Hermenuetics

Comments

I appreciate this balanced review of this book, Rachel.

Even though I'm not a SA survivor myself, I've been troubled by the laws in Deuteronomy concerning rape, and I haven't read any commentaries that addressed my concerns and how it seems to contradict God's obvious compassion for the oppressed in other parts of the Bible. So I will definitely check out Trible, Webb and Heath's books.

Out of curiosity, do any of these books address the issue of boys/men being sexually abused/assaulted? It's no less devastating for them, though I don't know if ideas of oppressive patriarchy play into the reasons behind the abuse.

Posted By: Laura Droege | June 30, 2011 11:03 AM

Very nice review! Yes, those parts of the Bible can be troubling but too often I think people want to skirt around the context of the times. I visited Baruch HaShem Synagogue in Dallas, TX last year and Dr. Jeffrey Seif did a wonderful message on a few of those laws that in our modern mindset look to be quite misogynistic but in the ancient culture context make perfect sense to help men how to protect the women around them and while I was at a point where I understood and accepted that the OT was still all good - hearing it fully explained was a healing balm (both for me as a SA survivor and for my friend whose father had abandoned her).

I'm very curious about all 3 books mentioned and look forward to checking them out further.

Posted By: Leslie | June 30, 2011 11:40 AM

I'm sorry to comment again - Which of Mr. Webb's books are you recommending? The link goes to his blog and when listing his books there are several - there are two that could be what you are referring to. Thanks Rachel!

Posted By: Leslie | June 30, 2011 11:45 AM

Excellent, well-balanced piece.

Posted By: Gina | June 30, 2011 12:16 PM

Hi Leslie! The book I've found helpful by William Webb is called Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. It's not about SA, but about how we understand Scripture in its context and apply it in our own.

Posted By: Rachel Stone | June 30, 2011 2:56 PM

What comes to mind are the times that the Bible instructs that women who have been raped are then either to be forced to marry their rapists or be killed. Does the author address these confusing episodes?

Deut. 23:22-29
Numbers 31:15-18

Posted By: Robyn | June 30, 2011 3:30 PM

Thanks Rachel!

Oh and if anyone is interested in Dr. Seif's sermon - I placed the link as my url if anyone is interested - its called "Moses and Unloved Women" on 8/21/10 (you have to scroll) - if the books don't really explain (like Robyn's question) - I know listening to that sermon makes passages like Deut 23:22-29 make complete sense to me know.

Posted By: Leslie | June 30, 2011 4:30 PM

I am confused a bit by Robyn's scripture references. The first one in Deuteronomy doesn't speak about rape at all, and the second does talk about killing women but it is in a whole different situation. I will cut and paste it here:

15 And Moses said to them, “Have you [c]spared (K)all the women? 16 (L)Behold, these [d]caused the sons of Israel, through the [e]counsel of (M)Balaam, to [f]trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD. 17 (N)Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man [g]intimately. 18 But all the [h]girls who have not known man [i]intimately, [j]spare for yourselves." Numbers 31:15-18

It seems to me the women who were to be killed were the ones who led the men to sin and also the ones who brought the plague to God's people.

And here is the Deuteronomy 23:22-29 passage from biblegateway.com:
22 However, if you refrain from vowing, it would not be sin in you. 23 You shall be careful to perform what goes out from your lips, just as you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God, what you have [a]promised.

24 “When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes [b]until you are fully satisfied, but you shall not put any in your [c]basket.

25 “(A)When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain.

I don't understand where this has to do with rape.

When looking at scripture I approach it with the realization that God is a loving Father. If there is something that seems to contradict this truth then I ask God for wisdom. He will give answers. He loves when we seek Him out. We won't get all our questions answered all the time, but we can rest knowing God is a Great Loving God who only does righteous things.

Posted By: Jane Hinrichs | June 30, 2011 4:54 PM

Jane -- Here is a more comprehensible translation (NRSV) of Numbers 31:15-18, which might make the slaughter and rape more obvious:

"15 Moses said to them, "Have you allowed all the women to live? 16 These women here, on Balaam's advice, made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. 17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves."

The reference to "all the women" are to women captured by the Israelites in battle from the Midianites. See v.9. Thus, these women had been taken slaves, which is in and of itself a troubling concept that appears to be not only condoned but ordered by God. Not only are some of the woman directed to be slaughtered (which should trouble you more than it appears to), but the virgins are to be "saved" to be sex slaves of the soldiers, which is where the reference to rape comes in. See verse 9, where the soldiers are directed to "save for yourselves" all the virgin girls. These girls had been taken as war booty, as described in verses 32-35 ("32 The booty remaining from the spoil that the troops had taken totaled six hundred seventy-five thousand sheep, 33 seventy-two thousand oxen, 34 sixty-one thousand donkeys, 35 and thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known a man by sleeping with him.")

The reference to "sav[ing] them for yourselves is to warriors being "given" these girls for sex or whatever else the soldiers wanted them for since the soldiers now owned the booty they had been given. TThat's the nature of war captives. he women and girls were treated as property, and as slaves, could not consent (even if they had been given the chance) to sex with their captors.

Robyn's Deuteronomy cite has a typo. It's Deut. 22(not 23):22-29.

"22 If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. 23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death--the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man's wife. You must purge the evil from among you. 25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a girl pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the girl; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders his neighbor, 27 for the man found the girl out in the country, and though the betrothed girl screamed, there was no one to rescue her. 28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."

The fact that these horrific rape verses are little-known shows how willing some are to blithely overlook some of the treatment given women in the Bible, while at the same time they argue all the so-called "holiness" parts are still applicable today. It's hard to take much of the details of the so-called "holiness" code seriously when so much of the discussion of morality in the OT contemplates women as property and war-booty ripe for the taking (assuming they are not slaughtered first).

Now, I don't have any problem with the idea that these situations were only reflective of the time in which they were written, but the traditional evangelical interpretations have trouble dealing with these parts. And so, they mostly just overlook them and hope no one reads them. But one can only imagine the pain experienced by a survivor of rape or sexual abuse when reading these verses for the first time. How is forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist "righteous"? How is it "righteous" for God to direct the Israelite soldiers to slaughter some of the women taken captive and to take the virgins as war booty?

I'd like to know, with Robyn, whether any of the books discussed in this article have any explanation.

Posted By: Christian Lawyer | July 1, 2011 12:40 AM

If you are troubled the laws in Deuteronomy concerning rape then this link will explain it in detail.

http://answering-islam.org/Shamoun/ot_and_rape.htm

Posted By: will | July 1, 2011 12:50 AM

Will -- I won't detail all the things wrong in your linked "explanation" of the rape passage because this is veering off-topic, but suffice it to say the "explanation," the gist of which is that most of the verses are not really talking about "rape," is beyond despicable. Even if that were true, such "explanation" completely ignores the problem of forcing the virgin in v. 28 to marry the man without regard to her consent.

The "explanation" buys into all of the same problems as the text itself including: treating the woman as property of either her husband or her father and assuming that if a woman does not "cry out" she must have consented to the sex. And, even if v.28 uses a different word for what is done to the un-pledged virgin, it's because an unpledged virgin, in the culture at that time, is almost certainly a CHILD, which would make the man's act pedophilia (a variation of "rape"). Regardless, making the virgin marry the man is plainly sadistic.

Posted By: Christian Lawyer | July 1, 2011 7:41 AM

May I?

The key to understanding Deuteronomy 22:28-29 is the phrase "he may never divorce her as long as he lives"

If a woman were raped in those days she would no longer have been considered worthy of marriage. No man would have wanted her because she was defiled. This law made it so that the rapists responsibility be that the woman be financially supported for the rest of her life. That is why he wasn't killed off (such in the case when the woman was already betrothed) - because she would have to be cared for. Now remember (or in case you didn't know) - in Jewish tradition there would be a wedding contract drawn up and the man and woman would be considered married - but then the man had to go and build a home for them before they ever consummated the marriage. Now whose to say that she actually ever lived with the rapist? She may have remained in her father's home and he (the rapist) would have still had to support her.

And on the flip side - the law is more to get the men to think - to realize that if he rapes a woman he will have to care for her for the rest of his life. I wonder how often date rape would happen if we enforced something along those lines in today's culture - obviously not forcing her to marry him (as our marriage laws and customs are very different than the ancient Jews) but that he had to pay something like alimony for the rest of his life if it would cause some men to think twice.

Posted By: Leslie | July 1, 2011 8:44 AM

Care for her the rest of his life? Do you not see that this means the victim will have to live with her rapist the rest of her life? Where's the righteousness and compassion in that?

Think before you rape? It could cost you a lifetime of getting to keep raping your victim, dominating her entire life, and oh yeah, you have to feed, clothe and shelter her too. Sort of like happened to Jacee Duggard?

That is sick stuff, man.

Posted By: shadowspring | July 1, 2011 9:19 AM

Leslie -- Respectfully, your explanation buys into the whole patriarchal system and is no better than the passage itself. Even if it provides for some easing of a raped woman's burden, which I don't think it does, it doesn't even begin to challenge the entrenched patriarchal system that treated women as property and lacking in autonomy.

Posted By: Christian Lawyer | July 1, 2011 9:31 AM

Since these are the COMMANDS OF GOD, and the Hebrews/Jews took them so seriously as say that they must follow the law to the letter, I fail to understand why God could not have simply commanded it differently. Obviously "Gods ways are not our ways." HOWEVER, these are things that I sincerely and desperately struggle with. To blithely explain them away as culture bound ignores the legitimate reactions of women who have been raped and sexually abused, and those who have not as well.

I understand that we read these verses through our own contextual lense, and I'm willing to take that into consideration. But. It still seems horrific to me that God would command that a woman be killed if she is raped, forced to marry her rapist and probably live her life being raped over and over again, and that children (virgin females) be taken as slaves and raped by their "husbands" who captured them. It introduces an incredible cognitive dissonance for me that I have yet to reconcile.

I want to know if the author addresses this issue.

Posted By: Robyn | July 1, 2011 10:43 AM

Hello everyone, and thanks for your comments. While Elaine Heath's book doesn't address the passages that many of you are concerned about, William Webb's book, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals offers a way of reading Scripture that helps make sense of some of these troubling passages, without "explaining away" what's there. He's also currently developing a website--redemptivechristianity.com--that explains the heart of his approach, which is illustrated in a simple graphic here: http://redemptivechristianity.com/?page_id=11. A shorter explanation of Dr. Webb's approach appears in the book Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology, edited by Gundry and Meadors. It's an IVP "Four Views" book, in which four evangelical scholars explain and demonstrate how they read Scripture. Hope this is helpful! Peace to all--Rachel

Posted By: Rachel Stone | July 1, 2011 11:53 AM

I think you guys might be misunderstanding the role of the Torah in Jewish society at the time. It didn't work like our civil laws work today. It was an entirely different kind of construct. Through Moses and so forth, God breathed out general outlines of the kind of morality which he expected. The outlines go into some detail here or there, but they do not attempt to detail out every condition of the situations that could arise. That was for the actual Judges to look for God's will and implement in developing their actual and specific civil rules.

The Torah was a teaching tool. A heuristic, illustrating morality through practice in a very specific context--and of course spoken from often a male's persepective (Moses, etc). Even the Jewish interpreters throughout history have considered MUCH of the Torah 'laws' to be extremely culture and time sensitive (not to be applied in general), but useful inasmuch as there are things to be learned by it which, temselves, can be incorporated into personal or civil life.

To address some questions in that light, it is a presumption in Numbers to assume that the Hebrews were taking young women as sex slaves via the spoils of war when such behavior is otherwise considered to be immoral by the Torah in general! Sexual activity outside of the appropriate bonds of marriage was prohibited. It even attempts to lay down rules for just *how* one should go about themselves if they absolutely must have relations with a femal from a conquered people, giving us greater specificity than it often does.

"When you go out to war [...] and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her and would take her for your wife, then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. She shall put off the clothes of her captivity, remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother a full month; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife." Deut 21:10-14

Granted, the verses are silent on how a woman that woman who is found to be comely could choose to behave. But this does not mean she does not have a choice. Silence is not prohibition. She could very well not *want* to mourn her parents or be married to be the man, making him shplit outta luck. The issue is simply unaddressed. One of the few times such an issues *is* addressed, however, the Torah appears to affirm in the other direction--that women should be given a choice.

"This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, 'Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father.'" Num 36:6

Indeed, the same goes for Deuteronomy 22. It says the man must marry the woman and is never allowed to divorce. It is silent on whether or not the woman can or should turn down the man's obligation, and how that might play out. However, Exodus 22:16-17 gives us a hint when it says:

"If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride-price for virgins."

It could be safely assumed, then, that if the daughter told the father to refuse the man's obligation and thus rejected his marriage proposal, the man's punishment would be to pay the price and not get the wife. This is all open to interpretation, indeed, was *meant* for interpretation and teaching. That's what Jewish Rabbis are and were for, to be interpreters and teachers of the Torah's message(s). If you don't have you're own take on what the Torah means, you can't be Rabbi--or one of God's judges for that people in that day.

And we must also be careful about the usage of the word rape. If a man had sexual relations with a woman outside of marriage in that context, it was either rape or adultery. There was no such thing as moral, consensual sex outside of marriage. It was immoral. Period.

Posted By: Amos Paul | July 1, 2011 1:56 PM

And I aplogize for a few typos above... I wrote that quickly and while distracted.

[sheepish]

Heh.

Posted By: Amos Paul | July 1, 2011 1:58 PM

Amos, thank you! I had forgotten that a woman had the right to deny the marriage - so of course she could say no to it but he still had to pay the bride price. Doh.

Rachel - thanks for the recommendations on the books. I didn't get the one you actually are reviewing but got the others for now. I do want to read this one though.

Posted By: Leslie | July 1, 2011 2:48 PM