Marriage

[KCDAD]

Yeah they bought and sold their daughters like cattle...

 

[rosalind110]

Yeah they bought and sold their daughters like cattle...

Yeah they bought and sold their daughters like cattle...

Just wanted to say that I'm not suggesting that it's appopriate to do everything precisely the same way as they did 2000 years ago or when the bible was written, but, that, in those days, there wasn't a marriage ceremony or written contract, but just a mutual commitment. I felt that this answer was in the context of the OP.

 

[Merlin]

Do you actually believe that all women are to be are "helpers" to their man?

You bet!

That somehow women are *gasp* not equal to men...in a marriage CONTRACT?

I'm sorry but this is the 21st century. Don't give modern women that load of crap.

Where in the world do you get such an idea?

A helper is a wonderful, honorable thing.

 

[LouTheWicked]

Being helpers to eachother is even better.

 

[Leanna]

Do you actually believe that all women are to be are "helpers" to their man? That somehow women are *gasp* not equal to men...in a marriage CONTRACT?

I'm sorry but this is the 21st century. Don't give modern women that load of crap.

This is a common disagreement in the married section here.... the women who believe in "submission" versus the women who do not. Both sets are Christians. So not everyone is so archaic, just so you know. And there is a healthy group of feminists.

I believe that marriages function best when men and women come to decisions together as a team.

Its funny..if you read Jewish legend you find out about Adam's first "wife" Lillith...no wonder she high-tailed it out of there....

Where is this? In the Psuedepigrapha? That would be the old Jewish texts that have been voted "not inspired"... I have both volumes on my bookshelf. Where is it in there, or where else can I find this story? I am not trying to be "smart" but well informed. Please tell me where to find such a story. I've read a lot of Jewish literature and haven't run across it....

 

[KCDAD]

What's the line from As Good As it Gets...

I think of a man, and take away reason and accountability...

What do you mean being a helper is good thing? If you are helping a child tie their shoes, maybe. But that is no way to live one's entire life.

 

[Sophia7]

Where is this? In the Psuedepigrapha? That would be the old Jewish texts that have been voted "not inspired"... I have both volumes on my bookshelf. Where is it in there, or where else can I find this story? I am not trying to be "smart" but well informed. Please tell me where to find such a story. I've read a lot of Jewish literature and haven't run across it....

Here is a quote from Wikipedia regarding the origins of this myth. Generally, Lilith was portrayed in ancient literature as a female Mesopotamian night demon. The idea of Lilith as the first wife of Adam apparently arose in the Middle Ages and was referenced in The Alphabet of Ben-Sira and also appeared in some parts of the Kabbala. This concept is not biblical.

(As an interesting side note, besides George MacDonald's use of the Lilith myth in Christian literature, C.S. Lewis also referenced Lilith as Adam's first wife and described the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as one of her descendants.)

Lilith as Adam's first wife

The passage in Genesis 1:27 — "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (before describing a mate being made of Adam's rib and being called Eve in Genesis 2:22) is sometimes believed to be an indication that Adam had a wife before Eve.
A medieval reference to Lilith as the first wife of Adam is the anonymous The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, written sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries. Lilith is described as refusing to assume a subservient role to Adam during sexual intercourse and so deserting him ("She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.'"). Lilith promptly uttered the name of God, took to the air, and left the Garden, settling on the Red Sea coast. As a side note, this places Lilith in a unique position, for she left the Garden of her own accord and before the Fall of Man, and so is untouched by the Tree of Knowledge. However, according to legend, she also knows the "true name of God".
Lilith then went on to mate with Asmodai and various other demons she found beside the Red Sea, creating countless lilin. Adam urged God to bring Lilith back, so three angels were dispatched after her. When the angels, Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, made threats to kill one hundred of Lilith's demonic children for each day she stayed away, she countered that she would prey eternally upon the descendants of Adam and Eve, who could be saved only by invoking the names of the three angels. She did not return to Adam.
The background and purpose of The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is unclear. It is a collection of stories about heroes of the Bible and Talmud, it may have been a collection of folk-tales, a refutation of Christian, Karaite, or other separatist movements; its content seems so offensive to contemporary Jews that it was even suggested that it could be an anti-Jewish satire [4], although, in any case, the text was accepted by the Jewish mystics of medieval Germany.
The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is the earliest surviving source of the story, and the conception that Lilith was Adam's first wife became only widely known with the 17th century Lexicon Talmudicum of Johannes Buxtorf.
In the late 19th century, the Scottish Christian author George MacDonald incorporated the story of Lilith as Adam's first wife and predator of Eve's children into a mythopoeic fantasy novel in the Romantic style.
The role of Lilith as Adam's faithless wife has parallels with the ideas about Eve herself in the Unification theology of Sun Myung Moon.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillith

 

[Leanna]

Here is a quote from Wikipedia regarding the origins of this myth. Generally, Lilith was portrayed in ancient literature as a female Mesopotamian night demon. The idea of Lilith as the first wife of Adam apparently arose in the Middle Ages and was referenced in The Alphabet of Ben-Sira and also appeared in some parts of the Kabbala. This concept is not biblical.

Hmmm well I wouldn't call that Jewish myth at all. "It is dated to anywhere between AD 700 and 1000." Hmmm. I was thinking intertestamental literature at worst.... yeah...

The reason there are two creation stories one in Genesis 1 and one in Genesis 2 is because one of them was addressing/refuting the Babylonian creation story directly.... they are two separate accounts of creation and are not to be taken in order ... so their "scriptual" reasoning is terrible. :o

 

[Sophia7]

Hmmm well I wouldn't call that Jewish myth at all. "It is dated to anywhere between AD 700 and 1000." Hmmm. I was thinking intertestamental literature at worst.... yeah...

The reason there are two creation stories one in Genesis 1 and one in Genesis 2 is because one of them was addressing/refuting the Babylonian creation story directly.... they are two separate accounts of creation and are not to be taken in order ... so their "scriptual" reasoning is terrible. :o

I agree!

 

[LouTheWicked]

Lilith is described as refusing to assume a subservient role to Adam during sexual intercourse and so deserting him ("She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.'"

Wow, I can see why she left...

"Now, Wife, get under me so that I can impregnate you, for you are the lower being!"

 

[KCDAD]

I agree!

So which one is accurate? Man and woman created together on the 6th day or woman created sometime later when man got lonely after naming all the animals?

 

[Sophia7]

Wow, I can see why she left...

"Now, Wife, get under me so that I can impregnate you, for you are the lower being!"

Well, I agree. That would be pretty bad if it were true, but this story didn't come from the Bible. Myths about a female demonic creature called Lillith way predated the idea that she was Adam's first wife. That is only a fairly recent concept, without biblical support.

 

[Sophia7]

So which one is accurate? Man and woman created together on the 6th day or woman created sometime later when man got lonely after naming all the animals?

The Bible doesn't say in Genesis 2 that the woman was not created the same day, nor does it say in Genesis 1 that she was created at exactly the same moment as the man; she could have been made later in the same day. Neither does the Bible say that man got lonely. It says that he named the animals, but no suitable helper was found for him. That is a matter-of-fact statement, not a commentary on his feelings. I don't believe that God left him there in the garden alone for however long until he suffered from loneliness (which wouldn't have happened before sin anyway) before He created a woman.

These are just two descriptions of the same events, told a little bit differently. The first focuses specifically on the events of creation week, including the details of what God made each day. The second focuses primarily on the creation of humans and the relationship of the man and woman, leading to the drama of Genesis 3, which details the fall and the resulting breakdown in the relationship between man and woman, as well as the separation from God that their sin caused.

 

[Ryal Kane]

Well, I agree. That would be pretty bad if it were true, but this story didn't come from the Bible. Myths about a female demonic creature called Lillith way predated the idea that she was Adam's first wife. That is only a fairly recent concept, without biblical support.

I wonder if it stems from the succubi myth, which is suspected to be based on sleep paralysis, more recently replacing demons with aliens.

Wow. I just went totally off topic in the course of one sentence.

 

[kopilo]

neither law nor bible based beliefs should have a monopoly on weddings, given the diversity of religions which include the idea of marriage, eg Hindu, Bahá'í, etc weddings.

 

[k]

One cannot claim marriage is "biblical" without endorsing rape. Why? Because the "bible says" the rapist MUST marry his victim.

Throughout the bible there are myriad versions of marriage, from rape to polygamy.

In regards to the modern debate, it is wholly irrelevent what the bible "says" because we do not live in a Christian State. It seems too many Americans forget that...and isn't ironic....that's usually the same camp who claims to be the "most patriotic."