Jay's Thoughts on Stuff

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A Commentary on Marriage in the Bible, vol 1: the Torah, v10.01.07

Introduction to A Commentary on Marriage in the Bible, Volume I: the Torah:

I began this work in 1997 when I read something by James Stivers–I cannot even remember what that was now–in which he asserted that God approves of polygyny. My own feeling had always been that God disapproves, but tolerates (tolerated?) it among those converted from a polygamous culture. I probably adopted that sense from the many Sunday sermons and Wednesday night Bible studies I attended as a child. My opinion was also likely affected by my incessant reading (sometimes during church) of science fiction, fantasy, and historical novels. Robert Heinlein deserves a mention here somewhere, I am sure. In any case, Stivers’ reasoning appeared sound, but I was certain that he must have overlooked some important point. I checked his Scripture references in context and checked cross-references. Since he has a penchant for pushing the boundaries of orthodoxy, I researched opposing views and checked their Scriptural references as well. By the time I had accumulated more than one hundred pages of Bible passages (paraphrased to aid my own understanding) and typed notes, I was convinced: Stivers was correct. Not only is most of today’s church incorrect about polygyny, but they are dead wrong about a whole host of issues related to marriage and family.

This is big news! I thought. People need to know about this! The problem, as I soon discovered, was that people did not want to know about it. We have built so much of our culture around the dogma of monogamy that any challenge to the status quo is met with the fiercest opposition. Men become incredulous and sidle furtively away as if afraid of being seen even standing too near such a heresy. Women become violently angry or break down in tears. I pulled my hand back from the fire and reassessed what I ought to do with this newfound knowledge. The implications went far beyond whether a man might have one or two wives. The very structure of modern civilization was at odds with what the Bible seemed to be saying. I could not simply shrug my shoulders and move on to something else. The ensuing search for truth and the path that unfolded over the next eleven years lit a fire in my bones that, like Jeremiah’s, simply will not allow me to keep silent.

My writing was fitful. For weeks, I might research and write for more than eight hours per day while also working a full time job. For months, I might write just a few words here and there. I was always writing in the back of my mind, however, ideas and arguments brewing and stewing incessantly while I pulled network cables or installed software. I spent hundreds of hours in online forums, forced constantly to question my conclusions and myself. The intensive Bible studies pulled me ever further from my religious roots with the Assemblies of God into…something. I had no name for the theology that was developing.

At a gathering of polygamy-friendly believers in Utah, I met a very intelligent individual (and his two wives) who seemed to be saying the same things I had been thinking. I learned that he lived within a half-hour’s drive of my home in Colorado and that he attended a congregation made up of people with very similar beliefs, which he referred to as Messianic Judaism. They were merely poly-tolerant, though, he informed me, not necessarily poly-friendly. My wife and I visited his congregation for midrash, a weekly Bible study focused on the Torah. We were immediately enthralled by the depth of instruction and the many facets of the Scriptures to which we had never been exposed growing up in evangelical, protestant churches. There is so much more in those first five books than the Ten Commandments and a collection of genealogies! I spent the next seven years absorbing whatever I could from the teachers there. (They most certainly do not agree with everything I have written in this book!) They fleshed out my inklings into full-fledged theology and sometimes even understanding. So many loose ends from my earlier religious instruction began coming together, untangling a mass of inconsistencies and answering a host of Whys, even while posing even more. My writing took on a new tenor and wholeness as the Torah opened up. The result is that I produced a book with a distinctly messianic perspective. I do not consider myself a Messianic Jew because, as far as I am aware, I am not Jewish. For now, I have settled on the label of messianic believer. (Labels do not define us, but they help us sort out a very complex world.) I am a believer in Yeshua, also known as Jesus. He is the one and only path to eternal salvation. You cannot earn your way to Heaven by doing good works or by obeying a set of rules. However, I also believe that the Torah contains God’s instructions to all people concerning how we are to live and worship. Israel was merely a vehicle for those instructions.

Do not take all of this to mean that one must subscribe to Messianic Jewish theology to understand this book or find value in it. Some things will sound more natural or make more immediate sense to the Messianic, but I have struggled to write artfully, clearly, and accessibly for all readers of whatever persuasion.

I have no outstanding qualifications for this work. In fact, I have barely any qualifications at all. I have no degree in theology. I have very little formal training. I am not a pastor or a rabbi. I am only an occasional teacher. I do not claim to be a prophet or a great man of God. I studied and prayed and wrote, and I am certain that I made mistakes. Whatever truth I have written, I have done so by God’s grace. Whatever error, I have done so because of my own inadequacies and interference in God’s attempts at communicating through me.

Throughout these years, I have had the support of many friends, some of whom did not even agree with many of the things I wrote. In fact, virtually everyone who picks up this volume will find something with which to disagree intensely, myself included. I have also gained some enemies, which was a fairly new experience for me. There are some hard truths on these pages, and some people will not accept them easily or at all. I have lost family, friends, and finances over this work, including my wife of seventeen years. I realize the irony of a divorced man writing a book on marriage. My only defense is that I was once much more a fool than I am today, and change did not come easily. I learned much about human nature, about God’s design for marriage and family, and the relationship between man and woman, but it was too little, too late. Or too much, too quickly. Fortunately, this is not a book on how to be married or how to solve your marital problems. My only purpose in writing was to discover what God actually says about marriage and family and to present it to the world at large. Accept it or not. Do with it what you will.

I have organized this volume according to the books of the Bible first, and according to the traditional weekly Torah readings second. For thousands of years, Jewish synagogues have kept roughly the same annual schedule, all reading the same section or parsha each Shabbat. For the most part, Messianic congregations have continued that tradition. I believe that this division was divinely inspired as the salvation message can be found in some form in every single portion, although many rabbis today would fail to recognize it as such or admit it if they did. I list each parsha by its Hebrew name and corresponding verses.

You might notice that the first chapter, on Genesis, is the longest and contains the most detailed comments and footnotes. Genesis is the foundation for all that comes after. Everything in Scripture is based on what came before. The New Testament letters build on The Acts of the Apostles, which builds on the Gospels, which build on the Prophets and Writings, which build on the Torah, which builds on Genesis. Each layer expands, rather than replaces, the layer beneath. The first and second comings of the Messiah, the salvation message, the history of Israel…they are all covered in some form in Genesis. Yeshua and Paul both based their fundamental teachings concerning marriage on Genesis, and so have I.

This book is the first volume in what I intend to be a two or three volume set. It is a verse-by-verse commentary, and I did not write it to be read from cover to cover, though you may do so if you wish. The second volume will comment on the remaining Old Testament writings and prophets. It might contain comments on the New Testament as well, or those might find their way into a third volume. After that, I might go on to discuss marriage as it appears in other ancient Christian and Jewish writings.

A final note:

One hard lesson I learned while writing this book was that people do not learn hard lessons easily. It takes time and patience, and people, if pushed too far or fast, will reliably rebel. Be very cautious with these ideas and do not force them on others. Be even more cautious with incorporating these ideas into your family life. Our western cultures have drifted very far from God’s original plan, and restoration will be difficult. Families will be destroyed. People will be hurt. I wish to God that was not the case, but it always is with profound truths. I want you to understand that excising evil is painful. People do not readily change. The return will not be pleasant, but return we will.

-Jay Carper

February 24, 2009

May you proceed prayerfully in full understanding that we–Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female–are a part of the same body under the Messiah, having been joined to it solely through the grace of God, and may each be convinced or not as the Spirit leads him.

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Read an excerpt of Marriage in the Torah here.

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Some of the topics covered:

• The purpose of marriage
• The roles of men and women
• Patriarchy/Matriarchy
• Betrothal
• Selecting a mate
• Authority in the home
• Spiritual covering (aka coverture and headship)
• Interracial marriages
• Interfaith marriages
• Gay marriage
• Polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry (aka plural marriage)
• Transvestitism
• Prohibited sexual relationships
• The difference between fornication and adultery
• Celibacy
• What does it mean to be a help-meet?
• Barrenness/infertility
• Rape
• Premarital sex
• Concubines and concubinage
• Circumcision
• Bride-price and dowry
• Divorce and remarriage
• The role of the firstborn
• Inheritance
• Jealousy
• Oaths and vows
• The family imaged in the Tabernacle