clavus

I had a random thought as I endured another Bible thumper's diatribe agaist gay marriage. He spoke of the sactity of marriage, and how letting gays marry is an affront to God and country; that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. And it occurred to me that the Bible is full of people with multiple wives. Heck, God commanded at least one married man to knock up another woman and make her his wife.

So, when Jesus said that He was the new covenent, and he wiped out a bunch of old laws, did polygamy go too. Or is one man / one woman another "modern" christian invention.

(Please don't hijack this into a gay marriage thread.)

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Redlemon

A different hijack; it's a joke, I'm sure, but all the references are probably accurate. How this translates to the New Testament, I don't know.

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Rand007

redlemon, that's great.

The New Testament says scarce little about sexuality. And when it does people often take what it says out of context. Take for example when it talks about fornication. For the most part this word is only used in the context of having sex with a temple prositute during the worship of a pagan god, and that is the reason it's forbidden. The sex is not explicitly forbidden. I believe the only passage that talks about polygamy is when Paul says that church elders should only have one wife. This was not a rule, but a suggestion. I don't recall anything about homosexuality, but I'll do a better check when I get home.

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ManWithAPlan

maybe the bible is just a spiced up set of explanations that a backwards people came up with a long time ago combined with the teachings of a few very clever men who deitized themselves to strengthen the population's moral fabric.

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asaris

Thanks for an irrelevant post, Manwithaplan.

As far as monogamy goes:

The oldest instituting of marriage, given in Genesis, states explictly that marriage is between a man and a woman, and very strongly implies that it is to be between one man and one woman. This instituting is repeated at least once (I think more than once) by Jesus in the gospels approvingly.

As far as the examples of polygamy go, one should note that none of them go well. The best example is Jacob, who marries Leah and Rachel, which causes endless feuding within the family eventually resulting in Joseph's being sold into slavery. You cite the example of God commanding a married man to marry another woman -- could you remind me who this is? I don't remember this exact story.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

clavus

I was thinking of Onan,when I wrote that. But now I think I was wrong. God told Onan to marry and knock up his brother's wife, but I'm not sure Onan was married at the time.

Where in the Bible does Jesus state that marriage is between one man and one woman? For that matter, where in Genesis does it imply that it is between one man and one woman? I'd like to read the verses.

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MSD

Genesis 2:23-34 The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh'...For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh.

So, it seems that male/female pairs are the way things are intended to be

BUT ...

Genesis 2:18 it is not good for the man to be alone

If someone has no heterosexual feelings, and it is not good for the man to be alone, then shouldn't the logical conclusion be that a homosexual relationship that brings two people together rather than leave them alone would be more in accordance with God's will?

Matthew 19:4-6 And He [Jesus] answered and said to them, Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?” So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.

Here, Jesus reiterates the word of God.

Leviticus 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

18:29 For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.

18:30 Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.

On thew other hand, Leviticus seems to make a much less amibuous statement in regard to same-sex relationships.


Don't assume that my quotations from the bible imply belief in the text, I'm one of the Godless heathens who believes that it's mainly a work of fiction. I'm just giving the information that was requested.

Rand007

There are two distinct stories of creation in the first part of Genesis written at different times/places and combined into the current version. The first says only this about male and female relations: Genesis 1:27-28 "27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'"

Nothing about marriage, sex for pleasure, etc; only about increasing the population of humans. The second story is quite different from the first. After no suitable 'helper' was found, God knocked Adam out and pulled out a rib. This is all that is said after that: Genesis 2:23-24 "23 The man said,
'This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, [11] '
for she was taken out of man.'
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

You could interpret that as a marriage with all that word implys in our context or you could interpret it as saying the same thing the first story did about a means to increase human population, not a law on relationships. The 'uniting' being sex and the 'one flesh' being the children created by that union.

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asaris

Thanks to the filthy godless heathen for finding the passages

I don't quite follow exactly what you're saying, Rand, but I'll try to respond. Since our present views have evolved from two sources; namely scripture and the Catholic church, I would consider what we view as being involved in marriage in essence the same as what the New Testament assumes by marriage.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Redlemon

This should be a good link for further discussion:
Gay Marriage: The Complete Debate -- Beliefnet.com

Beliefnet is a site about religions and their belief structures, without advocating for any particular religion.

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CoachAlan

MrSelfDestruct and Rand, don't forget that the question was what does the New Testament say about marriage. Leviticus and Genesis are both from the Old Testament.

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clavus

OK, so what we have here is a bunch of biblical figures with multiple wives, and one passage from Jesus about marriage that says itis between a man and woman. Sooo...I'm thinking that there is no New Testament prohibition against polygamy (as long as it is hetrosexual in nature).

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Redlemon

Well, this ought to have the answer in it somewhere: direct from the Vatican, Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons.

It is way too long to include here, or for me to read right now. Perhaps someone else can dig the answer out.

asaris

The encyclical redlemon mentions only argues against the legal recognition of homosexual unions. It doesn't really speak all that much to the Christian perspective on marriage, and says nothing about monogamy vs. polygamy. I'm going home this weekend, and I'll see if I can find something then.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

asaris

Looking at the Catechism of the Catholic Church, I found little expressly on polygamy except for the following:

"Moral conscience concerning the unity and indissolubility of marriage developed under the pedagogy of the old law. In the Old Testament the polygamy of patriarchs and kings is not yet explicitly rejected. Nevertheless, the law given to Moses aims at protecting the wife from arbitrary domination by the husband, even though according to the Lord's words it still carries traces of man's "hardness of heart" which was the reason Moses permitted men to divorce their wives."

""The unity of marriage, distinctly recognized by our Lord, is made clear in the equal personal dignity which must be accorded to man and wife in mutual and unreserved affection."[153] Polygamy is contrary to conjugal love which is undivided and exclusive."

"Unity, indissolubility, and openness to fertility are essential to marriage. Polygamy is incompatible with the unity of marriage[...]"

Polygamy hasn't been an issue for the church for a very long time, so it would probably take some digging to find writings that go into more detail.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

MSD

Book of Matthew was the New Testament source I used, and clavus also asked about where it says it in Genesis. The Leviticus stuff is just background and supporting text.