Friendly Atheist "8 Kinds of Biblical Marriage” Response

In my journey through my Youtube feed a week or so ago, I saw a video come up from Hemant Mehta, the “Friendly Atheist” entitled “The 8 Different Kinds of Biblical Marriage”. Usually when I see videos like this from atheist channels, I expect their take on anything “Biblical” to be anything but, or they cherry pick to suit their message. I see some of that here, but I also see what I see from certain Street Epidemiologists like Pine Creek, where Hemant is working from an angle of incredulity about what scripture is saying. He is reading a modern morality into an ancient frame of law, which can be dangerous, because we miss the point that much of the Levitical law is case law, meaning God didn’t really want certain actions to happen, but He felt we needed laws to fall back on in the case that the action did happen. I want to take the time to work through the 8 kinds of marriage that Hemant mentions, and look at them from a proper historical and biblical lens and see if they are really as crazy as he says they are. I could just recommend that Hemant look at Paul Copan’s work “Is God a Moral Monster?” but I will also try to use other sources here to support my responses.

Hemant’s intro hits on Christians proclaiming one-man one-woman marriage as the only way, but then gets after leaders who have fallen sexually, like the Falwell’s, Ravi Zacharias, etc. For those who are not aware, Christians have a bit of a celebrity Christian problem where the leaders preach one thing but find themselves being called out as hypocrites in their private lives, to put it mildly. I will not take the time to delve into the Falwell’s or Ravi Zacharias here, because I’m pretty sure if you are reading this blog, then you are probably aware of what has come to light about them. As I am no doubt sure I will be repeating farther into the list proper, just because a Christian does something out of line, does not mean that God approves of it or that it is somehow ok for them but not ok for the people they are preaching to.

1. Default Marriage- Our one-man, one-woman marriage. Hemant mentions the leaving your parents and becoming one with your spouse in Genesis, gets a cheap shot in about the serpent in the garden being absurd, and then looks at some additional guidelines for marriage. Marrying outside your faith, the bride should be a virgin or face stoning, and God has a opposite sex partner in mind for everyone. Obviously already a lot to look at here.

Paul did say to not be unequally yoked in marriage, meaning to not marry a non-Christian, but Paul also said that for the current Christians, to not divorce their non-Christian spouses then and there, as a means of sanctifying the unbelieving spouse and to be an example for the children born of that marriage. Now, the unbelieving spouse could choose to leave, and we should let them go in peace (1 Corinthians 7: 12-14). We also see similar advice in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. I really don’t see a problem with attempting to marry within the faith. We see what happened with Israel when they married pagan women and men. Israel was lead away from God and they paid the price. One needs to find a partner that would lead them closer to God and vice versa, because our happiness shouldn’t be the top priority, but rather the glorification of God through all we do. A side bar on this discussion, there is a study showing that conservative Christian couples do rank highest on a marriage satisfaction survey from a few years back, and I have it cited below.

For the bride being a virgin, before I get to the harsh punishment, let’s think about it here. Both my wife and I have discussed this, and we would have some elements of insecurity with one another if we hadn’t saved ourselves for each other, and I think plenty of you would admit that either you or your partner would accept this hypothetical, or that you have had these thoughts yourselves if you or your partner have had sex with someone before the person you are with now. So why was purity such a big deal for Old Testament women, and even women up until a very recent time in history, and why was impurity dealt with so harshly? God created human beings to be sexual creatures, but He also set the boundaries for us for both our benefit, and that God designed us to be living temples to God. If we misuse the bodies that he gave us, we are not only sinning against ourselves, we are sinning against the temple of the Holy God. Sexual sin was not the only sin to be punished with death, but this framework does give some understanding into that.

2. Polygamy – This one can be dealt with pretty quickly. Yes, there are numerous cases of leaders in the Bible having multiple wives, but they are not “biblical” in the sense that Hemant is trying to put forward for this video. Hemant references Genesis for us, so he knows that God’s intent is for a man to cling to his wife, the plural of wives is nowhere near this verse. Monogamy was the intent, and it seemed to be the norm since all of the prescriptive verses we find throughout the Old and New Testament use the idea of one husband and one wife.

As to why God would allow polygamous marriages to persist, even as high up as within the kings of Israel (such as David and Solomon), the culture was structured such that women faced grueling abuse and poor economic conditions outside of marriage. God may have allowed it as a form of protecting these women or providing for them. We see God working within non-ideal circumstances to bring about his glory, as the line of David is established through the prostitute Rahab. Whatever the reason that God allowed polygamy to persist, does not mean that it was God’s ideal for us to pursue.

It is also shown that these polygamous marriages bring about problems for these leaders, so it may work as a cautionary tale and showing that God did allow the consequences of their actions, or at least He removed some protections, from these families.

3. Levirate Law– Levirate marriages were where a deceased man’s brother was to take his wife in marriage and provide a male heir if the deceased man and his wife had no children. This was to preserve the family name and keep land and possessions within the family, as these were vitally important in ancient Israel. This could also be seen as a means of protecting and providing for the widow, as they would not have children to help provide for them as the woman got older. We see this is a fear of Ruth in her story, as childless widows were left to fend for themselves.

Now Hemant takes this time to bring up the story of Onan here. Onan was the brother in law to Tamar, whose husband had passed away without them having children. Onan was commanded to marry Tamar and give her children. The problem was that Onan was wicked, and did not do as the Law required, opting to spill his seed on the ground. Hemant comments that it was Onan seeing how bizarre the law was. I’ve seen other commentaries say how Onan was wicked and lustful for Tamar. He wanted to have his fun but not fulfill the Law, which is why God punished Onan for his wickedness.

4. Slave Marriage – Hemant focuses on the Story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar here. Abraham and Sarah are waiting on God to fulfill his promise of becoming parents, and they become impatient because they are advanced in age, and they knew that they weren’t going to be around forever. Sarah tells Abraham to bed her slave Hagar, and she does become pregnant. This pregnancy causes fighting between Sarah and Hagar, with Hagar and the eventual son, Ishmael, to be driven from Abraham’s camp. God provides for Hagar and Ishmael, and God does bring about Isaac, the promised child of Sarah and Abraham.

This is another case as with the polygamous marriages. This is detailed in scripture, but we can see that God did not want for this to happen. The ideal would have been for Abraham and Sarah to have been patient and trusted in God that he would fulfill his promise. Instead they tried to do it their own way, and we see how well that turned out.

5. Concubine Marriage – This is another one that, while not explicitly forbidden, violates the original intent of what God set forward in Genesis and described in verses prescribing the interactions between husband and wife. It is possible that concubine marriages (which are not formalized marriages) were allowed by God due to the hardness of heart of man, similar to divorce. It might have been allowed because otherwise women in bad marriages or women left out in the poor economic conditions would have been much worse off. Not ideal, but better than a worst case scenario.

6. Military Marriages – This is one that I recall from Paul Copan’s work. In ancient culture, women could have been taken and raped by conquering forces on the battlefield. By being told to wait and take care of the women that Israel captured, it kept base desires in check, and gave the men time to cool down, so to speak. The marriage could have been another means of providing for the women who just had their families and livelihoods ripped away from them. Not ideal, but God is working within a fallen people and world.

7. Assault marriages – This is one that I had to struggle with for a while, but I recently wrote another blog post on this with some sources showing that the case of a woman marrying her “rapist” is more like a woman marrying the man who seduced her. The Hebrew used to describe this is a forcing oneself on to another, but it isn’t a physical forcing, more like wearing down with words. In this case, the woman did give in and allow the man to lay with her, and as such is defiled and not as desirable as marriage material. We come again to the design of marriage ordained by God, so the law is written to make the man own up to what he did and forces him into the marriage model of Genesis, and the payment to the father was to help support that family, as children were able bodies to help around the house. Since the woman is marrying her seducer, she wouldn’t be in her father’s house to help, hence the payment as some recompense for the lost help. The Hebrew that more accurately translates to rape is used in the case of the woman raped in the field, where the rapist is killed and the woman is forgiven.

8. Slave and Slave marriages - Since Hehmant has made my job a little more difficult and does not give a specific verse reference here, I am assuming he is working from Exodus 21 with this case, in which a Hebrew man is matched with a slave wife while he is in servitude. When the Hebrew man has served his time and is freed on the 7^th year, he leaves, but his wife and any children remain in slavery. The Hebrew man could renounce his freedom and stay with his wife and children. From what I can find, this slave wife is most likely a slave taken from outside of Israel since she does not have the same means of leaving over time, and is not able to be released if she did not please her master, as mentioned a little later on. Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy is actually working on a series looking at the Torah/Mosaic Law and how it is imperfect. At first, my Baptist who held to Biblical inerrancy bristled a bit, but this actually makes sense. If the Mosaic Law was perfect, then there would have been no need for Jesus. Michael lays out the case to show how the Mosaic law was modified and changed by the people, with God’s permission, so the laws had give and take (like Divorce being allowed by God due to the hardness of the hearts of the people).

Now we get to the ending, basically Hemant’s lightning round at “biblical marriage”. He mentions the following, and I will have my commentary in parentheses as I think it is needed: Cain and Abel and the women showing up out of nowhere (incest implications), Lot and his wife (Lot was already married and his wife got turned into salt, wasn’t that he had a ceremony with her after this event), and then child marriages (Islam, not in Scripture, will post a video from Whaddo You Meme? And David Wood below discussing this). He hand waves New testament one man one woman marriage, but condemns conservative Christians for using Old Testament for justification to condemn non approved marriages. Ends the video with a diatribe about how standards and tradition change. I would really encourage Hemant to take a look at InspiringPhilosophy’s video discussing the Mosaic Law and Paul Copan’s work to show a) the Mosaic Law was imperfect and some laws were in there because of the hardness of the human heart, b) just because scripture describes it, doesn’t mean it prescribes it, and c) much of the Law was case law, and was a way that God worked protections into the Torah for people who probably would have been tossed aside otherwise. I hope this has been helpful for anyone who is deconstructing because of perceived craziness in the Old Testament, and maybe it will help you respond to critics of scripture. If you have any commentary or critique of my work, I more than welcome it. God bless and have a good rest of your day.

References

Original Video by The Friendly Atheist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJWLJmw7d_A

Highly recommend taking a look at Paul Copan’s “Is God a Moral Monster?”

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/june/is-interfaith-marriage-always-wrong-given-that-bible-teache.html

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/biblical-womanhood-and-the-problem-of-the-old-testament

https://nypost.com/2019/05/27/what-makes-happy-marriages-left-and-right/

https://www.gotquestions.org/polygamy.html

https://blog.logos.com/does-jesus-contradict-the-old-testament-on-polygamy/

https://www.gotquestions.org/levirate-marriage.html

https://www.gotquestions.org/Sarah-Hagar.html

https://www.gotquestions.org/concubine-concubines.html

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tomhobson/2017/10/concubine-versus-married-woman-bible/