Half the things the Bible says aren’t to be taken literally. I guess rape and infanticide are ok and we should stone people for adultery because the Bible says so. Polygamy is not justifiable according to ANYONE OR ANYTHING besides a person devoid of morals.
If this is your objection then i already posted on this in post #15 and 17 (2nd response) of this thread. I’ll add a bit more to what ive already posted before. The " two become one flesh" description of marriage is from the OT so its nothing new. But yet during that time we find that the definition of adultery as explained in the Law, did not restrict married men from marrying additional women. How could you want marriage to be monogamous but yet prohibit ONLY the wife from all extra-marital affairs? There’s an inconsistency here or God did not intend for the man to be restricted to just one spouse. Its also interesting how some want to stick to the original concept of marriage but yet they want to ignore the ‘original’ definition of adultery as it is directly explained and exemplified/applied in the OT.
Thus it follows: a man is capable of committing adultery, it does not only apply to women. It follows also that it suffices that one desires a woman who is not his wife to have committed it.
I never said that adultery did not apply to the man. I said that married men are only prohibited from sleeping with their neighbor’s wife or an already married woman. This means that married men can sleep with and marry UNmarried women. If married men couldnt sleep with ALL women then sleeping with single women would be called adultery as well but we dont find that to be the case.
Here’s another suggestion: go to an on-line Bible site, and put in the keyword “fornication” and see what comes up.
It would help if you can explain because ive already posted about fornication in post # 17. Are you saying that the ‘married’ man that sleeps with UNmarried woman is called a fornicator instead of an adulterer? If so that is false. Sleeping with anyone other than your spouse is adultery unless you’re in a polygynous culture like Jesus was.Here’s another suggestion: go to an on-line Bible site, and put in the keyword “fornication” and see what comes up.
When you’ve done your homework, get back to us.
And if that’s not enough, then go and study Natural Law.
But God did define what adultery was or involved. The entire OT can be looked at as an application of the LAW which is where you can get further clarification (or case law). You can see when God called someone an adulterer, how he treated polygamists, etc.
Just because he says “X is adultery”, that is not the equivalent of “Only X is adultery.” Even assuming that it is supposed to be “precedent”, as you suggest, precedents don’t define an offense; they provide fact situations can be included as examples of that offense.
A definition does not have to be comprehensive just as long as it explains what something is, even if its just in one instance. With that said, i can agree with you that the Bible does not offer a definition for adultery but you can use the examples and description/usages to form a definition and rule some things out. Thats part of what scholars do. The Hebrew concordances that Ive researched go more into detail about ‘naaph’ (Hebrew word for adultery) and they never refer to adultery as being about a married man with an unmarried woman so that was never included as adultery. Given that Israel was a polygynous nation then i doubt we can say that this scholarly definition is based on an excuse to sin as you suggested in your previous post to me.
I wouldnt say that they considered other things to be adultery but rather they had a preexisting understanding of it, like sleeping with married woman being the ONLY thing that adultery involved. There are multiple definitions of adultery depending on the types of marriages allowed. I would say that Moses pointing to just that one rule on adultery could just as easily been all there was to it because the culture was a polygynous one. Also, when every mention of adultery in the OT in relation to MARRIED males is always about another man’s wife or neighbor’s wife as opposed to ALL women not his spouse - single or married, then you have to wonder about the correlation to polygyny.
My understanding of BiBLiCAL polygamy is that it also invovlves one man and one woman but it also involves having more than one marriage. Jesus did not say you can only have one marriage at a time. A polygamous man w/ 2 wives fir instance would have 2 separate marriages with one wife in each. That leaves each marriage with 2 people.
Well seeing as how defense of Biblical polygamy often includes defense of the patriarchal structure, society, and culture, it’s obviously every feminists’ worst nightmare.
First, you’re wrong. A definition is, by its very nature, comprehensive. It defines the word - it doesn’t offer one example of what the word means. If it is anything else, it is an illustration or an example.
There is nothing in the Bible or church teaching that supports that the pre-existing notion was that adultery would only occur between a married man and another married woman, particularly given that they were operating in a society that highly valued virginity and scorned prostitutes. It is simply inconsistent with what we know of society during that time to believe that they would be less scornful of having sex with an unmarried woman (who should be chaste) than they would be in having sex with a married woman (who is to be faithful to another).
No, it leaves him with one marriage with three people, for each of his wives is connected to the other through the man. You cannot ignore or deny the relationship formed between the women through the polygynous relationship, and this is where the argument falls apart.
I cant go too much into this because its off topic to this forum and im no expert.
I think it’s entirely on topic. Something cannot be immoral and “not sin” as you’ve suggested.
Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubinesWhy on Earth would anyone want a Dozen wives,I struggle keeping up with just One,
Maybe, maybe not. However, it is rather telling all the same. When you know some history, you’ll see that Solomon was no more different than other Asian emperors of his time.