King Solomon and His 700 Wives Versus Same-sex "Marriage"

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Hello everyone. I am debating with people on Facebook about same-sex “marriage” and someone brought up the fact that King Solomon had 700 wives and a few hundred concubines to try to argue against the traditional definition of marriage. What is a good counterargument?
 
Actually thats what corrupted him he began to build temples to foreign Gods to please the women - it was his downfall.
 
Let’s just be clear, none of those 700 people were men by the way; hence at least this is certainly not an argument for “natural marriage” becoming “unnatural marriage” even if it is about a different definition to some extent. The definition of marriage has always been that it was “between male and female”. Those 700 women were not married to each other but only to king Solomon, the women did not do immoral things with each other.

At least to some extent marriage is different in the new covenant, for example divorce is impossible with sacramental marriage. But that which relates to nature cannot change
 
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Please keep in mind that King Solomon was there waaaaaaaay before the birth of Jesus, when polygamy was still permitted under the Mosaic Law. And I’m really happy that Jesus later came down and established a new covenant.
 
A lot of good replies so far…I would add the following:
  1. Just because something is mentioned in the OT, does NOT mean God endorsed it. (Therefore, those you debate with will have to show you where in the Bible God endorsed polygamy. The Old Testament is very “descriptive” in places rather than “proscriptive”)
  2. God is quite clear about marriage being between one man and one woman: Gen 2:24, Mt 19:5
  3. It would also be good for you to read up on the Old Law, and be conversant as to why it is temporary and only for a specific group of people: The Israelites. AND…the moral laws mentioned in the Old Law are NOT binding on Christians because they are part of the Old Law, they are binding because they are part of natural law. SO…natural law would make it obvious that the design of men and women are complimentary, (man/man or woman/woman are NOT complimentary). So same sex marriages go against revealed law and natural law.
 
Comparing polygamy to homosexuality is a false equivalence. The two are different. God’s tolerance of polygamy doesn’t lead to a tolerance for homosexuality.
 
Actually, the whole concubine thing was a Bad Idea in a lot of different ways, but certainly King Solomon was getting pressured to do it for many different reasons.

There’s a Great Courses about Mesopotamian history, that talks a lot about the shared diplomatic culture of Sumer and other Middle Eastern states, all the way through Babylon and such. In Sumer, kings’ daughters were trained to become queens and wives as a way for more important kings (their dads) to exert their will on less important kings (their husbands). They also constantly reported back to their dads in letters, sent by secure couriers.

In Egypt, on the other hand, a pharaoh almost always had his daughters and female relatives as queens and wives, while concubines were the children of commoners (even powerful commoners) or foreigners. So princesses from Sumer who moved to Egypt were still sending letters back, but they didn’t have power like they would have had at home. (There were a couple commoners who became queens for love or their dads being prime ministers, but never any foreigner queens.) Accepting foreign princesses as concubines was a sign of the pharaoh’s status, and was part of diplomacy with lesser states.

So Solomon and his people seemed to have thought they were Egyptians, when it came to foreign wives. His real wives were from Israel or even from his own tribe, and the queen mother was the really important lady of the palace. But the foreign princesses thought they were from bigger and more powerful states, and should rule Solomon. And sometimes they did.

Jezebel, OTOH, is a great example of a Middle Eastern princess wife taking control of her minor king husband.

And since most Middle Eastern monarchies believed in having the king and queen Do Magic Stuff as representatives of the lead god and his wife, and having all the sons, and the daughters who didn’t marry, become priests and priestesses of various gods and goddesses, as well as filling government offices…

Yeah, not good to have foreign pagan royalty around the house of a monotheist king.
 
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Polygamy was never permitted by God and marriage was between one man and one woman from the beginning. The Mosaic Law fell short.
 
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