Thanks Murray for your excellent contribution. Part of what you said:

.. the nuptial metaphor takes as its model male-female MONOGAMY (not just male-female relationships) as normative. The “monogamy” part is just as culture bound as the “male-female” part. Thus, it seems highly selective to suggest that the “male-female” part is imperfect and culture bound and pretend that the “monogamy” part is to be taken as timeless and absolute.

In point of fact, I would suggest that the critique offered in your post can be more strongly directed at the issue of monogamy rather than that of gender. Here I would like to draw attention to your comment that;

The nuptual metaphor … is driven by the deepest kind of biblical ethics (or even erotics): hospitality towards an “other” who ultimately escapes our drive to possess and control.

Regards, Murray Hogg

~~~

Now let me play devil’s advocate:

Whilst monogamy is the biblical ideal, strictly speaking, occasionally polygamy is not only authorized, but in some situations was demanded by God. (Certainly God’s allowance of something and even his requirement of it in exceptional circumstances is NOT incompatible with it being “wrong” in the vast majority of cases. )

Ppolygamy may have been ‘authorized’ (the Mosaic law specifically refers to it) and even ‘demanded’ (especially in the case of levirite marriage), but, yes, this may be something which relates to extreme situations (e.g., the provision of a supportless-widow of kin, in a specific society tied to a genealogically-based land inheritance economy)..

I am committed to monogamy in theology (and in practice 🙂 but am a little wary of absolutizing issues like this – which got the Christian missionaries to Africa into a lot of trouble, and created many injustices. I gather polygamy was fairly widespread among early Christians (can someone with a better knowledge of ANE culture help me there?) hence the injunction that those in Church government/leadership are to be monogamous (the ‘husband of one wife’ clause shows up in both statements of elder/deacon qualifications: 1 Tim 3.2 and Titus 1.6).

Here’s a quote which helps a bit: “There is evidence of the practice of polygamy in Palestinian Judaism in NT times (cf. J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: An Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions during the New Testament Period, 1969, 90, 93, 369f.). Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.) had ten wives (Josephus, Ant. 17, 19f.; War 1,562) and a considerable harem (War 1,511). Polygamy and concubinage among the aristocracy is attested by Josephus, Ant. 12, 186ff.; 13, 380; War 1, 97. The continued practice of levirate marriage (Yeb. 15b) evidently led to polygamy, which was countenanced by the school of Shammai but not by that of Hillel. [NIDNTT:s.v. “Marriage, adultery, bride, bridegroom”] .

Shalom!

Rowland Croucher