Did Isaac marry Rebecca when she was 3 years old? Muslims are desperate to defend Muhammad’s pedophilia (marrying Aisha at the age of 6 and entering her as a prepubercent girl of 9) to the extent of trying finding a pedophilia in the Bible.
This is the biblical account; the context is that Abraham tasked his servant to look for a wife for Isaac among his relatives. Here the servant has arrived in Abraham’s home-country but the place is foreign to him and he doesn’t know anyone. He then prays for help to find the right woman:
“May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor. The woman was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever slept with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.”
“Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink.” Genesis 24:14–18
Even if you are an unbeliever, or have never read the Bible, or know nothing about Christianity – it is self-explanatory from the text that Rebekah couldn’t have been 3 years old.
• a 3 year old toddler can babble, she had a conversation with the servant
• a 3 year old toddler just learnt to walk, she was walking and carrying a jar
Her age is not mentioned, but why mention something so trivial? It just says she is a virgin who is of marriageable age. So whoever came up with such an incredibly absurd theory that Rebekah was married at 3 years old, is desperate to prove something.
a quick search on google shows this theory being proposed by an Islamic apologetic website:
Was Rebekah 3-10 Years Old When Married Off To Isaac?
Even though the theory is nonsense, for clarity sake let just de-bunk it and lay it to rest. This is from the website:
[1. Sarah gave birth to Isaac at the age of ninety (Genesis 17).
2. Isaac was in his thirties when the incident of Mount Moriah occurred with his father, Abraham (Genesis 22).
3. Immediately after Isaac and Abraham’s incident on Mount Moriah, Rebecca is born (Genesis 22).
4. As soon as Rebecca’s birth is mentioned in Genesis 22, few verses down (next chapter), we read that Sarah died at the age of 127 years old (Genesis 23:1-3).
5. At the time of Sarah’s death, Isaac would be have been 37-years-old.
6. Isaac married Rebecca at the age of 40 (Genesis 25:20), this would show from the Bible that Rebecca was only three years old, given that she was only born three years prior, just after the Mount Moriah incident and the death of Sarah.]
The mathematics involved in quite impressive but maybe the author had failed his English comprehension back in school. This is what the author claims:
Isaac was in his thirties when the incident of Mount Moriah occurred with his father, Abraham (Genesis 22).
In Genesis 22, the age of Isaac is not mentioned. In fact this is what it says in Genesis 22:
“When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the BOY ,” Genesis 22:9–12
English comprehension 101: There is nothing in this text that suggests Isaac is a 30 year old man, it says Isaac was still a BOY. Theory de-bunked. No place for pedophilia in Christianity. Blessings!