Update on "Does your God approve of sex within adult-child marriages?"

I've been publicly attacking the biblical inerrancy doctrine since 2003.  The vast majority of inerrantists presume that the bible-god views pedophilia as a sin.  So to attack that view, I've been arguing for the last 20 years that this understandably popular doctrine has no support in the Mosaic Law.  The inference, that Christians seek to avoid like the plague, is that God doesn't condemn sex within adult-child marriages as sin, because he doesn't think such activity is sinful in the first place.  The whole notion that god thinks an act to be sin, but has nowhere plainly declared so, is theologically problematic.

The attack comes mostly in the form of arguing that Numbers 31:18 is not merely authorizing Hebrew soldiers to use underage girls as "house servants", it is also authorizing Hebrew soldiers to both marry and sexually consummate such marriage to such underage girls (i.e., sex within adult-child marriages, i.e, pedophilia).

17 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.

 18 "But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.  (Num. 31:17-18 NAU)

As you can imagine, Christian apologists have for more than 20 years been hitting me with everything they can possibly think of to justify their tendency to create god in their own modern western democratic image, in their effort to show that by some strange coincidence, the Old Testament YHWH just happens to hate pedophilia equally as much as today's Americans do.

The link-fixes that appear below are some of my reasons why such attempts to avoid biblical moral disaster fail, and therefore, my view (that YHWH had, in the days of Moses, approved of sex within adult-child marriages), remains reasonable.

These arguments do not prove that Christians are wrong in how they interpret the bible.  The arguments only show that us atheists/skeptics can be reasonable to interpret the bible the way we do. That is, these arguments refute the Christians who characterize my view as "unreasonable".  They may hate that view, but they are absolutely paralyzed from proving it to be unreasonable.  None of my views arise from improper exegesis.  Thus they are forced to say the view is reasonable no matter how distasteful or religiously incorrect they think it is.

If you disagree, then your job is not to show that I'm "wrong" (because I don't claim I'm right), your job is rather to show that my arguments fail to establish the reasonableness of the interpretation I advocate.  That's a much more difficult goal to reach, for daily reality tells us we can possibly be reasonable even if wrong.  Only a stupid fool insists that everytime somebody gets something wrong, it is because their method of truth-seeking, if any, was unreasonable.  No, sometimes we make innocent mistakes.  

Reasonableness can arise from accuracy, but it by no means demands accuracy.  Therefore, "you are wrong" is not sufficient to show my views to be unreasonable.  You must show that my exegesis is so poor that no person concerned for truth could possibly condone it.

If you can't do that job, then you must live with the knowledge that yes, at least some atheist bible critics, even if not all of them, can possibly be reasonable to view the biblical YHWH has having approved of sexual relations within adult-child marriages back in the days of Moses.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 1: sin is transgression of God's law

-------In this entry, I argue that Romans 7:7 forbids the notion that we can know sin without the Mosaic law, therefore, if in fact the Mosaic law doesn't clearly condemn pedophilia, then you have no biblical justification for saying God thinks sexual acts within adult-child marriages are sinful.  The truth is that Romans 7:7 is itself false, but as a Christian, you don't have the option of winning the debate that way, you are forever stuck with what Paul meant with his words.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 2: We can know what sin is by our conscience?

------In this entry, I argue that because the bible founds the human conscience upon the Mosaic law, it is reasonable to deny that the OT YHWH thinks "conscience" is a way, independent of Mosaic law, to establish any act as sinful.  Thus if your conscience bothers you when thinking of pedophilia in 2023, we are reasonable to conclude this "pang", even if it came from the NT God, did not come from the OT YHWH.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 3: We can know what sin is by intuition?

----forthcoming

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 4: "In non-essentials, liberty"

----In this entry, I argue that if my opponent is the type of Christian who believes in the popular conservative maxim "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity", then because the Mosaic Law fails to clearly condemn pedophilia, what a Christian in your congregation thinks God's opinion is concerning sexual relations within adult-child marriages, constitutes nothing more important than a "non-essential".  Thus if a Christian in your church in 2023 thinks God doesn't condemn sexual relations in adult-child marriages, we are reasonable to view you as under an obligation to give that Christian liberty of conscience on the subject, meaning, we are reasonable to condemn you if, because of his viewpoint on the subject, you ever disfellowship or excommunicate him.

Does your god approve of pedophilia? Part 5: God establishes all the secular laws

----forthcoming

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 6: God expects Hebrews to use their "common sense"

----In this entry I argue that nothing in the bible indicates God ever expected anybody to use their "common sense" to fill in moral gaps created by omissions in the Mosaic Law.  Thus we are reasonable to presume that silence in the Mosaic Law means silence from YHWH...a god that seems to have a need to condemn nearly everything he sees.

Does your God approve of pedophilia? Part 7: Ezekiel 16 establishes nothing except more apologetics embarrassment

------In this entry I argue that, contrary to the hopes of many apologists, nothing in Ezekiel 16 renders unreasonable my view that the in the days of Moses, YHWH approved of sexual relations within adult-child marriages.

My reply to Jonathon McLatchie on Numbers 31:18 and rape

This is my reply to an article by Dr. Jonathan McLatchie entitled

Does the Bible Support Sexual Slavery? 

An Analysis of Numbers 31:15-18

December 24, 2021

More than two years ago, I participated in a debate in Oxford, England, with atheist YouTuber Alex O’Connor (who goes by the online alias Cosmic Skeptic). The subject was “Why I Am / Am Not a Christian,” which was quite broad. Given the short time constraints of the debate and the breadth of the topic, we were regrettably unable to pursue an explication of our differences with the depth that I would prefer. 

And when I challenged you with a list of possible topics worded in a polite respectful manner, being the very first communication I ever sent to you, you absolutely refused to debate me for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with my ability or inability to significantly challenge you on the merits of your beliefs.  See here.

Nonetheless, I very much appreciated my interaction that evening with O’Connor, including the dinner we enjoyed together before the event.

You enjoyed having dinner with an atheist?  What fellowship hath light with darkness?  And you call yourself a bible-believing Christian?  Then so is John Dominic Crossan.

I have long viewed O’Connor as one of the more philosophically nuanced atheist thinkers, and I have valued our ongoing private discussions subsequent to our initial public dialogue. 

And what about the opinion of those other people in your Calvinist group, like Sye Bruggencate and Jeff Durbin, or their teachers Van Til, Greg Bahnsen and John Frame, who think anything an atheist has to say in defense of any non-Christian tenet is pure blasphemy?  Wow, I didn't know you valued blasphemy.  Or did I forget that Calvinism and presuppositionalism are houses divided no less than Protestantism is?  

My positive argument in the debate concerned the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, while O’Connor focused on moral critiques of the Bible. 

Then such a lopsided debate likely had the convenient effect of allowing one side to avoid having to answer the more difficult questions, while had you both been debating a single solitary proposition, the cross-examination would have been more comprehensive.

In his portion of the cross-examination, O’Connor chose to focus on the issue of slavery in the Old Testament. The last of the texts we discussed was Numbers 31:15-18, which was interpreted by O’Connor to endorse sexual slavery. At the time, this was not an issue that I had researched with great depth, though I recognized it as a difficult text. My preparation for the debate had largely been on the evidences for New Testament reliability, and its epistemic relevance to developing a robust case for the resurrection. I therefore acknowledged it as a difficult text without offering any detailed response. 

If you weren't such a cessationist, you would not have needed time to prepare for the subject matter anymore than would the people Jesus described as puppets in Matthew 10:20.  You worry too much.  Just let go and let God. 

If you are not a cessationist, then why didn't the Holy Spirit do for the unprepared you, what He allegedly did for the apostles when they needed to give answers?  Maybe you didn't pray enough?  Maybe you had secret or unconfessed sin in your life?  Or must I assume, contrary to the NT, that the spiritual world had nothing to do with you being less prepared than you wished to be?

Earlier this week, Alex O’Connor uploaded the clip from our debate, in which this text was discussed, to his Cosmic Clips spin-off channel. I therefore thought it an appropriate time to publish an article offering my current perspective on this difficult text. Here is the passage under discussion (Num 31:15-18):

15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he [Moses] asked them. 16 “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. 17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

The first thing to note about this text is that it is not technically God who gives the instructions. Thus, on the worst case scenario, one may interpret this text as being descriptive of Moses’ command, rather than it being an act endorsed by God. Nonetheless, even supposing (as I think is more likely) that Moses’ instruction carries with it God’s approval, I do not believe it to be as problematic as it might appear on first impression.

Good save:  God told Moses to take "full" vengeance on the Midianites (Numbers 31:2), so it was intended to be a genocide.

O’Connor believes that this text gives permission to the Hebrew soldiers to rape Midianite war captives.

He's not going far enough, Numbers 31:18 constitutes Moses' advocating marital pedophilia.  O'Connor didn't hit you as hard as he possibly could have.  You should thank him for having mercy on you.

However, such an interpretation would fly in the face of every piece of clear moral legislation on sexual relations that we have in the Hebrew Bible. 

How do you expect your "scripture interprets scripture" rule to be the least bit impressive or obligatory on an unbeliever who clearly denies biblical inerrancy and biblical consistency?

Do you the juror demand that the prosecutor reconcile all of his theories of the case with everything the suspect said on the witness stand?  No.

There is no universally recognized rule of historiography, hermeneutics or common sense that obligates anybody to presume moral consistency in a text of theocratic rules that allegedly began in somewhere between 1400 b.c. and 650 b.c., the original text of which most scholars think has been altered numerous times over the centuries, with definite anachronisms?  

There is nothing the least bit unreasonable in the unbeliever-hermeneutic that says that on account of the Hebrew texts admitting they fell into idolatry nearly every day, charging them with inconsistent legislation is about as worrisome as charging the Canaanites with inconsistent legislation.

For example, in Deuteronomy 22:23-27:

23 “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 25 “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, 27 because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her. [emphasis added]

According to this text, the crime of rape is so serious that it is punishable by death.

Your excluding vv. 28-29 was apparently intentional, because it restores the moral depravity you so desperately try to remove:

 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,

 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days. (Deut. 22:28-29 NAU)

The moral depravity here is in forcing the rapist to marry the victim, when in fact this particular legislation does not express or imply that the victim is allowed to deny the marriage.  Trinitarian inerrantist scholars explain that v. 28 is also describing the man taking the woman by force, so that the victim in v. 28 was forced to marry the rapist even though she was forced into the sex act:

22:28–29 At first glance the next example, the rape of an unbetrothed girl, might appear to have been a lesser offense than those already described, but this was not the case at all. First, he seized (Heb. tāpaś, “lay hold of”) her and then lay down (šākab) with her, a clear case of violent, coercive behavior.

Merrill, E. H. (2001, c1994). Vol. 4: Deuteronomy (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 305). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

What fool would trifle that the victim of a "clear case of violent, coercive" rape was also somehow "willing"?  I do not argue that Merrill's view is necessarily correct, only that its existence prevents YOU from justifiably accusing my more negative appraisal as unreasonable.

If the woman failed to scream for help when she was in the city and could be heard, the Jewish law viewed the situation as consensual sex rather than rape, since the woman could have cried out for someone to rescue her but didn’t.

A bit of unforgivable stupidity since common sense dictates that the man could either prevent her screaming by muffling her, or threatening her life.

Thus, both parties were guilty. However, if the sexual assault took place in a rural area where the woman had no chance of being heard, the Jewish law gave the woman the benefit of the doubt and she was not to be considered culpable.

Which is also stupid since nothing about the place the sex act occurred would say anything authoritative about whether she was willing.

One might object here that women captured in war were not afforded the same rights as women belonging to the people of Israel, and thus this consideration offers little help with regards to the text of our study. However, the previous chapter in Deuteronomy concerns the rights of women who are captured in war (Deut 21:10-14):

A text that neither expresses nor implies that the woman had any right to refuse the marriage.  You quote as follows:

10 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God gives them into your hand and you take them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you desire to take her to be your wife, 12 and you bring her home to your house, she shall shave her head and pare her nails. 13 And she shall take off the clothes in which she was captured and shall remain in your house and lament 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. 14 But if you no longer delight in her, you shall let her go where she wants. But you shall not sell her for money, nor shall you treat her as a slave, since you have humiliated her. [emphasis added]

McLatchie continues:

Therefore, while the Hebrew soldiers were permitted to marry female war captives, they were not permitted to rape them or treat them as slaves.

The "Good News" Translation of v. 14 makes plain that this rite involved rape:

14 Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free. Since you forced her to have intercourse with you, you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her.

See here.  McLatchie continues:

 The woman was also to have a month to mourn the loss of her kin prior to getting married. 

Oh, ok, so if I kidnap your 18 year old daughter and deal with her exactly as Deuteronomy 21:10-14 allowed a Hebrew man to deal with a female war-captive, then you'd conclude I was treating her "right"?

Daniel Block notes, “This monthlong quarantine expresses respect for the woman’s ties to her family of origin and her own psychological and emotional health, providing a cushion from the shock of being torn from her own family.” 

Then that is respect for pagan theology and idolatry, since the woman's family ties would have been formed in idolatrous contexts.  Gee, is tolerance for her family ties what was meant by a Mosaic author whose purpose in killing her family was his intolerance of idolatry?

[1] Indeed, as John Wenham comments, “In a world where there are wars, and therefore prisoners of war, such regulations in fact set a high standard of conduct.” 

Some would say that making her shave her head and remove her clothes merely adds unnecessarily to the humiliation.  Your idea that this is supposed to be a "nice" thing is absurd, and you'd never conclude any such foolishness if somebody kidnapped your 18 year old daughter today and followed out all the permissions and requirements in that passage.  You only make excuses and hem and haw because nobody has subjected YOU to such degredation.

[2] Furthermore, by becoming part of the people of Israel (and possessing full status as a wife), the women would be delivered from pagan idolatry and exposed instead to Israelite religion concerning the true God, thereby having opportunity to attain salvation.

Meaning: we should be amazed at how the Hebrews who killed her family, acted nice to her after kidnapping her and forcing her into a marriage with one of the people who killed her family.  Sorry, I'm not feeling that.  Try again.

The historical context of the war against the Midianites is also important to bear in mind as we evaluate our text. Numbers 31:16 indicates that the Midianite women “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.” 

Then we wonder why Moses didn't also kill off the children of the Hebrew soldiers who sinned there, no less than he ordered the killing of the children of the Midianites in Numbers 31:17.  But sometimes, demanding consistency from a dictator is out of step with the barbarisms of the ANE.  My bad.

This is an allusion to Numbers 25:1-9, in which we read of an occasion where the Midianites devised a plot to entice Israel into pagan worship involving making sacrifices to Baal and ritual sex. According to Moses, the Midianite women were among those who “enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord” (Num 31:16). Thus, the women who were permitted to live and marry into Israel (that is, those who had not known man by lying with him) were presumably those who had not been involved in enticing the men of Israel into sexual impurity.

Moses is a hypocrite:  he kills the Midianite babies apparently because he ascribed to some type of corporate-responsibility ethic, but he does NOT kill the babies of the Hebrew men who participated in that sin.  How convenient.

Another consideration, often overlooked in discussions of our text, is that we are not informed what happened to young woman who were brought into the Israelite camp but who did not wish to marry the men who had just slaughtered their kin. 

No, the text that allows the Hebrew soldier to marry the daughter of parents he recently killed, neither expresses nor implies the girl had the least bit of choice in the matter.  If the Hebrews were stupid enough to kill her family, we can hypothesize they were also stupid enough to give her as much say in whether to marry, as they gave to her parents on whether to die.

We can hypothesize that they were forced into it anyway, but we can equally hypothesize that they were allowed to make themselves useful as virgins until such a time as someone more suitable presented himself. 

What fool would seriously tell himself that where women of a cult tempt other men to sin sexually, surely the virgins in that cult couldn't possibly be culpable?  Did the Hebrews think only vaginal intercourse counted as sexual sin?  When Moses spared the women who were still virgins, wasn't he taking a chance that in the spared group were a few virgins who had engaged in forms of sex that leave virginity intact, such as fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex, i.e.,  participating in the Midianite sin but preserving their virginal status?

If he really was taking a such a chance, how can we be unreasonable to say he was just a stupid gullible dictator without any god to make actual truth known to him?

You also have the option of saying they were not dolts, and the reason they deny culpability to the still virgin girls is because the Hebrews honestly didn't see anal sex, fellatio or cunnilingus as adultery or fornication...but you aren't in the business of making concessions that open the door for today's Christians to fornicate without fornicating, right?

This is simply not stated or even intimated in the text. Thus, if there were women who were averse to being married to an interested Israelite soldier, we just do not know what happened.

If you don't know what happened, you cannot render improbable the possibility that they were forced into the marriage.

Moreover, even if on occasion something bad happened — and there is no reason to deny that sometimes it may have — it is not something we are told was done by command of God.

But if there was any forcing, it would have been justified by appeal to Deuteronomy 21:10-14.  So, Jonathan....do you believe that passage is the inspired inerrant word of God, yes or no?

When Moses gave the requirements as recited in that passage, was God speaking through him, yes or no?

In conclusion, though Numbers 31:13-18 is undoubtedly a difficult text, especially from the vantage point of our twenty-first century western culture, the text becomes, upon closer inspection, significantly less problematic than it appears at first impression. 

You can save your campaign speech until after you have shown the Good News "rape" Translation of Deut. 21:14 to be unreasonable or incorrect.  You highly doubt you'll ever do that, right?

The Pentateuch outlined the rights of female war captives, and they were not allowed to be treated as a slave or sex object.

Those who killed a girl's parents forced her to marry one of the guilty Hebrew soldiers, in a way that wasn't quite as barbaric as would have been allowed in pagan cultures.  Congratulations.  I'm experiencing a heart attack right now because of how guilty I feel about my sin.  Nice job.  Do you have any dust and ashes I could borrow?

The Pentateuch also takes a very negative view of rape.

According to the Good News Translation of Deuteronomy 21:14, God must have intended this rite to result in rape.

Most likely, the women who were spared were not involved in enticing Israel into sexual impurity during the incident at Peor. Finally, we are not informed by the text what the arrangements were for women who did not wish to marry an interested Israelite soldier, and so any suggestion of what may have happened is mere conjecture.

But my conjectures cannot be shown to be unreasonable.  Your assumption that the multiple authors of the Pentateuch were honestly trying to give future readers exactly what Moses wrote, is also mere conjecture.  If the Hebrews were as prone to corruption as every page of the Pentateuch says, we have no reason to pretend their scribes were any exception. 

Footnotes
8 thoughts on “Does the Bible Support Sexual Slavery? An Analysis of Numbers 31:15-18”


JOHN RICHARDS
DECEMBER 24, 2021 AT 12:49 PM

Labelling the Numbers text as ‘difficult’ reveals your point of view – that of a presuppositionist.

I don’t find it at all difficult!

It also reveals your assumption that the Bible is a reliable source of information…
Reply


KEVIN ROSS
DECEMBER 24, 2021 AT 9:57 PM

Of course you don’t find it problematic. Your presuppositions ensure that any misunderstanding of the text remains a live option.
Reply



JMCLATCHIE
DECEMBER 25, 2021 AT 4:18 PM

John Richards: Anyone with a cursory familiarity with my work knows of my staunch opposition to presuppositionalism. Contrary to the insinuation of your comment, it is not an entailment of evidentialism that, for one to be rational in holding a belief, that belief can admit no difficulties.
Reply

-----------------turchisrong replies, April 19, 2023

Then you, McLatchie, must confess that it is possible for an atheist to be rational in holding to atheism, even if atheism presents "difficulties".

============================continuing:

PETER
DECEMBER 24, 2021 AT 2:53 PM

Definitely appreciate addressing this. It really is an uncharitable reading that doesn’t even make sense (e.g. Kill the Canaanite non virgin women and Isrealite men for inappropriate sexual acts, and keep the Virgin women so you can… Do more inappropriate sexual acts!??!?), so it’s nice to see a complete response to it.
Reply


JESSE
JULY 22, 2022 AT 2:00 AM

Remember the sexual idolatry of Balaam’s sin led Israel to experience a plague, for which Moses killed many Israelites, both to punish the sin and to stop the spread of disease. Notice the emphasis on the cleansing rituals to ensure they did not carry back to the camp any plagues; ie STD’s. Sexual idolotry. Orgies. Even with children. Remember these tribes which surrounded Israel were accused of cannibalism and human sacrifice of children as well as incest and bestiality, and archaeological findings do support those claims.
Reply



DAVID MADISON
DECEMBER 26, 2021 AT 10:02 PM

The world in which God revealed Himself was very different from today’s world. It was a world in which warfare was common and the consequences for defeated peoples were often terrible. Marrying the men who had conquered you is not a particularly attractive option but it is better than the alternative. What we often find in the Old Testament is a way of doing things that limits harm.

Atheists are dismissive of this. Their usual response is to ask why God didn’t just come along and impose modern values on the people who lived 3000 years ago. This is remarkably shallow. Life was brutal 3000 years ago. The reason why it was brutal is that this is what human nature is capable of. And it still is. Christianity offers us the hope of deliverance from our corrupt nature but this hope is not something we have any right to expect.
Reply

----------------------------------------turchisrong replies, April 19, 2023

Their usual response is to ask why God didn’t just come along and impose modern values on the people who lived 3000 years ago. This is remarkably shallow. Life was brutal 3000 years ago. The reason why it was brutal is that this is what human nature is capable of. And it still is. 

Then how do you explain God preventing the pagan prophet Balaam from cursing Israel in Numbers 22:38, 23:8, 12?  Wasn't life during Numbers 22 equally as brutal as it was in Numbers 31?

What we find here is that your God has no excuse:  Not only can God prevent pagans from sinning, the fact that he did so at least once proves that he is far more willing to violate human freewill than today's freewiller Christians wish to admit.  

And God can cause pagans to both know his will and obey it even if they are idolaters.  See Ezra 1:1.

So the skeptic is reasonable to say that your god is sadistic:  he clearly does have a viable way of preventing humans from sinning, but no, he prefers to take the route that causes unnecessary misery and bloodshed.  Sort of like the fool who has a choice between drawing money out of his account to pay the rent, or robbing the bank to pay the rent, and he chooses the latter despite the former being entirely sufficient to the purpose.

Refuting Matthew Flannagan's defense of Divine Command Theory

Inerrantist Christian philosopher and apologist Dr. Matthew Flannagan continues pressing his pro-Divine-Command-Theory (DCT) arguments and thus wrangling words repeatedly about doctrine as if he never knew that 2nd Timothy 2:14 condemns word-wrangling and thus condemns all Christians who obtained higher education in analytic philosophy.  The one discipline in the world that makes you the most prone to thinking word-wrangling is godly, is analytic philosophy.

Flannagan's latest paper is "Why the Horrendous Deeds Objection Is Still a Bad Argument" which Sophia accepted: 26 October 2020, Springer Nature B.V. 2021.

I posted the following challenge/rebuttal to him at his blog http://www.mandm.org.nz/2021/02/published-in-sophia-why-the-horrendous-deeds-objection-is-still-a-bad-argument.html

--------------------------

Your paper apparently silently presumes that God would never command a man to rape a woman (and you'd be out of a job if you ever pretended God might possibly command rape).  

And it is clear in ALL of your apologetics writings that you want the world to know that unbelievers cannot be reasonable in accusing the bible-god of atrocities.

I offer a DCT argument to refute one particular belief of yours, namely, that those who accuse the bible-god of moral atrocities are unreasonable.  On the contrary, we are equally as reasonable as anybody who accuses the KJV of having translation mistakes.

The atheist's alleged inability to properly ground morals wouldn't help you overcome this rebuttal even if that accusation was true.  YOU believe burning a child to death is worse than raping him or her, so if I can show that your own presuppositions require that God caused people to burn children to death, you will be forced to logically conclude that your god has committed atrocities worse than rape.

God said through Isaiah in 700 b.c.  that He caused the Assyrians to commit their war-atrocities:

 5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger And the staff in whose hands is My indignation,

 6 I send it against a godless nation And commission it against the people of My fury To capture booty and to seize plunder, And to trample them down like mud in the streets. (Isa. 10:5-6 NAU)

Ashurnasirpal II was king of Assyria from 883 to 859, and  admitted "I burnt their adolescent boys [and] girls.”  You may trifle that this was typical semitic exaggeration, but the fact that we have pictorial reliefs portraying Assyrians "flaying alive" their prisoners certainly makes it reasonable for a person to conclude that Ashurnasirpal's boasts were true to reality.  The production date for such relief is 660BC-650BC, so the specific sort of Assyrians that Isaiah speaks about in 700 b.c aren't likely less barbaric than Ashurnasirpal II.

To say nothing of the fact that every Assyriologist I've come across acts as if the literal truth of the Assyrian war atrocities was a foregone conclusion.  One example is BAR 17:01 (Jan/Feb 1991), "Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death"  by Erika Belibtreu, professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Vienna University, where she has worked since 1963.  

You can hardly fault atheists for failing to notice all that "semitic exaggeration" when actual Assyriologists think such descriptions are  telling about actual realities.  Just like you cannot fault the ignorant teenage girl who "accepts Jesus" in an inerrantist Evangelical church on the basis of writings by Norman Geisler, and doesn't notice all the obvious philosophical blunders he committed.

 I can predict you will trifle that God's use of the Assyrians doesn't mean he "caused" them to burn children to death, but Isaiah continues in ch. 10 and uses an analogy that makes the Assyrian the axe, and God is the one who uses it to chop things with:

 12 So it will be that when the Lord has completed all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will say, "I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness."

 13 For he has said, "By the power of my hand and by my wisdom I did this, For I have understanding; And I removed the boundaries of the peoples And plundered their treasures, And like a mighty man I brought down their inhabitants,

 14 And my hand reached to the riches of the peoples like a nest, And as one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth; And there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped."

 15 Is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it? Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who lift it, Or like a rod lifting him who is not wood. (Isa. 10:12-15 NAU)

Hence, your theory that unbelievers can never be reasonable to accuse the bible-god of atrocities worse than child-rape, is false.

Update August 13, 2021:

Matthew Flannagan's blog usually allows the reader to post a response, and the bottom part of his blog posts looks like this:

see, e.g., http://www.mandm.org.nz/2021/03/12473.html#respond

But Flannagan has configured the webpage containing my rebuttal remarks, so that it no longer allows replies:

See, e.g., mandm.org.nz/2021/02/published-in-sophia-why-the-horrendous-deeds-objection-is-still-a-bad-argument.html#comment-260033

No, clicking the the "respond" button doesn't work.  I don't know if Matt will admit that he deliberately disabled the possibility of further commenting on that specific blog post, or if he will do what he did before, and claim ignorance as to why his blog often doesn't allow me to post replies.

Either way, Flannagan's question was insulting and in no wise a reply on the merits.  His Sophia article drew the following conclusion:

Emphasis added by me.

Therefore, it should be clear that my argument that God has commanded people to do things worse than child rape was a very relevant refutation of the the God-is-essentially-good presupposition which Flannagan based his Sophia article on.

It is not false to accuse the bible-god of being essentially evil (i.e., evil according to the standards of Christians, who always presume the evil of any person who would facilitate or command child rape).

My response to Flannagan's blog post was in rebuttal to Flanngan's concluding remarks in the linked SOPHIA article, therefore, my remarks could not have been MORE relevant.  Yet Flannagan has a nasty habit of constantly and falsely accusing his critics of either not reading his argument or misunderstanding him.

My invitation to James A. Jardin

Mr. Jardin in 2013 wrote a paper called The Slaughter of the Midianites in Numbers 31, a Group Exegetical Paper.  I found it through Academia.edu, here.

Therein, he defends the traditional conservative Christian view that Numbers 31:18 wasn't about authorizing rape.  I sent him the following message:

Hello,
With reference to your "Numbers 31:13-24 Exegetical Paper",
 What would be unreasonable in interpreting Numbers 31:18 as approval of sex within adult-child marriages?   It's therefore not about "adultery" or pre-marital "fornication", so I'm not seeing the problem.
 I see nothing in the bible indicating the minimum age the girl must reach before she can be married, not all sexual relations require penetrative intercourse, the atrocities of the ancient Israelites prove they were nothing close to the modern democratic American, God wanted women to experience vaginal pain on first intercourse anyway, and as I'm sure you know, the Babylonian Talmud, which is reasonably presumed to reveal ancient Jewish traditions, several times indicates approval of sexual intercourse between a man and a prepubescent girl.
 In your paper you claim Deut. 21:10-14 was intended to protect female war captives from rape, but on the contrary, this authorization for a man to marry such a woman gives not the slightest indication that the woman's consent was needed, the Hebrew "anah" in v. 14 always means rape in other bible verses describing men interacting with woman, and the decidedly pro-Christian Good News Translation renders v. 14 as "you forced her to have intercourse with you..." which would hardly be the case if those Christian translators felt there was any reasonable way to spin the literary evidence to get rid of the rape-implication.
 Maybe the question should be whether the non-Christian can be "reasonable" to reject the democratic conservative Christiain interpretation of Numbers 31:18 and continue viewing it as approval of sex within adult-child marriages?
 I've done a massive amount of research on those issues, and I'd like to see how a Christian who has studied them answers my concerns.
 Thank you for your time,
 Barry  (barryjoneswhat@gmail.com)

I hope to recieve Mr. Jarden's reply, as nearly no Christians appear willing to take up this challenge.  Of course, there's always the hyena "apologist" who is frightened of real-time debate, and keeps his tithing customers happy by doing the occasional cartoon video about some argument I present here, but I'm requesting seriously interactive scholarship on the level of Outback Steakhouse.  Not the hide-and-seek bullshit one gets at Chuck E Cheese.  The last time I raised the pedophilia-issue in a Christian-chat room, noody could refute me and several admitted they couldn't say for sure whether God condemns sex within adult-child marriages.  I think it had something to do with my combining Romans 13 with a 19th century Delaware law which set the age of sexual consent at 7.

My changes to the Wikipedia article on the history of "Marry-Your-Rapist" legislation

Wikipedia has an article telling the history of "Marry-Your-Rapist" laws.

Kyle Butt from Apologetics Press was cited to justify denying "rape" was the subject of Deuteronomy 22:28-29.  Here's that passage in context:

 23 "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her,
 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
 25 "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die.
 26 "But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case.
 27 "When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.
 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days. (Deut. 22:23-29 NAU)

When I noticed that this Christian apologist viewpoint wasn't balanced by citation to contrary opinions by equally "inerrantist" Christian scholars, I thought the public was done a disservice, and decided the article  needed some balancing.  So I made a public edit to the article as follows:
----------------------------------------------------------

But not all inerrantist Christian scholars agree that Deut. 22:28-29 is mere consensual fornication: 

"At first glance the next example, the rape of an unbetrothed girl, might appear to have been a lesser offense than those already described, but this was not the case at all. First, he seized (Heb. tāpaś, “lay hold of”) her and then lay down (šākab) with her, a clear case of violent, coercive behavior."^[25]

Furthermore, Exodus 22:16-17 does not specify that the man "violated" her, but Deuteronomy 22:29 does. The Hebrew word for violated is עָנָה/anah, which means to be bowed down, afflicted. Every other time this word is used to describe two people interacting, it is always describing a man forcing a woman to have sex against her will (i.e., rape):

• Later, if you no longer want her, you are to let her go free. Since you forced her to have intercourse with you (Hebrew: anah), you cannot treat her as a slave and sell her. (Deut. 21:14, Good News Translation. The GNT was "...published by the American Bible Society...it is a clear and simple modern translation that is faithful to the original Hebrew, Koine Greek, and Aramaic texts. The GNT is a highly trusted version."

• "If you mistreat (Hebrew: anah) my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no man is with us, see, God is witness between you and me." (Gen. 31:50 NAU)

• But the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house at night because of me. They intended to kill me; instead, they ravished (Hebrew: anah) my concubine so that she died. (Jdg 20:5 NAS)

• However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated (Hebrew: anah) her and lay with her. (2Sa 13:14 NAS)

• Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother, responded, "Do not let my lord suppose they have put to death all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead; because by the intent of Absalom this has been determined since the day that he violated (Hebrew: anah) his sister Tamar. (2 Sam. 13:32 NAU)

• They ravished (Hebrew: anah )the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah. (Lam 5:11 NAS)

12th century Rabbi Moses Maimonides said the man’s use of force would require that he marry his victim and never divorce her:

"every maiden expects to be married, her seducer therefore is only ordered to marry her; for he is undoubtedly the fittest husband for her. He will better heal her wound and redeem her character than any other husband. If, however, he is rejected by her or her father, he must give the dowry (Exod. xxii. 15). If he uses violence he has to submit to the additional punishment, " he may not put her away all his days " (Deut. xxii. 29).^[26]

While the above grammatical and historical interpretation makes it appear one of the authors or editors of Deuteronomy were misogynist, that is only the concern of today's Christian apologists who wish to make the god of the bible appear harmonious with modern American concepts fairness, equality and woman's rights. But in Leviticus 19:20-22, the master who rapes a slave girl who had been previously betrothed to another man, is forgiven of the sin by simply giving up one of his animals to the priests. Some inerrantist Christian scholars agree it is reasonable to view this as "rape" and not merely consensual fornication:

"It is worth noting that only the man was considered blameworthy, not the female slave. Being a slave, the woman may have felt she had little recourse in resisting a male who was a free man and thus more powerful both in the social and economic spheres."^[27] 

Furthermore, had this not been rape but mere consensual fornication, then it would have qualified as adultery, in which case the author's explicit refusal to impose the death penalty (Leviticus 20:10) is stated by him as the female's having lower social status: "...because she was not free", so the misogyny persists in the text regardless of the efforts made to side-step it.

-------------------------------------------------endquote

See the article here.  Let me know if, as is likely, Christians come along and remove my contribution.

UPDATE: January 27, 2020

Christian apologists will obviously pretend that the Good News Translation for Deuteronomy 21:14 is "false" or "inaccurate", because it then requires God's human mouth-piece Moses to admit that his law on marrying a female war captive (Deut. 21:10-13) would likely result in the law-observant Hebrew man "raping" the girl (v. 14).

But a google search indicates It was one Eugene Nida, a linguist who became a Christian in the typical fundamentalist way, who was responsible for that dynamic translation. Wikipedia says Nida "became a Christian at a young age, when he responded to the altar call at his church "to accept Christ as my Saviour."

See here. Nida gets accolades from trustworthy Christian sources, see here. The point being that Christian apologists do not have the expedient of complaining that the translator was some god hating skeptic or liberal, he was a "Christian", and when combined with my observation of cognate usage, supra, it's pretty clear that Nida got it right: the "anah" of Deut. 21:14 does NOT mean "lowered in social status by divorce", but "rape".

The fact that such translation scandalizes fundamentalists who are forever being god's lawyers and trying to fix all of his defects to make him more palatable to modern Western sensibilities, changes nothing:  not only does God's law facilitate circumstances that increase the probability of "rape", not only does the biblical author presume the divorce from the female war captive was after a "rape", but the law does not express or imply any punishment for such "rape", likely because "marriage" had been slapped onto the circumstance by this barbarian law, and so her rape, while true, was not deemed offensive to God's own morals.

Like the case I discussed about Leviticus 19:20-22, how deserving of punishment the rape is, depends on the circumstances, which assures the modern Christian that the bible god is a very far cry from the basic notions of woman's rights held by most of today's Christian women.

What needs to be remembered is that my viewpoint here is "reasonable", and it isn't going to become "unreasonable" because of a few squeeks, squawks and trifles raised by desperate apologists. 

And I defy all of them to challenge me via dialogue with me.  Any fucking fool can "write a rebuttal", how hard is that? 

But, maintain the scholarly justification for your position while you are being pummeled in real time with difficult questions?  That's a whole 'nother story.  One not likely to be correctly told by using a moose-character and Looney-Tunes sound effects unless of course you ADMIT your intended audience are ages 3-6?

Rebuttal to Brian Chilton's interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:28-29

Brian Chilton has posted an audio message to his blog trying to refute the "rape" interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:28-29.  See here.

 28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,
 29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.
 30 "A man shall not take his father's wife so that he will not uncover his father's skirt. (Deut. 22:28-30 NAU)

Chilton's motive is clear.  This passage is forcing the maiden to marry her sex partner.  If the passage is talking about "rape", then this makes God sound like a sadistic idiot.  Chilton is a Christian bible believer:  There is nothing bad about his god, end of story, have a nice day.  And that's all the presupposition he needs in order to become automatically suspicious of any bible passage that seems to imply God's morals are different than those held by modern-day Americans.

I'm a skeptic, and for the following reasons I'm "reasonable" to view Deuteronomy 22:28-29 to be addressing the issue of non-consensual sex or "rape".  I also challenge Chilton to a live in person or written debate on whether it is reasonable to classify the OT YHWH as  "good".

The following arguments are from a study I did years ago, and I will respond in a future post to Chilton's specific arguments.

(you need to remember that because reasonableness doesn't always demand correctness, you are not demonstrating this skeptical interpretation to be 'unreasonable' merely because you've proven that a different interpretation remains logically possible.  If you are going to uphold the negative inferences you always draw out of Psalm 14:1 and Romans 1:20, you must do more than show your view of Deut. 22:28-29 is possible, as "possible" isn't enough to show that the opposing view is unreasonable.  You must show that the skeptics who are interpreting Deut. 22:28-29 as addressing "rape" are "foolish" and "without excuse" for seeing rape therein).

First, commentators admit there is no agreement among commentators as to whether this passage addresses rape or merely "seduction": 

There is no agreement among commentators as to whether Deuteronomy 22:28–29 treats seduction (and is therefore an expansion of the case in Exod. 22:16–17) or rape. If the New International Version is correct in interpreting the passage as addressing rape, the monetary increase (fixed at fifty shekels) may be seen as a penalty exacted against the offender because he shamed her (v. 29). Whereas the former case (Exod. 22:16–17) would have been subject to conventional divorce procedure (Deut. 24:1–4), an additional provision is made for the woman’s economic security in the latter case: the man can never divorce her, whatever she does (Deut. 22:28–29). The concern for the woman is also reflected in the distinctions between the two rape cases described in Deuteronomy 22:23–27: the betrothed woman raped in the city would have been heard if she had cried for help, but the woman raped in the country is presumed to have cried out, whether she did or not. In the latter case, only the man is put to death.

Elwell, W. A., & Elwell, W. A. (1997, c1996). Evangelical dictionary of biblical theology (electronic ed.). Baker reference library; Logos Library System.

Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

This means there is a stark possibility that the passage is not sufficiently clear as to render the 'rape' interpretation unreasonable.  It might be sufficiently ambiguous as to allow either interpretation to be reasonable. Christian professor Joe Sprinkle highlights commentator uncertainty in his 1997 JETS article on the subject:

Similarly Deut 22:28–29 describes a case of what appears to be rape 8 in which the woman is subsequently given to the offender as wife (after a fifty-shekel marriage gift/fine to the father). In such a case the man “cannot divorce her as long as she lives.” Again, were it not for the original offense it would be assumed that he could divorce her.
---fn.8. The usual interpretation of “seize” (tāpas) is that the text implies that the man seizes the woman by force and rapes her. G. P. Hugenberger (Marriage as Covenant: A Study of Biblical Law and Ethics Governing Marriage Developed from the Perspective of Malachi [VTSup 52; Leiden: Brill, 1994] 255-260), on the other hand, argues that Deut 22:28–29 is a case of seduction rather than rape. One argument in favor of the seduction view is the expression “they are found,” which suggests that both the man and the woman are involved, whereas in the case of rape one would expect it to say “he is found.” Another argument is that it seems unfair to force the woman to marry her rapist, whom she may well hate. Against Hugenberger, however, it seems hard to reconcile this being only a case of seduction with the extremely high bride price of fifty shekels, in contrast with Exod 22:16–17 where no such high price is set and no forfeiture of the right of divorce is mentioned.

Old Testament Perspectives On Divorce  And Remarriage, Joe M. Sprinkle

JETS 40/4 (December 1997) 533 

 * Joe Sprinkle is associate professor of Old Testament at Toccoa Falls College, P.O. Box 800236, Toccoa Falls, GA 30598–0236. 

The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. 1998 (electronic edition.). Garland, TX: Galaxie Software.

Second, the fact that I'm reasonable to view Deut. 22:28-29 as talking about non-consensual sex is proven from the fact that even conservative Christian commentators, whose love for god gives them high motivation to avoid any "god is immoral" implication, nonetheless insist this passage is talking about rape.  E. H. Merrill is an inerrantist, and writes as follows for the inerrancy-driven New American Commentary.  IF there was any grammatical justification for him to avoid the "god is immoral" implication and restrict this passage to mere seduction, he likely would have.  He did not, he candidly admitted this was violent coercion:

22:28–29 At first glance the next example, the rape of an unbetrothed girl, might appear to have been a lesser offense than those already described, but this was not the case at all. First, he seized (Heb. tāpaś, “lay hold of”) her and then lay down (šākab) with her, a clear case of violent, coercive behavior.

Merrill, E. H. (2001, c1994). Vol. 4: Deuteronomy (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 305). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

The NET bible (“Our passion is to see every person become mature in Christ and competent to teach and train others.”) makes the rape connotation in 22:28 explicit, which this team of Christian scholars would hardly have done had the grammar and context reasonably indicated the virgin was willing: 

Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes her and they are discovered.

The ESV makes the rape connotation explicit: 

Deu 22:28 Suppose a man comes across a virgin who is not engaged and overpowers and rapes51 her and they are discovered.
Deu 22:29 The man who has raped her must pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she must become his wife because he has violated her; he may never divorce her as long as he lives. 

The Brenton’s English translation of the Septuagint makes it clear this was rape: 

And if any one should find a young virgin who has not been betrothed, and should force her and lie with her, and be found, (Deut. 22:28 LXE)

ISBE agrees:

RAPE.
[חָזַק, chazak] = “to seize,” “bind,” “restrain,” “conquer, “force,” “ravish.” The punishment for this crime was greater when the act was committed against a betrothed woman (Deuteronomy 22:25-29).

Orr, J., M.A., D.D. (1999). The International standard Bible encyclopedia : 

1915 edition (J. Orr, Ed.). Albany, OR: Ages Software.

Third, “seize” in v. 28 in the Hebrew is taphas and means “to lay hold of, weild”, it is the same Hebrew word used in Deut. 21:19 to describe the way parents of a rebellious son force him in front of the elders to receive the death penalty; the same Hebrew word used in Deut. 20:19 to signify how the Hebrews will capture a city after warring against it; also used in Deut 9:17 to describe how the angry Moses seized the two tablets of stone and smashed them.  It is also used in 1st Samuel 23:26 (capturing an enemy) and in 1st Kings 18:40 (Elijah commanding seizure of the Baal prophets for purposes of execution).

Fourth, the Greek word in the Lxx here is βιασάμενος, and means “to force, dominate”.  Friberg says it is “always with a component of force”, and all other standard lexicons agree: UBS says

“exercise force (if midd.) or suffer violence (if pass.)” citing Mt 11.12 and “enter by force (Lk 16.16)”.  LNIDA says “to experience a violent attack…”.  LSCOTT says “force, an act of violence…against one's will”.  THAYER says “to force, inflict violence on…”.  TDNT,  “The reference of the term is always to “forced” as distinct from voluntary acts. The middle means “to compel,” “overpower” (sometimes sexually), the passive “to be constrained.” BDAG, “to gain an objective by force” (citing Dt. 22:28).

In the NT, this Greek word appears in of Matt 11:12 where the kingdom of God is controversially said to suffer ‘violence’, and Luke 16:16, where people ‘force’ their way into it.  

Fifth, 22:28 further describes the sex act as “he has violated her”, the Hebrew word for ‘violated’ is anah, and while cognate usage is not dispositive, this word is used in at least 5 other OT passages where forcible rape is clear, making it reasonable to demand very good contrary evidence before we say Deut 22:28 is an exception to the rule: 

And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force (Hebrew: anah). (Gen 34:2 NAS)
It shall be, if you are not pleased with her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes; but you shall certainly not sell her for money, you shall not mistreat her, because you have humbled (Hebrew: anah)  her. (Deut. 21:14 NAU)
But the men of Gibeah rose up against me and surrounded the house at night because of me. They intended to kill me; instead, they ravished (Hebrew: anah) my concubine so that she died. (Jdg 20:5 NAS)
However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated (Hebrew: anah) her and lay with her. (2Sa 13:14 NAS)
Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David's brother, responded, "Do not let my lord suppose they have put to death all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead; because by the intent of Absalom this has been determined since the day that he violated (Hebrew: anah) his sister Tamar. (2 Sam. 13:32 NAU)
They ravished (Hebrew: anah )the women in Zion, The virgins in the cities of Judah. (Lam 5:11 NAS)

Sixth, 3rd century church father Tertullian thought this was about rape: 

The Creator, however, except on account of adultery, does not put asunder what He Himself joined together, the same Moses in another passage enacting that he who had married after violence to a damsel, should thenceforth not have it in his power to put away his wife. Now, if a compulsory marriage contracted after violence shall be permanent, how much rather shall a voluntary one, the result of agreement!

(Five Books against Marcion, Book 4, ch. 34,

Schaff, P. (2000). The Ante-Nicene Fathers (electronic ed.).

Garland, TX: Galaxie Software.

Seventh, that 22:28 describes a virgin who was forced or raped, may also be inferred by noting that v. 29 requires the man to pay a specified sum for the bride price that is very high in light of average earnings of the average man in those days, while the price the man had to pay in the similar circumstance described in Exodus 22 was not specified:

Exodus 22:16-17	Deuteronomy 22:28-29
16 "If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife.  17 "If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.	28 "If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered,  29 then the man who lay with her shall give to the girl's father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall become his wife because he has violated her; he cannot divorce her all his days.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume a presumption attaches that the bride-price was left unexpressed in Exodus because the sexual situation in Exodus was less severe of a crime than the case described in Deut. 22:28-29. But even conservative commentators admit Exodus was talking about "rape", and since I'm a skeptic who doesn't believe in biblical inerrancy, I have no problems with the bible giving inconsistent solutions to the single crime of "rape":

In the event that a man raped a single woman, he was to pay the bride-price and marry her (Exodus 22:16–17).

Vos, H. F. (1999). Nelson's new illustrated Bible manners & customs : How the people of the Bible really lived (Page 104). Nashville, Tenn.: T. Nelson Publishers.

If a girl was already betrothed and was raped by another man she could not become that other man’s wife, as would normally be the case (Deuteronomy 22:28–29), because she already belonged to her husband–to–be. Such violation involved the death penalty (Deuteronomy 22:23–27).

Gower, R., & Wright, F. (1997, c1987). The new manners and customs of Bible times. Updated and rewritten version of Manners and customs of Bible lands, by Fred Wright.; Includes indexes. Chicago: Moody Press.

   "Reasonableness" doesn't require that we check out the lexical meanings of the Hebrew words in question, otherwise, nobody would be reasonable to interpret the bible they way they do unless they first conducted a scholarly level inquiry into its original languages.  Ok...do you forbid sinners from accepting Christ until they do a scholarly study of 2,000 years of Christian differences on soteriology?  Are you suspicious that the salvation of biblically illiterate people who nevertheless "accepted Jesus as their savior"?  If not, then unless you wish to tell the skeptic they can safely delay the day of their repentance as long as they are studying the original languages of scripture, you are going to have to admit that conducting a scholarly study of the Hebrew words is not necessary, before the skeptic's interpretation can be "reasonable".

Eighth, D.L. Christensen in the Word Biblical Commentary considers this to be seduction, but he calls it "rape" and allocates the "seduction" classification to how the event is viewed "legally":

If a man rapes an unbetrothed woman in the city, it is considered seduction, requiring marriage and paying the girl’s father fifty pieces of silver (vv 28–29), as a dowry.

Christensen, D. L. (2002). Vol. 6B: Word Biblical Commentary : Deuteronomy 21:10-34:12. 

Word Biblical Commentary (Page 523). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

Let's consider some objections:  

God would never force a woman to marry the man who raped her
Let me guess...you were born and raised in a democratic nation where lots of people fight for individual rights, correct?  But apologists argue that this requirement was morally good because, in the ANE, if the woman's virginity was taken, her value was diminished in the eyes of her village, so that forcing her to marry the rapist was a loving way to ensure that she could have restored status in the community through marriage and child-bearing.  Some apologists will speculate the forced marriage forbade sexual relations, but there is no evidence that sexual relations in such marriages were forbidden.

The fact that Deut. 22:24 requires the woman to be killed and 22:28-29 doesn't, proves these are two different situations

I'm not seeing the argument.  Yes, v. 24 doesn't express or imply rape:

 23 "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her,
 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

In that in 22:24, the woman is to be killed because she did not cry out, implying she had consented, and yet it still says the man “violated” (anah) his neighbor’s wife.  Apologists will seize on this as if this less forceful sense of anah in v. 24 must be read back into the anah appearing in v. 28.  But there are several problems with this knee-jerk method of exegesis so common among apologists:  

---a) vv. 23-24 are missing the ‘seize’ comment that appears in v. 28, which is significant especially for inerrantists who think only one human being authored the entire book of Deuteronomy (why didn’t Moses assert in 23-24 that the man had “seized” the virgin, if Moses was willing to use that word later in v. 28?).  The implication is that the sex act in 23-24 was consensual, in which case it is for sheer grammatical necessity that the anah of v. 24 would take the nuance of positional disgrace or dishonor (i.e., the woman’s consent doesn’t negate the moral disgrace of the man’s initiating such act on a betrothed virgin, indeed, consenting extra-marital sexual relations are disgraceful);  

---b) context determines the precise nuance a biblical author intended for his chosen word, and since it was already shown that v. 28’s ‘seize’ (taphas/βιασάμενος) means rape, the anah of v. 28 is governed more closely by the other word in the same verse, than it is governed by the sense anah takes 4 verses earlier.  Yes, Moses could very easily be giving anah in v. 24 a nuance not quite as popular as the nuance of “force” that it takes in v. 28 and most other cases.  

---c) anah literally means “bowed down”, and since most agree that vv. 23-24 do not describe rape but consenting sex, the author could have simply been referring to the physical position the woman took in her choice to have extra-marital sex.

---d) I do not believe Moses is the only author of Deuteronomy, nor do I believe the redactors did a perfect job of making that book teach morals and laws consistently.  I accept a hypothesis that is taught in all but the must fundagelical bible colleges and seminaries:  the documentary hypothesis.  Therefore, I have no reasonable basis to worry that the way I interpret 22:28-29 might contradict what the same book says elsewhere about a debateably similar subject.  Bible inerrancy is so controversial even among those who espouse it, that it is reasonable to say it does not deserve to be exalted in our minds to the status of governing hermeneutic (i.e., automatically cite the interpretation's contradicting another part of the bible as the only reason needed to trash it and look for another).   It just might be more reasonable to view two passages in one book as contrary to each other, than to pretend that any harmonization scenario is going to be "better".

Finally, the fact that the slave-owner is the only person required to do anything to atone for "his" sin of sex with a slave betrothed to another man (Leviticus 19:20-22), when in fact it is clear the passage is addressing "rape" (and it is clear that this is adultery that would, absent the girl's slave status, be punishable by death) makes it reasonable for those who accept Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch to say the person who wrote out Deut. 22:28-29, also wrote Leviticus 19:20-22, and had a very low view of woman, and such a man wasn't likely to view "forced to marry her rapist" in the shocking horrifically unacceptable way that it is viewed by modern-day democratic American Christians.

Much more could be said, but "reasonableness" doesn't require anybody, whether Christian or skeptic, to knock the opposing interpretation all the way out of the ballpark.  How much scholarly study of Mormonism do you suppose the average Catholic and Protestant fundamentalist did, before deciding that it was a false form of Christianity?  Isn't it likely they did little more than read a book or two written by an anti-Mormon (i.e., the way most creationist Christians read a few blogs written by creationists and become certain that evolution is a lie of the devil?)

If you aren't going to label Christians "unreasonable" for reaching confident conclusions before they've conducted a thorough scholarly review, fairness dictates that you also refrain from labeling skeptics unreasonable should they reach confident conclusions before they've conducted a thorough scholarly review.

But if you are this objective, then you leave yourself no basis to insist that Psalm 14:1 and Romans 1:20 correctly broad-brush skeptics and atheists.  When you tangle with me, you soon find out that poets that lived thousands of years ago aren't exactly the best sources of information about today's unbelievers.  But you cannot really be blamed for being impressed with empty rhetoric.  Just look at the pastors of fundamentalist churches.  The pastor's deep bellowing or screechy voiced confidence makes their trusting congregation positively certain that they should babble incoherently...or adopt KJV onlyism...or accept 5-point Calvinism, or jump around the church in voo-doo like stupor, etc, etc.


Since apologists find life is easier for themselves by quietly deleting my rebuttals from their blogs, here's a screenshot showing I posted news of my rebuttal at Chilton's blog, just in case that post disappears.  If he chooses to ignore my rebuttal, it won't be because he "didn't know about it":