09-04-2008, 04:45 PM
Shlama all--
Just wanted to say excellent discussion to this point. It is no question a complicated issue and there is a very human tendency to try to homogenize and simplify history, or to ignore inconvenient facts. I just want to say that I think I take into account all the nuances of what was done when, why it was tolerated and why it is no longer correct. I think Abudar makes spectacular points about polygamy NEVER being the moral equivalent of monogamous marraige.
To people who, unlike us, support polygamy, I again say there is no example of it in Israel past the 6th c BCE and there is every indication that it was condemned after that time and certainly directly by Y'shua and Rav Shaul. It doesn't matter what Abraham and David could do back then. It doesn't apply to us now. We don't do animal sacrifices anymore either while the concept behind sacrifice and repentance and mediation stays eternal. Like it or not, this is how Scripture operates.
As Abudar also said correctly, both Ya'akov and David repented of their excesses in their own ways. Then we are told by Moshe clearly, "you are NOT to go back that way again, to multiply wives" (Deut 17) and not to learn the ways of the nations around you that clearly did this (Jeremiah 3, 10, and 31). David is rebuked for taking Uriah's wife even though by the "traditions" of kingship he could. Solomon is brought to the brink of destruction by having foreign wives sacrifice to Baal and Asherah.
People don't like the idea of progressive revelation and it takes a lot of hard work to extract which things don't change and which do. Nevertheless I maintain that per Deut 30, it is NOT hard or beyond us to do this. It may take a little effort but it is worth it.
But just as Abel brought the fat of an animal to the altar and Moshe later chose the blood, so too are a few things allowed for a time that were never intended to be permanent. YHWH has purposes and realities and judgments that are above our thoughts and can use even sinners and pagans to instruct us and the chastening rod of disaster to refine us. It is not for us to question this, only the learn from the good and bad examples that He has vouchsafed in His Word.
That's my story and I am sticking to it...
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth
Just wanted to say excellent discussion to this point. It is no question a complicated issue and there is a very human tendency to try to homogenize and simplify history, or to ignore inconvenient facts. I just want to say that I think I take into account all the nuances of what was done when, why it was tolerated and why it is no longer correct. I think Abudar makes spectacular points about polygamy NEVER being the moral equivalent of monogamous marraige.
To people who, unlike us, support polygamy, I again say there is no example of it in Israel past the 6th c BCE and there is every indication that it was condemned after that time and certainly directly by Y'shua and Rav Shaul. It doesn't matter what Abraham and David could do back then. It doesn't apply to us now. We don't do animal sacrifices anymore either while the concept behind sacrifice and repentance and mediation stays eternal. Like it or not, this is how Scripture operates.
As Abudar also said correctly, both Ya'akov and David repented of their excesses in their own ways. Then we are told by Moshe clearly, "you are NOT to go back that way again, to multiply wives" (Deut 17) and not to learn the ways of the nations around you that clearly did this (Jeremiah 3, 10, and 31). David is rebuked for taking Uriah's wife even though by the "traditions" of kingship he could. Solomon is brought to the brink of destruction by having foreign wives sacrifice to Baal and Asherah.
People don't like the idea of progressive revelation and it takes a lot of hard work to extract which things don't change and which do. Nevertheless I maintain that per Deut 30, it is NOT hard or beyond us to do this. It may take a little effort but it is worth it.
But just as Abel brought the fat of an animal to the altar and Moshe later chose the blood, so too are a few things allowed for a time that were never intended to be permanent. YHWH has purposes and realities and judgments that are above our thoughts and can use even sinners and pagans to instruct us and the chastening rod of disaster to refine us. It is not for us to question this, only the learn from the good and bad examples that He has vouchsafed in His Word.
That's my story and I am sticking to it...
Shlama w'burkate
Andrew Gabriel Roth