To: RKV
Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" He answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the TWO shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." They said to him, "Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?" He said to them, "It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery." (NRSV, Matthew 19:3-9)
Given the above scripture and the fact that the instances where the second wives were talked about in any depth were not good, I'd say God means one man one wife. Abraham had Ishmael through a concubine. Ishmael's descendants have been the bane of Israel's existance ever since. Jacob was married to Rachel and Leah...jealousy between the wives and the kids resulted, ultimately leading the older kids to sell Joseph into slavery. David had multiple wives, but one of those wives was the woman whose husband he had killed, and it's made pretty clear David was in the wrong.
Were there any instances of Polygamy where it was spoken of well?
I'm just saying that claiming Leader X did thus and such in the Bible doesn't always mean it was good behavior. There were times that the Bible recounts decidedly bad behavior of great figures. Sometimes things that were explicitly banned behavior coming from leaders. In my own mind, that is to show that nobody is perfect, not to show that it's ok.
26 posted on
01/15/2006 4:32:16 PM PST by
ark_girl
To: ark_girl
I admit to not making a major study of the issue. My only real intent here is keep the plain facts in sight.
As a husband and father, I am glad I have only one wife. She is a fine person and a great mother for our children. I don't desire another, nor would I suggest that polygamy would be good for our country or culture. That said, polygamy was common enough in the Bible - as hard as that is for some of our Fundamentalist brethren to understand. For instance, Deuteronomy 21 requires that fathers do not play favorites with their children based on their polygamous wives favor or disfavor. That is not an issue you have to deal with in a monogamous culture, is it? People who use the Bible to condemn polygamy are ignoring the Biblical facts. Same as those who use it to condemn slavery (IMHO). Same as those who use the Bible to say all kinds of other things that IT DOES NOT SAY. I could tell you about a Methodist minister whose service I attended who tried to make the Bible into an environmentalist document. It just is not that. There are some hints and some clues, sure, and some general principles to remember, but let's be honest about the details is all I am saying.
34 posted on
01/15/2006 5:02:07 PM PST by
RKV
( He who has the guns, makes the rules.)
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