Traditional Biblical Marriage:
I Do Not Think it Means What You Think it Means
Rev. Paige Wolfanger
In this week following the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of Marriage Equality, there have been many pieces of our public national discourse that have astonished me. Some have made me indescribably joyous and humbled, and some have simply left me sad. But only one has continued to baffle me. As a seminary-educated ordained pastor, and lifelong Bible geek, the most astonishing thing to me about the national conversation this week has been the way in which some folks have been throwing around the phrase “traditional Biblical marriage.” These men, and interestingly they are mostly men, have claimed in no uncertain terms that the Court’s June 26th decision has redefined traditional Biblical marriage. The people making this claim are powerful and educated. They are pastors, the presidents of colleges and seminaries, the leaders of Christian denominations, politicians, some of whom are making a run for the highest elected post in the land, and without fail they have all said that traditional Biblical marriage is between one man and one woman. This is their argument against the decision of SCOTUS to allow same sex marriage in America.
With all due respect, I feel I must point out to them, in the powerful words of the great Inigo Montoya of The Princess Bride fame, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
So, for all of us who take the Bible seriously as a guide for faith, it might behoove us to take a stroll through the Bible to determine what it really has to say about marriage.
First, a word for clarity’s sake. The Bible is not a dictionary or thesaurus. It does not go out of the way to define marriage, and moreover, the marriage customs of the ancient Near East do not necessarily resemble ours, with paperwork, and registration, and the blessing of nation and state. Some criterion for determining what we will consider as marriages in these pages might help us. I think, for the most part, we can agree on the following:
- When the Bible identifies folks as being married, that is a marriage.
- When relationships are described as marriages in the Law Books of the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus or Deuteronomy, that is a marriage.
- When individuals in the Bible are said to have made intimate covenant vows to one another, as we do in modernity, that is a marriage.
- When individuals in the Bible are overtly said to love one another, and live together in family relationships of fidelity, that is a marriage.
Those things said, let’s begin our journey of what constitutes traditional Biblical marriage.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man and one woman. Examples of this would include Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis, as well as Mary and Joseph as found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man and multiple women. These include such fathers of the faith as Jacob, who was married to sisters Leah and Rachel, as well as Zilpah and Bilhah, not to mention King David, described as a man after God’s own heart. He was married to Saul’s daughter Michal, Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, and Avital, Haggith, Maacah, Ahinoam, Abigail and Eglah, just to name a few.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man, his wife, and his slave. The most famous example of this arrangement is Abraham, the father of Israel, and his wife Sarah’s slave, Hagar. His grandson Jacob followed in his footsteps, marrying the slaves of his wives Leah and Rachel in an attempt to up the offspring total.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one woman and her rapist. This is not just legalized, but mandated, in the book of Deuteronomy 22:29, and played out in the life of Jacob’s only daughter Dinah in Genesis 34.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man, his wife, and his dead brother’s wife, as explained in detail in Deuteronomy 25:5-6, and practiced, in a way, by Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man and a prostitute. I refer you to the entire book of Hosea.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man and the father of one woman. In Judges 19, a Levite man agreed with a man to marry his daughter. When she returned to her father because the Levite abused her, her husband went to her father to arrange her return. And that is not even the most disturbing part of the story.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man, 300 wives and 600 concubines. One word…Solomon.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one God of the universe and the entire nation of Israel, including men, women and children. The entire Hebrew Bible backs this up, not merely as metaphor, but as reality.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one Messiah and the Church, including men, women and children. See above, but replace “Hebrew Bible” with “New Testament.”
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one woman and one woman. The vows Ruth made to Naomi in Ruth 1 have been used as the vows in Christian marriage rites for centuries. When the text tells us that Ruth “clung” to Naomi, it is the same Hebrew word used in Genesis to describe Adam cleaving to Eve, a word of profound sexual and emotional intimacy.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is between one man and one man. No less than King David had this relationship with Saul’s son, Jonathan. Please see 1 Samuel 18, and 2 Samuel 1.
- Traditional Biblical marriage is for the weak. Both Jesus and the Apostle Paul were lifelong bachelors who encouraged those not overcome by lust to stay single.
I think that, no matter what, we can all agree that traditional Biblical marriage is not some unified, singular, monolithic thing. For better or worse, it reflects the practices and mores of the time and culture. Certainly, some of these definitions and examples we would not encourage in our time and lives. But some, where there was love, and grace, and fidelity, we can certainly encourage and celebrate. Although not necessarily about romantic love and attachment, I believe the word of 1 Corinthians 13 can serve us in this national discussion as a guide.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
It is my prayer that our continuing conversation on this topic can be patient, kind and gracious in all ways.
revwolfanger 
Beautiful, eloquent and – bonus – a Princess Bride reference. Well done.
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Wow. I must say you have a very Rabbinical interpretation of Scripture that really leaves context and cultural history at the door. But for argument’s sake lets go through each one. 1. You have the recommended and only promoted version of Biblical marriage because it reflects God’s love for mankind His Bride as outlined in Genesis, spoke about in Song of Songs in intimate detail and metaphored in every book through Revelation–One man and one woman. 2. Leviticus prohibits all forms of incestuous, bestial or Homosexual relationships quite clearly revealing that only men and women can be married. 3. There are many different kinds of Coven ants in Scripture–Marriage is but one of them. There is the Salt covenant that every King of Israel made with God. There is a blood covenant–binding an agreement through a Sacrifice of a Bull or lamb and making an oath that required your death to break for treaties and agreements. I.E. Israel getting Sprinkled with blood at Sinai after having the Commandments at them. The Halved covenant. Making an agreement. Slaughtering an animal in half and both parties walking through binding that covenant. Any covenant like marriage requires death by the party who broke the covenant–making it more binding than a normal contract. 4. I don’t know if you understand Hebrew culture, but families had a much tighter bond than we di today and it was not uncommon for brothers, sisters and cousins all to live under the same roof in packs of 30-40ppl. It does not constitute a marriage, just close knit families. In fact, it was tradition for the Husband to build like a wing on the family house for he and his wife to live in after the vows. Also, many different vows in Scripture–most have nothing to do with wedded life. 5. Polygamy. Though not prohibited in Scripture, in every case it either dealt badly for the polygamist or had negative results. Abraham had but 1 wife Sarah. Isaac had Rebecca. Jacob had Rachel and Leah. Understand he neither loved nor wanted Leah but was tricked by Laban. This wasn’t a polygamy of choice. David’s and Solomon’s were but David got driven to adultery/murder, and his kids suffered for it, and Solomons wives led him to idol worship. So while polygamy is allowed, it is never recommended due to the bad fruits born of it. 6. Same with the slaves and the concubines. They were never treated as wives, just concubines and were more surrogate mothers of the modern era with the child belonging to the wife she was associated with. All Zilpah’s kids were Leah’s and Bilhah’s were Rachel’s. The only exception was Ishmael because Sarah got jealous and angry–wanting nothing to do with Idhmael. Bo marriage here though. 7. Did you bother to read the whole law regarding rape? It was the woman’s decision, but the rapist had to pay the bride price and make restitutiob sufficient by the girl and he r parents. If the woman was unmarried, he was almost forced to because he defiled her against any normal life or marriage so he had to pay so much that she’d be set for life, or he had to marry her and provide for her needs the rest of his life whether he wanted to or not. It was punishment for him as well as a guarantee that she would be taken care of. 8. Same with the dead brother’s wife. She became a wife in name only so that she would be taken care of by the family now that the husband was dead. No public aid, life insurance policy, or social security to take care of her. 9. Ruth married Boaz–read Ruth again. She joined herself to Naomi as a bondservant after Naomi’s son died, which was her first husband. Instead of going like her sister did, she went back to Israel with her mother-in-law and was treated as a widow unril Boaz made her his wife. No gay marriage there. Soery to disappoint you. I don’t care how much it is used in ceremonies today. Different kinds of covenants again in context. 10. Hosea was a prophet. And many prophets did actions to show God’s displeasure and call for repentance from His People. Israel was a harlot that fell into worship of pagan gods so God told Hosea to marry Gomer. This was a marriage to show to us the love God shows to His bride no matter how much of a whore she is. This wasn’t traditional marriage or the norm. I guess it was normal to lay on hisside for a year and eat food cooked on cow pie? Hardly traditional marriage. Finally, God always refers to all of His as His Bride–singular. Never His Groom or His Brides or any other inference you want to make outbof context further validating that God thinks one man and one woman is the way to go. Please spew liberal propaganda elsewhere because you have no support in Scripture for such a position. If you teach this to a congregation I would recant lest you have the bevy of milstones for the false teaching here today. My prayers goid sir.
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You can read the Bible more skillfully than this! Two questions and two comments:
1. Why don’t you distinguish between the forms of marriage the Bible endorses and the forms of marriage it condemns? The marriage of Adam and Eve was “very good,” but the Bible clearly condemns polygamy by showing the awful consequences of Abraham’s relationship with Hagar, Jacob’s marriages to Leah and Rachel, and David’s multiple marriages. The scholars you criticize use the phrase, “traditional biblical marriage,” but what they mean is “marriage the Bible endorses for human flourishing.”
2. If Ruth was married to Naomi, what happened to that marriage when Ruth married Boaz? Did she become a bigamist? Did she divorce Naomi? Did Boaz marry them both (becoming a “throuple”)? Did she lie to Boaz about the vows she had made to Naomi?
3. Since Moses commanded that when a man divorces his wife, he issue her with a certificate of divorce (Deut 24), I am not sure that marriage is as private or undefined as you suggest.
4. You wrote that for the most part, we can agree on your four criteria for defining a marriage. I don’t agree with the last two. What about healthy platonic, same-sex friendships? Are they not possible in the biblical storyline?
I believe “love does not rejoice in wrongdoing,” too.
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What a great article for me to share with my friends. I haven’t fact checked it yet, but I’m going to post it and fact check it later. Thank you for giving me a place to start.
Our lesbian daughter died 10 days before her 30th birthday. She had epilepsy and some other diseases that made it difficult for her to get out and enjoy her life as much as possible. We believe she died of SUDEP or Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy. She would especially love your column.
Thank you for posting the story. Things will improve — I’m pretty amazed that it’s changing before our eyes.
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