In the beginning, the
book of Genesis, Moses writes about creation. We know that God created formed
man out of the ground [Adam] and we know that He formed woman [Eve] from one of
Adam’s ribs. When Adam is presented with the woman Adam said “This is now bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman because she was
taken out of man”. Moses then writes that “a man shall leave his father and
mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Nelson, 1997, pp. Genesis 2:23-24) . This piece of
scripture is what many Christians turn to in order to prove that the definition
of marriage is a union between one man and one woman.
The problem with this
is that they are wrong [my opinion] and here is why I say they are wrong; in
ancient Israel polygyny is the norm, which means many wives. Polygamy is many
partners of either gender. Solomon, for example had seven hundred wives and three
hundred concubines. That can be found in the book of First Kings. In second
Samuel you can find that David, the apple of God’s eye, had seven or eight
wives and Jacob also had multiple wives. Many of our Christian fathers had many
wives and many concubines. These guys were blessed. In case there’s doubt, let’s
look at something God said to David; “thus says the Lord God of Israel; I anointed
you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul; I gave you
your master’s house and your master’s wives into your keeping” (Nelson, 1997, p. 2 Sam. 12) . Did you see what I
saw? God gave David the wives. W-i-v-e-s; plural. I am sure that with further
research and study you will find more like it in ancient Israel, but for now, I
just wanted to provide some biblical scripture that shows the biblical
definition of marriage and, as you can see, it was not between one man and one
woman, but between one man and many women. Women were used very much like
property to be sold or taken; whatever the agreement or situation happened to
be.
This doesn’t
necessarily show just cause for gay marriage does it? Maybe not, but it does
show that marriage was not biblically defined to be between one man and one
woman. With that said, allow me to make clear that I do not believe in Polygamy
or Polygyns; I am all for monogamy. Now, we are made male and female for the
purpose of procreation; to be fruitful and multiply; to subdue the earth. Just
read Genesis; God is pretty clear about that. This has nothing to do with a
loving, committed, and monogamous relationship between two people. It’s not all
about sex people. Sex is just a part of the relationship. If you think about
it, biblically speaking, sex was supposed to be for the sole purpose of
procreation. But let’s be honest, man realized the enjoyment and did it whether
or not there was a plan for children. So, things changed regarding the act. If
you want to believe that marriage is only defined as the union between one man
and one woman, then you better follow the original plan for sex and only do it
when you’re ready to have kids. That would be interesting.
Ok, so this is a bit
longer than I planned; I did want to get into the whole religious
freedom/religious liberty thing. That will just have to wait until next time.
Nelson, T. (1997). The Nelson Study Bible.
Nashville.
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