Thursday, November 16, 2017

The Bible is not against "Interacial" Marriage

The Torah's commands against marriages with the Canaanites were about mixed marriages on Spiritual grounds.  The issue with the marriages Balaam helped arrange is deliberately explained as the daughters of Moab leading them to into idolatry.

Lots of people want to deny this, yes even today some still try to preach against White People marrying Black People (as if that modern ethnic divide could possibly correlate to any tribal relations in The Bible).

Even going off just The Torah  Who Israelites are allowed to marry, and who they're not, makes no sense if it's purely Ethnic or genealogical lines, they're too arbitrary.  The commands against it are primarily directed at Canaanites, which would work in that context.  But then Moab and Ammon, who descend from Lot, Abraham's Nephew.  One could speculate their gene pool was corrupted by their Incestuous origin, but in Deuteronomy 2 Yahuah still recognized their right to their land as much as he does Edom's.  Their idolatry is I believe the reason they normally can't marry Israelites, yet God's promise of the land he gave to the family of Abraham still applies to them in spite of that.

However marriages to Mizraimites, other descendants of Ham, same son of Noah as Canaan, are repeatedly shown to be okay.  Hagar and Abraham's relationship was not disapproved of by God.  Then Ishmael married a Mizraimite.  Joseph married the daughter of a Mizraimite Priest.  Leviticus 24 records the son of a Danite Woman and a Mizraimite man being an Israelite.  You can conjecture his ancestry related to his Sin all you want, but the text doesn't say that, his Punishment shows he was considered a citizen.  Later the Book of Chronicles tells us of other marriages with Mizraimites that happened pretty early on.

I just did a post on the Cushite Wife of Moses.  It can be viewed as an oversimplification of the passage to say it's explicitly approving that marriage, yet if Moses was wrong to marry her, Yahuah would have said so as Moses Sin at Meribah is not glossed over.

Edom is not included on those prohibited to marry either.  On the one hand you could say that makes sense, they are closer related to Israel then them, coming from Jacob's Twin.  Yet Edom himself married some Canaanites he wasn't supposed to, so why wasn't that condemnation inherited by their descendants if genetics not who they worship was the issue?  Plus in other contexts The Torah mentions Edom right by Moab and Amon.  The difference is Moab and Amon worshiped Idols, Chemosh and Molech, while Edom as I've talked about before seems to have worshiped Yahuah, often worshiped Him wrong perhaps, but still worshiped Him.  Compare Deuteronomy 23:3 to 23:7.

And in a post I'm working on for my Prophecy blog, I'm going to suggest the Mizraimites (often translated Egypt and Egyptian) of the Torah may not have worshiped Idols yet either.

The Levites had many special restrictions, they were not allowed to even marry women of other Tribes of Israel.  You can't use their restrictions to interpret general Laws for all the people.

Deuteronomy 7:3 is the primary verse cited by anti-Mixed Marriage people. They ignore the very next verse.

Now, going beyond The Torah, since most Christians consider all of The Bible canon.

The Book of Ruth.

One website obsessed with saying Interracial marriage is wrong regardless of faith, insists Ruth was not a Moabitess.  This was not a Torah only website obviously, or they'd just do what I've seen some Torah only people do and reject the line of David.  They seem to overlook that if you want to be selective about Canon only the Book of Ruth places a Ruth in Davids ancestry in the TNAK, and Matthew does not repeat her Moabite status.  Though I feel Matthew's mention of her name does Canonize the book of Ruth for all Christians, since there is no other Biblical source he could have gotten it from.

This website argued the Country or Plain of Moab mentioned in Ruth is not in what you usually see Moab limited to on Maps, south of Reuben and the river Arnon, but land that was Moabite before the conquest.  (I think this website was trying to argue it wasn't even Trans-Jordan.) This forgets that Deuteronomy 2 explicitly says God wasn't going to give Israelites any land of Edom, Moab or Amon.  The Trans-Jordan tribes decision to stay Trans-Jordon when that wasn't the original plan arguably complicated this, but I still think it was mostly only Canaanite and Ishmaelite territory they borrowed.

The word Sojourn is used in the very first verse, a word that is usually used of dwelling in a foreign land. Used of Non-Israleites in Israel, and of Isrealites when they Sojourned in Egypt.

They say it doesn't matter that Ruth is called a Moabitess, they believe she was an Israelite, yet is the only Israelite ever repeatedly called a Moabite.

Some verses do say ___ite when referring to a geographical association rather then genealogical ancestry.  But there are usually of Non-Israelites, or of the Patriarchs back before they were their own tribe, hence them being called Arameans even though they descended form Arphaxad not Aram.   Or if it's used of Israelites it's only in a sense that confuses what Tribe they are, like Samuel as a Levite being called am Ephraimite, or the mother of Hiram being both a daughter of Dan and a Widow of Naphtali.

Even if the land they were in can be argued to be formally Moabite territory then belonging to Gad or Reuben.  That hardly rules out Ruth being ethnically Moabite, as the Moabite population of that region would hardly disappear.

Either Ruth was not an Israelite, or the author of Ruth wanted to deceive their readers into thinking she wasn't.

But regardless of all their technical arguments about what terms mean.  To any literary analysis of the book it is absurd to deny that Ruth was a foreigner and that it is advocating for allowing a foreigner to marry into Israel if they are faithful to The Torah.  Ruth is ignorant of the ways of Israel at the start and needs to learn them from Naomi.  And in Ruth 4:5-6, why else would the kinsman in line before Boaz reject her out of concern of his inheritance being barred unless he was concerned with the laws against marrying Moabites?  Obviously people who thought those laws were purely Ethnic existed back then, Ruth is a book written to argue against that belief.

Uriah The Hittie's marriage to Bathsheba was not an issue either, because he was clearly someone who worshiped Yahuah and who Yahuah considered His Servant.

Ezra and Nehemiah.

Some argue that it is specifically Ezra and Nehemiah who's decisions strongly leave no room for allowing ethnically mixed marriages.  Skeptics of The Bible see them as clearly philosophically opposed to the Book of Ruth (and try to claim Ruth was written about the same time by an opposing camp).

Now I haven't studied these two book as much I as should yet.  Maybe they too are being miss-characterized by those who oppose mixed Marriages.  If so I apologize that I can't adequately defend them here just yet.

What I am going to say is that while I believe the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are canonical inspired records of History.  Ezra and Nehemiah were still flawed fallible humans who's interpretations of The Torah we don't necessarily have to agree with.  Even Paul sometimes said "says I not The Lord", and I trust Paul's Judgment more then theirs.

The website I have in mind says The Messiah (they believe that is Jesus) upheld the rulings of Ezra and Nehemiah.  But I see no place in The Gospels where Jesus does that.  The book of Ezra is never directly quoted in the New Testament, there is one verse where arguably Jesus is referencing Nehemiah, but that is disputable.  But even then, the verse of Nehemiah in question is not one of their rulings but describing the Manna miracle in the Wilderness.

Jesus acknowledgment of the Second Temple in John 4 is only upholding Zerubabel and Jeshua, Ezra and Nehemiah came later.  Likewise the Prophetic books of the return from Captivity period uphold those two a lot but don't mention Ezra or Nehemiah.  And I think even they possibly built The Temple on the wrong location.

Malachi who was clearly quoted by Jesus as a Prophet, says in chapter 2 verse 11 that the issue is marrying "the daughter of a strange god".  He was a contemporary of the same concerns Ezra and Nehemiah were dealing with.  And the only specific people group spoken of negatively in Malachi is Esau, who were not among those prohibited to marry in the Torah as I laid out.

In The New Testament, Paul taught that there is neither Jew or Gentile in The Church in Galatians 3, and about Gentiles being grafted into Israel Unnaturally in Romans 11.

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