Did God rape Mary?

The angel Gabriel told Mary (or Joseph, depending on which account you read) that she was/would be pregnant with God’s child.Mary clearly had no say in the matter. She was never asked for her consent.In any other context, it would mean that mean she was raped.Even if she was somehow artificially inseminated, does it not at least count as physical abuse?What kind of moral example was set here?

Thread copied here from the Did God rape Mary? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Very much like what the Cylons tried to do to Starbuck.It certainly does not sound like informed consent, to me.

Luke 1:38 (KJV)

quote:

---

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

---

Consent?

Luke 1:31 [Gabriel] "And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS."Consent? No.No choice in accepting of the instructions of a henchman (of whom she was afraid)? Yes.

She said go for it and she didn't say no.I remain unconvinced that it was rape.

This is a case of someone sending a representative to TELL (not ASK) a young virgin that she WILL bear his child, and the young virgin is indisputably scared by this representative. Do you really think she is making a free decision in saying yes? Do you really think she isn't being intimidated or coerced in any way?Was this HER idea? Was she ASKED if she would like to consent? Was she given time to think about it? No, no and no.

I'm unconvinced too. She was a faithful person already, if I remember correctly, and in a society where the master has full rightful use of the woman's body. So, I can fully see that she wouldn't object to being impregnated.However, I think that's a very slim margin on which to side with the "it wasn't rape" proposition. If an abusive husband finally wears down his wife to the point she no longer tries to stop him from having sex with her because what he might do if she were to refuse is even worse, do we consider him no longer raping her?I'd be very surprised if Mary wasn't scared shitless by an angel appearing before her and telling her what was going to happen to her, not to mention fearing what would happen if she refused.But, it's not spelled out in the Bible, and we can't ask Mary herself what she was feeling or what she wanted. It's just as possible she was a God groupie and was overjoyed that she was picked out of all the girls backstage to go into the dressing room with the leading man.

But it didn't happen until after she gave him the go ahead. Whether it would have happened regardless, we don't know. And she was only scared at first, not when she made the decision. Yes. If you want to try to make it look like a rape, then I'm sure you will be able to convince yourself that it was. But from what we get from the book alone, it doesn't come off as rape.

or going against the will of God at all. Well, if it was all according to God's Big Plan anyways, then she would have accepted from the beginning and wouldn't have been possible to have been raped. Catholic dogma has her as being born without original sin, so... yeah. Of course not, but I don't see the connection between God and an abusive husband. What I get from reading Luke, is that she was simply startled at first. The angle tells her to "be not afraid" and then she asks him how she's gonna be prego if she's a virgin. She wasn't all: "Holy shit what the fuck is going on here" and running for cover or anything. Yup. The whole rape thing seems just about as far fetched.

The connection is about the fear of the consequences of denying versus the fear of the act itself. And this is going to come down to biases when reading the Bible. Did Luke record it correctly...was he there to see it? Did he record it the way Mary later tells the story? Did he record it as he wanted it to go, since from the union came Jesus and the thought of the union being anything but mutual didn't make sense to him?What I'm basically saying is the story doesn't really let us decide one way or the other what Mary's thoughts and feelings were, so claiming rape is unwarranted, as is professing conviction that it wasn't. The best we can say is "we don't know, but tradition holds that it wasn't."

Oh, I get it. I see how that looks rape-ish, in that you're reluctantly going along to avoid something worse. But like you say, we don't really have enough info to decide. Might as well question whether it even happened at all. Its too much speculation for a decent descussion about it if we don't assume that it happened the way the story was written. That's fair.

Hi CS,Now, you and I rarely see eye-to-eye on matters of faith, so here goes...I agree with you completely.Calling this rape just seems like a cheap shot, designed to get on Christians' nerves. There is no rape here. For starters, it seems that no physical act took place. No physical act, no rape. I also agree that Mary doesn't seem terrified or traumatised in the text.I would say that suddenly being the mother of the saviour of all mankind seems like a lot to dump in the lap of some poor teenager. It does seem excessive and somewhat morally dubious, but given some of God's earlier antics in the OT, I don't really see the big deal.Damn. Second time I've defended the Bible tonight. I feel dirty...Mutate and Survive

---

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Hello Granny, rarely, hmm? I'm not recalling anything specific. I know your an atheist, but where have we hotly disagreed on matters of faith? I remember the non-faith stuff but not the faith ones. I suspect he's a buddy of Blzebub...he jumped in on his other thread. It seems like he followed him here when he said: "I don't like to second guess Blzebub's position" as if he's been in that situation before. And then he started this thread. Blzebub is obviously trolling christians so I figured this guy is too. But I didn't have anything better to do so I bit. I thought this but didn't bring it up: if she was raped then how was she still a virgin? Dogma has Mary as a very pious and faithful servant of God in the first place so, while it does seem like a lot to dump on her, I tend towards her being strong enough to handle it. Too, why would God pick her if she couldn't? A few pints should wash it off.That or you could go eat some more babies with your fellow evil athiest conspirators.

First; Hmm... I seem to recall us being at loggerheads a while ago over knowing God or some such. Bygones. Time will tell. JUC may well be sincere, but it does just seem unnecessarily provocative to me. Quite. As an aside, I do think this argument rather underplays the seriousness of rape, something which should not be taken lightly. Look at Luke 1;

quote:

---

1:46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
1:47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
1:48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

---

That seems a mite cheerful for someone who's just been raped. Anyone who thinks that this is how women respond to being raped is living in a dreamworld. I suppose that makes sense, although it does raise questions about how God sees our innermost thoughts, something which I consider a rather creepy and unpleasant notion. Well, I don't really drink, so...Mutate and Survive

---

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod