The key to solving the riddle of the purpose of scripture in the Judaic sense is really - and I can't remember where I learned/read this, but it's a remarkably accurate template to study the bible - is that when you're the Jewish tribe, numerically inferior and beset upon all sides by bigger and stronger competition, anything that increases your numbers is a goodness, anything that does not is "evil." That explains why in the Bible polygamy, taking slaves, getting drunk and knocking up your daughters [Lot, of Sodom and Gommorah fame,] marrying your brother's widow... these all get the big thumbs up. But masturbation, 'laying with men' and eating pork [thought to be an 'unclean' animal with an increased likelihood of causing disease,] these all get labeled as "sin." The New Testament takes it to the next level, of course, by trying to make the whole Gentile world more philosophically "Jewish." But someone forgot to check in with the Jewish nation on that point. [Thanks Paul!]
The larger, unanswered question, of course is why on earth do the superstitious scribblings of a small Middle Easter sect of 2-3000 years matter at all? But I digress. Much more at the link.
Q&A: 'God and Sex' Author Michael Coogan on the Bible - TIME:
"Editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible Michael Coogan recently applied his thorough knowledge of Scripture to a universal and eternally relevant topic: sex. In God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says.
Your book begins with a discussion of the erotic Song of Solomon. Does its inclusion in the Bible mean there was a positive attitude toward sex back then?
I think there was a positive attitude toward sex in general, because reproduction was essential. Anything that led to reproduction was certainly viewed positively, and the idea of refraining from sex for religious reasons was something that was fairly unusual in Judaism in most periods. In many passages it's a highly erotic text, and it was a text that rabbinic literature tells us used to be sung in taverns. Yet when I was in seminary many decades ago, it was razored out of many of the Bibles that we had.
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How important is it to read the Bible in its original languages?
It's essential for some of us to do it, if for no other reason so that translations can be made that are as accurate as possible. Often translators reflect their own views and their own biases just as much as the biblical writers do.
[I'd insert a smartassed 'duh' here, but I know many folks who believe it impossible for there to be mistranslations and misinterpretations in the Bible. The rationalizing mental gymnastics for that is quite astonishing. - Rob]
I was interested recently in this case that the Supreme Court had in the Westboro Baptist Church. I looked at their website, and he lists all the passages that he says the Bible talks about sodomy. Well, in most of them sodomy isn't discussed at all. The term sodomy is a translator's term to translate Hebrew words that never mean sodomy in the sense of anal intercourse between males.
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Given all the examples of polygamy, where in the Bible is marriage sanctioned as a union only between one man and one woman?
There is no unequivocal statement in the Bible, especially the Hebrew Bible, that says that monogamy should be the norm. For the most part, biblical characters we know well, if they could afford it, had many wives. Solomon, the greatest lover of them all — maybe why he's attributed with writing the Song of Songs — had 300 wives. So the fundamentalist Mormons who insist that polygamy is biblical are right, in a sense. If you're going to be a strict literalist, there's nothing wrong with polygamy."
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