Recommendation...

[Ed Brayton]

Stephen R. Prescott, Esq. wrote:

> A valid point, the Bible does condemn certain items, so we do not have 
> to infer the Biblical view from circumstanial evidence.  However, that 
> cuts both ways.  The Bible condemns drunkness.  Yet, Noah is in no way 
> criticized in the Biblical text for his intoxication.  Rather, a son 
> Ham is condemned severely for not covering up the results of his 
> father's sin.  God (or at least according to the author, God Himself 
> not only does not condemn Noah's intoxication, but punishs one who 
> took advantage of Noah's sin.  In this case we can be absolutely 
> certain that the silence of God does not demonstrate approval since 
> intoxication is expressly condemned in the Biblical text..  Therefore, 
> the seeming silence of God in response to polygamy does not prove 
> divine approbation, only that God and/or the Biblical writers chose 
> not to deal with that topic, just as likely an inference, it was not 
> relevant to the spiritual point the author was making.
>

I don't think it's true to say we can be absolutely certain that God 
does anything. I would call this evidence of incoherence within the 
Bible, owing to multiple writers and their own views, not as evidence of 
what God actually said or did.

> Moreover, at least for rulers the Bible does explicitly forbid 
> polygramy in the passage I referenced, Deuteronomy 17:17.  For 
> complete context, vv. 17 -20.  By the way I am hardly a Bible scholar, 
> but that passage is in many catechisms and I am old enough to have 
> been taught Bible stories in Sunday School (and public elementary 
> school). Although I had to get on line to remember the reference it is 
> a verse that immediately came to mind. [www.olivetree.com lets one do 
> a textual search of a dozen plus versions, remember 3 or 4 words and 
> it takes 30 seconds to find the passage.]
>

Read in context, this chapter is saying that you will have a king, but 
it admonishes the future king not to enrich himself as his people's 
expense. Thus, it says, he shall not multiply horses, or silver, or 
wives. This indicates that wives were, like silver and horses, 
considered among the trappings of wealth and power. This is not a 
commandment against polygamy at all, it is a commandment against kings 
taking riches for themselves rather than looking after their people.

Ed Brayton