Is the Bible Good for Women?: Seeking Clarity and Confidence Through a Jesus-Centered Understanding of Scripture by Alsup Wendy

Author:Alsup, Wendy [Alsup, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781601429001
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2017-03-21T04:00:00+00:00

PROTECTIONS IN THE LAW FROM ABUSE

While arranged marriage did not create abuse, neither did it protect from abuse. In Deuteronomy 22, Scripture recognizes and gives instruction about two potentially abusive situations. I’ve already written about one: the protection from discrediting wives with unjust accusations about their virginity at marriage. But Deuteronomy 22 also addresses Dinah’s situation in Genesis 34. This is the next point in the arc of Dinah’s story, though it came centuries after her life.

The Law states, “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days” (Deuteronomy 22:28–29).

Rapists were commanded to marry their victims. We need to acknowledge that this is a tough piece of Scripture to wrestle with—one that causes many to shut their Bibles and pronounce that the Bible is without question bad for women. This instruction feels highly offensive as our society grows in its understanding of consent, the trauma of rape, and the culpability of a man who commits such an act.

Note that this command in Deuteronomy 22 is not to a woman to marry her rapist; it’s a command to a rapist to marry the woman he wronged. That difference is noteworthy for yet another troubling reason: a woman had few choices and rights in that ancient culture. Whether he married her or not, apart from the Law, she was powerless to affect the outcome either way.

It’s important to recognize that when God gave the Law, civilization was not very civilized. A common practice outside the Law for a woman who was raped was that her family killed her because of the resulting shame (a practice still occurring in some cultures today).3 Mankind was bent far away from basic human dignity at this early point in the unfurling story of God’s redemption of His people, some fourteen hundred years before the birth of Jesus. At this point in the story of Scripture, a major theme is the way mankind had fallen short of the glory for which it was created. Humankind had been warped away from reflecting God’s image in themselves or recognizing it in others. People primarily lived by survival of the fittest, where the weak were despised or used for personal gain, not cherished as image bearers of God worthy of respect. If a rape survivor’s family did not kill her, she was left to live in shame with no options for a future life with a family. She likely could support herself only through prostitution. Apart from the Law, not only had she been abused, but she was a prime target for future abuse.

In cultures throughout the world, including my own American one, I see many men today who still view sexual conquest as a game with no consequences. Their hearts are hardened to the harm caused to the ones they violate.

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