Are there any instances of "GOD" order and/or condoning the rape of women in the bible?

by Black Man 41 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Teufel

  You'll notice virtually no Christian church teaches these verses from the pulpit.

  Rape in the bible is my top topic to bring up with Bible believers.
  
• 

  Diogenesister

  Never a jwIsn't God nice?, he allowed a month mourning period before raping orphan women whose parents were killed by the rapist. Praise Jehovah God!

  Isn't God nice?, he allowed a month mourning period before raping orphan women children whose parents were killed by the rapist. Praise Jehovah God!

  FiFY
  
  
• 

  Vidiot

  Re. the OP...

  You can substitute "rape of women" with...

  - genocide

  - slavery

  - religious supremacy

  - summary sentencing without fair trial

  - the death penalty for kids who sass their parents

  ...the list goes on and on...
• 

  Rabbi Midge

  A man driving a carriage pulls up promising to take you to an amusement park, the likes of which you have never seen. The rides are spectacular, the thrills are beyond description, and the fun, as he describes it, promises never to end. “And the best part is,” he declares, “it’s all free. All you have to do is get in my carriage and let me take you there.”

  So you and your friends get in, filled with hope and excitement, chatting amongst yourselves about what you will do when you get to the amusement park--what rides you will ride first, what fun you will have, etc. But as the hours go by, as the day turns to night, and the night turns to day, still you have yet to reach your destination, and your expectation begins to turn to despair.

  So you call out to the carriageman: “When are we going to get to this amusement park you promised?”

  “We will get there,” he says. “Before your natural life ends, we will get there...someday.”

  And thus the ride continues. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months into years.

  Eventually you and your friends begin to age and it turns out you are missing out on your life. You are no closer to this amusement park the carriageman promised. In fact, you could have gone to many other amusement parks of your own choosing during the time wasted on the ride. So you and your friends demand the driver to stop and pull over.

  Angered that you have been betrayed by the promises made by the carriage driver, you and your friends each walk to the side of the road, find heavy branches from the trees and beat the horses that have been pulling the carriage to their death.

  This is sort of what’s going on here.

  I’ve seen a lot of people abused by religious groups and leaders. And because these leaders toss the people they abuse out on the streets like yesterday’s refuse and then lock themselves up in some unaccessible ivory tower, it becomes next to impossible for people to get justice. These religious abusers are “untouchables.”

  But the pain, the anguish, the despair and confusion is often still left there. And it can linger for years. Sadly so can the lack of religious education that these “carriagemen” impressed upon their followers. They kept their people locked up in dark “carriages” and told them that the way to get to these promised places of “amusement” was to just sit quietly and listen to them.

  But when that didn’t work, they were left abandoned on the side of the road far from where they had started to begin with, in unfamiliar territory. Carriage drivers usually sit up high, out of reach from those on the road. So what is left to do? Beat the horses. Or in this case, the Scriptures.

  And it is easy to do when you have been in the dark about the Bible in the first place.

  Now, I don’t mean to be insulting. My nephew is getting married to a Jehovah’s Witness. She is a nice girl. And she thinks she knows everything there is to know about the Scriptures. But she doesn’t. And to tell the truth, most people who leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t either.

  The reason is that there is no way to equip someone to do something that takes formal education without having that person engage in a program of formal education. And, in my experience, most ex-Jehovah’s Witness don’t immediately make up those years of university learning and get that degree that they refused to get while they were in their religion because it was, shall we say “frowned upon.” This isn’t something that you can make up for on your own either by surfing the Internet or read up on your own. You need to be in a classroom with a professor and classmates and get the experience of seeing some of these things for yourself.

  This is one of those cases where some advanced course study would be required. Many of you are citing a lot of sites and texts, but all you are doing is beating the horses to death.

  And you got it wrong about the text.

  Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is fully recognized as a very late addition to the Torah. This is very clear to both secular academics and Jews. The empirical evidence is that:

  1. The wording and the law itself is practically verbatim of the Middle Assyrian Law code that was common over all of the area, including Jerusalem, shortly prior to the Babylonian exile. (Apparently it was preserved during the Babylonian exile to strike a contrast with the way Gentile captives were treating such cases, perhaps as a form of demarcation. The text is modeled on a much earlier law, Exodus 22:16-17 which specifies seduction but not seizure and rape as this one does.)

  2. Jewish law allows both father and daughter the right to refuse such marriage, stating that Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is not universally binding under all circumstances. (Mishneh Torah, Nash., Hilkhot Na’arah Betulah 1:3)

  The reason for this later interpretation is that Deuteronomy is not the binding expression of the law but the liturgical expression. The fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses and ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot tell the difference will cause them to see what is written in the Bible as the only thing that is binding, when in reality what is written in the Bible is mainly liturgical. Not knowing the difference, you get a thread like you see above.

  Again, I understand that many of you have been through an experience that most people on this planet can’t even begin to fathom. So I can’t blame you if you end up beating on the horses drawing the carriage.

  Heck, I can’t blame you if you tear down the carriage and break it apart and burn it down. I would probably do the same thing, and roast the horses and eat the meat! I get it.

  But the horses--I mean, the Scriptures didn’t do anything to you. The Bible doesn’t belong to the Jehovah’s Witnesses or their Governing Body. Of course, you may never be able to divide the two for the rest of your lives. I get that too.

  Just remember this: There’s a carriageman laughing somewhere at the fact that you beat some poor horses to death. He’s telling people that this is the type of person you are. He probably “predicted” that if you left his carriage that you would do this. You are fulfilling his prophecy every time you do something like this. You are proving the carriageman right, and you are still his puppet every time you beat a horse to death like this.

  Every time.
• 

  ElderEtta

  Excellent metaphorical tail rabbi to those on this forum however I would also add that it's a huge petting zoo with all wild animals lions tigers that will not harm you you will each have a home of your own and of your choice thanks to the billions who will be massacred by the creator of this universe and you will be able to do this forever and ever and ever
• 

  cofty

  Hi Midge, welcome to the forum.

  Your story seems to imply that ex-JWs reject the scriptures, and perhaps faith in god, because of bad experiences of spiritual abuse. It's a generalisation we have heard too many times to count on this forum from believers of all varieties.

  Personally - and I know from past conversations that this is true of many others - I reject belief in any sort of god, respect for holy books as sources of wisdom, and faith as a means of discovering anything true and/or useful for good reasons that have nothing to do with the cult. I'm sure you didn't intend to be patronising but there you go.

  Having said that I have always enjoyed contributions from Jewish members of the forum. Their perspective often makes a refreshing change from xtian fundamentalism.
• 

  humbled

  So, midge,you say all should go to professors to learn the relative values of the various scriptures. Because you said:

  The fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses and ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot tell the difference will cause them to see what is written in the Bible as the only thing that is binding, when in reality what is written in the Bible is mainly liturgical.

  Right—a lot of us figured out that crap wasn’t binding —without a professor or rabbi telling us. As for the scriptures being mainly liturgical? Why do you even retain spurious texts for public worship ?

  Conservative Jews give the man the freedom to easily divorce. Not so for the woman . How does that still bind ?

  That’s all the time I got for this. I’m going to return to the unwashed uneducated masses who don’t have time for your foolishness. I don’t need anymore of this high-handed religious talk.

  Do onto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself. I don’t need a preacher or a rabbi to tell me what that means
• 

  Crazyguy

  I don’t know if this has been brought out in a previous post but woman not engaged were not owned by anyone other then maybe her father. With that being said having sex with a young woman not engaged was not considered rape, even in the case where a man has sex with a young woman he only has to pay the father for his act and then can buy her.

  The scriptures make it clear that woman were just property, and that is just plain sick!
• 

  Rabbi Midge

  Cofty: As for being patronizing, it was far from my intention.

  In fact, you may have received that from reading something into my words from your own experiences--and this is likely. As you write "your story seems to imply...faith in god...." And then you go on to mention how you reject any sort of belief in God or faith as a means of discovering anything true.

  If you know anything about Judaism, you should know that we don't hold much ado about belief in God or how much value in faith either. Those are tools of Christianity. While God is real, I neither believe in God's existence nor hold much value in faith. I also think that faith as a means of discovering or holding that anything be real is foolish, and so does Judaism in general.

  But, I respect what you're getting at. I was writing in generalities, and often this can cause persons to whom a generalized illustration is offered feel either excluded or, in your case, talked down to. This wasn't the case. I was pointing out that the carriageman in my story was (the leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses) was the one you should be angry at.

  While I am not saying this of you, Cofty, it is normal for an ex-member to project their anger at something or someone else when they cannot get to their real subject. I do expect others on this forum to become quite angry at what I've posted and direct their anger at me. For instance...

  Humbled: No. But going to college and getting a university education should be the free choice of every person. When you grown up in a society where such is frowned upon, you tend not to choose it. You can learn about the Scriptures from a pure secular standpoint at a university and keep from making simple mistakes as are made in some places on this thread. Be angry with me if you want, but I didn't deny you of a college education if you grew up as a Jehovah's Witness and you never went to college. The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses did. That's what I'm pointing out ultimately.
• 

  humbled

  I did not grow up a witness. I value college for more than the parsing out of ancient patriarchal texts —while it may offer a profession for some has no binding moral value for me.

  As a former Catholic I view the use of liturgy with suspicion—the more emotional impact it carries because of my childhood the more careful l am of its power to subvert. We learned the mass in Latin. Who cared to teach?

  You are free to pursue academics. Someday I may go to college. It hasn’t been a possibility lately.

  I am glad that some have been gracious towards you. For my part I cannot appreciate your condescending manner. I have met it all too often in my many years around religious teachers.