Monday, October 6, 2008

In The Correct Context...

"And yes, it's true that there are no same-sex marriages in the Bible. But that's what we'd expect anyway. Same-sex marriages weren't a part of the cultures in which the Bible was written, so obviously we wouldn't expect to see stories of men and women with same-sex partners. [2] In ancient Israel especially, marriage was as much about inheritance rights as anything, which resulted in such bizarre practices as levirate marriage (where men were required to take a dead brother's wife and produce heirs for him - Deut. 25:5-6; Gen. 38:8) and God-ordained polygamy (Exodus 21:10-11; 2 Sam. 12:7-8). Even more shocking, a master could buy wives for his male slaves and then keep the wife and kids for himself after setting the slave free (Exodus 21:2-4), and women were forced to marry their rapists (Deut. 22:28-29). There's a lot more that could be said about these practices and the rationales behind them, but that would be a bit off-topic. The point is this: Biblical examples of marriage reflect the culture both in what they include and what they do not."

-Justin@ http://www.gaychristian.net/justins_view.php

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