"Suppose a man is caught in a town having intercourse with a young woman who is engaged to someone else. You are to take them outside the town and stone them to death. She is to die because she did not cry out for help, although she was in a town, where she could have been heard. And the man is to die because he had intercourse with someone who was engaged. In this way you will get rid of this evil. -Deuteronomy 22:23-24 GNB
This is a strange law, I can understand stoning the attacker to death, but the victim? Only because she did not scream? I imagine a great percentage of rapes take place in densely populated areas. If we followed biblical law, all of the victims would be stoned to death. I suppose God, when he was "inspiring" the writers, did not think far enough ahead to realize that rapist would drug, muffle, threaten, or knock unconscious, the person whom is being attacked (to avoid drawing attention). Being that this law provides no room for exception, all women that don't/are unable to scream are automatically stoned to death. Obviously this law is not followed in modern times, but to think that it may have been in the past is a disturbing thought.
You didn't include the next verse, which is appx'ly (depending on version): "But 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."
ReplyDeleteIf you compare that with the verse you've quoted, you'll notice one specifies that force was used (rape) and one doesn't, and that it's in the one that doesn't where the woman is also punished... this should lead you to draw the conclusion that she wasn't raped, but was a willing participant. There's the reason for the punishment.
"Suppose a man out in the country-side rapes a young woman who is engaged to someone else. Nothing is to be done to the woman, because she has not committed a sin worthy of death" -Deuteronomy 22:25-26
ReplyDeleteThis verse shows that it is still considered a sin for the woman to be raped out in the country. If you are unable to see how horrible these laws are, then I'm not sure what to tell you. The assumption in the initial verse is that it is rape (not adultery), and that the woman is responsible for getting herself out of the situation if other people are in the basic area. No matter how you slice it, this section is pretty screwed up. Are you claiming that every woman that gets raped in a back ally in a city was willing because she was unable to scream loud enough to get help?