Jacob 2

[halconero]

Sheilauk do you know of any scripture in the bible that it is commanded to live it to raise seed or live it or be damned or live it for exaltation, all things that have been put forth in our religion at one time? I'd like something biblical please.

 

Deuteronomy 5 requires a man to take his sister-in-law to wife should his brother die, and raise seed with her for his brother's name. This command did not only apply to single brothers either.

[Tacenda]

Deuteronomy 5 requires a man to take his sister-in-law to wife should his brother die, and raise seed with her for his brother's name. This command did not only apply to single brothers either.

Yeah I hear this one over and over again, where does it say the guy is married? Good luck finding it. This one doesn't pan out.

[Calm]

The standouts are...children bond with their father, because he lives with them and nowhere else. .... Wife isn't wondering if their husband loves other women more, doesn't have to lie in bed alone at night while her husband is with someone else. ....Husband is stressed out with all the responsibilities of his wives and children, maybe shuts down.

All these as problems occur plenty with monogamy. Children don't bond with their father even if one wife, one wife may be wondering if their husband loves other women more and have to lie alone in bed while their husband is with someone else and I know plenty of husbands stressed out with responsibilities with one wife.

Does it get complicated with polygamy...sure, but complication in and of itself isn't bad and the vast majority of problems with polygamy occur within monogamous marriages.

[halconero]

Yeah I hear this one over and over again, where does it say the guy is married? Good luck finding it. This one doesn't pan out.

 

I'm not saying he's married. The brother marrying his brother's widow could be single or already married himself. The commandment still stands. 

 

Did the commandment to take his brother's widow to wife still stand if he was married? Yes. I can provide some references if you like.

 

The command to levirate marriage can be both a command to monogamy or polygamy, Tacenda.

 

It pans out wider than than the skillet I'm using to make sweet, succulent pancakes on tonight.

[halconero]

Let me put it this way. 

 

Deuteronomy doesn't say "By the way, this commandment only applies if the dude's brother is single. If all them are married already that widow is totes out of luck."

 

Since no prohibition is mentioned, we must assume that the commandment still applied, as Mosaic law did allow for polygamy.

 

The burden of proof is on you, Tacenda, to show otherwise.

[Calm]

It pans out wider than than the skillet I'm using to make sweet, succulent pancakes on tonight.

Hmmm....maybe I will make Puffy Pancake tonight....

[Tacenda]

Let me put it this way.

Deuteronomy doesn't say "By the way, this commandment only applies if the dude's brother is single. If all them are married already that widow is totes out of luck."

Since no prohibition is mentioned, we must assume that the commandment still applied, as Mosaic law did allow for polygamy.

The burden of proof is on you, Tacenda, to show otherwise.

What, so I go back in time and ask if he's married? That would be fun, but I need to ask, why do people bring up Levirate Marriage to constitute polygamy?

Pancakes for dinner, yummy!

Edited October 22, 2013 by Tacenda

[halconero]

Because if Levirate Marriage is commanded of God, even to those already in a married state, then God is, in effect, commanding the formation of a polygamous marriage.

 

You don't have to go back in time, you just have to look through sources to find that levirate marriage did, in fact, extend to married and single brothers.

 

You are more than welcome at the dinner table. The maple syrup is homemade by a family in the stake who owns a few trees.

[Garden Girl]

Verse 30 from Jacob 2 is the qualifier that indicates the Lord, when it suits His purposes, may at some future time command His people to once again practice plural marriage. This verse indicates the primary purpose of polygamy is to raise up righteous see unto the Lord. It says:

"For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, RAISE UP SEED UNTO ME, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things." (Jacob 2:30)

So at some date future to the timeframe of Jacob 2, if the Lord desires to raise up righteous seed unto to himself, He will revive the practice of polygamy; otherwise the law of strictest monogamy is in force. Why all the doubt and confusion?

 

Another "qualifier" in this passage is.... OTHERWISE... i.e., at times the Lord will authorize the raising up of seed unto him via plural wives... otherwise, there will be one man, one wife (these things). 

 

GG

[Calm]

The maple syrup is homemade by a family in the stake who owns a few trees.

Now that is....just too awesome.

[Garden Girl]

I'm not saying he's married. The brother marrying his brother's widow could be single or already married himself. The commandment still stands. 

 

Did the commandment to take his brother's widow to wife still stand if he was married? Yes. I can provide some references if you like.

 

The command to levirate marriage can be both a command to monogamy or polygamy, Tacenda.

 

It pans out wider than than the skillet I'm using to make sweet, succulent pancakes on tonight.

 

Exactly... There is no designation as to married or single... the law is the law, and that was that the brother will take his brother's widow to wife... he may or may not be married.   In most cases, I'm assuming the circumstance would be that he is married... and the man takes into his household the widow and her children if any, and to care for them and raise up seed to his brother so the brother's line is not lost...

 

GG  

[Stargazer]

At 62 I'm just as glad that I don't have to practice polygamy in this life. Whatever God requires of me in the next I'll wait until then.

 

Let me scare you, then.  At 62 (and coincidentally enough, I'm 62 also!), depending upon when the 2nd Coming arrives, you and I may both be alive when it arrives.  Let's say for sake of argument that it happens when we are both 70.  Now, when the Lord comes in Majesty and Power, do you imagine that He's going to let you stay a decrepit, doddering, nearsighted, hearing-impaired, near-senile old man?  Of course not!  You will be brought into Terrestrial Kingdom condition like everyone else.  And if you live "to the age of a tree", that means that you'll have 30 more years of life ahead of you, assuming that a "tree's age" is 100.

 

So, do you not think that if you are returned to perfect health that you won't be capable of begetting children and seeing them raised to adulthood?

 

And after a Time of Tribulation with the majority of now-living people dead from all causes, you better believe that women will outnumber men, if only for the simple reason that women tend to be able to endure hardship better than men.  And the one resource for recovery will be every able body, and then some.  Great, we're all healthy now, so that's a burden we don't have to deal with, but in order to build enough temples in order to do all that temple work for every one of Father's children who died without benefit of hearing of Jesus Christ in this life, and enough people to raise food AND spend considerable time doing proxy work for the dead, do you think we won't need to repopulate and repopulate as quick as we can? 

 

Puts another light on the phrase: ""For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, RAISE UP SEED UNTO ME, I will command my people..."

 

Doesn't it?

 

How many more children do you think your wife will be able to bear you before that "twinkling of an eye" when she is "changed from mortality into immortality"?  As consolation, I don't think that childbearing will be as onerous as it is now.  And every outcome will be perfect.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Yes, danger of putting women in bondage, slavery, abuse and her children in danger of those things also. So many stories of this exist in polygamy, past and present. The God I believe in may have allowed (agency), but never commanded it, and the closest he gets is when he wanted the freshly widowed woman to be taken care of. That's it, unless we believe, which everyone mostly does, in the Jacob passage. But it's not in the bible to raise up seed. If it is I'd like to know where.

When Saul died, God gave David his wives, so you are painting with a broad brush on this one.

God identifies himself with three men by name; all were polygamists.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Bill “Papa” Lee

[Calm]

Exactly... There is no designation as to married or single... the law is the law, and that was that the brother will take his brother's widow to wife... he may or may not be married.   In most cases, I'm assuming the circumstance would be that he is married... and the man takes into his household the widow and her children if any, and to care for them and raise up seed to his brother so the brother's line is not lost...

 

GG

I believe the only cases where it would be likely the brother was unmarried was if he was too young to be married and had to grow some in order to be eligible (as in the case of Tamar IIRC) or had recently lost his wife (assuming in that culture that most widowers remarried)....however, now that I am thinking about it, I believe volgadon has stated that the marriage age of men was quite a bit older so I may be completely out to lunch. Though it seems like it would be a younger brother and not an older one. Edited October 23, 2013 by calmoriah

[jana at jade house]

 

How many more children do you think your wife will be able to bear you before that "twinkling of an eye" when she is "changed from mortality into immortality"?  As consolation, I don't think that childbearing will be as onerous as it is now.  And every outcome will be perfect.

 

This brings to mind another battlefield related to eternal marriage and its mandate. It makes me cringe to read the panic of the opposition who describe the plight of eternal royal daughters as eternally barefoot and pregnant. Even more cringemaking is the perceived notion by some that the .process by which glorified beings pro- create is anything at all like that which earth bound creatures experience. Hubrus.

 

Celestial life is behind a veil and we mortals have no idea how much of the eternities operate.

 

Most of us don't get living on earth right. How can we be so arrogant as to question and critique the ways of God?

[halconero]

This brings to mind another battlefield related to eternal marriage and its mandate. It makes me cringe to read the panic of the opposition who describe the plight of eternal royal daughters as eternally barefoot and pregnant. Even more cringemaking is the perceived notion by some that the .process by which glorified beings pro- create is anything at all like that which earth bound creatures experience. Hubrus.

Celestial life is behind a veil and we mortals have no idea how much of the eternities operate.

Most of us don't get living on earth right. How can we be so arrogant as to question and critique the ways of God?

Why can't we know?

What's wrong with questioning (pondering) and critiquing (reviewing) the ways of God as revealed in scripture and by inspiration?

[halconero]

I believe the only cases where it would be likely the brother was unmarried was if he was too young to be married and had to grow some in order to be eligible (as in the case of Tamar IIRC) or had recently lost his wife (assuming in that culture that most widowers remarried)....however, now that I am thinking about it, I believe volgadon has stated that the marriage age of men was quite a bit older so I may be completely out to lunch. Though it seems like it would be a younger brother and not an older one.

It probably becomes more difficult to judge the further we get back. Judaism, the faith, the culture and society, is a lot easier to study around 1 AD than the time of Moses. There's much more surviving text from the latter period.

[sheilauk]

Sheilauk do you know of any scripture in the bible that it is commanded to live it to raise seed or live it or be damned or live it for exaltation, all things that have been put forth in our religion at one time? I'd like something biblical please.

I'm not trying to convince you that God commanded polygamy. I simply argue that you must be careful in your arguments against polygamy that you do not exaggerate the problems or argue things which are also present in monogamy (and are part of this mortal life) and could be used against that institution.  It is, in my view, not a valid argument that polygamy was not commanded to say some people are treated badly in polygamy. That's all.  As for the Bible - there is scripture that can support polygamy, others have quoted them.  The interpretation of them can be argued and has been.  My opinion, which I state for the record and not as a convincing argument!, is that I believe God commanded polygamy because I believe Joseph Smith (who was also an imperfect man) and the Doctrine and Covenants.  I do not believe the LDS Church is bound by the contents of the Bible.

[thesometimesaint]

Let me scare you, then.  At 62 (and coincidentally enough, I'm 62 also!), depending upon when the 2nd Coming arrives, you and I may both be alive when it arrives.  Let's say for sake of argument that it happens when we are both 70.  Now, when the Lord comes in Majesty and Power, do you imagine that He's going to let you stay a decrepit, doddering, nearsighted, hearing-impaired, near-senile old man?  Of course not!  You will be brought into Terrestrial Kingdom condition like everyone else.  And if you live "to the age of a tree", that means that you'll have 30 more years of life ahead of you, assuming that a "tree's age" is 100.

 

So, do you not think that if you are returned to perfect health that you won't be capable of begetting children and seeing them raised to adulthood?

 

And after a Time of Tribulation with the majority of now-living people dead from all causes, you better believe that women will outnumber men, if only for the simple reason that women tend to be able to endure hardship better than men.  And the one resource for recovery will be every able body, and then some.  Great, we're all healthy now, so that's a burden we don't have to deal with, but in order to build enough temples in order to do all that temple work for every one of Father's children who died without benefit of hearing of Jesus Christ in this life, and enough people to raise food AND spend considerable time doing proxy work for the dead, do you think we won't need to repopulate and repopulate as quick as we can? 

 

Puts another light on the phrase: ""For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, RAISE UP SEED UNTO ME, I will command my people..."

 

Doesn't it?

 

How many more children do you think your wife will be able to bear you before that "twinkling of an eye" when she is "changed from mortality into immortality"?  As consolation, I don't think that childbearing will be as onerous as it is now.  And every outcome will be perfect.

Twenty years ago I was interested in living to be 100. Now the medical prognosis is that I'll, with a lot of good luck, live to be 65. Don't worry I'm not suicidal by any stretch of imagination. But I'm looking forwards to that Glorious Resurrection.

 

If I were in a lot better health, had a lot more money(resources), and had just more plain old ability to deal effectively with more than one wife. Then MAYBE I'd be interested. But given the way those things are right now, in this life. I'll wait until the next life.

 

Really; I'm very happy with the 3 my wife and I have, plus the raising of our grandnephew. The grandkids are great. I couldn't ask for better. If someone else can find happiness in more, more power to them. It just wasn't for me.

[jana at jade house]

 

 

Why can't we know?

What's wrong with questioning (pondering) and critiquing (reviewing) the ways of God as revealed in scripture and by inspiration? 

I never meant we will not ever know ( although our limited understanding does have consequences) but that the ways of God are on a much higher plane.  We certainly have enough to ponder without making suppositions and speculations over life in the celestial kingdom. Critical thinking is a gift that needs to be developed and used properly.  Too many of us get a little knowledge and think we know it all.  Congruent to procreation in the celestial kingdom, I posit that we limited understanding folk probably will have no idea how some things work until we get there. Most of what we think we know is conjecture..

[Benjamin McGuire]

The difference between our Section 132’s treatment of David and the Book of Mormon’s treatment of David stems from a contradiction that already existed in the Old Testament (and this is a contradiction which has caused problems with interpretations for a least a couple of thousand years). The first passage comes in 2 Samuel 12:7-10 where it reads in part:

"And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon."

So here we have the statement that the Lord God gave David his many wives through Nathan (the prophet), except for the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba). This is placed in contrast to a section of special rules just for the king recorded in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, which reads in part:

When thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; ... But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the Lord hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. ... That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left"

The NIV translation is a little easier for us to follow than the King James - and its much closer in some ways to the Book of Mormon - so here is the same parts from the NIV (I include this updated translation because it makes an easier comparison to the language of the Book of Mormon):
 
"When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” ... The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. ... and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left."

So what is the conflict? The one passage of scripture in the Old Testament says that the king isn't supposed to have many wives. The other passage argues that God gave David his many wives. So we are left with this contradiction in the Old Testament. At the time of Jesus, a group of people wrote a series of texts near Jerusalem that we call the Dead Sea Scrolls. One of them (called the Damascus document) talks about this problem. You can see a translation at this link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=218JbeU2POgC&pg=PA56#v=onepage&q&f=false

"Concerning the Leader [the king] it is written "he shall not multiply wives to himself"; but David had not read the sealed book of the Law in the Ark; for it was not opened in Israel from the day of the death of Eleazar and Joshua and the elders who served the goddess Ashtoret. It lay buried <and was not> revealed until the appearance of Zadok. Nevertheless the deeds of David were all excellent, except the murder of Uriah."

The "Book of the Law" mentioned here is understood to be Deuteronomy - because of the reading of Deut. 31:26. And the Book of Deuteronomy was hidden in the Ark, and rediscovered (2 Kings 22:, and so the writers of this part of the Dead Sea Scrolls claimed that David was not guilty of sinning with regards to the number of wives he had because of the fact that he did not have a copy of Deuteronomy (and so didn't know any better). While this takes care of the many wives issue (sort of), it doesn't help with the wife of Uriah.

So we have these two versions in distinctly LDS scripture. One of them comes in Section 132, and the other in Jacob 2. The one in the D&C takes an approach that follows 2 Samuel in the Old Testament. And so it reads (verse 39):

"David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power; and in none of these things did he sin against me save in the case of Uriah and his wife; and, therefore he hath fallen from his exaltation, and received his portion; and he shall not inherit them out of the world, for I gave them unto another, saith the Lord."

Now in its own way, this takes an approach similar to what I just quoted from the Dead Sea Scrolls - it justifies David's polygamy (on the basis of the 2 Samuel passage in which God gives David his many wives through Nathan) but excludes Bathsheba from that list because that wife David took on his own after arranging the death of Uriah.

Jacob 2, on the other hand deals with a somewhat different problem. For the Nephites, there were multiple issues in which the Nephites were arguing that their inappropriate behavior was okay because David and Solomon had this behavior. They justified their beliefs by appealing to the scriptures (in the Brass Plates), as Jacob tells us (2:23):

"For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son."

Jacob's response is to show how both the Nephites and David and Solomon were violating the commandments in the Law of Moses, and so instead of giving the Nephites the 2 Samuel passage that we see in the D&C, Jacob turns to Deuteronomy - the section of laws specifically aimed at the kings - and thus applicable to David and Solomon. There isn't any attempt made to try and water it down or to justify it. So Jacob says (in 2:24):

"Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord."

What makes it an abomination? This is the term that gets used several times in the related text in Deuteronomy 18. Here is 18:9:

"When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations."

Now Jacob has changed this a bit. His issue isn't with those in the land that they come to, but rather with those in the land that they left. He suggests that "Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old." (Jacob 2:26) but again, who are those "of old"? From Jacob 1:15 “David of old …  and also Solomon, his son.” So Jacob wants to make it clear to the Nephites that based on the Law of Moses, what David and Solomon did were abominations. And that it is an abomination for the Nephites to follow up on this behavior and emulate David and Solomon.

It's probably worth pointing out that just as with the whole many wives issue, Jacob is also concerned with the pride problem. And he uses the same part of Deuteronomy to discuss it as well. The king was not to collect Gold and Silver so that he would not "consider himself better than his fellow Israelites" and the Nephites we are told were "persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they." Within Jacob's sermon, we have these related issues, and the people are criticized for both of them.

My own understanding of the difficulty in these passages (the difference in the way that Jacob in the Book of Mormon uses Deuteronomy and Joseph Smith in the D&C uses 2 Samuel) is tied to a scholarly perspective on these parts of scriptures.

Here is a good example of the way that scholars view Deuteronomy 17. It is taken from a book by Marvin Sweeny titled _King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel_. You can find some sample text here (this is a link directly to the page I am going to quote from):

http://books.google.com/books?id=diPXx_t4IwAC&pg=162#v=onepage&q&f=false

"It appears to restrict the power of the king in that it defines a number of stipulations by which the king must abide. He must not be a foreigner; he may not amass horses to himself nor lead the people back to Egypt for such a purpose; he may not amass wives to himself nor silver and gold; and he must write a "copy of this Torah" for himself in the presence of the Levitical priests and read all the days of his life. The monarch portrayed here appears to be Solomon, who violated every one of these provisions. Insofar as Solomon's policies led to the revolt of the northern tribes against the house of David, and insofar as the northern kingdom never seems to have developed a centralized monarchic concept that characterized the southern kingdom of Judah, scholars conclude that the "Torah of the King" reflects northern attitudes that would restrict the power and role of the monarch."

Most scholars believe that this part of Deuteronomy was written after the time of David and Solomon, but prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. This would mean that it was written as a response to and highly critical of Solomon (who was guilty of all of the restrictions made about the king in Deuteronomy 17). But it would have been included in the Brass Plates that Lehi and his family take with him to their promised land. In this way, Jacob can quote these passages about the abominations of David and Solomon, and yet the historical reality is that they did not have these scriptures when they were kings. Jacob then is using this version of Deuteronomy (that has already been edited to reflect poorly on Solomon), meaning that Jacob's text is perhaps more critical of particularly David, then David may deserve (the D&C is not critical of David over the excess of wives as I noted earlier but keeps the criticism of David over Bathsheba - Jacob is also quite critical of Solomon, while the D&C simply tends to ignore him). But Jacob's rhetorical point is still provided - the same text that the Nephites are using to justify their behavior can be used to condemn both the Nephites and David and Solomon in a similar fashion. The commandment against polygamy (for the Nephites) isn't one that would have applied to David and Solomon because it doesn't come from that Old Testament - it came from Lehi - see Jacob 3:5.

 

I am also of the opinion that Jacob 2:30 refers back specifically to Levirate marriage (the only part of Mosaic law that would require polygamy under certain circumstances, and potentially a part of the Nephite argument). I do not think that 2:30 is a sort of blanket endorsement of some future polygamy - although in a more general sense it is a recognition that God has different requirements of different groups of people.

Ben M.

[Stargazer]

This brings to mind another battlefield related to eternal marriage and its mandate. It makes me cringe to read the panic of the opposition who describe the plight of eternal royal daughters as eternally barefoot and pregnant. Even more cringemaking is the perceived notion by some that the .process by which glorified beings pro- create is anything at all like that which earth bound creatures experience. Hubrus.

 

Celestial life is behind a veil and we mortals have no idea how much of the eternities operate.

 

Most of us don't get living on earth right. How can we be so arrogant as to question and critique the ways of God?

 

Cringing, yes.  Having billions of spirit children obviously does not involve physical pregnancy and childbirth.  It's just that it sounds so outrageous to imagine otherwise.

[thesometimesaint]

When you have all of eternity what's a few billion children?

[Garden Girl]

This brings to mind another battlefield related to eternal marriage and its mandate. It makes me cringe to read the panic of the opposition who describe the plight of eternal royal daughters as eternally barefoot and pregnant. Even more cringemaking is the perceived notion by some that the .process by which glorified beings pro- create is anything at all like that which earth bound creatures experience. Hubrus.

Celestial life is behind a veil and we mortals have no idea how much of the eternities operate.

Most of us don't get living on earth right. How can we be so arrogant as to question and critique the ways of God?

 

 

 

To me also... I've said several times on this board that we actually have no real idea how procreation is accomplished in the Celestial realm... in fact I'm always reminded of a scripture... Isaiah 55:8-9... "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

 

That tells me that we do not have a full understanding of God's ways, and procreation of his spirit chldren is part of that...

 

GG