I had to split this in two.
(scratching head) Darned if I understand your bent upon everyone re-quoting both sides of a conversation. Why not recommend to the site owner that they incorporate that feature into the software?
You're not making any sense. You decided to challenge my post to the OP then when I respond to your challenge and challenge your claims you pretty much say I shouldn't ask you to provide evidence, a strong case to support your claims?
And you're scratching your head?
(
Yes. I know you explained your belief about it, but that doesn't mean you're correct, nor that you presented a realistic case in relation to singular versus plural.
We're not talking about some abstract thing here. Language has a way of working called grammar, you're using it now to type to me. Yet, when I try to hold you to the rules you say that's wrong? Say it's my belief?
Really not making sense.
Dude, get a clue. Infallibility isn't established by irrational assumptions about language differences. None of this will move the earth out from under our feet.
Seriously, what are you talking about here? "Irrational assumptions about language differences?"
Here, I'm going to do what you do, the plural forms in that sentence I just quoted are wrong because I said so, I don't like the sentence in the plural, it should be "Irrational assumption about language difference." See that's better because I want it to be to support my case although it broke the context of your statement, grammatical rules of the sentence, and original intent of the sentence.
Sigh...but that's an irrational assumption about language differences, right? Whether it's Hebrew, Greek, Spanish, Aramaic, whatever, languages have grammar rules, syntax, etc.
I really hope you get what I just did here.
You can continue feeling secure in your system of subjective interpretations.
And yet you do what you claim others do? Go figure.
No problem. Don't feel dejected when someone doesn't follow along and bow down in submissive acceptance on the basis of a long-winded, although unacceptable, apologetic behind justifying the singular in key passages as speaking out loud to a topic not at all the subject of the text. Believe it all you want.
And yet you have not provided any "key passages" where I am justifying the singular. I provided passages that show God's original intent for marriage and Jesus' reiteration of that intent in the context of divorce, which has to do with marriage. All you've done is declare that's wrong without any evidence to the contrary.
I also explained that degreed experts disagree with you, and because I don't have meeting notes with references for you from those conversations I was blessed to participate, hey, I don't have any of that. I freely admit that. All I can do is to endorse your freedom to continue believing whatever you want. I don't give a tinker's darn if you change your mind about this or not. It's a peripheral issue.
I could go out talk to some friends who are degreed experts and come back with counter expertise to your expertise. All you're doing, and all that'd be doing is appealing to authority.
Some degreed experts love to speak nonsense about nonsense that's why the Bible tells us to be Bereans and search the scriptures to see if what they say is true.
Dude, I never said there are no similarities. I already admitted that Greek and Hebrew do indeed establish plural versus singular. What I question is you personally forcing into a text dealing specifically with divorce as also applying to polygyny.
I already understand you don't understand that point, you don't see the obvious point about marriage there and can't deduce from it that God meant one man/one woman monogamy from the beginning.
People get married, they stay married for a while then they end it in divorce. It's a cycle of a marriage. You don't get that or conveniently don't want to get that, moving on.
That's completely pulled out of thin air.
Ok, I mean you're literally ignoring the obvious, but okay.
That is almost verbatim what a number of other Ph.D's and Th.D's have confirmed in meeting we've had with them. Some of them have dedicated their entire careers with Greek and Hebrew, and they were very candid in their answers. They were well aware of the interpretational methods you are employing here, and they expressed their disdain for such loose and wild antics from anyone claiming to know God had in mind the topic of polygyny in those texts where it is nowhere even intimated.
Since you want to keep appealing to authority, let's go there. With the exception of one, I'm going to use two sources available online for easy access. And we'll just deal with the Greek of Matthew 19:4-6.
First, the
Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary written by Henry Alford, a textural critic, I hope you know what that means, it means he spent time studying the text in its original languages. In regard to Matthew 19:4-6 of which Jesus reiterates Genesis 1:27 and 2:24-25, Alford writes, emphasis mine:
On these verses we may remark (1) that our Lord refers to the Mosaic account of the Creation as the historical fact of the first creation of man; and grounds his argument on the literal expressions of that narrative. (2) That He cites both from the first and second chapters of Genesis, and in immediate connexion; thus shewing them to be consecutive parts of a continuous narrative, which, from their different diction, and apparent repetition, they have sometimes been supposed not to be. (3) That He quotes as spoken by the Creator the words in Genesis 2:24, which were actually said by Adam; they must therefore be understood as said in prophecy, divino afflatu, which indeed the terms made use of in them would require, since the relations alluded to by those terms did not yet exist. Augustin. de Nupt. ii. 4 (12), vol. x. pt. i., ‘Deus utique per hominem dixit quod homo prophetande prædixit.’ (4) That the force of the argument consists in the previous unity of male and female, not indeed organically, but by implication, in Adam. Thus it is said in Genesis 1:27, not ἄνδρα καὶ γυναῖκα ἐποίησεν αὐτούς, but ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐπ. αὐ. He made them (man, as a race) male (not, a male) and female: but then the male and female were implicitly shut up in one; and therefore after the creation of woman from man, when one man and one woman were united in marriage they should be one flesh, ἕνεκεν τούτου, because woman was taken out of man. The answer then is, that abstractedly, from the nature of marriage, it is indissoluble.
The words οἱ δύο are in the LXX and the Samaritan Pentateuch, but not in the Hebrew.
Oh my, but let's keep going.
Expositors Greek Commentary, which many Biblical Greek scholars recommend (over newer ones) as you can see
here. Before you dismiss them, many who post on this forum go on to do prominent work in the textual criticism community, including teaching at higher-level institutions. In it, regarding Matthew 19:4-6, it states, emphasis mine:
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
Matthew 19:4. οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε: the words quoted are to be found in
Genesis 1:27;
Genesis 2:24.—ὁ κτίσας: the participle with article used substantively = the Creator.—ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς goes along with what follows,
Christ’s purpose being to emphasise the primitive state of things. From the beginning God made man, male and female; suited to each other, needing each other.—ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ: “one male and one female, so that the one should have the one; for if He had wished that the male should dismiss one and marry another He would have made more females at the first,” Euthy.
And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Matthew 19:5. καὶ εἶπεν: God said, though the words as they stand in Gen. may be a continuation of Adam’s reflections, or a remark of the writer.—ἕνεκεν τούτου: connected in Gen. with the story of the woman made from the rib of the man, here with the origin of sex. The sex principle imperiously demands that all other relations and ties, however intimate and strong, shall yield to it. The cohesion this force creates is the greatest possible.—οἱ δύο: these words in the Sept[109] have nothing answering to them in the Hebrew, but they are true to the spirit of the original.—εἰς σάρκα μίαν: the reference is primarily to the physical fleshly unity.
But flesh in Hebrew thought represents the entire man, and the ideal unity of marriage covers the whole nature. It is a unity of soul as well as of body: of sympathy, interest, purpose.
[109] Septuagint.
Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Matthew 19:6.
ὥστε with indicative, expressing actual result as Christ views the matter. They are no longer two, but one flesh, one spirit, one person.—ὃ οὖν: inference from God’s will to man’s duty. The creation of sex, and the high doctrine as to the cohesion it produces between man and woman, laid down in Gen., interdict separation. Let the Divine Syzygy be held sacredel How small the Pharisaic disputants must have felt in presence of such holy teaching, which soars above the partisan views of contemporary controversialists into the serene region of ideal, universal, eternal truth!
Not only do they see marriage in the context of the passages, but they see the reference to one man/one woman as a meaningful point as well. Hmmmm...but let's keep going.
Dr. Craig L. Blomberg is a prominent New Testament Scholar with a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies, well known in the community of Christian scholarship. In
The New American Commentary: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture: Matthew, Blomberg writes in regard to Matthew 19: 4-6, emphasis mine:
Jesus goes beyond Deuteronomy and the Pharisees' debate to a creation ordinance. "Haven't you read," as in 12:3,5, challenges his interrogators' understanding of the Scriptures. He quotes the LXX
(Septuagint, my addition) of Gen 1:27 and 2:24 almost verbatim.
God originally intended for marriages to be permanent. He created two complementary genders for each other (even if vv. 10-12 will explain that God has not designed every single individual to be married).
The marriage covenant has two parts to it. To "leave...and be united" means to transfer one's fundamental allegiance from parents to spouse. In the biblical world this did not often refer to setting up a separate domicile; extended families regularly lived together. "One flesh" describes the interpersonal intimacy that should characterize the marriage partnership and culminate in sexual relations. Verse 6a makes it clear that this creation ordinance remains in effect even after the fall of the human race, the giving of the law, and the coming of the kingdom of Jesus. Verse 6b puts forward the text made famous by thousands of marriage ceremonies--humans should do nothing to sunder the divinely ordained union of holy matrimony. Without vv. 4-6a one could imagine v. 6b implying that some marriages are not ordained by God; in context this view is indefensible. On the contrary, precisely because God wants all marriages to be permanent, we dare not do anything to jeopardize them.
Oh we see here the context is marriage, not just divorce.
