With respect to the so-called rape of the women in the "conquest of
Canaan" passages, I offer the following:
Who's to say that the women involved didn't consent to becoming wives
having been spared from the destruction of their people? It seems
that these passages insist on a humane treatment of these women,
giving them time to mourn, etc. Also, they are to be made wives, not
just raped and then thrown aside. Even if they are divorced, there are
restrictions on how they are to be treated: "You must not sell her or
treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."
I would also suggest that being taken captive to become a wife in
this context is an act of mercy. This woman's life was spared and
they became part of the covenant community.
I know that this may be a controversial question, but here goes: "Is
it possible to rape one's own wife?" If the answer to that question
is "no", then clearly, these women have not been raped, even though
they may have been made wives by no choice of their own. But then hasn't
it only been fairly recently that women had much say in who would
be their husbands?
Wanting to go very slowly when it comes to finding fault with scripture,
TG
-- _________________ Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist Chemistry Department, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 grayt@lamar.colostate.edu http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/ phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jul 13 2002 - 23:57:05 EDT