Marriage in The Resurrection

I shall have to set up some context before getting to the passage I really intend to explain here.

First, what passage of Genesis ordains Marriage?  

If you have a positive view of marriage as a mutual co-equal partnership you are likely to answer Genesis chapter 2 verses 18, 23 and 24.  Where the word for “help meet” or Helper is a word also used of God in his relationship with Humanity in Exodus 18:4 and Deuteronomy 33:7-26-29 (I've seen it argued Rescuer would be a better translation then Helper) and where how the union happens is if anything seemingly Matrilocal.

But if you have a more cynical view, if the marriage you mean is the marriage that Marx and Engels wanted to abolish, you are likely to answer Genesis 3:16 where Patriarchy began.

In Hosea 2:16 we read “And it shall be at that day, saith YHWH, thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali”.  

Both of these are Hebrew words for Husband, but with different connotations.  Ishi is the word for Husband (or man in the KJV) used in Genesis 2:23 which is based on the same root as the word for Wife/Woman while Baali also means Lord or Sovereign or Ruler.  

The levirate marriage was an ancient custom explained in Deuteronomy 25:5-10 where if a husband died before producing an heir the wife would marry a near kinsman (brother preferably if available) and the son conceived would be considered legally a son of the dead husband in addition to his biological father.  This concept is relevant to Genesis 38, The Book of Ruth and explaining apparent genealogical contradictions involving Zerubbabel.

What fascinates me about this law is how while there are no references to Polyandry in The Hebrew Bible the logic behind this law can certainly open the door to it.  What if a husband becomes unable to reproduce but is still alive?  But in the time of Jesus the Pharisees were still dominated by the Shammai school for whom such a permissive reading would have been unthinkable, and the Sadducees were no doubt the same.

And so with those at first seemingly barely related subjects laid out I shall now interpret what Jesus said in Matthew 22:23-30 and Mark 12:18-25, and more different from the others Luke 20:26-37.

The Sadducees seek to discredit the promised future Bodily Resurrection of The Dead by bringing up the Levirate Marriage and implying that would result in Polyandry.

Jesus first says “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God”. The Greek word translated Power here is Dunamis/Dynamis which gets translated a number of ways including “abundance”.  Jesus is identifying their core error as an underestimation of God not an overestimation of the long term existence of marriage.

Next Jesus says “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven”. “Given in marriage” is one word in the Greek, Jesus uses two related verbs not the actual word for marriage itself.  

Who the “they” means in the context of what the Sadducees were talking about is key to understand here, they are thinking in the framework of marriage being a means by which a woman is possessed by her husband “whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her”.  It is women who Jesus is saying will no longer be passed around from one family or husband to another like a possession.

Luke’s version has a part about the Resurrected being “children of God” but that’s the same Gospel that called Adam the Son of God.  In Luke 17:27 Jesus also refers to marrying and “given in marriage” as part of what the people drowned in the Flood of Noah were doing.  Genesis 6 described their core Sin as Violence.

None of what Jesus said here can be interpreted as saying the Marriage of Genesis 2 where it was never about one party owning the other is discontinued.  In my view the “angels in heaven” are life forms living a Genesis 2 existence not the immaterial sexless phantoms Platonist Christian want them to be.

In the KJV the word Paradise only appears in the New Testament, that's because that Greek word is used for the Garden of Eden in the LXX and Revelation 2:7 confirms that’s still what it refers to.  That Paradise is in “Heaven” currently according to 2 Corinthians 12:4 but in Revelation 21-22 it returns to Earth as part of the New Jerusalem in the New Creation, which is also called The Lamb’s Wife. 

There is no marrying or giving in marriage in the Resurrection because the Body of Christ is a Communistic Polycule.

Aulus Pudens and 2 Timothy 4:21

I've become fairly convinced of the theory that the Pudens and Claudia of 2 Timothy 4:21 are the same as Aulus Pudens and Claudia Rufina mentioned by the poet Marital.  I mentioned this in I don't think Nero Persecuted Christians.

Now that belief often gets tied into British Israelism or other ways to try and develop a very Britannia centrist view of History, of Anglicans and other English Speaking Protestants attempting to argue the British Church is the True Church.  Those kinds of views I don't agree with.  But what I do believe is that very early on The Gospels reached every corner of the then known world.  And so my believing it reached the British Isles also ties into my desire to talk about it's history in East Asia, Africa and Arabia, subjects I'll be posting more on in the future.

The thing is, a lot of the people who think Aulus Pudens was Saint Pudens are very Conservative Christians.  So that's why I want to point out an implication of this identification they've overlooked.

Aulus Pudens was Bisexual, Marital records his marriage to Claudia Rufina, but also records his passions for young male slaves.

And that can lead us to another potential answer to the objection that Pudens and Claudia aren't right next to each other in 1 Timothy 4:21.  Claudia Rufina was from Briton, and Julius Caesar records that the Celtic Britons practiced Polyandry.  And believe it or not examples of Polyandry occurred in Rome as well.  There is a common assumption that Polyandry can't ever by compatible with Biblical Laws, only Polygyny can.  But that's derivative of assumptions about the Pre-Marital Sex being a Sin which I've already deconstructed.  And it's easy to make an argument for Fraternal Polyandry from the reasoning behind the Levirate Marriage.  So maybe what Marital left out is that Pudens wasn't the only husband of Claudia.

New Testament on Marriage.

Now I feel I've shown that the Old Testament doesn't joyfully endorse Harem Polygyny/Concubinism as much as people think. On the other hand, is the New Testament as anti-anything other then absolute monogamy as people assume?

 Matthew 19:5-6 says "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

 It is common to insist that the "one flesh" emphasis while not explicitly saying only one wife still would make it awkward to involve more then two people. The poetic idea is the wife as the husband's other half, and the word translated "twain" does imply duality. Still the intent of the verse is against divorce. Again as a Libertarian, I don't support divorce being legally restricted either, Jesus' command was about the promise made before God, not a legal contract.

Marriage references in Paul's Epistles seem to assume monogamy, but Paul was writing to a Greeco-Roman audience, for whom monogamous marriage was the norm well before Jesus was born. (Though the Macedonian and Hellenistic rulers weren't as strict about it). Indeed, many would say that Western Christianity's devotion to monogamy is another example of how it is really more Hellenistic and Roman in origin then Jewish.
http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/010903.pdf
But Greek Monogamy still treated adultery as a one way street. To modern readers it's outright annoying how the Odyssey treats the threat of Penelope remarrying or being unfaithful as a horrible catastrophe, while Odysseus has two affairs on his journey home without the slightest condemnation. And also Euripides play Andromache revolves around a conflict between a wife and her husband's mistress, and the narrative is firmly on the "other woman's" side, (Of course Hermione is a spoiled brat Neoptlemus only married for politics, while Andromache is the widow of Hector he took as a spoil of war, and yet they do seem to have fallen in love somewhat). So I understand the points in the above PDF I linked to.

The Church's marriage to Christ, is in how it's treated a Monogamous marriage between a Bridegroom and a Bride, the Church as a collective unit is The Bride.

1 Timothy 3:2, 12, 5:9 and Titus 1:6 refer to how an Overseer (Bishop is an unfortunate KJV rendering, the most obvious area where it's Anglicanism is an issue) should be the Husband of "One Wife" the word for "one" here is "Mia" (Strong# 3391) which can be interpreted as meaning "only one", "Heis" or "Monad" are the standard Greek words for "one". But these are special guidelines for Overseers, the rule here could also mean no less then one (hence how Protestants use it against The Vatican) and elsewhere it's clear Christians can choose to be single for life if they wish.

Polyandry is the term for a marriage between one woman and plural husbands. The Wikipedia page says the Bible condemns it simply by citing the adultery laws. That's obviously flawed logic however. The Bible doesn't address it, the Hebrew Bible is the product of a very Patriarchal culture that never even heard of it as an option. In the New Testament Paul might have heard of it from the examples in ancient Sparta, or Caesar's account of the Celts practicing it, but if he did he chose not to address it.

The most common form that has actually been practiced is Fraternal Polyandry, a pair or group of brothers sharing a wife. The Torah does say that if a husband dies before producing an heir, that his widow should marry his nearest living kinsman (who would be a brother if there was one) to produce a son that would in a sense legally be considered the son of the dead husband. The reason for this is it is vital that the family line of inheritance continue, it was considered important for the tribe as a whole that no individual family line perish. So, what if a Husband becomes unable to reproduce but still lives? Like he becomes Sterile due to illness, or loses his genitals in an injury? Given the intent of the law, I could imagine it being allowed there if they'd have considered it.

On the other hand, Jesus condemns a man married to a divorced woman who's husband still lives as adultery. But that needs again to be understood in the context of the condemnation of divorce.  As I said in other articles, it's only reproductive sex God really wants to restrain.

I frankly don't approve of the modern world's over attachment to Monogamy for all romantic relationships, because it's fueled by jealously which is a very unhealthy emotion. And as I've explained elsewhere, not all sex outside marriage is a sin like is commonly taught.  Loving more then one person should not be inherently wrong.

But how do I morally view Marriage? Or rather the Hebrew custom we associate with marriage? Everyone should agree that marriage is about more then just sex, and many even that it's more then just love.  From my understanding of the intent of what the Bible portrays about it, it's even more then just a "committed relationship", it's the foundation of the family. To me it is implied in the function of marriage that you will at least try to have and raise children. This is why it annoys me how often on TV two people get married and have apparently never discussed the children issue till they find out a week after their honeymoon they're not on the same page there, sadly I'm sure that does happen in real life too often, but it shouldn't.

I believe ideally children should have both a father and a mother. But I know we live in a fallen imperfect world where that option isn't always possible, so I don't support single parents having their children taken from them. And I certainly don't want adoption limited.

To people complaining about Gay adoption I'd say two parents are still better then one, even if they're  the same gender at least one has the option of staying home, and certainly it's better then none. In fact I want adoption made a lot easier in general, it's become a lot more complicated in recent decades, they don't even have orphanages anymore. To me even the most dysfunctional family is preferable to the state raising them in foster care.

As the Hebrew Scriptures demonstrate, Harem Polygyny creates rivalry problems. So for the purpose of raising children I consider a monogamous marriage best. But other people also being involved doesn't have to be a problem. So I don't consider open marriages a sin, so long as everything is done openly and honestly.

So in summery, legally I want marriage to have no restrictions at all, morally I consider one husband and one wife best to raise children, but will pass no judgment on those trying to do it differently.