Garden of Eden and the The missing scriptures...

[Man_in_the_Middle]

I was having a conversation today with a man regarding marriage. He mentioned Matthew 19, telling me that he thought that Jesus was telling the pharisees that it is not ok to divorce your wife for any reason and in fact, reminded them that even from the time of the garden of Eden, the biblical concept of one man and one woman in marriage was established, banning multiple wives.

I reminded him that King David had multiple wives before his adultery with Bathsheba. And that God did not have any issue with him having multiple wives.

1Ki 15:4 Nevertheless for David's sake did the LORD his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem:
1Ki 15:5 Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

This man I was talking to said "yes, at that time, it was OK for men to have multiple wives...."

The point is this, if, in Mathew 19, Jesus said that monogamy only was instituted since the time of the garden of Eden, and 1 Kings 15:5 says that David was OK having multiple wives, WHERE ARE THE MISSING SCRIPTURES?

Specifically, after the Garden of Eden, where are the scriptures that say that a man CAN have multiple wives? Because if Monogamy only was instituted since the Garden of Eden, then David was sinning...


And if David could have multiple wives without it being a sin, then Jesus was not saying that monogamy only was instituted in the garden of Eden.

Food for thought...

 

[The Revolting Man]

I’ve never understood why Matthew 19 gets used as anti-polygamy verse. A polygamist could live in total obedience to that verse passage with any number of wives.

 

[frederick]

Specifically, after the Garden of Eden, where are the scriptures that say that a man CAN have multiple wives? Because if Monogamy only was instituted since the Garden of Eden, then David was sinning...


And if David could have multiple wives without it being a sin, then Jesus was not saying that monogamy only was instituted in the garden of Eden.

Good points. This is the problem with faulty presuppositional thinking. Rather than start with what is actually written, most start with their presuppositions and build their understanding of scripture from there. Matthew 8:11 is a valuable passage to point people to as both Abraham and Jacob were polygynists and were not shut out of God's kingdom (cf. 1 Cor. 6:9-10).

 

[Jason Cook]

Brother, this is more than “food for thought”, this is a full course meal exposing modern theological famine.

Christ in Matthew 19 was not addressing polygyny. He was correcting the Pharisees’ abuse of divorce, reminding them that marriage is a covenant, not a contract to be broken at whim. When He referenced creation, He emphasized the permanence of marriage, not a ban on polygyny.

David had multiple wives. God blessed him, gave him more (2 Sam. 12:8), and declared:

“...he turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him... save only in the matter of Uriah...” (1 Kings 15:5)

If polygyny were sin, then either David sinned constantly, or God lied. Neither is true.

There is no command anywhere in Scripture forbidding a man from having more than one wife. On the contrary, God’s Law regulates it (Ex. 21:10; Deut. 21:15–17), and God Himself portrayed it (Jer. 3, Ezek. 23). The examples of Abraham, Jacob, David, and others were not mistakes, they were models of covenant-building patriarchs.

The idea that monogamy-only has been law “since Eden” is a modern myth, built on tradition and emotion, not on God’s Word.

If Jesus truly outlawed polygyny, where is the command? Where is the Law? Where is the judgment?

Nowhere. Because it never happened.

Let God be true, and every man a liar.