Just accept that The Bible doesn't condemn Polygamy

I myself was once on the bandwagon of trying to deconstruct the Old Testament's approval of Polygyny.  Though at the same time I also deconstructed the presumed New Testament arguments against it.  My mind has changed on a lot of things since then.

This is prompted partly by me watching a recent YouTube video by William Schnebolen, who's gone all Hebrew Roots now.  He's coming at it partly from an Anti-Mormonism angle, which is Ironic.

There are a lot of inconsistencies between what The Book of Mormon teaches and the doctrines that Joseph Smith and even more so Brigham Young would develop later.  Indeed the Book of Mormon actually says the kinds of things The Bible should have said if any of it's authors ever wanted to condemn Polygamy or specifically Polygyny.  And I agree with the Mormon historians who've argued that Joseph Smith never practiced or approved of Polygamy, it seeped into Mormonism through another short lived movement who's members were absorbed into the early LDS church.

Schnebolen even repeats the whole "it's oppressive to women" thing, which is a riot coming from someone who now wants to impose The Torah on the modern world.  The fact is Monogamy has also been traditionally based on viewing women as property.  But even more then that, Polyandry in most cultures that have practiced it still practiced it patriarchally, the woman was still property just shared property.  No numerical form of Marriage is inherently patriarchal, it's society that is patriarchal.

I believe that under The New Testament gender no longer matters, so Polygyny isn't the only form of Polygamy I support, I support Polyandry, Group Marriages, Open Marriages, Polyamory, everything so long as all parties involved are consenting and adults.  And those Mormon communities practicing Polygyny very non-consensually came into existence because of the government making it illegal, just like how so many other forms of prohibition have failed.

The perception that the New Testament is for strict Monogamy is mostly dependent on a lack of any direct references to Polygamy in it.  But I think a lot of that may be because some in the early Church were iffy on continuing marriage as a custom at all, Paul's attitude towards it was complicated and the Disciples left their wives to follow Jesus.

Another factor is how the Greek speaking Early Church Fathers are given primacy in the history of how the New Testament has been interpreted since they spoke the same language (to the point where their Semitic contemporaries works mostly weren't preserved at all). Where that applies to favoring them over the Latins like Augustine I agree.  But the trade off is the New Testament books weren't the only Greek writings to influence them.  The New Testament was a Greek text written mostly by Hebrews.  

You see the Greeks were the first culture in all of history to oppose Polygamy (though they still felt a Husband could have mistresses) and this was among the Greek ideas adopted by Rome.  The Greeks and Romans happen to be the only Pre-Christian cultures to have any opposition to Polygamy, unfortunately they helped shape the development of Christianity.

Every ancient source on 1st and 2nd Century AD Judaism besides the New Testament is clear that they were still practicing Torah based Polygamy, Josephus, Philo, the Talmud, the Early Church Fathers, and even Pagan sources.  Why didn't Jesus ever address this problem if He viewed it as a problem?   

Taking Jesus statement about a man and wife being made one flesh as against Polygamy is massively manipulative.  The context was about condemning divorce (meaning He was willing to directly condemn something Moses allowed if He wanted to) and so would include a Husband with two wives wanting to divorce one because he decided to be Monogamous, if the relationships were consummated he was one flesh with each of them.

Romans 7 cited the part of the Torah it does to prove a principle that you're not bound by the Law anymore at Death, and then explains how believers are Dead to the Law in Jesus at Baptism.  So no this chapter can't be used against Polyandry.

Paul's statements in the Pastoral Epistles about Bishops and Deacons being the "husband of one wife" have been interpreted as meaning no more then one when opposing Polygamy, but no less then one when addressing the Vatican's doctrine of a Celibate clergy.  However it does not say "Only one".

Schnebolen actually says Paul had to say this because of the Polygamy being practiced by the Pagans of Corinth, which shows his ignorance of Pagan Greece.  Quite the contrary the context of Paul saying the Bishop should be "blameless" suggests it's about appeasing the norms of the secular society they live in not rejecting them.  Well as Americans the norms of our secular society are supposed to be about valuing the Freedom to live however you want. 

Jesus told a parable about 10 Virgins awaiting the same Bride Groom, which goes against the usual trend of the Bride of Christ doctrine being presented as a Monogamous marriage even though it's literally not.  I think that the Church should be viewed as a giant Group Marriage, here is an old website advocating for Christian Polyamory.
http://www.libchrist.com/

Some scholars think Lazarus, Martha and Mary of Bethany weren't literally siblings but that the women were his Sister-Wives, I'm not inclined to agree with that given my theories about them, but I can't refute it either.  Brighamite Mormons view Mary and Martha as Sister-Wives of Jesus, which I have a controversial response to.  If Jesus was married to the Sisters at Bethany then He was married to the Brother too, if anything His love for Lazarus is described more strongly.

Now onto the attempts to say the Old Testament didn't really approve of it all that glowingly and was subtly vilifying it all along.  That is kind of the key to making their narrative work.

1 Kings 11 is the main discussion of Solomon's wives.  Now I agree that Solomon is not as glowingly approved of as people assume.  But using this narrative to paint Polygamy as the problem is a blatant manipulation of the text.  The wives promoting the worship of Pagan gods was the problem, the story spells that out for us.  Scripture interprets itself on this issue.

And attempts to blame the dysfunctionality of David's family on his Polygamy are equally decimated by reading II Samuel 12.  It happened as a Judgment for David's adultery and murder of Uriah, and Yahuah tells David he only needed to ask if he wanted more wives.

This drama began with Amnon's rape of Tamar.  And it's tempting to suggest that he wouldn't have lusted after her if she had the same mother based on modern psychological theories.  But we have no evidence he did have any full siblings, and no direct evidence these children were raised in a compartmentalized fashion like we often assume of ancient royal Polygamy.  The connection to the Bathseba situation is that Amnon followed his father's example and simply took what he wanted, and then didn't properly take responsibility for his actions.

Now to Deuteronomy 17.  Most scholars of the Hebrew agree Deuteronomy 17:17 is not limiting the King to only one wife, simply saying some restraint is to be practiced.  But Schnebolen wants to get really technical about what "multiply" means in the KJV (he seems to be be maintaining his old KJV onlyism even as a Hebrew Roots person now, which is weird).  How about we interpret all of these rules equally?  Is verse 16 saying the King can't have more then one single horse?  Of course not, that would be absurd, you need more then one horse just to draw one chariot. 

Many scholars see a connection between this part of Deuteronomy and Solomon.  Atheists say Deuteronomy was actually written later then 1 Kings 11, and Believers see it as a covert Prophecy.  Thing is, a break down of this connection shows that David basically followed these instructions while Solomon broke every part of it.  The total number of David's wives may not have exceeded 10 (8 are named) and a few more concubines (which Abishag may have been counted among).  Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.  So even without Deuteronomy making the line exactly clear, it's obvious how Solomon was excessive in a way prior Biblical Polygamists were not.

Now to the Patriarchs.

On the subject of drawing a connection between the Polygamy of the Patriarchs and their families dysfunctions.  It should be pointed out that Isaac had only one wife and no concubines and that didn't prevent the same thing from happening, parental favoritism and sibling rivalry still happened and it's effects lingered over the rest of the Biblical narrative even more directly then Hagar and Ishmael.  It's post Biblical history that makes Ishmael seem like a bigger conflict then Edom to modern Judeo-Christians.

Here is the thing, Jacob had the most wives, and yes it wasn't any more premeditated then Abraham's situation, but he still had twice as many as Abraham (I now agree with viewing Hagar and Keturah as the same woman).  And yet, in-spite of all the issues Jacob's family had, his family was the one that stuck together, this was where they stopped breaking off into separate nations and in fact remain one pretty united people until Solomon, Rehoboam and Jeorboam messed it up, and that break up wasn't divided along the lines of Jacob's wives.  Leah is treated as Joseph's mother in his dream in Genesis 37, and children of a city of Judah are refereed to as Rachel's children in Matthew 2.

It's common to compare when Rachel asked Jacob to lie with Bilhah to Sarah asking Abraham to lie with Hagar.  But this time it didn't end the same, neither woman wound up despising the other.  Both of Jacob's handmaiden concubines get fully promoted to wives without Leah or Rachel needing to die first.

Among the three Patriarchs, there is a direct correlation between how many wives they had and how well their family stuck together.  Jacob's family had it's issues, but every family has issues.

With the Patriarchs when Polygamy becomes a problem it is the favoritism and jealously that is the problem, not having more then one in the first place, and that's why it was still a problem for Isaac.

The Lamech of the line of Cain in Genesis 4 gets brought up in this debate.  First of all there is no Biblical basis for the law of first mention, the law of needing two references to build doctrine has at least some basis but even it some question.  However the law of first mention is just made up.

And as I recently talked about, Racists love to claim the first Mixed Marriage was also in Genesis 4.

There is nothing in the Lamech narrative to support a connection between his cryptic claim to have killed someone and his having two wives. In fact his confessing his sin to his wives may be the light in this situation.