I too felt sick when going through this latest material in the “Congregation Bible Study.” The book mentions how the Israelites apparently didn’t kill wantonly or rape women. Yah, right. But when those old assholes blew the war signal in their silver trumpets, the out-of-control hockey team known as the Israelites went to work doing what they did best: killing as many men, women, children, animals, non-fruit-bearing trees, Smurfs, or anything else they could get their hateful, greedy hands on. The only exception was that they weren’t to kill young girls who had never had sexual relations with a man. (No, they would be the ones to turn them girls into real women.)
As far as ‘not raping,’ the truth of the matter is that the Israelites captured females and then, after waiting for a “a whole month” (to allow the poor girls to grieve for their killed parents), they could “have relations with [them]” and take them as their wives. (Deut. 21:10-13) And I guess they had to bloody well like it or lump it – literally. (Lumps, black eyes, knocked out teeth – well, you get the idea.)
Such a loving God, ain’t he?