History has shown that the conquest of a hated enemy often leads to mass raping (e.g. Berlin 1945).
No argument about that from me.
It doesn't mean it had to have occurred in this instance. And that with God's law forbidding sex slavery. And especially soon after a nation was punished by God for fornication to the tune of twenty-four thousand people dying in a plague sent by God to correct their lust.
These are the accusations of the Athiest.
She's hunting for a "Thus Says the Lord, Rape Women" and finds none.
The next best thing is to say history proves rapes had to have happened there.
"No exceptions possible" is practically the modus operandi.
Now somebody can convince me that when the girls became of age they mostly went kicking and screaming to their Hebrew weddings. I'm opened to examine your "FORCED" to marry = RAPE theory.
Girls under custody of household legal protectors seem not to me to be forced to marry someone they didn't agree to marry. It is reasonable that if they soldiers had to remain outside the camp for seven days that the captures were assigned to families after the purification process.
If they then belonged to families I think the laws of virgins with protectorate heads of households would apply. And from what I read, the father AND the girl sought for marriage had to agree to it after being raped. I don't see why she would HAVE to agree with it even if she was not abused. But perhaps she did. I don't know.
Again, an opinion of scholars on ANE and the biblical narrative: .
5. The 32,000 girls who were absorbed/assimilated into Israel would have been actually a small number. According to the distribution of them, the 12,000 ‘soldiers’ received 16,000 (half of them), making an average of between 1 and 2 per household, depending on the soliders-per-household ratio. The other half (16,000) was distributed throughout all of Israel, meaning that very few families would get one. This would still have been some hardship for the Israelite families, who at this time are still nomadic peoples without any material base from which to live. More than one commentator has noted that this seems to be a surprise act of mercy, and it is interesting to note that Whiston, in a footnote on his 18th-century translation of Josephus’ account of this passage [Antiq, VII] argues that this sparing of the little girls is a surprise of mercy, given the practical demands of this type of combat in the OT/ANE (which we will discuss later):
“The slaughter of all the Midianite women that had prostituted themselves to the lewd Israelites, and the preservation of those that had not been guilty therein; the last of which were no fewer than thirty-two thousand…and both by the particular command of God, are highly remarkable, and shew that, even in nations otherwise for their wickedness doomed to destruction, the innocent were sometimes providentially taken care of, and delivered from that destruction”
www.christianthinktank.com
at any rate compare the 32,000 saved young girls whose future was to marry to the some 100,000,000 slain by God hating regimes of the 20th century under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot.
Compare the 32,000 saved girls who would marry rather into a foreign people to the millions unborn women reduced to "fertilized eggs" whose executions were approved of by feminists since Roe v Wade. Not to mention the psychological damage upon the women who have been convinced to murder their babies.
More "civilized" we are then Israel of the Old Testament Duchess64?
@sonship saidThat is 'not' standing in someone else's shoes sonship. You paint a picture of pure fantasy where victims of rape and genocide are one dimensional and will accommodatingly forget about the trauma they have suffered and the loved ones they have lost and welcome your God with open arms.
Once again, you are that young Midianite virgin girl kept alive.
You consider your state as you are among your conquerors.
Perhaps you have already be taken into some household. And you hear of the laws of the people among whom you now live.
[quote]Leviticus 19:33-35 perhaps you hear in their public teaching -
[b]"When a stranger resides with you in your ...[text shortened]... my lot with these Israelite people will be far better in the long run from my Midianite background."
The post that was quoted here has been removedChristian apologists are stuck between a rock and a hard place on this and many other subjects. The choices they have are :
1. Deny it ever happened , but that denies the "divinity" of their holy writings.
2. Minimize or trivialize the event, like sonship continues to do here.
3. Admit that it is not "divine" , but manmade story.
4. Insist that it is truly the work of their god and acknowledge that their god is evil.
5. Ignore it completely and place fingers in ears and loudly say "La, la,la,la,la".
Number 2 is the usual response.
@caissad4 saidChristian apologists are stuck between a rock and a hard place on this and many other subjects.
Christian apologists are stuck between a rock and a hard place on this and many other subjects. The choices they have are :
1. Deny it ever happened , but that denies the "divinity" of their holy writings.
2. Minimize or trivialize the event, like sonship continues to do here.
3. Admit that it is not "divine" , but manmade story.
4. Insist that it is truly the work of th ...[text shortened]... pletely and place fingers in ears and loudly say "La, la,la,la,la".
Number 2 is the usual response.
Only those who believe the entirety of the Bible is the "inerrant word of God".
The Bible is what it is. The Bible is widely open to interpretation and contains inconsistencies, discrepancies and outright contradictions. Though most refuse to admit it, they pick and choose the verses and passages that support their beliefs and dismiss those that don't and often do so in a most disingenuous manner. Somehow many are able to do just that and delude themselves into believing that the entirety of the Bible is the "inerrant word of God".
@thinkofone saidVery good assessment.
Christian apologists are stuck between a rock and a hard place on this and many other subjects.
Only those who believe the entirety of the Bible is the "inerrant word of God".
The Bible is what it is. The Bible is widely open to interpretation and contains inconsistencies, discrepancies and outright contradictions. Though most refuse to admit it, they pick and ...[text shortened]... t and delude themselves into believing that the entirety of the Bible is the "inerrant word of God".
That is 'not' standing in someone else's shoes sonship. You paint a picture of pure fantasy where victims of rape and genocide are one dimensional and will accommodatingly forget about the trauma they have suffered and the loved ones they have lost and welcome your God with open arms.
1.) This comment and the - standing in another shoe/s were two different matters. The latter was about empathy.
2.) You don't know personally that I could not identify with those conquered by another people. You don't know that much about me.
Does Sonship expect rapists to admit voluntarily--when under no duress--in writing that they have raped?
It's well-known that rape's much more common in modern wars than the official
convictions of court martials would indicate.
We've been back and forth on the gang rapes of your imagination.
So neither one of us is going to change our view.
I'm not going to read into the text what you imagine.
And given other incidents of gang rape mentioned in the Bible with perfect candor, I see no reason why the author of Numbers would conceal such a gross sin in this case.
But, beyond that, in the theistic worldview there is a recording and last judgment.
And in your atheistic worldview there is nothing but your fading, selective outrage.
So you embrace your philosophy that the alleged rapists melted peacefully into the dust of your Judge-less, Savior-less, Atheistic universe. And I'll consider the entire remainder of the Bible that we all are accountable to God personally at the end of time. And that there is salvation from sin and sins in Christ.
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So does Sonship believe that:
1) No sexual intercourse took place between the conquering men and the conquered 'spared virgins' OR
I believe that the Law of God mandated that they not have sex slaves or sex outside of marriage.
Given the recent judgment of 24,000 people punished by death in a plague for rampant fornication, I think it is unrealistic that even with conquered enemies men were eager to have a repetition for unbridled greedy lust.
I do not know if not one single violation occurred.
I would not be surprised of some denser knuckle-head among them took a chance. Of course the Old Testament shows that the people often could not live up to the demand of the law.
2) The conquered 'spared virgins' always willingly had sexual intercourse with the
conquering men who had recently murdered their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters?
I think that they were absorbed into the Israelite families and became wives to Israelite men. They assimilated into the culture. Just as Israel left Egypt "a mixed multitude".
Was every wife always willing to have intimate relations when married?
Given human nature, most likely no.
Were these instances "rape" ? I guess that depends on your point of view.
If so millions of married women who were not in the mood for intimacy, are violated every night all over the world.
I think the Midianite spared virgins mostly became typical wives of typical Israelite men. And yes, I think most of them, in spite of the national tragedy of their society being discontinued, found a BETTER life in Israel.
I don't think that is white-washing the conquering of Canaan. I think it is realistic given the utter degradation of the Canaanite cultures.
Someone produce a verse that proves the God of the Old Testament commanded or was happy with raping of unmarried women.
Chapter - Verse ? ?
So you want us to believe that fornication with the Midianite temptresses was condemned, ending in a plague of judgment BUT repeating the orgies with captive underage girls among the same people was ordained by God ?
It doesn't make sense.
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Here's an example. Gabrielle Köpp was a German woman of exceptional intelligence and determination, who earned a PhD and became a professor of physics (when that was a rare achievement for a woman). In 1945 East Prussia, as a 15 year old virgin, she was raped perhaps hundreds of times by Soviet soldiers within two weeks. She never recovered from the trauma. For the remaining about 70 years of her life, she suffered from PTSD and frequent nightmares about rape. She wrote a memoir, _Warum war ich bloss ein Mädchen?_ ("Why Did I Have to Be a Girl?" ), in which she, still hardly able to discuss her experiences, was so euphemistic about the details of her violations that (as a German woman academic told me) it often was impossible to tell when she was raped and when she was sexually assaulted in lesser ways. Gabrielle Köpp never married, never had a romantic relationship with a man, and apparently never had sexual intercourse after being traumatized by her rapes.
So I would submit that most Midianite girls would have felt the same way.
These victims would NOT have embraced 'new lives' with their conquerors.
Indeed, many of them would have considered suicide and some of them probably would have taken their own lives rather than stay the sexual property of their enemies.
Do you have a similar feeling to the trauma of a woman contemplating that she has just killed her baby in the popular genocide of "on demand" abortions ?
@sonship saidI've talked people out of abortions. I didn't use the word "genocide". Do you see yourself in the changing-minds business?
@Duchess64
[quote] Here's an example. Gabrielle Köpp was a German woman of exceptional intelligence and determination, who earned a PhD and became a professor of physics (when that was a rare achievement for a woman). In 1945 East Prussia, as a 15 year old virgin, she was raped perhaps hundreds of times by Soviet soldiers within two weeks. She never recovered from the trauma ...[text shortened]... n contemplating that she has just killed her baby in the popular genocide of "on demand" abortions ?