Us OTD people often mention our discomfort over the seeming acceptance - and at best, extreme tone-deafness - in Chazal and the Torah towards pedophile. Some examples of this include:
Chazal say that a 7-year-old girl is more beautiful than a 20-year-old girl (https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.23.1?lang=bi&aliyot=0&p2=Rashi_on_Genesis.23.1.1&lang2=bi&p3=Bereishit_Rabbah.58&lang3=bi)
The fact that the Cohen Gadol would become betrothed to a 12-year-old girl every year (https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Forbidden_Intercourse.17.13?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=he)
The extensive discussions in Chazal revolving around having sex with a child
The fact that the Talmud brings a story that explicitly states that young girls will enjoy sex if they engage in it for long enough. (https://www.sefaria.org/Niddah.45a.17?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en)
When this issue is raised, a common counter-argument that times were different back then. The men weren't necessarily attracted to children, but child marriages were simply a part of life for a dark and brutal world - marrying a child saved her from starvation, rapists, and all sorts of evils, making child marriages an act of kindness, almost like child adoption... Just involving sex between a child and an adult.
Ok. Not exactly credible (or tasteful), but hard to argue with from the texts. Except I just found an interesting Gemara in Sanhedrin. The Gemara says that King David asked God to test him so he can attain the status of a Patriarch for the Jewish people. God tested him by having him one day notice the beautiful Batsheva bathing on her roof. Smitten, King David summoned Batsheva, slept with her, got her pregnant, tried to cover it up by trying to get her husband drunk and getting him to sleep with her, failing and having her husband killed, marrying her, and finally two years later having her give birth to Shlomo HaMelech. Here are the relevant verses:
II Samuel 11
וַיְהִ֣י ׀ לְעֵ֣ת הָעֶ֗רֶב וַיָּ֨קָם דָּוִ֜ד מֵעַ֤ל מִשְׁכָּבוֹ֙ וַיִּתְהַלֵּךְ֙ עַל־גַּ֣ג בֵּית־הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ וַיַּ֥רְא אִשָּׁ֛ה רֹחֶ֖צֶת מֵעַ֣ל הַגָּ֑ג וְהָ֣אִשָּׁ֔ה טוֹבַ֥ת מַרְאֶ֖ה מְאֹֽד׃
Late one afternoon, David rose from his couch and strolled on the roof of the royal palace; and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful,
וַיִּשְׁלַ֣ח דָּוִ֔ד וַיִּדְרֹ֖שׁ לָֽאִשָּׁ֑ה וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הֲלוֹא־זֹאת֙ בַּת־שֶׁ֣בַע בַּת־אֱלִיעָ֔ם אֵ֖שֶׁת אוּרִיָּ֥ה הַחִתִּֽי׃
And the king sent someone to make inquiries about the woman. He reported, “She is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam [and] wife of Uriah the Hittite.”
וַיִּשְׁלַח֩ דָּוִ֨ד מַלְאָכִ֜ים וַיִּקָּחֶ֗הָ וַתָּב֤וֹא אֵלָיו֙ וַיִּשְׁכַּ֣ב עִמָּ֔הּ וְהִ֥יא מִתְקַדֶּ֖שֶׁת מִטֻּמְאָתָ֑הּ וַתָּ֖שָׁב אֶל־בֵּיתָֽהּ׃
David sent messengers to fetch her; she came to him and he lay with her—she had just purified herself after her period—and she went back home.
The Gemara says that King David did not really sin by sleeping with a married woman because it was customary for all soldiers to divorce their wives before going to battle. But infidelity aside, no one argues on the following facts: King David saw Batsheva bathing naked and desired her. This was God's test - tempting Dovid with a woman that was not his. She already had a husband but King David killed him and took her for himself.
Now here is the interesting part. Dovid was 56 years old at the time of this story. Shlomo HaMelech was born 2 years later. But how old was Batsheva when King David first saw her bathing on the roof and coveted her? The Gemara brings down two options, she was either 4 years old or 6 years old. [1]
Think about that for a second. A 56-year-old man got aroused from a 4-year-old girl bathing. He then summoned her and impregnated her. The common apologetic to whitewash pedophilia in Chazal does not apply in this case. Basheva was not a poor peasant girl who needed to be adopted/married in order to be saved. She was from one of the most prestigious families in Klal Yisroel and was already married. Why is it ok that one of the most revered people in Jewish history was 56 years old when he had an affair with a 4/6-year-old.
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The Gemara has no direct proof that Batsheva was a child, rather it deduces Batsheva's age based on a strange and convoluted thought process.
These are the steps of the Gemara:
Batsheva was the granddaughter of Ahithophel
Batsheva gave birth to Shlomo HaMelech
Ahithophel strangled himself when Shlomo HaMelech was seven years old
The average lifespan of a person is 70 years. The verse says that wicked people "shall not live out half their days”
Ahithophel was wicked, so he must have died at a very young age, less than half the life span of a normal adult - at age 33
This means that Ahithophel's granddaughter, Batsheva, gave birth to Shlomo HaMelech, when Ahithophel was 26 years old.
Subtracting the time of pregnancies, that means that each generation had to be born within 8 years from each other.
Batsheva gave birth to Shlomo HaMelech long after the story of King David sleeping with her.
These posts are gold. I appreciate the effort that goes into writing these up :-)
The immediately apparent issue (flaw?) with this argument is- who has ever heard of a 6/8 year old giving birth to a child? I have heard the same type of argument put forward about the infant Rivkah upon being seen by her future husband, Isaac and also Puah, the midwife to the Israelites in Egypt, who would also have been about five