Genesis is troubling me

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KimberlyAnn0218

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I am hoping someone can help me understand Genesis. I am no scriptural authority at all. Just a Catholic trying to read through the bible in a year using a pre-set format.

I am very troubled by the mutiple accounts of “wives,” relations with slaves and “concubines.” How was this OK? Specifically troubling to me is Gen 16 and 22 dealing with Nahor’s decendants of concubines. When was it OK and when did it become not OK to have relations with someone else?

I am not doubting the word of God, I juat really don’t have an understanding of any of this and am honestly interested in the answers. I just started tuning in to Jeff Cavin’s Great Adventure that EWTN is airing…I wish I could get my hands on the DVD’s without buying them. I guess I need a class on scripture in the worst way 🙂

Again, please understand I am not looking to slam the Bible here. I am honestly not in the know and want to understand…
K:confused:
 
Many things were VERY different in both society, and practice back in the pre-birth of Christ days. The Jews had many of the same practices of those societies that surrounded them, including animal sacrifice (which continued until shortly after the death of Jesus, multiple marriages (for those that could afford them), and some very wealthy kept concubines, who had none of the rights of a married woman.

If you continue to read the Bible, you will discover that many of those old practices had been dropped by the time of Christ. And, there were never the custom of the “average Joe”, because he could barely afford to keep one wife and his children fed, much less have multiple wives and lots and lots of children. This was something that only the wealthy could afford to do.

There was no specific law that prohibited multiple marriages, until hundreds of years after Jesus died. The Church adopted pretty much the Roman practice of only having one wife from its earliest days, but in some outlying areas, multiple wives did continue for a while.

It was an entirely different world back then. Under most societies rules, widows just plain starved to death. The Jews REQUIRED that their sons support them, and this was VErY unusual at that time.

The Jews held slaves (usually from peoples that they had conquered), but their form of slavery was VERY different from anyone elses. The children of slaves were NOT slaves themselves, they were free. After 7 years in slavery, a slave was also freed (just as a field was required to lie fallow after 7 years of growing crops). Wives had absolute rights (unheard of in virtually every other society on this earth). Jewish women could (and did) inherit property again, this was unthinkable under the rules of most societies that existed back then).

Our early Christian church adopted ALL of those rules. After all, Jesus and the original Apostles were all Jews, and Jesus never said he wanted a totally new religion. He was a devout and faithful Jew, who wanted the people of God to live a reformed religion, not a new one.

But, the Jews resisted reform. And, as the Church spread, it had to abandon some of the Jewish customs (like requiring that all men be circumsized), eating only according to Kosher rules, etc., etc.

It is easy to look back in horror of the practices of those bygone eras. But, that is because you have the benefit of over 5,000 years of religious history, change, modifications, and changes on top of changes on top of more changes. To a modern person, that era seems almost incomprehensible.

You have to look at it in the context of its time frame, not in the context of OUR time frame, The ancient Jews were considered to be REALLY odd by virtually everyone. They only believe in ONE GOD? Kill them, they are just too weird!

They refuse to worship idols? EVERYBODY (including all too many Jews) worshipped idols.

What do you mean, their women have rights? Women belong to their father or to their husband, they have no RIGHTS!

Children are slaves to their parents, who can literally do anything with them that they please, including selling them into slavery. So who are these stupid Jews to be trying to tell us that children have rights?

This is one of the reasons why Jews (and later Christians) were looked on with suspicion and distrust by virtually everyone. They were so different, and so “stiff necked” about refusing to change their beliefs to match those of whoever conquered them, that people just couldn’t figure them out.

Just as the Catholic Church has evolved in its liturgy, etc over the centuries, so the Jews evolved over the centuries before Christ. God worked with what he had, slowly teaching them through the prophets, what he wanted them to become. This culminated in God’s own son becoming Man, and dying on the cross in order that we might all have the realistic chance to spend our eternity with the Father, with is Son and with the Holy Spirit.
 
KimberlyAnn0218 said:
I am hoping someone can help me understand Genesis. I am no scriptural authority at all. Just a Catholic trying to read through the bible in a year using a pre-set format.

I am very troubled by the mutiple accounts of “wives,” relations with slaves and “concubines.” How was this OK? Specifically troubling to me is Gen 16 and 22 dealing with Nahor’s decendants of concubines. When was it OK and when did it become not OK to have relations with someone else?

I am not doubting the word of God, I juat really don’t have an understanding of any of this and am honestly interested in the answers. I just started tuning in to Jeff Cavin’s Great Adventure that EWTN is airing…I wish I could get my hands on the DVD’s without buying them. I guess I need a class on scripture in the worst way 🙂

Again, please understand I am not looking to slam the Bible here. I am honestly not in the know and want to understand…
K:confused:
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Actually, the honest and best answer is that God never permitted for any man to have multiple wives. A lot of people assume that because in the Bible we find stories such as these that God must have wanted it that way. Well that answer is no. With regards to polygamy, from my studies in my classes there is actually a few in Scripture who took more than one wife, and usually the one who did was well to do(ex. Abraham was given everything from kings everywhere). It was the common man in Judiasm who never took multiple wives.
 
On a side note, the strangeness of the Jews (to the window shopper) was to blatantly separate them from all the other cultures. Not just how they ran their government, but how they lived their lives, and their disciplines. This helped to keep the Jews from integrating with other sects and peoples that were pagans. Back in those days, when you integrated, you married and you had children. Pagan beliefs were more popular than belief in God, so guess which one became the family belief system?
 
KimberlyAnn0218 said:
I am hoping someone can help me understand Genesis. I am no scriptural authority at all. Just a Catholic trying to read through the bible in a year using a pre-set format.

I am very troubled by the mutiple accounts of “wives,” relations with slaves and “concubines.” How was this OK? Specifically troubling to me is Gen 16 and 22 dealing with Nahor’s decendants of concubines. When was it OK and when did it become not OK to have relations with someone else?

I am not doubting the word of God, I juat really don’t have an understanding of any of this and am honestly interested in the answers. I just started tuning in to Jeff Cavin’s Great Adventure that EWTN is airing…I wish I could get my hands on the DVD’s without buying them. I guess I need a class on scripture in the worst way 🙂

Again, please understand I am not looking to slam the Bible here. I am honestly not in the know and want to understand…
K:confused:
Click to expand...
The key thing to remember here is that God did not reveal His moral law all at once. He gave it to us bit by bit.
 
Many of the multiple wives we read about in the Old Testament were taken as part of political arrangements and military alliances.

When a kings made alliances, they often took a wife from the family of the king with whome they allied. In this way, the alliance was backed by a family bond and either party had an “Inside man” so to speak, to make sure that the other party was holding up to his part of the bargain.

When the kings of Israel made military alliances, it was always in direct contradiction to the will of God. The pagan nations worshipped Baal, burned their children to the god Molech, engaged in temple prostitution and had orgies as part of their worship. These nations had seen everything God had done for Israel, from passing through the Red Sea to splendor of King Solomon’s wealth yet they did not convert. Isreal and her kings, for their part, were told by God again and again to adhere to His battle plans, to trust God, but Israel made their own plans, allying themselves with pagan nations and intermarrying with women who drew their hearts away from God to sex and pagan worship.

With the royal power firmly in his grasp, Solomon allied himself by marriage with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The daughter of Pharaoh, whom he married, he brought to the City of David, until he should finish building his palace, and the temple of the LORD, and the wall around Jerusalem. However, the people were sacrificing on the high places, for up to that time no temple had been built to the name of the LORD. Solomon loved the LORD, and obeyed the statutes of his father David; yet he offered sacrifice and burned incense on the high places. (1 Kings 3:1-4)

In Abraham’s case, he and Sarah did not trust God’s promise and so they made their own plans and brought in Hagar the Egyptian. Solomon had 600 wives and 300 concubines, a symbol of how divided his heart was.

Multiple wives, especially foreign wives, are usually a sign of inability to trust God.

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
Many of the multiple wives we read about in the Old Testament were taken as part of political arrangements and military alliances. While multiple wives were not explicitly forbideen, intermarrying with non Jews was.

When a kings made alliances, they often took a wife from the family of the king with whome they allied. In this way, the alliance was backed by a family bond and either party had an “Inside man” so to speak, to make sure that the other party was holding up to his part of the bargain.

When the kings of Israel made military alliances, it was always in direct contradiction to the will of God. The pagan nations worshipped Baal, burned their children to the god Molech, engaged in temple prostitution and had orgies as part of their worship. These nations had seen everything God had done for Israel, from passing through the Red Sea to splendor of King Solomon’s wealth yet they did not convert. Isreal and her kings, for their part, were told by God again and again to adhere to His battle plans, to trust God, but Israel made their own plans, allying themselves with pagan nations and intermarrying with women who drew their hearts away from God to sex and pagan worship.

With the royal power firmly in his grasp, Solomon allied himself by marriage with Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The daughter of Pharaoh, whom he married, he brought to the City of David, until he should finish building his palace, and the temple of the LORD, and the wall around Jerusalem. However, the people were sacrificing on the high places, for up to that time no temple had been built to the name of the LORD. Solomon loved the LORD, and obeyed the statutes of his father David; yet he offered sacrifice and burned incense on the high places. (1 Kings 3:1-4)

In Abraham’s case, he and Sarah did not trust God’s promise and so they made their own plans and brought in Hagar the Egyptian. Solomon had 600 wives and 300 concubines, a symbol of how divided his heart was.

Multiple wives, especially foreign wives, are usually a sign of inability to trust God.

-Tim-
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Hi,

In the begining you were only supposed to be married to one person period. This is how God designed it. Yes history shows how many times we went off track. It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Many wives, concubines, etc. was and always will be adultry. Events recorded inThe Bible are there for a reason. Like the post above says, when we go against God’s plan it is only because we do not trust God.

Don’t think because it was in the Bible it was ok. God’s laws have never changed.
 
It is my understanding that polygamy was permitted (although not intended by God) because there was a serious imbalance between the number of men and the number of women. Men would usually go out to war and die and so the number of women would always be more. It therefore made sense for a man to have more than one wife so that all women could have a husband.
 
Marriage, instituted in Genesis 2, is universal, proof that all people had their roots in the genetically-proven first Man and Woman. The Virgin Mary assented as “handmaid” of the Lord because ancient law, as seen in the Stele of Hammurabi, provided for a “handmaid” to raise up children with full sonship rights forever.

Sarah chose to raise up seed to herself through her handmaid, Hagar, with her child having full adoption status. Sarah chose to make Hagar a slave to allow her to legally throw her obnoxious self and her obnoxious son out, which she did. But God honored Hagar’s relationship, multiplying her son Ishmael’s lineage, but said her son’s descendants would be “ever warlike with all men’s hands against them.” So it is with the Arabs.

Moses allowing for divorce because the people were hard-hearted is an example of a regulation to lessen the impact of spiritual degeneracy not unlike Benedict suggesting that, as homosexuals were engaging in sterile sex anyway, it is efficacious to allow condom use as they are not preventing children being born and could prevent the spread of deadly diseases. This kind of fall-back position does not promote sin but only seeks to lessen the tragic consequences.

God ratified the people’s demand for a king. This led to Christ’s fulfillment of this role in His Passion and death on the Cross. This was a foreign system adopted at the people’s choice. God honored this. Part of this system was the multiple wives because the earlier system had land being vested in the female, and marriage to the female defining rulership. This was the reason for the female figurines which acted as land titles, the reason Rachel stole them from her father, Laban, as they were her inheritance.

Lots of ancient law is explained in Savinah Teubal’s book, “Sarah the Priestess” which is an unfortunate title chosen by her publisher. The role of the woman was as EN, “grace” or woman of grace; fulfilled in queenship that, with her Seed, conquers Lucifer and his minions. That is the earliest system, and why the Hebrews today account lineage through the woman. “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.” This is a succinct version of the Ancient Sacred Wedding Rite showing the Virgin Mary was married to the Holy Spirit.

Marriage is the first sacrament instituted, and the last given in John’s Apocalypse when Christ returns for His Bride the Church, a collective, not multiple, marriage. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’” We are all in a betrothal stage. May God make us faithful and true and may the Immaculate Heart reign and rule in all hearts and triumph, her and her Seed, over Lucifer and his seed. AMEN
 
Animal sacrifice, like circumcision, was mandated by God. God killed the first creature, shedding first blood to clothe Adam and Eve; and taking upon Himself and His Son the ultimate reparation for sin and death brought into the world by the Sin of Adam. That’s why priests are males, because it is Adam’s authority that was betrayed. Ancients from Abel onward offered animal sacrifice. So we, too, are consuming the Lamb of God Who gave His Body and Blood to consummate the “new and eternal covenant.”

Circumcised hearts being more pleasing, we nonetheless must uphold the right of Hebrews to circumcision, another consecrated blood-letting Christ Himself had to endure as a Child. And marriage, another hallowed blood-letting as often happens as the hymen is broken, is that universal sacrament between one man and one woman, and must be maintained. We ask for this by God’s grace and mercy upon us; and may we pray and work for that end.
 
(Matthew 19:4-5):
"He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’"

GOD does not change his way, but we sinners do…
 
nordskoven said:
Animal sacrifice, like circumcision, was mandated by God. God killed the first creature, shedding first blood to clothe Adam and Eve; and taking upon Himself and His Son the ultimate reparation for sin and death brought into the world by the Sin of Adam. That’s why priests are males, because it is Adam’s authority that was betrayed. Ancients from Abel onward offered animal sacrifice. So we, too, are consuming the Lamb of God Who gave His Body and Blood to consummate the “new and eternal covenant.”

Circumcised hearts being more pleasing, we nonetheless must uphold the right of Hebrews to circumcision, another consecrated blood-letting Christ Himself had to endure as a Child. And marriage, another hallowed blood-letting as often happens as the hymen is broken, is that universal sacrament between one man and one woman, and must be maintained. We ask for this by God’s grace and mercy upon us; and may we pray and work for that end.
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Sorry, I don’t follow. Did this accidentally get added into my original post?
 
I found it interesting that the first mention of polygamy in the Bible is linked to a descendant of Cain.Gen.4:19 And Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

(There is no mention of multiple wives in Seth’s descendants given in Genesis 5.)
 
After Jesus, we know for real that God’s love is so faithful that He gave is only Son to save us. We as His children would like to love in the same way.

The revelation of this great love was not so real before Jesus. Now, even if you are a rich guy, you can’t have more than one wife because to do that is to deny God’s faithful love through His only Son Jesus Christ. If you do not know Jesus, or you would like to deny HIm after knowing Him (just like Simon Peter did to Jesus for three times), then-- in any of these two cases-- you may have more than one wife.
 
I also felt this way, and I recall someone stating that the Old Testament is telling us how things were, the New Testament is how they should be.
 
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