Posted on 12/16/2019 8:08:32 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The Bible talks about polygamy but that doesn't mean God endorsed it, said Peter Gentry, a professor of Old Testament interpretation who stressed the importance of understanding historical narratives in Scripture.
In a video posted on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's YouTube channel on Monday, Gentry said readers must distinguish between what God commands versus how He treated His people and how His people, who were not faithful, treated Him.
"God is the one that designs marriage. God is the one who invents marriage. Marriage is not something invented by humans. God is the one who gives the first woman to the first man. God is the one who presides over that marriage ceremony," he explained.
Thus, in Genesis 2:24 when Moses writes of a man leaving his mother and father and clinging to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, that is God's original standard, he said. Much of the Old Testament, however, is the documented history of God's covenantal relationship with his people.
"A covenant is like a marriage, where two parties make a commitment to be devoted to each other, to be loyal, to be faithful," he said, noting the Old Testament contains a series of these covenants.
Such covenants are where God makes new starts with people like Noah, with Abraham and his family, and with Israel. But history shows that the human partners in the covenants are the unfaithful, disloyal, and rebellious ones, a history where a constant violation of the original standard occurred, he said.
An example of this is how Abraham did not trust God or wait for His promise of a son, and then has a relationship with Hagar, yielding Ishmael. Another is Jacob's relationship with two wives, which was not a wonderful arrangement as the Bible shows how it brought about all kinds of trouble, he said. The book of Judges also recounts how the judges had multiple wives because they were aspiring to be king.
"Most people in the ancient near East had only one wife. Only kings could afford to have many wives," Gentry added.
"When you read the Bible, the Bible is not promoting polygamy. It's showing us that only royal figures had many wives. It's also showing us that this is not ideal, that this caused all kinds of difficulty and hardship and trouble and the fighting among the wives. And it's not a satisfactory relationship."
Another example of how God did not endorse the practice of many wives is when King David was confronted by the prophet Nathan in 2 Samuel 12. Nathan told the king a parable about a man who had many sheep and a poor man who had only one sheep. The man with many sheep stole and slaughtered the sheep of the poor man for himself when he had to show hospitality to a guest.
The prophet's message of rebuke to David was, essentially, "You have many wives and still you're not satisfied, and you have to go an steal the one woman that this one person has," Gentry said, underscoring the recurring theme that polygamy yields turmoil.
Further still, he continued, "Solomon was a tragic figure because he did not practice what he preached."
Although Solomon produced volumes of wisdom in his writings, it was not displayed in how he lived, he said.
"He disregarded his own wise principles, he multiplied wives, which is expressly forbidden for kings in Deuteronomy 17," he said.
"Because who is the king going to marry? He's going to marry a princess from another country and it is going to create a political alliance and they're going to trust in that alliance and they are not going to trust in the Lord."
The biblical history shows that these men might have had faith in God, but that does not mean they were men of morality or that all their actions were moral, he said.
"If you look at the New Testament and you look at what Jesus says in the New Testament and look at what the apostles say, they never hold up anyone from the Old Testament as a moral example. They hold them up as examples of faith, but not as examples of morality," Gentry emphasized.
"There is a very clear difference between what God commands and instructs us to do in marriage and how His people actually behaved in the history that is recorded for us. Just because these things happened in the Old Testament, we have to listen to what the narrator is saying. The narrator is not saying this is good thing. He's showing that this is a bad thing ... because it is abandoning the Creation standard."
RE: Adam, the first man in the flesh, left his father and mother in heaven to cleave to his wife.
Who were Adam’s parents?
and extra mothers in law. :(
Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.
Unless you think that teaching from God did not apply to the only human male at the time it was spoken.
Genesis 2:
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
Regardless of what century, nation or culture -— and assuming that sex selection abortion is not being practiced-— the natural ratio of male to female births is 1.05, meaning slightly more males than females are born. Thereafter the ratio typically flips because of males having *slightly* higher infant and childhood mortality rates. However there are still roughly equal numbers of males and females through young adulthood.
That means that, while it is possible for a few men to have multiple wives, it is NOT possible for *most* men to have multiple wives. If the top 10% of men (in terms of money, power or prestige) have four wives apiece, it necessarily means that the bottom 40% of men will have *NO* chance of ever marrying and establishing a family.
This creates extreme social instability, in that having large numbers of young men with zero marital prospects and zero investment in the future, means that you have mobs of unattached males becoming detached from any sense of social responsibility. You get criminal gangs or passive dropouts: predators or parasites.
Obviously that is not God’s glorious plan for Israel, let alone the whole human race.
If all have a right to seek a suitable marital partner, and most men form stable marriages and families as a societal norm, that means one husband, one wife, that’s it. That is what God wants for our well-being; there is no other way.
Yup.
Many guys are finding out they don’t even want one.
The passage is about leaving the parental, earthly household to establish one's own. It is manifestly not about leaving a "father and mother in heaven." Awk.
They were Kings. Not the everyday guy living in a mud hut next to another shmuck.
You cant compare them to the average guy. Cmon use the gray matter a bit.
RE: Unless you think that teaching from God did not apply to the only human male at the time it was spoken.
I believe that Genesis was written LOOONG after the fall, so of course the writer of Genesis was using Adam’s relationship with Eve as an example for others to follow.
But come to think of it, I don’t think Adam “left” God even after God made Eve to be his companion.
Genesis 3v8:
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the Garden.” (Note, this was AFTER they ate the forbidden fruit ).
Their sin has ruined their PREVIOUS relationship with God. Their unbelief in taking the fruit has ruined the relationship of faith and love they had with God BEFORE the fall. That relationship seems to have been one of God “walking” in the Garden with Adam and Eve.
This would seem to indicate that they saw regular theophanies of God, and related to him like that. Either way, the sense of “walking and talking” with him is certainly true... at least it seems to me that’s the sort of relationship this phrase is intended to convey.
RE: They were Kings. Not the everyday guy living in a mud hut next to another shmuck.
So, are you saying that Kings were allowed in the OT to have more than one wife but not non-royalty?
“. It is manifestly not about leaving a “father and mother in heaven.” Awk”
Adam was commanded to leave his farher and mother.
You name them.
You don't think it was "spoken" to Adam and Eve that they had to leave their parents' household, do you?
And who would their mother be? Pachamama?
Can you read? I weote exactly what i wanted to say.
Can you actually read stuff without assuming it says something it doesn’t say?
Good wiggle around. I don’t believe you, but it sounds good.
Scripture does not mention Adam and Even "leaving" God the Father on account of their marriage. Their relationship of faith and trust was disrupted by their disobedience, so they were deprived of their intimacy with God--- but God, being omnipresent, was still "there."
Moreover, many married persons in the OT ALL still had a relationship with God the Father. All the married were not for that reason separated from God.
Moreover, there is no Mothergoddess mentioned in Scripture as God's spirit-consort or whatever.
Are you perchance a polytheist?
It's the same reason the Spartans, for example, tolerated and implicitly encouraged infidelity on the part of their women. Anything to make more warriors.
Arranged marriages would have mitigated many of the potential negative effects. The fathers' goal would be to get their daughters married off to suitable partners. I'm willing to guess that if the male-female ratio was reasonably balanced, fathers would angle for an unmarried man or a widower, to whom his daughter could be the first, the primary and perhaps the only wife. But if the last couple of wars had gone badly and three quarters of the tribe's or village's young men had been killed, a polygamous marriage might be the best honorable solution, the alternatives being concubinage, prostitution or beggary.
We’re done. Bye!
“That relationship seems to have been one of God “walking” in the Garden with Adam and Eve.”
Most parents get along well with thier offspring s after they are married.
Please remember that I am not saying that Adam was “begotten” like Jesus.
Also, remember that we believe that we were spirit children before Father created the world for us. So yes, Adam left his parents in heaven to come to this life.
Polygamy creates a male absent, weak household.
Sons are soon banished seeking women outside in greater society.
Uncles are banished because few women exist.
Otherwise the sons & uncles must turn homosexual.
The multiple brides also turn homosexual.
What good are sons who are turned gay? They are value less.
It only succeeded in old Mormon country where a single male controlled a lot of land.
Polygamy is family abuse of its weak, brain washed members.
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