Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Anyone see anything wrong with this? Does this command fit into our view of who God is and what He stands for?

The punishment a rapist receives is having to marry the woman he raped. </font>[/QUOTE]This is Old Testament....based on your reply on the birth control thread, you seemed to object to using the O.T. to make a point.

Why are you using O.T. now if you aren't willing to consider what God said on the O.T. in the Birth Control thread?


LaRae

 

God can't be anything but good. Therefore if God says something is good, it is.

However if you believe what you say about the O.T. then your question is a moot point, since we are not living under the old Law.


LaRae

 

The various positive laws within Deuteronomy must be viewed within the larger context of Salvation History. Alongside this same stipulation, you find the condoning of herem warfare, usury, divorce/remarriage, and other evils.

"Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions" (Galatians 3:19).

Deuteronomy is a set of national laws given by Moses in order to keep a sinful People in order and to prepare them for the coming of the one who would deliver them from the curses of the law, cleanse them from sin, and circumcise their hearts.

The Deuteronomic laws cannot be said to encompass God's moral law, though we do find this sort of law within Deuteronomy (e.g., within the 10 commandments, which are restated). Ezekiel describes these laws that followed transgressions as "not good":

"Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life" (Ez 20:25).

 

I personally don't see anything wrong in this. When looking at the Law of Moses in it's historical context, it makes sense, even theologically.

In ancient Israel, women had no power or status, and virginity was a prerequisite for marriage. The odds of a man marrying a non-virgin were very slim and it was frowned upon. The only exceptions were during things like the kinsman-redeemers for widows whose husbands died without children (see: Ruth and Boaz). The women were subservient to their husbands. I'm not making a judgement here, I'm just saying how it was.

For an example of the stigma it carried, see 2 Samuel 13. Amnon, David's son rapes Tamar, his half-sister. He then tells her to "get out"...

2 Samuel 13:16 (NIV)
"'No!' she said to him. "Sending me away would be a greater wrong than what you have already done to me." But he refused to listen to her."

Since no one would marry her anymore because she wasn't a virgin, she lived in her brother Absalom's house, "a desolate woman." Absalom later killed Amnon for this.

Even theologically, it makes since. In a sexual union, a couple becomes married in God's sight ("A man shall leave his parents and a woman shall leave her parents, and they shall become one flesh..."), so why not have them legally married as well?

To take Old Testament law and judge it according to our way of thinking seems both ignorant and arrogant to me. We must try to understand that Israel's customs were not our customs.

--Landon

 

Have you considered the alternative....castration?

 

We see here some of the limitation that God had to work with in ordaining the law. Not a limitation of insight - God knows all things - but a limitation of His ability to get these stubborn humans to do what would really be right and fair for all concerned.

It would be far better if God could have instructed the people to stop putting so much emphasis on the physical virginity of the victim of rape and instead consider the content of her character. But the people would have been utterly unwilling to receive such a law and it would have no chance of being passed on - the scribes wouldn't even write it down. Such is the power of tradition over what God would really prefer to do.

It is the same old story of the hardness of men's hearts, mentioned by Jesus in connection with the law of divorce. Because of the hardness of our hearts, God cannot get us to do His true will, He accomodates to our stubborn sinful ways and moves us incrementally closer to His true will.

 

Paul,

I think you're right on the money here. The woman has been injured, through no fault of her own. What is the best thing for her now? To live her life unmarried and an outcast? Or to be cared for by the man who caused her the injury? What other choices were there in that culture at that time, that would have been better for the woman?

 

At least that would only be punishing the rapist. </font>[/QUOTE]In their cultur it would punish both - since the woman has no family, no children and no inheritance in that case. She remains in her father's household forever IN ADDITION to suffering the indignity of the rape. There is no indication the fathers were "forced" to give up their daughters to the man that raped them even in this case.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Umm... YOU don't see the need? Far be it from me to be disrespectful here, but, honestly, what does any of our opinions have to do with God setting the law for Israel?

 

Any reason why Deut 22:28-29 should not be read alongside Ex 22:16?

First of all, there was once a time when the woman was likely to plead rape rather than voluntary sexual intercourse to partially preserve her own perceived moral character. It appears that this may have been the case in OT times, when whether a woman was raped or not was determined by where the act occurred. In the country...the betrothed girl screamed but there was no one to rescue her. In a town...she did not scream for help. Of course, that applies only to betrothed girls.

Interestingly, Deut 22:28 applies only to virgin girls. 50 sheckels of silver was supposedly the average bride price. And he could never divorce her. I imagine she might take out her consternation on him for a while. And he would deserve it.

Ex 22:16 indicates that "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife." (v. 17) "If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins."

This implies that it was the bride's father's decision as to whether they would be married. One supposes that the father would act in the interest of his daughter. That might mitigate the apparent harshness of the law of Deuteronomy.

God Bless,
CalvinG

 

I don't know. These laws seem sort of like adding tort law or werguild (?sp) to the culture of the times so that there would not be murder for vengeance or a lack of restitution.

I would never see fit to substitute my judgement for God's Judgement. If you want to know why, read Job.

 

God sets Truth. God is Truth.

The culture is not relevant.

But the hearts of men are hard, and the hardness of man's hearts determine how much of God's Truth a culture can accept and implement.