What Message Does The Bible Send Re. Polygamy?

[zerinus]

The situation with Abraham is complicated. While he was married to Sarai (Sarah), for many years he had no other wives. When he was in his nineties, he was still childless, and had he died at that time a servant unrelated to him would have been his legal heir (Gen. 15:4-5). Abram (as he was then called) was persuaded by Sarai to have sexual relations with her maidservant Hagar in order to have a child (Gen. 16:1-3). This action shows that until this point in time Abram had no other wives or concubines. The text of Genesis clearly presents Abram's agreement to this arrangement as a mistake. Note the parallels between this passage and the account of Eve inducing Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit:

"So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.... 'And he [God] said to Adam, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree...'" (Gen 3:6, 17).

"And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.... Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife" (Gen 16:3).

These are the only passages in Genesis in which a man is said to have "listened to the voice of" his wife, a Hebrew idiom for obeying someone, and in both passages the man takes something at his wife's urging. (The point here is not that it is a bad thing for men to listen to their wives!) The clear implication is that Abram should not have obeyed Sarai and taken Hagar, just as Adam should not have obeyed Eve and taken the fruit. Not only was Abram not practicing polygamy under God's command, he was allowing himself to be manipulated in the matter by his wife Sarai.

That is a very weird king of a logical connection to make. It is not a valid logical deduction, by any stretch of the imagination.

With regard to Adam listening to Eve, the Bible has a different story to tell. Paul writes, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (1 Timothy 2:14). That means that Adam's decision to listen to Eve was not an error of judgment, but a measured decision made with wisdom. He weighed the consequences, and decided that that was the best course of action to take. If you want to apply that analogy to Abraham, then in that sense it might be applicable. Abraham saw the wisdom in Sarah's advice, and decided to obey it.

The rest of the narrative confirms this understanding, as things go sour immediately after Hagar becomes pregnant (see the rest of Gen. 16). The implication of the narrative in Genesis 16 is that Abram's marital relationship with Hagar was both short-lived and unfortunate.

I read the text differently. I read it that it turned out a blessing to Abraham, in the multiplication of his seeds, as God had promised him.

As far as we can tell from Genesis, while Sarah lived Hagar was the only other woman with whom Abraham had sexual relations or had taken as a wife. Immediately after the account of Sarah's death, Genesis reports that "Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah" (Gen. 25:1), and it lists the children Abraham had by her (vv. 2-4). The narrative then distinguishes between Abraham's son Isaac as his principal heir (v. 5) and the rest of his sons as "the sons of his concubines" (v. 6). This statement probably refers to Keturah and Hagar (mentioned in v. 12) by the term "concubines" to distinguish their status from that of Sarah.

The text of the scripture suggests otherwise:

Genesis 25

:

6 But unto the sons of the

concubines,

which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.

"Concubines" (plural) suggests that Abraham had many of them, not one or two. It does not just apply to Hagar and Keturah. Keturah was his wife, and if Hagar qualifies as a concubine, she was one, not two. So Abraham had many wives and concubines, besides the ones mentioned by name in the Bible; and modern scripture also confirms that that is the case (D&C 132:1).

Thus, the evidence from Genesis shows that Abraham's taking Hagar as a second wife was a clear mistake, that he probably did not continue to have marital relations with her after she became pregnant with Ishmael, and that he apparently had no other wives while Sarah was alive.

Far from it. Subsequent events and history proves that it was a blessing, as also attested by modern revelation:

D&C 132:

:

34 God commanded Abraham, and Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham to wife. And why did she do it? Because this was the law;

and from Hagar sprang many people. This, therefore, was fulfilling, among other things, the promises

.

[zerinus]

Actually, in the context of Genesis (see my earlier post) a different conclusion is in order: this is an example of God bringing blessing out of human failing and sin. Such is the climactic conclusion of the book with regard to God using Joseph's brothers' sin to save Israel: "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today" (Gen. 50:20, cf. vv. 15-19; see also 45:4-8 ).

Luckily we have the benefit of modern revelation to settle that issue, see my previous post.

[zerinus]

There are also consistent OT patterns discouraging the notion that having more than one son is a good thing. After all, the first brothers mentioned in the Bible were Cain and Abel.

LOL! Good parody of Rob's debating methodology.

[LeSellers]

There are also consistent OT patterns discouraging the notion that having more than one son is a good thing. After all, the first brothers mentioned in the Bible were Cain and Abel.

And, please!! never have twins! Esau and Jacob.

Lehi

[Scott Lloyd]

bluebell,

You wrote:

How is this explanation consistent with the claim that Mormons often make that Joseph Smith fathered few or even no children by his multiple wives?

Generally, when this argument is made, it is in the context of accusations about Joseph marrying women already married to other men. It is in the support of the theory that such polyandrous unions were sealings that would take effect in the hereafter, not mortality.

I don't think very many Mormons would seriously contend that none of Joseph's plural marriages ever had a sexual component.

As far as his not having children from plural wives, bear in mind that Joseph was hounded by oppression throughout his adult life -- much of the oppression coming from self-professed Christians -- and was murdered by a mob at a relatively young age. Had he been allowed to live and go west with the Saints, he undoubtedly would have been as prolific in his fatherhood as Brigham Young or any of the Church leaders early in this dispensation.

[Rob Bowman]

Sleeper Cell,

You wrote:

There are also consistent OT patterns discouraging the notion that having more than one son is a good thing. After all, the first brothers mentioned in the Bible were Cain and Abel.

Funny, but of course one example does not a pattern make.

[Rob Bowman]

saint,

You wrote:

Moses had more than one wife.

Yes, but likely not at the same time. Zipporah, the only wife of Moses actually named in the Bible, was married to him early during his many years of exile in Midian and disappears from the narrative after Exodus 18. We then learn in Number 12 that Moses had married an Ethiopian woman. The displeasure of Aaron and Miriam at Moses' marriage to the woman shows he had just married her. It is quite plausible, even likely, that Zipporah had died sometime between Exodus 18 and Numbers 12.

There is a mysterious reference to a "Kenite" who was "Moses' father-in-law" in Judges 1:16 that is difficult to harmonize with the ethnic identities of Moses' first and second wives, but this is hardly enough to warrant the conclusion that Moses had a third wife and definitely insufficient evidence to show that he had two wives at the same time.