In the OT are several types of marriages, slaves, captured women, widows, etc. When we speak of Marriage today, citing the OT, we ignore all of those except between one man and one women. Does the OT condemn those other types or are we choosing to ignore them? Are we picking and choosing to fit modern day definitions or.........?


This is not original with me, but was brought up by a religions blog. It rather intrigued my mind and wanted to hear others thoughts on the matter, with out defensive mechanisms kicking in!

From what I get out of the OT is that the marriages that you list are ones that came after God brought Israel out of Egypt. There was quite a bit of things that he had to try and correct after 400+ years of bad examples by there captors. The one that God originally showed to be the ideal was the one at creation between Adam and Eve.

Okay, look at the examples of what they could do when capturing women in battle. I don't see this as something they learned while in captivity in Egypt. God was leading them in their battles as they subdued the land and its inhabitants. Certainly a perfect opportunity to correct any any acquired 'bad habits'. God had been leading them as a nation for many years before these battles took place. Where does God speak out against such practices instead of giving guide lines for correct living?

I think it was about taking responsibility and a pragmatic view toward consequences. If you took another man's life you were responsible for his widow and children. So in war the innocent victims of war were to be taken in by the victors. (Although the slavery thing is hard to explain to our 21st century sensibilities.) If you took a woman's virginity, making her unacceptable as a wife to another, you were responsible for your actions and had to take her into your own household unless her own family would, which was seldom the case.

I think more specifically, marriage was pragmatic along similar lines. If you had sex, you were married to that person. If you had sex with more than one you had to take responsibility for the ones you had sex with.

That could get really expensive for some people....

In an other thread it has been suggested that what is read in the OT about marriage was from mens point of view and that we have to go to the NT to find out about 'real marriage'. That would make me wonder if God choose to let them wander in the ways of the pagans with out correction. He 'tolerated' mans sins....so to speak. That to me is very confusing as it opens a rather large can of worms about the validity of Biblical writers or at the least, one must pick and choose based on some later criteria. Tom has suggested some of what we read was a 'pragmatic' way of dealing, by God, as to time, place and events.

The open that can of worms a bit further, it seems from Jesus' comments about divorce, that it was more a pragmatic solution coming from Moses, rather than God. I am inclined to see much of the OT as God having to accommodate a bunch of ancient barbarians, meeting them and working with them in their cultural context. And I think he gave his chosen leaders latitude for exercising common sense and judgment. They may well have taken it as God's eternal will rather than a pragmatic God making accommodations for a choice for the lesser of several evils.

I have long held to the belief that God views his people as more important than His rules. If His rules were more important, he would not have made a way of redemption for law violators. He would have let them die as a consequence of their own sin. Love trumps the law.

So in the OT context, the wellbeing of the vulnerable ones, such as widows and orphans, was the responsibility of those in charge in a a patriarchal culture. The best way from their perspective was to make them a part of a family. That was the ancient welfare system. The alternative would have seriously threatened the survival and wellbeing of those vulnerable ones.

People more important than rules......hmmm...most interesting.

This does lead to more questions than 'pat' answers, at least to me. If God was accomadating a people and perhaps not being correctly understood by the writers of the OT Bible, would it not be correct to think, that in other areas that the same would apply?

The Bible was written by post flood individuals, what about their understanding of those events of the past if they didn't have a correct understanding of current events/instructions of God? Do we need to verify theology through the eyes/ears of NT writers?

Have long had a difficult time understanding, let alone explaining, OT history, so the issue of marriage seems a good point to exam those types of issues. It does make sense that God was working with a people gradually bringing them along into a better understanding of what was a correct way through life. But it does raise questions.

HEY ALL

this is an interesting topic

slaves were considered property and the had no say
women were lower class citizens with very
little or no rights

but GOD'S plan of 1 man and 1 women is the best

dgrimm60

Marriage is overrated. Hardly worth it. People, when single, spend way to much effort in the whole process of finding 'the one'. Sure, there is a lot of pressure to get married, from family, friends, the church, fellow workers...everywhere actually. But, it doesn't mean your going to live happily ever after. In fact, more people would be happier single. Just look at the divorce rate, factor on top of that, people who are not happy in their marriage. If you were a betting person, you would see the odds are against you. Yet all the pressure to get into it. Put it into its proper place. The first place has to be your relationship to God. Let nothing come between you and him. Don't receive the great wedding invitation, and say, I cannot come, for I have married a wife. Marrying a wife is then WAY overrated.

God said to be fruitful and multiply. Are you going to do it without getting married?

Consider the job accomplished.

Read Matthew 28:19-20

Consider this job, incomplete.

I can't say that being single has been that much of a hindrance to multiplying.

Regardless, I think Golions makes a point.

In the beginning there appears to have been no formal marriage ceremony or legal concept of marriage, as we know it now. The act which brought about that multiplied fruitfulness was the joining together as one that God ordained as marriage.

I'm not sure I understand your point...are you saying that in committing the sexual act itself God considers them as "married"?

That is more of the Biblical version.

If I'm not mistaken, when Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, didn't he mention to her that she'd had a number of husbands? and from what we've gathered from that story she never had been married before! So I'd say that's exactly what Tom is saying.

I think it was just the one she was with at the time, as I remember it. I'm not sure if He included the one she was living with at the time with "the five husbands" or not tho.

Well maybe this is not the story I was thinking about. Because it does seem that Jesus tells her that she did have 5 husbands and the one she was with at this time was not her husband. But I do recall some Pastors talking about marriage and that they seemed to agree that in God's eyes you are married. But I guess we could call that an opinion and not a total fact.

Nooo, I am not disagreeing with the idea, just the facts of the biblical account of the lady with 5 husbands.

1Co_6:16 gives credence to the idea that the act of sex equals marriage, in addition to some "psychology" ideas of the act.

Interestingly the next verse leads us to believe that we have that same "union" if we surrender to Christ.

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Are we drifting off-topic now?

I gotcha, good point

I'm glad I'm a wife in this age and not in old testament times. Especially with Solomon!

I can understand that. But then again, maybe Solomon wasn't that great a husband and not having to deal with him on a regular basis might have been a blessing. :)

Should we, or can we really draw conclusions about "What is best" or Gods original plan for the human race from a few words written down a few thousands of years after the fact? In a perfect world with no hate, meanness, and no disease, orphans, or widows...?

Is this the reason the universe is so big?

Jesus says, "not given in marriage, but be like the angels" with no expanded explanation.

Growing up in the church, there was a man that very strongly put out the info that one man and one woman to form one family, forever. Of course he was planning for Christ to return while both he and wife were alive. he felt if you weren't married here, not in Heaven either. It is still a very wide belief there will be no "relations" there. You probably know how that worked out and he was heart broken when his wife died. He then changed his tune to one at a time.

I want to be there when they all get together. At least a spyder under the table or fly on the wall

I'm not sure I understand your question?

Are you saying these other marriages were men with men or women with women?

The fact is we follow the one marriage from Eden. Where these other marriages followed after Eden we would accept. Where these marriages didn't follow after Eden we would not accept.

It's just that simple, I believe.

I don't see where Love trumps the Law, but where Love establishes the Law. We should also remember that God will not allow sin to rise up ever again. God's character has been vindicated for all eternity.

As far as God accommodating fallen mankind, I also believe that to a large extent. After the failure of God's people in Exo. 20:18-21, God started the Judges with Moses, when all along God wanted a personal relationship with all His people.