The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy? — John Shaqi
The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?Newman, John Philip
Religion
The Bible and Polygamy: Does the Bible Sanction Polygamy?
Newman, John Philip
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Polygamy -- Religious aspects
Fourth, that these laws were general, applying to all men, married and
unmarried. Has he proved that? I have proved to the contrary to-day,
showing that in the passages which he quoted there is not a solitary or
remote intimation that the men were married.
Now let us, in opposition to these assumptions, remember that monogamy
was established by God in the innocence of the human race, and that
polygamy, like idolatry, and slavery, blood revenge, drunkenness and
murder came into existence after the apostasy of the human family, and
that neither of these evils have any other origin so far as appears
from the Bible than in the wickedness of man. We admit that polygamy
existed among the corrupt nations, just as any other evil, or vice,
or crime existed, and now when God had chosen the Hebrews for His own
people, to separate them from the heathen, He gives them for the first
time a code of laws, and especially on the subject of the commerce
of the sexes. And what is the central principle of that code on this
subject? Read Leviticus xviii, 18--"Neither shall a man take one wife
unto another."
In this code the following things are forbidden: Incest, polygamy,
fornication, idolatry, beastliness, &c.; we therefore deny that
the nation was polygamous at that time, deny it definitely, deny it
distinctly, and on another occasion I will give you the character of
the monogamists and polygamists of Bible times. The Jews had been four
hundred years in slavery, and they were brought out with a strong hand
and an outstretched arm.
We, to-day, then challenge for the proof that as a nation the Jews
were polygamous. One or two instances, as I have already remarked, can
be adduced. We may say again that if, as he assumes, these laws were
given to regulate the existing system, this does not sanction it any
more than the same thing sanctions sheep-stealing or homicide. He said
these laws were general, applying to all men, married or unmarried. Has
he proved it? This is wholly gratuitous. There is no word in either of
these passages which permits or directs a married man to take more than
one wife at a time. I challenge the gentleman for the proof. It is no
evidence of the sanction of polygamy to bring passage after passage,
which he knows, if construed in favor of polygamy, polygamy must be in
direct conflict with the great organic law recorded in Leviticus xviii,
18.
[At this point the umpires announced that the time was up.]
THIRD AND CLOSING DAY.
PROF. ORSON PRATT.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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