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tinpraThis is soooooo late! And with that in mind, I'm dashing off this post with one editorial read-through, but there are links that need to be added, etc., that I will get to later. I cannot let this languish any longer! Enjoy ;)
EDIT 9/19/11 - So I've no idea what I was thinking when I first wrote this. The truth is I'm overly wordy almost all the time, and really, really need to edit when I write. With that in mind, I've rewritten this so that it's more accessible and uses less tinpra-jargon.
Biblical Marriage vs. Marriages in the Bible: Lot and Mrs. Lot
If you missed my previous posting, I am writing a (hopefully) brief series of essays in response to a YouTube video that supposedly lays out the dirty truth behind what a Biblical marriage really is. In the course of the video approximately fifteen examples of “marriages” are brought up, each one completely outrageous and jaw-dropping if you’ve never heard of them. Each one is also actually in the Bible. However, most of them are not examples of a Biblical marriage.
What does “biblical” mean? Well it can mean “Of, relating to, or contained in the Bible” as defined in TheFreeDictionary.com. Basically anything that’s in the book regardless of its nature.
Biblical is also synonomous with being godly, or “Pious; reverencing God, and his character and laws; obedient to the commands of God from love for, and reverence of, his character; conformed to God's law; devout; righteous; as, a godly life.” (BrainyQuote.com) This, I think, is the meaning that most of us have in mind when we talk about something being “biblical”: that it reflects the character and precepts of God as set forth in the Bible.
Just because something is in the Bible (the first definition) doesn’t mean that it is in fact biblical (the second definition). The Bible doesn’t just show you what you’re supposed to do and then give examples of people who did them, the Bible shows us people in their real lives doing real things. These are often real crazy, downright outrageous things. Because real people do real outrageous, crazy things. Just because someone lives their life in the heart of Crazy Town, however, doesn’t mean we make them an example of the new standard for living. Usually we use it as an object lesson of what not to do. Why? Because it’s an indication of a wild deviation from the standard, whatever that standard is. And we know they’re deviating from a standard because when there is no standard, there can be no deviation, and where there’s no possibility for deviation you can never have shocking, outrageous behavior.
And so I am compelled to make the distinction between the marriages in the Bible, as mentioned in the YouTube vid, versus what a biblical marriage actually is.
In my previous two essays I tackled the statements that a biblical marriage is one man, his wife, and their murderous son, or the story of Adam, Eve and their son Cain. The video implies that, after killing his younger brother Abel, Cain then had sex with his mother, Eve. While it is true that Cain must have married some female relation by virtue of population size at the time, it was likely a sister, niece or great-niece and not his mom. While God is very much against the murder, Cain isn't faulted for his choice of wives. While it was incest, it wasn't something condemned by God--not then at least.
The next example was one man and his sister (Abraham and Sarah), and that biblical marriage is one man, his sister, and her servant (Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar). In the first instance, it’s okay that Abraham and Sarah are married half-brother and half-sister (but pretty gross to me) because there are no laws prohibiting that level of incestuous relationship yet. It was, in fact, a fairly common practice. There would be laws regarding incest, and they would cover just about everything you could think of and then some, but they don’t exist yet. In that regard, blaming Abraham and Sarah for being married half-sibs would be like a cop giving you a ticket for parking in a spot where a hydrant will eventually go.
In the second instance, Sarah convinces Abraham to sleep with her servant Hagar so Hagar can get pregnant and “fulfill” the prophecy God had given to Abraham that he would have a son--even though the child was supposed to be born to his wife. The whole thing turns into a hot, baked-in-the-desert-sun, ghetto mess that God eventually fixes. It would continue to cause problems down the line, and still does to this day. But that’s what happens when you try do “help” God. Usually you end up needing him a whole lot more than you did when you started. The lesson here? Don’t help God, listen to him.
In this essay, I’m going to be covering the issue of Lot, his wife and daughters, and the “good” citizens of the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Lot & Mrs. Lot
I know, I know—the next incident mentioned in the Betty Bowers video isn’t about Lot and his wife, the walking Morton Salt shaker. The next thing example of a “Biblical marriage” is rape and the Bible’s prescription for dealing with it. Unlike many of the examples used, the video’s portrayal of the Biblical response to rape is pretty accurate. What’s missing from the video, however, is the cultural context of that day. Which of course colors how we perceive rape today vs. how it was perceived by people at the time when the law was made. This is a subject I have to do a lot more research on. Once I’ve been able to do that, I will tackle this issue. Rape is in no way, shape or form, either in this day or any other, a simple one. Despite what the video seems to say, neither God nor his word (the Bible) treat it lightly, and so it would be extremely wrong if I did.
Anywho, back to Lot and his wife, the salt shaker.
Okay, so the Betty Bowers video pretty much glosses over this one, using it more for don’t-those-Christians-believe-the-most-silly-things kind of laughs than as a serious point. I have to agree that it sounds ridiculous, and anyone who says they really believe that a guy married a walking salt shaker sounds like he should be committed to the nearest psych ward.
Luckily for Christians, that is not what we believe. The man wasn’t even married to a table salt shaker, or one of those fancy sea salt mills that grinds salt for you as needed.
Lot’s story is more straightforward than that, but still pretty crazy. It’s found in Genesis 18:16-19:36.
So the Bible does not say that Lot married a walking salt shaker.
Remember Abraham, the subject of the last post? Lot is his nephew. When Abraham left his family in Ur (in modern Iraq) to move to the land of Canaan (modern Palestine/Israel), his nephew Lot went with him. They were both livestock owners and so eventually their respective stock became to numerous to share space. Abraham kindly allowed Lot to choose which plot of land he wanted to settle, and Lot chose the area around the plains city of Sodom, with it’s sister-city, Gomorrah, nearby. Twin cities that are known for their debauchery. But, apparently, they had good land surrounding them and that was what Lot was interested in when he made his decision.
Time passes. Sodom and Gomorrah don’t get any better. It’s very possible that they get worse.
God is fed up and decides to destroy the cities. I know that sounds like God is being harsh and heavy-handed, but you have to remember that one of God’s attributes is that he is a judge—a perfect judge. What does a judge do? Weigh the facts of a situation and determine the rightness or wrongness of the parties involved. A judge also pronounces gives the penalty for the wrongdoing. A good judge does this fairly, ruling in favor of the party that was wronged and against the party that did the wrongdoing. A good judge also penalizes fairly, giving the wronged party no more and no less than what they deserve. If a judge, of their own free will, decides to penalize the wronged party less than they deserve or not at all, that judge is being merciful. The judge doesn’t have to do that. In fact, a judge is called on to penalize, not necessarily give out mercy. If a judge never penalized anyone and always let the wrongdoer go, regardless of the crime, big or small, would that be a good judge? Not at all.
So God is a judge—a perfect judge who will never penalize the wrong more than they deserve. So how bad must things have been in Sodom and Gomorrah over the years (because no place becomes a city overnight) for their penalty to be utter and complete destruction? The Bible doesn’t get into that, but considering how the Sodom’s townspeople treat Lot’s guests
Before God destroys the cities, however, he visits with his friend Abraham and, in the course of talking, reveals to him that Sodom and Gomorrah are going to be destroyed. Which prompts Abraham to plead with God to save them, since he knows his nephew and family are living there. Abraham goes back and forth with God, asking him to spare the cities for fewer and fewer righteous god-fearing people, until Abraham has worked the number down to ten total for both cities.
God, knowing that those ten people only exist in Abraham’s wishful thinking, sends angels to retrieve Lot and his family before the cities are destroyed. The angels tell Lot and his family to get ready quickly and run for the hills beyond the plains, because in the morning there will be nothing left. They tell him and his family not to look back. But the Lots...they’d been living in Sodom for a while. They loved the city. His two girls had fiances in the cities. His wife’s favorite robe maker was in the city. Et cetera and so on, and so they lag. The angels end up having to grab the family by the hands and all but drag them out of the city, finally prompting them to run for their lives as the brimstone begins to rain down over the twin cities.
One person in this little group just isn’t listening. Mrs. Lot. More than unwilling slowness, her heart is really in Sodom. She does more than look back, she slows down. She slows down so much that, like the victims of Mt. Vesuvius in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum, her body is destroyed by the rain of pyroclastic material, and replaced with minerals instead—or salt.
And that’s the story of Lot and his wife. It’s more about not having your heart truly set toward God and the things he decrees, than about table condiments. Sure it was hard for Lot and the girls to leave everything behind. The angels had to help them along, remember? But at some point Lot shut the door on the life he’d had in Sodom and walked through the door that God had graciously opened for him. God didn’t have to save him. God didn’t have a relationship with Lot, per se, he had it with his uncle, Abraham. God hadn’t promised Abraham that he’d save Lot & co. specifically. He’d promised he’d spare the cities for ten righteous individuals. Even counting Mrs. Lot, the Lot family was only 4-people strong. Four’s a lot less than ten. Though it may not have been a strong faith, Lot did believe God, while his wife (at least in that moment) didn’t.
So, is a biblical marriage one man and his salt shaker? No. But I’d hope it would be between one godly man and one godly woman who both love God and are both listening out for what God has in front of them, not what he’s telling them to leave behind.
EDIT 9/19/11 - So I've no idea what I was thinking when I first wrote this. The truth is I'm overly wordy almost all the time, and really, really need to edit when I write. With that in mind, I've rewritten this so that it's more accessible and uses less tinpra-jargon.
Biblical Marriage vs. Marriages in the Bible: Lot and Mrs. Lot
If you missed my previous posting, I am writing a (hopefully) brief series of essays in response to a YouTube video that supposedly lays out the dirty truth behind what a Biblical marriage really is. In the course of the video approximately fifteen examples of “marriages” are brought up, each one completely outrageous and jaw-dropping if you’ve never heard of them. Each one is also actually in the Bible. However, most of them are not examples of a Biblical marriage.
What does “biblical” mean? Well it can mean “Of, relating to, or contained in the Bible” as defined in TheFreeDictionary.com. Basically anything that’s in the book regardless of its nature.
Biblical is also synonomous with being godly, or “Pious; reverencing God, and his character and laws; obedient to the commands of God from love for, and reverence of, his character; conformed to God's law; devout; righteous; as, a godly life.” (BrainyQuote.com) This, I think, is the meaning that most of us have in mind when we talk about something being “biblical”: that it reflects the character and precepts of God as set forth in the Bible.
Just because something is in the Bible (the first definition) doesn’t mean that it is in fact biblical (the second definition). The Bible doesn’t just show you what you’re supposed to do and then give examples of people who did them, the Bible shows us people in their real lives doing real things. These are often real crazy, downright outrageous things. Because real people do real outrageous, crazy things. Just because someone lives their life in the heart of Crazy Town, however, doesn’t mean we make them an example of the new standard for living. Usually we use it as an object lesson of what not to do. Why? Because it’s an indication of a wild deviation from the standard, whatever that standard is. And we know they’re deviating from a standard because when there is no standard, there can be no deviation, and where there’s no possibility for deviation you can never have shocking, outrageous behavior.
And so I am compelled to make the distinction between the marriages in the Bible, as mentioned in the YouTube vid, versus what a biblical marriage actually is.
In my previous two essays I tackled the statements that a biblical marriage is one man, his wife, and their murderous son, or the story of Adam, Eve and their son Cain. The video implies that, after killing his younger brother Abel, Cain then had sex with his mother, Eve. While it is true that Cain must have married some female relation by virtue of population size at the time, it was likely a sister, niece or great-niece and not his mom. While God is very much against the murder, Cain isn't faulted for his choice of wives. While it was incest, it wasn't something condemned by God--not then at least.
The next example was one man and his sister (Abraham and Sarah), and that biblical marriage is one man, his sister, and her servant (Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar). In the first instance, it’s okay that Abraham and Sarah are married half-brother and half-sister (but pretty gross to me) because there are no laws prohibiting that level of incestuous relationship yet. It was, in fact, a fairly common practice. There would be laws regarding incest, and they would cover just about everything you could think of and then some, but they don’t exist yet. In that regard, blaming Abraham and Sarah for being married half-sibs would be like a cop giving you a ticket for parking in a spot where a hydrant will eventually go.
In the second instance, Sarah convinces Abraham to sleep with her servant Hagar so Hagar can get pregnant and “fulfill” the prophecy God had given to Abraham that he would have a son--even though the child was supposed to be born to his wife. The whole thing turns into a hot, baked-in-the-desert-sun, ghetto mess that God eventually fixes. It would continue to cause problems down the line, and still does to this day. But that’s what happens when you try do “help” God. Usually you end up needing him a whole lot more than you did when you started. The lesson here? Don’t help God, listen to him.
In this essay, I’m going to be covering the issue of Lot, his wife and daughters, and the “good” citizens of the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Lot & Mrs. Lot
I know, I know—the next incident mentioned in the Betty Bowers video isn’t about Lot and his wife, the walking Morton Salt shaker. The next thing example of a “Biblical marriage” is rape and the Bible’s prescription for dealing with it. Unlike many of the examples used, the video’s portrayal of the Biblical response to rape is pretty accurate. What’s missing from the video, however, is the cultural context of that day. Which of course colors how we perceive rape today vs. how it was perceived by people at the time when the law was made. This is a subject I have to do a lot more research on. Once I’ve been able to do that, I will tackle this issue. Rape is in no way, shape or form, either in this day or any other, a simple one. Despite what the video seems to say, neither God nor his word (the Bible) treat it lightly, and so it would be extremely wrong if I did.
Anywho, back to Lot and his wife, the salt shaker.
Okay, so the Betty Bowers video pretty much glosses over this one, using it more for don’t-those-Christians-believe-the-most-silly-things kind of laughs than as a serious point. I have to agree that it sounds ridiculous, and anyone who says they really believe that a guy married a walking salt shaker sounds like he should be committed to the nearest psych ward.
Luckily for Christians, that is not what we believe. The man wasn’t even married to a table salt shaker, or one of those fancy sea salt mills that grinds salt for you as needed.
Lot’s story is more straightforward than that, but still pretty crazy. It’s found in Genesis 18:16-19:36.
So the Bible does not say that Lot married a walking salt shaker.
Remember Abraham, the subject of the last post? Lot is his nephew. When Abraham left his family in Ur (in modern Iraq) to move to the land of Canaan (modern Palestine/Israel), his nephew Lot went with him. They were both livestock owners and so eventually their respective stock became to numerous to share space. Abraham kindly allowed Lot to choose which plot of land he wanted to settle, and Lot chose the area around the plains city of Sodom, with it’s sister-city, Gomorrah, nearby. Twin cities that are known for their debauchery. But, apparently, they had good land surrounding them and that was what Lot was interested in when he made his decision.
Time passes. Sodom and Gomorrah don’t get any better. It’s very possible that they get worse.
God is fed up and decides to destroy the cities. I know that sounds like God is being harsh and heavy-handed, but you have to remember that one of God’s attributes is that he is a judge—a perfect judge. What does a judge do? Weigh the facts of a situation and determine the rightness or wrongness of the parties involved. A judge also pronounces gives the penalty for the wrongdoing. A good judge does this fairly, ruling in favor of the party that was wronged and against the party that did the wrongdoing. A good judge also penalizes fairly, giving the wronged party no more and no less than what they deserve. If a judge, of their own free will, decides to penalize the wronged party less than they deserve or not at all, that judge is being merciful. The judge doesn’t have to do that. In fact, a judge is called on to penalize, not necessarily give out mercy. If a judge never penalized anyone and always let the wrongdoer go, regardless of the crime, big or small, would that be a good judge? Not at all.
So God is a judge—a perfect judge who will never penalize the wrong more than they deserve. So how bad must things have been in Sodom and Gomorrah over the years (because no place becomes a city overnight) for their penalty to be utter and complete destruction? The Bible doesn’t get into that, but considering how the Sodom’s townspeople treat Lot’s guests
Before God destroys the cities, however, he visits with his friend Abraham and, in the course of talking, reveals to him that Sodom and Gomorrah are going to be destroyed. Which prompts Abraham to plead with God to save them, since he knows his nephew and family are living there. Abraham goes back and forth with God, asking him to spare the cities for fewer and fewer righteous god-fearing people, until Abraham has worked the number down to ten total for both cities.
God, knowing that those ten people only exist in Abraham’s wishful thinking, sends angels to retrieve Lot and his family before the cities are destroyed. The angels tell Lot and his family to get ready quickly and run for the hills beyond the plains, because in the morning there will be nothing left. They tell him and his family not to look back. But the Lots...they’d been living in Sodom for a while. They loved the city. His two girls had fiances in the cities. His wife’s favorite robe maker was in the city. Et cetera and so on, and so they lag. The angels end up having to grab the family by the hands and all but drag them out of the city, finally prompting them to run for their lives as the brimstone begins to rain down over the twin cities.
One person in this little group just isn’t listening. Mrs. Lot. More than unwilling slowness, her heart is really in Sodom. She does more than look back, she slows down. She slows down so much that, like the victims of Mt. Vesuvius in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum, her body is destroyed by the rain of pyroclastic material, and replaced with minerals instead—or salt.
And that’s the story of Lot and his wife. It’s more about not having your heart truly set toward God and the things he decrees, than about table condiments. Sure it was hard for Lot and the girls to leave everything behind. The angels had to help them along, remember? But at some point Lot shut the door on the life he’d had in Sodom and walked through the door that God had graciously opened for him. God didn’t have to save him. God didn’t have a relationship with Lot, per se, he had it with his uncle, Abraham. God hadn’t promised Abraham that he’d save Lot & co. specifically. He’d promised he’d spare the cities for ten righteous individuals. Even counting Mrs. Lot, the Lot family was only 4-people strong. Four’s a lot less than ten. Though it may not have been a strong faith, Lot did believe God, while his wife (at least in that moment) didn’t.
So, is a biblical marriage one man and his salt shaker? No. But I’d hope it would be between one godly man and one godly woman who both love God and are both listening out for what God has in front of them, not what he’s telling them to leave behind.