“Back Then It Was Legal” The Epistemological Imbalance in Readings of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Rape Legislation

ABSTRACT The article examines the epistemological imbalance that currently exists in the area of biblical and ancient Near Eastern rape laws. The imbalance reflects a larger development in western intellectual discourse in which we are moving from an empiricist-positivist epistemology to a postmodern epistemology. The former is characteristic of the modern western worldview and assumes objectivity, value neutrality, and universality. It is primarily interested in the historical quest. The latter recognizes the contextualized, particularized, and localized nature of all exegetical work, and emphasizes the readers' responsibilities in the meaning-making process. Three sections structure the investigation. A first section examines how empiricist-positivist readings present Deut. 21:10–14 as a law on marriage and not on rape. A second section analyzes Deut. 22:22–29, and shows how this biblical passage emerges as adultery laws within the modern paradigm of interpretation. A third section focuses on ancient Ne...