Reflections on Women’s Pre-Assembly Bible study on the rape of Tamar by Sonia Al Massad (Syria)
(2 Samuel 13: 1-22)

It was the first time for me to hear this text and reflect on it. In Syria we have a rule that if the guy rapes the girl then offers to marry her (and she agrees to marry him) and they are married for two years, he will receive no punishment at all for his crime. When a girl is raped she brings shame on her whole family, that will be a black point on their family history forever, so they want to hide it and cover it up. This means they prefer the girl to marry the rapist.
Tamar said may I stay with you and the rapist threw her out. She said that throwing her out was the worst thing.
This story happened many years before Jesus and now it is many years after Jesus, yet the situation is still the same. Families will still cover up their shame by marrying the daughter to the rapist - BUT it is NOT HER SHAME, it is his shame.
This thinking is not only in Syria or the Middle East it was in the West until only decades ago, it is not so far away. There was the same shame on the girl.
When I lived in England I was shocked to see the story of a sexual assault against a woman in the newspaper almost every day. I was surprised and disappointed to find that when the newspaper did a survey on what people thought about the assaults, some people said the young woman was asking to be raped - because of where she was, what she was doing or what she was wearing. To me, it shows the attitude that blames the woman for being attacked is still there, even in a democratic society.

In the Bible story Tamar asked for support and help from her brother and even the king, (who when he heard the story was so angry) but neither of them did anything. Tamar asked for their help because she couldn’t do anything without the support of the men. In Syria we have many groups working for change, wanting to change these things, with both women and men involved. But if we don’t ask for these things together, then nothing will be changed.

In Tamar’s case, when her brother asked her to shut up, to be silent, she did. We shouldn’t be another Tamar. If we are told to be silent, we should go to another place, to another people and tell the story again, we should not be silent.

It is not enough to change the rules; we need a new blood, a new generation, a revolution!

Sonia Al Massad, Syria