Friday, July 3, 2015

Biblical Marriage: One man and one thousand women

If you give me a debate topic and 25 minutes to research and find snippets (verses) of the Bible I can successfully defend either side of the argument.

If, as we are told by religious “experts” that Biblical marriage is only between one man and one woman then can you please explain to me King Solomon’s 300 wives and 700 concubines.  God wasn’t bothered enough by that arrangement to keep Solomon from building the temple at Jerusalem as he had done to his father David for his transgressions.

And speaking of King David, what about his adultery with Bathsheba the wife of General Uriah?  When David got her pregnant he had Uriah killed so that he could add her to his stable of at least six wives.  According to the Bible, God was upset only that he had killed another Jew—an out-of-wedlock child and adultery were not even mentioned.

Lot’s incestuous relationship with his daughters was never punished by a God who had just wiped out two major cities and turned his wife into a pillar of salt.  In fact, it is from Lot’s blood line that Jesus Christ was born.  It is often incorrectly said that Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality.  In the book of Ezekiel is this explanation:  “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”

In Genesis we find that both Esau and Lamech took multiple wives.  And among the laws given in Exodus for the treatment of slaves is the admonition that if a man takes a second wife the two wives are to be treated equally.  Not surprisingly that same law appears in the Quran.

One man, one woman was most assuredly an option in the Bible, but it was in no way the only option.  If we are discussing the same sex implications of marriage some people point out that among all the forms of acceptable marriage, homosexual unions were never mentioned.  Of course not because in Biblical times there was no word for homosexual in Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic—it is a modern word suggesting that in those days it was not a noteworthy concept.  We know that homosexuality existed and without a specific word for it the concept was just a regular part of life.

I am no fan of same sex marriage.  But I don’t think that I should judge the choices of others.  In Hebrews we find specifically that “God will judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral.”  Jesus told us not to judge lest we also be judged by the same rules and given the same punishments as those we judge.


I am absolutely certain that when it comes to someone else’s bedroom God wants me to mind my own business and Jesus wants me to love them unconditionally.  God will do the judging and until then lets just get along.