Friday, 20 March 2009
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The Bible According to Mark Twain: Irreverent Writings on Eden, Heaven, and the Flood by America's Master Satirist
By Mark Twain
see relatedRape in the Bible
Rape, the paramount of fears for many women, rears its ugly head in the Bible. Fortunately, God ensures that the authors list it as a crime under a few circumstances. Unfortunately, God permits the sexual violation of woman on more than one occasion. Even more unfortunately, the fine for committing one of the most heinous acts known to man (without God's permission) is only a pound of silver to her father and a forced marriage to the victim if she's not already engaged or married (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). Yes, God's idea of justice for the female victim is to be horrendously punished again by being forced to marry her rapist. This disgusting rule is nowhere near what most people would consider an ethical resolution, and it's certainly not a decision rendered by any court I'd like to be facing.
If a man rapes an engaged virgin who doesn't cry loud enough to draw attention, the community should consider the attack consensual if it took place within the city. Thus, the "whore" must be stoned to death per God's instructions. It doesn't matter if the woman is threatened or too frightened to scream because the law obviously makes no such exceptions. The man will be stoned to death as well, but not because he committed a brutal atrocity against the woman, but only because he "hath humbled his neighbour's wife" (Deuteronomy 22:24). Note the shamefully sharp contrast in disciplinary action between raping a woman with a husband and raping a woman without a husband: death versus a pound of silver. Since it's all the same to the woman, it now becomes clear that God feels the husband is the one who is the victim of the attack.
As I previously mentioned, the Bible regrettably provides some situations in which rape is entirely permissible, even encouraged, by the Hebrew god. Recall the rule of marriage specifying how a man can force his daughter to marry and sleep with another man (Exodus 21:7-11). This in itself is completely reprehensible and rises to the level of rape if the woman is unwilling.
In Moses' war victory over the Midianites, God had previously commanded him to build an army and defeat the enemy. After doing this successfully, his army takes thousands of war prisoners. Moses then orders his army to kill the remaining men, boys, and woman who have already slept with a man, "but all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves" (Numbers 31:17-18). If taking a human war trophy based solely on the prisoner's gender and sexual status isn't implied permission to commit rape, I honestly don't know what is. Even God gets 32 virgins as part of his spoils, but they are handed over to the priests for obvious reasons (Numbers 31:40-41).
The "women children" mentioned in the passage certainly included young girls. Some female inhabitants of the city had to have been several years away from puberty, but don't pretend these barbaric savages capable of killing defenseless women and children thought twice about waiting a few years for the girls to mature. So what eventually becomes of these foreign women kidnapped in battle?
"When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails. And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her." (Deuteronomy 21:10-14)
P.S. I feel an addendum is necessary. By no means do believe this is indicative of the entire Bible. I just feel that people who take the Bible to be the accurate representation of history and morality should see the flaws in this worldview.
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Comments (128)
The Bible sickens me.
nuf sed
No to mention that Lot offered his daughters for gang rape to protect a few angels, and God never so much as slapped him on the wrist for it. And Lot was evidently the most righteous man in town!
Aggghhh, the world is crazy.
@lovechartreuse - To be perfectly fair, if you read the Bible as a collection of fables and allegories (like you would a collection of Greek mythology or Grimm's Tales) it makes for an interesting read, and a fascinating insight into the culture. Of course, it helps to have an expert walking you through it... I couldn't really appreciate the Bible until after my religious studies courses. It's only when you start reading it as literal history and a moral instruction manual that the problems begin...
The Bible wasn't meant to be taken seriously! ...at all.
I read the bible as a story book regardless, which makes it fascinating. It's just when you realize a large majority of the population not only takes it seriously but lives by it that scares me.
It's interesting that you post this, because I was actually reading a lot of what you talked about today. I got bored at the bookstore, so I whooped out the Bible and read such contradictions, like the rape stories.
I agree with your comment that it's bad when you read the Bible literally. I think it's that way with any religious books, really.
Oh, and one last thing: Jesus is blond and blue eyed.
Take your pick:
*stamps approval all over this post*
Unfortunately, a lot of Christians know how to shield themselves from these laws. "That was the Old Covenant, not our problem anymore." "It was a savage society, and those rules were the best God could do." "There's an historical explanation for these lines."
@GodlessLiberal - i love your comment. very accurate summation of my take on the book as well.
great post.
now i'd would love to read some reactions from bible thumpers.
i imagine they're coming.
@ModernBunny - Excellent point. I need to brace myself for that onslaught. Wonderful foresight on your part.
Words cannot describe how disgusting that is. Maybe the next time somebody tells me that gay people can't get married because the Bible says so, I'll send them over to this post to tell them what else their Bible says. Descpicable. But a great post!
i will rec you!!!!!!!!!!!
hmm... rape doesnt realy go good in my mind. booo!
great post! :)
The Bible is a stupid, disgusting fairy tale. The end.
This is primarily a problem if you believe that the Bible is the literal, inerrant word of God. As you say, if you read it as metaphor, story, allegory, and myth, and you admit you're interpreting, the Bible has some widsom in it. Of course, rape is no part of that wisdom--but that's where context comes in. What is terrible today may sometmes have been an improvement historically. As bad as Islam is for women now, Mohammed gave women of the region some of their very first rights. The problem comes when people try to live by rules written for a different time in a different part of the world.
None of which excuses condoning rape. Period. Everything you mention here is horrifying. When people do behave this way now, the world intervenes, because some of what you describe here is actually ethnic cleansing.
And yet he's apparently so loving.Â
I can't believe that anyone would worship someone that is less moral than they are. I just don't fucking get it.another reason why I dont read the bible
@GodlessLiberal - I agree. After taking a religious class, learning about other religions, the Abrahamic Traditions is no different from the Greek Mythology. So why can't this be call the ___ Myth as well? I have always grew up wondering why god would allow these things to women, or to everyone. And if god was all that loveable, blahblah, why would he tell his people to kill their enemies and get revenge? Isn't that kind of... bullshit? But of course, when I was growing up I was never allow to question my quote and quote believe since otherwise I'd be consider as rebellious, or made a deal with the devil.
Interesting! I've never managed to wrap my head around the whole "God is loving and good" concept when he apparently condones such awful things. I usually get told that God's justice/goodness is beyond human comprehension, so he's apparently just/good by HIS standards, but not human ones. But somehow he's still good...?
But yeah, I'm with mini_mayfield on this one, I was thinking of the example with Lot's daughters.
Meh... I wouldn't use one religious class as the basis for authority, but all the same, interesting post.
//If taking a human war trophy based solely on the prisoner's
gender and sexual status isn't implied permission to commit rape, I
honestly don't know what is.//
I'd be very careful before playing on implications. VERY careful. That's like saying that a father who lets his daughter go to a movie with a guy friend implies that he's okaying sexual relations between the two of them after the movie (or, for the more adventurous, DURING the movie). Speculation is nice, but it gets little play.
Also, about Deuteronomy 22 -
You were quick to overlook the fact that in Deut. 22:24, there is a stipulation on the reason why both are stoned rather than putting the rapist to death - the rape occurs in the city, and if the girl didn't cry out for help, it's assumed that she was consenting. I noticed that you skipped over Deuteronomy 22:25-26a, which says -
"If, however, it is in the open fields that a man comes upon such a
betrothed maiden, seizes her and has relations with her, the man alone
shall die.You shall do nothing to the maiden, since she is not guilty of a capital offense."
Same woman, different scenario. This points out that your differentiation between betrothal and non-betrothal is not a reliable standard to determine punishments by the Mosaic Law. In fact, if you look at the rest of v. 26 and all of v. 27 -
"This case is like that of a man who rises up against his neighbor and murders him:it was in the open fields that he came upon her, and though the
betrothed maiden may have cried out for help, there was no one to come
to her aid."
The contingent point is not so much what the man does, but what the woman does in that situation, and in what location they were. In either case, the man is put to death; only in one case is the woman put to death along with the man. If she was raped in the field, she does not incur ANY punishment (nor does her family have to pay anything) if no one was there to help her.
Here's an interesting article on the matter - http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ot_and_rape.htm
As for Exodus 21:7-11 -
"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as male slaves do.But if her master, who had destined her for himself, dislikes her, he
shall let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to a foreigner,
since he has broken faith with her.If he destines her for his son, he shall treat her like a daughter.If he takes another wife, he shall not withhold her food, her clothing, or her conjugal rights. If he does not grant her these three things, she shall be given her freedom absolutely, without cost to her."
It doesn't say anywhere here that the father FORCES the daughter to sleep with another man. What it says is that if the father sells the daughter as a slave (and note that it points out the male slaves), and IF the slaveowner - not the father of the girl - changes his mind about using her as a concubine, he shall leave her preserved. Note that it does not say that the slaveowner had already slept with the girl - rather, he had "destined her for himself" in the sense that he had PLANNED but he changed his mind. Furthermore, if the slaveowner chooses to give her to his son in marriage, then it says he should treat her like a daughter. Hm... it sounds like you're stretching the situation a wee bit far with extreme cases rather than simply pointing it out for what it states.
As far as Numbers is concerned - all it points out is that the persons were kept - as what? Slaves? Concubines? The text is silent. We already know what the penalties for raping unmarried women are, as per your reference to Deuteronomy, but that passage says nothing about what they were used for. Again, speculation is cool, but ineffective. As for the act of killing the women and men itself - normally, women and children weren't to be killed as per Deut. 20 - however, Numbers 31:16 makes a note referring to the story about Midianite elders using women and children to lead the Israelites astray, even rendering them vulnerable. It's a morally sticky situation (eg: if children were constantly used as human bombs in Iraq, it wouldn't make it easy to decide whether or not to gun down a child running towards a convoy).
Here's another interesting article - http://www.ancient-future.net/bible.html - and this one - http://www.christian-thinktank.com/midian.html
Methinks you put your own spin on a lot of this.
I would agree with what @QuantumStorm - has written.
That Old Testament is so wack. Great expose.
It's interesting to me that all of this misogyny is written in the Bible, the sacred text of Christianity, yet everybody seems to over look it. I have never once heard about any of this from any Christian I know because nobody seems to want to acknowledge these particular Bible passages. However, certain Christians are quick to label Islam as a "misogynistic and violent" religion and mock the idea that Islam could be peaceful when the Bible itself contains so much violence. To paraphrase a quote I once read; "Make sure your hands are clean before you point a finger at me". It's sheer and utter hypocrisy.
Good post.
Well...unfortunately it also means Jewish people are effed up too because they kept the old testament...which is the part of the bible Deuteronomy comes from. I know a lot more jewish people who take their religious texts literally than christian ones.