Lonely need a companion? Rape any hot virgin and get a wife

[Enki]

Deuteronomy 22:28-29

28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels[a] of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

So what is Jesus's stance on forcing a woman to marry her rapist?

[Ibrahim]

This would benefit some members of modern nerd/gamer/anime culture immensely.

[Azrael]

Perhaps it would account for the popularity of Matisyahu among nerd/gamer/anime folks. They like the whole Dueteronomy thing. That and the glasses.

[Azrael]

Deuteronomy 22:28-29

28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels[a] of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

So what is Jesus's stance on forcing a woman to marry her rapist?

I think he would be against it, especially considering how he saved the "adultress" from a stoning. He was also against men even lusting over women.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Your sarcasm would be more effective if you actually understood your target.

Hebrew to English is notoriously difficult, which is why there are a plethora of translations of this verse:

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; KJV

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, who is not espoused, and taking her, lie with her, and the matter come to judgment: DOUAY-RHEIMS

If a man shall find a damsel [that is] a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; WEBSTER BIBLE

If a man find a lady who is a virgin, who is not pledged to be married, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE

When a man findeth a damsel, a virgin who is not betrothed, and hath caught her, and lain with her, and they have been found, YLT

When a man findeth a damsel that is a virgin who is not betrothed, and layeth hold of her and lieth with her, and they are found, ROTHERHAM

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; JPS 1917 OT

"If a man find a damsel who is a virgin who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her and lie with her, and they be found, THIRD MILLENNIUM

If a man find a damsel, a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found, DARBY

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; AMV

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, RSV

If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, NRSV

If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, NASB

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, ESV

If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her and they are found, AMPLIFIED

Suppose a woman isn't engaged to be married, and a man talks her into sleeping with him. If they are caught, CEV

I don't even think you've ever read the whole chapter because the preceding verses actually deal with rape more like we understand it today. The last translation puts as plainly as possible how it's generally been understood.

[Enki]

Your sarcasm would be more effective if you actually understood your target.

Hebrew to English is notoriously difficult, which is why there are a plethora of translations of this verse:

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; KJV

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, who is not espoused, and taking her, lie with her, and the matter come to judgment: DOUAY-RHEIMS

If a man shall find a damsel [that is] a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; WEBSTER BIBLE

If a man find a lady who is a virgin, who is not pledged to be married, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE

When a man findeth a damsel, a virgin who is not betrothed, and hath caught her, and lain with her, and they have been found, YLT

When a man findeth a damsel that is a virgin who is not betrothed, and layeth hold of her and lieth with her, and they are found, ROTHERHAM

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; JPS 1917 OT

"If a man find a damsel who is a virgin who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her and lie with her, and they be found, THIRD MILLENNIUM

If a man find a damsel, a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found, DARBY

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; AMV

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, RSV

If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, NRSV

If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, NASB

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, ESV

If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her and they are found, AMPLIFIED

Suppose a woman isn't engaged to be married, and a man talks her into sleeping with him. If they are caught, CEV

I don't even think you've ever read the whole chapter because the preceding verses actually deal with rape more like we understand it today. The last translation puts as plainly as possible how it's generally been understood.

13 If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her , dislikes her 14 and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” 15 then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. 16 Her father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. 17 Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. 19 They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

20 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, 21 she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you.

22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

23 If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, 24 you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

25 But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her.

28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels[c] of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

30 A man is not to marry his father’s wife; he must not dishonor his father’s bed

Oh yeah, so much more resembles modern times.

I remember the last time I stoned a hooker.

[Demon of Undoing]

Yeah, me too. Dallas, right after a Dinosaur Jr concert. I was there on business and she just happened to be in the hotel. You know, job gets done, it's late, she's a college girl. Pretty soon, someone fires up a hookah, you're talking about Irish prose...

Oh, wait. Read that wrong.

[Demon of Undoing]

No, but you guys. Seriously.

You can not look at this argument without conceding that at some point, what was revealed was indeed barbaric by any standard that followed. That's almost the definition of progress. To say that the revelation has not changed at all since then is to place yourself within such a theological minority that insularity alone can yield an air of presupposed normalcy. It is also directly counter to Christ's own words. He completed the Law. He drew it to state of the heart, mercy, and the greater love. This is the work he finished, not washing a mythological sin debt in his blood. That's butchershop religion and was outdated by the time of Isaiah.

Yes, outdated. Jewish law understood that things changed. As inviolable as the Law was, the interpretation of it could be very subtle and adaptable. Certainly, their perceptions of how universal the Law was had been challenged. That happened by the time of Jeremiah.

Then the question becomes about how you interpret the commandments. Even with Christ's massive simplification and distillation, it's not easy. I argue that you always err on the side of love.

Now, WTF does that mean? Do unto others. Where that is violated, there comes judgement.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I remember the last time I stoned a hooker.

I bet it was more productive than your ruminations on books you don't care for.

[Enki]

I remember the last time I stoned a hooker.

I bet it was more productive than your ruminations on books you don't care for.

You care for Deuteronomy? Do you base your life on it?

[Hoosiernorm]

Damn First Temple Anti-Semites

[Ibrahim]

Your sarcasm would be more effective if you actually understood your target.

Hebrew to English is notoriously difficult, which is why there are a plethora of translations of this verse:

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; KJV

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, who is not espoused, and taking her, lie with her, and the matter come to judgment: DOUAY-RHEIMS

If a man shall find a damsel [that is] a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; WEBSTER BIBLE

If a man find a lady who is a virgin, who is not pledged to be married, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE

When a man findeth a damsel, a virgin who is not betrothed, and hath caught her, and lain with her, and they have been found, YLT

When a man findeth a damsel that is a virgin who is not betrothed, and layeth hold of her and lieth with her, and they are found, ROTHERHAM

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; JPS 1917 OT

"If a man find a damsel who is a virgin who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her and lie with her, and they be found, THIRD MILLENNIUM

If a man find a damsel, a virgin, who is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found, DARBY

If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, that is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; AMV

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, RSV

If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, NRSV

If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her and they are discovered, NASB

If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, ESV

If a man finds a girl who is a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her and they are found, AMPLIFIED

Suppose a woman isn't engaged to be married, and a man talks her into sleeping with him. If they are caught, CEV

I don't even think you've ever read the whole chapter because the preceding verses actually deal with rape more like we understand it today. The last translation puts as plainly as possible how it's generally been understood.

I think you're reaching quite a bit here. Our term "rape," from the Latin rapare or "to seize," is reasonably rendered "seizes" or "lay hold on" in these various translations. Clearly this verse is about rape, except that last one which is obviously sanitized.


A more intelligent defense of this verse would be an explanation of the tribal society of the ancient Hebrews, and how forcing a man from one family to bear economic responsibility for a female member of another family he has both deeply wronged and made unsuitable for marriage to anyone else would have been a legal means of both discouraging the practice and preventing blood feuds.

To my knowledge it isn't enforced anywhere in the contemporary Jewish world, except maybe off the books in some ultra-orthodox settler hovel somewhere. Easily consigned to obsolescence, along with death penalties for blasphemy and, soon, discrimination against homosexuals.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

I think you're reaching quite a bit here. Our term "rape," from the Latin rapare or "to seize," is reasonably rendered "seizes" or "lay hold on" in these various translations. Clearly this verse is about rape, except that last one which is obviously sanitized.


A more intelligent defense of this verse would be an explanation of the tribal society of the ancient Hebrews, and how forcing a man from one family to bear economic responsibility for a female member of another family he has both deeply wronged and made unsuitable for marriage to anyone else would have been a legal means of both discouraging the practice and preventing blood feuds.

To my knowledge it isn't enforced anywhere in the contemporary Jewish world, except maybe off the books in some ultra-orthodox settler hovel somewhere. Easily consigned to obsolescence, along with death penalties for blasphemy and, soon, discrimination against homosexuals.

The verse doesn't need a defense. This thread is silly.

We are all aware of the etymology; yet if it were so clear cut, why did Aquinas and Albert Magnus, to name two, speak of it as a verse on sex without a marital bond, and point to this as a tradition passed down [Thomas incorporates it into his arguments about ordered and natural conduct.] So why has it been traditionally interpreted as such? What does the Latin origins of the word used have to do with replacing two different Hebrew words translated as rape in the NIV? And when was the last time rape wasn't contemporary used to connote a forced sexual act and not the wider implications of the word? The verse itself, (and the word translated to rape) is linked with Numbers 5:11-13, which is a case of consensual adultery and not rape.

Otherwise, all this talk about women as property rights and tribal mores don't translate to the nation we live in, and has no reason to be brought up. Unlike what you've personally suggested before Ibrahim, Christian orthodoxy (small- O Christian orthodoxy) has had very few sects intent on replacing the nations with what they believe is the Biblical world (or you could say totally marrying Caesar and Church into one sphere.) And outside of the Puritan/Congregationalists who burned out long ago, it's never been a very popular notion.

So what we have here is a failed "gotcha" thread, for God knows what reason.

[Ibrahim]

I think you're reaching quite a bit here. Our term "rape," from the Latin rapare or "to seize," is reasonably rendered "seizes" or "lay hold on" in these various translations. Clearly this verse is about rape, except that last one which is obviously sanitized.


A more intelligent defense of this verse would be an explanation of the tribal society of the ancient Hebrews, and how forcing a man from one family to bear economic responsibility for a female member of another family he has both deeply wronged and made unsuitable for marriage to anyone else would have been a legal means of both discouraging the practice and preventing blood feuds.

To my knowledge it isn't enforced anywhere in the contemporary Jewish world, except maybe off the books in some ultra-orthodox settler hovel somewhere. Easily consigned to obsolescence, along with death penalties for blasphemy and, soon, discrimination against homosexuals.

The verse doesn't need a defense. This thread is silly.

It needs to be addressed by anybody who considers the Bible to be divine revelation. I've always found that taking ancient laws on their face and noting that they are contextually obsolete is much more direct, honest, and effective way of addressing them than making excuses, twisting meanings, or throwing a tantrum because somebody had the nerve to bring up something that's written in the Bible.

We are all aware of the etymology; yet if it were so clear cut, why did Aquinas and Albert Magnus, to name two, speak of it as a verse on sex without a marital bond,

Positive spin.

What does the Latin origins of the word used have to do with replacing two different Hebrew words translated as rape in the NIV?

The point is that the Hebrew is being translated as "to seize" or "to lay hold on," which is also the original meaning of our word rape. They are equivalent terms, the meaning is clear.

Otherwise, all this talk about women as property rights and tribal mores don't translate to the nation we live in, and
has no reason to be brought up.

Incorrect. It simply explains why a verse that appears barbaric today was included in an ancient text.

Unlike what you've personally suggested before Ibrahim, Christian orthodoxy (small- O Christian orthodoxy) has had very few sects intent on replacing the nations with what they believe is the Biblical world (or you could say totally marrying Caesar and Church into one sphere.) And outside of the Puritan/Congregationalists who burned out long ago, it's never been a very popular notion.

The point of the thread is that modern religious conservatives seeking justifications for discrimination against others frequently invoke Old Testament law, and if we look at a wide sampling of those laws we see that they frequently don't even appear moral by modern standards, and are certainly no groups for systematic discrimination against a minority group (homosexuals in this case).

That Old Testament law is not the law of the land is a simple fact and redundant observation. That some people want to invoke Old Testament law to influence modern laws is also beyond question.

So what we have here is a failed "gotcha" thread, for God knows what reason.

It would be a failed "gotcha" thread if you took an intelligent line on addressing it. Alas.

[Enki]

Nap Your umbrage is showing.

Rape, deflower, consentual, non-consentual. We ALL know this obviously applies to all permutations of the above. So get off it.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

It needs to be addressed by anybody who considers the Bible to be divine revelation. I've always found that taking ancient laws on their face and noting that they are contextually obsolete is much more direct, honest, and effective way of addressing them than making excuses, twisting meanings, or throwing a tantrum because somebody had the nerve to bring up something that's written in the Bible.

How does one take something at face value from something pertaining to an alien community? There is something funny about this insistence on Biblical clarity and with the NIV no less. We aren't even breaking out the Masoretic or Septuagint texts.

I'm doing incredulity as hard as I can here. This is kindergarten stuff and extremely facile. But I'm unsure whether I should be more disbelieving that we are actually going through the "naughty bits" of scripture or that you, a reasonably intelligent man, can say some really stupid things. I mean where to begin?

With what divine revelation means? With how odd it is that you are certain about the context of something written thousands of years ago by a people who no longer exist? That somehow this ties into Christians in general, who read all scripture in the light of Christ? I mean...I can think of English words in the last five hundred years that have had such a shift as to make them foreign outside of the community using them. The English Reformation has made worship; prayer; adore all sorts of weird....and I'm supposed to be concerned that KJV-only Joe Bob has his own opinions that the law should be bible-based, even though his argument never makes it past the social stage where it is brought out to be ostracized and beaten by the sophisticated. All this because the NIV- a pan-Protestant compromise from the 1980s'- uses the word rape? For the perspicuity of scripture, no one has demonstrated better than the Bl Cardinal Newman, the impossibility of deriving the doctrines from scripture alone, without the aid of tradition, or the distinction between the ceremonial, civil and moral precepts of the OT. But it is all pretty clear otherwise, that's what we're supposed to buy?

I mean, this has more straw than the scarecrow from wizard of oz. And it's such a sloppy tu quoque. "Well the Bible says this and then uses that rape in der laws, which is badd!....so *derp* it's ain't morale [which musta be one of them i-talian werds] either!"

You wanna start somewhere? As a Catholic I don't believe in the doctrine of private judgement which undermined the authority of scripture in two ways. Firstly, why should revelation be confined to the canon of scripture? The more radical reformers, like the anabaptists led logically to the Society of Friends with their emphasis on the inner light (for which they could quote scripture in abundance)Secondly, it provided no security for the text of scripture, for it was inevitable that this would be subjected to the same process of textual criticism that the humanists applied to classical authors and to Justinian’s Corpus Juris.
So invoking the OT civil law (and conflating it with the moral law) is incoherent to me to begin with, but to condescend that it must be explained away as contextualized primitivism is silly and special pleading. There is no "intelligence" there- you are just tendentiously assuming that yours is the superior answer, and whether that is true or not needs to be proven by you...and it is something I don't think you can do, because if you could, you'd have done it by now.

So, we live in a society that doesn't punish crimes against religion, and (unlike antiquity) considers rape a public wrong- what does this have to do with civil law in the Bible?

or

What about one nation's civil law has to do with laws of characters?

Positive spin.

So more than a thousand years of tradition on the subject is just positive spin to head off any scandal to future moderns. Makes total sense. But tell me, how many crazy pills am I supposed to swallow to buy this?

The point is that the Hebrew is being translated as "to seize" or "to lay hold on," which is also the original meaning of our word rape. They are equivalent terms, the meaning is clear.

actually the two words, don't quite sync up like that:

shakab

to lie down (Qal) to lie, lie down, lie on to lodge to lie (of sexual relations) to lie down (in death) to rest, relax (fig) (Niphal) to be lain with (sexually) (Pual) to be lain with (sexually) (Hiphil) to make to lie down (Hophal) to be laid

taphas

to catch, handle, lay hold, take hold of, seize, wield (Qal) to lay hold of, seize, arrest, catch to grasp (in order to) wield, wield, use skilfully (Niphal) to be seized, be arrested, be caught, be taken, captured (Piel) to catch, grasp (with the hands)

[Ibrahim]

It needs to be addressed by anybody who considers the Bible to be divine revelation. I've always found that taking ancient laws on their face and noting that they are contextually obsolete is much more direct, honest, and effective way of addressing them than making excuses, twisting meanings, or throwing a tantrum because somebody had the nerve to bring up something that's written in the Bible.

How does one take something at face value from something pertaining to an alien community? There is something funny about this insistence on Biblical clarity and with the NIV no less. We aren't even breaking out the Masoretic or Septuagint texts.

I'm doing incredulity as hard as I can here. This is kindergarten stuff and extremely facile.

It is. Your entire line of argument is childish and petulant, and I think you realize how weak your excuses are, which is why you are going overboard with the condescension. The verse is about rape, which is not something pertaining to an "alien society" but a constant problem in all human society from prehistory to today.

But I'm unsure whether I should be more disbelieving that we are actually going through the "naughty bits" of scripture or that you, a reasonably intelligent man, can say some really stupid things. I mean where to begin?

Don't waste your time at all. I don't respect your opinion or judgment, and I think you're trying to shore up your original pathetic argument by throwing as much blather at it as you can and hoping I won't bother to read and reply to it all. There is no debate here, the verse is about rape. I'm not asking you what you think.

Positive spin.

So more than a thousand years of tradition on the subject is just positive spin to head off any scandal to future moderns. Makes total sense. But tell me, how many crazy pills am I supposed to swallow to buy this?

Medieval Christians weren't trying to sanitize the OT for our benefit, but for their own. Medieval society had already moved beyond the tribal level of development where rape was dealt with in this way. Aquinas et al, if they were in fact trying to alter the meaning of this verse, were doing so to rehabilitate the text for their own era, not ours.

The point is that the Hebrew is being translated as "to seize" or "to lay hold on," which is also the original meaning of our word rape. They are equivalent terms, the meaning is clear.

actually the two words, don't quite sync up like that

:

shakab

to lie down (Qal) to lie, lie down, lie on to lodge to lie (of sexual relations) to lie down (in death) to rest, relax (fig) (Niphal) to be lain with (sexually) (Pual) to be lain with (sexually) (Hiphil) to make to lie down (Hophal) to be laid

taphas

to catch, handle, lay hold, take hold of, seize, wield (Qal) to lay hold of, seize, arrest, catch to grasp (in order to) wield, wield, use skilfully (Niphal) to be seized, be arrested, be caught, be taken, captured (Piel) to catch, grasp (with the hands)

The meaning is clear in the context. "Seize" or "lay hold of" does not indicate consent.

[Enki]

Depends on who you are claiming 'consent' from. Since a girl who goes willingly in defiance of her Father is still not consent from the biblical perspective where she is property.

[Ibrahim]

Depends on who you are claiming 'consent' from. Since a girl who goes willingly in defiance of her Father is still not consent from the biblical perspective where she is property.

This is an interesting point. In the historical tribal context the consent of the unwed virgin is largely irrelevant, socially speaking if not morally. As I stated previously the point of laws like this is to prevent blood feuds between families.


Even so, I maintain that "seize" or "lay hold of" being added to "lie with" rather obviously implies force.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

It is. Your entire line of argument is childish and petulant, and I think you realize how weak your excuses are, which is why you are going overboard with the condescension.

The more you talk about this being about me, the less of an argument you reveal to have.

Don't waste your time at all. I don't respect your opinion or judgment, and I think you're trying to shore up your original pathetic argument by throwing as much blather at it as you can and hoping I won't bother to read and reply to it all. There is no debate here, the verse is about rape. I'm not asking you what you think.

You can keep trying to establish your higher status all you want, but the focus isn't me here- asserting your opinion over and over again and claiming there is no debate isn't an argument and it's not my fault if you are getting bent out of shape because you are being called on it.

The meaning is clear in the context. "Seize" or "lay hold of" does not indicate consent.

And yet still, the context depends on the community.

[YMix]

Lonely need a companion? Rape any hot virgin and get a wife

who will probably hate your guts for the rest of your life.

[Ibrahim]

It is. Your entire line of argument is childish and petulant, and I think you realize how weak your excuses are, which is why you are going overboard with the condescension.

The more you talk about this being about me, the less of an argument you reveal to have.

That my initial statement is correct is clear. The text and meaning is plain, even among the dozen translations you provided. The fact that this is dragging on is only due to you.

Don't waste your time at all. I don't respect your opinion or judgment, and I think you're trying to shore up your original pathetic argument by throwing as much blather at it as you can and hoping I won't bother to read and reply to it all. There is no debate here, the verse is about rape. I'm not asking you what you think.

You can keep trying to establish your higher status all you want, but the focus isn't me here- asserting your opinion over and over again and claiming there is no debate isn't an argument and it's not my fault if you are getting bent out of shape because you are being called on it.

Your ongoing squirming and excuses are not a debate. It doesn't bend me out of shape, though it is a little boring.

The meaning is clear in the context. "Seize" or "lay hold of" does not indicate consent.

And yet still, the context depends on the community.

Rape was a crime in the community in question.

[Ibrahim]

Lonely need a companion? Rape any hot virgin and get a wife

who will probably hate your guts for the rest of your life.

This is the problem with the law, and with ancient tribal culture in the Semitic world in general. The perpetrator was punished to some extent (supporting the woman), the father of the woman placated (payment, not having to support the woman), but the feelings of unwed woman, having no social status, are not considered.

Historically speaking the evolution of law is what is interesting here. This is a very imperfect law that was, itself, a replacement for the lawlessness or near-lawlessness that preceded it, and was eventually supplanted but better laws and customs within the Jewish culture and generally. This legal evolution is present in every civilization.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

If the author was to imply forced rape, they would've used chazaq, or even laqach which is used other situations (like the Rape of Dinah) where it is made explicit that a man has taken hold of a woman and has humiliated her.

Enki, you may be right that the father should be involved in the consent, which is likely why the word tapahas was used to begin with. But the verb shakab, if one browses the rest of the texts is always linked to what we would call consensual sex.

I haven't had time to look at the Septuagint (and unlike Latin and Hebrew I have no familiarity with the language so if there is a Greek expert [or amateur] on the board, it would be helpful,)

But the Vulgate uses adprehendens which suggests more of a claiming of an authority than a physically violent/overwhelming act- which makes sense if we recognize the role of the father in all of this.

Yet it is for this reason I am all the more obstreperous about this: it doesn't suggest rape in any sense we would recognize.

[Ibrahim]

If the author was to imply forced rape, they would've used chazaq, or even laqach which is used other situations (like the Rape of Dinah) where it is made explicit that a man has taken hold of a woman and has humiliated her.

We've got a dozen translations that you presented, presumably by people who know a thing or two about Hebrew, and they produced English renderings that in every example but one clearly imply rape.

Tinker rightly points out that this this society raping an unwed woman was technically a greater offense to her father than to her, but act is the same.