Anything in the OT that bans polygamy?

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Spyridon said:
Which of these are you fluent in: aramaic, hebrew, ancient greek?

In @TheButlers defense, one need not be fluent in the original Biblical languages to study the Bible.

Any reputable translation is suitable for biblical studies.
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Totally disagree. The bible contains many statements that are not attributed to an author or were added to later writings etc. Not understanding where they came from is to remove them from their context. Unless you can translate them back into the language they would have originally been made in then your knowledge is handicapped by this, for example there are statements written in ancient greek, attributed to Aramaic speakers that simply don’t make sense in Aramaic. Studying the bible in English is pretty pointless in my opinion, you could draw whatever you wanted from it. Having one or multiple commentaries will mitigate this, but i think you need at least one of those languages and a good grasp of history to really have an informed opinion.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
Which of these are you fluent in: aramaic, hebrew, ancient greek?
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None of them. Does it matter? 99.9% of the population isn’t. I am a native speaker of UK English, though, and if the Creator has a plan which involves me seeing alternative interpretations for the betterment of humanity wouldn’t He have guided both authors and translators to enable that plan so I could use the English translations in a time when English is the most commonly spoken language on the planet?
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
Studying the bible in English is pretty pointless in my opinion, you could draw whatever you wanted from it. Having one or multiple commentaries will mitigate this, but i think you need at least one of those languages and a good grasp of history to really have an informed opini
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So long as you understand the Church vehemently disagrees with you on this.

In fact what you are saying directly contradicts what the Church teaches.
 
I’m not saying don’t read it, i’m talking about deep ‘study’. It’s just not a book that makes sense when taken at face value in English. I’m very shocked if the Church, being compromised of many of the world’s best experts in these subjects, doesn’t appreciate the nuances of interpreting it correctly.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
being compromised of many of the world’s best experts in these subjects, doesn’t appreciate the nuances of interpreting it correctly
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The vast majority of Pontiffs and Doctors of the Church spoke little to none of the Biblical languages from about the 5th to 15th centuries.
 
Depends if you want to go on fluently or include people speaking it as a second langauge. India apparently has the second largest population of english speakers, but if you’ve been there…
 
Those numbers do include people speaking as a 2nd language.

English probably will be the #1 most spoken language by 2030.
 
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stupidisasstupiddoes said:
Depends if you want to go on fluently or include people speaking it as a second langauge. India apparently has the second largest population of english speakers, but if you’ve been there…
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Let’s face it. The people who are in a position to change things have a grasp of English.
 
Spyridon said:
The vast majority of Pontiffs and Doctors of the Church spoke little to none of the Biblical languages from about the 5th to 15th centuries.
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I honestly did not know that, kind of worrying but does partly explain why scholarship continues to advance even today.
 
@TheButler you’ve piqued my interest.

Exactly how did the Creator speak to you? Via an interior locution? An audible voice? A dream? An angelic visitation?
 
Spyridon said:
Exactly how did the Creator speak to you? Via an interior locution? An audible voice? A dream? An angelic visitation?
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No, nothing as mystical as that. I was on a forum and someone had started a thread entitled ‘Channelling a message for XX’ where XX are my initials. Naturally I looked at it. It spoke of a recent change of address which applied. It spoke of things going on in my life which were also accurate. Then it went on to say something along the lines of “'It is time. You will start to see things differently. You will see the words attributed to me differently. There will be no going back. Only you will see what you see. You will see what I want you to see. You will be unique. See this as a good thing. You will understand why when the time is right.” And from then on I started seeing Scripture differently.

Had it been a vision or anything like that I would have sought medical advice. As it was in text in front of me and so precise in what it was saying followed by my actual change in seeing things it had to be truly from the Creator. Moses had his burning bush. I had a forum thread. The Creator obviously moves with the times. 🙂
 
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AgnosticBoy said:
I notice that you did not address my rebuttal to your claim and instead jumped to another issue. Do you agree that God can show what’s moral in ways besides just including them in the “beginning”?

More directly to your point, I am not an advocate for Sola Scriptura but nor should teachings beyond the Bible conflict with the Bible. Such is the problem with the Catholic teaching on marriage. I can agree with Christians when it comes to what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, but when it comes to polygamy, many believers fail miserably in their logic and understanding of the Bible.
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When you speak about morality, fundamentally you identify what is good and then evaluate acts in reference to that good.
Then, does the particular act you are evaluating contribute to that good? Is it ordered to that good? Or, does it detract from that good?

Christ clearly identifies the durable marriage of man and woman as a good. Genesis addresses it as well. And scripture scholars will probably know of other places that refer to the good of the union of man and woman.
Polygamy detracts from that good, or is not ordered to it, however you prefer to enunciate that.

In this way, situations that cannot possibly be addressed by scripture specifically can be morally evaluated in reference to objective good.

For instance: environmental pollution is not mentioned specifically, but we know that God created the world and saw that it is good, and so harming that good is immoral.
 
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Because someone said something on a forum over the internet you believe it to be your divinely inspired mission to bring your own specific interpretation to others?
this is too reminiscent of someone I know who was visited as we ate by a man who said he was aprophet, said she would have the gift of healing, and said she was stabbed with the staff of Aaron, etc.
She then seemed to think she was special and all that.
I reccomend not doing that, if you want unity and not division.

Do you know the reasons behind the differences between Nagasaki and Hiroshima when looking at the atrocities?
 
TheButler said:
I think the point there is that killing two people is seventy times worse than killing one and nothing to do with polygamy.
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It is about killing or anything one wants to define as increasing
it is a repetition of the number 7 which is used to mean completeness. Jesus used it when asked how many times we should forgive. the added number seventy times seven indicated ‘increase’ or basically another way of saying infinite… Lamech is saying vengence is infinite in me.

This characterizes Lamech as a symbol of the increasing sin in man. That’s why I called him a type of man of sin. Since polygamy is attached to this man in this way it is a meaningful message about polygamy
Matt-18
21 Then came Peter unto him and said: Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
22 Jesus saith to him: I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times.
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We also have the problem of the prophet Amos? taking a 2nd wife to teach a lesson…presumably at God’s inspiration.
And others…

But back to the thread question…is that the best we have in the whole of the OT for demonstrating that YHW always disagreed and never tolerated polygamy?
 
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And yet we regularly disagree with some OT verses as Judaism itself interprets them.
They should know better than us according to your hermeneutic principle above.

But then you will say we or Peter have some monopoly on the Holy Spirit etc etc.
Not that any infallible statement has ever been made re whether the OT condemned Polygamy as you assert.

I think there are simpler arguments for explaining these dark passages in the OT which support current Catholic teaching but not requiring the triple backward somersaults your view starts to attempt.

But we may have to conclude that polygamy, while currently prohibited by the Church, is not strictly speaking in contradiction of Natural Law but only of well standing derived principles.
That is Aquinas’s solution.
 
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