C.W. Nevius of SFGate.com has a really good article on the uproar over gay marriages and how they supposedly threaten to undermine the “traditional definition of marriage” in this country. President Bush is quoted as saying “Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society,” and yet if you take a good look at the history of marriage it’s clear that such serverances have been many and varied throughout history.
Nevius points out that back during the early history of America (1700-1800s) a married woman gave up many of the “rights” she enjoyed as a single person upon taking her vows. She could no longer own property or sign contracts and any money earned outside of the home had to be turned over to her husband. On the plus side, she didn’t have to pay taxes. In many ways a married woman was the property of her husband and this didn’t change until the the latter-half of the 19th Century, but change it did. Mixed race marriages weren’t legal in any state until California changed their laws in 1948 and it was 19 years more before the Supreme Court made it nation-wide. In many states it was still illegal for mixed race couples to marry until the year I was born (1967), but change it did. More interesting still is what you get when you look closely at just what the Bible suggests about marriage:
Marriage’s lineage a bit convoluted
“It is really much more complex in religious perspective than you might think,’’ says Tolbert, the George Atkinson Professor for Biblical Studies at the Pacific School of Religion. “What the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) suggests as a general model for marriage is polygamy. You look at someone like Solomon who had 200 wives and 600-and-some concubines. Or Abraham, who had his first child by his wife’s slave. It sounds as if it was quite normal.’’
Tolbert, who is also the executive director for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry, points out that marriage didn’t even become a sacrament of the church “until the 12th century. For the first 1,200 years (A.D.) in Europe there were civil unions by town or village government.’’
Nor does the New Testament offer much help. In fact, by some selective readings it sounds as if the Bible has mixed views of marriage. As Tolbert says, Jesus says very little about marriage, and both he and Paul were single men. And Paul, at least, recommended chastity.
“Marriage is not a sin,’’ says Paul in First Corinthians, “but it is better to be unmarried.’’
“The Bible is an incredibly important sacred icon in our culture,’’ says Tolbert. “But I just think a lot of people don’t read it.’’
That not many people read the Bible they supposedly follow is obvious. I issued a challenge awhile back for anyone to list a single valid reason that wasn’t religious in nature as to why gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry and never got anyone to take me up on that challenge. That challenge still stands.
Posted on 03/11/2004 at 05:22 PM 
Posted on 03/11/2004 at 10:53 PM 
“Brock, If the Bible is a myth, how come all the cities and all the people and all their actions described in the Bible are all corroborated by every other ancient text we have? And in point of fact has more evidence to it?s authenticity than any other ancient text?”
David, this is news to me as well. In a post later down you comment on the number of ancient bible manuscripts and writings available, which really isn’t proof of its authenticity because it was a growing religion. The early Catholic church wrote the bible and protected the manuscripts, while other non-religious or pagan documents were destroyed or decayed into oblivion. The early Catholic church probably wasn’t an “objective” outsider researching Jesus’s life.
Your strongest comments on the validity of Jesus’s life was from the non-Christain sources - these however did not appear to be “eye-witness” accounts. I would like to know where you got these sources from - a reference or site or something.
I doubt many people, even here, would argue against the existance of a man named Jesus at that time. The problem is finding reasonably unbiased sources of his existence or deeds, as the church only preserved what was most important to them. This is similar to the Jewish and Islamic faiths preserving their religious documents - so what religion is correct? The one with the highest number of ancient manuscripts?
Proving the existance and deeds of one man, a poor man, is especially hard. He built no great castles or statues in his time, no physical evidence of his life. So if the NT is built around something that can’t be proven, only second and third hand accounts, it should be met with skepticism.
Concerning the validity of the bible as a whole, the Old Testement is full of large scale events that could possiblely be varified today. The problem is, when scientists/anthropologists/historians look for evidence of the great flood, Noah’s arch, the parting of the Red Sea, mention of the exodus of Jews from Ancient Egypt - nothing solid is found. The most anyone can say is that these described events may have occurred on a much smaller scale, and then got blew out of proportion by word of mouth. Not to mention that some of these events plain don’t make sense - example Noah’s boat and saving the animals, Adam and Eve versus the HARD evidence we have concerning evolution. If there is strong scientific evidence for a biblical event, such as a giant boat on top of a mountain, I would like to know it. Finally, many old testement bible stories appear throughout the ancient world before Jews even existed. Seems like a lot of stories may have been borrowed from older civilizations.
I thought the example of Santa Claus and the child quite apt in this case. WHAT IF a virus wiped out 99.9% of the Earth’s population and almost all history was lost. After many generations, the distant relatives of the survivors began to rebuild their civilization and come across all this evidence of Santa Claus. Would they really find anything to say Santa was fake? I mean, we have postcards, movies, etc… that show Santa is real. We all know Santa is fake, but rarely do we write it down.