Does the Bible Condone Rape?

Some people say that the Bible is a book that depicts a selfish God who commands His people to genocide nations for no reason and perform acts of terror that are unmatched in history. Apart from the pure delusion being thrown out with these claims, they are completely and utterly false. Today, we will look at some claims that the Bible condones and commands rape. It tells people to sell and trade women, as well as to rape their "property." This is used as a critique against the reliability of the Bible, as well as a jab at the supposed "good God" of the Holy Bible revealed in Jesus. Does the Bible command His people to rape women? Did God allow it in the past?

A General Explanation

One of the most foundational questions to be asked regarding these claims is Why is rape wrong? What moral standard is the person using to evaluate if the act of rape is a wrong action? Under whom or what are humans accountable? This is not saying that rape is a good thing, but it reveals the moral bankruptcy a person may have concerning whether something is wrong. If there is no God, then there is nothing extrinsic to human opinion to decide what is morally right or wrong. The rapists is wholly justified in his act due to his interests in such. He has his own opinion of the act of rape; he just decides it's a good thing. Under subjective morality, void of an object or ground of it, nothing is right or wrong between individuals, because they are the arbiters of moral truth. Even a group of people who think rape is okay is justified in their view because nothing exists external to them, either. God must exist for objective morality to exist. You are sitting in God's lap to attempt to slap Him in His face. You are stealing a moral standard from God to make a case against God.

Moreover, the Bible simply does not describe any laws that affirm rape. It actually equates rape with murder. All of the objections against this are simply avoiding the textual context or just misrepresenting the passage entirely, as we will shortly see. The Old Covenant is not even applicable today, and was only applied to the theocracy of ancient Israel. Today, we live under the New Covenant of love established by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

An In-depth Explanation

Deuteronomy 22:28-29

The main passage that is cited to support these claims is Deuteronomy 22:28-29. Below, I will include the context of these verses that we will examine.

"²³If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto a husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; ²⁴Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you. ²⁵But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die. ²⁶But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter: ²⁷For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her." (Deuteronomy 22:23-27)

"²⁸If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; ²⁹Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

The claim about this passage is that when a man "takes hold" or "seizes" a woman and forcibly has sex with her, the rapist is to pay a fine, and the father of the victim sells her to the rapists. The Bible regards women as mere property to be sold and used whenever it is desirable.

These claims are false, as something completely different is going on here, and the context is key. Verses 23-27 describe legislation on sexual encounters. Paul Copan tells us in Is God a Moral Monster that these verses are describing two situations: adultery and rape. Verses 23 and 24 describe a situation where adultery is committed, which invokes capital punishment for both people involved. Verses 25 through 27 describe a situation where rape happens, which invokes capital punishment for only the man. The word used for force is the Hebrew word "Hazak" (חָזַק), which means to seize, be strong, or grow, and can refer to the violent overpowering of someone. The sexual context depicts a sexual encounter where a man forcibly has sex with a woman, or rape. This is the passage that appears directly before verses 28 and 29, which apparently are also talking about rape.

Verses 28 and 29 use a different word for seize (some translations use the English word seize for both passages). It is talking about a consensual sexual encounter between two unmarried young people, basically fornication. This word, "Tapas" (תָּפַשׂ), also means to capture or take hold of, but lacks the implication of force or strength. It simply means to "wield," and the Bible never uses tapas when talking about rape. The Bible uses hazak to describe rape, not tapas.

"But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized (hazak) his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. 26 At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight." (Judges 19:25-26)

"But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger (hazak) than she, he raped her." (2 Samuel 13:14)

The Bible actually uses the term "tapas" to describe God "capturing the hearts" of His people, Israel.

"I will do this to recapture (tapas) the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.’" (Ezekiel 14:5)

If the Biblical author intended to describe rape in verses 25-27, and also in 28-29, then why did he use a different word that does not carry the connotation of force? The simplest explanation is that he did not intend to describe rape, but was depicting a consensual encounter where a man "captures the heart" of the woman by seduction. Moreover, Exodus 22:16-17 also describes the same situation as Deuteronomy 22:28-29. It seems that Deut 22 is elaborating upon Exodus 22. This passage does not use the word seize, but rather the verb "Pathah" (פָּתָה) which means to seduce or entice. Since the Torah is structured like a Suzerain Treaty, where stipulations are added to a collection to guide judges through thinking about justice and mercy, Deut 22:28-29 is likely elaborating on preexisting laws from Exodus 22:16-17.

Deuteronomy 22:26 equates rape to murder, and the woman is portrayed as a victim in need of justice. This view and punishment for rape was radically different than other law codes of the time, which would, for example, have the husband of the raped woman rape the wife of the rapistsin public. The Torah upholds real justice. If a man takes advantage of a woman and deceives her into a sexual encounter but does not give her the honor and dignity of marriage, then he has wronged and dishonored her and must do the right thing and offer her the security of marriage unless the father says otherwise. There is no situation of rape here. Rather, the Torah is holding the man accountable for his actions by making sure he is responsible for what he does, and offering instructions on how to handle the situation and ensure the justice and safety of the woman.

Abraham and Concubines

Still, some people use other passages of scripture to try to say that God allowed other sexual sins like polygamy or having concubines. This is simply making a description of what happened, not a prescription of what to do. The Bible is not commanding believers to have concubines, but is instead recording Abraham's sin. God did not choose Abraham because he was a righteous man; God chose him out of grace. It shows that God is not working with man because of their sin, but despite it. We are not perfect by our very nature as contingent beings, and God knows that; therefore, He cannot work with us because we are good, but because He is good and merciful. The Bible contains a historical record, and if it is to be faithful, it must record man's wrongs as well.

Genesis 38:6-10

"Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death. Then Judah said to Onan, 'Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.' But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also."

Some people use this verse to say that God commands men to sleep with their brother's wives, but this is not true. This verse is simply describing an ancient tradition (that is still alive today) called Levirate marriage. This is where a widow is taken as wife by the closest male in her husband's family. This was eventually made into the Mosaic law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10, but how is this necessarily bad? God is not commanding men to sleep with their brother's wife; he is actually offering widows a security window because their husband has just died. In today's culture, a widow is free to marry her husband's brother after he has died. In the ancient culture, this would ultimately save the widow, as she would have no head of the household and nobody to fill the man's role. Offering marriage this way would offer the woman a home and legal and social safety for her and her family.

Numbers 31:1-18

"The Lord said to Moses, 'Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.' So Moses said to the people, 'Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them. Send into battle a thousand men from each of the tribes of Israel.' So twelve thousand men armed for battle, a thousand from each tribe, were supplied from the clans of Israel. Moses sent them into battle, a thousand from each tribe, along with Phinehas son of Eleazar, the priest, who took with him articles from the sanctuary and the trumpets for signaling. They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho. Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. 'Have you allowed all the women to live?' he asked them. 'They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.'"

This is said to describe God commanding Israel to kill all of the Midianite men and women except for the virgins who were forced to submit to their owners and be raped. This is blatantly false, as the passage does not even mention any rape. “The purpose of holy war was the eradication of impure elements, whether persons or property, from a given geographic region. This passage harks back to the idolatrous activity of Baal-peor (chap. 25) and sets the stage for the instructions in 33:50-56 for occupying the promised land by dispossessing the Canaanites and eradicating the marks of their false religion. Hence, it is integral to the main theme developed in the book of Numbers: the dangers of rebellion and idolatry. Critics, who suggest this holy-war mentality was a crude feature of ancient cultures and not in keeping with God's purpose for humanity, have ignored the fact that these instructions were applicable at this critical point in the formation of the theocracy of Israel. Their very survival as the holy community of faith was at stake. Chapter 31 is consistent with the directives given in other pentateuchal passages, including Dt 7:5, 24-25; 12:1-12; 20:16-20 (purging of idolatry); and Dt 21:10-14 (female captives). However, the law of Christ, the law of love, supersedes the instructions for Israel in the era of Moses and Joshua. While God still abhors every kind of evil in society, and the people of God must diligently oppose its every expression, "holy war" of the kind recorded here is not the proper response.” (Holman, The CSB Apologetics Study Bible, Pg 204).

This passage does not even describe the soldiers having sexual relations with the women kept alive. Moses was angry at the sinfulness of some of the women there who had left Israel to sin under the counsel of Balaam. The virgins were left alive because they were provably innocent of the sexual sins their mothers and fathers committed. The text has no mention that any of these women were the property of the soldiers, or that they could be raped, and the laws from Deuteronomy 21 and Exodus 22 would apply.

Deuteronomy 21:11-14

"If you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife. Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife. If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

Critics say this passage is commanding soldiers to rape their captives, but this too is false. It is saying that if a soldier has a woman as a captive of war that he sees as desirable, he may take her as his wife, but not immediately have sex with them forcibly. The soldier would have to take her home, shave her head, and trim her nails. This was an ancient tradition that gave the woman time to adjust to the new environment and grieve her separation. Then her current clothing was taken from her, as they might have associations with the idolatrous practices of her former family. She was then given an entire month untouched before the man could even have intercourse with her.

In what way is this verse telling soldiers to rape captives? It is actually offering another widow a window of safety and time to adjust and grieve.

Conclusion

It is blatantly clear that the Bible does not condone rape, but actually equates it with murdering another person. All of these claims are making several mistakes with regard to interpreting Biblical text. (1) They are failing to take into account the context of a passage. The context of Deuteronomy 22:28-29 from the previous verses and parallel law in Exodus 22:16-17 reveals what the stiulation in Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is actually talking about. Seduction, and not rape. (2) They are also failing to interpret difficult passages in light of clearer ones. Sometimes when a word or passage is hard to understand, we can go to other locations in the Bible that mirror or parallel the text in question, which will help us interpret it. With Numbers 31, passages like Deuteronomy 21 and Exodus 22 provide ways to decipher what would have happened to the women left alive. They would most certainly not be raped by the soldiers. (3) They are also presuming that the Bible affirms everything that it records. The Bible is obviously not approving of Abraham having concubines or of believers having many wives, but rather provides an accurate historical account of the sins of man. (4) Finally, they do not understand the original language and word usage, as Deuteronomy 22:28-29 uses a Hebrew word that does not imply a forceful encounter, but a consensual one.

None of these claims holds water when placed in the ring against the actual texts. We must keep these methods of interpretation in mind when reading hard-to-understand passages. We must keep our minds sharp and our knowledge up-to-date, and our hearts close to the ground of logic, Jesus Christ. The Bible stands reliable, and the critics, once again, cannot make the slightest dent.