Is Biblical Marriage What You Think?

In her April 30^th 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.