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One Flesh - a biological perspective
- Thread starter FollowingHim
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What you mean by genetic characteristics?
Is she adopt slifestyle and beliefs of husband there is no genetic concept. Food influences looks, so this isn't genetic also.
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Facial structure and hair color are the two obvious ones we've seen. There is some preselection on the first one but the second one not.
I am not sure how much can be put down to changes, there's a lot of preselection. A friend's son just got married, and I first met his wife a few weeks after the wedding - too soon for anything to change. They looked so alike, the resemblance was uncanny, I kept looking at the two of them sitting together as I couldn't get over how they looked so much like twins! That's all preselection.
Neither is preselection.
Preselection is wanting what other people want. Maybe we subconsiously prefer partners similar to us?
When I first met my father in law, he looked at us and said I looked like I could be his sister. We aren't related, and I don't look like his sisters at all! They favor their mom and my husband favors his dad.
My grandparents studied personology, and did marriage counseling using it to help couples better understand each other. That says that the very structure of the face, hands etc. is connected to personality and thought processes. It is possible we just relate better to people ....that we find we can relate to! Lol.
I have found that boys learn what beauty and "normal" looks like in their mothers. It would be a natural desire to accept what that is in a mate. The same can be said of pets- did you ever see the similarity between owners and pets? Of course there is ample evidence of abusers in every walk of life that infect our minds and reprogram the normalcy, so it's not a hard-and-fast rule.
I'm going to go a little backwards in this string to a possible (and maybe probable) additional understanding of the phrase "one flesh." There is a metaphorical level (specifically metonymy) in which if I say "we are the same flesh and blood" (i.e. Abimelech in Judges 9:2) it is a way of saying "we are family."
There is a fairly old (and traditional) understanding of Adam's statement with regard to the birth of children. In a child the parents are quite literally one flesh. . . and one of the most compelling reasons to avoid divorce is the deleterious effects that such a separation has on the children of that union.
@FollowingHim , I am not disagreeing with the additional layers of meaning that have been discovered scientifically. Likewise, I am not minimizing the spiritual dimension (that may well be expressed and anchored in physicality). The great thing about God's Word is that it can be true in so many different ways and the depth of that truth can be mind-boggling. I'm only bringing up (yet another) way in which the scriptures are true.
There is a fairly old (and traditional) understanding of Adam's statement with regard to the birth of children. In a child the parents are quite literally one flesh. . . and one of the most compelling reasons to avoid divorce is the deleterious effects that such a separation has on the children of that union.
@FollowingHim , I am not disagreeing with the additional layers of meaning that have been discovered scientifically. Likewise, I am not minimizing the spiritual dimension (that may well be expressed and anchored in physicality). The great thing about God's Word is that it can be true in so many different ways and the depth of that truth can be mind-boggling. I'm only bringing up (yet another) way in which the scriptures are true.
It's interesting you bring that up because I've always looked at "one flesh" as being about children--you and your wife literally become one flesh through your children.
I've seen this and there are a number of nature and nurture reasons behind it.
Attractiveness Is Multimodal: Beauty Is Also in the Nose and Ear of the Beholder
Attractiveness plays a central role in human non-verbal communication and has been broadly examined in diverse subfields of contemporary psychology. Researchers have garnered compelling evidence in support of the evolutionary functions of physical attractiveness ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
But I've also seen couples grow to look more like each other with time. And I've seen hair color changes in the woman that fit the husband's, but not the wife's, genetic background.
Quite possibly. I'm not aware of it being documented yet, aside from microchimerism from the woman's baby, but it is conceivable. The old time animal breeders had reason to believe this. And modern biology has discovered the existence of cross species gene flow in the case of other some organisms.
That has been my position for a few years now- that the "one flesh" IS the baby. If it is the joining together via sex then that only is one flesh for a few glorious minutes then each goes their way. However remember the phrase "let no man divide assunder" could be the literal sacrificing of a child as was common during that day.
Side note- when is "cleaving" both dividing and bringing together(as in "shall cleave to his wife")? It isn't. I maintain that it is the splitting of the womans flesh during the insertion of the man. As a knife divides flesh by cleaving the same is said of sex. Let's not spiritualize something very basic to life. To me the fleshing out of scripture makes more sense instead of somehow making a wonderful beautiful one-ness of two spirits in a romantic way. Aren't we trying to get away from "Romanticising" scripture?
Now for the scholars here- is not the phrase "Shall become" in future tense as in it has not yet happened for that specific moment? In other words the act is not yet complete but when it is then the ONE FLESH is created. One flesh can also be created with a prostitute and in many OT cases that resultent child was sacrificed in typical idol temple worship as an appeasement of the gods. Probably the only difference between abortion today and child sacrifice of years ago is the lack of the sound of the cries.
The salesmanship of the deceiver is still there- sacrifice to me and all will be well with you. You won't have to worry about extra mouths to feed that you cant afford.
This is of course utterly ridiculous. When we are introduced to one flesh in the garden there is no child anywhere present and couldn’t possibly be for obvious reasons.
At no subsequent point when we are confronted with one flesh is a child ever referenced, mentioned or juxtaposed.
We are told specifically that one flesh was involved somehow with divorce and could be achieved by lying with harlots. Neither event requires a child and in fact the inclusion of a child in either instance is morally repugnant.
I know that the claim that one flesh is what forms a marriage is quite controversial and not widely accepted. Prophets and visionaries are frequently unappreciated.
I am not aware however that the idea that one flesh is a euphemism for sex is at all controversial or even much in debate.
Given that we’re told that one flesh is formed when one lies with a harlot, irrespective of whether a new life is formed or not, why would you then search about for another explanation?
And that's the clincher. If "one flesh" is children, then only a very small portion of encounters with harlots would constitute "one flesh". This blatantly contradicts scripture so cannot be the answer.
Good point. And we know Rachel belonged to Jacob and they were doing all the right things to make babies, but it was God who closed her womb. They would therefore have been joined and become one flesh (Gen. 2:24).