I Walked Away from Literalism to Literacy
Channel: Alpha Lim, Light & Easy Internet Marketing
Date: 06/04/2017

So, social media is up in arms about a local Malaysian politician who says that it would be good for rape victims to marry their rapists. Malaysians of all stripes are condemning him, and rightly so. But what no one has said so far – and I run in Christian circles – is that this jives with Old Testament law as well. In the Old Testament, it was law that a rapist – if caught – would have to marry his victim. He would have to pay the bride-price and marry her. What do you make of that? What do you make of that, especially in light of the favourite quote of some Christians that the law of the Lord is perfect and abides forever? 

Surely this statute of the Mosaic law cannot abide in the 21st century – and I know of no Christians who would encourage this law to be enacted.  If you turn the clock back maybe four millennia, five millennia, it might be good for the girl to marry the rapist. Because in that society, no one else might want to marry her. Sad but true. That’s the society that existed four, five millennia ago, in that place maybe four or five thousand miles from where I am. But it doesn’t apply now, does it, in the 21st century? So, that law in that context might have been a good law to protect a rape victim from becoming a destitute woman, potentially even dying from hunger and being ostracised. So, the law of Moses required a rapist to marry his victim and pay the bride-price, the dowry, to her father. And if she did not want to marry her rapist, he had to pay the bride-price anyway. Presumably, this would secure her some modicum of a future, by having a sum of money (if her father saved it for her). It’s a raw deal, a bad deal. But it’s still some kind of a deal. In a world where there were no such laws and the law of the jungle ruled – where you could just rape anyone and just walk away – a law that required the rapist to take responsibility would have been progressive. But in the 21st century, in the majority of the world, where rape is clearly criminal – way up there with murder – to force or even suggest that the victim marry her rapist is not progressive. It’s regressive.  

So then, for biblical literalists, here is a conundrum. If it literally means that the law of Yahweh is eternal and not one jot or one tittle will pass away from the law, though heaven and earth pass away, then laws like this should still be enforced, shouldn’t they? But if the Bible is not meant to be taken literally in verses like this, then what else in Scripture are we not meant to take literally?  

When you go bowling, there are two alleys – one on the left and one on the right. And with all forms of extremism, there are two extremes – one on the left, one on the right. Far left, far right. So, when it comes to biblical literalism, on one extreme are people that say everything needs to be taken literally. And on the other extreme are people who say these are all fairy tales and they should all be thrown out. These two extremes are extremes – they both do not embrace or even try to embrace the totality of truth. Because the fact is, there are some things that cannot be taken literally, like outdated laws such as “the victim should marry the rapist.” But yet, there are many things that still apply, and presumably will always apply, such as laws requiring that the poor in the land be taken care of. Such as laws requiring that foreigners be granted certain human rights. There are many laws, and beyond law, many truths and teachings about grace, about love, about human nature – well, let me not digress into details. 

What I want to say is that when I was a kid, I believed in biblical literalism. I was a biblical literalist. Eventually, I realised that the Bible itself was not written entirely as a literal document. Some of it is poetry, some of it is allegory. And some of it is hyperbole. Like when Jesus said if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. He did not mean it literally, because he never told anyone to actually pluck out their right eye. Nor did he try to cut off anyone’s right hand. Nor did he tell anybody to do that. The closest you come to that is when he told his disciples to get swords – and they found two knives, because they were in a dining situation. Twelve disciples, and he told them to arm themselves. They found two knives meant for cooking, presumably. Maybe for eating. And he said that’s enough. Two knives for twelve men to defend him in the hour of darkness...