Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and welcome to part two of my conversation about marriage. Though I do try to keep most of my episodes fairly standalone, even if they're part of a series, this one is pretty much directly going to follow on from my last episode, especially as there are quite a few things that need more clarification and coverage.
[00:00:40] And just like my last few episodes, this episode will contain some mature content. Just so you're aware, if you've got little ears around, this might be one to listen to with headphones on or whatever you gotta do.
[00:00:54] So, with all that said, our target at the moment is to explore this question that I asked last time. Regarding marital relations in both a physical, carnal sense, as well as a more institutional sense, how can we have changed our ideas about marital relations from the Old Testament to today, and doesn't any change in that imply that we can just keep progressing along the path where we have today, like the legalization of same sex marriage and tomorrow... well, who knows how marriage will be defined?
[00:01:31] In order to even approach that question, we need to understand how the Bible presents marriage and also how we do. And are we so sure that the Bible even provides a picture of marriage as we think of it? So this is going to be my second in this series of conversations tackling this topic, and I'm not going to get to the end of it by today.
[00:01:55] So definitely there's going to be at least a third part here. And, really, I'm not hiding my general stance on defining marriage in a traditional way. But at the same time, when we look at the Bible, the Bible has so many instances of marriage that actually do not fit into the traditional marriage mold, right?
[00:02:17] And while we can and should go back to Eden to see that archetype of how marriage should be, well, we've got to wrestle with this long, long history of marriage as we see it actually historically play out. And sometimes it's not a pretty picture. And while we can idealize it and say that we should strive toward that ideal, well, we need to know what the Bible says, and we need to ask why, of all things, that we see the kinds of laws in Torah that we do.
[00:02:50] And again, we need a standard by which to measure things, and that's maybe less simple than we want it to be. It's certainly going to take more work than just reading the text and having it explain it all out to us.
[00:03:05] Know most of us tend to ignore the Torah laws with the claim that we don't need to follow Torah because we now have Jesus. But however true that might be, the Torah still points to Jesus, and we believe that God instituted these laws, right? And we would think that Torah law, as given to Moses, ought to be fairly authoritative in some way, right? Because why would they have done it that way otherwise? And whether or not we should abide by the laws in Torah, the people of God, at the time before Jesus, certainly, at minimum, were to abide by them.
[00:03:46] And was it really that necessary for them to have a woman's rapist become her husband? Couldn't there have been another solution for some of these laws? Well, again, it's all about context and looking at that wider picture. And, well, look, I don't have all the answers here. But, let's stop ignoring difficult questions, at least, and acknowledge that there is some hard stuff to wrestle with.
[00:04:12] And I really do believe that wrestling with difficult questions makes us better readers, better critical thinkers, and better disciples. Even if we can't come up with some pat answer. Sometimes we maybe shouldn't come up with a pat answer that really just wraps it up so we can ignore those difficult things. Stop telling other people how clear the Bible is, and start looking more closely to see that it's anything but, sometimes. As I said last week, the tendency here is to jump past all this supposedly messy Old Testament stuff and jump right into the New Testament. But let's not do that. We'll get there in due course.
[00:04:58] First we need to acknowledge that there's stuff written down in our authoritative Word of God that makes us uncomfortable. Sometimes that's not fully resolvable. But almost always, understanding the different context of the time can at least help us.
[00:05:17] Okay, so anyway, getting off that soapbox at least for a moment, last week we talked about how polygamy showed up on the scene in Genesis 4, and the Bible doesn't discredit the idea. It doesn't seem to disagree with it as a general practice, though I did argue that there is a strong indication that it's a twisting of God's good order. But at the same time, we can see some, well, not justifications for it, but some explanations for it, and how useful it is to an agrarian society to provide a structure where more women would be a higher class or social status than they would be without. And creating larger family groups is beneficial in a tribal culture.
[00:06:06] We talked about how the so called bride price might not actually have been for purchasing a wife, but rather for adopting her into the family, and how essential covenant was to all of that, including the idea that sex is a covenant renewal oath sign. Now, I made a point that our vows and contracts are verbally made today, and so maybe that gave the impression that intercourse is less important to marriage for us than it was back in the day.
[00:06:40] Now, I don't really mean that, and the reason is that marriage is still a contract between two people, and a contract has certain stipulations, right? If two people are getting married, there is a presumption that there will be sexual activity. And so the contract can be annulled today, just like in the case of any contract where the agreed upon terms are not carried out.
[00:07:08] So, this is also going to connect to why divorce can happen as well, because we believe that the underlying contract of marriage has been violated in some way. Commonly, maybe too often I might suggest, this is about sex. And even for many Christians, the idea is that you should never ever divorce, except due to marital infidelity. But many people have come to the conclusion that there are other things that we can say are violations of the marriage contract. So it is also the case that divorce is not the same as it used to be, or it's not always the same in every era, in every society, and I will be addressing divorce more later.
[00:07:53] You can see, this is why I have waited to tackle all of this, because one topic leads to another topic so naturally here, and they all matter very deeply and require a good bit of work to address. But anyway, back to the idea of intercourse in marriage and how important it is, and how it is part of that marriage contract, really. Of course, we don't want to write these stipulations about conjugal rights specifically into the law of marriage as we see it today, but there is an underlying presumption for what we expect. And it would seem rather crass to write out the specifics of these kinds of expectations, although you never know. People do make all kinds of nuptial agreements.
[00:08:39] At any rate, thanks to Rob for pointing some of this stuff out to me that I should really make sure I make clear. Part of the difference that I'm talking about between today and the past is that today, marriage is seen to demonstrably occur before the act of sex, at least for our modern Christian standards. You need to be married before you have sex. Sex is not part of the marriage ceremony itself for us, but it is supposed to occur after that. That is how you can even have an idea like premarital sex. And understanding the difference of marriage today versus marriage in the past is key to seeing why the Bible would not specifically call out premarital sex as, again, a specific sin.
[00:09:28] This is important to notice if we want to get our modern Christian standards of not having sex before marriage, because there's not a particular verse you can go to other than to say that it fits within a general category of fornication, but really, that box is pretty fuzzy. Premarital sex is not listed as a thing in the list of sexual based sins that Paul gives, for instance.
[00:09:53] And we do need to look carefully at that concept of fornication, which we'll get into, but probably not till next time. Again, it's not that people didn't have sex before marriage in the past, but it was not a specifically defined thing back then, because definitions change.
[00:10:12] And you know, we are all aware that people want to find loopholes. If you want biblically based standards, you have to start with the standards of the people of the Bible and the way that they spoke and thought about things. And then you have to make a case for why it is that you can move forward to what we have today, and that those changes are not just random.
[00:10:34] Now, I'm not really saying it's hard to do this, because it's really not. All of my nuanced explanation is for those people who really want to tease out things in particular ways. And while we might think it's unnecessary and should be so very obvious. Well, look around you. Clearly it's not obvious to everyone. And also because we're all familiar with the young person who wants proof and evidence and a really solid argument. And you know what? That's fair. We should give them that.
[00:11:07] So, that brings me to another reason I think this matters, which is because this is an example of how we can do biblical theology, and see things in the context of the time, and still move forward to our application, even including our standards today, and actually maybe be okay with the fact that some ideas have changed over time, but that doesn't mean you can just keep changing them.
[00:11:33] And not only that, but that biblical theology can help us make a stronger case. Again, not randomly. It's not about choosing things in some vague concept of progress. It must be in alignment with a standard that does not move. So it's this strange dance of progress in light of a standard of creation that really never did actually acquire a realization of those standards from creation.
[00:12:02] Now, we're going to want to say that Jesus instituted these standards of creation, and so now we have no excuse. But even after that, it's taken the church working things out intentionally, just like we've had to do with slavery, or caring for orphans, or any other difficult sociological issue. And I'm going to use the word patriarchy and probably ruffle a few feathers here in a minute.
[00:12:31] Continuing what I talked about last week, I brought out passages that relate to both adultery and rape, and we're going to be picking up that discussion today with more information regarding adultery in the Old Testament. Again, for us, adultery is any sex outside of marriage, if you're already married.
[00:12:51] But as we will see, it's a bit fuzzier in the past. In the past, there were, to some degree, different standards for men and women. And while they certainly had the idea of consent, that also was different from how we see it, considering that a woman who is taken violently would quite often need to marry her rapist. And in that case, she'd be set up for a life of then having to consent to sex with that man because refusing conjugal rights to a spouse was not appropriate. It's still fundamentally not okay to refuse to give sex to a spouse forever, but today we're aware that even within marriage there needs to be consent.
[00:13:35] But some of what Paul says will be helpful in all of that once we get there. And here's another thing to acknowledge. Just because we have a paradigm for marriage that goes back to Eden, that does not mean that we fully understand what a perfect, or at least a very good marriage, would have necessarily looked like from the perspective of an ancient Israelite, even if they were looking to the marriage between Adam and Eve as ideal.
[00:14:04] Quite likely, they still had some ideas that would chafe against modern sensibilities. As I think we have to acknowledge, the perspective at the time was, in many ways, male centric. Now, I'm going to kind of put a little spin on that at the end here in this episode, but there is some sense that we can't deny that the so called patriarchy was strong and enforced back in the day.
[00:14:31] And now that I say that word, you might be loading a whole bunch of assumptions into what I just said. But let me suggest that we back up here a moment, and say that our idea of patriarchy really is skewed to our own time and our own ways, and we should not be putting our assumptions and ideas back into the past.
[00:14:55] That doesn't mean it wasn't a thing. But, the patriarchy of the past is not whatever we have in mind, whatever that may be. And I'll even say it certainly wasn't all great, but it's also not necessarily even a bad thing in many ways. As with most everything, there is a balance that we should be seeking, and if we're loading our emotions into this discussion, we're not going to be able to see that very well.
[00:15:25] So I've probably lost some listeners with that, but balance and nuanced thought rather than rash emotional responses are necessary for critical thinking. Come back later if you need to calm down. But anyway, simply for the fact that they thought differently, we need to take care not to load our assumptions into how they, the people of the Old Testament, would have thought of an ideal marriage.
[00:15:53] For us, we have a greater understanding of things like psychology and a greater empathy for the fact that men and women, while certainly different, are also very alike, and have similar needs, and should be seen as equal partners with equal value. And we will see by the New Testament time a massive change in many things along those lines.
[00:16:17] In fact, we probably see that by the time of the prophets. Before I move on, a word about the people who originally read Genesis and why it matters that they had a perspective that we don't entirely like. Because couldn't we just say that even though they had wrong ideas, at least God's intention for what is written in Genesis goes beyond man's interpretation? After all, God is the ultimate author. And the human writers were just proximate authors. And fair enough. But does that mean it's a good idea to just ignore the human author's understanding?
[00:16:57] Because how are we going to understand what God's ultimate intention for the interpretation is? Because everything the human authors wrote was couched in their way of thinking. And because of that, Is it really fair to use the text in ways that they actually didn't intend and had no way of seeing? I've seen it often enough before, the idea that God hid information in the Bible that the human authors just didn't understand at the time, as if it's some sort of Bible code.
[00:17:29] But if that's the case, it's not actually in the Bible at all, as some inherent meaning that we should expect to be able to see, then how can we possibly use the Bible as our rule? I mean, we couldn't in that case. So, we can't say that the Bible is saying something that it's not saying, or that we can just decide that it's saying something that the human authors themselves didn't mean. We have a word for that, and that word is eisegesis, reading our own meaning that we want to be there into the text when it's never been a meaning for any person before us. And I don't mean the type of midrashic interpretation that the people in the New Testament were doing, because guess what? They had the true revelation of God right in front of them, and that's who they were interacting with for Scripture.
[00:18:20] At any rate, let's dive back into the text, and we'll be looking again at passages we've already covered. We'll be looking at some new ones, and I'll be pulling out some commentaries and dictionaries along the way as well. So let's look at the Torah laws surrounding adultery. And remember, we may need to put aside our assumptions about adultery.
[00:18:43] So let's go to the Decalogue, otherwise known as the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20, verse 14 says, You shall not commit adultery.
[00:18:55] Okay, fairly straightforward, right? But it doesn't help us define the term. So let's go to Leviticus.
[00:19:02] Leviticus 18. 20 says, You shall not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife, to be defiled with her.
[00:19:09] Okay, a little bit more specific there.
[00:19:13] Leviticus 20 verse 10 says, If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
[00:19:28] Okay, note that in both verses, it's not talking about a man who has sex with just any woman who is not his wife, but very specifically that he's having sex with a woman who is another man's wife.
[00:19:41] And of course, in Leviticus 20, the death penalty is stated for both the man and the woman. The theme continues out of Leviticus.
[00:19:51] In Proverbs 6 29. It says, so is the one who goes into his neighbor's wife, whoever touches her will not go unpunished.
[00:20:02] Deuteronomy 22 verse 22. If a man is found lying with the married woman, then both of them shall die. The man who lay with the woman and the woman, thus you shall purge the evil from Israel.
[00:20:16] All right, so that's a good bit of witness for all of that. It's always involving a married woman.
[00:20:22] Now I'm going to read from Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary about the idea of adultery in the Bible. It says, quote, Adultery is sexual intercourse between a married or betrothed woman and any man other than her husband. The marital status of the woman's partner is inconsequential, since only the married or betrothed woman is bound to fidelity. The infidelity of a married man is not punishable by law, but is criticized, as we see in Malachi 2, 14 16 and Proverbs 5, 15 20. Biblical law shows similar leniency for sexual relations before a woman's betrothal. See Exodus 22, 15 16, Deuteronomy 22, 28 29, and for possible exceptions, Leviticus 21. 9 and Deuteronomy 22, 13 21.
[00:21:21] Okay, so as far as the law goes, only the woman in a marriage is bound to be faithful. But anyone who is messing around with her is also going to be in trouble here. As it says, the man in a marriage can be criticized for sex with someone else, but it's not unlawful. But it's really important that we go to these verses about men being criticized.
[00:21:48] So, let's look at Malachi chapter 2, verses 14 through 16. Yet you say, for what reason? Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. But not one has done so who has a remnant of the Spirit. And what did that one do while he was seeking a godly offspring? 'Take heed, then, to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of your youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and him who covers his garment with wrong, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously. End quote.
[00:22:36] Alright, we'll probably bring this verse up again when we talk about divorce, but you can still behave treacherously, even if something isn't explicitly against the law. We could probably say that this passage has quite a bit to do with the idea of having the law written on your heart, at least if we want to say that that means that you have the principles of the law, rather than feeling like you only need to follow the law in some explicit, legalistic way.
[00:23:07] But really, it's good to take the law and expand its principles. Okay, but I'm going to once again throw a caution and say you can't just do that in order to promote some selfish desire, right? Because as Jesus says in Matthew 22, 36 through 40, the law is centered on two things, loving God and loving one's neighbor.
[00:23:31] And this is also stated by Paul in Romans 13, 8 through 10, which says, Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment it is summed up in this saying, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. End quote.
[00:24:05] So that will be crucial to keep in mind. Now let's look at this passage I mentioned in Proverbs. It's an interesting one, and after I read the verse, I'll read from a commentary about it. So far I've been reading from the NASB, but this passage I'm reading from the ESV, because of the word intoxication, which the commentary will use the word stagger.
[00:24:31] This is Proverbs five 15 through 23. Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets. Let them be for yourself alone and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth. A lovely dear, a graceful doe let her breasts fill you at all times with delight. Be intoxicated always in her love. Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he has held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray.
[00:25:27] Okay, now from New American Commentary. This is by Dwayne Garrett, whom we've discussed before about his book Rethinking Genesis concerning the structure of Genesis and the ancestor epic cycles. But this is what he says about this passage in Proverbs 5, quote, verse 15 obviously means that a man should have sexual relations only with his wife. The metaphors of verse 16 and the injunction of verse 17 are more difficult. If the cistern and well are the wife, what are the springs and streams of verse 16, and what is meant by not sharing them with strangers?
[00:26:10] Okay, he then gives some options here, but I'm going to go ahead and skip ahead and he says the best interpretation is that springs and streams of water refer to the husband's sexual affections as the cistern refers to the affections of his wife. The man should not take his love and desire to anyone else by going out into the street. The analogy implies that a husband and wife fill and refresh each other, the one like a flowing stream and the other like a peaceful well. Sexual anarchy results when people cross over the bounds of fidelity. Verse 17 means that a man should never be willing to share a woman with another man. This naturally excludes visiting prostitutes and immoral women, since they belong to many men. The blessing in verse 18 might appear to be a promise of many children, but again, the passage emphasizes the sexual pleasure of marriage and not having offspring, as we see in verse 19. The command to take pleasure in your first wife implies negatively that a man should never have sexual relations with another woman, whether in adultery or by divorce on contrived grounds, and positively that marriage should include sexual joy and fulfillment. Verse 19 brings out both the tender affection and the exuberant pleasure of love. She is a loving doe, and he will be drunken with satisfaction in the pleasure she gives. Verse 20 is linked chiastically to verse 19. The man should not stagger from the affection of another woman, nor should he embrace her bosom. The use of the catchword stagger also ties together the conclusion of the exhortation. A man will stagger in the pleasure his wife gives, and he can embrace the bosom of another woman and stagger, but the terms of sensual pleasure are absent here. With the adulteress, it is the staggering of confusion and weakness. Finally, the man who indulges in adultery will stagger to his own destruction. See verse 23, end quote.
[00:28:29] Okay, I think that's a pretty good description, and I'm sure it's a bit of a relief to see this in some sense, that it's not just that men are totally off the hook, right? Although we do have to admit that this is in Proverbs and not the Torah, and not even necessarily in the Prophets, and so there is kind of this distinction that may possibly be made. Not that I'm saying that Proverbs can't have doctrine, I'm not saying that, but there is this order of priority. Things should be read in light of Torah. Then the Prophets, then the Writings.
[00:29:08] All right, so I'm also going to read a lengthy excerpt from another commentary because it speaks well to our broader concept. This is about the whole of Chapter 5 in Proverbs. And remember that some think that Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs, so there's a mention of him here. And also remember that last time I mentioned that by about 800 BC, monogamy had become more the standard, but there were exceptions still for royalty.
[00:29:39] This is from the Evangelical Commentary on the Bible. Quote. This section of advice for the person attempting to live an ethical and moral life under the covenant deals with an extremely important theme, human sexuality in its normal and illicit forms. The Hebrews were somewhat ambivalent in their attitude toward sexuality, sometimes employing explicit language, such as went into, while on other occasions using euphemisms, such as feet or thigh, to describe the sex organs. In general, couples married at a young age, since the normal life expectancy was only about 40 years. A woman probably had her first child while in her early teens. A woman was under parental care until she married. Thereafter she was subject to her husband. A wife who committed adultery was punished by death if caught, along with the offending man. Aside from adultery, considerably more sexual latitude seems to have been accorded to a man, possibly because his sexual activities were restricted by the lengthy nursing period which his wife experienced after the birth of a child. Prostitutes seemed to have been readily available throughout the Near East, but they were associated predominantly with pagan religions, and thus were prohibited to the Israelites, whose covenantal faith could have been easily corrupted by such contacts. Men doubtless exploited female household servants sexually, sometimes with the wife's approval, as in Genesis 16, 2 through 4, but the legal wife was generally considered the only one able to bear heirs for her husband. While some women were unable to secure husbands, it was the norm for a Hebrew man to marry. And those who remained bachelors diverged noticeably from this tradition. Sexual relations were meant to be confined to marriage, and a high esteem was placed upon premarital chastity. Against this social background, the author of Proverbs 5 seems to be speaking as one married man to another. There is considerable irony in the situation if Solomon is the teacher, since his rejection by God was due to his marriages to pagan women, see, 1 Kings 11, 1 through 11. Thus, he would have been able to speak from experience, but would have hardly been able to criticize adultery and retain much credibility. There are, of course, numerous converted sinners who derive a perverse pleasure from regaling their audiences with tales of illegal or immoral exploits, at the same time warning them not to become involved in the same way. Solomon's position as a ruler, however, could have granted him exception from censure, since kings were traditionally permitted to have more than one wife, especially if political benefits resulted for the nation. Even as late as New Testament times, Jewish rulers could have more than one wife, as illustrated by Herod the Great, who may have had as many as ten wives. The Immoral Woman can be recognized easily as a person of beguiling speech whose remarks appear pleasant initially, described as honey or oil, but end in disaster when her victim has been compromised. Because she has strayed from the path of covenant morality, she is following the way to Sheol and taking her consorts with her. The teacher's warning in this matter concerns discretion, which means keeping at a distance from such a person. By having relations with the harlot, a man loses chastity, dissipates his powers, perhaps opens himself up to blackmail, see verse 10, and will possibly die from sexually transmitted diseases, see verse 11. Little notice seems to have been taken of the latter contingency in Scripture, but if the disease in Asa's feet was actually venereal, both the possibility and character of the ailment were recognized. See 2 Chronicles 16, 12 14. But by that time, it would be too late for Solomon's pupil to indulge in self castration, Verses 12 through 14. By contrast, the virtue of fidelity within a monogamous marriage is extolled in poetic language of exquisite beauty and delicacy. The positive values of a loving marriage relationship far outweigh the supposed delights of carnal indulgence with a harlot. Receive the seal of approval from one who watches a person's ways. See verse 21. Refraining from associating with harlots is a mark of discipline which the wicked lack because they have spurred wisdom. In the end, that foolish act becomes their undoing. End quote.
[00:34:50] Okay, so I think it's quite interesting that we see laws that are clearly more skewed to benefiting men in the Torah, but definitely at least later on, as we see in Proverbs and the prophetic books, there's definitely a sense that extramarital sex in general would be frowned upon, even for men.
[00:35:10] Okay, back to the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, quote, Adultery was a capital crime, according to Leviticus 20, verse 10, and Deuteronomy 22, verse 22. Both parties must die. The reasons for the gravity of this crime are never explicitly stated in the Old Testament, yet the patrilineal nature of Israelite society strongly suggests that mistaken paternity would surely be dreaded. If an act of undetected adultery produced offspring, a likely result would be the bequeathal of family inheritance to this illegitimate heir. This is emphasized by Ben Sira in 23, 22 through 23, and for a similar thought, see Ecclesiastes six, one through two.
[00:35:59] Ecclesiastes six, one through two says. There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is prevalent among men. A man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor, so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God has not empowered him to eat from them, for a foreigner enjoys them. This is vanity and a severe affliction. End quote.
[00:36:25] Back to Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. Philo remarks that the deceived husband would be like a blind man knowing nothing of the covert intrigues of the past, yet forced to cherish the children of his deadliest foe as his own flesh and blood. End quote.
[00:36:43] I know that this sounds I don't know, maybe a little bit too practical to our ears when we do things like marry for love and it's less about the progeny to us and the inheritance factors. But you know, modern romance is, well, modern, I'm afraid. Few people married just because of love back in the day. In fact, in the Hebrew Bible, that punishment of being cut off didn't just mean you were ostracized and it didn't even mean just death for an individual, but also death of offspring.
[00:37:23] Continuing with Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, dread of the extinction of the family line is evident in the Priestly Code, among other places, with its punishment of karet. See Genesis 17, 14, Exodus 30, 33, and 38, Leviticus 17, 4, and 9, Leviticus 20, verse 3 and 5 and 6 and et cetera. The term karet, according to traditional Jewish exegesis, refers to early death and childlessness, or the death of one's progeny without issue. According to the Septuagint and traditional Jewish law, the issue from an adulterous union, like all prohibited unions, is the mamzer, or bastard, who is excluded from membership in the assembly of the Lord. End quote.
[00:38:21] So, we can see how serious of an issue childlessness was, and how that would be a problem for someone like Abraham, who was supposed to produce whole nations.
[00:38:33] Again, to our commentary. The economic aspect of the crime, IE as a simple violation of the husband's property, seems to have played a major role compared with the social and religious dimensions of the crime. Adultery is the height of treachery, see Jeremiah nine, one, malachi 3, 5 and Psalm 50, verse 18. And adulterers are linked with murderers in Job 24, 14 15. Adultery is an assault upon the sanctity of the nuclear family, which is divinely ordained Genesis 2, 18 and 24 and Proverbs 18, 22. End quote,
[00:39:23] Okay, actually I want to stop here for a moment because look at these verses that they give for the supposed sanctity of the nuclear family. Now the nuclear family is the husband and the wife and the children, right?
[00:39:37] Okay, so we have Genesis 2, seems fairly obvious. We have one other verse mentioned for this, and that verse is in Proverbs, of all places. Let's read Proverbs 18, 22, He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
[00:39:59] Okay, I mean, I'm sorry, but that's hardly a really robust defense of the nuclear family. Right? Is it just me? And I wouldn't be surprised if this is, in fact, almost the best defense of such a thing you can muster from the Hebrew Bible. Because I really just don't think that the Hebrew Bible cares overly much about the nuclear family. That's a new idea. The nuclear family is a modern idea.
[00:40:29] Now, the Hebrew Bible cares a heck of a whole lot for family in general. But they simply were not nuclear families. That's not how you survived well in the past. But at any rate, yes, adultery was a really, really big deal to the point that it was called a great sin.
[00:40:49] Let's go back to Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. Both parties to the illicit union are ritually defiled or rendered impure. See Leviticus 1820, numbers 5, 13, Ezekiel 18, 6, 23, 13, and 17. And 33 26. The adulterer commits an abomination, Ezekiel 2211. While adultery is included in the Pentateuch's catalog of sexual crimes which defile the land of Israel, causing it to spew out its inhabitants, see Leviticus 18, 20, and 24 to 25, it is considered a great sin by the biblical author in Genesis 20 verse nine. And a sin against God in Genesis 20, verse 6, 39, verse 9, and Psalm 51, 6. This characterization of adultery as a great sin was not limited to Israel. It is found in texts from Ugarit and Egypt, as well as some Akkadian texts. That the prohibition of adultery was included in the Decalogue, the only direct and unmediated address of Yahweh to Israel. Indicates its grave nature. End quote.
[00:42:15] Okay, so last time, we talked about how in the law, there's no distinction between a woman who's engaged and a wife as far as how adultery is treated for her. But slaves were treated a little bit differently. If a slave was violated, even if she was betrothed to someone, her violation would be treated more like a property violation for her owner than adultery.
[00:42:44] Quote, according to Leviticus 19 20, the betrothed slave girl and her lover are not executed because she has not yet been freed, i. e., the regular penalty for adultery does not apply because she is still a slave, not because her betrothal is anything less than marriage. In the Bible, as in the Ancient Near East in general, a slave girl is not a legal person, and her sexual violation is treated as a transgression of her owner's property for which he would seek compensation, not prosecution, end quote.
[00:43:22] Alright, so what about that death penalty? How did that seem to be worked out?
[00:43:28] Quote, Determining the legal reality in ancient Israel for the prosecution and punishment of the adulteress and her partner is problematic. At the close of the law on adultery, the Deuteronomist commands his audience to sweep away evil from Israel in Deuteronomy 22 verse 22, which suggests that members of the community have the right and obligation to initiate proceedings against known adulterers in their midst. The collective divine punishment envisioned by the legislators of Deuteronomy and the so called Holiness Code of Leviticus 17-26 make it imperative that transgressors of the law be prosecuted irrespective of the wishes of the offended party. It's contended that the law codes decree of capital punishment was carried out in all events. There is no question of permitting the husband to mitigate or cancel the punishment, for adultery is not merely a wrong against the husband. It is a sin against God. An absolute wrong. But others maintain that in practice, however, the penalty for adultery in Israel was more flexible, and further that the initiation of proceedings against the offenders was the exclusive right of the husband. According to this view, israelite judicial practice would have resembled that of Mesopotamia. While Mesopotamian law codes allow for the death penalty, the injured husband retains the right of pardon.
[00:45:01] It goes on to say that while the Bible seems to be completely opposed to allowing the husband to mitigate the death penalty, it's hard to know whether or not that actually happened. And while the commentary doesn't mention this, for myself, I wonder if the Bible is so hard on this fact because of how big of a use it makes of human adultery with the figurative adultery of Israel as a whole in turning away from God, like using adultery as that metaphor. Because probably the most mentions of adultery in the Bible aren't about husbands and wives in actual practice at all, but really they're talking about idolatry.
[00:45:44] Now, of course, idolatry also was often sexual in nature because of orgies and prostitution at pagan temples, this was a very, very common practice, and why, in fact, sexual sins of that nature would be a big, big problem even for men, because if they're not just hiring a prostitute but rather that prostitute's serving at a pagan temple, well, then he's worshipping false gods and doing this other thing, right? We've kind of skipped over some of that context as we no longer associate sex with idolatry today.
[00:46:22] Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary continues with discussion about the outcomes of adultery with saying that there are passages that talk about divorce or stripping or mutilation in context of adultery, but again, most of those are about Israel as a whole. So it's hard to know how or if those applied to actual human relationships.
[00:46:47] And of course, when we have potential adultery in Genesis with the passing off of the sister wives, when it didn't happen, well, God still punished the offenders, but not just the pharaoh or the king, but the whole household. So it's really quite interesting.
[00:47:05] Then, of course, we have King David who committed adultery, and he and Bathsheba were not punished, at least not according to Torah. Do kings just get a pass? I don't think we're supposed to think so.
[00:47:19] Again, from the Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, quote, After pointing out David's guilt, Nathan announces that David will be punished the same way he has sinned. Violent death will strike his own family, and in subsequent years three of his four oldest sons would die by the sword. Confronted by the Word of God, David finally realizes the true nature of his actions. The enormity of his sin overwhelms him, and he feels utterly crushed. Even though his sin was to affect the lives of all who were close to him, David senses how deeply he has offended God. ' Against you only I have sinned, he says in Psalm 51 4. In his agony, David cries out for mercy, because murderers and adulterers deserved the death penalty. Nathan informs him that God has forgiven him and will spare his life. This is difficult to explain, but there are at least three reasons for God's mercy. First, David's repentance was heartfelt and very sincere. From Psalm 51, we learned how he poured out his soul before the Lord, and how his heart was broken. Second, God has made a covenant with David and had promised him an unending dynasty. True to his word, God kept David on the throne and did not withdraw his love for him. Third, David's act of adultery took place within the context of polygamy, and kings in particular had many wives. Even though God had warned kings against this, he did allow polygamy for much of the Old Testament era. In the years to follow, however, David reaps the consequences of his sin, starting with the death of Bathsheba's baby. For seven days, David prays and fasts for the sick child, with the hope that in his grace, God might also spare this little one. But the child dies, and David tastes the first bitter fruit of his sins. End quote.
[00:49:23] Okay, so, I realize it seems really harsh to us. But I do think the death of the child and his other sons is very much a result of his sin.
[00:49:34] As for the metaphor of adultery as applied to the relationship between Israel and God, Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary has this to say. Quote. Adultery is used as a metaphor for apostasy in several prophetic books. This symbolism is apt because both represent the betrayal of exclusive fidelity. Raw material for the creation of this symbolism is found in the Pentateuch. Israel is commanded to revere only Yahweh. And the formula used to express their covenant relationship is similar to the solemn words for marriage in ancient Near Eastern texts. Yahweh is jealous, or impassioned, where Israel is concerned. And idolatry, specifically calf worship, becomes Israel's great sin. Israel's worship of other gods is called whoring. It has also been suggested that the promiscuous behavior supposedly typical of the Canaanite fertility cult lies at the background of this motif.
[00:50:37] If I had time, we'd go into the imagery of adultery in the Wisdom books, as we can see that imagery of a woman of evil in Proverbs 6, 24. And, of course, Wisdom has been described as a wise lady, and while Proverbs doesn't go explicitly into a broad formal distinction between Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly, we can see that in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which do make a very big and distinct difference between those in a text called The Wiles of the Wicked Woman, which is designated as 4Q184.
[00:51:16] But, alright, at any rate, we've established that it's really all about the woman, right? But that doesn't mean that men are just free. But if we're talking letter of the law stuff, it is about women who are married. So if we want to be sticklers of the law, men could have sex with another woman if she wasn't married. Though in doing so, it seems he'd end up married to her if she was in a situation where the legalities would enforce it, and if her father wanted her to marry him.
[00:51:48] One question we can have is about women who weren't married. Or who weren't prostitutes. Let's say they were divorced. Or they were no longer under their father's protection for some women. Or they were widowed. Or they were a former slave. Well, it does seem like there's quite a bit of leeway from inside all of that. And for women, if they weren't married, and they weren't going to have a problem with their fathers or their legal guardian, well, we're not really sure what to do about them. We just don't have laws for all of these in between kinds of situations. Probably because, to be honest, the law was about protecting society and inheritance.
[00:52:29] And if we take seriously the idea that everything in the law is wrapped up in love for God and love for neighbor, then that means that the focus of the law is the general well being of a person as being paramount. My point there is that that also should be our focus when we talk about issues of sexuality. What brings about wholeness and goodness and community, or are we just trying to follow the letter of the law and not listen to the person that we're actually interacting with? Who's actually going to be affected by what we're saying?
[00:53:05] Okay, so I bet you thought that by now we'd have gotten into numbers five, didn't you? Yeah. Well, me too. All right, because we're at this point, and there's still much to do to transition into the New Testament with this topic, let's go ahead and end with talking about Numbers 5, and then next week we will continue the conversation and we'll get into the New Testament and the whole thing with men lusting after women in the New Testament.
[00:53:35] All right, so let's read Numbers 5, verses 11 through 31, Mostly because it's going to help us get into the mindset of how women were the primary epicenter of adultery.
[00:53:48] Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, If any man's wife go astray, and is unfaithful to him, and a man has intercourse with her, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she is undetected, Although she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her, and she has not been caught in the act, if a spirit of jealousy comes over him, and he is jealous of his wife, when she has defiled herself, or if a spirit of jealousy comes over him, and he is jealous of his wife, when she has not defiled herself, the man shall then bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring as an offering for her one tenth of an ephah of barley meal. He shall not pour oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of a memorial, a reminder of iniquity. Then the priest shall bring her near, and have her stand before the Lord. And the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel, and he shall take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. The priest shall then have the woman stand before the Lord. And let the hair of the woman's head go loose, And place the grain offering of a memorial in her hands, Which is the grain offering of jealousy. And in the hand of the priest it is to be the water of bitterness that brings a curse. The priest shall have her take an oath, And shall say to the woman, If no man has lain with you, And if you had not gone astray into uncleanliness, Being under the authority of your husband, Be immune to this water of bitterness that brings a curse. If you, however, have gone astray, Being under the authority of your husband, and if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, then the priest shall have the woman swear with the oath of the curse, and the priest shall say to the woman, The Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people, by the Lord's making your thigh waist away and your abdomen swell. And this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waist away.. And the woman shall say, Amen, Amen. The priest shall then write these curses on a scroll, and he shall wash them off into the water of bitterness. Then he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings a curse, so that the water which brings a curse will go into her and cause bitterness. The priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman's hand, and he shall wave the grain offering before the Lord, and bring it to the altar. And the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial offering, and offer it up in smoke on the altar. And afterward he shall make the woman drink the water. When he has made her drink the water, then it shall come about, if she has defiled herself, and has been unfaithful to her husband, that the water which brings a curse will go into her, and cause bitterness.. And her abdomen will swell, and her thigh will waste away, and the woman will become a curse among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, she will then be free and conceive children. This is the law of jealousy. When a wife, being under the authority of her husband, goes astray and defiles herself, or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man, and he is jealous of his wife, he shall then make the woman stand before the Lord, and the priest shall apply all this law to her. Moreover, the man will be free from guilt, but that woman shall bear her guilt. End quote.
[00:57:27] So that's a lot, but there's a few points we're just going to focus on. The fact that this water was supposed to curse her and to affect her infertility, it's pretty obvious, because of verse 28, which says she will then be free and conceive children if she has not done this thing.
[00:57:48] So that would be as opposed to the curse, which would prevent her from having children. So this isn't, as some suggest, about causing the woman to have an abortion. We don't know if the woman's pregnant. She's not necessarily pregnant. We don't even know if she's had sex. The husband wasn't sure, and so this whole ordeal is about assessing guilt for the woman when we have no way of assessing guilt. And really we can see it as a way of protecting women, because if she's not guilty, then the idea is the potion will not do anything to her, and so she's not able to be falsely accused.
[00:58:26] Now let me give you the best line from a commentary about this passage that I've seen. And this is again from the evangelical commentary on the Bible it says, quote, the emphasis is on wives who are the bearers of the covenant seed the Lord has promised and prized as a means for the continuity of the covenant end quote.
[00:58:51] That is an awesome line. Because though it seems backward to have the woman punished more in a marriage situation concerning unfaithfulness, while the husband gets to go free, so to speak, or at least potentially, and in comparison to what happens to a woman in a marriage, what this is saying is how valuable a woman really is.
[00:59:14] And that's true on so many levels. A woman has only a certain window in which she can have children. And she is indeed the bearer of the covenant in a way that a man is not. Without the woman in a binding legal marriage, the man gets no offspring who can carry on his line. And I also love that implied connection with Genesis 3.
[00:59:37] So, we can also say how this connects to what happens with the woman who is raped who needs to marry her rapist. If she's not going to marry someone, she is going to be destitute and her survival and the child's is not looking very good. She might be refused to go back into her father's house. She might be out on her own and facing only prostitution. So, at least the marriage that she's going to end up with is going to take care of her and the child that might be coming from such a union. And again, remember we need to think in the ancient terms of how people were cared for, right? And how they would be able to have a happy and productive life.
[01:00:24] Like for us, there is a lot of psychology that goes into all of that. Back in the day, it had to be a little bit more practical. We might not like that, But putting our standards from today onto the past is a little bit unfair because they weren't thinking that way.
[01:00:40] And as I said earlier, I admitted that the Bible is quite patriarchal in many ways. And that is a potential struggle for us as well. It also shouldn't be surprising, considering what we see in Genesis 3, with the potential for domination of the man. But again, it's actually not all bad, seeing the logic as it goes.
[01:01:03] Women, and men for that matter, who are condemned are those who go around causing damage to potential family lines and inheritance structures and that ability to promote the flourishing of families and even children. This isn't just about the husband, but it is very much about the children. We know quite well that children were not always seen as valuable, they weren't always seen as people, and so if there was a reason for them to be lower in inheritance, Or even unwanted because they were some sort of burden, or had some sort of moral problem associated with their birth, then they would often be discarded.
[01:01:46] Having children out of wedlock would be a very, very bad thing for those children. It's hard to look at some of this information from the past, square in the face, considering our modern sensibilities. David was a man of God in spite of doing something that was in the law worthy of death, and that's hard. And losing children as a consequence, that doesn't seem right.
[01:02:12] It's one of those really difficult pieces to fit into our modern categories of understanding how this fits into how we worship a loving God. I really do think, though, That as hard as this may be for us to grasp, effectively all of it is about caring for people in ways that are right and making sure that there's nothing going on that will cause a burden or a problem.
[01:02:36] And women were clearly valued. Maybe not always as equals to the point that we want to see, but they're not to be discounted and treated unfairly. The fact is, when you're living in the kind of a world that is rough and harsh, men had value, and women had another kind of value. And as much as we might suggest that's not the case today and we just want to equalize everything, humanity is made to work in tandem and together using our different strengths.
[01:03:05] All right, I really thought I was going to get into Matthew today, but here we are. Next week we will get into the New Testament, and hopefully, if we could manage, some of the early church. We'll talk about adultery and divorce and the word fornication, and look at, oh, a few ideas from the early church anyway. Not super exhaustive, but to show some specific ideas that they started to have.
[01:03:32] I hope as always that you guys enjoyed this episode and that it is beneficial to get your head a little bit more situated in the ancient world and to see that while, yes, there's a distinctive difference and it might seem unfair, in some ways it made a good bit of logical sense in their world where practical considerations were just a part of life.
[01:03:53] I'm not trying to hand wave away problems here, but it is essential that we see that distinction. We forget how good we have it today that we're even free to consider the types of modern ideas that we are able to. Not that I'm saying that modern ideas are necessarily good either, because I'd say there's a lot of ancient wisdom to take from the Bible, and yes, I do even mean from the Old Testament with the seemingly archaic laws.
[01:04:23] Please do let me know if you've got any questions. Any questions related to any of the topics I discuss here are more than welcome, but especially in this series, there's gotta be questions and thoughts out there, and I'd love to hear them. If you're interested in receiving my newsletter whenever I manage to send it out, you can sign up for that at my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com and if you're interested in helping me out financially, I really appreciate that as well. You can donate via PayPal or on Patreon or in some other ways. You can find links to those on my website and I really want to thank those of you who do support me. You guys absolutely rock, and I really want to thank you so much.
[01:05:12] At any rate, that is it for this week, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
