Published: April 08, 2008 07:43 pm         

LION AND THE LAMB: What is marriage, exactly?

Christian right-wingers have been conducting a relentless campaign against the possibility of marriage or even civil unions for same sex couples.Their postulation is that marriage, as dictated by the Bible, should be only between one man and one woman.

What is considered to be a marriage? It is an old procedure that has morphed into a tradition. It's officiated by a person (usually male) who has state-officiated authority to conduct the rite. This unites a couple in a contract that can be broken only by divorce.

This rite can be conducted by a priest, a minister or any nominal head of any established religion. Strangely enough, one can be a mail-order minister by simply paying a sum of money to a charlatan. This mail-order certification of "reverend" is as legal as authority earned after years of college and seminary study.

What is biblical marriage? For the biblical literalist, Adam and Eve were the first married couple, although there is no record of any wedding. There was no one to conduct the ceremony. So — without a marriage rite, they lived together in sin throughout their lifetimes.

The first mention of an acknowledgment of a coupling was reported to be a declaration by Moses. (Biblical literalists hold that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Actually, those books were the product of several writers, and contain, doubtless, several of the words - and songs - of Moses.)

Let us say that it was Moses who declared, after woman was made from man's "Bone of bone and flesh of flesh...Therefore (consequently) a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh." Moses used the term "cleaves," which the dictionary defines as "to penetrate or pierce something deeply."

"And they become one flesh."

Jesus, using "Oral Torah," while holding the same Mosaic view, added to the description of Biblical marriage - "Have you not heard that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female and said 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be yoked (physically united) to his wife and the two shall become one flesh?' So they are no longer two but one flesh. What then God has joined together let no man separate."

However, after that pristine Biblical joining, many modifications were added. Remember, when Jesus remonstrated with questioners, "Because of your hardness of heart," Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to put her away. The male, and only the male, needed simply to hand his wife a declaration that the marriage was over, and she was ejected from the household.

Still, the bill of divorce law was a protection for the woman. If her husband simply drove her away she could have been stoned to death for abandoning her husband.

The original pristine biblical marriage was no longer between one man and one woman, but it came to become marriage between one man and as many wives as he wanted to accumulate. One thinks of King Soloman, who was reputed to have acquired hundreds of wives.

More additions: It was adultery, punishable with death by stoning, for a wife to have sex with any other than her husband. But it was not adultery for a man to have sex, or even to rape. Such could be done with a select group of women.

The adultery of the Mosaic law is not adultery as understood by conservative Christians. Then, for Hebrews and even today for practicing Jews, adultery is only if a man, married or single, has sex with another man's wife. Any other extra-marital coupling, while forbidden, is not adultery. This from the Dictionary of the Jewish Religion by Dr. Ben Isaacson.

"Cafeteria Christians" still feel free to go back to the biblical cafeteria and pick and choose those morsels that appeal to their appetites.

This column is sponsored by Cumberland Countians for Peace and Justice, an organization composed of representatives from various churches in the area, and dedicated by the local writers to the theme that the lion and the lamb can and must learn to live together and grow in their relationship toward one another to ensure a better world. Opinions expressed in “Lion and the Lamb” columns are not necessarily those of the Crossville Chronicle publisher, editor or staff. For more information, contact Emerson Abts, editor, at 277-5101.