Rape within marriage is not addressed, and never will be, because the Bible is a relic from another time and place. People trying to reinterpret it now remind me of grad students writing up “Jane Austen’s feminist dialectic on colonialism.” And of course, people have long since pointed out that many of the rules of the OT have been relaxed as the all-knowing, unchanging entity changes his mind about polyester blends, and reasons for smiting your neighbor.
Ah, do you really want to address these issues? Or do you want to cling to the “relic” notion?
Such complaints continue to remind me of the type of shallow polemics i have too often seen skeptics employ and it seems are taught at liberal universities, and which rely on so much ignorance or miscontruance of Scripture that they are an argument against themselves.
Here, it is charged that rape within marriage is not addressed, and thus it is inferred that it must be sanctioned, a logic fallacy for sure, and it never is given any sanction.
Instead of sanction, what we see is contrary to rape and such ill treatment. Rape is referred to as "folly," that "no such thing ought to be done in Israel" (2Sa. 13) and vengeance being taken on a man (and his people) who seduced a single Hebrew women, (Gn. 34) and a hardhearted tyrant husband dying a hardened heart, (1Sa. 25) and consensual romantic martial love being what is glorified, (SoS) and with the marital relations of OT saints showing consideration and often yielding of husbands to wives, and the ideal wife is not chattel but a wife and mother who can engage in many things including commerce, (Prv. 31) while the NT requires a man to love his wife as Christ loved the church and sacrificially gave Himself for it - not rape it!
Moreover, mutual consent is taught as regards conjugal relations, though they are to normally engage in such. (1Cor. 7:1-4) Only by making the headship of the husband into a position that requires unconditional obedience can one argue the Bible sanctions forcing the wife to have sexual relations.
I understand that as an atheist your quest is to find some fault with Biblical law but selective proof texting, but those who seek to live by the word of God must consider all of what Scripture teaches, and in context, and what is reasonably warranted.
I am sorry but that is exampling more ignorance. God did not change His mind, but foretold "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: " (Jeremiah 31:31-32)
And in Scripture there are different covenants and a manifest distinction between purely moral laws, which are transcendentally directly applicable to all cultures (no idolatry, adultery, etc.), as well as culturally applied laws (fence around your roof) which are based on them and are applicable to different cultures by adaptation based on principal, and then there are typological/ceremonial laws, which relate to ritual observance of "days, and months, and times, and years. " (Galatians 4:10) and "in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation," (Hebrews 9:10) "Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." (Colossians 2:17)
The requirement of a sacrificial lamb for instance was a type foreshadowing of Christ who made the shadow, and laws against unclean foods typified the Gentile who are made clean by Christ. While the holy intent of all the laws are to be fulfilled by Christians, and which requires the literal keeping of moral laws beyond just the letter, the literal observance of ceremonial laws are not, but such things as the principal of separation from defilement is, and looking to Christ as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. (Jn. 1:29)
While relativists seek to dispense with transcendent moral laws based on the abrogation of ceremonial laws, this is contrary to "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. " (2 Timothy 2:15)