Here's a famous argument the internet professors love to throw at the Bible. This one is from someone on twitter.
<<< [ Numbers 31:18 Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves. ] I would say it’s more likely they are doing it in the name of your pedophile god. >>>
Now, the first thing to note immediately is, they didn't bother to LOOK at the context surrounding this very verse. To those who think this supports rape haven't the slightest idea what's going on. If you look at Israel's law, this would be a very bad decision for any man.
What then is the context? WAR!
To be more precise, a deliberate infiltration of Israel's camp involving Moabite women who seduced the men to sex, inviting them to sacrifice to their god, Baal of Peor. In response to this act, God sends a plague on Israel, killing 24,000 of His people for their act.
What happens next? God tells Moses to treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them for they treated you as the enemy with deceit.
Let's stop for a moment and think what this is really about. At the heart of this is a cosmic war, not just physical. The world revolved around who's god was the greatest and who had the power. Balak, king of the Moabites conspired with the Midianites to launch a hostile campaign against the unsuspecting Hebrews, although Israel posed Moab no danger or threat. They would corrupt Israel from within by willing women who would seduce the men into sex, enticing them to worship Baal.
Again, remember what this war is really about. This was a war against Yahweh, to seduce the men into worshiping the god of Midian. God's wrath is justified and orders Moses to destroy the people. The Midianites were already allied with the Amorites, a people God says in Joshua were slated for destruction for their wickedness, and had already hired Balaam the prophet to curse Israel. This is a deliberate assault on God's power. And He was done with the people.
When Israel goes to war though, the women who were still virgins, who had not seduced the men, were spared. This is where Numbers 31:18 comes in. This is why God says only the young girls who are virgins may live. The others were criminals, not just of Israel, but those who had acted deliberately to draw Israel away from Yahweh. This was the whole purpose. Seduce with sex and like Sampson with Delilah, use it as a weapon. In this case, it was a weapon against God Himself. God's reaction is swift as He commands Moses to kill the enemy.
Now think about this. If the men were to not take the virgin women, what would have happened to them? God had ordered the destruction of the people. There was nothing to go back to and they would have died.
They were also not raped (an act forbidden by Mosaic law and in the event of POWs being treated as a sex object - Deut 21). In fact, in every account of warfare in the Bible, unlike every other nation who relished in this, there is no account of rape being an Israelite practice when under God's authority.
I can't say this didn't occur in the many times Israel went and worshipped other gods, placing their alters in the high places. Many instances of these rituals involve sexual prostitution. In Ezekial, when God rails against Israel for her wickedness, how the evil surpassed even her neighbors that they're put to shame, He is very explicit in the description of a female prostitute, a metaphor for Israel. Sex, as a whole, seems to be a much bigger topic than what modern teaching leads us to believe.
In the case of it being abused, when Israel falls away from God time and again, they mimic the other nations. So it stands that in these times, they could have participated like the rest of the nations in such evil acts. We know they worshipped Baal in child sacrifice at times. Sex is a major theme of the nations and not necessarily in a good way. Women had it very, very bad.
But when God is in control and leads Israel, self-control and temperament of the world's depravity is cut with the laws given. This is why God gives Moses the laws. It was first, to stop the depravity of wickedness that permeated the known world. In Psalm 82, God rails against the gods "angels" (as in the Prince of Persia in Daniel) and pronounces their deaths for seducing humanity into depravity. Second, God shows Israel what it means to have a relationship with Him, the sacredness of His presence compared to the nations.
Philosopher and theologian Paul Copan: “Although rape was a common feature in ancient Near Eastern warfare, Israelite soldiers were prohibited from raping women, contrary to what some crassly argue. Sex was permitted only within the bounds of marital commitment, a repeated theme laid out in the Mosaic law. Rape in warfare wasn’t a grand exception to the requirement of sexual fidelity” (Copan, P., Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God, Baker Books, 2011, p. 120).
Being taken as wives, as was the custom, is not a bad thing. Remember, the world revolved around an honorary society. You bought and sold based on status. If you were not a wife and had no lands, you were as good as dead. To be taken as a wife meant status and safety. You became part of society and in Israelite society, the law protected the woman more than any other nation in the world. Compared to what women endured outside of Israel, this was a good situation.
Before we start throwing around verses of the Bible and saying how evil God is by telling men they can rape women, lets stop stripping verses out and making it mean what we want it to. Instead, LOOK AT THE CONTEXT!