How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

Deuteronomy 22:28–29 is another wicked-sounding Bible verse that is increasingly being used to suggest that the Bible commands evil things and teaches that women are property. These verses were being spoken into a specific culture more than three thousand years ago, a world we are unfamiliar with today, so it’s very difficult for us to fully grasp the significance and rationale for what is being taught. This was a single verse amidst hundreds of other specific guidelines, given to an ancient people group in response to a very despicable and desperate situation. And it was given in order to protect the woman. First, we are looking at a time period when male patriarchy did, unfortunately, exist. A woman who was not married and had been sexually involved with a man was seen as lesser in value. This was a wrong belief, yes, but not one God had taught—it was human beings who developed this. At that time, a woman couldn’t own property, and if she had no father, husband, or son, she would have no one to care for her and no legal protection. A woman’s options were limited to selling herself into slavery or prostitution. God did not create this patriarchy; it was human beings and their sinful selfishness that created it. Here we see God instructing the Israelites at that time to give dignity and respect to women in an existing patriarchal culture. Rape was seen as evil in that culture, and God elsewhere states that rape is a serious crime deserving capital punishment. In Deuteronom...