Does the Bible Teach that a Rape Victim has to Marry her Rapist?

by Matt Flannagan

In our recent discussion on the Bible’s teachings on slavery John Loftus asked Madeleine, “if you were raped you should marry your rapist? Get real. … Would you want to be treated the way the Bible says women and slaves should be treated?” Loftus then dedicated a post on Debunking Christianity to Madeleine’s “stupidity” for her answer where he elaborated on his interpretation of various verses on the treatment of women in the comments section. 

 

Loftus is not alone in contending that the Bible teaches that rape victims had to marry their rapists. Michael Martin states that,

when rape is condemned in the Old Testament the woman’s rights and her psychological welfare are ignored.[15] For example: “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father fifty skelels of silver, and she shall be his wife, and he may not put her away all of his days (Deut:22; 28-29).” Here the victim of rape is as treated the property of the father. Since the rapist has despoiled the father’s property he must pay a bridal fee. The women apparently has no say in the matter and is forced to marry the person who raped her. Notice also if they are not discovered, no negative judgment is forthcoming. The implicit message seems to be that if you rape an unbetrothed virgin, be sure not to get caught.[1] [sic]

Martin is not alone is making this claim, I often hear this claim brought up in dialogues and discussions with those skeptical of the Christian faith. Not long ago a correspondent cited that most medieval commentators taught, on the basis of Deut 22:28-29, that a woman who had been raped was commanded by God to marry her rapist. In particular he referred me to Maimonides who wrote, “by this prohibition a man is forbidden to divorce a woman whom he has raped.”[2] 

In this post I want to address this line of argument. My response is two-fold, first I will argue that Martin’s translation of Deuteronomy is mistaken, second, I will suggest that the medieval commentators my correspondent referred to actually utilised a different definition of rape to that used today. My conclusion will be that this law does not command a woman to marry her rapist; it rather commands men who have sex with women to follow their sexual advances up with marital commitment, and teaches that failure to do so is forbidden by God.

Martin’s Translation of Deuteronomy 22:28-29
Martin cites Deut 22:28-29 as dealing with a situation where “a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her.” He immediately states, without argument, that this refers to acts of rape. Although he does not say, it appears this conclusion is based on the verb “seizes” in the English version he cites. Martin imports into this word the connotation of violent, coercive, abduction so that the sexual intercourse that follows is a rape. There are several problems with this claim.

First, and most obvious, the English word “seizes” is not in The Torah. The word in The Torah is tabas; in Hebrew, tabas “does not in itself indicate anything about the use of force.”[3] While the word can refer to the capture of a city,[4] it is also used for “handling” the harp and flute,[5] the sword,[6] a sickle,[7] a shield,[8] oars or a bow,[9] “taking” God’s name[10] or dealing with the law of God.[11] The word simply means to “lay hold of,” “to take hold of something” or to “grasp it in hand.” The more formal King James translation interprets the passage as, “If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her and lie with her.”

Second, there are good reasons in this context for interpreting the word in a manner where it does not have a connotation of force or violence. Here I will mention three.

The first reason is that the context strongly suggests it. Had the author intended to refer to rape then he would have used the word chazak which does carry the connotations Martin plays on. This is reinforced by the fact that three verses earlier the author does refer to a rape. The law immediately preceding this one begins, “But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her …” here the word used is chazak, which suggests a violent seizure is used. Bahsen notes, “Just three verses later (Deut. 25:28), the verb is changed to simply ‘take hold of’ her – indicating an action less intense and violent than the action dealt with in verse 25:25 (viz., rape).”[12]

The second reason is that Deut 22:28-29 actually repeats a law which has already been laid down in the book of Exodus. When one examines this law it is clear it does not refer to rape. The word “Deuteronomy” in Greek means “second law;” throughout the book of Deuteronomy, Moses repeats laws already laid down in the book of Exodus, sometimes expanding on them. The Decalogue, for example, which was delivered on Sinai in Exodus 20, is repeated again in Deuteronomy 5. The laws about releasing an ebed (or indentured servant) in Exodus 21:1 are repeated and expanded on in Deuteronomy 15:12-18. The same occurs with the law under discussion. Gordon Wenham points out that that Deut 22:28-29 is a repetition of a law spelled out in Exodus 22:15, which states “If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife.”[13] Here, the penalty for sleeping with an unbethrothed virgin is that the man must marry the woman which is why the man must pay the mohar or “bride-price” to the bride’s father. A mohar was security money (50 shekels) that the groom paid to the bride’s father. It was held in trust for the woman in case the man later abandoned her or divorced her without just cause.[14] Such money protected women from the poverty that could occur if they were abandoned with children. What is important, however, is that we are left in no doubt that in Exodus 22:15 the case deals, not with rape, but with what was traditionally called seduction.

The third reason is that, to interpret the law in Deut 21:28-29 as a rape is to make God the commander of a morally heinous command. Martin is correct, given what we know about the psychological harm that rape inflicts upon its victims to command that a woman marry her rapist is cruel and hence clashes with strong moral intuitions. Elsewhere I have defended the claim that if one interpretation of divine commands coheres better with our moral intuitions than another then that fact constitutes evidence for the former interpretation. All else being equal, an interpretation that coheres with our pre-theoretical moral intuitions is always preferable. This hermeneutical principle applies here.

The passage then does not refer to a rape. The Hebrew word does not, by itself, indicate rape and interpreting it this way both ignores the context where the word chazak is used to designate a rape. It also makes the second law inconsistent with the exposition of the same law in Exodus 22:15 and also with our prior moral discernment about what is right and wrong. Seduction, however, is consistent with the meaning of tabas, the context it is used in, the original law it was derived from and it coheres with our moral intuitions. These factors, to me, provide decisive reasons for rejecting Martin’s interpretation.

It is worth noting that the fact that this passage refers to a seduction and not rape is really not news. Bahnsen notes that, “one will find that many competent authorities in Biblical interpretation understand Deuteronomy 22:28-29 to apply to cases of seduction, not forcible rape;”[15] he lists several,

Meredith Kline: “The seducer of an unbetrothed virgin was obliged to take her as wife, paying the customary bride price and forfeiting the right of divorce” (Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy, p. 111).

Matthew Henry: “. . . if he and the damsel did consent, he should be bound to marry her, and never to divorce her, how much soever she was below him and how unpleasing soever she might afterwards be to him” (Commentary on the Whole Bible, ad loc.).

J. A. Thompson: “Seduction of a young girl. Where the girl was not betrothed and no legal obligations had been entered into, the man was forced to pay the normal bride-price and marry the girl. He was not allowed, subsequently, to send her away (Deuteronomy: Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Series, p. 237).

In Israel’s Laws and legal Precedents (1907), Charles Foster Kent (professor of Biblical Literature at Yale University) clearly distinguished between the law pertaining to rape in Dt. 22:25-27 and the law pertaining to seduction in Dt. 22:28-29 (pp. 117-118).

Keil and Delitzsch classify Deuteronomy 22:28-29 under the category of “Seduction of a virgin,” comment that the crime involved was ‘their deed” – implying consent of the part of both parties – and liken this law to that found in Exodus 22:16-17 (Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 3, p. 412).

John Calvin: “The remedy is, that he who has corrupted the girl should be compelled to marry her, and also to give her a dowry from his own property, lest, if he should afterwards cast her off, she should go away from her bed penniless” (Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony, vol. 3, pp. 83-84.

J. C. Connell: “Although she consented, it was still his responsibility to protect her from lifelong shame resulting from the sin of the moment by marrying her, not without payment of the regular dowry” (“Exodus,” New bible Commentary, ed. F. Davidson, p. 122).

Adam Clarke: “This was an exceedingly wise and humane law, and must have operated powerfully against seduction and fornication; because the person who might feel inclined to take advantage of a young woman knew that he must marry her, and give her a dowry, if her parents consented” (The Holy Bible . . . with a Commentary and Critical Notes, vol. 1, p. 414).

Alan Cole: “If a man seduces a virgin: . . . he must acknowledge her as his wife, unless her father refuses” (Exodus: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Series, p. 173).
James Jordan: “the punishment for the seducer is that he must marry the girl, unless her father objects, and that he may never divorce her (according to Dt. 22:29)” (The Law of the Covenant, p. 148).

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr.: “Exodus 22:16-17 takes up the problem of the seduction of a maiden who was not engaged . . .. Here the seducer must pay the ‘bride-price’ and agree to marry her” (Toward Old Testament Ethics, p. 107).[16]

Hence a skeptic who was interested in what the passage actually says could easily have discovered what I have noted by consulting a commentary. 

Medieval Commentators
If many post enlightenment and modern commentators realise that this passage is about a seduction and not a rape how does one explain the fact, alluded to above, that many medieval commentators apparently interpreted the passage to refer to rape? Here one needs to be attentive to the fact that words change their meaning over time. Medieval writers utilised a wider definition of rape than modern people do. In the middle ages the word ‘rape’ could include not only what we call rape today but also what was called “seduction,” where a man seduces a virgin he is not married to with her consent.

Isidore De Seville, for example, stated “seduction [stuprum], or rape, properly speaking, is unlawful intercourse, and takes its name from its causing corruption: wherefore he that is guilty of rape is a seducer.”[17] Similarly, Thomas Aquinas wrote,

They [rape and seduction] coincide when a man employs force in order unlawfully to violate a virgin. This force is employed sometimes both towards the virgin and towards her father; and sometimes towards the father and not to the virgin, for instance if she allows herself to be taken away by force from her father’s house. Again, the force employed in rape differs in another way, because sometimes a maid is taken away by force from her parents’ house, and is forcibly violated: while sometimes, though taken away by force, she is not forcibly violated, but of her own consent, whether by act of fornication or by the act of marriage: for the conditions of rape remain no matter how force is employed.[18]

Hence it is not entirely accurate to read the word “rape” in Medieval commentaries as we understand it today.

In conclusion then, it is very doubtful that Deut 22:28-29 commands women who have been raped to marry their rapists.

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God of War: Playing the Amalekite Card

by Anthony Weber

If you have engaged in serious discussions with skeptics about God and the Old Testament, you know it won’t be long before someone will play the Amalekite card – and let’s be honest, it’s a game-changing card (read the war texts in my previous post).  

There’s a temptation to  fold at this point and hope that the next hand deals something better (“Hey, I know! Let’s talk about love!”). However, there is far more to the story (I should note her I am indebted to the writing of Christian apologists such as Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan and organizations such as the Christian Think Tank).

As a teacher, I often have parents call me because their child came home with a tale of woe featuring my ineptitude as a teacher and my complete failure as a human being.  How else to explain that “D”?  I offer a perspective they did not hear from little Johnny.  More often than not (I’m not perfect), we resolve the situation pretty quickly.  It turns out there was more to the story than they initially heard.
We have a tendency to judge the actions of others before we fully appreciate the complexity or depth of the situation. That even applies when the ‘other’ is God and the ‘full story’ is actual world history.  As this series unfolds, I will attempt to reveal the context and complexity more clearly.  Let’s start with some observations about the Amalekite culture.


Historians agree with biblical history that the Amalekites were apparently outstandingly bad by any standard of that time. According to the biblical text, they had quite a track record:

“…in worshipping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.”  (Deuteronomy 12.31)

Note the issue was not merely that they worshipped their gods; all the nations around Israel served other gods, and they escaped judgment.  Egypt’s treatment of the Israelites was not ‘evil enough’ to warrant a war.  If God’s  only goal was to make every nation around Israel like Israel, he would have needed to attack everybody. The gods were not in and of themselves the issue.  Something unique was happening here.

In Leviticus 18, God gives a list of the things that had “defiled the land,” and for which He specifically was judging the inhabitants.  There were only two categories:  rampant sexual immortally (including beastiality and incest) and child sacrifice, both of which seem to be associated with temple prostitution and the worship rituals offered to their particular gods.  There are, of course, terrible consequences from incest:

“…delinquency, anxiety, regressive behaviors, nightmares, withdrawal from normal activities, internalizing and externalizing disorders, cruelty and self-injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, poor self-esteem, and age-inappropriate sexual behavior. A review of forty-five studies indicated two common patterns of psychological response to incest (Williams and Finkelhor 1993). The first are those associated with posttraumatic stress symptomology. The second is an increase in sexualized behaviors…

Long-term psychological sequelae of incest include depression, anxiety, psychiatric hospitalization, drug and alcohol use, suicidality, borderline personality disorder, somatization disorder, and eroticization (Schetky 1990; Silverman, Reinherz, and Giaconia 1996). Common, too, are learning difficulties, posttraumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorders and conversion reactions, running away, prostitution, re-victimization, poor parenting, and an increased likelihood of becoming a perpetrator.”

As for child sacrifice, you can find numerous sources online that quote this description:

“Its origin (human sacrifice) must be sought, evidently, in Canaanite culture. When a disaster was threatening Carthage, the inhabitants of the town decided it was due to the anger of Kronos, to whom they had formerly sacrificed their finest children: instead, they had begun to offer sickly children, or children they had bought. Thereupon, they sacrificed two hundred children from the noblest families. There was a bronze statue of Kronos with outstretched arms, and the child was placed on its hands and rolled into the furnace….Funerary jars have been found with the bodies of young children distorted by suffocation as they struggled for life after having been buried alive as a sacrifice to Canaanite gods. Such young children have been found in the foundation pillars of Canaanite houses…”

In addition, as soon as Israel escaped Egypt–before they could even ‘catch their breath’–the Amalekites made a long journey and attacked Israel. Their first targets were the helpless: “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt.  When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and cut off all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God!” (Deuteronomy 25.17-19).

Historian Mike Woodruff notes, “ They were distant cousins of the Israelites who gained God’s ire by going out of their way to provoke him. They likely knew that the promise God had made was to bless everyone through the blessing of Israel, and they certainly heard of the way God was providing for the Jews; but the Amalekites did not fear God. Instead, they attacked the weakest of God’s people. After giving their promise not to attack, they waited for the Jewish slaves to file through their land on the way to Sinai and then attacked the stragglers—the sick, tired, and elderly. This actually became a bit of a pattern for the Amalekites. They preyed on the weak, and they never missed a chance to attack the Jews.”  

The behaviors we’ve looked at were not  widely shared by the other Ancient Near East cultures. This evil appears to have been specifically Canaanite/Amorite, and its recorded by both Christian and secular historians.  One writer noted: “By 1400 B.C. the Canaanite civilization and religion had become one of the weakest, most decadent, and most immoral cultures of the civilized world.” 

Honestly, can you look at history and say these people didn’t have it coming? The Amalekites were particularly bad dudes. They preyed on the weak; they burnt their children alive; they worshipped their gods by engaging in ritualized incest and beastiality. They were in a league of their own.

I’m a fan of Lee Child’s series of books starring Jack Reacher.  Reacher is a former military policeman with a strong sense of justice who could probably snap me in half.  In every story, he finds himself in a situation where somebody has to do something to stop really bad guys from exploiting and using other people.  Nobody else is strong enough or capable enough, so Reacher steps in.  There is one book in particular in which he uncovers an organization of terrorists whose list of atrocities is disturbing to say the least. When Reacher stops that kind of evil (and he usually kills the people involved) we cheer for him not because we love violence and death, but because somebody needed to step up and put an end to that kind of evil.  We cheer for both justice and mercy will prevail: justice for the perpetrators, and mercy for those who suffered.

Certainly what happens in the Old Testament occurs on a larger scale, but I think the analogy holds. The people with whom the Israelites  dealt were causing far more destruction than than the villains in Lee Child’s literary world. Somebody needed to bring justice and mercy- and sometimes that means killing the perpetrators of evil to bring an end to the suffering of their victims.

Of course, if the Israelites committed atrocities of their own, that’s still a huge problem. Justice would have to fall on them as well.  We will address this more fully as we continue this series with ” God of War; God of Justice.”

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Common Misconceptions about Christianity

1. Christianity is based on blind faith. Christianity is not based on blind faith, but rather faith based on evidence. Blind faith is superstition. Christianity is overwhelmingly supported by reason, evidence, and scientific inquiry as we show in various articles on our website: http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians.

2. We get to heaven based on how good we are here on earth. Well, we do get to heaven based on good works, but not our good works! We get to heaven based on the works of Jesus Christ! The Bible teaches that no one is good enough to get to heaven on the basis of their good works. It is Christ’s sacrifice for our sins that saves us from God’s wrath and hell. See http://www.faithfacts.org/bible-101/what-is-the-gospel and http://www.faithfacts.org/bible-101/christian-cram-course. This is the biggest single misconception about Christianity. This is what separates Christianity from all other world religions and worldviews. Because we cannot possibly be good enough to get to heaven, Christ’s sacrificial life, death, and resurrection are absolutely necessary to get people to heaven. We are saved by grace (that is, it is a gift) through the medium of faith, and specifically not through our own merit (Ephesians 2:8-9).

3. Christianity is a laundry list of things to do. No matter how many ways we try to state this fact in #2 above, it does not seem to sink in. Even many Christians, when asked how we get to heaven, will answer something like, “I always try to be a good person.” But this is an incorrect response and shows great misunderstanding of the Christian message. The correct answer is, “There is no reason at all why I should go to heaven except for what Christ did for me on the cross.” Christianity, unlike other religions, is not a religion as such at all—but rather a personal relationship. God has reached out to sinful man and through his only son Jesus has offered a way to be reconciled to Himself through a personal relationship with Jesus. So Christianity is not a laundry list of things to do. There is nothing we can add to Christ’s finished work on the cross as payment for our sins.

4. Once we become a Christian, being saved by God’s gift of grace, it does not matter what we do. This is the corollary of #2 and #3 above. There are some people who think that since we are saved by Christ’s finished work on the cross, we can just go on sinning and God will forgive us. While we are saved by God’s grace through the medium of faith in Christ, good works will result from a true saving faith. Thus good works are evidence of a saving faith. This is very different from saying that we are saved by being a good person. While the Bible teaches that we are saved by God’s grace through faith, the Bible does not teach “easy believism.” A true Christian will repent of his sins continually and surrender his life to God. While we will never be perfect, or anywhere near perfect—and have ups and downs—a Christian will continue to improve over time through a process the Bible calls sanctification. So, while we are saved as a gift of God available to all who trust in Christ, after being saved, a Christian, by the power of the Holy Spirit, will seek to conform his life to God’s will—as best he understands God’s will and his duty. The Christian life is more about direction than perfection. For more detail, see http://www.faithfacts.org/bible-101/christian-cram-course#christianlife.

5. There are many ways to heaven, many paths to God. Because man is separated from God by his sin, the penalty for our sin had to be paid somehow for justice to be done. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Thus Christ is thus the only name under heaven by which man may be saved (Acts 4:12). See http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/arent-all-religions-the-same.

6. It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere. This is a nice idea, but does not hold up to logic. Christianity is so radically different from other belief systems that if Christianity is true, the others are false. One can be sincere and be sincerely wrong. Sincere belief in a cult, in a false religion, in atheism,  or in the tooth fairy do not get one to heaven. For an explanation see our article Why Christianity: http://www.faithfacts.org/world-religions-and-theology/why-christianity. 

7. The New Testament was written long after the events took place and are thus subject to legends being inserted into the text. The New Testament was written entirely by eye witnesses to the life of Christ or by interviewers of eyewitnesses. Many of the books were written within 25 or so years of Christ’s death, and many scholars—both liberal and conservative—are moving toward the view that all of the books of the New Testament were written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD. The one book for which some doubt remains is Revelation. But recent scholarship holds that even this book was written prior to 70 AD. This is the view that liberal scholar John A. T. Robinson presents in his book Redating the New Testament. This is also the view that conservative scholar Kenneth Gentry presents in his book Before Jerusalem Fell. So there was not enough time for the stories to have been developed into legend. Further, as professor of Medieval and Renaissance English, C. S. Lewis said, “Another point is that on that view you would have to regard the accounts of the Man [Jesus] as being legends. Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing.” (quote from Lewis’ “God in the Dock.”)

8. The Bible has been changed or is otherwise not true to the original manuscripts. The original manuscripts—that is, the actual pieces of parchment or papyrus upon which St. Paul and others wrote the Bible—are no longer extant. But, especially as regards to the New Testament there has been an unbroken chain of manuscripts from the originals. There are thousands of ancient manuscripts extant, including ones from the first and second centuries. Scholars have been able to correlate the manuscripts to know that the Bible we have today is faithful to the originals. See http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/maps. A good book on this issue is The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F. F. Bruce. Regarding the Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, first discovered in 1947 were from the time of Christ and even to the 2nd century BC. These manuscripts predate the previously oldest known manuscripts by a thousand years. Comparisons of these texts with the others already in existence showed that they were essentially identical. This information confirms how carefully the texts were copied over the centuries and has given scholars tremendous confidence in the accuracy of the Old Testament we have today.

9. The Bible cannot be trusted because of all the miracle stories. If God exists, miracles are possible. In fact, if God exists, miracles are certain. If he can create the universe—a miracle beyond human comprehension—he could certainly do the other miracles in the Bible. Perhaps the greatest miracle story is the resurrection of Christ. We devote an entire article to the evidence from modern scholarship of the veracity of this claim: http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/contemporary-scholarship. The claim that miracles do not exist is held only by those who hold to a view of naturalism, which says that the physical universe is all that there is. The philosophy of naturalism assumes that the there is no such thing as the supernatural. We are convinced that the evidence is strongly in favor of the existence of God, and that therefore miracles are possible. To say that miracles are not possible is really atheism. See http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/does-god-exist.

10. The Bible conflicts with science. While the Bible was not written as a science textbook, a careful analysis of the Bible reveals that the Bible does not conflict with science at all. Charges leveled at the Bible turn out to be red herrings. See http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/are-christians-anti-science.

11. Christianity must be false because evolution is true. We are persuaded, after much study, that not only is macroevolution not true (macro-evolution being the vertical evolution of higher life forms in which a greater quantity and quality of genetic material is introduced by pure chance)—it cannot possibly be true. While this may sound puzzling in this age, we back up this claim with the evidence. For a summary of the research and a discussion of the difference between macroevolution and microevolution, see http://www.faithfacts.org/evolution-or-creation/origins-and-silly-putty.

12. The Bible condones slavery. Actually, both the Old and New Testaments specifically condemn the slave trade (Exodus 21:16 and 1 Timothy 1:10). Just because slavery was a common practice in the ancient world does not mean that God condoned it. The Bible speaks of many activities that were common or customary but were wrong in God’s eyes. Indeed the Old Testament in particular was a history of how bad mankind was, which precipitated the necessity of Christ to come to earth to set things straight. It must also be pointed out that much of what was described as “slavery” in the Old Testament was not racial forced slavery. Rather it was voluntary servitude, in which people would commit themselves to work for someone else for a period of time in exchange for certain benefits. Many slaves seemed to have lived almost like free men, or lived with a family as quasi-family members. The Old Testament Hebrew laws also had rules about letting indentured servants become free after a certain period of time, namely 6 years (Deuteronomy 15:12-15) or at other intervals such as the so-called Jubilee. The Deuteronomy passage is instructive about the type of slavery that was practiced—not only that slavery was a voluntary act but also prescribes rules of aid for the slave. The Bible reminds the Hebrews that they were once slaves in Egypt themselves and they were not to treat people the way that they had been treated. While the Bible may not condemn slavery as loudly as we might prefer, it is true that the Bible teaches that we are all equal in God's eyes (Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 9:6; Colossians 3:11). These passages and others laid the groundwork for the abolition movement, which was a Christian movement. See this link: Abolition. Here are three links with further information on this topic: Got Questions, Christian Answers, Bible Encyclopedia.

13. The Bible demeans women. In fact, the Bible elevates the status of women. Christianity has had a freeing influence for women, especially in comparison to other religions. For a comparison of Islam and Christianity, see http://www.faithfacts.org/world-religions-and-theology/contrasting-christianity-and-islam#women. The passage that is sometimes pointed to that critics say demean women is Ephesians 5:22-33. This passage, while it points out that men and women have different roles, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies just as Christ loved the church. See also http://www.faithfacts.org/christ-and-the-culture/The-Impact-of-Christianity for a list a cultural benefits women have gained from Christianity. The example is Jesus, who treated women (as well as others demeaned in his culture) with mercy and respect. (See the comments in #14 below.)

14. The Bible cannot be correct given the strange rules the Jews had to follow. The rules given to the Jews by God fell into different categories. There were civil, ceremonial, and moral laws. Many of the laws given to the Jews in the book of Leviticus seem strange to us today. While helpful to the Jews (both medically and spiritually), these laws do not apply universally. The civil and ceremonial laws of the Old Testament were specifically repealed in the New Testament. Examples: Acts 10:12-15; Colossians 2:11-16; Romans 14:17. Moral laws were not repealed, but certain harsh earthly penalties for them are not in force in the same way since Jesus’ gospel of grace. Jesus’ example, such as toward the adulterous woman in John 8:1-11, was not to condemn the transgressor to harsh punishment as the culture would have demanded (in this case being stoned to death), but to show mercy and insist that she leave her life of sin.

15. The God of the Bible is immoral.  This statement is occasionally made by certain vocal atheists who seem to have an ax to grind against the God who made them. It seems incredibly presumptuous of fallible man to think they know better than God. The charge comes about mainly in regard to God’s command to the Jews to take over the land of Canaan and kill the inhabitants, in which the Jews became the responsible agent to execute specific justice against an immoral indigenous society. See http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/how-can-a-loving-god-order-people-killed for an explanation.

16. The Bible does not permit the charging of interest. Not charging interest or receiving interest was a practice in the Old Testament to give benefit to people in need. The New Testament effectively abrogates this practice in Jesus’ Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-29).

17. I can be a “Jesus Only” Christian. Some people who don’t like all the moral commands in the Bible want to tear out the pages of the Bible they don’t like. This is problematic for many reasons. One reason is that if you pick and choose what you like and what you don’t like, that is creating a God in your own image. This is idolatry, which is a violation of the Second of the Ten Commandments. Another reason is that if you think that the Bible is not reliable, you don’t know who the Jesus you think you worship is, since what we know about Jesus comes primarily from the Bible. We have more comments on this in this article our article “Cults, Heresies, and Heterodoxies.”: http://www.faithfacts.org/world-religions-and-theology/cults-and-heresies.

18. Christianity is about being financially prosperous. This view of the Christian faith has become popular among some televangelists. It teaches that material prosperity and success in business and personal life is to be expected as external evidence of God’s favor. This is referred to as the “Prosperity Gospel.” It is a dangerous distortion of the biblical gospel. It is true that if one practices biblical principles in one’s life—ethics, hard work, concern for others, discipline, etc—one is more likely to be successful financially as well as physically healthy, but it is not always the case.  The focus on this movement is incorrectly put on the accumulation of wealth and material goods, rather than on the true gospel. The biblical gospel is very clearly the declaration of Christ’s perfect life, death, and resurrection to save us from God’s wrath and hell. See http://www.faithfacts.org/bible-101/what-is-the-gospel. The Bible teaches an attitude about money and wealth that directly contradicts the Prosperity Gospel:
a.  1 Timothy 6:7-10: "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
b. Mark 10:17-22:"go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven . . ."
c. Matthew 6:19-21: "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
d. Luke 18:22-25: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
e. 1 John 2:15: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
In fact, one of Christ’s most quoted sermons (The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5) essentially assures a Christian that they will suffer hardships.

19. Most Christians think favorably of televangelists. Overwhelmingly, Christians think that most of the TV preachers are full of baloney. Sadly, many televangelists preach a distorted Gospel. Christians whose beliefs are rooted in the truths of the Bible are quick to point out the discrepancies.

20. Christianity is different by insisting that its claims are exclusive. Actually all religions claim exclusivity. Just ask a Muslim or a Hindu if a Christian is one of them. Even those who say that there should be no exclusivity in religion are in reality making an absolutist claim by eliminating from their circle those religions who claim exclusivity. See http://www.faithfacts.org/search-for-truth/questions-of-christians/arent-all-religions-the-same.

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Challenge: There's no possiblity of a Creator

From the challenge series over at STR Place in response to the claim of Stephen Hawking in his newest book that "there's no possibility of a Creator".