Scholz (2021) stated that the texts of Deuteronomy 22:25–29 'are widely recognized as rape legislation', while Deuteronomy 22:22–24 as well as Deuteronomy 21:10–14 'are more contested and are not usually characterized as rape laws'.
Cheryl Anderson, in her book
Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies: The Need for Inclusive Bible Interpretation (2009), said that "Clearly, these laws do not take into account the female's perspective. After a rape, [the victim] would undoubtedly see herself as the injured party and would probably find marriage to her rapist to be distasteful, to say the least. Arguably, there are cultural and historical reasons why such a law made sense at the time. […] Just the same, the law communicates the message that faith tradition does not (and should not) consider the possibility that women might have different yet valid perspectives."
[64]
Verse 22:22 does not specifically address the wife's complicity, and therefore Adele Berlin's interpretation (2008) is that even if she was raped, the law dictates she must be put to death since she has been defiled by the extramarital encounter.
[61] However, according to the
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (1882–1925), the crime committed was consensual adultery, and therefore both parties were guilty.
[65]
Frank M. Yamada (2008) opined that Deuteronomy 22:23–24, which commands punishment for the engaged virgin woman if the act takes place in the city, was not about rape, but adultery, because the engaged woman was already considered to be the reserved property of her future husband. He also argued that the Deuteronomic laws treat women as the property of men, and that "the Deuteronomic laws (...) do not address the crime of rape as sexual violence against a woman as such," but as an economic crime against her father or (future) husband. Because it was the father's prerogative to marry his daughter off to a man of his choice, payment of a
dowry of fifty shekels of silver to the deflowered woman's father is mentioned in Deuteronomy 22:28–29 as a restitution for her unplanned loss of virginity. Yamada pointed out that there was no death penalty for either party in this latter scenario, but a
marry-your-rapist provision, which he compared to Shechem's offer of marriage including a bride price after raping Dinah in Genesis 34:12.
[66]
Regarding 22:25–27,
Craig S. Keener (1996) considered it a rape scenario, comparing it to the
Laws of Eshnunna §26.
[note 4] He noted that "if no one else was present as a witness of her innocence but she was clearly violated, biblical law assumes [the woman's] innocence without requiring witnesses (22:27); she does not bear the burden of proof to argue that she did not consent. (...) If the couple definitely had intercourse, the man was guilty either way, but if the woman
might have been innocent, her innocence must be assumed."
[68] Davidson (2011) added, "Thus the Mosaic law protects the sexual purity of a betrothed woman (and protects the one to whom she is betrothed), and prescribing the severest penalty to the man who dares to sexually violate her."
[69]
Robert S. Kawashima noted (2011) that regardless of whether the rape of a girl occurs in the country or the city, these verses imply that she "can be guilty of a crime, but not, technically speaking, a victim of a crime, for which reason her noncomplicity does not add to the perpetrator's guilt."
