Reply 5: Messy “Biblical” Marriages

<<In response to the claim that the Bible teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman, this flowchart claims>> “THE BIBLE ALSO DEFINES MARRIAGE AS ONE-MAN MANY-WOMEN, ONE MAN MANY WIVES AND MANY CONCUBINES, A RAPIST & HIS VICTIM, AND CONQUERING SOLDIERS AND FEMALE PRISONERS OF WAR”

I recently asked a friend who is an Old Testament scholar about this criticism, and his response was insightful. He said, first, that the Bible describing such behaviors is not same thing as commending it. Further, whenever the Scriptures depict a deviation from God’s creation design of one man married to one woman, it does so with extreme sadness and a harsh realism that focuses on the faults of such arrangements. The Old Testament law does in places regulate and restrain many such departures from God’s original design in the Garden of Eden, but there is no indication that such practices were blessed by God. It is only marriage between one man and one woman that receives the blessing of God; indeed,

there is a consistent pattern of celebration of marriage of one man and one woman throughout the Scriptures.