Men and Sex According to the Old Testament

[_Analytics]

As far as I can tell, this is pretty much the standard understanding of Jewish Law. But this is only as far as Leviticus and onward is concerned. Genesis is much older, and is influenced by older myths. It establishes quite unambiguously, I think, that God intended a man and a woman to become one. "For this real shall a man leave his mother and father and be one with his wife" (going from memory here). The author of this passage was not concerned with giving men the right to have intercourse with just anyone.

Of course, divinities were married also in Ugarit, Sumaria and Mesopotamia (civilizations that predate Ancient Judaism by a substantial margin) so the institution of marriage on earth as it is later found in the Torah, is just a mimick of a divine concept that was believed and understood many thousands of years ago. But as Analytics said, it was taken and molded to a set of rules and regulations that provided married men with the privilege to have sex with other women.

Are you sure? I thought that Genesis was written at the same time as the rest of the Torah--about 1,500 B.C. Regarding your interpretaion of Genesis 2:24, it sounds like you are reading as Jesus taught in Matt 13, when he says that God joins married people together. While I like that idea, it doesn't really flow out of Genesis.

[_harmony]

And this is what Joseph supposedly restored, because it had been lost. Too bad it wasn't really lost at all. How does anyone go about righting a wrong so ancient?

Joseph Smith did not restore levitical law at all. And the plural marriage he instituted was not like the polygamy of Old Testament times either. In the Old Testament it may have been allowed but it was not the crowning ordinance required for exaltation.

The more I get into studying this, the more I see that Joseph didn't actually restore anything. He simply made it up as he went along.

[_Jason Bourne]

The more I get into studying this, the more I see that Joseph didn't actually restore anything. He simply made it up as he went along.

Well one of the AoF's says we believe God will YET reveal...lot's of stuff. I certianly have never thought all we had in the LDS Church was always had at sometime in the past.

[_truth dancer]

Hey Analytics...

Thanks for confirming my impressions! I know you've studied quite a bit about ancient cultures. Is there ancient precident for the idea that marriage entails monogamy...

What I would suggest is that one male with one female is far and away the norm for the human species. Humans have evolved to pair bond. There is no question about this. What we do see, going back to the times of the origin of patriarchy is powerful men owning more than one woman. It is not until the dominance of patriarchy that we see this phenomenon of human male harems with exclusive rights to "their" females.

and that marriage and monogamy are endorsed by God?

People hear the word, "marriage" and think of a man and women joining together to start a nuclear family. This is just such a new idea and one not even remotely close to what marriage has been for the past five millennia, until the past two centuries or so.

Anciently, marriage was a contract created by men to form alliances and gain power.

It is my understanding that early nomadic tribal groups, considered their possessions, (which would include women), to come from God. The idea was that God blessed men with land, resources, offsping, women, etc. etc., (think Abrahamic covenant here).

According to the wealthy tribal men, those with more "stuff" (and more power), were obviously more pleasing to God.

So, in a sense they believed this early form of marriage (owning women) was a divine blessing. (We still see remnants of this today)! :-(

~dancer~

[_dartagnan]

Hi I missed this on the other thread but I am dragging it over here since it has nothing to do with the subject there.

D: Yes, humans are social creatures. But marriage is more than just socializing. It began as a divine concept. The earliest texts indicate as much.

A: Just because a text says it is a divine concept doesn't mean that the real reason it came about was really divine and not sociological. In any case, could you give an example or two of the "earliest texts" you are referring to?

Well, I would love to hear any other possible explanation as to why texts referring to the habits and doings of supposed deities, could be anything but religious. I doubt these were ancient sociologists/economists writing up these texts for social purposes. The earliest texts I have in mind are primarily those found at Ugarit as well as the earliest portions of the Bible (Genesis).

D: It is naïve to think humans would go the monogamous relationship route without some kind of outside influence (religious authority). Monogamy goes completely against human nature if history is any indicator. This is evidenced by the fact that most people are not monogamous, even those who are married; and even the religious couples.

A: Are we talking about monogamy or marriage? Or are we talking about marriages where monogamy is part of the contract? My understanding is that the in general, ancient marriages didn't entail commitments of monogamy, but rather allowed for polygamy and concubines.

It was wrong to throw in "monogamy," as it is clearly a different subject. I just assumed that from a sociological perspective, this is where you were headed.

D: The point is that there seems to be no reason for secularists to take marriage as seriously as theists do. If it is merely a social “symbol” made in the tradition of men, it is always viewed as an impermanent union. Whereas in religious contexts you’re tinkering with separating what God has joined together, so there is naturally more effort involved in trying to make it work. For temple Mormons the stakes are extremely high and divorce is almost never an option.

A: Not necessarily. A counter example is the high-councilman I knew in my last branch who had a "Saturday's Warrior" moment when he decided that a nurse at the hospital was his predestined eternal companion, and used these religious beliefs as a justification for divorcing his first wife.

I knew an idiot like that. And wasn’t there a Mormon gynecologist a couple years back who had his licensed removed for telling some of his patients he was their soul mate or something?

Marriage is fundamentally a contract. Some theists take their contracts more seriously because of their religious beliefs, and others use their religious beliefs to rationalize breaking their contracts. Likewise, there are atheists who for various motivations honor their contracts and others who don't.

True, but I am arguing that marriage, on the timeline of human civilization anyway, places its origin in a religious context. The oldest textual references to marriage are religious texts and they speak of its origin as divine.

It appears you are talking about a very specific type of marriage, namely marriages that entail commitments of monogamy.

No, I was wrong to mention that before hearing your explanation from a sociological perspective.

If that is what you are talking about, then I would need to rethink about whether or not I agree with you. But marriage per se existed long before Jesus said "what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder".

I don’t recall citing that verse, but you are right, it did exist long before that. In fact that is part of my argument. Jesus is relatively recent when placed on the timeline I am considering. Marriage existed in Western Semitic civilizations that predate the Bible by more than a thousand years.

What are the earilest texts that define marriage?

Mark Smith illustrates in his Origins of Biblical Monotheism (p.55), that the ancient peoples at Ugarit understood El to be the God of gods and his wife (not wives) to be the mother of all deities as well as humanity. In fact the gods were patriarchs of their households similar to the system set up on earth.

“El’s capacity as ruler of the pantheon expresses his function as patriarch of the family. His wife Athirat (biblical Asherah) is the mother of deities and humanity.”

El is also the High God in the Old Testament, and recent archeological findings suggest he had a wife named Asherah. Not multiple wives, just one.

I thought that Genesis was written at the same time as the rest of the Torah--about 1,500 B.C. Regarding your interpretaion of Genesis 2:24, it sounds like you are reading as Jesus taught in Matt 13, when he says that God joins married people together. While I like that idea, it doesn't really flow out of Genesis.

Well, Jesus thought it did, since he quoted this Genesis passage to make his case.


TD:

People hear the word, "marriage" and think of a man and women joining together to start a nuclear family. This is just such a new idea and one not even remotely close to what marriage has been for the past five millennia, until the past two centuries or so.

This is hardly a new idea. It existed in Ancient Mesopotamia (2400 B.C) for example. Incidentally, in Mesopotamia women had rights. They could own property and get a divorce. That speaks volumes for a civilization as old as this.

Anciently, marriage was a contract created by men to form alliances and gain power.

This is a typical feminist perspective, but without much to back it up. Sure, there are plenty of cases throughout history where men used women and married women for political purposes, but this doesn’t tell us how marriage was originally “created.”

So, in a sense they believed this early form of marriage (owning women) was a divine blessing.

Even in the Old Testament the only people who had an outrageous number of wives were the Kings. It wasn’t the thinking in ancient Israel that acquiring more wives said something about your status with God and society.

It is true that there are some sad and unfortunate circumstances that have been tagged to marriage over the centuries, but these are later pollutions of the divine institution; they are not defining elements as to how it began.

[_truth dancer]

Hi Kevin...

People hear the word, "marriage" and think of a man and women joining together to start a nuclear family. This is just such a new idea and one not even remotely close to what marriage has been for the past five millennia, until the past two centuries or so.

This is hardly a new idea. It existed in Ancient Mesopotamia (2400 B.C) for example. Incidentally, in Mesopotamia women had rights. They could own property and get a divorce. That speaks volumes for a civilization as old as this.

Being "allowed" to own property and being "allowed" to get a divorce doesn't mean women weren't owned by men.


Quote:
Anciently, marriage was a contract created by men to form alliances and gain power.

This is a typical feminist perspective, but without much to back it up. Sure, there are plenty of cases throughout history where men used women and married women for political purposes, but this doesn’t tell us how marriage was originally “created.”

I disagree... there is a very clear picture on how marriage has evolved over the past five millennia. The research is quite extensive. The marriage contract was between a father (or brother), and a husband. The exchange was for a woman.

Even in the Old Testament the only people who had an outrageous number of wives were the Kings. It wasn’t the thinking in ancient Israel that acquiring more wives said something about your status with God and society.

Yes, only the rich and powerful have had enough money to own multiple women. Acquiring many women has been a status symbol for ages and ages... and I disagree that wives were not considered a blessing from God to the wealthy Semetic leaders. I think it is clearly the case!

It is true that there are some sad and unfortunate circumstances that have been tagged to marriage over the centuries, but these are later pollutions of the divine institution; they are not defining elements as to how it began.

It is not a mystery how marriage began. The research is robust and paints a clear picture. The contract of marriage was a way to establish who owned what women. This is history. Yes there have been times where some women were given some rights. And yes, wives were given more rights than concubines who were given more rights than slaves. Nevertheless, women were considered property. The idea of women being owned by men is still in the minds of people today... it is VERY recent that this idea has been released in the minds of some of people.

For one example, it has only been in the last few decades in the United States, that a man could be charged with raping his wife.

Think of how recent the whole, "I promise to honor and obey" idea started to become extinct. I mean seriously this is recent history here! :-)

Also... marriage has evolved somewhat differently in various civilizations.

~dancer~

[_dartagnan]

TD, you're sounding too much like Nibley when he generalizes how the "Ancients" believed XYZ without considering the differences between each of the various ancient civilizations. He did this to make it sound like all ancients shared some kind of Mormon doctrine and now you're doing it to make it sound like all ancients had the same concept of marriage.

Yes, only the rich and powerful have had enough money to own multiple women. Acquiring many women has been a status symbol for ages and ages... and I disagree that wives were not considered a blessing from God to the wealthy Semetic leaders. I think it is clearly the case!

In which case?? This is what I am talking about. Certainly this wasn't always the case. For example, the story of Job in the Old Testament. He had his riches taken from him and he increased in favor with God because of his faith. His riches did not mean anything about his status with God. He was one of God's favorites, but he had one wife.

Isaac, the child of the promise had but one wife, Rebekah. Noah and Moses had only one wife. Some would say their status with God was considerable. Rich people didn't buy wives to gain status with God; at least not in the Old Testament. David and Solomon were the only two with an outrageous number of wives, and that was only because they were kings.

It is not a mystery how marriage began.

I agree. It began as a religious principle that later found itself as a tool to be manipulated in politics and economics. There is no mystery in this.

The research is robust and paints a clear picture. The contract of marriage was a way to establish who owned what women. This is history.

That is true in some history but certainly not all of it. But in any event, this still doesn't negate the fact that marriage began as a religious concept that was derived from myth regarding specific deities which married one wife and then created humanity in its image. This is not only in the Bible but emphatically clear in the prehistory of ancient Israel. I have documented the references. If you have something that predates and contradicts these documents, I'd be glad to take a look.

Nevertheless, women were considered property.

When? You don't say. You imply this has always been the case. Certainly this wasn't the case during Christ's ministry. Shouldn't that count for something? It was responsible for spawning the most influencial civilization to date which has granted rights and privileges to women like never before. One might argue that if it weren't for Judeo-Christian civilization, women would still be slaves to men.

If the mistreatment of women were strictly political and economic, it was Christianity that came in and laid the groundwork for future reformation.

The idea of women being owned by men is still in the minds of people today... it is VERY recent that this idea has been released in the minds of some of people.

As I demonstrated, the idea that the man and woman form a nucleus of the family is not recent. It is as old as religion itself. Whether the woman was stripped of certain rights in most cases, is really beside the point.

For one example, it has only been in the last few decades in the United States, that a man could be charged with raping his wife.

And a woman still can't be charged with raping her husband! So what? I'm not sure how any of this changes the fact that marriage was originally a religious concept. There is nothing in sociology that would suggest a religion-free society would naturally pair off into couples and make contracts with one another. Nothing. Even people who get married are likely to divorce because this isn't a natural tendency for humans. It is something we are conditioned to do because of tradition. Mainly religious tradition. The reason humanity engaged in this practice was because of religious texts and religious authorities who made it the norm. Yes, I agree that there is no doubt economics and politics became entangled later on to various degrees in various periods/civilizations, but there is no evidence to suggest that these were the conditions of its origin, as opposed to later consequences.

Think of how recent the whole, "I promise to honor and obey" idea started to become extinct.

Because of the rise of secularism, which only goes to prove my point. Marriage at its core is religious. Its mutation can be attributed to atheist efforts, but they are not able to hijack the concept to themselves as something that was originally just an economic symbol. I knew a guy who refused to get married to his girlfriend because he knew it was a religious concept. His girlfriend was also an atheist and he debated her on the subject until she finally agreed that there was really no reason to get married at all unless she was just trying to get rights to half of his property. In other words, for atheists it is an economic issue. Not so for theists, generally speaking.

[_Analytics]

This discussion reminds me of what Nietzsche asked is man one of God's blunders, or is God one of man's blunders? It appears that we agree that in general, ancient people did have religion, and that they did have marriage.

Have you read The Moral Animal Kevin? Marriage, monogamy, polygamy, and infidelity are things that explores convincingly and in great detail from the perspective of Evolutionary Psychology. Wright argues that the way humans pair up is driven by intrinsic human nature, which was designed by evolutionary forces.

I wonder if your views on this have been shaped by King Benjamin: the natural man is an enemy of God and needs religion to put off the natural man and become a decent creature (i.e. "I doubt the cave men were devoted to one wife. More likely, they went about raping anything that looked female. At some point in time, something in human evolution/civilization had to establish a rule that said a man should be faithful to a woman and support her throughout his life; likewise for the woman towards the man. The earliest hint of this being established is found in religious texts when scripture authors claimed God established this rule.")

I reject that. Robert provides detailed explanations based upon testable and tested theories that explain why we are the way we are.

Wright says,

Are human males and females born to form enduring bonds with one another? The answer is hardly an unqualfied yes for either sex. Still, it is closer to a yes for both sexes than it is in the case of, say, chimpanzees. In every human culture on the anthropological record, marriage--whether monogamous or polygamous, permanent or temporary---is the norm, and the family is the atom of social organization. Fathers everywhere feel love for their children, and that's a lot more than you can say for chimp fathers and bonobo fathers, who don't seem to have much of a clue as to which youngsters are theirs. This love leads fathers to help feed and defend their children, and teach them useful things...

There is no shortage of clues as to why men are inclined to help rear their young. In our recent evolutionary past lie several factors that can make parental investment worthwhile from the point of view of the male's genes. In other words, because of these factors, genes inclining a male to love his offspring--to worry about them, defend them, provide for them, educate them--could flourish at the expense of genes that counseled continued remoteness.

One factor is the vulnerability of offspring. Following the generic male sexual strategy--romaing around, seducing and abandoning everything in sight--won't do a male's genes much good if the resulting offspring get eaten. That seems to be one reason so many bird species are monogamous...

It would be misleading to say that males in high-male-parental investment species are selective about mates, but in theory they are at least selectively selective. They will, on the one hand, have sex with just about anything that moves, given an easy chance, like males in a low-MPI species. On the other hand, when it comes to finding a female for a long-term joint venture, discretion makes sense; males can undertake only so many ventures over a lifetime...

[_truth dancer]

Hey Kevin...

TD, you're sounding too much like Nibley when he generalizes how the "Ancients" believed XYZ without considering the differences between each of the various ancient civilizations. He did this to make it sound like all ancients shared some kind of Mormon doctrine and now you're doing it to make it sound like all ancients had the same concept of marriage.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh if there is one person I do NOT want to sound like it is Nibley! (smile)

Actually, my take on this is in line with analytics. I think The Moral Animal is one of the best books on the topic actually.

I do not think that the whole planet adopted exactly the same idea at the same time or any such thing...

I do believe that humans have evolved to pair bond. Male parental investment has evolved, as has bonding with females. I do think this is consistent in the human.

HOW that exactly played out in terms of something legal or religious is obviously different in various cultures. And, these various forms of marriage/attachment/bonding are numerous and diverse! We can even see a variety of cultural unions today covering the planet.

The actual (what we think of today as the) marriage contract is something more recent than pair bonding, and definitely not the only way a family is formed. There are certainly places even in the world today where couples unite without any sort of religious ideas. Where exchanges are made. Where families form around a pair without any form of religion at all. Long term bonding is common to the human family and has nothing to do with religion.

What has evolved in the human is pair bonding... or monogamy (along with some playing around). The "marriage" as we have come to understand it is an outgrowth of evolution.

in my opinion, this form of mating and union has evolved because human infants survive better with a father around, and fathers absolutely live longer and are healthier if they pair bond with a woman.

Having said this, I think it is clear that early marriage in the Semetic tradition had to do with ownership of women. It is our legacy! :-(

~dancer~

[_dartagnan]

Have you read The Moral Animal Kevin? Marriage, monogamy, polygamy, and infidelity are things that explores convincingly and in great detail from the perspective of Evolutionary Psychology. Wright argues that the way humans pair up is driven by intrinsic human nature, which was designed by evolutionary forces.

Pairing up is natural because that is the first step to having a sexual encounter. However, marriage entails far more than just pairing up. Guys and gals at clubs pair up all the time, but then the next week they pair up with someone else. Marriage is something more intricate that cannot be attributes to a natural human phenomenon.

I wonder if your views on this have been shaped by King Benjamin: the natural man is an enemy of God and needs religion to put off the natural man and become a decent creature

No, I don’t believe that. My views are shaped by the simple fact that marriage is a proven disaster as a social project. Most simply don’t work. Many who do stay married stick with because of economic/social pressures that a divorce would entail. Some people stay married because they don’t want their kids to be traumatized.

== "I doubt the cave men were devoted to one wife. More likely, they went about raping anything that looked female. At some point in time, something in human evolution/civilization had to establish a rule that said a man should be faithful to a woman and support her throughout his life; likewise for the woman towards the man. The earliest hint of this being established is found in religious texts when scripture authors claimed God established this rule."

Well, this is just common sense to me. Do you really believe cavemen paired up and “made contracts” with their spouse? I mean let’s be real here.

I reject that. Robert provides detailed explanations based upon testable and tested theories that explain why we are the way we are.

Then please enlighten us. The citation you provided doesn’t really indicate a testable theory at all. It seems to be one man’s opinion.

Humans are emotional creatures unlike chimpanzees, so naturally there are emotional needs that can be satisfied in marriage. This doesn’t mean humans will naturally try to get married any more than it means they will try to kill their friends just so they can cry at a funeral.

In any event, nobody has been able to reconcile the Ugaritic data for me. It is by far the most powerful evidence we have, and it isn’t left up to a journalist’s interpretation. If the most ancient human texts refer to marriages as “one on one” and the nucleus of families, in a religious context, who are we to psychoanalyze thousands of years of human existence and suppose it originated as something totally different?

Wright is an atheist whose interpretation of history is worn on his sleeve. He doesn’t believe in morality and he interprets the history of sociology to explain away or delegitimize facets of religion. He begins with the presupposition that no God exists, that morality is a figment of our imagination, so therefore all evidence is interpreted to fit this paradigm. When a woman cheats on her husband, for Wright, that reason must have something to do with how her ancient ancestors acted. Why? Because for Wright there is no such thing as right or wrong. We act the way we act because we have no choice in the matter. So how can there be right or wrong?

Women are considered shallow creatures who care nothing about love and fate, because none of that really exists. What really drives them is a desire to find a suitable male who can provide good genes. I read the book many years ago, but I recall some minor points. I didn’t recall any thorough “testable” methods as you seem to indicate. Much of it struck me as feeling-based psychohistory as only an atheist could interpret it.