed a single tear, I will just happily take that thing down to the dump!!"  Saying such a thing, doesn't mean I wouldn’t have empathy for my kids or wouldn’t feel their pain at loss - even if it was all due to their choices.  I would have empathy still, and so does God.  We KNOW this, because Deut. 28 isn't the only thing God ever said to us.

Also, when it comes to progressive revelation, how did this all play out AFTER he laid down the law?  In fact subsequent history shows, God laid out these curses, but then rather than invoke them at the first sign of disobedience, tolerated the worse kind of violations of his law for centuries before they finally reaped the harvest they had sown.  And in this demonstration of God’s patience we see yet another consistent insight into God's character which spans from Old to New Testament.  For the God revealed in Jesus also said:

2 Peter 3:9:  The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

So if you look deeper you will see not only the consistency in the Bible’s picture of God’s character, but also how all Scripture must be interpreted as a whole.