Parvateshwar: I found it very funny for a couple reasons. One: It's obvious that Mr. Mourdock has never read the Bible, at least not the parts about rape and the children of rape. Two: It's obvious that the people who say his view have nothing to do with Christianity have never read the Bible, at least not the parts about rape and the children of rape.
Deuteronomy 23:2 "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord." A bastard is anyone who is born out of wedlock. This means the child of rape is either ineligible for Heaven or is ineligible to be part of the community until his/her Great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild. However, that only happened if a woman was raped in a rural area as Deuteronomy 22:23 says a rape victim must be killed along with her rapist and Deut. 22:28 says she must marry him.
Why this stupid religion is still around is beyond me and why people have such stupid misconceptions of it is an exercise of ignorance.
You are misapplying some Bible here, with missing some cultural queues.
Deut 23:2 (bastard child) (by the way, these are not moral laws, these are civil codes for the Jews, not Christians)
In Israel, there was a necessity to maintain a distinct "differentness" to show their neighbors that their God was the one true God. One way to do this was to maintain their cultural identity in a world with neighbors very different than their own. So young women (who married often around their 1st period or even earlier) who ran off or were raped or kidnapped or whatever reasons, their children would essentially be outcasts.
Although it's quite brutal, it maintains protection among the community. If neighbors cannot "breed out" the Jews b/c their children will just be kicked out of the community, then they won't try to breed them out.
BTW, "even until the tenth generation" doesn't mean that after 10 generation you're cool. It's saying that no generation is allowed back in.
Moreover, it has nothing to do with Heaven and Hell. It has everything to do with keeping rotten foreigners from doing horrible things to the community.
Girls in those days were very careful to marry those their parents told/sold them to. If one were to run away to be with another culture, then there they would likely stay (though not always).
Deut 22:23-24 is about honor -- especially family honor. And lineage, I'd imagine. The idea of this is that if an engaged woman has sex with a man and people are within screaming-distance, then it can be assumed that the engaged woman and the man were in cahoots. They are both to be stoned b/c both are guilty.
I should also note that this is a civil code. Did it mean both would be stoned? Not necessarily. But it could mean it. Sometimes grace was applied. Sometimes not.
When cheating like this, it's an attack against not just honor and lineage, but also generational property. If a woman has another man's baby boy, then that other man would end up inheriting most of the husband's property. I hope you start to see the gravity of the crime.
In those days in that culture, we didn't have people entering puberty at 11, getting married at 30 and everyone sleeping with everyone else until their wedding day (much like some folks live their lives today). And people didn't have wills. Everything went to the sons. Period. If the culture was like it is today, then this law wouldn't protect anyone from anything.
Deut 22:28 (this is also a civil code for the Jews at the time) If a man rapes a woman, he has to marry her (if she is a virgin and she isn't married). Without this law, if a man raped a woman, then the woman would remain in the care of her parents until the parents died. And then she would be without income or home or anything else. She would be homeless, probably prostitute herself out, and eventually die horribly.
Since this is a civil code, the parents could always deny the 50 shekels of silver and keep their daughter and find another way for her to live. But if they cannot take care of their daughter (who is an economic sink in this culture at this time), and the rapists isn't that bad of a guy (he'll take care of her), then they'd take the money (the reverse-dowry) and sell their daughter.
You can imagine that most parents wouldn't do this if the rapist was a nut-case. But they might do it if their daughter doesn't like sex, the man is in mostly good standing and seems an alright chap (except for the whole rape thing), and will take care of their daughter.
It's mindblowing for us today, but when you're working on fewer resources and men are only going to marry a virgin, it may be the only course left to some folks to make sure their daughter is taken care of.
Is it optimal? Absolutely not. And that's why most women hang out around women and didn't go places alone where other men might be. But it happened. And sometimes it was just the only way to take care of someone else.
I hope I was able to give some helpful insight on some of the civil codes of a 3000 year old culture. You should note that these are not civil codes for the world, just the Jews at the time. The Jews don't use these civil codes now. Some they probably adhere to, but not the majority. Our cultures have moved toward better places than they were that long ago as far as women rights go and taking care of widows and others who can't take care of themselves.
As for Christians, we tend to work on the principles of grace as established by Jesus but also shown in the Old Testament in times like when David hid in a temple and broke some dietary laws to stay alive. God was okay with it in the Bible. So we realize that God's not a totalitarian. He's just trying to make the world we busted up work for us as best we can.
