Can Apologists Rehabilitate This Disgusting Bible Verse? ![rw-book-cover](https://img.youtube.com/vi/spyhMQVB5IM/maxresdefault.jpg) what the Bible says. I don't [ \_\_ ] care what the Bible says, but if you're going to bring it up, then you agree that rape victims should have to marry their rapists. >> You're flat out wrong, but I'm happy to educate you. >> All right, let's see it. >> Your first mistake was using Google AI overview as the extent of your research. >> In this instance, it happens to be accurate. >> Those verses are not talking about a violent assault. >> They 100% are. >> And you would know this if you just read a few verses prior. If a man committed a non-consentual assault, he would be put to death and the woman was declared an innocent victim that was free to go. But in the verses you're referring to, it uses the word seize, which has a broader meaning in Hebrew. It was common language of the culture because you take the woman from the father. So I've talked about the differences in these different passages many times in the past, including in a recent video, number mlen 3197, as well as number mlen 3079. And in a chapter on this passage in my recent book, the Bible says so. But in this clip, Brooke has made three just catastrophic mistakes. One of those mistakes is actually directly ignoring the context. One of them is in intentionally misleading the audience by altering the translation so as not to undermine his own argument. And one of them is in pretending to know Hebrew when he very clearly does not know Hebrew. So let's take a look at the first one. Brooks says that these passages are talking about what actually happens when there is a nonconsensual assault. This is verses 25- 27 of Deuteronomy 22. And let's take a look at those in the New International Version, which is the translation that Brooks put up on the screen for these three verses. But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Now let's note that the victim is a young woman who's a virgin but who has been pledged to be married. This means a woman who is betrothed. She is engaged to be married. Now I want to go to verse 28 in the New International Version, which is the verse that Brook says is not about rape. 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 50 shekels of silver. So two things here. You'll note the social status of the victim is different. This time it's not about a virgin who is engaged to be married. It's about a virgin who is not engaged to be married. The difference in the punishment is a result of the difference in the social status. and the different property rights that may be asserted over the victim. But notice the NIV quite explicitly understands this to be about rape. Brooks realized that and so switched from quoting the New International Version to quoting the English Standard Version, the ESV. He intentionally shared a different translation so you would not see that the translation that uses the word rape to illustrate that verses 25 through 27 are explicitly talking about rape. And now he's masking the fact that that translation understands verse 28 to be about rape as well. That is intentionally misleading the audience into imagining that the majority of scholars don't actually think this is about rape when the reality is that they do. The consensus view is that this is about rape. The strong consensus view is that this is about rape. Which brings up Brooks's third catastrophic flaw. The notion that the word sees that is used in the English Standard Version refers to a broader verbal action that does not necessarily mean force or violence. And this is just entirely false. The verb there is tapas. Now, tapas can have a wider sense and can refer to just holding, handling, or using something. But here's where actually knowing Hebrew is important. When you look at the uses of tapas, it only refers to handling, holding or using something when that thing is an inanimate object. Every single time that the object of the verb tapas is a person, it is about force. It is about going against someone's will. It is about violence. So yes, verse 28 is absolutely about violently seizing a woman against her will in order to have intercourse with her. That's sexual assault. That's rape. That's why the New International Version translates rape in this passage. Brooks saw that and realized he needed to replace that translation with a different translation that would not render rape. And I want to briefly go back to the translations that Brooks used earlier because you'll notice that the English Standard Version that he used and where he said it uses C's which is a reference to the man taking the woman from the father's household. Well, the English Standard Version uses C's as well in verse 25. So Brooks had no choice but to alter the translation he was using when he moved from verse 25 to verse 28. Because if he used the New International Version both times it would be a reference to rape. If he used the English Standard Version both times, it would be a reference to C's and that would undermine his argument. So he had to use one for one verse and one for the other in order to create the illusion that Bible translations actually understand these verses to be referring to different things. And they don't. They're both referring to the same thing between verses 25 and 28. Brooks doesn't even begin to have the first clue what he's talking about. and he is consciously misleading the audience. >> Brings me to your second mistake. You miss so much cultural context. In the ancient near east, typically such a woman would be considered damaged goods with no marriageable value, a financial loss to her father, be left to poverty, and even persecuted, but the man would be let free. The Bible radically raises the bar. It is not God's ideal, but it is a step forward. Radically, instead, the man is forced to take lifelong responsibility. This isn't perfect, but it's a radical reformation of this brutal system towards justice. So, Brooks said one thing that was right here, and one thing that was entirely false, something that he just made up. Uh, the thing that he said that was right was that the reason for this legislation is that this sexual assault would leave this woman ineligible for proper Israelite marriage and so results in the man being forced to marry her. Now, the thing that Brooks said that was entirely false and entirely made up was the notion that this was some kind of radical reformation uh raising the bar step forward uh away from this brutal system. This law is actually precisely the same as this brutal system as it had existed for centuries prior to the composition of this law. See this law and a related law in Exodus 22 15 and 16 are actually just reinscribing a middle Assyrian law that had been around for many centuries. So if we go to middle Assyrian laws a sections 55 and 56. And here is a quotation of these two passages from David Wright's phenomenal book inventing God's law. We're going to see a Mesopotamian version of this law that is slightly broader. And we're going to see that Exodus and Deuteronomy have interpreted it in two different ways, but have elected for one of the penalties that are mentioned in the Middle Assyrian law and not the other. So, here's what this reads. If a man seizes a maiden by force and rapes her, a maiden who lives in the house of her father who is not asked for, whose womb is not opened, who is not married, and against whose father's house a claim does not exist, whether in the middle of the city, in the open country, at night, in the street, in a grain store, or in a city festival, the father of the maiden shall take the wife of the one who had intercourse with the maiden and give her for raping. She shall not return to her husband. He takes her. The father shall give his daughter who had intercourse to the one who had intercourse with her in marriage-like dependent protection. So this is the part that is not reinscribed in Exodus or Deuteronomy. Basically, if the perpetrator was married, then the father of the victim does the same to the wife of the perpetrator. Now, here's where we get to what the authors of Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 22 actually borrow. If he does not have a wife, the man who had intercourse shall give to her father three-fold the silver that is the price of the maiden. The one who had intercourse with her shall marry her. He shall not constrain or reject her. If her father is not willing, he shall receive the three-fold amount of silver for the maiden and give his daughter to whomever he desires. If the maiden gives herself to the man, the man shall swear to this effect. They shall not approach his wife. The one who had intercourse shall pay the three-fold amount of silver, that is the price of the maiden. The father shall do with his daughter as he desires. Now, we actually see this last part in Exodus 22:15-16 where the father can withhold the daughter, can say, "No, I'll just take the money and the girl is going to stay with me. You don't get to have her as a wife." That is in Exodus 22:15-16. That's not in Deuteronomy 22:28 and 29. And Exodus uses a different verb, a verb that can refer to seduction or to sexual assault. Deuteronomy uses a verb that refers quite explicitly to sexual assault and even uses the verbal root ana to refer to what the man has done to her which is violate her, humiliate her. And that is the exact same verb that is used in the earlier section where it says that only the man shall die because he has a na her. So both sections of Deuteronomy 22 use the exact same verb to refer to the precise crime that has been committed against the girl. The first section however is in reference to a woman who is betrothed. So that's a different kind of property rights that are being violated and the later section is about a virgin who is not betrothed. And so the property rights are those of the father who has lost the income of the bride price from selling his daughter into marriage. That's why the penalty is that he is recompensed. And the middle Assyrian law also has a higher penalty. The perpetrator must pay three times the bride price. In Deuteronomy 22:28 and 29, it's just a slightly elevated bride price. So, it's actually a step back in that regard. It's not a step forward in any other regard apart from maybe the fact that the only circumstance that is treated is the circumstance that is treated in the Middle Assyrian laws in the case of a perpetrator who is not married. The other part of the law where the man's wife is violated by the father of the victim that is not reproduced in either Exodus 22 or Deuteronomy 22. And if you want to call that a step forward, go ahead. But the rest of Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 22 are not in any sense a step forward. They are precisely reinscribing what had been in existence for about 6 to 800 years before the covenant code had ever been written. So Brooks's assumption that this is radical reformation, that this is a step forward, that this is not perfect, but this is God's will, is entirely ignorant. Brooks doesn't have the first clue what he's talking about. He's just asserting stuff that either he made up or that he saw on the internet or read in some kind of apologetic text. >> Which brings me to your third mistake. You miss so much biblical context. Proverbs 31 radically presents women as capable, dignified agents. Genesis that we are all equally made in the image of God in Galatians that we are all one in Christ. And yet the book of Proverbs is phenomenally misogynistic. The book of Genesis is phenomenally misogynistic. Paul is phenomenally misogynistic. This is cherry-picking specific interpretations of specific passages to try to jin up the sense that the Bible is actually an egalitarian text. That the Bible actually champions the rights of women when in reality these are particular idiosyncratic interpretations of isolated passages that really existed to do other things. Jesus treats every woman with radical dignity. >> You can get a little bit more of that in Luke than you can get in the other gospels. But Jesus also refers to a sereneian woman as a dog. And no, that is not some kind of playful term of endearment. That is a xenophobic porative reference. >> Paul raises the standard in Ephesians of mutual love in marriage. Uh, no. Someone pretending to be Paul who was writing after Paul's death in Ephesians 5 said that women must submit to their husbands and does not tell husbands they have to submit to their wives. They must just love their wives the way Jesus loved the church. Which is why Brooks here does not refer to mutual submission, just mutual love, which is still misogynistic. And I've got a number of videos on that. With that you can see God's overarching ideals. >> I can see the unifying frameworks that you are imposing on the text in order to tjersate the text and make it say something that is rhetorically useful for you and you really have no idea if that's actually what the authors or the earliest audiences understood by these texts. Therefore, the verses you are referencing aren't the destination. It is an early culturally bound step in the right direction. That's a rep. you got refuted, but you do reference many other verses. So, everyone be on the lookout for other parts because I'm going to point out the mistakes you make with those as well. So, this is a pretty pedestrian example of online apologetics where Brooks doesn't have the training, the skills, the abilities, the resources to actually assess the accuracy of the arguments to which he's responding. But he does have an internet connection, which means he has access to other apologetic arguments, whether from books or from articles or from websites or from social media videos. And so if he likes the cut of one of the jibs of one of those arguments, he will just reproduce it without knowing if it is actually valid. Because again, he does not have the training, the skills, the abilities, the resources to actually assess the quality of those arguments. He cannot drill down to the bedrock of these arguments because he doesn't know how to. He is performing confidence, conviction, and academic competence for an audience that just needs to be made to feel better. and watching a convincing performance will make them feel better because they also do not have the training, the skills, the abilities, or the resources to plum the depths of Brooks's argument. This is all about performing for an audience that just needs to be made to feel better and a convincing performance will do the job. And this is something I have repeatedly pointed out, a catastrophic flaw in most online apologetics. The people making these arguments saying, "Ha, refuted. Boom. Roasted. I'm going to point out your mistakes," aren't well trained enough to even know if there are mistakes. Now, the same is probably true of the OP, the person Brooks is responding to. In this instance, they happen to be right. This is what the overwhelming majority of scholars agree on. Brooks doesn't know anything about the scholarship. Brooks doesn't know anything about the data. But he seems to be able to convince others through these performances that he does. And that is all he needs to do to be successful at apologetics. And the fit for this video is Lavar Burton says read band books., Can Apologists Rehabilitate This Disgusting Bible Verse?, YouTube, 01kmv7epjpyhtae9h8me4n6k8m.