05-11-2022, 05:31 AM
Jesus explained it pretty well. He said the issue was divorce, and then pointed out that it was supposed to be one man, one woman for life. He didn't even mention polygamy, but still excluded it. In His day, polygamy wasn't much of an issue. There was a long history of polygamy in the ANE, so the tolerance for it was very high early in the OT. As time went on, that tolerance faded. But divorce arose as a serious problem.
Jesus said the underlying problem was the hardness of heart. That kind of fault can certainly come from cultural biases. Up through the Bronze Age, ANE culture permitted polygamy. Somewhere during the Iron Age, it faded. We see that polygamy almost disappears completely by the time of the Return from Exile. It's like a lot of other things we see in the Bible. Not every failure of human nature was present during Jesus' day, so He didn't have to mention it. Homosexuality wasn't a Hebrew problem, but it was something that loomed large later on when the gospel spread among Gentiles. So, we see it taught in Paul's letters, but the New Testament also has its own historical issues that are different from what we face today.
Scripture tends to report what actually happened, warts and all. We aren't told directly that Judah sinned when he checked in with what he thought was a prostitute, but was his daughter-in-law laying a trap. She knew his tendencies. We know it was a sin, but the story is simply told, and we see the consequences. You and I can look back and see that polygamy was a mistake.
We are supposed to see it from where we are now, but we are also supposed to understand why it was a sin. Our culture tolerates divorce, so there's a whole lot of it. We don't tolerate polygamy so much, so it's not an emphasis for us. If we can drill down to the underlying moral truths, we may have a tough time putting them into words, but our convictions will translate it for us into our context.
Jesus said the underlying problem was the hardness of heart. That kind of fault can certainly come from cultural biases. Up through the Bronze Age, ANE culture permitted polygamy. Somewhere during the Iron Age, it faded. We see that polygamy almost disappears completely by the time of the Return from Exile. It's like a lot of other things we see in the Bible. Not every failure of human nature was present during Jesus' day, so He didn't have to mention it. Homosexuality wasn't a Hebrew problem, but it was something that loomed large later on when the gospel spread among Gentiles. So, we see it taught in Paul's letters, but the New Testament also has its own historical issues that are different from what we face today.
Scripture tends to report what actually happened, warts and all. We aren't told directly that Judah sinned when he checked in with what he thought was a prostitute, but was his daughter-in-law laying a trap. She knew his tendencies. We know it was a sin, but the story is simply told, and we see the consequences. You and I can look back and see that polygamy was a mistake.
We are supposed to see it from where we are now, but we are also supposed to understand why it was a sin. Our culture tolerates divorce, so there's a whole lot of it. We don't tolerate polygamy so much, so it's not an emphasis for us. If we can drill down to the underlying moral truths, we may have a tough time putting them into words, but our convictions will translate it for us into our context.