{"id":501,"date":"2019-07-10T18:28:26","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T10:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesus4lesbians.com\/?p=501"},"modified":"2020-01-06T13:44:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T05:44:01","slug":"does-the-bible-require-that-marriage-must-be-limited-to-one-man-and-one-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/?p=501","title":{"rendered":"Does the Bible require that marriage be limited to one man and one woman?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h6>Here are the four case studies that I prepared as a <strong>research fellow with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wijngaardsinstitute.com\/gender-theologies-lgbt-catholics-questions\/\">Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 These explorations could also serve as a foundation for a workshop in a parish setting. They could also be used with gifted high school or college students.<\/h6>\n<h6>The material is divided into four case studies.\u00a0 One can use any of the case studies independently.\u00a0 One can change the order in which the case studies are used.\u00a0 Here are the case studies:<\/h6>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#Sec1\"><strong>3.2.1\u00a0 Does the Bible require that marriage be limited to one man and one woman?<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#Sec2\"><strong>3.2.2 A Test Case: Matthew Vines, a fervent believer wrestling with loneliness<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#Sec3\"><strong>3.2.3 Does the Bible support the contention that marriage rules never change?<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#Sec4\"><strong>3.2.4. A Test Case: The Strange Case of Levirate Marriages<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a name=\"Sec1\"><\/a>Please share any feedback at the end of this page.\u00a0 Your experiences are significant to me and enable me to improve this workshop.\u00a0 I warmly thank you.\u00a0 Aaron Milavec (author)<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>3.2.1\u00a0 Does the Bible require that marriage be limited to one man and one woman?<\/h2>\n<p>When public discourse first considered the possibility of giving legal protection to same-sex unions, most Christian communities were alarmed at this because they judged that the traditional ideal of marriage was under attack.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andreas_J._K%C3%B6stenberger\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dr. Andreas J. Kostenberger<\/a>, prolific author and research theologian, <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" alignleft\" src=\"data:image\/jpeg;base64,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\" width=\"207\" height=\"207\" \/>took offense at the very fact that civil discourse was entertaining to give further recognition and protection to same-sex unions at a time when traditional marital unions were in decline.\u00a0 Here are the words of Dr. Kostenberger explaining himself:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>#1\u00a0 Marriage and the family are institutions under siege today, and only a return to the biblical foundation of these God-given institutions will reverse the decline of marriage and the family in our culture today.<\/p>\n<p>#2\u00a0 In the book of Genesis, we read that God in the beginning created first a man (Adam) to exercise dominion over his creation and subsequently a woman (Eve) as the man&#8217;s &#8220;suitable helper&#8221; (Gen 2:18, 20). Then, the inspired writer remarks, &#8220;Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh&#8221; (Genesis 2:24 ESV). This verse sets forth the biblical pattern as it was instituted by God at the beginning: one man is united to one woman in matrimony, and the two form one new natural family.<\/p>\n<p>#3\u00a0 The Bible makes clear that, at the root, marriage and the family are not human conventions based merely on a temporary consensus and time-honored tradition. Instead, Scripture teaches that family was God&#8217;s idea and that marriage is a divine, not merely human, institution. The implication of this truth is significant indeed, for this means that humans are not free to renegotiate or redefine marriage and the family in any way they choose but that they are called to preserve and respect what has been divinely instituted ((<a href=\"https:\/\/www.frc.org\/brochure\/the-bibles-teaching-on-marriage-and-family)\">https:\/\/www.frc.org\/brochure\/the-Bibles-teaching-on-marriage-and-family<\/a>)).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The passion and the insights that are voiced by Dr. Andreas J. Kostenberger have, at first glance, a certain seductive simplicity and appeal:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gen 2, as Dr. Kostenberger interprets it, gives us God\u2019s original template for marriage that is binding at all times and in all places.<\/li>\n<li>Kostenberger firmly believes that the appeal of\u00a0same-sex marriages will disappear as soon as civil society comes to recognize that marriage is a divine institution and that \u201chumans are not free to renegotiate or redefine marriage.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Kostenberger is tacitly declaring that civil institutions are not free to ignore God\u2019s universal template for marriage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Pealing Back the Hidden Layers in Gen 2<\/h2>\n<p>The moment that one begins to examine the details of Gen 2, however, we immediately notice that God is not preoccupied with instituting \u201cmarriage.\u201d Rather, the Lord God is preoccupied with creating an extraordinary garden. Then, by way of getting a helper for this enterprise, the Lord God fashions out of the clay \u201c<em>adam<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/forward.com\/scribe\/356899\/was-adam-a-hermaphrodite\/\">Nowhere does it say that <em>adam<\/em> is a male or that \u201cAdam\u201d is his proper name<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The capitalization of \u201cAdam\u201d in English translations is thus misleading.<\/li>\n<li>Moreover, if <em>adam<\/em> was a proper name then we might have expected that this name would be used by others in the book of Genesis. This does not happen.<\/li>\n<li>Furthermore, a native speaker would immediately recognize that<u> the Hebrew term <\/u>\u05d4\u05b8\u05bd\u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u0597\u05dd (transliterated: <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/haadam_120.htm\">h\u0101-\u2019\u0101\u1e0f\u0101m) is derived from \u05d4\u05b8\u05a3\u05d0\u05b2\u05d3\u05b8\u05de\u05b8\u0594\u05d4 (transliterated: <u>h\u0101-\u2019\u0103<\/u><u>\u1e0f<\/u><u>\u0101<\/u><u>m\u0101h<\/u><\/a>). <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/2-7.htm\">Examining the Hebrew text of Gen 2:7 makes this clear<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This being the case, I would suggest that the Hebrew term might better be translated into English as \u201cearthling\u201d which nicely suggests \u201corigins from the earth,\u201d therefore certainly not an extraterrestrial being or an angel (as some have wrongly claimed).\u00a0 Accordingly, in what follows, I will translate <a href=\"https:\/\/forward.com\/scribe\/356899\/was-adam-a-hermaphrodite\/\">\u05d4\u05b8\u05bd\u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u05dd\u0599<\/a> as &#8220;<em>adam<\/em>&#8221; (meaning &#8220;earthling&#8221;).\u00a0 The lower-case &#8220;a&#8221; serves as a reminder that this is not a proper name but a descriptive term.<\/p>\n<h2>Contrasting Gen 2-3 with Gen 1<\/h2>\n<p>Gen 1 and Gen 2-3 have an entirely different mood and internal logic.\u00a0 According to Gen 1, <em>adam<\/em> is formed late (on the sixth day, after the animals and birds have already been made) and is immediately identified as having the &#8220;image and likeness&#8221; of his\/her Maker.\u00a0 Adam is given only one mandate: &#8220;Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/1-28.htm\">Gen 1:28<\/a>).\u00a0 God blesses the birds and the fish by calling them to &#8220;be fruitful and multiply&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/1-22.htm\">Gen 1:22<\/a>) as well.\u00a0 Birds have a sort of dominion over the air.\u00a0 Fish have dominion over the sea.\u00a0 But <em>adam<\/em> and his offspring have dominion over the fish and the birds and the land animals.\u00a0 Keep in mind that this dominion does not imply that <em>adam<\/em> can kill them or eat them because God clearly limits <em>adam<\/em>&#8216;s food intake to \u201cseed-bearing plants and fruit-bearing trees\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/1-29.htm\">Gen 1:29<\/a>).\u00a0 In the Garden of Eden, not only <em>adam<\/em> but all animals as well are vegetarian.<\/p>\n<p>According to Gen 2-3, <em>adam<\/em> is formed early when there are, as yet, no plants, animals, or birds.\u00a0 Gen 2:5 explains that there were are no plants because (a) Yahweh has not yet caused it to rain and (b) <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/2-5.htm\"><em>adam<\/em> was not there to cultivate the ground<\/a>.\u00a0 Then, (a) a watery mist covers the earth (Gen 2:6) and (b) <em>adam<\/em> is formed from the earth and endowed with breath (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/2-7.htm\">Gen 2:7<\/a>).\u00a0 Only when these conditions are met does &#8220;Yahweh cause to grow from the earth very tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/3-9.htm\">Gen 3:9<\/a>).\u00a0 The Garden of Eden at this point is much more like a fruit orchid or a desert oasis than a vegetable garden.<\/p>\n<p>While <em>adam<\/em> (the earthling) is being <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/2-8.htm\">trained as a cultivator by the Lord God<\/a>, <em>adam<\/em> is overcome with loneliness. \u00a0Gen 1 presents God as declaring, at the close of each of the first five days, \u201cAnd God saw that it was good.\u201d\u00a0 At the close of the sixth day, one finds a summation: \u201cGod saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good\u201d (1:31).\u00a0 In Gen 2:18, however, for the first time, God finds a flaw in his creation: \u201cIt is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper (\u05e2\u05b5\u0596\u05d6\u05b6\u05e8 <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/ezer_5828.htm\">\u2018\u00ea-zer<\/a>) as his partner (\u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b6\u05d2\u05b0\u05d3\u05bc\u05bd\u05d5\u05b9\u05c3 <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/kenegdo_5048.htm\">k\u0259-ne\u1e21-d\u014dw<\/a>).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The term \u2018ezer, \u201chelp(er),\u201d can accommodate a range of nuances. It is used in the OT most often [13x] in reference to God as a human being\u2019s \u201chelp\u201d and once in reference to false gods in whom people wrongly trust. It can also be used [2x] of people helping others. Usually the implication is that the \u201chelp\u201d brings something that the one needing help lacks. . . .\u00a0 What may be confidently concluded based on the wording of Genesis 2:18 and 2:20 is that the woman [\u201chelper\u201d 7x] was not created as an inferior but as an equally human person sharing the man\u2019s nature while being in some respects different from him ((Robert M. Bowman, Jr., \u201cGenesis and the Definition of Marriage,\u201d paper presented at the Evangelical Theological Society annual convention, 17 Nov 2015)).<\/p>\n<p>The logic here is that the term <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/ezer_5828.htm\">\u2018\u00ea-zer<\/a> is most frequently used to specify \u201cdivine help\u201d and, accordingly, the term cannot be read as designating a helper who holds a subordinate position.\u00a0 Since the <em>\u2018ezr\u00e2 (feminine form of<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/ezer_5828.htm\">\u2018\u00ea-zer<\/a>) is intended to solve the issue of \u201cbeing alone,\u201d the meaning intended here must also imply companionship.\u00a0 What is astonishing here is that God tacitly acknowledges that his companionship and his powerful aid are judged as insufficient; <em>adam<\/em> needs the companionship and powerful aid of someone like himself (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/kenegdo_5048.htm\">k\u0259-ne\u1e21-d\u014dw<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Seemingly God is entirely satisfied with \u201cbeing alone\u201d; hence, Gen 1-3 never insinuates that God embarks upon the creation of humans by way of finding companionship for himself.\u00a0 When it comes to <em>adam<\/em>; consequently, God appears to display some confusion as to how to find a suitable companion for <em>adam<\/em>.\u00a0 Thus God begins to create \u201cfrom the earth\u201d various birds and animals (2:19) in much the same way that he originally created <em>adam<\/em> (2:7). \u00a0After each such creation, God presumably brings his latest brainchild to <em>adam<\/em> to see \u201cwhat he would name it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clearly God is here using a trial and error method.\u00a0 Adam names each falcon, lizard, wolf, etc. following upon his own experiences with each of these new creatures.\u00a0 It would make no sense for the Lord God to name them.\u00a0 From God\u2019s perspective, he is trying to find an <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/ezer_5828.htm\">\u2018\u00ea-zer<\/a> for <em>adam<\/em> (and not for himself). \u00a0This endeavor must go on for months and years. Without actually saying it, the inspired author is suggesting that God is clearly <em>adam<\/em>\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/ezer_5828.htm\">\u2018\u00ea-zer<\/a> in this prolonged enterprise.<\/p>\n<h2>The God who humbles himself to serve <em>adam<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>The Lord God is here functioning at the service of his creation. This is important to note.\u00a0 In the Ancient Middle East, it was normal to imagine that the \u201cgods\u201d functioned like powerful tyrants.\u00a0 So, too, it was normal to find \u201cgods\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desy.de\/gna\/interpedia\/greek_myth\/creationMan.html\">bent upon thwarting the needs of humans<\/a>. Gen 2, in contrast, presents the Lord God of Israel (\u201cYahweh\u201d) as engaging in an open-ended exploration designed to benefit <em>adam<\/em>.\u00a0 Thus, while <em>adam<\/em> was originally created by the Lord God to serve him by cultivating his majestic garden, God\u2019s discovery of a flaw (\u201cIt is not good. . . .\u201d) leads to a chain of events wherein the Lord God is enthusiastically harnessing his creative powers in the service of <em>adam<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>From this we can quickly see that the Baltimore Catechism begins on the wrong foot when it declares that God created us \u201cto know him, to love him, and to serve him.\u201d \u00a0Thus, Gen 2 might be able to assist us in correcting an unbalanced theology of God at the same time that it can liberate us from thinking, along with Dr. Kostenberger, that God\u2019s purpose in Gen 2 is to define marriage for all times and for all places.<\/p>\n<p>Reading between the lines of Genesis, one can imagine that only after several thousand failures does God finally come to the realization that another novel animal or bird is not likely to be the companion-helper needed by <em>adam<\/em>.\u00a0 So, then God turns to his backup \u201cPlan B.\u201d\u00a0 Now God puts <em>adam<\/em> into a deep sleep and pulls &#8220;from his side&#8221; the female half of him while leaving behind the male. \u00a0Two observations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/forward.com\/scribe\/356899\/was-adam-a-hermaphrodite\/\">There is no question here of just taking \u201ca rib.\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n<li>This deep sleep operation demonstrates clearly that <em>adam<\/em>, from the very beginning, was an amalgamation of both male and female.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most English translations completely miss the boat when it comes to the bi-sexual nature of adam and the bi-sexual nature of God.\u00a0 If one looks at <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/1-27.htm\">Gen 1:27<\/a>, one finds this:<\/p>\n<p>So God created humankind ( \u05d4\u05b8\u05bd\u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u05dd\u0599 <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/haadam_120.htm\">h\u0101-\u2019\u0101\u1e0f\u0101m<\/a>) in his image, in the image of God he created <strong>them<\/strong>; male and female he created <strong>them<\/strong> [NRSV].<\/p>\n<p>So God created man ( \u05d4\u05b8\u05bd\u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u05dd\u0599 <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/haadam_120.htm\">h\u0101-\u2019\u0101\u1e0f\u0101m<\/a>) in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he <strong>them<\/strong> [KJV].<\/p>\n<p>The English of both of these translations obscures the original Hebrew.\u00a0 In the Hebrew text, God is creating a <strong>single<\/strong> entity, the \u201cearthling\u201d ( \u05d4\u05b8\u05bd\u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u05dd\u0599 <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/hebrew\/haadam_120.htm\">h\u0101-\u2019\u0101\u1e0f\u0101m<\/a>) found in Gen 2.\u00a0 Both of these English translations fail to take notice of this.\u00a0 They deliberately try to amend the text by having God create a <strong>plurality<\/strong> (Adam and Eve or \u201chumankind\u201d).\u00a0 The unwarranted insertion of \u201cthem\u201d into the text further enforces the notion that God created \u201cmale and female\u201d as two separate beings. The Hebrew text, meanwhile, clearly uses the <strong>singular<\/strong> throughout: \u201cGod\u00a0shaped <em>adam<\/em> in (his) image; in the image of God he created, male and female, he created [him].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adam (\u201cearth creature,\u201d from the Hebrew <em>adam<\/em><em>ah<\/em>) is not really a proper name. Nor is a proper name ever conferred upon the creature. This is not a new insight. Almost forty years ago, in \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.academia.edu\/4989361\/Jewish_Catholic_Protestant_Views_of_The_Image_of_God_in_Man--Is_Woman_Included_Harvard_Theological_Review_72_3-4_pp._175-206\">The Image of God in Man \u2013 Is Woman Included?<\/a>\u201d, the distinguished historian of ideas Maryanne Cline Horowitz noted: <strong>the dual-gendered nature of Adam \u201cis completely distorted by Bible translations<\/strong> which consistently capitalize the term as a proper name <em>Adam<\/em>.\u201d(( https:\/\/forward.com\/scribe\/356899\/was-adam-a-hermaphrodite\/))<\/p>\n<p>Once we recognize that <em>adam<\/em> is a single entity and that the image of God is a single entity, we do away with the problem of how Adam could be shaped in the image of God and then Eve could be shaped in the image of God without making them identical.\u00a0 What the Hebrew text clearly has in mind is that God\u2019s image is an amalgamation of male-female; accordingly, <em>adam<\/em>\u2019s image is an amalgamation of male-female.\u00a0 This is why I emphasized earlier that <em>adam<\/em> in the Hebrew text is not identified as \u201cmale.\u201d Nor, as it turns out, is God exclusively \u201cmale.\u201d\u00a0 Both have an \u201cimage\u201d which is both female and male.<\/p>\n<p>Notice also that Gen 1:27 does not find any conflict in speaking of the \u201cimage\u201d of God here even though God is sometimes thought of as entirely ethereal and consequently has no \u201cimage\u201d whatsoever.\u00a0 The rabbis discussed this question thoroughly.\u00a0 They even told the story that after God created <em>adam<\/em>, the angels could not tell the difference between <em>adam<\/em> and the Lord-God because they were, in fact, identical twins.\u00a0 When God noticed their confusion, he put <em>adam<\/em> into a deep sleep. Then the angels immediately knew the difference for they were well aware that God does not sleep.<\/p>\n<h2>Gender superiority in the order of creation<\/h2>\n<p>Notice also that this reading of Gen 1:27 also does away with the gender superiority of the male that results when Gen 2 is read as indicating that Adam was created first and Eve was created much later.\u00a0 If that were the case then Gen 1:27 would be inconsistent because Gen 2 makes plain that only <em>adam<\/em> (a singular entity) was created on the sixth day and this <em>adam<\/em> (a singular entity) was shaped in the image (singular) of God.\u00a0 Gen 1:27 also side-steps the modern notion that \u201cif God is male then being male is divine.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 God\u2019s image is clearly an amalgamation of male-female.\u00a0 Hence, our English translations of Gen 1:27 needs to safeguard the notion that God\u2019s image is male-female and that <em>adam<\/em>\u2019s image is male-female as a direct result.<\/p>\n<p>The narrative etiology of Genesis accounts for why the attraction between the male and female is supremely superior to the parent-child bond.\u00a0 This superiority (according to Gen 1-2) is due to the fact that the male-female bond preexists in God himself and, when it comes to creation, this same male-female bond was imprinted into <em>adam<\/em>.\u00a0 Many sages and theologians have wanted to equate the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image_of_God\">\u201cimage of God\u201d<\/a> that resides in humans to \u201cour intelligence,\u201d \u201cour free wills,\u201d or \u201cour immortal souls.\u201d\u00a0 There may be some truth is these speculations, but this is not the message of Genesis.\u00a0 <strong>According to Genesis, the \u201cimage and likeness\u201d that God shares with <em>adam<\/em> is the singular amalgamation of the male-female<\/strong>.\u00a0 When the narrator faces his hearers, he shares the focal point of his understanding: \u201cTherefore [having heard my narrative, you can now clearly understand why it is that] a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh\u201d (2:24).\u00a0 In traditional marriages, it is the wife who leaves her parents.\u00a0 Hence, we are being asked here to think of cases where specifically \u201ca man\u201d leaves his parents in order to bind himself to \u201chis wife.\u201d\u00a0 We will find such a case shortly.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Kostenberger falls into the trap of reading gender superiority into Gen 2.\u00a0 He writes: \u201cScripture is clear that wives are to submit to their husbands and to serve as their &#8220;suitable helpers,&#8221; while husbands are to bear the ultimate responsibility for the marriage before God (Ephesians 5:22-24; Colossians 3:18; see also Genesis 2:18, 20)\u201d ((<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.frc.org\/%0bbrochure\/the-Bibles-teaching-on-marriage-and-family\">https:\/\/www.frc.org\/<br \/>\nbrochure\/the-Bibles-teaching-on-marriage-and-family<\/a><\/u>)).\u00a0 Kostenberger illustrates how seemingly insignificant translation errors lend support to ideas of God and ideas of women that run directly against what we have found in the Hebrew text of Gen 1-2.<\/p>\n<h2>The meaning of \u201cbone of my bones\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>Once God puts <em>adam<\/em> into a deep sleep and \u201csurgically\u201d separates the female from the male and their bodies have time to heal, God brings the newly shaped female and presents her to the \u201csurgically\u201d altered <em>adam<\/em>.\u00a0 We have to presume that Adam has to take time to examine her and to get to know her&#8211;just as he did for all the other creatures that God presented to him earlier.\u00a0 Adam then declares God\u2019s success: &#8220;This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman (\u05d0\u05b4\u05e9\u05b8\u05bc\u05c1\u0594\u05d4), for \u201cout of <em>adam<\/em>\u201d (as opposed to &#8220;out of the earth&#8221;) this one was taken&#8221; (2:23).\u00a0 The precise meaning of \u201cbone of my bones\u201d can be captured from its usage (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/genesis\/29-14.htm\">Genesis 29:14<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/genesis\/37-27.htm\">Genesis 37:27<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/judges\/9-2.htm\">Jdg 9:2<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/2_samuel\/5-1.htm\">2 Samuel 5:1<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/context\/2_samuel\/19-12.htm\">2 Samuel 19:12-13<\/a>; <a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/1_chronicles\/11-1.htm\">1 Chronicles 11:1<\/a>).\u00a0 However, I risk suggesting that, in Gen 2:23, it must include this meaning, \u201cYahoo!\u00a0 You\u2019ve done it.\u00a0Here at last is a companion like myself&#8211;someone capable of understanding me and embracing my loneliness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Later, in Gen 27, \u201cbone of my bones and flesh of my flesh\u201d takes on a special meaning.\u00a0 Let me explain.\u00a0 Abraham and Sarah leave their homeland and travel to Ur, as God instructed them.\u00a0 Isaac marries Rebekah, but when it comes time for Isaac to marry, Rebekah says to her husband, &#8220;I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0, what good will my life be to me?&#8221; (27:46)\u00a0 So Isaac sends his son, Jacob, to the land where Rebekah\u2019s brother\u00a0 Laban lives with the instruction that he is to find his future wife among the daughters of Laban.\u00a0 After a long and dangerous journey, as Jacob gets close to his destination, he stops at a well and inquires about his uncle Laban.\u00a0 Just then Rachel and her flock arrive:<\/p>\n<p>Now when Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his mother&#8217;s brother Laban, and the sheep of his mother&#8217;s brother Laban, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the well&#8217;s mouth, and watered the flock of his mother&#8217;s brother Laban. Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and wept aloud (29:10-11).<\/p>\n<p>If Jacob had not been so overwhelmed with joy and tears at meeting Rachel, he might well have said, \u201cThis at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.\u201d\u00a0 Then Laban learns of his nephew\u2019s approach:<\/p>\n<p>When Laban heard the news about his sister&#8217;s son Jacob, he ran to meet him; he embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things, and Laban said to him, &#8220;Surely you are my bone and my flesh!&#8221; (29:13-14)<\/p>\n<p>Laban, overcome with emotion, runs to him and then embraces and kisses him.\u00a0 After hours of good food and good conversation, Laban exclaims, \u201cSurely you are my bone and my flesh!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 This is more or less what <em>adam<\/em> blurted out after he had a chance to come to know the \u201cwoman\u201d that God had pulled from his side.\u00a0 In both cases, there is the affirmation of kinship, but there is also the mutual sense that \u201cI love what you love and I hate what you hate.\u201d\u00a0 Both Laban and Jacob live their lives as misfits within the foreign culture that surrounds them.\u00a0 The two men find strength and affirmation in each other.<\/p>\n<p>The same thing, of course, can be said to characterize the bond between <em>adam<\/em> and the \u201cwoman\u201d God made for him.\u00a0 Notice that <em>adam<\/em> does not welcome the \u201cwoman\u201d as his cook or housekeeper.\u00a0 Nor is she perceived as someone strong and ready to share the task of cultivating God&#8217;s garden. Nor is she assessed as having lovely breasts and broad hips that would serve well for child-bearing and delight the eyes of any man. \u00a0On the contrary, <em>adam<\/em> assesses her as just the right companion needed to keep his \u201cloneliness\u201d at bay.\u00a0 Adam blurts out: \u201cThis at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.\u201d\u00a0 And, just as <em>adam<\/em> was fond of naming all the other gifts of God, <em>adam<\/em> names her \u05d0\u05b4\u05e9\u05b8\u05bc\u05c1\u0594\u05d4 which means \u201cout of <em>adam<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Here again this is not her proper name but a descriptive name very much like <em>adam<\/em> which means \u201cout of clay.\u201d\u00a0 The English rendering of \u05d0\u05b4\u05e9\u05b8\u05bc\u05c1\u0594\u05d4 as \u201cWoman\u201d entirely obscures the meaning of the Hebrew.<\/p>\n<p>The biblical author inserts a footnote: &#8220;Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblehub.com\/text\/genesis\/2-24.htm\">Gen 2:24<\/a>).\u00a0 This, of course, is not <em>adam<\/em>&#8216;s thought since, in effect, <em>adam<\/em> never had any experience of having or leaving a human father or mother. \u00a0Nor does anything in the narrative of Gen 2 suggest that <em>adam<\/em> is seeking a \u201cwife.\u201d\u00a0 So, in effect, the editor is thinking of his readers here and addressing their situation.\u00a0 Every man knows that his parents are not sufficient to satisfy his longing for human connectedness.\u00a0 That&#8217;s why every man has to go out and find himself a suitable &#8220;wife&#8221; and to cling to her with all his might.\u00a0 This is the case of Jacob sketched above: He leaves his father and mother for a full twenty years in order that he might cling to his wives and be a companion and business partner to his father-in-law.\u00a0 Then, with fear and trembling, he contemplates returning home.<\/p>\n<p>Notice that the narrator\u2019s footnote does not say, \u201cThis is to make clear that God wants all marriages to bring together one man and one woman.\u201d\u00a0 Dr. Kostenberger earnestly wants Gen 2 to say this, but, as we see from the text itself, the interests of the sacred text lie elsewhere.\u00a0 They don\u2019t talk about marriage at all.\u00a0 And when Genesis does get around to discussing marriages, the case of Jacob demonstrates the supreme importance of bonding with someone who shares your God: &#8220;You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women\u201d (Gen 28:1, 6).\u00a0 As things turn out, Laban tricks Jacob into marry both his daughters. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/what-genesis-says-about-m_b_7097004\">Polygamy is the rule rather than the exception<\/a>; hence, Jacob never objects on the basis of the \u201cone man and one woman\u201d rule that Dr. Kostenberger discovers within the text.\u00a0 Jacob finds that his two wives are consumed by jealousy and that both of them insist that he take their female slaves and impregnate them as surrogate wombs ready to give Jacob the dozen sons that he so earnestly deserves (Gen 29:30-30:15).\u00a0 Here, again, the \u201cone man and one woman\u201d rule of Dr. Kostenberger gets diluted even further.\u00a0 Neither Jacob nor the biblical narrator ever voice a single \u201cmoral objection\u201d based upon \u201cwhat God originally wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bonding between the first male and first female cannot be imagined to be founded upon sexual intercourse.\u00a0 In the ancient world, intercourse, in and of itself, only occupied a brief amount of time and carried with it no emotional overlays beyond that of a farmer planting his seed (Latin: semen) in the fertile womb.\u00a0 Furthermore, while some few couples might have known something of the \u201cjoys of sex,\u201d most acts of sex were initiated by men without any foreplay and they were terminated as soon as their own\u00a0 purposes had been served. Sex with slaves and prostitutes was commonplace, and no wife in Genesis ever made a fuss about extramarital sex to her husband. The female orgasm was probably as rare as hen\u2019s teeth.\u00a0 The only joy of sex know by most women was the conception and birth of a son.\u00a0 The greatest curse was infertility and women suffered immensely.<\/p>\n<p>So, Gen 2 never falls into the trap of thinking, as some teenagers might be prone to do today, that \u201clots of sex\u201d is the sure cure for loneliness. \u00a0In the ancient world, the romantic ideal of sexuality and true love were a distant dream waiting for another two and a half thousand years to pass before romantic attachments would be expressed through sexual activity.\u00a0 Sexual intercourse was quite often required of men and women purely due to family and tribal and social status obligations (as we shall shortly discover). The same thing holds true even today\u2014but to a much lesser degree.<\/p>\n<h2>Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Gen 2 says nothing about God establishing a permanent template for one-man and one-woman marriages. What we know as \u201cmarriage\u201d has taken many forms and shapes in the course of history.\u00a0 In Genesis, one finds some exemplary one-man and one-woman marriages (Isaac and Rebekah, for instance).\u00a0 But one never finds the inspired, biblical narrator saying, \u201cAh, at last, this is the sort of marriage that God endorses more than all the others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lessons learned from Gen 2 might include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Having the companionship of God in a fabulous garden is not sufficient; <em>adam<\/em> needs human companionship just as vitally as he needs divine companionship.<\/li>\n<li>Gen 2 makes it clear that God did not deliberately create a longing for human companionship in <em>adam<\/em>.\u00a0 On the contrary, neither God nor humans could predict that this deep longing would take over their lives.\u00a0 When a particular deep longing does show up for <em>adam<\/em>, consequently, even God is taken by surprise.<\/li>\n<li>God uses his trial and error ingenuity by way of searching for a practical solution, but it is <em>adam<\/em> who has to confirm <em>what actually works from within his human perspective<\/em>.\u00a0 At no point does God impose his solution upon adam.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So &#8220;marriage&#8221; can never be exclusively a divine institution as scholars like Dr. Kostenberger want us to think.\u00a0 And nowhere does Gen 2 claim that it is.\u00a0 In fact, if one reads the whole of the Hebrew Scriptures, there is not one single time or place where Gen 2 is held up as the \u201cexclusive\u201d or \u201cbest\u201d template for marriage that exceeded other divinely authorized templates (See chart below.) \u00a0<strong>Thus Kostenberger is sadly and completely wrong when he concludes that one size fits all and that Gen 2 demonstrates that God deliberately designed marriage as a bonding of one man and one woman.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Dr. Kostenberger goes completely haywire when he rashly decrees that \u201chumans are not free to renegotiate or redefine marriage and the family in any way.\u201d\u00a0 What a strange message this is!\u00a0 \u00a0The God speaking and acting in Gen 2 surely would not be attached to anything remotely like this.\u00a0 And if, by some stretch of the imagination, Dr. Kostenberger is \u201cabsolutely on target,\u201d then it would be very troublesome indeed (a) that the Lord God never saw fit to make clear this claim when speaking for himself within the whole expanse of the Bible and (b) that something so terrible important for the future of civilization had to wait upon Dr. Kostenberger in order to make clear what God had in mind all along but never saw fit to reveal.\u00a0 Was God confused?\u00a0 Was God incompetent?\u00a0 These are the embarrassing questions that immediately come to mind.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, it is just the reverse.\u00a0 Adam takes the initiative by revealing the corrosive effect of his \u201cbeing alone.\u201d God responds by taking his loneliness seriously. When God begins his trial and error approach, God brings each of his new creations to <em>adam<\/em> and counts on him to fairly evaluate each of them one by one. God honors <em>adam<\/em>\u2019s judgment at every point.\u00a0 He expects <em>adam<\/em> to inform him regarding what works and what does not work.\u00a0 Never, at any point, does God overwhelm <em>adam<\/em> by insisting, for example, that \u201cthe koala bears I created are just what you need.\u201d \u00a0Nor does God downplay <em>adam<\/em>\u2019s distress.\u00a0 He never says, \u201cBe a man!\u00a0 Get a grip on yourself. \u00a0Master your loneliness or it will master you!\u201d\u00a0 Furthermore, God does not pull rank and resort to threats by saying, \u201cGet this straight!\u00a0 I make the rules here.\u00a0 You don\u2019t. You have to do it my way or else I\u2019m going to give you a taste of my divine wrath.\u201d\u00a0 Rather, God speaking in Gen 2 appears to be saying, \u201cThanks for revealing your sense of isolation to me. It is certainly not good that you are so alone. Let\u2019s see what <strong>we can work out together<\/strong> to help resolve this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All in all, I have no investment in personally correcting and embarrassing Dr. Kostenberger.\u00a0 Rather, I want to offer my sober reflections to those Christians who are despairing and suffering from the well-meaning but ill-informed theological judgments of men like Dr. Kostenberger.\u00a0 And, to those who emphatically believe that Dr. Kostenberger has found the answer to the modern problem of failing marriages, I want to offer \u201ctrue believers\u201d an opportunity to reflect that just maybe the voice of God that they hear inside their heads is far removed from the voice of Lord God that speaks out from the inspired and inspiring narratives of Gen 2.<\/p>\n<h3>3.2.2 A Test Case: Matthew Vines, a fervent believer wrestling with loneliness<\/h3>\n<p>Matthew Vines grew up in an Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Kirkwood, Missouri.\u00a0 When he slowly came to the realization that he had a homosexual orientation, he was horrified by the fact that his Presbyterian church offered him no route whereby he might gain God\u2019s blessing for his sexuality.\u00a0 Here is the message he received from his church:<\/p>\n<p>We affirm God&#8217;s design for the two sexes \u2014 male and female \u2014 and believe that each is a glorious gift from God.\u00a0 Our sexuality is meant to be offered back to Him.\u00a0 For some, this means joining in a one-man, one-woman marriage \u2014 for procreation, union and mutual delight.\u00a0 For others, this means celibacy which allows for undivided devotion to Christ.\u00a0 Sexual expression is designed for the marital relationship, and homosexual lust<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n1.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[1]<\/span><\/a> and behavior are among the sexual sins that are outside God&#8217;s created intent and desire for us.<\/p>\n<p>Vines, at the age of 21, realized that his divine salvation relied upon his willingness to accept God\u2019s plan that sexual intimacy was exclusively reserved to heterosexual partners bound together in marriage.\u00a0 Since Vines knew that he was not attracted to women, he faced the bleak prospect of trying \u201creparative therapies\u201d<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n2.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[2]<\/span><\/a> and praying to God for a miracle that would \u201ctransform his sexual appetites.\u201d<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n3.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[3]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Should these options fail, he knew full well that he would be forced to maintain a lifelong celibacy, even though he honestly recognized that he was not naturally inclined in this direction either.<\/p>\n<p>Shaken by these bleak prospects for his future, Vines deliberately interrupted his college studies at Harvard (2008-2010) because he knew that he had to consult with biblical experts and come to a deeper understanding of why God opposes homosexuality and why God has no blessing to give to men like himself.<\/p>\n<p>After his father approved of his six-page summation of his biblical research, Vines took his discoveries and presented them to the elders in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in his home town.\u00a0 He met privately with many of the church members as well.\u00a0 And here is what he discovered:<\/p>\n<p>Despite my best efforts and the support of my family and some of our friends, our broader church community proved unreceptive to my message.\u00a0 Months of grueling, emotionally draining conversations with church leaders and members produced next to nothing in terms of progress.\u00a0 So eventually I left, dejected and depressed, but also determined to make change.\u00a0 Several months later, I found a church in town that was brave enough to offer me a public platform to speak about the issue. . . .<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n4.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[4]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Matthew Vines\u2019 entire family deciding to leave their local church as well.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t do this in anger or in frustration.\u00a0 They did it because they wanted to express, first and foremost, their solidarity with their son or with their brother.\u00a0 They also did this, I would conjecture, because they were increasingly suspicious, thanks to the insights of their son, that there might be something drastically mistaken in the traditional Bible interpretations and that the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d was indeed destructive to the spiritual and psychological well-being of Matthew.\u00a0 By extension, they might have conjectured that if the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d is poisonous to their son, it would follow, as the night follows the day, that this \u201cgospel\u201d might be toxic to other youths<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n5.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[5]<\/span><\/a> wrestling with their sexual orientation as well.\u00a0 Here is how Vines expresses this in his own words:<\/p>\n<p>Could it be true?\u00a0 Could it really be that this holiest of books, which contains some of the most beautiful writings and inspiring stories known to mankind, along with the unparalleled teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, also happens to require the emotional and spiritual destruction of sexual minorities?\u00a0 <strong>For any of us who learned to love the Jesus who called the little children to him, whose highest law was that of love, and who was a fierce defender of the downtrodden and the outcast,<\/strong> <strong>this simply did not seem possible.<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n6.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[6]<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Thus, the suspicion was that the teachings of Jesus invalidate the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d and that, in the case of homosexuality, false teaching has distorted the biblical texts such that \u201cScripture is used to manipulate.\u00a0 God is used as a weapon.\u201d<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n7.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[7]<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.matthewvines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/slide1c.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"487\" \/>Matthew Vines use of Scriptures is quite sophisticated.\u00a0 Vines is not only casting doubt on the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d and the texts used to support it, he is also discovering overlooked texts that construct a solid basis for an eventual acceptance of homosexual unions.\u00a0 Here is an excellent example:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the first two chapters of Genesis, God creates the heavens and the earth, plants, animals, man, and everything in the earth.\u00a0 And He declares everything in creation to be either good or very good \u2014 except for one thing.\u00a0 In Genesis 2:18, God says, \u201cIt is not good for the man to be alone.\u00a0 I will make a helper suitable for him.\u201d\u00a0 And yes, the suitable helper or partner that God makes for Adam is Eve, a woman.\u00a0 And a woman is a suitable partner for the vast majority of men \u2014 for straight men.\u00a0 But for gay men, that isn\u2019t the case.\u00a0 For them, a woman is not a suitable partner.\u00a0 And in all of the ways that a woman is a suitable partner for straight men\u2014<strong>for gay men, it\u2019s another gay man<a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n8.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[8]<\/span><\/a> who is a suitable partner<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>And the same is true for lesbian women.\u00a0 For them, it is another lesbian woman who is a suitable partner.\u00a0 But the necessary consequence of the traditional teaching on homosexuality is that, even though gay people have suitable partners, they must reject them, and they must live alone for their whole lives, without a spouse or a family of their own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>We are now declaring good the very first thing in Scripture that God declared not good: for the man to be forced to be alone.\u00a0 And the fruit that this teaching has borne has been deeply wounding and destructive.<\/strong><a class=\"popup\" href=\"http:\/\/churchonfire.net\/popup\/4n9.htm\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\">[9]<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Notice how Vines begins by carefully examining the text of Gen 1-3.\u00a0 He isolates God\u2019s declaration, \u201cIt is not good for a man to be alone,\u201d as his key concern.\u00a0 But then he shows that the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d frustrates God\u2019s declaration in two ways:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Gay people know very well that God has created for them \u201csuitable partners,\u201d yet the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d declares that same-sex partners are everywhere and always unsuitable;<\/li>\n<li>Likewise, the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d declares that gays must embrace lifelong celibacy; yet, in so doing, they frustrate God\u2019s declaration that \u201cit is not good for a man to be alone\u201d (Gen. 2:18).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This double failure on the part of the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d is \u201cdeeply wounding and destructive.\u201d\u00a0 The unspoken complaint here is that following the gospel of life should lead to peace, joy, and understanding; hence, quite clearly the \u201canti-gay gospel\u201d is not the gospel of life even though Matthew\u2019s church declares that it is the one and only Gospel.<\/p>\n<p>======== Endnotes for Case 2 ========================<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\">[1]\u21a9<\/a>\u00a0Notice that this evangelical statement regards all immoral sex as \u201clust.\u201d\u00a0 Ratzinger would prefer to say \u201cself-indulgent passions\u201d rather than \u201clust.\u201d\u00a0 Why so?\u00a0 Because Ratzinger believes that the homosexual inclination is not chosen and, as such, in not to be considered in itself \u201csinful.\u201d\u00a0 Moreover, he allows that while all homosexual acts are \u201cintrinsically disordered,\u201d the degree of guilt changes with the circumstances.\u00a0 This is a much more nuanced position.\u00a0\u00a0 Here is the critical text:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It has been argued that the homosexual orientation in certain cases is not the result of deliberate choice; and so the homosexual person would then have no choice but to behave in a homosexual fashion. Lacking freedom, such a person, even if engaged in homosexual activity, would not be culpable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here, the Church&#8217;s wise moral tradition is necessary since it warns against generalizations in judging individual cases. In fact, circumstances may exist, or may have existed in the past, which would reduce or remove the culpability of the individual in a given instance; or other circumstances may increase it. What is at all costs to be avoided is the unfounded and demeaning assumption that the sexual behavior of homosexual persons is always and totally compulsive and therefore inculpable (<strong>The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons<\/strong>, \u00a711).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\">[2]\u21a9<\/a> Reparative Therapy (also known as Conversion Therapy) claims that adolescent homosexuality may arise from traumatic events in the past and that, with careful psychological counseling, part or all of same-sex attraction can be dispelled.\u00a0 For a strong and persuasive advocate, see Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., <strong><em>What Is Reparative Therapy? Examining the Controversy<\/em><\/strong> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.josephnicolosi.com\/what-is-reparative-therapy-exa\/\">http:\/\/www.josephnicolosi.com\/what-is-reparative-therapy-exa\/<\/a>).\u00a0 Please be aware, however, that this form of therapy has been widely shown to be non-productive and even harmful to the degree that even the <em>American Psychiatric Association<\/em> warns against crediting its claims.\u00a0 See \u201c<em>The Lies and Dangers of Efforts to Change Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity\u201d <\/em>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrc.org\/resources\/entry\/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy\">http:\/\/www.hrc.org\/resources\/entry\/the-lies-and-dangers-of-reparative-therapy<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\">[3]\u21a9<\/a> Matthew Vines writes in his book as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As a lawyer, my dad weighed the evidence for the possibility of orientation change.\u00a0 Pointing to Matt. 19:26, he reminded me that all things are possible with God.\u00a0 Yet after reading a fair amount about \u201cex-gay\u201d ministries, he realized that none of the evidence seemed to show God was changing gay people\u2019s sexual orientation (<strong>God and the Gay Christian<\/strong>, p. 10).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A controversial Christian ministry devoted to changing people \u201caffected by homosexuality\u201d announced in April of 2014 that it was shutting its doors after operating for more than three decades.\u00a0 The announcement by <em>Exodus International<\/em> came during its religious conference in Irvine and after its President Alan Chambers apologized to members of the gay community for \u201cyears of undue judgment by the organization and the Christian Church as a whole.\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com\/2014\/04\/22\/god-gays-conversation-albert-mohler-matthew-vines\/#sthash.ji8Nb8dn.dpuf\">http:\/\/jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com\/2014\/04\/22\/<br \/>\ngod-gays-conversation-albert-mohler-matthew-vines\/#sthash.ji8Nb8dn.dpuf<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>In October of 2011, John Smid, the former director of <em>Love in Action<\/em>, the country\u2019s oldest and largest ex-gay ministry, acknowledged on his blog that, contrary to the claims of the movement he represented for decades, gay people cannot become straight. \u201cI\u2019ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual,\u201d he wrote. He himself certainly has not.\u00a0 Evangelicals used to insist that \u201cchange is possible,\u201d says Warren Throckmorton, a Grove City College psychology professor once associated with the ex-gay movement. \u201cThe new paradigm, I believe, is no, it doesn\u2019t look like that works, and so you go with it, you accept it, and you try to make the best life you can in congruence with the rest of your beliefs,\u201d he says (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2011\/10\/13\/ex-gay-leader-john-smid-s-about-face.html\">http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/articles\/2011\/10\/13\/ex-gay-leader-john-smid-s-about-face.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\">[4]\u21a9<\/a> Matthew Vines, \u201cThe Reformation Project: Training Christians to Eradicate Homophobia from the Church,\u201d <strong><em>The Huffpost Gay Voices<\/em><\/strong><em>,<\/em> 05 March 2013 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/matthew-vines\/the-reformation-project-christians-homophobia_b_2790039.html\">http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/matthew-vines\/the-reformation-project-christians-homophobia_b_2790039.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\">[5]\u21a9<\/a> For excellent life-stories inspired by the Reformation Project of Matthew Vines, go to https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReformationP\/<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref6\" name=\"_edn6\">[6]\u21a9<\/a> Matthew Vines, \u201cThe Bible and Homosexuality: Why I Left College and Spent Two Years Finding Out What the Scriptures <em>Really<\/em> Say,\u201d <strong><em>The Huffpost Gay Voices<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0 26 March 2012 (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/matthew-vines\/bible-homosexuality_b_\">http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/matthew-vines\/bible-homosexuality_b_<br \/>\n1378368.html<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref7\" name=\"_edn7\">[7]\u21a9<\/a> Given my own special interest in Jewish-Christian relations, I am especially sensitive to how anti-Jewish sentiments circulating among Catholics were used to interpret a few texts in the Gospels (especially, \u201chis blood be upon us and upon our children\u201d Matt. 27:25) in order to prove (a) that God held all Jews accountable for the killing of Jesus and (b) that God, as a result of this crime, had rejected all Jews in all times and in all places as his chosen people, and, in their place, God embraced Catholics with his love and protection and enduring covenant.\u00a0 In the wake of this \u201canti-Jewish gospel,\u201d Christians routinely interpreted natural and deliberate disasters (beginning with the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 68-70 CE) as the divine retribution inflicted upon Jews for their crime of killing Jesus, the Son of God.<\/p>\n<p>Not until after the Holocaust did the Christian churches finally come to their senses and begin to sort out what the Scriptures did and did not say about the Jews.\u00a0 As a result, biblical interpretations held for more than sixteen hundred years were uprooted over the course of a few decades (1948-1968).\u00a0 Meanwhile, biblical interpretations that had been ignored or obscured were brought forward, more especially, (a) that God\u2019s election of the Jewish people was permanent and irrevocable and (b) that Jesus himself lived and died as a faithful Jew.<\/p>\n<p>This case of anti-Jewish prejudice poisoning the true meaning of the Scriptures is important for a number of reasons.\u00a0 First, it demonstrates that, once an error inserts itself, it can persist from generation to generation undetected because the false interpretation itself feeds upon the anti-Jewish prejudice that stimulated its origination.\u00a0 Secondly, it demonstrates that, saints and sinners, bishops and scholars all were mutually supportive in maintaining and promoting these false biblical interpretations.\u00a0 Only the massive and unthinkable Holocaust had enough shock value to inspire a critical reassessment of those anti-Jewish interpretations that had become firmly entrenched within the Catholic tradition.\u00a0 For further details, see James Carroll, <strong><em>Constantine&#8217;s Sword: The Church and the Jews<\/em><\/strong> (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001) &amp; Aaron Milavec, <strong><em>Salvation Is from the Jews: Reflections on Saving Grace within Judaism and on Messianic Hope within Christianity<\/em><\/strong> (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref8\" name=\"_edn8\">[8]\u21a9<\/a> Keep in mind that complementary personalities and complementary skill-sets figure into the mutual choice of a suitable partner in both heterosexual and homosexual unions.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"Sec3\"><\/a><a href=\"#_ednref9\" name=\"_edn9\">[9]\u21a9<\/a> Matthew Vines, \u201cThe Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality,\u201d 08 Mar 2012 (www.matthewvines.com\/transcript\/).<\/p>\n<p>=================================================<\/p>\n<h3>3.2.3 Does the Bible support the contention that marriage rules never change?<\/h3>\n<p>Many Christians imagine that biblical inspiration takes hold when God overrides the human faculties of an author such that they write what God wants them to write\u2014nothing more and nothing less. With this understanding, Christians had good reason to imagine that the Bible had a coherent unity and that a single author, the Lord God, expresses himself on every page.\u00a0 Hence, whether you begin with Genesis or with the Book of Revelations, there is unity of thought and unity of purpose because the same God is always invisibly working to inspire the multitude of human authors.<\/p>\n<p>Today educated Christians recognize that the books of the Bible were composed at different times by different authors and that there is no overall unity of thought and expression in the Bible.\u00a0 Even the linguistic differences demonstrate that various books were written by different persons.\u00a0 Mark\u2019s Gospel, for instance, reveals that the author had a limited vocabulary and a so-so mastery of Greek style.\u00a0 In contrast, Luke\u2019s Gospel has a polished Greek appropriate to someone who was a master wordsmith.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to marriage, it is no secret that the divine norms governing marriage (as summarized in the chart below) changed during the twelve hundred years that span the books of the Bible. <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-470\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/biblemarriage.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/biblemarriage.jpg 720w, https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/biblemarriage-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/>Going further, it would be absurd to suggest that once the canon of the NT was fixed that nothing more needed to be decided upon or legislated. The writings of the Church Fathers and the decrees of local Synods and Ecumenical Councils expanded upon the NT norms precisely because they were aware that the NT had no exhaustive and systematic norms for sexuality. Hence, <span style=\"background-color: #ffff00;\">the bishops had to sort out the inconsistencies of the Bible and to respond to new questions and new situations of life that were never addressed in the Bible or that were addressed but only partially and inadequately<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-476\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Newman.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"197\" height=\"255\" \/>Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote a brilliant treatise in 1845 entitled, \u201cAn Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.\u201d\u00a0 Newman&#8217;s great masterpiece was the last work he completed before coming into communion with Rome. It is a magisterial defense of the idea that the Church&#8217;s comprehension of divine revelation enlarges and expands as it encounters different cultures and new social situations. He argues quite brilliantly (using a multitude of case studies) to reinforce the notion that the Bible cannot interpret itself and that, when every Christian is left to their own private interpretation, there cannot be any unity of understanding or of practice. \u00a0In the end, he comes to this conclusion: \u201cIn a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be\u00a0 perfect is to have changed often\u201d ((Chapter 1, Section 1, Part 7)).\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/web-exclusives\/2015\/04\/newman-and-vatican-ii\">Click here to explore<\/a> how Newman\u2019s thesis was embraced by the Fathers of Vatican II.<\/p>\n<p>Some Catholics are distressed to find out that there are inconsistencies in the revealed laws of God in the Bible and further inconsistencies in the marriage legislation of Church Synods. In many ways this is so because their priests and religious teachers are fond to glamorize the Church hierarchy by insisting that there is in the Catholic Church a chain of transmission whereby the one true faith that Jesus taught to his apostles has been passed on through an unbroken line of Catholic bishops down to the present time. This enforces the notion that the faith passed on is \u201calways the same\u201d (<em>semper eadem<\/em>). \u00a0Anyone who has studied church history or the development of doctrine knows that \u201cfaith\u201d was passed on but the expression of that faith is quite another thing.\u00a0 In point of fact, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.churchonfire.net\/2018\/08\/02\/how-marriage-has-changed-over-centuries\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">marriage laws changed at different times and in different places along with everything else<\/a>.\u00a0 Others, like Cardinal Newman, are quite aware that if God just kept repeating himself by issuing identical instructions on marriage over a period of twelve hundred years, this would create the distinct impression that God is indifferent to or ignorant of human experience and cultural changes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/images.slideplayer.com\/42\/11370232\/slides\/slide_3.jpg\" width=\"256\" height=\"192\" \/>Any human father who rules his children with an iron fist and imposes upon them rules and practices that are harsh and outmoded, would be deemed as an abusive and incompetent parent.\u00a0 \u201cSpare the rod, spoil the child.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cChildren are to be seen and not heard.\u201d \u00a0\u201cNever praise your child; it only makes them proud.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cFather knows best.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 One of my boyfriends in grade school told me of how his father would strip him naked, hang him by his wrists in the basement, and whip him with a leather belt.\u00a0 Needless to say, I saw this as extreme and counter-productive.\u00a0 If someone had explained to me that God would have wholeheartedly agreed with this father as shown in Deut 21:18-21, then I would have thought that God himself was an inept parent.\u00a0 Here is the key text:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"text Deut-21-18\">If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him,<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-5467\" class=\"text Deut-21-19\"> his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-5468\" class=\"text Deut-21-20\"> They shall say to the elders, \u201cThis son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-5469\" class=\"text Deut-21-21\"> Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid [NIV].<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Our analysis of Gen 2 above illustrates that God is no stranger to human interaction and that he adapts his initiative to fit the situation.\u00a0 The same thing must be said regarding the writings of the Church Fathers and the decrees of Church Synods. If all the bishops and synods issued identical instructions on marriage over a period of twenty hundred years, this would create the impression that the bishops <a name=\"Sec4\"><\/a>were either out-of-touch or completely indifferent to human experience. \u00a0Again, as Newman came to understand, \u201cto live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.\u201d\u00a0 That being the case, let\u2019s go on to examine a case study that will illustrate Newman\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>3.2.4. A Test Case: The Strange Case of Levirate Marriages<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>In many societies, both ancient and modern, levirate marriage was practiced.<\/p>\n<p>Among the Hebrews, a levirate marriage is literally a \u201cmarriage with a brother-in-law.\u201d The word <em>levirate<\/em>, which has nothing to do with the tribe of Levi, comes from the Latin word <em>levir<\/em>, \u201ca husband\u2019s brother.\u201d In ancient times, if a man died without a child, it was common for the man\u2019s unmarried brother to marry the widow in order to provide an heir for the deceased. \u00a0A widow would marry a brother-in-law, and the first son produced in that union was considered the legal descendant of her dead husband.<\/p>\n<p>We see a couple of examples in the Bible of levirate marriage. The first is the story of Tamar and Onan in <a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/Gen%2038\">Genesis 38<\/a>. Tamar had been married to Er, a son of Judah. Er died, leaving Tamar childless (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/Gen%2038.6%E2%80%937\">Genesis 38:6\u20137<\/a>). Judah\u2019s solution was to follow the standard procedure of levirate marriage: he told Er\u2019s brother Onan, \u201cSleep with your brother\u2019s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother\u201d (28:8).<\/p>\n<p>Onan was more than willing to sleep with Tamar, but, unfortunately, he had no desire to have a child with her: \u201cOnan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother\u2019s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother\u201d (28:9). In other words, Onan was taking selfish advantage of levirate marriage. He wanted sex with his sister-in-law, but he purposefully avoided impregnating her. Onan was aware that, if Tamar became pregnant, her child would claim a portion in the family inheritance.\u00a0 Thus, the inheritance coming to Onan would be diluted. God intervened on behalf of Tamar.\u00a0 God called Onan\u2019s actions \u201cwicked\u201d and killed him (28:10).<\/p>\n<p>Then, Judah said to his daughter\u2011in\u2011law Tamar, &#8220;Remain a widow in your father&#8217;s house until my son Shelah grows up&#8221; \u2011\u2011for he feared that he too would die, like his brothers (28:11).\u00a0 So Tamar agreed to wait.\u00a0 When Shelah is grown (age 12?), Judah fails to keep his promise.\u00a0 Years go by.\u00a0 Then Tamar decided to take a bold step outside the Law.\u00a0 She disguises herself as a \u201ctemple prostitute\u201d and uses this ruse to get the offspring that is her right from the father of Shelah.\u00a0 Three months later Judah was told, &#8220;Your daughter\u2011in\u2011law Tamar has played the whore; moreover she is pregnant as a result of whoredom.&#8221; And Judah said, &#8220;Bring her out, and let her be burned&#8221; (38:24).\u00a0 Tamar then confesses to her ruse.\u00a0\u00a0 Hearing her story, Judah responds, &#8220;She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah&#8221; (38:26).\u00a0 Thus she is exonerated by her father-in-law who confesses that he blocked her from access to his eligible sons.\u00a0 This narrative is revealing.\u00a0 It demonstrates that there are circumstances whereby a widow can, in desperation, seduce her father-in-law.\u00a0 It also demonstrates that Levirate marriage was practiced long before it was included in the Deuteronomic Code.\u00a0 Thus, even God adjusts his Divine Law to take into account those circumstances when \u201cincest\u201d is <a href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Laws_regarding_incest\">not only permitted, it is required<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Some seven hundred years later, the book of Deuteronomy was found in the temple (2 Kings 22\u201323).\u00a0 The purpose of this book was to consolidate the temple in Jerusalem as the exclusive place to worship the Lord God and to insure that the direction of the temple was entirely in the hands of the Aronide priests. At this time, it appears that the books of Moses were lost.\u00a0 Thus the book of Deuteronomy with its description of the laws given to Moses is presumably the sole witness to God\u2019s revelation on Mt. Sinai. The discovery of this book may have given rise to the Deuteronomic Reform or, quite possible, the book itself might have been created by the reformers.\u00a0 For details, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Deuteronomist\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are many significant changes in Deuteronomy. \u00a0For example, the law reveals a special concern for the poor, for widows and the fatherless.\u00a0 All Israelites are brothers and sisters, and each will answer to God for his treatment of \u201chis neighbor.\u201d Now, for the first time, God calls his people to take care that the stranger who lives among you is treated fairly. The stranger is often mentioned in tandem with the concern for the widow and the orphan. Furthermore, there is a specific commandment to love the stranger. These things, of course, are some of the themes that distinguished Jesus\u2019 teaching. The Deuteronomic Reform, therefore, envisions a leap forward into the kind of Judaism that finds full development in the Acts of the Apostles.<\/p>\n<p>Our special concern is changes in marriage law.\u00a0 It would appear that the death of a brother in an extended household would often result in his widow being neglected or even expelled from the family. This occasioned great suffering for the widow.\u00a0 The introduction of Levirate marriages was thus an act of compassion (some would say an act of justice) toward the widow.\u00a0Once a widow had a son, her place in the family was secured and she had access to a portion of the family inheritance.<\/p>\n<p>God\u2019s purpose for levirate marriage is clearly stated: \u201cThe first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel\u201d (Deut 25:6). An unmarried brother of the deceased man bore a responsibility to marry his sister-in-law: God called it \u201cthe duty of a brother-in-law\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/biblia.com\/bible\/esv\/Deut%2025.5\">Deut 25:5<\/a>).\u00a0 This is clearly an \u201cexception\u201d to the previous divine command that God delivered to Moses on Mt. Sinai: \u201cYou shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother&#8217;s wife: it <em>is<\/em> your brother&#8217;s nakedness\u201d (Lev 18:16).<\/p>\n<p>Notice that levirate marriage was a marital bond not born out of free choice and of growing affection but out of duty.\u00a0 Deut 25:7-10 hints how this new ruling was oftentimes resisted by the brother-in-law.\u00a0 The law then describes the measured steps to be taken whereby this resistance was to be overcome:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>7\u00a0However, if a man does not want to marry his brother\u2019s wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, \u201cMy husband\u2019s brother refuses to carry on his brother\u2019s name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me.\u201d 8\u00a0Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, \u201cI do not want to marry her,\u201d 9\u00a0his brother\u2019s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, \u201cThis is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother\u2019s family line.\u201d 10\u00a0That man\u2019s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The social pressure on the brother-in-law was enormous.\u00a0 The village elders were intent upon providing for the widow from the resources of the family into which she married in the first place.\u00a0 If that family failed to care for her out of obligation and if the widow\u2019s parents were unwilling to allow her to return home, then the community would be burdened by another charity case.\u00a0 Hence the husband\u2019s brother had to be constrained to marry as an obligation to the deceased and as an economic and social safety net for the widow. The public shaming involved in allowing the widow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.studylight.org\/commentary\/deuteronomy\/25-9.html\">to remove his sandal and to spit in his face<\/a> is also unprecedented because it gives a powerless woman the right to shame a powerful man due to his stubbornness and his unwillingness to make provisions for his brother\u2019s widow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Notice that levirate marriage presumes that polygamy is socially acceptable and divinely authorized.\u00a0 For this reason, Jews everywhere have long ago abandoned levirate marriage,\u00a0and even <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yibbum\">the most devout Jews in the Hassidic quarters of Jerusalem are not anxious for its return<\/a>\u2014despite the fact that Deut 25:5 makes it clear that levirate marriage is God\u2019s will.\u00a0 In Mishnah and in Talmud we learn <a href=\"https:\/\/bir.brandeis.edu\/bitstream\/handle\/10192\/26070\/Weisberg.pdf?sequence=1&amp;isAllowed=y\">how the discussions of the rabbis sought to remove the necessity of Levirate marriage and to provide alternatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>At the risk of overlooking exceptions, I would hazard the following general conclusions:<\/p>\n<p>#1\u00a0 No religious community can expect to be alive and to continue to thrive if it mindlessly imposes upon its participants a rigid conformity to practices that were understood as divinely authorized in the past but, more often than not, cause resentment and unnecessary suffering in the present.\u00a0 Test cases: the religious anti-slavery movement and the recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vatican.va\/roman...\/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html\">redefining the fate of those children who die without baptism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>#2\u00a0 The Bible and the study of church history allow us to see a huge landscape whereupon religious communities, sometimes slowly, sometimes abruptly, change their minds in order to keep pace with the living voice of God.\u00a0 Test case: Peter describes his own conversion saying, \u201cYou know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you [Gentiles]. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean\u201d (Act 10:28).<\/p>\n<p>#3\u00a0 Prophets and teachers serve to keep alive the quest for holiness in\u00a0 changing cultural and historical conditions. \u00a0Tradition is always a guide, but some elements in any tradition invariably become an obstacle and present a disservice to the living God. \u00a0Not to be willing to change is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit because it venerates the demands of the past so completely as to be incapable of heeding the voice of the living God.\u00a0 &#8220;Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts&#8221; (Heb 4:7).<\/p>\n<p>Test case: Current discussions on whether polygamy (as a matter of justice) needs to be allowed in the case of those African converts to Christianity where polygamy has been an abiding part of their social fabric ((<em>https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Polygamy_in_Christianity &amp; \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/1981\/02\/of-sex-and-the-catholic-church\/305451\/)\">https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/1981\/02\/of-sex-and-the-catholic-church\/305451\/)<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>Test case:\u00a0 Despite the fact that homosexual acts were traditionally harshly punished within both civil and church societies, the majorities of citizens in the USA, Ireland, and Australia have recently seen fit to sanction and protect same-sex marriages.\u00a0 Christians now are sorely divided on this issue.<\/p>\n<p>#1\u00a0 Some Christians believe that God exclusively sanctions marriage between one man and one woman.\u00a0\u00a0 One the basis of the study done above, we can now agree that this is a misreading of the evidence of the bible.\u00a0 When the bible is rightfully examined, it reveals that God has mandated at least eight <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-477\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Twain-300x149.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"149\" srcset=\"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Twain-300x149.jpg 300w, https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Twain.jpg 319w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>different forms of marriage at one time or another (Remember the chart above).\u00a0 Christians today can continue to imagine that God only sanctions\u00a0marriage between one man and one woman; however, this belief can no longer be founded exclusively (a) on biblical texts such as Gen 2 and (b) on the presumption that the divine laws governing marriage within the bible never change.<\/p>\n<p>#2\u00a0 Some Christians believe that their church laws regarding marriage have never changed.\u00a0 On the basis of the study done above, we can now agree that this is a misreading of the evidence of their denominational church history.\u00a0 When their history is carefully examined, it will reveal that their church laws have periodically changed in order to update their service to the living God.<\/p>\n<p>#3\u00a0 Consider how, in times past, marriages that crossed denominational lines were outlawed, then tolerated under certain special circumstances, and then finally approved with joy.\u00a0 Consider also, how prejudices against former slaves or against &#8220;primitive&#8221; races prompted churches to legislate against inter-racial marriages. \u00a0 Consider, also, how such legislation was eventually changed to tolerate such inter-racial marriages in certain circumstances.\u00a0 Then, consider how your church&#8217;s legislation gradually moved toward a full and joyful acceptance of inter-racial marriages.\u00a0 Examine if and when something akin to levirate marriage or polygamy were practiced within your own denominational history.<\/p>\n<p>#4\u00a0 Consider to what extent the legislation in your denomination might have been influenced by civil legislation on the criminality of homosexual acts and by the psychological analysis of homosexuality as a &#8220;mental disorder.&#8221;\u00a0 In the last thirty years, consider how members of your Christian denomination have come to personally experience <a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.nd.edu\/stories\/god-gave-me-a-gay-son-and-i-did-not-always-think-it-a-blessing-by\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in their families<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huffpost.com\/entry\/heres-the-beautiful-story-of-a-lesbian-couple-who-has-been-together-for-over-35-years_n_562019a9e4b06462a13b6aee\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in their parishes<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ranker.com\/list\/best-lgbt-movies-on-netflix-instant\/ranker-streaming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in their Netflix choices<\/a> instances wherein same-sex unions manifest something of the self-sacrificing love and the permanence of affection traditionally associated with God\u2019s covenant with his people as enshrined in the theology of marriage.<\/p>\n<p>#5\u00a0 No matter where you stand on this issue today, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yFY4VtCWgyI&amp;t=122s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">consider what responsibility you and your denomination have to\u00a0 reexamine the unnecessary suffering and combative factionalism imposed by things as they now stand<\/a>.\u00a0 What responsibility do you and your denomination have to restore &#8220;peace, justice, and love&#8221; as the balm for healing your present denominational divisions so as to make &#8220;living faith&#8221; a possibility for future generations?<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are the four case studies that I prepared as a research fellow with the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research.\u00a0 These explorations could also serve as a foundation for a workshop in a parish setting. They could also be used with gifted high school or college students. The material is divided into four case studies.\u00a0 &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/?p=501\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Does the Bible require that marriage be limited to one man and one woman?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":586,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/Jesus4lesbians.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}