Not to mention the story of the rape of Tamar by her half-brother. Although in that case, the rapist did not want to marry his victim, so her brother Absalom took care of her.
The way the story runs seems to suggest that the later killing of Ammon the rapist by Absalom was another case like the killing of the rapists of Dinah. Ammon, being the king’s son, was more or less above the law (especially since King David did not seem to be ready to do much to intervene). So the blood guilt of the rape was expunged by the killing of the rapist.
Another factor to keep in mind is that there wasn’t a well-developed police force, and often the community was dealing with a situation after it had occurred. For example, see the ghastly story of the Levite’s concubine being raped to death, which ends up in civil war and kidnappings.
As the writer of Judges remarks rather grimly at the end of the book
I don’t think you can say that the writers of the Bible necessarily approved of everything they wrote about.
Regards,
Shodan
My point is that it is only an “either/or” situation if one is of the opinion that there is a “good guy” in the story; that is, a person who is always in the right (and everyone else = wrong).
In my opinion, as previously stated, basically everyone in this story did “wrong” (except the daughter who was acted upon, not acting).
The father was wrong to accept the rape of his daughter and the sons were wrong to take a brutal and evil revenge for that rape, breaking all of the principles of peaceful co-existence (and raping a bunch of women themselves in the bargain).
In fact, the OT is full of stories of what are supposed to be the heroes and good guys doing basically bad stuff (or where it isn’t so obvious who the good guys are, or even if there are any).
My favorite example is the death-bed speech of King David to his son Solomon in 1 Kings 2, where after a sermon on being good and obeying God, he calls for Solomon to take bloody vengence on his enemies.
I like this speech because it seems to me so authentic - the King recites the trite stuff first about being nice and obeying God, and then in the second part (after the “Moreover, …” gets on with the gritty business of kingship - murdering enemies: “for you are a wise man. You will know what you ought to do to him, and you shall bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol”.
(“Sheol” = “the underworld”, or loosely “hell”).
The term “wise man” must have originally meant much what the term “wise guy” means to a gangster.
I like to think of this scene written in 1930s gangster-speak: “Sonny, you’se a wise guy, you know whats to be done with Lenny the Moose - send him bloody to hell!”
The thing is, the writers of these old Testament books weren’t writing didactic children’s stories, where the point of the story is that you’re supposed to act like the protagonist of the story did. Even if you accept the Bible as divinely inspired, you’re not supposed to believe that. The patriarchs from Genesis aren’t supposed to be plaster saints with the moral of the story underlined in red.
I’m trying to remember where I heard it, so that I can guess how much credence to give it, but I once heard someone state that some of these rapes were cases of younger men claiming girls their own age. The girls were otherwise going to be given in marriage by their fathers to older men, ones who could come up with a good enough bride price, or to the son of an older man who was willing to make the payment.
You have to remember that disobedience and unchastity could both be punished as severely as the father liked, and that he was expected to punish it severely. So the girls did not have the option of choosing their own husband, at least not in any open way. However they married, it would be a transaction between men.
Indeed, the fact that the stories are difficult adds interest to them, IMO.
Sometimes, I think that much of the criticism of these stories comes from a lack of appreciation of that fact - people are educated to expect didactic stories, fail to get them when they actually read the thing, and are either outraged or assume that they are didactic stories and the lesson is “act badly”.
How about those unfortunate ignorant souls (such as myself perhaps) who were, in god’s infinite kindness, created lacking in the wisdom and clarity of thought to see these stories at anything but face value? Am I doomed to an eternity of pain for my lack of understanding, which was really caused by god in the first place? Please give me a glimpse of what deeper meaning you see in the story of the man who first willingly gave his daughters up to be raped, later impregnated them, and was seen by god to be just and righteous. I am god’s most beloved child right? Could he not summon the pity to provide me with a lesson I could understand and work with?
First, you should know that in tribal level societies the obligations of hospitality are paramount - they are tied very strongly to the notion of honor. Once you take someone in as a guest, they are sacred.
The men of Sodom threaten to rape two strangers who have appeared and who have been accepted as guests by Lot. Not only are these two strangers Lot’s guests, they are angels who have come to judge the city, to destroy it if it is “bad”. Lot begs the men not to do the gang-rape, and even offers his daughters in their place - a horrible act true, but consider that (1) guests are sacred; and (2) the risk that the angels, if angered, will destroy the city - Lot and daughters included.
Later, God does destroy the city (allowing Lot and his daughters to escape - Lot’s wife looks back and gets turned to salt). He escapes to a cave in an uninhabited wilderness. His daughters believe that God has destroyed humanity - except them - Noah’s flood style. So they in effect drug and rape dad, specifically to preserve the human race:
Now, incest is bad and all, but at least according to this account the fault was not Lot’s, but his daughters - and moreover, they didn’t do it because they were perverts, but to preserve humanity. Lot knew nothing of it: “So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.”
Now that’s just downright illuminating.:dubious: I’ll tell you a secret, I never read that part and I was just regurgitating what I heard from a friend of mine. Still doesn’t stop me from asking why god put Lot et al. in such situations as to be forced to do those things–the angels could have just as easily daintily flown away any time they chose, and there had to be a better way to fix things in sodom than the liberal application of fire and brimstone. How hard is it for god to appear in one of the girls’ dreams to say “don’t rape your father i wouldn’t leave humanity with such a tiny gene pool to work with?”
Heh, good questions all. If God really exists, he has some explaining to do.
In the Bible, one possible answer is found in the Book of Job, where God basically torments a good fellow to see what happens (he has a bet running with Satan that Job will “crack” and go bad).
His buddies basically say “well, bad stuff happened to you, so you must deserve it”.
Job compains that he was a good guy and bad shit happened to him anyway, and he notes that the bad guys often do well, and the good guys get stomped:
Eventually, God himself joins in the debate, His answer isn’t very satisfactory - basically, you humans are too puny to understand God’s full purpose:
This scares Job shitless, and he abases himself:
Though in the end God restores Job’s fortunes - which seems to me a cop-out, as good stuff eventually happens to good people (if only you wait). Not like real life.
My favorite Bible verse on the subject is the pessimism of Ecclesiasties:
