Religious Controversies: Man/Woman Equality

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

You know I like you man. We agree on quite a bit… [/quote]

[smiling] I knew sooner or later you and I might disagree on something. I’m not sure that even this is where we do. Much of what you typed is true to a degree. But context is still important. And the facts are the facts. Solomon had sex with many women. Thousands most likely. Not one single place is he condemned for the sex. Not even one.

David had sex with multiple women. Not one single place is he condemned for the sex. Not even one.

The list goes on. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Gideon, Sampson and more. It was never about the sex. Never. It was almost always about idolatry or in the case of David’s adultery, the stealing of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah.

You or anyone else cannot cite one single condemnation in the entire Bible of these aforementioned men in regards to their sex lives alone. Those are the cold hard facts no matter what church doctrine has taught over the centuries. The Bible just like the Constitution should be understood in the context of original intent. Original intent, not progressivism, is the fountain to be drunk from no matter how well intended the “progress” is meant to be.

Hang on, I will continue. Just don’t want to mess with the “quote /quote” deal.

[/quote]

Fornication is condemned over and over and over in the bible. If 2 people aren’t in a committed marriage, sex is absolutely condemned. Period. one man cannot be committed to that many wives.

“Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” 1 Corinthians 7:1-2

sounds like 1 man 1 woman.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

…the idea that the Bible endorses a man displaying his wife’s nakedness for his friends…[/quote]

Read S of S with a Hebrew commentary/dictionary. The woman, Solomon’s wife (she may still be his mistress/bride. It’s not clear that he has officially married her yet) is naked. Stark naked except for her shoes. His description of her moves from her feet to her head. He is describing her in the nude so it is congruent that she IS nude as he looks at her.

“The joints of her thighs” (KJV) is exactly what is says it is (not the back of her knees).

“Navel” is also her vulva according to the Interpreter’s Bible (an instance of English translators not wanting to print the right word, after all a vulva is dirty).

Her two breast are described very erotically when understood in the Hebrew. Vs. 3, 7, 8 (I think he’s a boob man because he goes back again to her boobs in vs 7 - 8 after already mentioning them on his way up).

In 6:13 we see she is dancing (no chapter divisions in the original, remember) so that inference is she is dancing in the nude or the very least with a sheer, see-through garment on that allows observation of all her “details”.

He, Solomon says (in a teasing way, I suppose),“Why are you looking at the Shulammite while she dances?” indicating onlookers. He knows they are looking for the same reason he is - she’s drop dead gorgeous and sexy and…naked.

His friends were saying, “Come back, come back, O Shulammite; come back, come back, that we may gaze on you!” In other words, Encore! Encore!

Such nude dances were commonplace in that culture, NOT SINFUL. Read the Intepreter’s Bible and the Pulpit Commentary. There is more to what I just described but I don’t want to type and type and type.[/quote]

“But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

“For lust is a shameful sin, a crime that should be punished. It is a devastating fire that destroys to hell. It would wipe out everything I own.”

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There is also shit about rape, beating your servant, sacrificing your son etc…

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OK ok - lol - we all knew we were going to end up discussing polygamy at some point - how about we move the hijack out of the equality thread - :slight_smile:

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[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
OK ok - lol - we all knew we were going to end up discussing polygamy at some point - how about we move the hijack out of the equality thread - :slight_smile: [/quote]

It is relevant to equality.

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[quote]drewh wrote:
There is also shit about rape, beating your servant, sacrificing your son etc…[/quote]

wow - a passing knowledge of the content of the Bible . . . now you need to understand two things called context and intent.

The Bible is very open and plain about the failings of man - including men who were supposed to be spiritual leaders. Might be a shock to you, but for the rest of us it is all part and parcel of an inspired text.

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[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
OK ok - lol - we all knew we were going to end up discussing polygamy at some point - how about we move the hijack out of the equality thread - :slight_smile: [/quote]

It is relevant to equality.[/quote]

granted - but it will overwhelm the main discussion and as a couple of posters have demonstrated, we have some other serious misconceptions to address - just trying to help the general train of the discussion - that’s all. :slight_smile:

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

…All of Paul’s teaching on marriage is entirely monogamous. He tells Timothy that church officers are to be the “husband of one wife”. [/quote]

I love this one. One of my favorites. You make my point for me.

“He tells” WHO "to be the “husband of one wife”? WHO?

Yeah, let’s read it one more time…church leaders (bishops and elders) are to be the husbands of one wife. The crystal clear implication is other church members didn’t necessarily have to be the husband of one wife! Otherwise, it would have been completely effortless for Paul to have written, Let ALL believers be the husband of one wife, wouldn’t it? Why would Paul have gone out of his way to create an ambiguity when a simple “all” would have tidied things up rather nicely?

So why the monogamous designation on bishops and elders? Let’s look in the context of the times.

Mid 1st century: widespread severe persecution of Christians through the efforts of Nero and the Romans, the Greeks, and the Jews. Christians hiding. Christians dying. Christians being made destitute for their faith. Bishops and elders having to DAILY and physically care for the poor and the persecuted, the wounded and the weary not to mention their duties to spread the gospel.

[center]What pastor or deacon has time for extra wives under those conditions?[/center]

None.

The instruction for bishops and elders to have one wife was for practical reasons. Not moral ones. If it were for moral reasons then ALL believers would’ve so been instructed.

[/quote]

“let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” in the kjv

It says every man and every woman.

Besides, his letters are to the church as a whole.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
DD, I’ll get to your remarks. Hang in there.[/quote]

I was starting to feel neglected.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

God tolerated polygamy for times in history with less than stellar results to say the very least[/quote]

God doesn’t just tolerate sin and not condemn it. If it’s wrong He says so and there are consequences. Visible, direct and indirect consequences.

The idea that God just “tolerated” polygamy and never ever once instructed Moses, Joshua, the authors of Judges, Ruth, I and II Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job; David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, the author of Hebrews, James, Peter, John and Jude…to condemn polygamy is just downright illogical.

The toleration explanation is fragile and dismisses God as incapable (lazy?) of defining and condemning ALL the sin He abhors.[/quote]
Look man. It’s not difficult to understand why somebody would go to great lengths in attempting to have their cake and eat it too, but you are so grievously wrong it defies description.

Jesus in the same passage I mentioned above told the pharisees that God did in fact once permit divorce, but that it was not so from the beginning and then quotes God himself as being the one saying in the 2nd chapter of Genesis that “a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his WIFE and the TWO shall be one flesh and they are no longer TWO but ONE” Neither Adam nor Eve had father or mother. This was a declaration made once again by God himself of His definition of marriage from then on. The 3, 4 or 700 cannot become one flesh and be no longer 3,4 or 700, but one. God hates divorce. He says so (Malachi 2:16) Yet he permitted it for a time under the levitical law. It is the same with polygamy.

To say that there were no consequences to living under the compromised social economy of polygamy is to ignore the tumultuous, indeed sometimes disastrous family histories of everybody that engaged in it. In fact a convincing case could be made that that is one of the reasons why God permitted it.

Sex is a spiritual act first, an emotional act next and a physical act last. It is ultimate loving intimacy which is precisely why Paul, after a rather lengthy discussion of marriage, says that he is in fact speaking of Christ, the Bridegroom and His church, the bride. It is not hedonistic recreation as it is perversely portrayed as being today even by you who are attempting to do so in the name of Jesus!!!.

You have a rather earth shatteringly rude awakening coming if you persist in refusing to acknowledge the will of the God whose name you are grossly dishonoring. You will likely go on for the time being anyway, giving rationalizations for whoredom. I can’t help that and I’ll still like you, but I’ll say again a different way. There have been no new understandings of anything significant in the Christian Bible for many many centuries.

Anybody who comes along proclaiming that millions of people for a couple thousand years had it wrong and here I am to straighten out your scriptural understanding of the most foundational of all human relationships should be immediately dismissed out of hand. Unless we are to believe that God would leave us for all of post resurrection history until now without a proper understanding of his most precious of institutions.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

sex outside of marriage is clearly wrong in the bible. You have to accept that at least the concubines are sinful relationships.[/quote]

No, rather than accepting “that at least the concubines are sinful relationships,” you would do better to accept what the Bible actually says is sin. The Bible doesn’t mess around when it comes to labeling sin. It has always been clear about sin. If having a concubine were sin then the Bible would’ve said so. It doesn’t. It’s that simple and I challenge you to cite Scripture that does say it is sin.

[/quote]
I’ve been quoting the bible. Respond to those first.

[quote]

So you argument is that even though he couldn’t have even known all the women, he could have had committed relationships with them? weak.

Lets break it down. 1000 women. If he devoted all his time to them (he didn’t what with running a nation) they’d each get 1 day about every 3 years.

Just do the math.

[quote]

Quit guessing that it’s sinful and cite chapter and verse to back it up. Otherwise you’re just winging it. Just making it up. Just relying on “significant Christian movements” to tell you what to think.[/quote]

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[quote]pushharder wrote:
<<< The crystal clear implication is other church members didn’t necessarily have to be the husband of one wife! >>>[/quote]
You can’t even be serious with this one chief. There will be self proclaimed God hating Bible sneering pagans who read this and laugh.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

The law was updated through Christ.[/quote]

Yes, it’s called the Law of Liberty. It can be a complex subject but I don’t mind going into it. Maybe another thread?[quote]

And yes god does sometimes tolerate things that aren’t right. For instance, Israel was never supposed to have a king. God did tolerate it though to the point he eventually gave them one.[quote]

Here’s the distinction, DD. Having a king was not necessarily inherently immoral or sinful. So God did tolerate a king but He wasn’t tolerating sin and immorality in allowing the Israelites to have one.[quote]

Besides, not getting struck down with lightning doesn’t mean there are consequences.[/quote]

Again, God never messed around by mumblin’ 'bout what sin was and wasn’t. No need to guess. It’s all in His Word.
[/quote]

I agree it is very clear.

“You shall not commit adultery”

“But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust in his eye has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”