At the core of Dr. Wayne Grudem’s theology of marriage is a table he frequently uses to describe the sins of husbands and wives:
Aside from the implicit claim that headship and submission shouldn’t be offensive to our feminist sensibilities, most of the table makes basic sense*. Yet one field stands out like a sore thumb; Grudem has created a new sin for women**, the feminist sin of being a doormat. Grudem explains this new sin in A Balanced Look at Roles:
There is an error of passivity on the wife’s part. Day after day, month after month, year after year in their marriage, “Yes dear, whatever you say . . . yes dear, whatever you say.” She doesn’t contribute at all to the decision making process. She has no preferences, no desires. She’s a doormat. That is an error as well. That’s not the biblical pattern.
In his book Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions Grudem offers the same table and explains:
…when a wife chooses not to participate in family decisions, does not express her preferences or opinions, does not speak up when her children or husband are doing wrong, or does not object to her husbands physical or verbal abuse, then she is not being submissive, but instead is acting as a doormat, and out of line with the role God designed for her in the marriage relationship.
Note that abuse is thrown in as an always effective red herring. If you object to this newly manufactured sin, you therefore must be condoning abuse. Note also that Grudem’s doormat theology creates the formal structure for fellow CBMW member and Women’s Studies professor Mary Kassian to teach Christian wives to set and enforce boundaries for their husbands (emphasis mine).
No brain-dead doormats or spineless bowls of Jello here! Submission is neither mindless nor formulaic nor simplistic. Submitting to the Lord sometimes involves drawing clear boundaries and enacting consequences when a husband sins.
All of this should raise the obvious question: Why do Christian women in our feminist age need to be constantly warned not to be doormats, but women in the ancient world did not? Did women in the ancient world have more moxie than the women of our feminist age? Why are modern women at risk of committing this new kind of sin, a sin which the Bible fails to warn us of? Why must Grudem, Kassian, etc. constantly remind Christian women not to fall into the sin of being a doormat when Peter and Paul did not? Why does the New Testament repeatedly remind wives to submit to their husbands (Eph 5-22:24, 1 Pet 3:1&5, Col 3:18, Tit 2:5) without offering Grudem’s modern “balanced” warning not to be a doormat? Was the teaching of Peter and Paul really flawed, requiring complementarians like Grudem and Kassian to “fix” it two thousand years later?
*The devil however is in the details. What Grudem is describing as headship/submission is essentially egalitarian marriage with the husband as a figurehead with almost no authority.
**This same new sin is incorporated into the CBMW founding statement, but instead of using the term “doormat” the Danvers Statement uses the word servility.
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All of this should raise the obvious question: Why do Christian women in our feminist age need to be constantly warned not to be doormats, but women in the ancient world did not? Did women in the ancient world have more moxie than the women of our feminist age? Why are modern women at risk of committing this new kind of sin, a sin which the Bible fails to warn us of? Why must Grudem, Kassian, etc. constantly remind Christian women not to fall into the sin of being a doormat when Peter and Paul did not? Why does the New Testament repeatedly remind wives to submit to their husbands (Eph 5-22:24, 1 Pet 3:1&5, Col 3:18, Tit 2:5) without offering Grudem’s modern “balanced” warning not to be a doormat? Was the teaching of Peter and Paul really flawed, requiring complementarians like Grudem and Kassian to “fix” it two thousand years later?
Patience, my good brother, patience. Are you not aware that the Bible is about to get its first long-overdue update in nearly two millennia?
Be prepared for the impending release of the Epistles of Saint Wayne and Saint Mary of Kassian, two much-needed updates intended to close the gap between the benighted First Century and our own Enlightened Age. Rest assured that each of your questions above will be answered in full, in accordance with the soundest of Modernist primciples.
I’d like to see a cartoon where Abraham is walking on Sarah as a display of Complementarianism.
Check out “Is MGTOW just Escapism?” at my blog.
https://theasdgamer.wordpress.com/2016/03/22/is-mgtow-just-escapism/
There is nothing wrong with Machiavellian, narcissistic or psychopathic tyrants. Real life and fictional dictator types are strong and not wimpy like many modern people are today. As in Star Wars, the dark side can make you strong, be a dark lord.
Viewed side by side, it’s interesting how interchangeable the attributes are. Male “wimp” is basically female “doormat”, “loving/joyful”, “tyrant/usurper”, “humble/intelligent”, …oops on that last. And headship & submission are only thrown in because the Bible demands it.
He won’t acknowledge that men and women are different by design.
Why do Christian women in our feminist age need to be constantly warned not to be doormats, but women in the ancient world did not?
Because Patriarchy. Men couldn’t handle the truth that God is a Girlfriend with a Beard.
/sarcassm off
Family with new rules and society.
Dalrock is consistently logically incisive, and that’s why I like reading him.
[D: Thank you.]
Notice that the woman is the victim at the end…more drama for her feelz.
Soldiers get cheated on a lot because their women often aren’t with them.
I recently recounted the story of a Tuesday night men’s group I attended wherein we were reading through Genesis and the story of Abram and Sarai. Eventually we came to the story of Abrams trip through Egypt and his request to his wife to lie and say she was his sister, in order to keep him from possibly being killed over her. We all know the story, but during the discussion I pointed out that nowhere does the scripture indicate that Sarai spilled the beans on her husband, even after pharaoh appears to have paid Abram for her (although now that I look at it, it never specifically says how pharaoh finds out Sarai is Abrams wife, but it never specifically says she said anything after pharaoh and his house become afflicted), and was on the way to making her a wife.
Anyhow, I had remarked that Sarah is mentioned in the new testament as an example of submission for women, and how she was obedient to her husband even through his folly.
One fine young man, who had not said a word beyond ‘hi’ the entire night (and whom I know to be a bit of a timid person) immediately jumped to her defense! “No way!”, he said, “There is no way. I don’t see how any woman could act like that!”. He got rather animated about it, but the group leader pushed us on to the next set of verses, so it pretty much ended there.
Long story short: this kind of teaching is becoming so normalized in the church that here we have a young man white-knighting for a woman thousands of years dead and gone. It just could not compute in his mind that any woman would be THAT obedient to her husband. Very sad.
ASDLamer:
spam
@ Boxer
I feel the love.
Sarah is buried in Cave of the Patriarchs near Nablus. She’s one of the greatest heroes of the text. Her ability to keep her mouth shut and back her husbands’ plays is exceptional among women — particularly compared to the contemporary feminist harridans.
@Boxer
Yes. As SnapperTrx references above, she is held out as the example for Christian women in 1 Pet 3. Peter says women who follow her example will be Sarah’s daughters, a high honor.
In all honesty I would think the ‘sin’ of servility is something that would fall upon a husband, rather than a wife. If he becomes servile he dumps his God given authority in trade for the easier route of not being in conflict with his wife and abdicating his responsibility to ‘sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word’, instead becoming an obedient lap dog. Looking at scripture, we can see how God feels about those who ditch out on their authority and responsibility:
Matthew 25:
26 “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. 27 So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. 28 Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents.
29 ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Only when you accept the fact that Grudem and Kassian don’t not believe in a literal and unalterable reading of the Bible as the divine Word of God. In other words, their investment in feminine-primacy qualifies them to speak for God with more authority that Peter, Paul or even Jesus ever did.
Or you could look at it this way,…
Are MGTOWS pissing you off yet LSDGamerer? I hope they are.
OP:
Was the teaching of Peter and Paul really flawed, requiring complementarians like Grudem and Kassian to “fix” it two thousand years later?
Rollo: Only when you accept the fact that Grudem and Kassian don’t not believe in a literal and unalterable reading of the Bible as the divine Word of God. In other words, their investment in feminine-primacy qualifies them to speak for God with more authority that Peter, Paul or even Jesus ever did.
I think that Grudem and Kassian would say and believe that they believe in a literal and unalterable reading of the Bible. However, they filter the Bible through their ego investments. If we can get people to see that their ego investments are worthless paper, then we push them into an epistemic crisis with lots of bad feels, which bothers men as much as it does women. People try to avoid an epistemic crisis at almost all costs.
@ fh
Are MGTOWS pissing you off yet LSDGamerer? I hope they are.
Abandon hope….
When it comes to marriage… already have, already have.
I love how the husband always has to be a humble leader or a servant leader or anything other than an actual leader… Once again, men must take the responsibility and consequences but yet have no authority, whilst women are to be given joy and no responsibility. Just what the heck do men get in these complementary marriages?
After reading Grudem’s Systematic, he clearly believes in the inerrant and sufficient Word.
It’s the application of same through the clouding of the FI in which he has issues.
Oh right, I forgot…. pussy. Not worth it, at all. Pussy begging is for degenerate losers who can’t say ‘no’ to women.
They use a lot of oxymorons to describe their asinine ideals of marriage. As with women, it’s always ‘intelligence’ and ‘strength’ combined with submission. With men it is always ‘humble’ or ‘servant’ combined with leadership or headship. They are mind fucking their congregants with meaningless verbiage.
A husband is to lead and a women to follow. Not so hard.
After reading Grudem’s Systematic, he clearly believes in the inerrant and sufficient Word.
It’s the application of same through the clouding of the FI in which he has issues.
So he believes in an inerrant and unchanging Bible, but he doesn’t believe the actual words in it apply anymore?
Is that right? Because if so, it’s a self-contradictory position. It’s saying “A is A” and “A is NOT-A”.
@AR:
That would actually be more consistent logic than is actually applied here.
Yes, Anon, that’s because they are trying to align the Bible with the culture. They don’t truly believe in it after all, it’s just a tool for them to bash you over the head with.
This allows women to ‘have it all’ and the men must shut up and take it, after all, he’s a humble leader, not a tyrant, righto! Sign me up!
Anon Reader, you have mentioned Piper saying he only had to lead or correct his wife a few times in 40 years. Is that a link you have handy?
It came up in comments a few posts back, I expressed skepticism. Looking…
Dear Feminist Hater:
Right. The irony is that none of these women end up ‘having it all’ because the one thing a woman wants is a man she can show off to other women, and a henpecked “servant leader” doesn’t fit the profile. A normal woman would be ashamed to have such a spineless husband.
As Dalrock and others have posted above, it’s only by following the good advice in the Bible that women actually get to have it all. Sarah had a husband, a kid as an old lady, money, and respect. Her husband is a man who is still prayed to, and she gets to live forever right beside him. You can’t get much more “havin’ it all” than that. Smart women see through the ruse of the feminists pretty easily in context.
Regards,
Boxer
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Killer conclusion, Dalrock, as always.
I’m so enframed by the feminist mindset that I’m having a hard time identifying what the true error of passivity might be for a wife (since ‘doormat’ really just means ‘submission,’ which isn’t an error). Or is it possible that in a truly Biblical structuring of that chart that you’d have to leave that field X’d out?
@the bandit;
You’d have to X out doormat and tyrant. I can’t think of a man being punished in the bible for showing too much leadership over his wife, or the wife being too submissive to the husband. There’s an important biblical point complementarians just don’t get when it comes to biblical marriage: One Flesh. How could one flesh be too submissive to itself? How could it be a tyrant over itself? I think the logical biblical conclusions on marriage are completely missed because these people can’t let go of the concept of the individual husband and wife. If you are a feminist woman who wants to retain her individuality, don’t get married, or he becomes your husband, and as your head he will rule over you. Our legal structure no longer has the ability to handle marriage biblically, ever since women became legal individuals. That needs to be addressed in order for civil marriage ( which is religious be definition ) to ever make sense again.
So he believes in an inerrant and unchanging Bible, but he doesn’t believe the actual words in it apply anymore?
Is that right? Because if so, it’s a self-contradictory position. It’s saying “A is A” and “A is NOT-A”.
You’re looking for logic in modernist churchianity. Don’t do that. It will only cause you migraines and mental breakdowns. Looking for honesty will do the same thing, only much faster.
Morgan says:
March 22, 2016 at 2:10 pm
Spot on. Egalitarians and complementarians would react to this truth like snails react to salt and vampires react to sunlight.
What I don’t understand is why you guys don’t simply thump these people with what the text actually says.
That “likewise” in 1st Peter 3:1 is a direct reference back to the instructions to masters and servants in the second chapter, in which the servants were given the example of Christ’s sufferings as the standard. Thus, Sarah isn’t the doormat, it’s Christ. And notice that both Peter and Paul addressed different groups within the church by their relationships. This is clearly seen in Ephesians with general instruction to the church ending at 5:21, then instruction to husbands and wives, then instruction to children and then instruction to masters and servants. Following that he gave more general instruction, gave his doxology and signed off. Peter does the same thing with specific instruction to different groups defined by their relationships.
As to where this came from, it starts with the second portion of the curse in Genesis 3:16, “he shall rule over you.” What does that mean? Look at Numbers 30 and find out. That is the context of all Biblical husband-wife instruction, which makes it clear that the instruction in the NT for the wives to submit to their husbands and the husbands to *love* their wives is completely consistent with all of Scripture in terms of the husband-wife relationship being a special form of master-servant relationship. Why? Because the daughters of Eve were cursed: “he shall rule over you.” After all, if the relationship of Christ to the church is a Master-servant relationship, then the wife’s command to submit to her husband in the same way (Ephesians 5) defines the husband-wife relationship as a master-servant relationship. The command for the husband to love his wife makes it a special form of said relationship, because in general masters are not commanded to love their servants.
Boundaries? What were Christ’s boundaries when they sinned against Him?
Again, this isn’t about the submission of wives to husbands, this is a denigration of what Christ suffered *in submission without complaint* to His Father’s will and my question remains: Why not just argue the text from the correct frame? What was Christ’s response when He was unjustly beaten? When He was unjustly condemned? When He was unjustly crucified?
Was Christ a doormat?
“Doormat” is not an accurate description for what they are trying to convey. A woman who does not participate in the marriage is more like an urn at the side of the door. Not participating is not the same as being stepped on.
@AT
These Christian men and women tend to filter everything through a feminist filter, and this includes the holy scripture. Simply reading the text to them, though the right thing to do, is useless. Between the ears hearing and the brain processing anything that is deemed offensive to women is removed or converted into something else like “that was part of their culture back then”. It’s partially because of social upbringing, since every boy and girl in the past fifty years has been raised to glorify women as being good enough, strong enough and in no way needing a man. It’s partially willful ignorance in that they have read the word of God but refuse to believe. Everything has to be run through ‘interpretations’ now. How YOU interpret x scripture is different from how I interpret x scripture equates to ‘God must be revealing his truth to us differently!’, but in actuality nothing could be further from the truth! They dare not ‘just read the text’ because it will shatter the lens of their distorted view.
@Artisinal Toad, Actually that might be what they believe, that the model of Christ for husbands is that of a doormat. They want the husband to be the doormat, just like Christ. Kind of sad when that’s what they take away from and how they view Christ as a model. They should be aware that Christ was serving the will of his father in his submission, and was not modeling a husband’s behavior, but that of a son.
Dalrock, have any of these folks responded to you? You’ve been exploring their theology for weeks now. Perhaps you could try to bring your theses to their attention. Maybe approach one of the outermost pastors in the inner ring of Sovereign Grace Minitries or TGC. Get one of them responding and maybe a high-up will jump in.
@Earl:
While I’m laughing at the thought of one of them coming to the comments section (and especially the 10k word diatribe that Toad would produce), they aren’t likely to be correctable. Too much of their worldview is tied up into the assumptions. The BSOD face they would make could be amusing, but it’s mostly hopeless with them directly.
@SnapperTrx
Now you’re talking about the difference between rhetoric and dialectic. It is both rhetorically and dialectically correct to say “Woman, you were not only born dead in trespasses and sin, but you are cursed as well. You are cursed by God to be ruled by a man.” From a rhetorical standpoint, this is a winner.
Try saying it out loud: “Woman, you are cursed.”
I’m willing to bet that the majority of the men reading this forum would have difficulty saying that aloud in private and forget about saying it to a living, breathing woman. All the beta conditioning comes to a head at that moment and rebels against God’s Word.
To deny the curse is to deny original sin and the need for Christ, because the same event produced both. This is the key point on which women cannot stand and it’s a litmus test for men in dealing with feminist women in the church. “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” is the origin of hypergamy and the desire of women to be ruled by a man who is *fit to rule* is hardwired into them. “He *shall* rule over you” is both a statement of fact and God saying “this is the way it is from now on.” Women will try all they can to redefine submission, but this is the root passage and those 5 words say it all.
The point still remains that to deny the curse is to deny original sin and the need for Christ and salvation. The two are inextricably intertwined and cannot be separated. To admit the curse is to admit the context of the wife’s command to submit to her *ruler* in everything, regardless of his obedience to the Word. There is much I could say to the responsibility of husbands, but that is a different issue for a different audience.
His disciples said to Him, “If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
I don’t want to defend Grudem, but I would argue that there is a difference between passivity and/or passive aggression and ACTIVE submission. Our wives should not be dead weight, nor cold fish.
Agree and amplify I would say.
If she knows she is a crock-pot and she should start getting herself in the mood hours in advance rather than try to whip me into choreplay…..
@LG
Seen any “diatribes” from me on this thread? I’m pointing to the truth, which was written long ago, but reading comments on a blog doesn’t do it for women. Women have to be confronted in person in public and called out on their lies. There are several key questions that cut to the heart of the matter. There is no denying the curse and any woman who attempts to do so is attacking the very root of Christianity, which is the need for salvation. There are two rhetorical questions that will nail their jello to the wall:
“Are you cursed by God to be ruled by your husband?”
(To deny this is to deny original sin and attack the need for Christ’s sacrifice. Did Christ lift the curse? Stupid question: Do snakes still crawl on their bellies? Do Christian women still bring forth their children in pain? QED)
“Was Christ a doormat?”
(To deny this is to deny that a wife in submission is a doormat. To claim it’s true is to disparage the submission of Christ to His Father’s will)
I don’t need to write long comments to explain this because it’s dirt simple and it isn’t complicated. Writing to men about the screwed up doctrines the church holds that don’t agree with the Bible is a different task, which takes time. In either case I’m trying to point to concrete points of action that men can take rather than join the Greek chorus of complaints about how bad things are.
At some point in the argument the woman must either admit that the Word says what it says or she must be asked the question “If you refuse to believe what the Bible says, why are you here?”
@AT
I am with you on this one. At some point ANY Christian who is willfully going against scripture needs to be asked that question. The problem is that those who should be asking that question are the ones overlooking the reason for asking. Namely people not believing what the bible says! There, then, is the rub! What does one do short of starting ones own church in which the word of God is read in its purest form and not pushed through the filter of ‘interpretation’? In my bible, a study bible, I remember that somewhere the notes had indicated that in ancient times priests refused to write down what they thought of the holy scriptures for fear that their writings would be given more credence than the scriptures themselves. I don’t know if this is true or not, but if so I can guarantee that such a worry is certainly not present in this day and age. Aside from that one could go tearing through the church, pointing out every ‘interpretation’ and mutilation of scripture espoused by others, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t last long at that church, likely being removed by force if you didn’t leave voluntarily.
Dear Fellas:
Earl sez:
The very idea that any of these feminist hucksters would have the balls to debate Dalrock is hilarious. I’d pay big dollaz for a ticket to that event.
Of course that’s the last thing they want to do. This is a very profitable scam they have going, and their goal is to “shear the sheep” for as long as they can get away with it.
Boxer
@SnapperTrx
Yes, the disciples said that and Jesus answered that saying:
“Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.”
In other words, “Boys, that’s a tough row to hoe and most of you need to stay with the melons no matter how rotten they get.”
I will pass on the argument of whether Jesus literally meant castration (the context indicates He could have been), but the text indicates He was saying that giving up the natural function of women was only appropriate if it was for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and only some men are called to do this. Otherwise, the previous command of “Be fruitful and multiply” is still in effect. This is an area the MGTOW’s don’t want to deal with.
You could say that the modern day equivalent is looking at http://www.realworlddivorce.com/ and saying “Gosh, if that’s the way it is, it’s better to go MGTOW!” Same situation, same teaching applies.
Many years ago my parents got together with about 50 other families and started a church in which they were determined that one thing would be their mission: teaching the Word. They hired a pastor and he was ordered to spend 35 hours a week in preparation for his sermons, which were expository teaching, and to spend no more than 5 hours per week on “pastoral duties” such as visiting the sick, etc. The church organized into cell groups and larger Bible studies that handled ministering to the congregation. That church was one of the first “mega” churches in the Midwest and it grew exponentially because it was giving the people something they couldn’t get elsewhere: the teaching of God’s Word. No sermons, just the Word. Several of the adult Sunday school classes were taught by professors from a local seminary, same deal. I spent over a year in one class just on the book of Revelation.
Show me a church that teaches like that and I’ll show you a church that experiences explosive growth, but the infiltration of feminists and SJW’s will be automatic. If they aren’t identified, confronted and squashed immediately, the effort is doomed.
You question of whether it’s necessary to start a new church is not a new one and I think you already know the answer. It starts with finding people who have a desire for the truth and they aren’t that hard to find. Everything after that is details.
This is a very profitable scam they have going, and their goal is to “shear the sheep” for as long as they can get away with it.
Beware the serpent that uses truth to misdirect and deceive the observer.
Their goal is to continue the long march through Western cultural institutions 8oxer, for which here at Dalrock’s you are an active denier and chief apologist for (and most likely drawing a regular stipend for, for your active and near-daily shilling here, you worm-tongued reptile.)
They continuously attack the foundation of the Christian family with their heresy and blasphemy.
Every Churchian Cuckservative, Evangelical Television Ministry, and Pastorix of the Feminine Imperative has played their part in advancing the agenda of the likes of Horkheimer, Adorno, Fromm, Lowenthal, and Habermas. These are they for whom 8oxer venerates and promotes whenever anyone dares mention the roots of our current malaise at the feet of Cultural Marxism and it’s subversion of Christianity.
These are they for whom 8oxer tirelessly defends while trying to redirect all attention on nebulous an vague entities like “feminists” while always providing cover for the source of our cultural destroyers and their pilpulistic rationalizations that have played and continue to play a critical role in escalating the decline in sexual morality and the inversion of Christian Patriarchal hierarchy.
8oxer would have ye all eschew reading the Great Books for Men, and have you all get lost in the morass of dizzying pilpulism in the published works of his Critical Theory idols he venerates with his avatars and rabid defenses of when anyone dares bring up the Long March.
Ye shall know them by their fruits, and 8oxer those of us that have been paying attention for years in the ‘sphere, we know you by yours.
lzolzolzolzolzolzozlozlzolzozl
@GIL
“Active” submission is submission with a smile. As in, “suck it Buttercup, things ain’t so bad”. It is the wife’s responsibility to ensure submission to her husband is as enjoyable as possible for both parties. Note how modern Christians are too weak-spined to even suggest this, as the prospect of holding a woman to account for anything, anywhere is just too terrifying a prospect for most Churchians.
However, the so-called “problem” of passive submission among women is so rare as to be non-existent. Why rail on about a problem that doesn’t even exist, except as Trojan Horse to obscure the fact that it is the wife’s obligation to actively submit to her husband, no ifs, ands or buts.
Dear Kookboi:
You wrote this feverish rant while dressed in a French maid’s outfit, wearing a dog collar, leashed to the foot of the bed, amirite?
Boxer
Note Dalrock readers, how 8oxer deftly employs the various tactics of the well trained shill.
From the 25 Rules of Disinformation –
18. Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents.
If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how ‘sensitive they are to criticism.’
@Boxer
Sir, have you no decency? Do you not recognize it when you see the GBFM climbing back onstage? You are attempting to argue with a literary device.
Heads up, Boxer, this guy sounds suspiciously like a commenter named “Great Books for Men” who was eventually banned. He might be trolling us.
…
Morgan @ 2:10 pm:
“I can’t think of a man being punished in the bible for showing too much leadership over his wife…”
It’s possible, otherwise the Bible wouldn’t have bothered to command men to love his wife. We don’t see it these days because misandry makes treating women with genuine cruelty impossible, just like it was impossible in Roman times for women to disobey her husband because he could legally kill her on the slightest whim.
“Drawing clear boundaries”? That doesn’t sound very egalitarian to me.
Dear AT:
Decency? I am unacquainted with the concept, my brother.
That ain’t GBFM — when he trolled me he was skillful and funny about it. This is a looney pretender who has followed me around like an obsessed ex-lover, after I mildly spanked him so many years ago I’ve forgotten the details. I have a few such pets, and their occasional outbursts are a testament to my ownership skillz.
Best,
Boxer
And with that, I am done. 8oxer may have the last word as he always does. (Most likely an ad hominem/straw man attack combination like “kook” “stalker” etc. We know his M.O. after watching him operate for years both here and at the Spearhead.)
I do not seek to derail the OP any further, nor engage 8oxer in a troll war, but only wish to point out to newer readers unaware of his track record of acting like he’s on “our” side, while literally defending rather aggressively the Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School that came to America and in large part played an integral role in instigating the current problems we are all now dealing with.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Observe and learn and you, the intellectually honest participant here, will see it to.
@Boxer
Note the pathetic Cuckservative redirect. Let’s not hold women and manginas to account, because the real problem supposedly lies with Jews and Communists.
PS – I was merely paying tribute to GBFM, who although he most certainly deserved his banning by our host for repeatedly shitting on the carpet here, still had a very memorable go at 8oxer a few years ago. 8oxer will always claim he “spanked” so an so or made someone slink away in defeat, but the record in Dalrock’s archives are rather clear to the objective observer. Read the 25 rules of Disinformation and recognize that 8oxer is a master of all 25 in doing his work here.
8oxer never honestly addressed debates. It’s all insult, dismiss, misdirect, change the subject, goad, straw man, etc.
lozozlzolzozlzolzozlozl
I get the feeling they aren’t in a position to change their minds about anything since their revenue depends on perpetuating this Christian Kosher egalitarianism. They’ll simply resort to the same non sequiturs InsanityBytes relies on to ignore every salient criticism that counters their religious ego-investments.
Dear Puffy Jacket:
Right. God forbid a few of us debate the real issues, without sexualizing/personalizing things or fighting among ourselves. That would be too effective, hence the appearance of “Anonymous”, and his looney conspiracy theories and endless attempts to derail any constructive conversation.
http://www.antifeministtech.info/2012/06/support-the-brian-banks-documentary/comment-page-1/#comment-4955
Hat tip to TFH for this find. As everyone can see, “Anon” (lol) has been doing this for quite a while. Hope he gets the psychiatric treatment that’s so far escaped him.
Regards,
Boxer
Boxer said :
http://www.antifeministtech.info/2012/06/support-the-brian-banks-documentary/comment-page-1/#comment-4955
That is quite a find. It explains a lot about the years and years of Rob Fedders harassment of various solid brothers. Always judge by patterns of actions, rather than stated words.
Why does Rob Fedders think people don’t know who he is, or what he is about? Especially since he has been showing up in the comments section of WeHuntedtheMammoth more and more…
Boxer,
See here :
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2013/11/29/dont-forget-your-30-pieces-of-silver/#comment-99933
@Boxer
My apologies, I was mistaken. As you’ve indicated, the GBFM was somewhat of an acquired taste, but he had his moments. I’ve actually missed him, literary device though he was.
Great post. It makes me wish I had noticed this 15 years ago when I was reading CBMW and starting to attend my current church. They filled me with junk for finding a good wife.
Dear Fellas:
TFH was a good man.
No shit? I feel badly for the damage he’s done to this thread today, and don’t want to distract further; but, if you have a link to his latest sock, I’d enjoy it. I’m at xerofrog at gmail dot com.
Hopefully GBFM forgives us all for mistaking his fine work (I always thought he was really funny, especially when he was making fun of me!) with the pallid attempts of this dork to pass as his trollish majesty.
Fedders, unlike GBFM, is a pathetic, unfunny dullard.
Best,
Boxer
Dalrock,you asked about Piper asserting authority(2x) in his marriage. It’s something I brought up and it is from the Chp 2 of the cbmw book with the FAQs. I don’t recall which question number it was, but it was the question where Piper asks if he is defining headship away by calling it servant leadership.
Rollo, I have some decently close connections to this group and I think it is strongly possible that once they hear this, and after struggling with it, have a change of course. My pastor is a headliner at an April CBMW event and he has the brutal honesty to not make the mistakes being made by CBMW if comes across. Our former associate pastor really liked the oprah 3:16 fow diagram that I showed him. But my church counselor brushed me off, so your cynicism has a basis to it, but I think it’s due to fear, and not money.FWIW.
Sean says:
March 22, 2016 at 12:06 pm
After reading Grudem’s Systematic, he clearly believes in the inerrant and sufficient Word.
It’s the application of same through the clouding of the FI in which he has issues.
..AS many, many Christian men do.
As an aside, didn’t Jesus Himself become a “doormat”, when He “humbled Himself to death, even death on a cross (Phillipians 2:8)? If Jesus Christ did it, if the married Christian man is expected to do it through chivalry, why such protestations from theologians like Kassian?
Could it be that, like the Pharisees of old, they “know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God”?
@Spike
As an aside, didn’t Jesus Himself become a “doormat”, when He “humbled Himself to death, even death on a cross (Phillipians 2:8)?
The answer to that question is in taking notice of who He was in obedience to and who He submitted himself to in order to obey.
Assuming the idea that “Jesus was a doormat” then whose doormat was He? Whose will did He accomplish by being a “doormat”? There can be no analogy between Christ and the husband in this respect because Christ was accomplishing the will of His Father whereas the husband is not in obedience if he prostrates himself before his wife. The mission of Christ during His earthly ministry was not the mission the husband has been given.
The point is the wife’s commands to submit to her husband did not come from the husband, they came from Christ, her Savior. And if the husband treats her like a doormat, then who is she being a doormat for? Her Savior, not her husband.
Nowhere is the husband commanded to submit to his wife, rather, he is to “rule over her” (Genesis 3:16). He is to hold her accountable (Numbers 30). He is to live with her in an understanding way, as with a hypergamous weaker vessel that can rationalize at the speed of light, in order that his prayers might not be hindered (1st Peter 3:7). He is to love her as Christ loves the Church (Ephesians 5, Revelation 3:19). No doormats need apply for that job.
@ Swanny River
I was formerly a member until my recent resignation of membership of a church that has an elder whose picture is on the CBMW site. I can almost promise you they will not brook dissent nor will they listen short of God’s Grace. I had an email exchange with said pastor that asked for evidence why I thought he was wrong and then cried foul when I did.
The CBMW is like an NGO: they exist to exist and create problems only They Can Address.
Before there was Peter and Paul, there was God … making a proper and fitting help for Adam. Of what use would Adam’s help be if she didn’t learn what she needed to know in order to actually be a help for Adam? And – by creating that help for Adam – God created an expectation and an obligation for Adam that he should make use of the help given to him. (As stated up-thread, God’s pattern implies that both parties are to be active participants in the relationship.)
Abraham’s time was some 2,000 years (roughly) before Peter and Paul took their first steps and spoke their first words. How did the folks who came before Peter and Paul and Abraham ever manage to create successful families when they did not have the words of Peter and Paul to instruct them as to who was supposed to do what in the relationship? How did they know who was supposed to rule and who was supposed to submit – without being able to rely on the guidance from Peter and Paul?
Unless we want to state that Peter and Paul created a new obligation for Christians, I think we must accept that Peter and Pauls’ words were simply an acknowledgement of the truth presented in the first paragraph of this post. God created a help for Adam. And, in so doing, created an obligation for Adam to make use of that help. Our wives are intended to be a help for us, and we are expected to make use of that help. At a minimum, this requires an on-going dialogue between the helper and the helped.
Why would God create a helper for Adam if Adam could do everything himself? The answer to that question implies that Eve could do some things that Adam couldn’t do himself. If it were as simple as “man lead, woman follow”, God wouldn’t have needed to create Eve as a help for Adam.
The words of Dr. Wayne Grudem that are quoted in this thread speak more to the truth contained in the first paragraph of this post than the words “man lead, woman follow” do. Grudem’s words acknowledge that the help actually has something useful to contribute to the relationship, and acknowledge that the helped has an obligation to consider the contribution being offered. The words “man lead, woman follow” imply that the woman is nothing more than excess baggage.
What did God actually say – that Peter and Paul were making reference to – about why he created the help for Adam? (As in, why create a help for Adam if he can do everything himself?) And then, of course, there is the question of whether Eve actually turned out to be the help that the Bible says God intended her to be – what with her forcing Adam to choose between her and God, and all that. And the question of what was God’s real reason for creating Eve, since he knew she was going to do that to Adam before he created her.
And, for AT: God’s words to Eve that “he will rule over you” are / were simply an extension of the reason God gave for creating Eve at the beginning: to be a help. What helper can be a help unless they receive direction and guidance from the one they are to help? “Ruling” means to give direction and guidance. Leadership means to set the example for others to follow. There is a fundamental difference between those two definitions. God didn’t say that Adam would lead his wife. God said that Adam would rule over her. Ruling – giving direction and guidance – is a necessary component of showing the help what you need from them. Leading – setting the example in the hopes that the help will follow, doesn’t begin to give the help what she needs in order to know how to be helpful to the helped. Only ruling – giving direction and guidance – does.
If God telling Eve that Adam would rule over her is a “curse”, then we probably need to accept that God initially cursed Eve when he created her so that she might be a proper and fitting help for Adam. Because, being created to be a help automatically means that Eve was going to be ruled by the one she was helping. To be a proper help, her entire effort must be directed to accomplishing his agenda, not her own. To be an effective help, Eve had to listen to what Adam said he wanted her to do. Her behavior would be ruled by Adam’s expectations, Adam’s behavior would not be ruled by her expectations. These demands on Eve’s behavior were created the moment God breathed the breath of life into Eve. God telling Eve that Adam would rule over her was God simply restating to Eve the reason why he made her.
Q: Finally – in what concrete way do two people ever become “one flesh”?
A: By making a baby. In that offspring are both partners finally together in “one flesh”. That is the plain and simple reading of that scripture. Elsewise, it would be stated that “the two shall become one spirit”. Don’t agree with me on that? Proof that there is no such thing as “the plain and simple reading” of scripture. All scripture is subject to interpretation. And interpretations will vary. Always have. Always will.
So, whose interpretation should prevail? About “one flesh”? And about “submit”? And about everything else the Bible talks about? I think Zippy has an answer.
@Sean:
I see it came to that. It wasn’t surprising, but it’s still not a good day.
@ Looking Glass:
This was secondary to budgetary issues wrt my resignation but the two issues combined made staying impossible. However, there was some lingering shrapnel from the email discussion that didn’t fade.
The fun part of “church shopping” is the sermons you get to hear elsewhere whilst evaluating. :s
As far as anathematizing Grudem, let’s keep in mind that one can hold to a very high Scriptural view and still misinterpret/apply it. See Presbies and infant baptism.
@Sean:
Ah, yeah, if there’s a “money issue”, it’s always because something else is normally in a state of rotting. And I’m sure that “church shopping” has been a rather unenjoyable experience. There’s not a lot of good ones around, sadly.
Our church men’s group is currently working through Jeremiah Burroughs’ book “The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment”. It is challenging to us just how much a premium God places on our being satisfied with where he has placed us.
Interestingly, “being content” is one thing I very rarely hear preached among women.
[D: Welcome. Discontentment among Christian women is some combination of virtue (proof they are better at marriage) and proof that men are sinning against women.]
RichardP @ 3:57 am:
“Why would God create a helper for Adam if Adam could do everything himself?”
Because Adam was lonely. Men can live perfectly well without women but female affection is really nice to have.
“The answer to that question implies that Eve could do some things that Adam couldn’t do himself. If it were as simple as “man lead, woman follow”, God wouldn’t have needed to create Eve as a help for Adam.”
Help for what? Was Adam’s defect physical or mental?
Artisanal Toad March 23, 2016 at 1:33 am
@Spike
As an aside, didn’t Jesus Himself become a “doormat”, when He “humbled Himself to death, even death on a cross (Phillipians 2:8)?
The answer to that question is in taking notice of who He was in obedience to and who He submitted himself to in order to obey.
Exactly so AT. My questions were more rhetorical than actual, since I believe in Scriptural inerrancy and am opposed to the various social revolutions that have swept the world in the post WWII era.
Jesus Christ was in submission to His Father. He humbled Himself to Death on the Cross. After that He was raised from the dead – the only empty grave in the whole of history. Through Him we have forgiveness of sin, fellowship with the Father and eternal life.
Consider something else: Jesus Christ, in the process of doing the above, changed a race-based elitist religion into a faith-based one available to all. He set off the most successful revolution in history, one where hearts and minds were altered permanently for the good, freeing up humanity to produce the best civilization ever- Western civilization, which has led the world in every area measurable.
Every other attempted “revolution” is a poor shadow of this, a heresy. In that heresy, civilization does not go forward. It goes backward into slavery and darkness.
If two (and others here) non-theologians can see this and figure it out, why can’t the professionals? Martin Luther said, “a simple man armed with the truth should be believed above a legion of professors without it”. I’m starting to see that he was ahead of his time.
Swanny RIver
Dalrock,you asked about Piper asserting authority(2x) in his marriage. It’s something I brought up and it is from the Chp 2 of the cbmw book with the FAQs. I don’t recall which question number it was, but it was the question where Piper asks if he is defining headship away by calling it servant leadership.
I’m not Dalrock but thanks. Can you be more specific regarding the CBMW book? Would this Q/A/ be in some online FAQ?
I trawled through multiple comment threads associated with Piper and did not find you previous comment. So again, thanks.
@Spike
If two (and others here) non-theologians can see this and figure it out, why can’t the professionals?
Technically, you do understand that I’m classified as a heretic and an iconoclast around here, don’t you? The problem with the theologians is they’re stuck in the system and forced to defend the status quo which provides them with their livelihood. Telling the truth is dangerous. If you start taking the Bible literally and looking at exactly what it says and does not say, you might mention something that disagrees with doctrines cemented in place by the church about 1200 years ago and suddenly you’ll have people like wormtongue and Dave following you around calling you names. It’s actually pretty amazing they haven’t popped in already.
If you really want to understand where feminism and all the errors Dalrock writes about came from, I strongly suggest “Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe” by James Brundage. At 674 pages it isn’t exactly light reading, but you can skip to chapter 12 and read his conclusions if you want. In terms of scholarly research it doesn’t get any better than this. Once you know how and why the doctrines were put in place, it becomes child’s play to study Scripture and realize just how turned on it’s head the church really is when it comes to the doctrines concerning sex and marriage. Problem is, all that stuff is so much a part of the culture that Christians can’t let go of it. Tradition is an addiction almost impossible to overcome.
The most depressing aspect of your comment is that while there are quite a few men here who know their Bible fairly well in the traditional sense, this isn’t a Bible study and, as with the feminists, once they’re convinced of something it doesn’t matter what the Bible actually says. Show them something isn’t in the text, anywhere, and they’ll still find a way to read it into the text in order to support their doctrine. They defend Catholic doctrines that rest solely on the “traditions of the church” and are in fact wildly in disagreement with Scripture, but they’re OK with it because it’s traditional and to closely examine what Scripture actually says carries with it the possibility that they’d have to change. Nobody wants to change.
AT: I am well aware of your views and your dubious status. I don’t agree with all of your views. Quite simply, I’ll take them over the double-speak or as Rollo puts it, the “two sets of books” that are rolled out by mainstream Churches. At least they are open and subject to scrutiny and criticism. When you say the controversial, I simply obey the scripture that tells me to “test all things, hold fast to what is good and avoid evil”.
I’ll see if I can find Brundage.
The sin of being a doormat is given to women because women are just men.
What would the sin of passivity be for women – is that possible? Surely it would be a sin for a woman to stand by while a husband beat her children. How would I classify that sin? How about lacking integrity, I am not sure. Passivity does not really work because being tempted to rebel the opposite would be tempted to tolerate sin?
In the case of men wimp is also not helpful. What does wimp mean? You don’t go to the gym. For a man the failure of his role is 1) a failure to love and 2) a failure to lead. He lets his wife call the family to prayer or scripture study does not get done because he will not call the family together. Wimp does not capture what a lack of leadership looks like.
Also it does not matter if submission is intelligent. That is just pandering. A better description might be joyful, faithful or joyful, consistent submission.
I do agree that tyrant or usurper are correct descriptions of these sins.
Anon reader, I’m a day late, but here is a link:
http://cbmw.org/uncategorized/fifty-crucial-questions/#21
The only problem is that I couldn’t find the question that says Piper only used his authority twice. I’ll have to look for it in my church membership folder tomorrow because that is where I remember reading it. The link has great questions and answers though, such as why they use the phrase leadership instead of authority and why there they think leadership mainly means responsibility and not authority. We shortchange them if we talk as if they haven’t thought about it.
For example, he says the reason we should never use any physical force with wives is because we are one flesh. Another example of his justification for something we chafe at here is his thinking that because we are to treat are wives as co-heirs, and make them dependent on Christ and not us, that we should be very light in our directing them. And he is strong against homosexuality. It was a good exercise for me to read through the questions to answer your question. After doing so I’m more positive than most people on this site that if CBMW gave a hearing to D, Rollo, and Deep Strength that there could be a better outcome for all of us compared with what we mostly expect. If you read the questions, could you give your impression on them?
@Spike
If you want a real indication of the impact of the 2 sets of books, look at the criticisms of the points I’ve made. Unsupported assertions are automatically rejected, so I cite my sources, quote the text, explain the exegesis and in doing so I’m accused of writing too much. I can give 5 examples or reasons why I believe my exegesis on a particular subject is Scripturally correct and somebody will pick one, misquote or take a text out of context to “disprove” it and call me a liar. I rebut their assertion, point out why their answer is either incorrect or cannot possibly be true and it’s as if I was talking to a wall.
The ad hominem attacks never stop and more than a couple of guys here are perfectly willing to violate Scripture in their attacks on me and then double down when called on it. You mentioned my “dubious” status. Heh. If it were possible to “refute” what I’ve been saying by quoting Scripture it would have happened. Instead, people (if they answer at all) try to explain why the text *doesn’t* say what it clearly says or *does* say what it obviously doesn’t.
There is an enormous amount of money on the table with a lot of people waiting to be fed, and the consensus of the restaurant owners association is I’m standing in the kitchen pissing in the soup but the truth is the opposite of that. I’m telling people not to eat the crap that’s being shoved out on the table for them and quoting the ingredient list.
Then comes the guilt, and just about *everyone* is guilty. As I’ve admitted before, I have had to come to grips with the fact the woman I thought I’d married was actually married to another man and I spent 17 years committing adultery with her. Which makes my children the product of adultery. If the statistics are correct, at least 8 out of 10 so-called “marriages” in the church today are nothing more than state and church sanctioned adulterous unions and that estimate is probably closer to 95%. There are ways to correct this, but in order to deal with the problem one has to admit the problem exists.
The only way to do that is to examine exactly what Scripture says and doesn’t say about sex and marriage. Because this isn’t just about money, it’s also all about power and control and everything devolves to the question of who has the authority to initiate marriage. Either God gave the man that authority in Genesis 2:24 or He didn’t. Support for my position comes from Exodus 22:16-17 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29, which is that God did gave that authority to the man; not to the family, the community, the church or the state.
The reason this is so critical is today, virtually all church doctrine concerning marriage and sex is based on the idea the church or state has the authority to determine when a marriage is initiated. The standard argument is the “leave, cleave and become one flesh” means that the “cleave” portion is the sanctioning of the marriage by either community, church or state and the “become one flesh” portion does not and cannot initiate a marriage unless the “cleave” portion (a marriage ceremony) takes place first. This is where the church created the “sin” of premarital sex.
That isn’t supported by Scripture at all and in fact, Exodus 22:16-17 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29 contradict that point of view. Why? Because the marriage covenant is initiated with the shedding of the virgins blood when they become one flesh. The covenant is between the man, woman and God. That “becoming one flesh” is the act of initiating the marriage, which is supported by the passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy. Am I saying that wedding ceremonies are of no use? Not at all! They serve a purpose, but the idea that the ceremony is what makes a couple married is not correct.
Simply put, that means the man a virgin (who is not betrothed) has sex with is her husband. If she did it willingly, she made an agreement to marry her father can nullify (Numbers 30:3-5), which is why Exodus 22:16-17 mentions the father who refuses to give his daughter. However, if she did not do so willingly, she is married and there is no mention of the father’s right to annul the marriage because she made no agreement he could annul. That is what the text of Deuteronomy 22:28-29 says, that if the man seizes her (takes her by force) and they are discovered, they are married. According to the text, there is literally no way they are not married.
A careful reading of Deuteronomy 22 regarding rape indicates the evidence has to demonstrate the woman was forced or it is assumed she was not forced. Which is why in cases in which the couple is not discovered (she claims she was forced with no evidence other than her word) the text does *not* state their disposition. Why? Because lacking evidence the woman was truly forced, the situation devolves to that of a seduction and the father has the right to annul the marriage.
Why is this so much of a problem? Because for a virgin who is not betrothed, having sex means she’s married. If she is betrothed, having sex with another guy means she has committed adultery. That means the man (like me) who married a woman who was not a virgin joined himself to the wife of another man and entered into an adulterous relationship. In other words, there is no such thing as pre-marital sex and I defy anyone to cite a passage anywhere in the Bible that supports such a claim. Sex with a virgin is the consummation of her marriage. Sex with a married woman (be she a betrothed virgin or a well-used wife) is either adultery or forced adultery. There is not a single mention in Scripture of sex outside of marriage with a widow or a legitimately divorced woman, so Romans 4:15 and 5:13 applies.
The real point is you have people claiming that it’s the ceremony that makes on married while God’s Word says it’s sex that makes the (unbetrothed) virgin married. As I’ve asked before, who are you going to believe? God, or the guy with the funny hat? If you choose God, that means all the howling about feminism, rampant divorce and the submission of wives is nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic because the vast majority of the so-called Christian wives are living in adultery with a guy who thinks she’s *his* wife.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is the most serious problem in the church today.
The thing is, this is not the FUBAR situation most folks think it is. I’d guess about 80% of the problem can be solved without much fuss. Numbers 30:3-5 first because the father, through ignorance, was never given the chance to annul his daughters marriage because he never knew about it. Numbers 30 doesn’t have a time limit. Anybody with eyes can see that the good little Christian girls are not giving it up to the boys in church, they go for the bad boys. Those guys tend not to be Christians and for the girls, cocks are like potato chips (they can’t have just one) and it is perfectly consistent with Scripture for their non-Christian husband to give them a certificate of divorce for adultery (Deut 24:1). To take it one step further, if their husband who is an unbeliever refuses to live with them (1st Cor. 7:15) then they’re free.
But, nobody wants to go there because to do so would mean admitting they were wrong and the stuff they’ve been teaching and preaching all their lives is wrong. The people don’t want to hear it because it means that most of them are deep in sin. So, my “dubious” status for pointing this stuff out becomes obvious. There are plenty of examples in history of people being put to death for doing what I’m doing right now.
Feminism cannot be stopped and will not be stopped until this is addressed by the church leadership and they will fight tooth and nail to keep it from happening. Think about Mark Driscoll admitting his “wife” gave her virginity to another man. He was actually admitting that he’s living with another man’s wife. Do you think any pastor in his situation would be willing to admit that?
Artisanal Toad says:
March 24, 2016 at 9:23 pm
Hi Toad, I always enjoy your posts even if I don’t agree with everything you write.
Regarding the definition of premarital sex. I would like to point out that the girl misrepresenting her virginity in Deut 22:13-21 was punished because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house.
I have always understood this to be a classic example of premarital sex. By using your definition she was guilty of marriage and then adultery by deception. But the problem I have with that is the scripture quoted doesn’t say adultery by deception, rather she played the whore in her father’s house. I consider that description a better explanation of her behaviour.
Also, Jesus taught that to marry a divorced woman was adultery. A woman in the Old Testament was divorced when she received the certificate of divorce from her husband. Using your definition the non virgin bride is a divorcee, and the resulting marriage is adultery but there is no record anywhere of the previous marriage, a broken hymen isn’t a certificate of divorce. Although I have seen such prevailing sentiments in [Asian] countries where there is little or no knowledge of scripture.
You must admit this gets messy. Her father doesn’t give her a certificate of divorce, he just annuls her marriage by word.
Was she really married?
Was she really divorced?
Or did she just play the harlot in her father’s house
Ok, IMO this is the strength of your argument. Under such circumstances the guy is stuck with her for life. OUCH! Every other man in the OT has the option to divorce but not this guy, he is never allowed to divorce. So who nailed who <== joke
The example above from Deut. 22: 21 show exactly that, she played the harlot in her father’s house.
So as I understand this point a girl can be married in 2 ways, by consummation and by covenant. Would you agree with that statement?
remove final comments most of which we’ve been through previously.
Artisanal Toad says: March 24, 2016 at 9:23 pm
First up, I’d say my use of the word “dubious” is a poor choice on my part and for that I apologise.
I would also say that you certainly have studied this aspect of Biblical canon far more than I have for the reasons you have given, for which I empathise. Your wife should have made this plain to you before you were married and not 17 years later.
Regarding it being the act of union rather than the ceremony that makes a marriage, I would say there is a biblical case: Eve was considered Adam’s wife, when there was no one around to perform any ceremony. I think the ceremony is important for the following reason: it is a public declaration before all that is held sacred (God) and everyone that the couple loves, to exchange vows about staying together. This is probably the most serious setting to bind a couple together that the people of old could conceive of. Considering also that it is estimated that 30% of women – one in three – walk down the aisle knowingly marrying the wrong man – makes the ceremony a farce. I thought this through: She is lying. She is lying to her future husband, to her parents, to her friends, to his friends, to the congregation who are God’s servants and Christ’s body, and ultimately she is lying to God.
This being the case, then the church should get out of the marriage business entirely so that God’s people don’t become a party to bearing false witness.
In order to be consistent then, the church should teach sexual regulation and perform covenant marriages without the interference of the State, or it should allow sexual freedom and not perform marriages at all. Is it doing so? I have heard ONE case of a minister telling a group of young women to abstain from sex in 30+ years of Christian activity. He received a great deal of scorn for it.
Most women nowadays are whoring in daddy’s house. That’s just what they do and daddy can’t do a thing about it. If he does, abuse, divorce and eventual prison await him. Marriage and the state don’t mix. Marriage under the current construct is a fool’s game.
Most women are a fool’s game.
As for priests or pastors or any of the clergy telling women to keep their legs shut, not going to happen, that would be expecting responsibility from women, a big no no. They will just be forgiven and some man better ‘man up’ if he knows what’s good for him.
Marriage is a covenant (aka contract) between God a man and a woman.
Requirements for a contract.
1) Intention to create legal relation.
2) Offer.
3) Acceptance. (voluntary consent)
4) Consideration. (benefits given)
5) Capacity. (authority or ability to enter into a contract).
Number 5 is usually lacking in today’s marriages.
@ AT
Can widows remarry? A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. (I Cor 7:39)
When widows have sex with the new husband, is there any shedding of blood? No. So the remarriage cannot be a covenant relationship. This would also be true if a previous marriage had been annulled by the father.
@ Spike
I have heard ONE case of a minister telling a group of young women to abstain from sex in 30+ years of Christian activity. He received a great deal of scorn for it.
As well he should. Paul makes it clear that it’s better to marry than to burn with passion. Of course, if the women were already married, then committing adultery is a sin and they should be rebuked for it.
definition of Marry: To join or merge
i.e., to have sex is to marry; having sex is a joining of two bodies
Here’s some more grist for the mill for you Dalrock; it’s entitled “Women don’t know everything about gender issues”…the same old shtick:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/women-dont-know-everything-gender-issues-kellye-whitney?trk=eml-b2_content_ecosystem_digest-recommended_articles-73-null&midToken=AQEY4SHf1g9wSQ&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=3BLoPXSbZ11nc1
And so many pastors, pundits and ‘christian’ dating ‘experts’ are just dumbfounded about the state of Christian dating / marriage.
What man who loves Jesus would even want to pursue at this point? What man who struggles to daily conform to His will would want a marriage like this? We’re seeing this implemented on all levels now in our protestant church culture from movies (that ‘Old fashioned’ movie comes to mind of late…..a supposed ‘christian movie’), current music and messages from the pulpit….even from supposedly ‘conservative, Bible believing churches with (cough) ‘bold’ pastors.
Christian women will tell us men that we’re making a “big deal out of nothing” but if indeed it was nothing…..why all these books and speeches, podcasts telling us all about how “marriages in faith” work today????????
As for priests or pastors or any of the clergy telling women to keep their legs shut, not going to happen, that would be expecting responsibility from women, a big no no.
The ONLY way that large numbers of women in the western world will EVER keep their legs shut outside of marriage is if Old Testament/Shariah punishments were to be reimposed on a societal level, thus making promiscuity a life-threatening gamble. Needless to say, that ain’t ever gonna happen.
Christian women will tell us men that we’re making a “big deal out of nothing” but if indeed it was nothing…..why all these books and speeches, podcasts telling us all about how “marriages in faith” work today????????
To say that the church today has its collective head up its ass where marriage and family are concerned would be putting it far too politely. Between the cowardice, overt hostility, and willful ignorance, it is, as Rollo has commented often, amazing that any intact Christian families with children exist at all or that any new ones ever form.
Bottom line: until some man –or multiple men– in a position of influence and power who fear(s) God more than man stands up and says the following, without sugarcoating it, things will only continue to deteriorate further:
“You women are in open rebellion against God, and until you repent you are cast out of the fold. You men who are husbands and fathers who have allowed this to continue are derelict in your duty to God and need also to repent and regain control of what God has commanded you to lead. If your wives and daughters refuse to submit and obey, then they have apostasized and will suffer the eternal consequences of their sin. So be it, but we as a church, as the Body of Christ, shall not condone or sanction rebellion. If you husbands and fathers refuse to at least atrempt to assert headship over your wives and daughters as Scripture commands, then consider yourselves de-fellowshipped as well. Yes, doing so will involve suffering and hardship, qs you are going against the culture and maybe even the secular law,that violates Scripture. But did not Our Lord Jesus tell us that if we truly submit to Him that we are to foresake all that is,worldly and take up our crosses and follow Him? It’s time to walk the talk, brothers and sisters!”
Needless to say, there will be snowball fights in hell and the Chicago Cubs will win the World Series before any such thing is said or done.
@Don Quixote
The word that’s defined as “harlot” in the passage you mention is also defined as adulteress. You are taking the english translation “harlot” and misinterpreting what has happened in this situation, then applied that to other situations. Your comment indicates that you are defending the idea that taking a woman’s virginity is the “sin” of “premarital sex” because the church didn’t bless the marriage or the couple didn’t have a ceremony. That is NOT what Scripture says. Let’s look at the situation and see if we can reason out what happened from the facts provided.
The woman living in her father’s house is a virgin. An act of marriage occurs (Exodus 22:16-17) and as a result she is no longer a virgin.
She is either married or she isn’t, and that is the major issue here.
The woman who is no longer a virgin has contracted a marriage with another man, which makes her legally married. She completes the period of betrothal, they have sex and she is found not to be a virgin. She is stoned to death at her father’s doorstep. Why was she stoned to death?
Is harlotry a crime? Please cite the prohibition and penalty.
Lacking any specific prohibition on harlotry (prostitution) *other* than being a temple prostitute (participation in idolatry), and lacking any application of the death penalty to said harlotry, what death-penalty offense did she commit that required that she be stoned to death?
The only reasonable explanation of why she was to be killed is because she committed adultery and the only question is *how* she committed adultery. Essentials are that a woman went through the process of betrothal and marriage, after which her husband was upset that she wasn’t a virgin. Obviously, the only way she wasn”t a virgin was if some other guy did it because the “husband” would not bring the issue up publicly if *he* had jumped the gun.
1. She gave her virginity to some random guy and hid the fact***. Therefore, her father did not annul the marriage and thus she is very much a married woman, some other man’s wife. Romans 7:2-3a informs us that a married woman who is joined to another man while her husband is still alive is called an adulteress. Adultery is a death penalty offense.
2. She was a virgin when she was betrothed, but got seduced by some other guy during the betrothal period and thus was no longer a virgin when she married her betrothed. That’s adultery because she was legally married (though not yet a wife) to the man she was officially marrying.
Either way, adultery is the only death penalty offense that fits the crime and no matter how it gets sliced, she committed adultery, but it’s possibly worse than that. If she was already a married woman when she got engaged then her act of joining herself to another man was an act of adultery not only for her but for him as well.
***It may be she didn’t choose to hide it, rather her father decided that’s what she should do. Or maybe he suspected and said nothing. There is a reason why she was to be stoned at the doorpost of his house rather than outside the city gates, because implicit in the death sentence is some level of imputed culpability on the father for if nothing else, not keeping tabs on his daughter.
The point of Exodus 22:16-17 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29 was that Genesis 2:24 is a grant of authority to the man to initiate marriage and is also descriptive of the initiation of marriage: have sex with a virgin and you’re married to her, having established the marital covenant with the shedding of blood in the act of becoming one flesh. So, once married, how does the marriage end? One way is if her father annulled the marriage. Another is if her husband dies, the last one is if her un-believing husband divorced her for adultery or refuses to live with her.
You said:
Also, Jesus taught that to marry a divorced woman was adultery. A woman in the Old Testament was divorced when she received the certificate of divorce from her husband. Using your definition the non virgin bride is a divorcee, and the resulting marriage is adultery but there is no record anywhere of the previous marriage, a broken hymen isn’t a certificate of divorce. Although I have seen such prevailing sentiments in [Asian] countries where there is little or no knowledge of scripture.
“Jesus taught that to marry a divorced woman was adultery”
I addressed this issue in detail in a comment previously. I’m sorry, but if you insist that marriage to a legitimately divorced woman is adultery, we cannot agree for the reasons I gave here:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/dont-fear-marriage-and-fatherhood-but-beware-those-who-are-working-to-destroy-your-family/#comment-201466
Using your definition the non virgin bride is a divorcee
No, if her father annulled her marriage, she is not longer married but she is not divorced. A woman who is legitimately divorced was guilty of committing a crime of sexual immorality, which Jesus stated as the only acceptable grounds for divorce under the Law. The virgin seduced who had her marriage annulled by her father did not do so, thus, she is not a virgin, not married and not guilty of sexual immorality.
Artisanal Toad says:
March 25, 2016 at 6:39 pm
Using my trusty E-sword and the KJV Bible the word in Deut. 22:21 [Zanah] Strongs 2181 appears 93 times in the OT. 90 times as harlot, whore, whoring or whoredoms, and 3 times as fornication. It doesn’t appear even once as adulteress. Can you provide an example of that word as adulteress?
Likewise the word adulteress [Strongs 5003] doesn’t get used as harlot either.
Yes and no.
I believe that the example provided is an example of premarital sex being a sin, called harlotry. I am fascinated by your views because I have never seen them displayed before with such conviction, and study. I want to know the truth, that is all.
remove commentary on Exodus 22:16-17
The other reasonable explanation is she, played the harlot in her fathers house as the verse Deut. 22:21 describes. And as a result was killed for her harlotry and deception.
I gunna keep going back to the previous example [Deut.22:21] where the death sentence was also for the girl who played the harlot in her fathers house. You haven’t convinced me.
Remove comments previously discussed and previously disagreed upon.
Thanks for your time and thoughts, I appreciate your efforts.
@Lynx: “Marriage is a covenant (aka contract) between God a man and a woman.
Requirements for a contract.
1) Intention to create legal relation.
2) Offer.
3) Acceptance. (voluntary consent)
4) Consideration. (benefits given)
5) Capacity. (authority or ability to enter into a contract).
Number 5 is usually lacking in today’s marriages.”
Number 4 is also missing. I have asked before and do so again. Consideration for a valid contract requires something given in exchange for something else by BOTH parties. This is also known as a quid-pro-quo or something given in exchange for something else. Traditionally, the vows say:
1. To have and to hold from this day forth.
2. Forsaking all others.
So men promise not to “cheat” and to be faithful by forsaking all others. The State promises to take everything a man has and give it to the woman in case of divorce- including the children, the house, the cars, and the bedroom so she can rail her new lover while her kids hear her moans.
Traditionally, until 1960, women offered sex on demand to the man who is entitled “to have and to hold.”
So here is the question: WHAT IS THE CONSIDERATION OFFERED BY WOMEN IN MARRIAGE TODAY? Go ahead, I’m waiting. What enforceable promise do women make? Come on! You can think of something.
Let us review;
Could the promise to “forsake all others” be the “consideration” we are seeking?
Man cheats: Woman divorces: Man pays.
Woman cheats: Woman divorces: Man pays.
Nope! Women offer NO enforceable consideration to be faithful and forsake all others. In fact they are rewarded with Cash and Prizes if they are unfaithful.
Could the promise to “have and to hold” be the consideration we are seeking?
Man has sex 3 times a day for 2 years. Man gets married. Woman cuts off sex. Man has NO RECOURSE WHATSOEVER. Not even a social custom to “think of England” but rather “the Whispers” telling women they can do better than that deadweight loser you married. Why all kinds of HAAAAWWWWT guys are ready to slam you hard. Go for it! You go girrrrlllz.
So Nope! Women offer NO enforceable consideration to “have and to hold.” Women decide WHEN AND WHERE AND HOW the husband get’s to have sex. In fact, just the suggestion that women have a duty in marriage makes me a rapist and a Shitlord. See how that works?
I am still waiting after all these years! What consideration do women offer in modern marriage?
TLDR: Modern marriage is an “Illusory Contract” that benefits women and offers nothing to men. There is no consideration offered by one party and the contract is usery on it’s face and would not be enforced by any court in the world on any other subject matter unless it benefited women and harmed men.
TLDR: Modern marriage is an “Illusory Contract” that benefits women and offers nothing to men.
It’s also an adhesion contract for the husband in that he is bound by its terms in perpetuity even after his wife breeches it and ceases giving consideration (i.e., the contract has been rendered null and void).
Any other contract under such terms would be illegal and unenforceable.
bluepillprofessor says:
March 26, 2016 at 10:22 am
Great post, state enforced feminism has destroyed marriage1.0
A couple of small points to consider:
1) Until the 1920s women vowed to “obey” their husbands. But the word “obey” was removed by from the liturgy because the churches followed the trend of the time, being the women’s suffrage movement.
2) To the best of my knowledge the words forsaking all others isn’t part of the actual vow. It is part of the declaration of intent, according to the Common Book of Prayer. Not that it matters much anyway.
@ bluepillprofessor
“So here is the question: WHAT IS THE CONSIDERATION OFFERED BY WOMEN IN MARRIAGE TODAY? Go ahead, I’m waiting. What enforceable promise do women make? Come on! You can think of something.
Let us review;
Could the promise to “forsake all others” be the “consideration” we are seeking?
Man cheats: Woman divorces: Man pays.
Woman cheats: Woman divorces: Man pays.”
Are contracts not dynamic?
Better to have a so-called doormat than a total cunt any day.
And I’m supposed to marry why…? No thanks. I’m not interested in selling myself into slavery.
@Don Quixote
I gunna keep going back to the previous example [Deut.22:21] where the death sentence was also for the girl who played the harlot in her fathers house. You haven’t convinced me.
This may not be a case in which I can convince you because in all probability you cannot be convinced by any amount of evidence. However, your response and explanation does not fit the text of the passage: In this passage (Deuteronomy 22:21), given the facts presented, what act/crime did she commit (translated into English as “played the harlot”) that was prohibited, evil and a death-penalty offense? That is the question I’m going to try to answer here.
At first blush this raises a question I don’t have a definitive answer to because I have not spent time studying it exhaustively, but I’ll toss it in anyway in case anyone wants to dig out the answer. Is there any Biblical offense which calls for the death penalty in which the offense and penalty are only listed in one place, a single time? I cannot think of any cases in which a crime that calls for a death penalty doesn’t have at least two separate mentions (two witnesses), often one time as a prohibition and another time the prohibition cited with the penalty. Bestiality, for example, is prohibited and generally condemned at Exodus 22:19, prohibited at Leviticus 18:23 and prohibited and condemned at Leviticus 20:15-16. I ask that question because if “harlotry” is to be used in the general (sexual) sense of something akin to prostitution that’s *other* than adultery, then this is the only place in Scripture in which such an act is prohibited and the only place in Scripture that it’s given the death penalty. Even then, the text has all kinds of qualifiers, such as the woman living in her fathers house, betrothed, then married and with the complaint of non-virginity by her husband and the finding that she was not a virgin upon entering the marital bed.
One reason I raise this point is because I’m quite sure there are those who will engage in the circular logic that “harlotry” as used in the sexual sense of sluttery or prostitution is forbidden and a death penalty offense because it says so, right there in Deuteronomy 22:21. Another reason I raise this point is because you are using this one verse as a support for a doctrine that has no other support and actually conflicts with other passages of Scripture (premarital sex as a sin).
What we have is a situation in which the English translation carries with it some connotations and denotations that do not fit the situation, because “harlotry” (sexually, as some form of illicit sex or prostitution not attaining the bar to be considered adultery or idolatry) is not prohibited anywhere in the Law. The fact is, there is only one passage that comes close to any form of prohibition on prostitution, which is Deuteronomy 23:17-18, and that is specific to “cult prostitution” which was part of the practice of idolatry. As an act of idolatry (Baal, for example, was a god of fertility) such temple prostitutes were under a sentence of death for idolatry, not for the acts of sex that made up part of the idolatrous worship. As far as being a slut, as long as the woman is not married, there is no prohibition on such activity as long as the choice of sexual partners doesn’t trigger any other prohibition (incest, for example).
“17 None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute. 18 You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog [male prostitute, sodomite] into the house of the Lord your God for any votive offering, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.” Deuteronomy 23:17-18, (translator’s note in brackets)
The context of verse 18, with the use of the phrase “the wages of a dog” makes it clear the wages of cult prostitution shall not be used for any votive offering because such is an abomination to the Lord. This passage says nothing about any form of value-for-sex prostitution at all, nor about the honest whore who tithes from the wages she earned on her back. Likewise, the text and context of the passage in Deuteronomy 22 gives no indication that the woman in question was acting as a harlot (prostitute) as the word is typically defined, much less acting as a temple whore.
The question remains, what, exactly, was her crime?
Using my trusty E-sword and the KJV Bible the word in Deut. 22:21 [Zanah] Strongs 2181 appears 93 times in the OT. 90 times as harlot, whore, whoring or whoredoms, and 3 times as fornication. It doesn’t appear even once as adulteress. Can you provide an example of that word as adulteress?
Yes Fair warning, this is exhaustive.
You mention the Hebrew word zanah but that is a general heading that contains 43 specific terms which are all classified as zanah under the heading for Strong’s 2181. So, let’s start where you left off. In the case of Deuteronomy 22:21, we have a situation in which a woman is found not to be a virgin in her father’s house who is commanded to be put to death because “she has committed an act of folly in Israel, by [zanah] in her father’s house, thus you shall purge the evil from among you.
Hebrew term: zanah
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/2181.htm
From Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance:
cause to commit fornication, continually, great, be an, play the harlot
A primitive root (highly-fed and therefore wanton); to commit adultery (usually of the female, and less often of simple fornication, rarely of involuntary ravishment); figuratively, to commit idolatry (the Jewish people being regarded as the spouse of Jehovah) — (cause to) commit fornication, X continually, X great, (be an, play the) harlot, (cause to be, play the) whore, (commit, fall to) whoredom, (cause to) go a-whoring, whorish.
Notice that the usage of the term harlot and whore are figurative in the sense that Israel was one of God’s two wives (Jeremiah 31:31-32) and their acts of idolatry were figuratively described as acts of adulterous harlotry and whoredom.
I use the NASB, where the heading of “zanah” is translated 93 times in the following ways:
adulterous (1), become a harlot (1), commit adultery (1), commits flagrant harlotry (1), fall to harlotry (1), harlot (22), harlot continually (1), harlot’s (2), harlot’s* (2), harlot* (3), harlotry (3), harlots (5), making her a harlot (1), play the harlot (18), play the harlot continually (1), played the harlot (24), playing the harlot (3), plays the harlot (1), prostitute (1), unfaithful (1)
What “folly” was it that she committed that was evil that rated the death penalty? Adultery and idolatry are both death penalty offenses, while physical prostitution (harlotry, whoring) is not. So, what does this thing that’s translated as “played the harlot” mean?
Well, if you look at the link to Strong’s 2181 above, if you notice over on the right side of the page, there are 43 variations of “zanah” and the particular iteration of the word used in Deuteronomy 22:21 is the specific term “liz-nō-wṯ” and of that particular iteration, there are only 5 occurrences. Each of these 43 different terms that fall under the general heading of Strong’s 2118 has a specific shade of meaning, which is why the general term zanah is translated into different words in English. The question is what the term “liz-nō-wṯ” actually means, so we first look at the other usages of the term and the 5 times “liz-nō-wṯ” is used are at
1) Leviticus 20:5 (Defined as Molech worship)
2) Leviticus 20:6 (Defined as using mediums and spiritists)
3) Leviticus 21:9 (Not defined at all)
4) Numbers 25:1 (Defined as Baal worship)
5) Deuteronomy 22:21 (Contextually defined as a crime, sexual in nature)
That’s easy, but don’t take my word for it. Leviticus 20:5 and 6 are clearly explained by the text of verses 2-6:
You shall also say to the sons of Israel: ‘Any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 ‘I will also set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given some of his offspring to Molech, so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name. 4 ‘If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech, so as not to put him to death, 5 then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him, by playing the harlot after Molech. 6 ‘As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.
Leviticus 21:9 occurs as part of the instruction to the priests who are the sons of Aaron, instruction which literally only applies specifically to those who are of the Aaronic priesthood, not generally to the Levitical priesthood (the sons of Levi). These are the men who perform the sacrifices and attend the Tabernacle, the only ones who can become High Priest and enter the Holy of Holies.
7 ‘They shall not take a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor shall they take a woman divorced from her husband; for he is holy to his God. 8 ‘You shall consecrate him, therefore, for he offers the food of your God; he shall be holy to you; for I the LORD, who sanctifies you, am holy. 9 ‘Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.
Numbers 25:1 is explained clearly by verses 1-3, which also explains *how* the people “played the harlot”:
While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. 2 For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the LORD was angry against Israel.
We have already examined Deuteronomy 22:21, so I won’t quote it now, but look at the other examples of this particular iteration of the Hebrew. In the four other times it’s used, #1 was Molech worship, #2 was witchcraft (spirit mediums) and #4 is Baal worship, so in *every* instance this specific phrase is used where the text defines what the term means, it is clearly defined as some form of idolatry. That leaves us with Leviticus 21:9, in which there is no indication of what the daughter actually does that is classified as “liz-nō-wṯ”. Now we look at the specific context in order to get an idea of what the term means for this verse.
Let’s notice a few things, one of which is the woman in that verse is described as a daughter, not a wife, which would indicate she is living in her father’s house and not the house of her husband. This would directly relate to Deut. 22:21, but the question here is *how* she played the harlot. Given that her father is of the line of high priests, some form of idolatry should be at the top of the list because idolatry is a death-penalty offense, as is adultery, and in every other use of the term (other than Deuteronomy 22:21) it’s defined in the text as idolatry.
The context of Leviticus 21:9 is the instruction to the Aaronic priesthood. They are told not to defile themselves with the dead, not to give themselves skrillex haircuts, shave off the edges of their beards or to cut themselves. All of these are things the pagans did. It gets interesting down in verse seven, when it says they are not to marry a woman who has been profaned by harlotry, nor shall they marry a woman who has been divorced.
We’ve had three examples of how the term “liz-nō-wṯ” is defined as idolatry in the text but now we’ll see how it’s contrasted with an example of a different term which is rendered identically in English as “harlot.” Notice the Aaronic priest is told he must not marry a woman profaned by harlotry, but the word in verse 7 (and verse 14) that is translated as harlot is “zō·nāh” rather than the word “liz-nō-wṯ” that is used in verse 9. Interestingly, “zō·nāh” is used 19 times and in every occurrence it’s used in a sexual connotation, speaking of sexually immorality. Thus, the priest (the father of the woman in verse 9) is commanded he must not take for a wife a woman who is profaned by harlotry, nor a woman who committed immorality in her marriage and got divorced for it. Later, in 13-15 he is told *specifically* not to marry a widow, a divorced woman or a woman profaned by harlotry, instead he *must* marry a virgin “that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.”
Given that this is an injunction for priests, specifically those of the line of Aaron who are the only men who can ever enter the Holy of Holies, God is making a specific injunction here in order that (according to verse 15) “he may not profane his offspring.” This is completely in line with Deuteronomy 23:2
“No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the LORD; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the LORD.”
So, we see in verses 7 and 14 the term translated into English as “harlot” is the specific term “zō·nāh” used (as a sexual term) with a concern for the offspring (children) of the priest and in verse 9, speaking of the daughter, the term “liz-nō-wṯ” is used, which is otherwise used to describe idolatry. My vote here is that the word “liz-nō-wṯ” in verse 9 is being used in the sense of idolatry and because she is the daughter of a priest who is of the line of the High Priest, she is to be burned with fire because she is profaning a priest of the Aaronic line.
So, we’ve seen that where the term “liz-nō-wṯ” is defined in the text, every time it’s defined it’s a form of idolatry, which carries a death-penalty. Then we see it used in contradistinction to the term “zō·nāh” which is textually and contextually defined as a form of sexual immorality. We see that the facts presented in Deuteronomy 22:13-21 support a finding of adultery two different ways (as I’ve previously elaborated), which is a death penalty offense. We have an English translation of “harlot” which carries an English definition that points to prostitution. Is there any wonder there is some confusion over this passage?
So the question is, why, when the facts support a conclusion of adultery, did the translators use the term “harlot” instead of adulteress when the specific definition of the term in every instance it is defined in the text is one of idolatry? Is it possible that in her acts of adultery the woman is signifying her rejection of God, His Law and precepts of purity? As to why the translators choose to use the word “harlot” as the English translation for all of these uses of that particular term, I suspect that it relates to the idea that idolatry is spiritual adultery in the same way that adultery is physical idolatry. This is because idolatry is giving something that belongs only to God to someone or something else. Adultery is a wife giving to some other man something that belongs only to her husband. In both cases there is an *obligation* that is being violated.
If this is the case, the idea of “harlot” would carry with it the idea that the woman in question gave something (her virginity) to someone other than the man to whom she was obligated (by her marriage contract) to give it to. That view supports the idea that her harlotry, in this case, was the act of giving her virginity to a man other than the one she was legally obligated to give her virginity to. That’s adultery.
However, it appears to me the common interpretation of “harlotry” in this verse is banging on the church doctrine (contrary to Scripture) that one is not married until some sort of ceremony takes place and banging a virgin doesn’t mean you’re married to her. That calls for a judgment that instead of a finding of adultery, we have this made up “sin” of premarital sex and the claim that this “sin” of premarital sex merits the death penalty. There is literally nothing else in Scripture to support this view and it is contradicted by other passages that you’ve already rejected, based at least in part on your view of this passage. Which is why I brought up the question earlier about any death-penalty crimes being mentioned only a single time in Scripture.
This leads us to the question of where your position on this came from, because it is a fact that the position you are taking has widespread support in the church both now (only among fundamentalists and Catholics) and historically.
I have been accused of riding in on a hobby-horse to proclaim that all of Christendom has it wrong and I have been gifted with the truth. That isn’t so. The problem as I see it is that pretty much all of Christendom has been lied to for well over 1000 years by an organized church that created its doctrines based not on what Scripture says, but rather on beliefs in pagan religions and Roman law. They did so out of the personal belief of the influential early church fathers such as Augustine and Jerome, as well as for the reason that the church (as an organization) benefited from such doctrines. The response to that is “Oh yeah? Sez who?” What follows are a few quotes taken from “Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe” by James Brundage. This book is literally “one-stop shopping” on where church doctrine on sex and marriage came from, taken from available historical texts and the church’s own records.
So, who is this guy? James A. Brundage (87 years old) is professor emeritus of history at the University of Kansas. He was formerly the Ahmanson-Murphy professor of medieval European history. Brundage specializes in the history of medieval canon law, the crusades and universities. He received his PhD from Fordham University. He stated that “Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe” (698 pages) was his “magnum opus” and as a reader, I can state that I was truly impressed with his scholarship (and I’ve read *lots* of academic books by noted professors that don’t even come close).
What you are seeing here are quotes from one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject of law, sex and marriage in medieval Europe. These are *not* taken out of context and he liberally supports what he’s saying, exhaustively. Where did Christian doctrines concerning marriage and sex come from? Glad you asked:
Christian notions about sexual morals consisted in large part of ancient notions about proper behavior cloaked in a soutane [a priest’s cassock] rather than a toga. Stoicism (or more accurately, certain varieties of Stoic thought) furnished the Church Fathers with many of their central ideas about sexual conduct. What was original in patristic sexual morality was its singular mixture of Stoic ethical ideas with ancient religious beliefs about ritual purity, supported by a theological rationale based in large part on the Hebrew scriptures.
Christian sexual morality is a complex assemblage of pagan and Jewish purity regulations, linked with primitive beliefs about the relationship between sex and the holy, joined to Stoic teachings about sexual ethics, and bound together by a patchwork of doctrinal theories largely invented in the fourth and fifth centuries.
Christian sexual morality began to take shape as doctrine during the fourth and fifth centuries; it gradually began to be transformed into law beginning in the mid-sixth century. When I say that sexual morality became doctrine, I mean that the views on sex expressed by the Fathers slowly took coherent form and began to be integrated into a larger body of theological ideas about anthropology, psychology, and cosmology. When I say that this body of beliefs commenced to be transformed into law, I mean that it began to be expressed as rules of conduct to which Christians were obliged to conform under penalty of disagreeable sanctions. (page 3)
If “Christian” means what Jesus of Nazareth is reported to have taught, then there is not much Christian teaching about sexuality to discuss. … But it remained for medieval Church authorities, confident of the authenticity of their own beliefs, to wrap their views on sex and the family in the mantle of Christian orthodoxy. In effect, then, Christian sexual morality received its cachet of authority from the medieval Church. (page 5)
Augustine wrote eloquently on the theology of sex, but he was by no means the only patristic writer to deal with the subject. His contemporaries by and large shared Augustine’s negative attitudes toward the role of sex in Christian life. A few were even more certain than he that sex was a root cause of sin and corruption. St. Jerome (ca. 347-419/20), for example, maintained that sex and salvation were contradictions. Even in marriage, coitus was evil and unclean, Jerome thought, and married Christians should avoid sexual contact whenever possible. St. Gregory of Nyssa was still more emphatic: he taught that only those who renounced sex completely and led lives of unblemished virginity could attain spiritual perfection.
Such views as these owed as much to philosophy, particularly to Stoicism, as to religious teaching, and St. Jerome explicitly acknowledged in his treatise against Jovinian that he was drawing upon Stoic sources. But although fourth-hand fifth-century patristic writers borrowed heavily from pagan sexual ethics, they nevertheless sought to legitimize their borrowings by finding support for their conclusions in the Scriptures. This sometimes required ingenious feats of imaginative interpretation, but a Scriptural foundation for their ideas about sexuality seemed essential. (page 82)
Patristic writers assumed, as Roman law did, that consent made marriage. They rejected the notion that consummation was an essential part of marriage. It made no difference whether a couple ever went to bed together; so long as they consented to marry one another, that was what counted.63 If consummation was not essential, it might follow that sexual impotence constituted no reason for holding a marriage invalid, and Augustine at any rate seems to have subscribed to this view. (page 92)
Cessation of marital relations did not break the bond of marriage, just as the beginning of sexual relations was irrelevant to the contracting of marriage. The evident aim of patristic matrimonial theory was to separate marriage as far as possible from its sexual component, defining it as a contractual union, separate and distinct from the sexual union of the married persons. (page 93)
That, in general, is where the modern ideas about the requirement for a wedding ceremony being required to effect a marriage came from, as opposed to the Biblical view that the covenant of marriage is initiated with the act of becoming one flesh and there is no Biblical requirement anywhere for any form, ritual, rite or ceremony for a marriage to be created and it is the man who has the authority to initiate the marriage rather than the family, community, state or the church.
Keep in mind that Genesis 2:24, Exodus 22:16-17 and Deuteronomy 22:28-29 are all in agreement- the guy that gets the woman’s virginity is her husband whether she gives it to him willingly or whether he takes it by force. The only way out after that is if her father annuls the marriage when he hears of it (always after the fact), and lacking that, every guy she has sex with after #1 (her husband) is a case of adultery because she’s a married woman. Likewise, the woman who is a betrothed virgin is legally married and having sex with her is adultery even though she’s still a virgin. And, as we know, sluts are gonna slut. They will lie about it when it carries no penalty other than a hit to their reputation (today) so what does one expect in an environment in which sampling cock carries the death penalty? The woman in Deuteronomy 22:21 is a classic case of a woman who played around and then tried to settle down with her beta provider. Problem is, she got caught. Why was she killed? Because adultery is a death penalty offense.
It seems to me that to deny the best answer is adultery is to do so in order to reinforce a doctrine that doesn’t agree with Scripture and can historically be proven to have been taken from pagan beliefs and Roman law.
Thanks AT for your thoughts. I will re-read it again tomorrow but for now I have ordered a copy of the book you mentioned [Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe” by James Brundage].
Just a thought regarding the fate of the girl who played the harlot in Deut. 22:21. She compounded her sin with deception. The words thou shall not bear false witness, come to mind. The simplest explanation would be: Harlotry x Deception = Death Penalty. This combo magnifies both sins into a monster requiring a more severe punishment that either alone would not require.
Anyhoo, it will take quite some time for me to receive and digest the book mentioned above. Thanks again.
@Don Quixote
The simplest explanation would be: Harlotry x Deception = Death Penalty.
You still haven’t defined harlotry in terms of any specific sexual act listed in the Law as a prohibition, much less a death-penalty offense (I must assume you would, if you could), so where is there any increase in magnitude by concealing something that isn’t a crime in the first place? Zero multiplied by anything is still zero. Deception (lying) is not necessarily a violation of the command not to bear false witness. In this case, if you want to apply the prohibition of bearing false witness, against whom did she testify and what death-penalty offense is she accusing them of that would then be applied to her?
This is more complex than meets the eye, so let’s play Moses.
You have before you a young woman who was found not to be a virgin on her wedding night. You have beside you a copy of the Law. Under what specific prohibition in the Law is she charged and does that specific violation carry the penalty of death? The life of this young woman is in your hands and you are to judge righteously according to the Law God has given you, so if your decision is to put her to death you should be able to point to the specific point in the Law that authorizes you to do so. A failure in this matter is to cause *you* to be the one bearing complete responsibility for her death. Likewise, a lack of wisdom in your judgment could cause an innocent victim to be put to death as well. Your decision in this case will create a precedent and all subsequent cases of this nature will be judged in line with your ruling here.
As I have explained previously, there are two ways in which she could be guilty of adultery, one of which is if she gave her virginity to another man after she was betrothed (she committed adultery against her betrothed) and the other if she gave her virginity to a man prior to becoming betrothed. If the latter case, not only did she commit adultery when she had sex with the man she purported to marry, she caused *him* to commit adultery because she was already a married woman. Keep in mind that proving adultery is extremely difficult because it requires two witnesses and not only that but a finding of adultery would require a determination be made as to *who* her husband really was. If a woman is to be put to death for adultery it is in the interest of justice to put the man guilty of adultery to death as well, which might lead to a situation in which the man who innocently married her would be found guilty of adultery and be subject to the death penalty.
Should a ruling be made that demonstrates that an innocent men can marry a woman who, through her fraud and deceit, causes his family to be destroyed and threatens his life? Gosh. Where have I heard of a similar situation in the modern world? But, wait! Is there truly a need to push the adultery issue? She is also technically guilty of idolatry in giving to someone else that which rightfully belonged only to the man she had agreed to marry.
Perhaps that’s the reason why Moses used the term “liz-nō-wṯ” to describe her crime, a term that is specifically defined as idolatry. The problem with calling this adultery is there must be a victim and the question is, who is the victim and who is the other guilty party? Will the woman tell the truth and even if she did, could she be believed? Only God knows the truth of the matter, so the term “liz-nō-wṯ” does an admirable job of describing the situation in which regardless of who she committed adultery against or with, what she did was give herself to someone other than he to whom she belonged and thus in the context of idolatry she was in violation of a death penalty offense without the messy problem of proving who she was actually married to… one in which the completely innocent victim of her adultery might have to pay for her crime with his life.
It seems to me the clear instruction for judges in this matter is with the facts as presented, this is a situation in which it does no good to try to dig down to the bottom of things. Legally married, she’s found not to be a virgin, so should the case be judged as adultery (in which there is the possibility of an innocent man being put to death) when a suitable alternative exists? Where would the two witnesses come from and how could adultery be proven otherwise? As presented, there is only one witness against her (the cloth) that testifies to her guilt so she cannot be convicted on the charge of adultery unless there is another witness. On the other hand, as to the charge of idolatry we have two witnesses, the cloth and the offended husband who did not receive what was owed to him and *knows it* because he was there. Obviously, since both crimes are death-penalty offenses, it is better to protect the innocent than go on a witch-hunt for the guilty and that’s what Moses appears to have decided, which is why he characterized her crime as “liz-nō-wṯ” which is translated into English as “playing the harlot” but defined in the text as idolatry.
The point is this has absolutely *nothing* to do with premarital sex and these people were not the primitive, ignorant, knuckle-dragging, nose-picking, not-quite drooling idiots that many believe them to be. There are a lot of subtleties involved in this case that can’t be seen without a thorough understanding of the Law and an appreciation of the responsibility of the judge who has to rule on such an issue, so Moses created both precedent and policy with which to guide further cases of this sort in his ruling here.
Don, I don’t believe you are aware that your position on this issue is really one in which you are supporting the idea that marriage does not begin with the consummation (becoming one flesh) but rather with a ceremony under the authority of some outside entity, a process which usurps the authority of the man to initiate marriage and gives it to some other party (church or state). Under this rubric, you must discover the “sin” of premarital sex (which does not exist in the form of any prohibition anywhere in Scripture) in order to justify a death penalty in this case. I have tried to be complete in this explanation and take it gradually in order that you might be able to see the situation as it truly was, rather than what it has been “interpreted” to be.
According to the Law, specifically Numbers 30, in becoming betrothed the woman obligated herself to the man she was betrothed to and any sexual violation of that specific obligation was adultery in the legal sense. I will also point out that the man, with full authority to initiate marriage to the woman in the act of becoming one flesh with her, likewise obligates himself to wait until the ceremony of marriage when he formally becomes betrothed to her. Keep in mind that the betrothal period is for *his* protection and any restrictions placed on the liberty of the betrothed woman are to ensure that she is not covertly pregnant with another man’s child at the point of his marriage to her. While the act of betrothal is for him to make an agreement to wait until after the ceremony, this is voluntarily relinquishing a right that belongs to him in order to ensure he is receiving exactly what he is paying for and is entitled to (a virgin).
Your position (along with many, many others) is to say the ceremony is an obligation he is required to meet in order to be married rather than a voluntary agreement he takes upon himself for his own protection (the purity of his children) and for the protection of her reputation. By the act of betrothal a man can voluntarily give up his right to initiate marriage to his betrothed whenever he pleases but this act by an individual does not in any way place such a restriction upon any other man, yet that is the position you are arguing. It is the result of taking this position that you are struggling to claim the crime of the woman in Deuteronomy 22:21 is some sexual act that is *not* adultery or idolatry, but rather “premarital sex.”
In an effort to help you see this, I offered the support of a historical authority. Note his observation on this matter:
although fourth-hand fifth-century patristic writers borrowed heavily from pagan sexual ethics, they nevertheless sought to legitimize their borrowings by finding support for their conclusions in the Scriptures. This sometimes required ingenious feats of imaginative interpretation, but a Scriptural foundation for their ideas about sexuality seemed essential.
Why would the early church fathers choose to base their doctrine on pagan beliefs and Roman law rather than Scripture itself? I suppose the simplest explanation is they did it because they went with what they actually believed in (yes, I just went there) and because they could. We cannot know *why* they did what they did, we can only judge *what* they did, but it does not testify in their favor that the church was in the habit of putting people to death for the “crime” of translating Scripture into the vernacular in order that the common people might read the text for themselves.
Patristic writers assumed, as Roman law did, that consent made marriage. They rejected the notion that consummation was an essential part of marriage.
In other words, the early church fathers decided Christian marriage was done the Roman way (monogamy only, created solely by consent) instead of according to Scripture. In doing so, they rejected Genesis 2:24, Exodus 22:16-17, Deuteronomy 22:28-29 and ignored the teaching of Christ in Matthew 19. After quoting Genesis 2:24, He said “so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let no man separate.” The church ignored the prohibitions of Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32 by claiming “premarital sex” is a sin. In fact, it is far too long a list for me to even attempt to cite the various violations of Scripture the Catholic Church has perpetrated under the rubric of “traditions and teachings” but the fact is, their teachings on sex and marriage have been embedded in the culture. That is the point Brundage proved, that the medieval church was so successful at promulgating their ideas concerning sex and marriage that they became embedded in the culture and remain until today.
You are attempting to support one of the church’s “ingenious feats of imaginative interpretation” and I have been pointing out that your interpretation of this is wrong, because Scripture not only does not provide any support for it, but actually contradicts your position. This brings us to the central issue of the Protestant reformation, which is that the church makes the claim that the “traditions and teachings” of the church are equally as important and binding as Scripture itself and when there is a contradiction between Scripture and the traditions they will attempt to force an interpretation in their favor, but ultimately the church claims their tradition trumps Scripture.
The only way you can “win” this argument is to go full-bore Catholic and claim the authority of the church’s traditions and teachings, which I reject out of hand as a protestant. In doing so you must reject the Bible as the sole source of authority for the Christian and thus we have two different standards which are incompatible and in conflict. If you stick to the protestant point of “sola scriptura” your arguments fail because they misrepresent what Scripture actually says.
Artisanal Toad says:
March 30, 2016 at 2:44 am
Regarding a second witness from scripture as a testimony that pre marital sex is considered a sin I would of course present Joseph and Mary. When Joe discovered Mary was pregnant he thought to put her away privately, because he assumed she had been fornicating. Joe thought it was grounds for divorce at the very least.
Third witness would be Jesus. Regarding the exception clause [Matt.19:9], the way I understand it Jesus is referring to pre marital sex as grounds for divorce. I know we have different definitions but my understanding / explanation doesn’t require the gymnastics yours does.
This is a total of 3 witnesses from scripture that specifically demonstrate that pre marital sex rates somewhere on the gnats and camels index. [Metric for measuring sins]
Lastly it’s nearly always a red flag warning when I see someone drawing such a long bow to demonstrate their position. I realise this subject is not simple so I will consider what James Brundage has to say on the matter.
Regarding a second witness from scripture as a testimony that pre marital sex is considered a sin I would of course present Joseph and Mary. When Joe discovered Mary was pregnant he thought to put her away privately, because he assumed she had been fornicating. Joe thought it was grounds for divorce at the very least.
Two things. In order to claim that “premarital sex” is a sin you must be able to point to the specific prohibition in the Law that makes it a sin. Absent a prohibition it isn’t a sin and that’s not my opinion, that’s what Romans 4:15 and 5:13 specifically states. I gave you an exhaustive exegesis on why Deut. 22:21 is a case of adultery that was judged as idolatry but you appear to be rejecting that.
In doing so, you are rejecting the point that a betrothed woman is legally married and sex with her is adultery. It seems to me that this is a rather difficult position to hold because of what the text of Deuteronomy 22 states two verses later:
“If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.” Deuteronomy 22:23-24
Notice there isn’t anything about premarital sex, the death penalty is for violating another man’s wife. The specific word for that is adultery. This applies in both your other examples because there can be no divorce without a marriage so whatever you’re citing regarding what Jesus said in Matthew 19 about divorce being justified for premarital sex and in the case of Joseph and Mary, you are still talking about married women and the sin isn’t premarital sex, it’s adultery.
The long and short of this is a man can have sex with any woman he is eligible to marry and it isn’t sin because there is no prohibition on doing so. Why might that be? Because the man has the authority to initiate marriage without the permission of anyone else. To restrict this by prohibiting sex prior to some form of ceremony would be to remove his authority to initiate marriage and give it to someone else. This is exactly what the church did in claiming that consent was the sine qua non of marriage, not the consummation, which is in direct opposition to Scripture, specifically Deuteronomy 22:28-29 in which a virgin could be forced to have sex and that created a marriage against her will and over her objections.
This is a total of 3 witnesses from scripture that specifically demonstrate that sex with a betrothed woman rates somewhere on the gnats and camels index under the classification of “adultery.” [Metric for measuring sins]
FIFY
You said you were interested in the truth and that is the truth. I appreciate the objections you raise because all of this helps me think and prepare for a project I have coming up, but I’m pretty sure that as fast as you can raise objections I can knock them down with specific references to Scripture because the man was given the authority to initiate marriage in Genesis 2:24 and there is no prohibition on extra-marital sex with any woman the man is eligible to marry. In other words, there is no sin of premarital sex, that’s an invention of the church to support their usurpation of the man’s authority to initiate marriage.
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I’m aware that my comment will most likely be buried under all the others, but I just have to respond to AT’s assertion that ‘to lay hold of a virgin’ means rape.
In actual fact, it means to hold, touch, seduce, caress. It is very tar from the commands on rape which occur elsewhere, and include consideration regarding whether she was raped in the city or in the country.
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