In her April 30th article, Biblical Marriage is not What You Think, Rebecca
Todd Peters brings up some very interesting points about how marriage is
depicted in the Bible. Points that might
have some readers nodding their heads and wondering what the Christian answer
might be to such things, if indeed there are answers. Well there are answers, and in the interest
of informed conversation it's important for readers to have those
answers. (You can read Ms. Peters’s post here).
There are a number of very serious flaws
in Ms. Peters’s article that need to be explored.
The
first problem is the definition of “Biblical” that underlies Ms. Peters’s
thesis. She seems to define
something as “Biblical” simply by it being in the Bible. But this is not what Christians mean when
they say that something is, or is not, “Biblical” (when using it in the sense
of moral acceptability). A more accurate
definition would be to say that something is Biblical if it can be shown to
have God’s approval. Ms. Peters cites
several examples of essentially negative expressions of marriage throughout the
Old Testament but without regard to whether or not God has given these
expressions His approval.
She's correct when she says that Christians use the example of Adam and Eve
as proof that marriage is between one man and one woman. She then makes the following statement: “Unfortunately, these folks must have stopped reading their Bibles at the
end of Genesis, chapter two. Even a cursory reading of the Hebrew Bible/Old
Testament demonstrates that marriage was not understood or practiced in any way
related to the modern idealism we have superimposed on this text.” Her
next paragraph is a list of all the ways that marriage was understood by people
in the Old Testament. Really, none of
these assertions are false. But how these
folks understood and expressed marriage does not equate to approval by
God. Remember, God doesn't always smite
or verbally admonish everybody who acts in a way he doesn't care for, and just
because we don't see Him doing that, doesn't necessarily imply His approval.
The first thing to
understand is that Christian theology sees a fundamental shift in human nature
after the garden. While in the garden man
and woman enjoyed a perfect existence, with everything functioning just as God
had intended. But after Adam and Eve’s
disobedience sin entered into the equation of human nature. Humankind now did things the way they wanted, rather than the way God wanted. This is why Christians will point to Adam and
Eve as an example of Biblical marriage; because at this point in the Biblical
narrative things are still operating according to God’s principles. Each of Ms. Peters’s examples comes after sin has entered world. In the garden, God made one man and one woman
and joined them in marriage. He did not
make one man and two, three or more women, or vice versa. In the Garden there were no politics or any
property rights to be had. The sole
purpose of marriage was companionship and partnership.
Moving on from there we
come to Lamech in Genesis 4:19-24. This
is not mentioned in Ms. Peters’s article but we mention it here because it is
the first example of Polygamy in the Bible.
It is significant to our point because Lamech was not a nice man. He is a murderer without remorse; we can
hardly take him as a positive example.
Ms. Peters does use the example
of Abraham who, by the suggestion of Sarah, his wife, consorted with Sarah’s
maidservant in order to finally have a child.
Whether or not this was culturally acceptable is irrelevant to whether
or not this is an example of “Biblical” marriage. What is relevant is whether or not it has
God’s approval, which it clearly doesn’t.
While the union does produce a child it also produces discord among the
household (which is not an indication of blessing), God does not make Ishmael
the child of the promise but keeps that status for whom it was intended
(Isaac), and after this it is 13 years before Abraham hears from God again.
It is surprising that Ms.
Peters does not cite Jacob. Would not a
Biblical patriarch make the perfect example?
Not always. Even the Patriarchs
did things displeasing to God and the Bible is faithful to not gloss over their
mistakes. There is no indication that
entering into marriage with two women was something God had intended. An important contrast is that when Abraham’s
servant goes to seek a wife for Isaac he prays for God to lead him to the right
woman (singular, by the way), whereas Jacob does no such thing. And if we look at children as indications of
blessing in this narrative it certainly seems that God is blessing the first
wife – the first marriage.
Ms. Peters does reference the
marriage of a Levitical priest and the horrendous events in Judges 19. I would simply point out again that this is
Humankind in their fallen state, and add that this takes place during a period
when Israel was falling away from God.
Evidence of that is the priest himself who, rather than performing his
duties where he was supposed to, was going around hiring himself out as a
private priest to whatever family was willing to pay him. Hardly an example of “Biblical” marriage – or
anything else “Biblical” for that matter.
Solomon is another example
Ms. Peters uses. Certainly a much
stronger example than she has used previously.
After all, God blessed the kingdom under his rule and blessed Solomon
with great wisdom. However, he is really
just another example of a lack of divine approval for his (many) expressions of
marriage. His wives pulled him away from
his devotion to God, and the blessings of the kingdom only continued because of
God’s promise to Solomon’s father, rather than because of anything about
Solomon.
What is most interesting
is that, while her post is directed at Christians, Ms. Peters makes no mention
of New Testament passages, other than a brief summary of some words from Jesus
(which we will deal with shortly). After
all, it is the belief in these texts as authoritative that distinguish
Christians as Christians. Jesus, for example, emphasizes the importance
of marriage when he tightens the restrictions on divorce in Matthew 5. And whenever he talks about marriage the
words used always indicate one man and one women. He never talks about the proper relationship
between a man and his wives.
And let’s not forget
Paul. 1 Corinthians 7:2-4 teaches that
marriage is to be monogamous, heterosexual and with an equality between husband
and wife. So, even if we were to grant
that Ms. Peters’s Old Testament interpretations were correct (which they
aren’t), we see here that Christians are being given different set of marital
ethics, since Jesus calls Humankind to live how God really intended rather than
by how they had lived previously.
In 1 Timothy 3:2 Paul
teaches that leaders in the church, because they are an example to others, must
“be the husband of one wife…” Anything
that is considered an example is considered something to emulate. So if this is the standard for leaders it is
the standard for the rest of us.
Now, as to Ms. Peters’s
summary of Jesus’s words, she says, in part: “He encouraged people to leave their wives, children, parents and
families in order to follow him (Lk 18:28-30); encouraged followers to reject
their families (Lk 14:26); and challenged conventional notions of family (Mt
10:34-39). First of all, her reference to Matthew 10 has
nothing to do with challenging conventional marriage. It is basically saying the same thing as the
two passages she mentions from Luke. And
what Ms. Peters fails to understand is that Jesus is using Hyperbole. Hyperbole is an exaggeration (without deceit)
to drive home a point. What Jesus is
emphasizing here is that our central relationship needs to be with him; that
the strength of all our other relationships comes from that centrality. Leaving our families, and setting one member
against another both speaks to that centrality and provides a warning that
accepting Christ, in some families, will cause problems; but we are to hold
fast to our relationship with Christ. That is how these verses have been interpreted
since he said them. It is Ironic that
Ms. Peters offers a prayer against literalists, since throughout her article,
and certainly here, she has interpreted Scripture in exactly the literal way
she claims to detest. In reality, a
proper “literal” interpretation means that passages are interpreted in light of
both the genre and communication device being used (such as hyperbole), and in
context. Ms. Peters ignores all of
those, choosing to interpret with a form of literalism rarely seen outside
circles of extreme fundamentalism.
One would have expected
that this article was written by someone unreligious, using only anecdotal
knowledge of Scripture. But given Ms.
Peters’s extensive academic background and impressive resume in the area of
Biblical studies, it is unfathomable how she could use such clearly flawed
exegesis in her arguments. Even chalking
it up to differences of conservatism and liberalism in our respective
approaches cannot account for this. One
has to wonder why, if she is so disgusted by Jesus teachings, that she would
chose to label herself as a Christian
social ethicist.
Ms. Peters is correct
when she says that the truth of the Bible is its “message of justice and love as moral norms for humankind…” Let us just be thankful that it is God’s Justice, love, and moral norms,
and not Ms. Peters’s.
