105. Polyamory and the Bible
If it turns out I’m wrong, that would be awesome – please start an epic discussion in the comments!
Also, donating would be fabulous. 🙂
Poly in Pictures
The visual webcomic ramblings of a polyamorous probably-20-something stick person.
Donate Bitcoin: 19wjjubcxbgkwsHZFZeF2hQncUp7bh5Ht6
The Bible forbids any sex outside of marriage, if you accept the usual translations, and the usual interpretation of those translations. However, a few different Old Testament figures had multiple wives, so if your polyamory leads you to marry everyone you have a relationship with, the Bible would seem to be okay with that.
Also, if all of your relationships are asexual
I actually said that to a random Christian who started up a conversation with me in the street. I said that I was asexual, and he said my relationships were still adulterous. I wish now that I had asked him which was the “proper” relationship and which were the adulterous ones.
Some parts of the Bible could be read as supporting polyamory – there is clear support for polygamy at times.
I’m a seminary-trained minister and former chaplain, who is one endpoint of a vee-shaped triad. The Bible being a varied collection of complicated and sometimes contradictory writings, I certainly can’t speak to everyone’s interpretations and ways of understanding these stories. But there’s nothing in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures that *requires* a Christian to oppose or avoid polyamory. To be honest, Jesus was rather anti-nuclear family as a whole, and repeatedly warned people against investing too much in their identities as members of an individual family. If anyone should have the burden of proving their partnership is scriptural or sanctioned by Christ (which I don’t believe necessary), monogamous married couples would have about as much work to do in that regard as polyamorous families.
At any rate, I consider my polyamorous family to be spiritually healthy, sacred, and part of what reveals God to me in my life.
Thank you for your comics, Lotte. I enjoy them very much!
I should think that the bible is full of polyamory! Hope someone comes along with citations 🙂
I had a quick search at BibleGateway (because I have nothing better to do, clearly) and Genesis is pretty full of references to having more than one wife, but not so much of the wives having more than husband. Polygamy was clearly pretty normal at that point in history.
Genesis 4:18-20 “18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech. 19 Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock.”
Genesis 28:8-9 “8 Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; 9 so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.”
I’m sure there are more references but realistically we can probably draw from this that polygamy is ok with God. Most of the views ‘we’ hold today are drawn from the ideas of the Georgians and Victorians who suddenly made ‘us’ all prim and proper. It’s quite frustrating that we’re going through this age of a lack of general acceptance but hopefully we’ll sort it out for the generations to come.
A Swedish Christian priest, Niklas Olaison, runs a site called Queer Theology, and he both preaches and lectures on the same theme. I heard a lecture by him during Stockholm Pride festival a couple of years ago, and he was completely sure that there are polyamorous relationships in the Bible, as there are same-sex relationships. The example I remember most is Noomi and Ruth who have a child together with a man.
I know several Swedish priests who are polyamorous and/or hold the definite view that not only Christianity, but also the Bible, can be said to encompass polyamory. 🙂
http://www.queerteologi.se/index.html
why would the one who gave us the ability to love+care for each other be against us cherishing this gift to the max?
it depends on ‘how’ you read the bible, as the word of god or as a cultural product…in fact the bible doesn’t accuse polygamy or if you want polyamory… the first polygamist was Lamech (see the biblebook Genesis, chapter 4)… important in every relationship – conform biblical mores – is: consent, love and respect…
3 minuten geleden · Vind ik leuk
Sadly:
Matthew’s Gospel
Adultery in the Heart
27 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not commit adultery.’
28But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.
Marriage Is Sacred and Binding
31 “Furthermore it has been said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.
In response to Mr. Lusty, yes you can’t divorce, you can have as many partners as you want as long as they are simultaneous. 😉 Or concubines, concubines are totally allowed and you don’t have to worry about divorce while any children are completely legitimate!
The Bible really isn’t that bad on marriage/sex except for gay men and rape, it doesn’t get those. But if we hadn’t progressed AT ALL in 3000 years that’d be pretty sad.
It seems to me that this discussion needs a dose of clear thinking. If we think we can take verses from the Bbile, written by and for ancient cultures, and simply slot them into today’s societies like computer ad-ons or iPod apps, we’re being naive to put it mildly!
The Bible is a collection of 66 books, written over some 1500 years, spanning a period of about 4000 years of Mankind’s history. Those books include historical accounts, books of poetry, devotional writings, ancient ‘wisdom’, prophetic utterances, eye witness accounts, and letters of exhortation.
The only way to understand those diverse books is to understand the cultures for which, and within which, they were written. It really is rather silly to pick out verse about marriage, divorce, homosexuality, etc etc – all strongly cultural issues – and think we can simply slot them into the vastly different world of today. At the very least you have to understand the culture and the mindset of the people by whom and to whom they were written, before they’ll make any real sense.
Yes, it’s true that many of the Bible’s ‘utterances’ are primarily spiritual and apply in any age and culture. Psalm 23 for instance, although written from the viewpoint of a Middle Eastern shepherd, is incredibly beautiful and can be read and appreciated by anyone anywhere. (Check it out on Biblegateway.com)
However you get into big problems as soon as you try to apply cultural pronouncements across vast expanses of time and human evolution. That’s like taking a part out of a Model T Ford and trying to repair a modern Ford car with it. It can’t be done!
So instead of looking for Biblical pronouncements to take away the trouble of thinking things through for ourselves, we need to look for ‘wisdom’ – which might include Biblical wisdom, if that wisdom can be wisely applied to today.
A lot of people don’t want to take the trouble to be wise though, because that takes effort and study and hard thinking. They simply want someone, or something, to tell them what to do. The Bible wasn’t written for them. It was written for people who take the trouble to think for themselves, with a little help from above.
Cheers!
Christian’s interpret the ‘no adultery’ commandment to mean you can’t have sex outside of marriage, and then forbid you to marry more than one person. Jesus never says anything about either. Since you’re talking about Christianity, and Christians have any annoying habit of ignoring anything in the Jewish Scriptures they don’t like (did you know that not keeping Kosher is just as much an abomination in the Old Testament as being a male homosexual? Yup, every preacher that eats a cheeseburger is just as damned as the homosexuals he won’t let in his church – more damned than the lesbians actually, for complicated reasons of legal peculiarities).
I wrote up full details on the Jewish/Old Testament laws related to polyamory last month:
http://practical-polyamory.blogspot.com/2011/09/polyamory-and-judaism.html
But the short version is that Jews interpret the ‘no adultery’ commandment as you can’thave sex with a married woman, so as long as no one is married, any form of poly is cool.
I think the issue is this. We need a Biblical definition of Love to be applied to this subject. When Paul wrote, “husbands, love your wives the way Christ loved the Church, for he gave himself for it, and see that wives reverence their husbands’, a central theme emerges. Love is not mere sentiment. Love is commitment. To love is an act of will.
So the question is this.
Can you love more than one person at a time in a truly self sacrificial fashion at a time? For this is the way Christ loves.
In the old testament, it was clear Jacob did not love Leah, but loved only Rachel. And Solomon only wrote the song of songs for one woman-Shulamit (BTW that name, shlomi in Hebrew) was a feminine rendering of the name of Solomon, which raises interesting implications (narcissism).