From a Discussion on the Biblical Concepts of Rape and Exploitation

[An excerpt from a recent discussion in which I engaged]

The next claim is that rape was only condemned because women were considered property. No, the reason both the Bible and the Israelites condemned rape is because they considered it a moral atrocity on the same level as murder. Verse 26 states this explicitly. Consider it: do you really think that if their child is raped a parent’s first thought was “oh, no, my property”? Do you really think that the Israelite people en masse didn’t care about their children? Do you really think men didn’t love their wives and only thought bad about their rape because of property? When Amnon raped Tamar in 2 Samuel 13, did her brother Absalom only become angry because of property rights? No, because of how the Hebrews conceived reality on a psychical level, they fundamentally had a very serious understanding of sex and how it affected the soul. This is why they equated rape with murder.

The next claim is that the Bible teaches that a woman who is raped is required to marry her rapist. This is absolutely not true. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 concerns men who take women for the purposes of sex without the responsibility of marriage. No sense of sexual assault is stated or implied. The word in the NASB for “seize” is taphas and can mean “handle” or “take”, as in when a pastor asks a bride, “Do you take this man …?” We know this to be true because in verses 25-27 above, which is clearly about rape, the word used for “force” is chazaq which is used for rape (see 2 Samuel 13:11 and Judges 19:29). The purpose of the law recorded in 22:28-29 is to prevent the exploitation of women.

The next claim is that “starting in verse 22 it pretty much assumes a married woman can’t be raped.” That is a notion completely absent from the text. I think you are doing the assuming.

The final claim is that the Scripture here implies that if a woman doesn’t scream she wasn’t really raped. It implies no such thing. This is completely absent from the text. You are assuming again. These verses are about protecting women from sexual assault and false accusations.

The oddity is that all these verses (22-29) are specifically designed to prevent the exploitation of and violence towards women. This shouldn’t surprise us. The Israelites believed their god was highly moral, concerned with justice, and hated the exploitation of the poor.