Does the Bible Command Rape?

Some myths are so difficult to kill that one begins to wonder whether there is a wooden stake or silver bullet out there somewhere.

I constantly run across and am confronted by atheists who make the statement that in the Bible God commands rape.

By now, it is like some sort of nightmarish game. I tell them that this is nothing but an atheist myth and wait to see what they do next.

Inevitably they do take one of the following steps:
1) They disappear, being contented with taking a jab while not wanting to actually engage in reasonable discourse.
2) They merely repeat the assertion.
3) They make generic allusions to what they think they recall that the Bible stated.
4) They paraphrase the Bible.
5) They attempt to recall what interpretation of the Bible was promulgated by a celebrity atheist activist, an interpretation that they consider infallible and believe on faith.
6) They quote a partial verse, one verse or even a couple.
7) Inevitably, regardless of which of the above action they take, they consider themselves triumphant.

One interesting counter tactic is to ask how or why they condemn rape as being immoral Dan Barker does not believe that it is absolutely immoral and Sam Harris believes that rape played a very beneficial evolutionary role (see here and here. Richard Dawkins has also made some interesting comments about rape). Indeed, how do they condemn the actions of the ancient Middle East since they believe that morality is evolving? How then could they condemn the actions of those with less evolved morality?

Two of their favored pull-quotes, if they are even informed enough to be able to reference any text, are:

“As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves” (Deuteronomy 20:14).

“keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately” (Numbers 31:18).

Let me state that as disturbing as the atheists find the cherry-picked-Bible-pull-quotes, I find it very disturbing that they read these texts and infer rape.

They are inventing the idea of rape and reading it into the text (this is eisegesis and is hermeneutically inappropriate).

Let us consider the facts of the matter:
To begin with, we may note Deuteronomy 20:10 states, “When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.”

Assuming that war ensues, once it is over they were to “remain outside the camp seven days; whoever has killed any person, and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day. Purify every garment, everything made of leather, everything woven of goats’ hair, and everything made of wood” (Numbers 31:19-20).
This ensures the health of soldier and war captives.

In the case of the women mentioned in the texts noted above, if a man was interested in one of them he was to:
Provide her with housing.

Allow her one month to mourn.

Then they may get married.

And if they later divorce, she was to go free and not be mistreated (see Deuteronomy 21:10-14).

No rape at all anywhere. Rather, cleansing after a war, the provision of a home, time to mourn, marriage and if need be, freedom and protection from mistreatment.

Of course, these facts will very likely be completely ignored and followed by various complaints about God commanding war and killing children and cattle, etc., etc., etc.

Sadly, very much prompted by the New Atheist sect of atheism many atheists are not interested in engaging in skepticism in a reasonable manner but interested in besmirching, take jabs and move on to the next target.