How Wrong is Rape?
How Wrong is Rape?
By Stephen D. Edwards
I won’t be able to convince anyone that rape or sexual assault is morally wrong. It’s one of those things which, when we look at it, we make our own minds up, but we won’t be able to convince the accused of such a crime that it is morally wrong.
The word rape does not appear in the Bible anywhere. However, there are three incidents that appear. And God does speak about rape.
If I may offer my personal opinion on the subject of the immorality of rape. It is a heinous act. It’s not merely a coercing someone into a sexual act nor is it an assault on someone’s physical person. It is an attack on the soul of another person. It is a theft of a person’s self-esteem. It is also the breaking of a bond between a husband and wife even before the wedding.
We are all made by God in the image of Himself. Because of that, we see the image of God attacking another image of God. It is an attack on mankind’s self.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26 ESV)
Because we can describe this kind of sin in so many ways and see that so many different sins are committed at the same time, it’s easy to see that this is possibly one of the worst kinds of sin we can ever commit.
How do I have the authority to say all these things? Because I’ve spoken to a few victims of these kinds of crimes—some who were adults at the time of the crime and some were children. The victims bear the scars of this kind of crime for many years, because they have great difficulty processing how things went so wrong. Many of them even believe they were at fault in the wrong committed.
For that reason, I shudder at the thought of someone having to suffer this injustice. As I mention above, this sin cuts to the victim’s soul in ways that leave most men with a lack of understanding the victims. Believing the lie that the victim is at fault short-circuits the soul and inhibits the mind’s ability to trust even God. And to be clear we are not talking about victims who actually did attract their perpetrators through flirting or flaunty dress. We are talking about victims whose actions were not out-of-the-ordinarily attractive or flirtatious.
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After saying these things, some of us may be saying, “Wait a second! Does that mean flirting should incite a man to rape a woman?”
Let me be clear on this: No!
Flirting or provocative dress should never lead to a rape or sexual assault. After all, a woman dressed to attract a prospective boyfriend or on her way to visit a boyfriend should be able to dress for the occasion without worrying about this kind of thing happening, don’t you think? For us men, what if the woman in question were our sister, cousin or niece? Would we not expect the same?
We find God’s laws on adultery and sexual assault in Deuteronomy 22:22-29:
If the people find evidence that a man bedded with the wife of another man, they deserve death. It is evil. (v. 22) Therefore this is a serious matter. If a man beds with a betrothed virgin in a city, they both deserve death (because there is evidence she did not cry out for help while many in the city would have heard such a cry and helped). (v. 23-24) If in open country a man meets a betrothed woman, grabs her to bed her, only the man deserves death. God gives her the benefit of the doubt because she may not have committed a sin punishable by death, because nobody was there to hear her cry for help. In this case it is like a man murdering another. (v. 25-27) If a man meets a virgin woman not betrothed and beds with her, then the man needs to give the father of the woman the bride price and may not ever divorce her. (v. 28-29)
Of course, the laws of the cultures we live in worldwide today are not written this way as men cannot grab any woman from the street and be married to her just like that, as we read so many times in Scripture. However, by interpretation, the woman who cries for help in these situations is protected from deserving death by the mere fact that she cried for help and either someone heard her or there was nobody to hear her. Therefore, we can also say that she did not consent to having forced sexual intercourse. I would agree that the last statement is unusual, because who consents and participates in forced action of any kind?
I mention at the top of the article that there are three stories of rape in the Bible. The first happens in Genesis 34:1-31 where a Canaanite man named Shechem takes Jacob’s daughter Dinah before asking her father for her hand. In this case, her twelve brothers take action by talking to Shechem and his father about an agreement of sorts for them to be circumcised before they can agree to the marriage. Shechem’s father and brothers all agree. However, rather than performing only the circumcisions, Jacob’s sons take revenge on Shechem and his family and kill them instead. This is far more extreme punishment for the crime, but Shechem is put to death nonetheless.
Another one of these stories takes place in 2 Samuel 13. King David’s son Amnon becomes so infatuated with his beautiful half-sister Tamar that he pretends to be sick in order to manipulate the situation so that he can be alone with her in his home. He sexually assaults her as she cries for him not to commit such evil, but even after the assault, she begs him to ask David if he can marry her to make it right according to the law in Deuteronomy 22:28-29, but he refuses. Two years later Absalom—Tamar’s full brother—conspires to kill his brother Amnon and then flees to Geshur which where his mother is from. It’s unclear in this case if Absalom acts out of revenge or in the pursuit of justice as his father the king did nothing about Amnon’s sin for two years.
I believe the third story is the most compelling of the three. It takes place during the time of the Judges in the land of the tribe of Benjamin and appears in Judges 19.
In short, a Levite from the hills of Ephraim travels from Bethlehem where his concubine/wife is from through Gibeah in Benjamin where he, his servant and his wife had to stay the night on their way back home. Leaders of the city surround the house and demand that the Levite come out so that they can know him (which is a way of saying that they wanted to have sexual intercourse with him). Their host for the night refuses to send him out and offers his virgin daughter and the Levite’s wife instead. They assault and abuse his wife until dawn. She falls down dead at the front door of the house. When the Levite finds his wife, he cuts her up in twelve pieces and sends the pieces throughout Israel as a message that a heinous sin has been committed. The people’s reaction is such that they claim nothing like this has been seen in Israel since the time the Israelites rose out of Egypt. The men of Israel respond and gather against Gibeah united as though one man. God told these men to go to against Benjamin and 25 thousand men of Benjamin perished in this civil war.
What I find compelling and different from the other two stories is that in this case a whole nation seeks justice against the leaders of a city for one crime against an innocent soul, and the result is the ruin of a tribe of Israel. From my seat here in the 21st century it is easy to see that the reason is the violent nature of the sin with so many men participating. Is this the first known case of gang rape? Probably. However, because this thing happened to the wife of a Levite—a servant of God—we might even say that this sin was against God Himself.
I do not advocate that people should seek justice in a similar fashion, because that would amount to anarchy, which is quite similar to the way the Israelites lived in the time of the Judges when this story took place.
In the Law of Moses it is necessary to have two or more witnesses of a sin in order for the sinner to be put to death. (Deuteronomy 17:6, Deuteronomy 19:15) Jesus reiterates that law in Matthew 18:16. Caiaphas the high priest kept that law at Jesus’ trial before he sent Him to Pilate. (Matthew 26:60)
The difficulty with this particular kind of crime and its nature is that there are often fewer witnesses than when other types of crimes. However, I believe it could be said that if there were a man righteous enough to host a Levite in Gibeah, there were probably other righteous men in the town who would have witnessed the multiple assaults on the wife of the Levite. The sin was not as hidden as other sexual sins.
Of course, in the case of Shechem we see that he pretty much confesses to the sin because he asks to marry Dinah after she tells his father and brothers what has happened, so there’s no need for any witnesses. However, in the case of Amnon, we have only Tamar’s word. If we read the story from Scripture, we see that David’s nephew Jonadab conspires with Amnon in planning how he could get his cousin alone with him in his home, which disqualifies him as a second witness to the sin.
Honestly, I believe our sense of morality regarding sexual immorality and some other sins comes directly from God rather than through the Law. I say that because many atheists know that rape, stealing and murder are wrongful behaviors against people. They know that causing harm to others is wrong as well. They just don’t believe that the morality comes from God at all (a subject for another article). It is also my experience that before I was ever taught anything about morality, I knew that stealing and murder were wrong. To this day, I get a horrible sense that I’ve done harm to a worm if I step on it.
I find myself now asking, “What would Jesus say about rape?” So I’ll let Jesus have the last word here.
Jesus says that every man who divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery unless it is on the grounds of adultery. (Matthew 5:32) Jesus tells me through this verse that it is not isn’t just the wife commits adultery; it is also the man possibly committing sexually immoral sins such as rape or adultery.
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BIO:
Stephen D. Edwards began writing in his teens. His memoir titled The Branch and the Vine: How Jesus Gave Me Freedom from Depression, available at Kobo and Amazon. He also writes Christian themed fiction to encourage and inspire. Edwards’ most recent work has been published in Agape Review, Faith on Every Corner, Calla Press and Open Door Poetry.