Is polygamy truly unBiblical?

[Swordman]

> With all due respect you have a lot of explaining to do with the issues I raised. And Jesus did not qualify his words or separate the law into moral and ceremonial. There is a bigger issue there that also defeats your points.

Then you would have to demonstrate them for any of us to understand your point.

Thanks

Don

[Dee Dee Warren]

Yet you still have not dealt with the passage within your own paradigm. Your refusal to cogently do so is speaking volumes to its devastating effect upon your position. You posited a system. I provided a refutation. You keep pointing to other passages, but never dealing with my points on the one at hand. Kevin, with whom I have profound disagreement, understood my point and it relevance, and tried to deal with it. You have sidestepped the main thrust which is the fatal blow to your proposition. That will not do. You must coherently assimiliate the passage I brought up into your system.

[Swordman]

> With all due respect you have a lot of explaining to do with the issues I raised. And Jesus did not qualify his words or separate the law into moral and ceremonial. There is a bigger issue there that also defeats your points.

On second thought, maybe I should take a stab at this. I do not have my Bible or my software on this system at work, but if my memory serves me right, Jesus never made reference to the ceremonial Laws nor to the social Laws when dealing with the issue of divorce or worship. He always dealt strictly with the moral. In other words, He never talked about how the sacrifices were not being made properly at the temple, or that the culture around Him was violating the social Laws. He seemed to always deal only with the moral Law, such as adultery, worship, and sin in general. I also pointed out where Paul in Romans (I think) mentioned our not being able to know what sin is apart from the Law. Now, we HAVE to exercise some measure of intelligence to discern that he obviously was not referring to the ceremonial Law that dealt with such things as the animal sacrifices, the heave offerings, tithes, etc.

That is a general coverage of my point, but I will have to await your response in order to understand where you are coming from in disallowing certain evidence simply because it comes from a portion of the Bible that you appear to not like.

Don

[Dee Dee Warren]

Dear Don:

I am not moving forward until you deal with the NT passage I brought forward. And soon with my points on the Timothy and Titus passages now that you have brought forth your arguments on those. You must deal with Jesus' words. You have not. You have tried to deflect them, and I am not letting that go.

He seemed to always deal only with the moral Law, such as adultery, worship, and sin in general.

That does not help you for Jesus said that a man who marries another woman while still married commits adultery. You must deal with that. That is the point here. I am tenacious about following the point. This point until disposed of will not be dropped.

[Socrates]

Swordman:

• I liked your posting. One thing I would like to address is your statement about "one wife" versus "first wife". The Greek word "mia", which is translated "one" in the three verses is Titus and 1 Timothy within most translations, actually SHOULD be translated as "first wife" when you consider that all the other verses where this same grammatical construct appears, it is ALWAYS translated as "first". "The FIRST day of the week," etc., would make no sense if the translators had applied the same bias to this verse as they had in Titus and 1 Timothy. I can expound upon this in more detail if anyone would like to see this in more detail.

Sorry, but you seem to have been bluffed by some Liebearer's polygamy website, and this person just hasn't a clue about Greek. The usual word for "first" is protos In the case of "first day of the week", this meaning of eis is a Hebraism because they used the cardinal number and the Greek just carried it through. This starts even in Genesis 1, where it's literally "Day One" then ordinals (second, third, etc.) for the other days. So in the Greek it is also literally "day one of the week" but that is their idiom for what we would call "the first day of the week". This specific Hebraism cannot be a justification for a blanket claim that eis means first in other contexts.

• Now, if Paul had deffinitely intended for those verses to be rendered "one" rather than "first", then he could have used the Greek word "heis" (which absolutely means "one") rather than "mia". Writing down "heis" would have left no question whatsoever. He uses the same Greek word "mia" where widows are concerned.

And here, Liebearer is even crasser, because he doesn't realise that heis is the MASCULINE and mia is the irregular FEMININE of the SAME WORD meaning "one" :dufus:

Really, you'll need to find some reliable sources.

[Kevin W. Graham]

The theme in these verses is clearly adultery, not polygamy. To argue against adultery and then just "out of the blue," throw in an anti-polygamy clause that, for one reason or another, should be understood independently, seems unnatural to say the least. The question that needs to be answered is this. Is it adultery simply because he "shall marry another," or is it adultery because he married another while divorcing his first wife unlawfully ? Personally, I'm reluctant to divorce three word phrases from their contexts, especially in light of the fact that its implications have no parallel anywhere in scripture.

"And I say unto you, (a) Whosoever shall put away his wife, (b) except it be for fornication, (c) and shall marry another, (d) committeth adultery: and (e) whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."

I would look at it this way. Consistency demands that if phrases (a) and (b) have no qualifying meaning for phrase (d), then neither does pharse (b) qualify (a). I think we can all agree that (b) qualifies (a), so why wouldn't we apply this rule evenly throughout?

I'm hard pressed to come up with any scholarly material on this verse which discusses the implication of monogamy or polygamy. Scholars don't seem to have considered this, probably for the reasons above. This issue of monogamy vs. polygamy seems to be completely alien to the context.

Dee Dee reasserts her interpretation: "Jesus said that a man who marries another woman while still married commits adultery."

That is certainly one way to look at it I suppose. But this synopsis excludes what may be a an essential qualifying element. Technically, Jesus said it is adultery to remarry while putting away a wife for unlawful reasons. Now the question is this. Was his point that a man has no business marrying multiple wives, or that he has no business remarrying if can't obey the law of marriage the first time around? I would go with the latter given the examination above. The former seems way too anachronistic.

Further, being a Latter-day Saint, I must say I've come up against many arguments forwarded that intend to show polygamy to be anti-biblical. However one verse has never really been reconciled among them. Is anyone able to reconcile the fact that God gave Solomon his wives?

[jpholding]

Hey folks,

I'll just butt in for a mo to welcome by bud Kevin. He is of the LDS persuasion and lives in my neck of the woods. We share a liking for small dogs and he has helped me defend against the Skeptics now and then. Treat him with kid gloves and if he gets obnoxious let me know because I know how to calm him down. :brow: His bark is worse than his bite, trust me.

Welcome aboard, bud!

[Bill the Cat]

Well, Kevin, I'd like to point you to Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's explanation:

2Sa 12:8 - I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives--The phraseology means nothing more than that God in His providence had given David, as king of Israel, everything that was Saul's. The history furnishes conclusive evidence that he never actually married any of the wives of Saul. But the harem of the preceding king belongs, according to Oriental notions, as a part of the regalia to his successor.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

[Dee Dee Warren]

Just a quick comment then too, if we are going to use that statement to say that God condoned/sanctioned polygamy, then we must also say that he also thought mass adultery was a great thing too since they were after all, another man's wives.

[Bill the Cat]

Oh, and by the way, the verse sayd David received from Saul, not Solomon

[Dee Dee Warren]

And sincerely welcome Kevin.. I do hope you got my welcome email. I will try to respond to your further comments and original ones this weekend if I can.

[Bill the Cat]

And a bit further down, The Lord says:
2Sa 12:10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

She was widdowed then, and perfectly able to be married again, but David murdered her husband, and from the statement here, she is still called Uriah's wife

[Kevin W. Graham]

Hello Bill, thanks for sharing that commentary with me. Of course I disagree with it, but I would hope for reasonable reasons. The problem I have immediately is that nowhere does the verse say anything about "providence." While this may involve providence, I find no reason to believe God would ever condemn something he gave mankind - even under the umbrella of providence. Furthermore, his providence would also include other possessions such as his multiplicity of horses and concubines, but it is said that God only gave him his wives. It doesn't say God gave him horses or concubines.

Dee Dee: Just a quick comment then too, if we are going to use that statement to say that God condoned/sanctioned polygamy, then we must also say that he also thought mass adultery was a great thing too since they were after all, another man's wives.

But wouldn't they be his wives no longer if God took them from him? This response, on the surface, only makes the issue more complex. It doesn't really reconcile the fact that God gave him his wives. Let us set aside the thought that God may have condoned or sanctioned it. This is really beside teh point I'm trying to make. Let us instead deal with the suggestion that God condemned it, and then let us reconcile these verses with that proposal. But of a quagmire eh?

== And sincerely welcome Kevin.. I do hope you got my welcome email. I will try to respond to your further comments and original ones this weekend if I can.

Thanks Dee Dee. Tomorrow is our first wedding anniversay, so my wife and I will be heading to Miami for vacation. It'll probably be a week before I post again anyway.

== Treat him with kid gloves and if he gets obnoxious let me know because I know how to calm him down.

Awe, come on Dad.

== His bark is worse than his bite, trust me.

Only because I just had a root canal.

[Dee Dee Warren]

Dear Kevin:

Actually no not a quagmire at all, especially when we take the NT witness. I keep noticing that the proponents of this position balk away from the NT witness which is a telling clue. The NT is the authorative intepreter of the OT. You cannot use OT narrative passages to over-ride clear didactic NT doctrinal passages. We cannot glean principles from a narrative to over-ride clear doctrine, and that is exactly what you are doing. Jesus refocuses the issues quite clearly, and yes I will be going back there for it is the deadly wound.

[Kevin W. Graham]

== Actually no not a quagmire at all, especially when we take the NT witness.

Even with the NT witness, we find no support for a condemnation of polygamy. You're arguing from assumption which is supported by one ambiguous NT verse.

== I keep noticing that the proponents of this position balk away from the NT witness which is a telling clue.

Not me. In fact, I think I've listed more NT verses in support of polygamy than I have OT verses. Citing every case of polygamy in the OT is redundant, and proves nothing really. We all know the OT prophets were polygamous. There is no need to stack the deck with every example, so I refrained from doing so. But so far none of the NT verses I provided have been dealt with.

== The NT is the authorative intepreter of the OT.

While I might agree with you here in some cases, from a logical standpoint we merely beg the question. I'm a firm opponent to any thought that there is one universal NT doctrine that is without ambiguity. Unless we can come up with a universal interpretation of the NT, it can hardly be used as an "end all - be all" rosetta stone for the OT. I maintain also that some instances require the OT to interpret the NT - such as John 10:34.

== You cannot use OT narrative passages to over-ride clear didactic NT doctrinal passages.

I don't intend to, but you have failed to demonstrate "clarity" in anything regarding polgamy, and even the didactic passages are bound by context. I've already demonstrated that this verse has problems in both interpretation and in the textual evidence.

== We cannot glean principles from a narrative to over-ride clear doctrine, and that is exactly what you are doing.

That is exactly what I'm not doing. You're speaking as though the NT rejects polygamy, case closed! Therefore whatever the OT says, it must mean something else because it conflicts with a presupposed interpretation of the NT. So far I've seen only one verse and it requires a rejection of context to even come close to an anti-polygamous conclusion. Aside from this, doctrinally speaking the NT doesn't change anything about the OT aside from the fulfillment of the Law of Moses, which had nothing to do with polygamy.

Even if you somehow reconcile this obstacle in Matt 19:9, you're still going to face a brick wall of History and scholarship that have already concluded polygamy to be readily accepted in first century Judaism. I could dig up some Evangelical comments if you like. Believe it or not, my presentation was inspired by a Catholic apologist named Mark Shea, who offers what is perhaps the best defense of biblical polygamy I've read in some time.