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0: When does marriage begin? - Structured discussion

Not even close to what I'm saying.

So are you saying that you're not suggesting that the man who entered into the union under a condition of father-refusal has to set aside his woman and children but that the union will still never be legitimate? If you're not saying they should split up, and you're asserting that the relationship will never be legitimate, what effect should that have on the union in the long run? On the children of such a union?

What I'm getting at is, is there any tangible consequence for eloping against a father's will other than having a Scarlet I (for illegitimate) painted on one's front door?

Or are you going the other way? Do you think this is death-penalty territory?

I'm not saying they technically need his permission. They just need his silence on it...

Ah, there's that cowardly-lion moderate non-choice option popping up again. I'm just imagining how this would have worked in 4th-Century B.C. Palestine . . . "Hey, sir, wow, I really do love that new robe you're sporting today. I come bearing a wheel-barrow full of shekels in hopes that you will create a betrothal covenant with me so I can marry your daughter, Zechanirita. What do you think about that?"

To which daddy Ishchattelstein just sits there. Beads of sweat appear on his forehead. Off in the far distance can be heard the bray-honk-snort of a camel in a nearby village. Paint dries on the wall. Young Eli isn't sure what to do, but eventually he quietly gets up and rides his scooterschettel back to his own municipality, hoping to get a reading from a rabbi about how to proceed.

And I guess the advice will be, hey, he didn't refuse, so you're in, man!

All I'm saying is if the father refuses then it's not a legitimate union.

What if the father doesn't refuse but you don't pay the bride price? Is it still not a legitimate union?
 
I'm not sure that these are directly helpful when thinking about the will of a father.
I believe that it proves that original ownership trumped in this particular case.
That indicates that father ownership could easily trump theft + relationship.


Edit: Yes Saul was the original owner, but that ownership transferred when he gave her to David. When Saul gave her to the other man he was stealing her because he no longer owned her. The man who received her didn’t steal her, but he did receive stolen property and had to relinquish her to her rightful owner.
That he had been living with her as his wife didn’t matter.
 
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I believe that it proves that original ownership trumped in this particular case.
Yes, it does - original husband ownership trumped.
That indicates that father ownership could easily trump theft + relationship.
Maybe. It does not clearly state that father ownership can trump in the same way. In a situation where the father disapproves of the marriage, we are weighing up the father's authority against the new husband's authority (assuming he has any). It is a different situation, and in my view it is too different for me to draw a clear answer on it from that example.
 
...something may only seem to me to be a disagreement (I could be wrong about this, so please correct me...I'm unsure if you disagree): that your interpretation that the primary focus of Matthew 5:31-32 and 19:9 is the woman's adultery guilt, whereas I read both of them as being primarily admonitions to men.

Hmm. No, I don't think it's about which sex is guilty. But in the specific case of a woman who HAS committed adultery, she IS guilty, and the point is that the husband who puts her away doesn't MAKE her any more than she already is. Whereas, He IS addressing the other case, where a man puts away his wife, sans 'sefer keritutah,' and thus DOES cause her to commit adultery.

Which is not how most of the "standard twisting" wants to see it. (That, too, is where my reference to the standard 'excuse' originates. We agree on that point, whereas most of 'xtianity' doesn't.)

Here, though, we diverge:
the wife being dismissed can only be properly dismissed if the man expects to permanently remain unmarried.

Ouch. No, a husband should not "put away," OR 'divorce,' his wife. He shouldn't be "passing out certificates" at all. (Just how much guilt can he bear, anyway? :) But the only woman he must thereafter remain 'permanently unmarried' to is the ONE HE PUT AWAY. (Deuteronomy 24:1-3, and yes, assuming she then becomes "another man's".)

It is made clear in both 5:32 and 19:9 that any man who dismisses a wife for anything other prostitution is "committing adultery" if he "should be marrying another."

Again, no, very much no. But I won't repeat the analysis. Yahushua was not 'adding to' what He had already Written.

In summary, marriage should be permanent. BUT, because human hearts are in fact hard, He made provision for failure, and the man "bears her guilt" for what amount to broken vows on both their parts.

There is a process, and if it is NOT complete, the woman who has only been "put away," but without the written witness, "still has a living husband," and may not remarry.

And the husband who put that wife away, and failed to complete the process, 'causeth HER' to commit adultery. Unless she ALREADY committed adultery, and was put away for cause (as was Israel, and Judah, see Jeremiah 3, Ezekiel 23, etc.) in which case she doesn't DESERVE to remarry.

The key is consistency. Literally, EVERY Word He Wrote about marriage, understood in context, and in complete whole, is without contradiction (and thus, in spite of crappy translations and twisted dogma, is not ambiguous.)

A man who can handle (in every way) an additional wife may take her.
 
. . . that the wife being dismissed can only be properly dismissed if the man expects to permanently remain unmarried. It is made clear in both 5:32 and 19:9 that any man who dismisses a wife for anything other prostitution is "committing adultery" if he "should be marrying another."

OK, first of all, in my haste yesterday, I failed to double-check on Matthew 5:32, so the above post should have only read:
. . . that the wife being dismissed can only be properly dismissed if the man expects to permanently remain unmarried. It is made clear in 19:9 that any man who dismisses a wife for anything other than prostitution is "committing adultery" if he "should be marrying another."

Again, no, very much no. But I won't repeat the analysis. Yahushua was not 'adding to' what He had already Written.

I don't see how what He had said at some point prior, as long as it doesn't subtract from what He's already said, is, ipso facto, an issue of adding to what He'd already said. What is said in 19:9 does not negate what is said in 5:32. Both can be true and worthy of mention. It is also the case that the two instances were entirely different contexts. In 5:32, Yeshua was preaching to throngs of Jews and the passage is just one in a plethora of topics; in 19:3-9, He was responding to very loaded questions from the Pharisees, and :9 was an answer to a follow-up question posed because the Pharisees were unsatisfied with His answer to the first one, the kind of situation well known in human discourse to beg for a more in-depth answer -- or perhaps in the kind in place during the then-current very contentious debate among Jewish sects about when or whether divorce was justified. Rather than being able to label 19:9 as an instance of adding to what Yeshua had already said -- especially given that I'm taking this from the CLNT, which is translated directly and literally from the Greek (and the Peshitta version of 19:9a, translated from the earliest manuscripts in Aramaic [which, sometimes, though used Aramaic manuscripts that had been translated from earlier Greek ones], the language Yeshua spoke, reads, "But I say to you, Whoever leaves his wife without a charge of adultery and marries another commits adultery") -- I think you're risking subtracting from Scripture, which surely is more dangerous than even your assertion that He was adding to His Own Words. Nothing prohibits either Yah or Yeshua from making additional statements that either clarify or augment something Either has said in the past.

If Matthew 19:9a isn't a prohibition against marrying another woman if one has put away a previous wife for anything other than prostitution (or perhaps even adultery), @Mark C, how else do you explain the inclusion of the phrase "and should be marrying another" or "and marries another?" (Keep in mind as I ask this that I am being critical of myself, because I myself married both my 3rd and my 4th wife after divorcing my 2nd wife, so the point of my question is not to cast aspersions; I'm truly on the hunt for the ultimate truth here.)

The only significant argument explaining this away in my awareness is made by those who twist Matthew 19:9 into a proof that entirely depends on a monogamy-only mindset; this includes the Roman Catholics, whose New American Bible translates it instead as, "I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery," but they only left :19a with this wording because of the Latin Vulgate's then-new-found assumption that Scripture consistently denounces polygamy. I don't trust anything that relies on the Latin Vulgate, which was the template for corruption later followed by the KJV project, which also heavily relied on the Vulgate. They have to get around what is literally translated as 'for' (as in, for the reason of) to come up with their meaning attached to the word 'porneia' as being associated with anything unlawful.

It is also this use of 'porneia' instead of 'moicheia,' that, by the way, further convinces me that 'prostitution' is a superior translation than 'adultery,' which is the standard translation of 'moicheia.' 'Porneia' indicated unlawful sexual relations, which at the time was most commonly exemplified by being a party to cult prostitution. This also aligns it with Sha'ul's admonition in I Corinthians 6:16 about being one flesh with a prostitute (and directly implies that a sexual relationship with a prostitute would be both marriage and unlawful). The Messiah may have almost exclusively preached to Jewish audiences, but that wouldn't have kept Him in a state of total ignorance about the surrounding Greco-Roman culture -- or prevented Him from considering the possibility that what He said in one context would or could be spread through the grapevine to other contexts, communities and cultures.

A useful commentary about this can be found at: https://www.anabaptists.org/books/mdr/porneia.html

I do not, by the way, find any contradiction in what Yeshua said about marriage.

A man who can handle (in every way) an additional wife may take her.

Wouldn't divorcing a wife be an excellent indication that a man can't handle one wife, much less two or more? (Again, I consider myself required to take this into consideration as I myself contemplate having a plural family. In fact, that's why the first thing I did when I determined that I would seek plural marriage again a decade or so ago was to contract my previous wives to encourage them to return to me.)
 
In a situation where the father disapproves of the marriage, we are weighing up the father's authority against the new husband's authority (assuming he has any).
How can you assume that he has any?
If a man seduces a woman and the father has the right to deny the marriage whilst requiring the bride price, the attempted husband clearly doesn’t have any authority unless the father acknowledges it.

Ownership is ownership. Is there any Scripture that indicates that a man has less authority in his ownership of his daughter than of his wife? If there isn’t, then it would appear that you are making an assumption here also.
Think about it, a couple birth and raise a daughter for 16 years. How does another man magically gain more authority over her than her father has? Theft only gains possession, you don’t get authority that way.

Taking another man’s property is basically an act of war. A civilized society just doesn’t allow it.
 
Lest anyone think that I am judging/condemning specific present day situations, I am not.
My first marriage involved my newly betrothed and I calling her parents and informing them that we were now engaged and setting a wedding date. Totally bypassing any concept of her father’s authority. In retrospect, I now realize that I only gave him two choices. Either condemn us or join the party. Basically one step above elopement with an invitation to the wedding.
As I said earlier, a dearth of righteous teaching, but I was still guilty.

I am here promoting what I believe is the proper understanding of the way that Yah set it up. Ignorance does not set us free, only truth can. Yes, we don’t live in an ancient society, but that doesn’t give us the right to ignore ancient morals. Please note Isaiah 4:1, when the truth hits it’s time to change.
 
Lest anyone think that I am judging/condemning specific present day situations, I am not.
My first marriage involved my newly betrothed and I calling her parents and informing them that we were now engaged and setting a wedding date. Totally bypassing any concept of her father’s authority. In retrospect, I now realize that I only gave him two choices. Either condemn us or join the party. Basically one step above elopement with an invitation to the wedding.
As I said earlier, a dearth of righteous teaching, but I was still guilty.

You know, I did ask the father for permission and of course got it. I was heavily into `monogamy only courtship` type books at the time. So that was some good fruit that came from that obscure place of study. Still, one can do everything right and without sin, and still end up in a broken situation. Perhaps one of the greatest hidden stories of time is that of Uriah, and the men like him. How exactly will God reinstitute justice and reconciliation in the age to come without having to curse the offender into perpetuity? Yeshua is the answer. We know that he is greater than we realize, and that he LOVES to make the latter things greater than the former while also honoring the former. Yet, in the mean time, it does feel like quite a broken world - both personally and collectively - people seem to agree its bad.

So, to me, the lessons of this thread are essentially two-fold.

1) That we are all humbled at exactly how sinful the world we are coming out of was. Both around us, and consequently, through us. Let us constantly repent and come out.

2) That the Grace and Love and Mercy of Yeshua is more than enough to cleanse us from our past sins.

However there is an implicit third issue, and that is the need for future obedience. This issue seems unresolved, and no doubt it is obfuscated by the first issue above, and that is our past sins and current erroneous ways of thinking. Does the verse "Give him your tunic also", really have to be elevated to our very wives - if the case is possession and then re-possession? What if the offender is another earnest believer? Think of how much we can complicate 1 and 2 when we sin `against our own bodies`.

Am I, marching towards a court where if I, as the offended, don't find it in my heart to give abundant mercy to him who stole from me - will I find myself judged?

Am I, as the offender, marching towards a court where I will be judged, for my lack of ability or desire to restore that which was stolen?
 
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Probably not as God divorced Israel and that was through no fault on His part. A man might divorce his wife because of her adultery and that's not his failure.

Excellent, frederick. However, the larger point both those 'two witnesses' (Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and Isaiah 50 asks as a question) is that Yahuah did NOT HAVE to give EITHER Israel or Judah (Ahola and Aholibah, etc) a 'certificate of divorce'. He was, and DID, put BOTH wives/kingdoms away for adultery/idolatry (obviously, since 'there is no other,' who else would they be able to 'join to' anyway?)

A big 'Shumei/Hillel/etc' argument during the time of Yahushua was 'can a man "put away" his wife for just any ole reason?" (Scripture says he has "found some uncleanness" with her, etc. Did she 'burn the toast'?)

I will say again: Yahushua's consistent point was not to focus on the 'excuse' (from 'burnt toast' to "irreconcilable differences" -- like she took the poke and is now a spike protein factory, for example) but to AGAIN address the process, and a related issue (or 'dodge', even): men were "putting away" their wives but NOT giving them a 'sefer keritutah,' and thus CAUSING THEM to commit adultery, in order to have food or covering. And he blamed the sorry husbands for that.

UNLESS the woman was an adulterer, in which case (just like Yah Himself!) he didn't even owe her that release in her shame. But if he DID decide to give her a 'get' (as Yah did for 'backsliding Israel' alone in Jeremiah 3:8, AFTER first, as required, 'putting her away') then that is arguably an act of mercy.
 
What is said in 19:9 does not negate what is said in 5:32. Both can be true and worthy of mention.

Or Matthew 19:9 can just be a pitifully horrid mis-translation from His actual words, for reasons that are 'legion':

- "Divorce" != "putting away"

- "commits" as opposed to "causeth HER to commit"

- "marries her who is divorced [sic] commits adultery"

- and so on.

And 'except for adultery' [again, I contend] is NOT an excuse/justification/reason/whatever -- it's the EXCEPTION He points out for which a man need NOT even give her a 'certificate'. OTHERWISE, if he puts her away - for WHATEVER reason! - he should give her a 'sefer keritutah,' else he is responsible for the adultery that will almost certainly happen.

There is NOT, so far as I am aware, any place in Scripture where a man who MEETS the enumerated requirements (Exodus 21:10, agreement by potential wife, permission of fathers where required, etc) is prohibited from taking another wife. (Although, as many here are perhaps aware, and I wrote in this arena years ago - there are at least three conditions where it can be REQUIRED. ;) )

To claim that Yahushua "added" that requirement in one single place is to claim not that He was "clarifying" (as He often did, especially in Matthew 5, Mark 7, etc) but that He was lying when He said (Matt. 5:17-19) that He wasn't gonna change so much as the tiniest bit ("one yod or tittle") so long as "heaven and earth" still existed.

Ergo, the 'twisted rendering' in Matthew 19:9 as generally rendered, is exactly that.

PS> For an excellent treatment of how such 'horrid mistranslation' can propagate, see Nehemiah Gordon's excellent work ( The Hebrew Yeshua vs the Greek Jesus ) on what was done to Matthew 23:2. All that took was changing one little 'yod'. (turning "therefore do as HE - Moses! - says" into "do as THEY - the Pharisees - say," and distorting the $#%! out of the entire meaning of the passage.
 
PPS> Note that a man 'putting away' [shalach, or send out, put out, exile...] is NOT the same as a woman choosing to abandon her husband. (Or, different case, a husband who abandons his house.)

Paul addresses this in I Cor. 7:10-15 (along with some other issues, like noting that those who are "unequally yoke" with a wife in rebellion to His torah [instruction] have other problems as well.)
 
Theft only gains possession, you don’t get authority that way.

Taking another man’s property is basically an act of war. A civilized society just doesn’t allow it.
Yet scripture is simultaneously clear that a woman taken in war becomes a legitimate wife.
Lest anyone think that I am judging/condemning specific present day situations, I am not.
Also, lest anyone think I am promoting marrying without a father's consent, I certainly am not either! I'm just trying to find a framework to understand present day situations where that has historically occurred.
Does the verse "Give him your tunic also", really have to be elevated to our very wives - if the case is possession and then re-possession? What if the offender is another earnest believer? Think of how much we can complicate 1 and 2 when we sin `against our own bodies`.

Am I, marching towards a court where if I, as the offended, don't find it in my heart to give abundant mercy to him who stole from me - will I find myself judged?

Am I, as the offender, marching towards a court where I will be judged, for my lack of ability or desire to restore that which was stolen?
Fascinating additional angle to look at it from @SonoLumen.
 
Probably not as God divorced Israel and that was through no fault on His part. A man might divorce his wife because of her adultery and that's not his failure.
Sorry; I should have included the part about whoredom on her part being an exception. That was Yah's situation as well.
 
Yet scripture is simultaneously clear that a woman taken in war becomes a legitimate wife.
When a man is taken captive in war, his rights to ownership of anything, including his own life, ceases to exist.
Ownership transfers to his captors. That doesn’t seem to shed much light on the present discussion.
 
When a man is taken captive in war, his rights to ownership of anything, including his own life, ceases to exist.
Ownership transfers to his captors. That doesn’t seem to shed much light on the present discussion.

Agreed.

"To the victors belong the spoils": Andrew Jackson

Not scriptural but certainly a well-established fact of life.

It is, though, a distraction for this discussion.
 
When a man is taken captive in war, his rights to ownership of anything, including his own life, ceases to exist.
Ownership transfers to his captors. That doesn’t seem to shed much light on the present discussion.

Well, with one notable distinction: Women, according to His torah, are treated SIGNIFICANTLY differently than men (again!) when taken as "prize". Deuteronomy 21:10+ (the 'war bride' reference) is a primary example. Not only is this another prohibition against rape, but it also makes clear that even a captive (as does Exodus 21:10) has protections, and that includes whatever gets called 'marriage'. (And note, in that case, it doesn't begin for yet another full month... ;) )
 
What we haven’t really discussed here is protection for the daughter.
The point at which the marriage actually begins would end any protection that the father could provide, giving the right and responsibility over to her new husband. So the point of this thread is a really big deal.

I’m not talking about how this would work out in our present lawless culture, just how it should play out in a righteous culture.
If someone elopes with your daughter, the father appears to have the right to deny the union when he hears of it. If the elopees refuse to bow to his wishes, I don’t see why he doesn’t have the right to mount a posse and flat out retrieve her. As I said earlier, stealing a man’s daughter is an act of war. Something that a righteous community would not allow to stand unchallenged.

The thing is, if the absconder was a reasonably good man, maybe an apology and working off the bride price would suffice.
But a reasonably good man wouldn’t have stolen her in the first place. So an act of cowardice on the part of her father would condemn her to a life that she didn’t realize would come: That of raising children with a scoundrel.
Better for her future that the father take her back and give her as a second or third wife of a good man.
The future is too long for; “You made your bed, now you have to sleep in it.”
 
So are you saying that you're not suggesting that the man who entered into the union under a condition of father-refusal has to set aside his woman and children but that the union will still never be legitimate? If you're not saying they should split up, and you're asserting that the relationship will never be legitimate, what effect should that have on the union in the long run? On the children of such a union?
This is different from what you said before.
Ah, there's that cowardly-lion moderate non-choice option popping up again. I'm just imagining how this would have worked in 4th-Century B.C. Palestine . . . "Hey, sir, wow, I really do love that new robe you're sporting today. I come bearing a wheel-barrow full of shekels in hopes that you will create a betrothal covenant with me so I can marry your daughter, Zechanirita. What do you think about that?"

To which daddy Ishchattelstein just sits there. Beads of sweat appear on his forehead. Off in the far distance can be heard the bray-honk-snort of a camel in a nearby village. Paint dries on the wall. Young Eli isn't sure what to do, but eventually he quietly gets up and rides his scooterschettel back to his own municipality, hoping to get a reading from a rabbi about how to proceed.

And I guess the advice will be, hey, he didn't refuse, so you're in, man!

This ridiculous example is completely out of context from what I said.

What if the father doesn't refuse but you don't pay the bride price? Is it still not a legitimate union?

That's a good question. It is my opinion that the father is the one who sets the price... (I'm willing to be shown if I'm incorrect) so I guess the smart move for the father would be to say "you can have her once this price is paid.. " if he gives her away without requiring a price I guess that's his fault...
 
What we haven’t really discussed here is protection for the daughter.
The point at which the marriage actually begins would end any protection that the father could provide, giving the right and responsibility over to her new husband. So the point of this thread is a really big deal.

I’m not talking about how this would work out in our present lawless culture, just how it should play out in a righteous culture.
If someone elopes with your daughter, the father appears to have the right to deny the union when he hears of it. If the elopees refuse to bow to his wishes, I don’t see why he doesn’t have the right to mount a posse and flat out retrieve her. As I said earlier, stealing a man’s daughter is an act of war. Something that a righteous community would not allow to stand unchallenged.

The thing is, if the absconder was a reasonably good man, maybe an apology and working off the bride price would suffice.
But a reasonably good man wouldn’t have stolen her in the first place. So an act of cowardice on the part of her father would condemn her to a life that she didn’t realize would come: That of raising children with a scoundrel.
Better for her future that the father take her back and give her as a second or third wife of a good man.
The future is too long for; “You made your bed, now you have to sleep in it.”
I find nothing to argue with here, @steve.

And it addresses one of the concerns I've brought up more than once: the cowardice of neither refusing nor granting approval, because, in effect, the failure to grant approval is not essentially refusal, and it's also worse than granting approval, so it has the potential to be the worst possible posture for a father to take. It makes me proud of my father-in-law that he gave me holy hell for eloping with his daughter. In this case, I think the outcomes are somewhat equivalent whether the situation is theft or elopement. Especially when you frame this within what should be done in a righteous situation.

Thanks.
 
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