Pedophilia in the Talmud

As an atheist, I've seen plenty of debate with Christians and Jews about their religions' history with child marriage and pedophilia. Typically these discussions revolve around laws and verses that are commonly mentioned in these debates. "If you rape a child, they have to marry you," etc etc. When believers argue about these subjects, they don't usually defend the content. Rather, it's stated that these laws weren't really used, child marriage wasn't widespread, etc etc. Essentially "Yes this looks horrible, but it's not actually representative of anything."

In honor of fresh Friday, I would like to offer up a handful of verses that I've never seen on this sub, that seem to imply that they are indeed representative of something. I would like to hear some thoughts on them.

1. Yevamot 12b - Contraceptive

The argument around contraceptive begins with this.

"Three women may engage in relations with a contraceptive resorbent, a soft fabric placed at the entrance to their wombs to prevent conception, despite the fact that this practice is generally prohibited. They are as follows: A minor, a woman who is already pregnant, and a nursing woman."

It goes on to say that the reason a minor is allowed to use contraceptive is because they may become pregnant and die. But the definition of a minor that follows is telling.

"Who is considered a minor? It is a girl from the age of eleven years and one day until the age of twelve years and one day. If she was younger than this or older than this, she may go ahead and engage in relations in her usual manner. This is the statement of Rabbi Meir. Since it is assumed that a minor who is less than eleven years old cannot become pregnant, she is considered to be in no danger."

So the rabbis somehow came to the conclusion that a 10 year old girl was unlikely to become pregnant, an 11 year old could become pregnant but would likely die, and a 12 year old could become pregnant and would likely survive. How could they know this? The most likely answer is that they had plenty of contemporary data on what happens when you have sex with 10, 11, and 12 year old girls. At least enough to start to recognize trends.

It also shows that they went out of their way to explain how you're supposed to have intercourse with girls who are 10 and younger, which would be a weird thing to specify if no one was actually doing it.

2. Niddah 45a - Justinia

This story describes an interaction with a rabbi and a woman named Justinia. When presented with the argument that girls under 11 cannot become pregnant, she responds with this:

"'I', she said to him, 'married at the age of six and bore a child at the age of seven; alas for the three years that I have lost at my father's house'."

So this is potentially a real world example of a child being married off at 6 and pregnant by 7. If we take this as allegory, it doesn't look much better, because the author is showing that he knows that girls under 11 can become pregnant in rare circumstances. It would also mean that the author is pushing the idea that a girl who got married at 6 rather than at age 3 has wasted 3 years of their life. This would imply that marriage was not just allowed after 3 in few circumstances, but rather, was encouraged to happen at 3.

3. Niddah 45a - A "certain woman."

This is another "conversation" that may be literal or allegory. It is established earlier that if a girl has sex after the age of 3, she is disqualified from marrying into the priesthood. However, if she has sex before the age of 3, she is not disqualified. Certain woman chimes in with:

"Master, intercourse has been forced upon me when I was under three years of age; what is my position towards the priesthood?' 'You are fit for the priesthood', he replied. 'Master', she continued, 'I will give you a comparison; to what may the incident be compared? To a babe whose finger was submerged in honey. The first time and the second time he cries about it, but the third time he sucks it'."

In short, she is saying that she was repeatedly raped when she was 2 years old, which would mean she is eligible to marry into the priesthood. But she clarifies that she actually began to enjoy this, and consent to it. As a two year old. And she wants to know if this makes her ineligible. If this is a literal example, then this points to a deeply, deeply sick culture in ancient Israel that poisoned this poor girl's mind. And as allegory, it is still not much better, as it would mean the author thought a 2 year old consenting to sex was a valid thought exercise. This would suggest a very normalized attitude towards having sex with young children, as the authors clearly don't understand the concept of a child being "too young."

Lastly, since this is reddit, I just want to clarify that I'm not coming at this from an antisemitic perspective. I know virtually no Jews alive today would promote the kinds of horrors described in these verses. But the reality is that the Jewish faith is deeply tied to the ancient history of Jews, and we should be open and honest in talking about what that means.