Does God Condone Sexual Assault?  How can you justify a god that says that a rape victim should have to be wed to her rapist? >> If you want to tell me where that's at, we can pull it up and look at it because it God is not condoning rape. >> All right, let's see it. >> This one says, "If a man happens to meet a virgin who has not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father 50 shekels of silver, he must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." So, I wanted to pause to address the fact that this content creator put on the screen between asterisks bad translation. Now, this is the NIV, which is a bad translation in a lot of ways, but this is not one of them. Using the rendering rape is a bit more interpretive than a more literal translation would be. However, this is an accurate translation. And this content creator very clearly neither has the training nor the expertise to competently assess quality of translation. It's a bad translation for them because it disagrees with their dogma. And as we're going to see, their dogma is not based on anything remotely approximating again a competent grasp of the issues surrounding the interpretation of this passage. Back up just a couple of verses. >> I don't have the whole thing. That one got verse. If we back up to verse 25, it says, "But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman, there is the young woman no sin deserving of death. For just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter." For he found her in the countryside, and the betrod young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her. In verse 25, here's a man forcing himself on her. She's crying out. She obviously doesn't want to do it, and he ising her, right? And it says specifically that man should be put to death. Now if we go down to the verse 28 which is the very next verse. It says if a man finds a young woman who is a virgin who is not betrolled and he seizes her and lies with her and they are found out then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman's fathers 50 shekels of silver and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her, he shall not be permitted to divorce her all the days of his life. This doesn't say anything about him forcing himself upon her or her crying out like that other verse did. So this is actually in the context them sleeping together, not her like crying out to get out of it and not him forcing himself on her. It doesn't use that same terminology. So it would almost contradict itself if it's saying hey if the man raps her here then he should be put to death but if he rapes her here then he shouldn't. It contradicts itself. Basically she's giving consent and they're lying together and he's saying in that instance then they should actually marry one another. >> So this content creator's argument has two different parts. The first part is an appeal to this notion that we have two different cases and if they're both cases of rape, they must contradict each other because one merits the death penalty and one does not. And that simply can't be. So obviously the second case is not rape. And then that is supported by the notion that the fact that the language in reference to the sexual act itself differs between these two cases must indicate that the language in verse 28 refers to something other than rape. And neither of these arguments has any basis in any kind of competent grasp of the Hebrew or of sound biblical exugesus. Uh this is nonsensical and it betrays this content creator's abject ignorance of both biblical Hebrew and sound exugesus or hermeneutics. And it's also wildly misleading because the content creator says, well, let's look at the context and then entirely ignores the context. But let's take a look at the actual context. We're actually looking at eight verses here as part of this sense unit. Deuteronomy 22:22 down to verse 29. And this sense unit has three different parts. The first part addresses what happens when a man sleeps with a woman who's married already and the outcome is execution of both of them. Notice this verse doesn't make any reference whatsoever to consent. The second part talks about what happens when a man finds a virgin who is betrothed in the city. And then the next element of this second part is what happens if a man finds a virgin who is betrothed in the open field. So we've got two different sets of circumstances regarding a man having sexual intercourse with a virgin who is betrothed. And then the third part are the last two verses. And this is what happens if a man sleeps with a virgin who is not betrothed. So the three different parts of this sense unit are already married, a virgin who is betrothed, a virgin who is not betrothed. That's the actual variable. Now the middle section causes confusion because it divides it into two different parts addressing what happens if it's in a city, what happens if it's in the open field. It has the illusion of addressing consent, but it's not addressing consent because consent wasn't really a thing back then. Because the act of sex in the ancient world was not a mutual activity that two equal partners engaged in. The act of sex was something that an active sexual agent, overwhelmingly a man, did to a passive sexual object in the Bible, usually a woman. And the consent, the autonomy, the agency of the passive sexual object did not matter because it doesn't say anything about consent here. It's all about where it happens irrespective of consent. Because in order to conclude that this must be about consent, you must conclude that if a woman didn't consent in a city, rape can't happen. Because that's what the passage says. If a man finds, and by the way, that is the verbal root mata, finds. This is not something that has been set up beforehand. If a man finds a woman and lies with her and it happened in a city, kill them both because she didn't cry for help. But you notice it doesn't say if she doesn't cry for help. It just says if it happens in a city, she didn't cry for help. So, it's not about consent. It's about whether or not this is a location where she should have stopped it or could have stopped it, which just betrays the abject ignorance of the authors of this part of Deuteronomy because there are countless different reasons that a man could successfully complete a sexual assault in a city. She could have cried out. Maybe nobody heard her. Maybe her voice was not loud enough. Maybe he had his hands over her mouth or on her throat. Or maybe she was so terrified she could not cry out. There are numerous different reasons that she would not have consented and this law would still condemn her because it is not actual juristp prudence. It is the literary performance of God's righteousness and justice and order. God has thought of everything because we've even accounted only in these four verses for what happens if it happens in the city versus if it happens in the open field. Because you if you notice if it happens in the open field the text presumes she cried out but nobody was around. In other words, in both instances the woman doesn't want it to happen. But the question is just is she in a circumstance where she could stop it. If it happens in the city she is in a circumstance where she could stop it but she didn't. If it happens in the open field she's not in a circumstance where she could stop it and she tried but she couldn't. And this is a little bit of a fine point to put on this, but this is not the crux of the entire argument. But if you'd like more detail, I talk about it in chapter 8 of my book, The Bible Says So, where we get right and wrong about scriptures most controversial issues. But I'm going to talk about some scholarship that demonstrates that this is not really about consent. But that brings us to verses 28 and 29, which are about a virgin who is not yet betrothed. And here's why the punishment is different. It is the death penalty if she is married or betrothed. It is only a fine if she is not betrothed. And the reason is that in all three cases, what we've got going on here is a property crime. And it is a property crime whose main victim is whoever asserts legal possession of this woman's sexual availability and procreative capacities. And it is either going to be her husband to whom she is betrothed or already married or it's going to be her father, her brother, or her master. Whoever stands to benefit financially from her marriage because they're going to receive the bride price. Because in this time, marriage was a transaction. It was a man purchasing from another man again, father, brother, master, something like that, the sexual availability and the procreative capacities of a woman. And she just happened to go along with it. She was not an autonomous social or sexual agent. She was a commodity. She was being bought and sold. Now, that may sound pretty ugly to you. It is. But that's the reality of the situation because what's going on here is the marriage contract was considered the most sacrosanked kind of social contract that one could enter into into this time because that was the context for procreation for carrying on one's line and for the survival and the thriving of the social community. Now, the property rights of the man who stood to benefit financially from the sale of the girl's procreative capacities and sexual availability was not considered as serious, but it was still a violation of his property rights because it robbed him of that future financial benefit. Which is why the first penalty is that he must be made whole by the payment of an elevated bride price. And there's a secondary punishment, which is basically that she is now damaged goods. And so the perpetrator must account for that and must marry her so that she can be a part of decent proper Israelite society because she has no social identity outside of the potter familas either of her own immediate family meaning father, brother, master or as the wife of the potter familius of a household. So in order to have some kind of functional social identity, she needs to be attached to one or the other. And because the rapist has violated her and rendered her damaged goods, she's not eligible for proper Israelite marriage. And so the perpetrator is responsible to marry her and is not allowed to divorce her. So there is consideration of her well-being, but it is only secondary because the primary concern is that he violated the property rights of the man who stood to benefit financially from selling her to a husband. Let's go on to the Hebrew, the question of the similarity between the two different references to the sexual act. This is Deuteronomy 22:25. And this is what is translated in the translation that this content creator provided uh forces her. And the verbal root is kazak and it is in the heil stem. And then it is followed by the inseparable prefix bet along with the object suffix the he which indicates third feminine singular. The zikba and this just means he grabbed her because kazak can mean to be strong. It can also mean to grab. Uh it is not a term of art for sexual assault necessarily. In fact, you can look in Proverbs 7:13 and you have a woman who does the exact same thing to a man and then kisses him and the man is like, "I'm down." So, it is not a term of art for sexual assault or rape, but it does mean he grabs her. This is verse 28. We have a different verb tapas. It means the exact same thing only you do not need the inseparable prefix bet prefix to the object suffix. You can put the object suffix directly on the verb with the verbal root tapas. These are synonyms. Tafas also means to grab. Now there are folks who will suggest that this can mean to hold or something like that like he's caressing her, he's gently petting her, he's fondling her, something like that. That is pure and utter nonsense because you can look at every last occurrence of tapas in the Hebrew Bible and while it can mean hold, it only means it when what is being held is an inanimate object. When the object of the verbal root tapas is a person, every last time it is involuntary, it is force. There's absolutely no case to make from the Hebrew that this is not referring to sexual assault or rape. This is very clearly referring to sexual assault or rape. Now, there's another argument that is sometimes made that this content creator does not bring up, and that's the fact that they are found, that the two of them are found together. And the notion is that, oh, they have done this in secret together, therefore it must be consensual. And that is pure and utter nonsense as well. You'll notice in the very first verse, verse 22, where it says, "If a man is discovered lying with the wife of another man, only the man is the one being found in that occurrence." And consent is not addressed at all, but both of them are put to death in that instance. And in verse 28 in this translation it says if a man meets a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered. The meets is rendering the verbal root matsah which means to find which is the exact same thing that we see above. He has found her. In other words, this is not something that was pre-planned. Uh and it says they are found but they have to be found otherwise this is just accusations. The whole reason they are found is because the act is now definitely known by the agents of the law. That's why they have to be found. Now, it doesn't say they're found in the middle section of this context. And that's because you've got the two different questions of where it happened in the city or in the open field. This is kind of silly because the authors are using uh lexical variety and are telling their stories in a variety of different ways. But this is very clearly a question of rape. And if this content creator wants to engage my argument, if he wants to try to make the case that I'm wrong here, I'm your man. I've got the time. But before we get to that, I want to share some scholarship that demonstrates it is the consensus view of the majority of scholars that this is a reference to rape. First, let's look at the JPS Torah commentary series volume on Deuteronomy by TIG. We look at the appropriate verse here, verses 28 and 29. The section is labeled rape of an unengaged virgin. And you can read that if you like, but I want to go down to the second to last line. The present law deals with a more severe offense where the girl is not a willing participant, but a victim of rape. Now I want to look at the New Oxford annotated Bible, the fifth edition down in the red box. These conditions correspond to Middle Assyrian laws section A55, which implies forced rape. In contrast, Exodus 22:16-17 specifies intercourse with but not forced rape of a virgin who is not engaged. The conflation of these two models in this law blurs the distinction between consensual and non-consensual intercourse on the woman's part because again, consent wasn't really a thing. She was a passive sexual object. She did not get to say when sex did or did not happen. Let's look at the Ankor Bible dictionary. Uh this is Westbrook's entry on punishment and crimes. And the part on rape has a section B rape in the Bible of the biblical codes. Only Deuteronomy discusses rape preserving a fragment of the traditional scholarly problem. Rape of an unattached girl leads as in Middle Assyrian law section A55 to forcible marriage with no divorce and payment of a set bride money. 22 28 and 29. Let's look at Walter Bugamman's Deuteronomy commentary on this. In the red box, the woman has been raped, but she is not even acknowledged in the settlement except that she is assigned to a lifelong partnership with her rapist. We can look at Dwayne Christensen's word biblical commentary volume on Deuteronomy 21:10-34:12. In the structural analysis, this part of this chapter is labeled rape of an unengaged virgin. The man is fined. And then you'll see the translation here, the second line, and he seizes her and he lies with her by force and they are found. And the commentary uh further elaborates on this. The law concludes with the statement that the rapist must marry the girl and that he may not divorce her all his days. Once again, we have a law that runs contrary to common practice. For in subsequent Jewish tradition, in cases of both seduction and rape, both the girl and her father can refuse the marriage. So now we're talking about Exodus 22. Tig has noted parallels in middle Assyrian laws where the rapist must pay triple the normal bride price and marry the girl if the father is willing without right of divorce. If the rapist has a wife, a typically Mesopotamian measure for measure punishment is added. The girl's father can have the rapist's wife raped and then keep her. We can go to Mark Biddles's Smith and Hellless Bible commentary volume on Deuteronomy. In the red box, rape of a single woman. The case law now takes up the issue of illicit relations with an unbro. Several provisions of this law are troubling. First, it apparently deals not with consensual sex, but with rape, seizes her. Yet the penalty for the man is merely that he pay the bride price of 50 shekels of silver to the woman's father and marry the woman. The economic value of the woman's virginity to her father outweighs the injury and humiliation suffered by the victim herself. Like the case of the falsely accused woman, this victim is virtually condemned to live out her life as the wife of her attacker. Now let's go into more detailed discussion of this particular issue. A feminist companion to Exodus to Deuteronomy by Athelia Brener has a wonderful article by Carolyn Pressler on sexual violence and Deuteronomic law and there are a few pages that discuss this. However, Pressler a couple years before this in 1993 published the view of women found in the Deuteronomic family laws. And you can go check out the seven pages starting in the middle here, section C, violation of an unbrothed girl, Deuteronomy 22:28-29, for a wonderful discussion of what exactly is going on here in the context of how they conceptualized not just human sexuality, but also the notion of marriage in this time period. So, to be brief, this content creator doesn't have the first clue what they're talking about. They obviously don't know Hebrew. They're obviously not looking at this closely. They're just jumping as quickly as they can to the considerations they have seen used before to make it appear to equally uninformed people that this cannot be about rape. However, when you consider the Hebrew of this passage, when you actually consider the context, when you set it within ancient West Asian juristprudence and conceptualizations about human sexuality and about the nature of marriage as a social contract, it all falls together that this is very clearly about rape and the difference in the penalties has to do with the social status of the victim, not with the nature of the act itself. If the woman is married or betrothed to be married, she has already been entered into a specific kind of social contract that makes her the property of a man and that is violated by her rape that merits the death penalty. If she is a virgin who is not yet betrothed or married, the only violation is of the property rights of the father or the brother or the master or whomever stands to benefit financially from the bride price that would be received at the signing of the marriage contract. The secondary victim is the woman in the sense that she is rendered ineligible for proper Israelite marriage. And that is addressed in this particular law by the requirement that the perpetrator marry her. Now again, Exodus 22:16-17 provides a provision where the father who is to receive the elevated bride price can take the money and keep his daughter. Neither of these laws were probably enforced or enforcable in ancient Israel. These are probably propaganda, scribal exercises, things like that. But if any legal rubber ever hit any legal road regarding either of these laws, it's almost certain that the girl's father would have had the right to refuse to give her up to the perpetrator. So, is this really a law that demands a woman marry her rapist? uh indirectly, but in reality, probably not. In probably every last instance, the father, the brother, or even the master probably could have and hopefully would have just said, "No, I'll take the money and I'll keep the girl as well." This content creator obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. is obviously just putting dogma over data and is obviously also posting this to just jin up attention and clicks by pretending to dunk on the kind of person that this content creator and his audience obviously thinks wouldn't know the first thing about the Bible and couldn't possibly be right because they're the kind of person that they would never respect. And for that, if they had the capacity for shame, they should be ashamed. And the fit for this video has been the Mola Hellboy., Does God Condone Sexual Assault?, YouTube, 01keqq346hv9z18w2py3d0av9t.