What constitutes a biblical marriage?

pgwolv

Puritan Board Freshman
I want to expand this discussion from two recent threads (https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/what-constitutes-a-marriage.114124/ and https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/barth-on-marriage.114810/).

One opinion in the latter link is tied to an understanding of John 4 that the woman at the well was in serial sexual relationships without being legally/officially married; thus sexual union constitutes a marriage, where it is not adultery/incest/rape.

A statement in the other thread was "Common law marriage is still recognized in most jurisdictions, so it is legal generally. "In the eyes of God" is most often a shift for justifying a sinful, selfish union."

I hold to the second view. But what what then should be the approach to couples living together who start attending one's church (by the Elders, not by me)? Do we say, you are legally "married" in the eyes of the law, so it's fine? I think this overlooks the sin of fornication. Should they not be told that they are living in sin and should be married in a biblical way, not just a legal way? To what extent are vows before witnesses integral to marriage?

EDIT: Please read the entire thread at https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/what-constitutes-a-marriage.114124/ before discussing. I think my main question would be, for those who, like me, do not see living together as a biblical marriage, what route does one take to guide them toward thinking biblically about marriage?
 
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I want to expand this discussion from two recent threads (https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/what-constitutes-a-marriage.114124/ and https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/barth-on-marriage.114810/).

One opinion in the latter link is tied to an understanding of John 4 that the woman at the well was in serial sexual relationships without being legally/officially married; thus sexual union constitutes a marriage, where it is not adultery/incest/rape.

A statement in the other thread was "Common law marriage is still recognized in most jurisdictions, so it is legal generally. "In the eyes of God" is most often a shift for justifying a sinful, selfish union."

I hold to the second view. But what what then should be the approach to couples living together who start attending one's church (by the Elders, not by me)? Do we say, you are legally "married" in the eyes of the law, so it's fine? I think this overlooks the sin of fornication. Should they not be told that they are living in sin and should be married in a biblical way, not just a legal way? To what extent are vows before witnesses integral to marriage?

EDIT: Please read the entire thread at https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/what-constitutes-a-marriage.114124/ before discussing. I think my main question would be, for those who, like me, do not see living together as a biblical marriage, what route does one take to guide them toward thinking biblically about marriage?
Yes they should get married! I'm not going to ask you about your personal business because it's none of my business but I have a daughter. I would pitch a fit if she did that. I'd say the old cliche things like "why does he have to buy the cow when he gets the milk for free?"
Also cultural norms tie in here, I don't know how it worked back then but I have to imagine that marriage fulfilled legally the same rough function it does today to legally protect the two parties involved. Common law marriages take so many years to count legally that I think they're irrelevant.
The pastor and session should refuse membership and discipline members who engage in that after joining. As far as what they should do, I'll leave that up to the individual session to decide.
 
Perhaps I'll look into how the Western Church started to establish norms for marriage in the Frankish Kingdom. The Franks, particularly the royalty, would knock up women and marry the ones with the 'best' offspring.
 
I suggest that being a creation ordinance, and placed under the oversight of civil authorities, any marriage that conforms to the bare minimum creational criteria is a valid marriage.

Must be between male and female, both must consent to take/receive the other as husband/wife, must be acknowledged by their social context.
 
Married "in the eyes of the Lord," not specifically according to a country's laws or norms at the time.
Right, but what does "in the eyes of the Lord" mean? What Biblical standards (preferably from didactic, not narrative passages) are you referring to?

must be acknowledged by their social context.
Just curious - what would be the social context of the Garden?

Also, would you require consummation to be part of the bare minimum?
 
Right, but what does "in the eyes of the Lord" mean? What Biblical standards (preferably from didactic, not narrative passages) are you referring to?


Just curious - what would be the social context of the Garden?

Also, would you require consummation to be part of the bare minimum?
The garden is utterly unique… for instance, we speak spiritually about God bringing people together… In the garden God literally did. So since God literally brought them together, he was the social context.

But for everyone else acknowledgment by the human social context its required for the two to be viewed as a married. Consummation is normal and ordinary, and to be expected… But it’s not absolutely required. It is possible for two people to get married, who are to put it delicately, perhaps physically incapable of having sex.
 
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The garden is utterly unique… for everyone else, it’s required. Consummation is normal and ordinary, and to be expected… But it’s not absolutely required. It is possible for two people to get married, who are to put it delicately, perhaps physically incapable of having sex.
Isn't it true that in many cultures, consummation has been regarded as essential to the validation of a marriage? With lack of consummation being viewed as grounds for nullification...
 
Isn't it true that in many cultures, consummation has been regarded as essential to the validation of a marriage? With lack of consummation being viewed as grounds for nullification...
That is true, and points to the normalcy of it. And if a man or woman refuses to consummate the other has legitimate right for dissolution. But again, consummation cannot be understood to be an absolute sine qua non requirement given the fact that there are very real human conditions that can prevent sexual consummation.

Since there are no exceptions to the male female requirement and there are no exceptions to the fact that they must voluntarily receive the other and there are no exceptions to the fact that their union has to be recognized by their social context… these are sine qua non.
While ordinary and normal and to be expected, nonetheless there are possible exceptions to consummation. Therefore, it’s not one of the absolute bare minimum requirements.

Furthermore, even in those contexts where failure to consummate provides grounds for dissolving the marriage… Please note that the marriage is something that exists as a socially recognized thing and must therefore be dissolved before that person may move on with their life. The marriage exists and then consummation is supposed to happen, yes. But consummation in no case constitutes the marriage.
 
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One opinion in the latter link is tied to an understanding of John 4 that the woman at the well was in serial sexual relationships without being legally/officially married;
I question that premise. "Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband;"

Plain language seems to distinguish between her serial marriages and her then current shack up.
 
Perhaps I'll look into how the Western Church started to establish norms for marriage in the Frankish Kingdom. The Franks, particularly the royalty, would knock up women and marry the ones with the 'best' offspring.
That sounds fascinating my friend. Do please post when you find something.
 
That is true, and points to the normalcy of it. And if a man or woman refuses to consummate the other has legitimate right for dissolution. But again, consummation cannot be understood to be an absolute sine qua non requirement given the fact that there are very real human conditions that can prevent sexual consummation.

Since there are no exceptions to the male female requirement and there are no exceptions to the fact that they must voluntarily receive the other and there are no exceptions to the fact that their union has to be recognized by their social context… these are sine qua non.
While ordinary and normal and to be expected, nonetheless there are possible exceptions to consummation. Therefore, it’s not one of the absolute bare minimum requirements.

Furthermore, even in those contexts where failure to consummate provides grounds for dissolving the marriage… Please note that the marriage is something that exists as a socially recognized thing and must therefore be dissolved before that person may move on with their life. The marriage exists and then consummation is supposed to happen, yes. But consummation in no case constitutes the marriage.
I completely agree with you. Think about it in y'all's own life. How shocked would you be (this happened to me, not my marriage but somebody else's) if you heard from one of the spouses that after a month they still hadn't consummated the marriage? You would be shocked. That's not normal and you'd be wondering what was wrong?
I don't know if that's grounds for an annulment. Maybe one of our esteemed lawyers can chime in with their wisdom.
 
That is true, and points to the normalcy of it. And if a man or woman refuses to consummate the other has legitimate right for dissolution. But again, consummation cannot be understood to be an absolute sine qua non requirement given the fact that there are very real human conditions that can prevent sexual consummation.

Since there are no exceptions to the male female requirement and there are no exceptions to the fact that they must voluntarily receive the other and there are no exceptions to the fact that their union has to be recognized by their social context… these are sine qua non.
While ordinary and normal and to be expected, nonetheless there are possible exceptions to consummation. Therefore, it’s not one of the absolute bare minimum requirements.

Furthermore, even in those contexts where failure to consummate provides grounds for dissolving the marriage… Please note that the marriage is something that exists as a socially recognized thing and must therefore be dissolved before that person may move on with their life. The marriage exists and then consummation is supposed to happen, yes. But consummation in no case constitutes the marriage.
I would be interested to know how such exceptions were treated historically. Would a person who was incapable of sexual intercourse be considered unfit for marriage?
 
But for everyone else acknowledgment by the human social context its required for the two to be viewed as a married. Consummation is normal and ordinary, and to be expected… But it’s not absolutely required. It is possible for two people to get married, who are to put it delicately, perhaps physically incapable of having sex.
On what Biblical basis do you claim that "acknowledgment by the human social context is required" while consummation is "not absolutely required." Again, not picking a fight, just curious where these claims come from Biblically.

Plain language seems to distinguish between her serial marriages and her then current shack up.
But doesn't such an assertion assume a certain definition of marriage (and thus this thread)?
 
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But doesn't such an assertion assume a certain definition of marriage (and thus this thread)?
Well, there are probably some theologians floating around that think they have a better definition than Jesus did. Not being burdened by much in the way of formal theological education (only took systematic), I'll just take it at face value.
 
Well, there are probably some theologians floating around that think they have a better definition than Jesus did. Not being burdened by much in the way of formal theological education (only took systematic), I'll just take it at face value.
If you could supply Christ's definition it would end this thread, so please don't hold back.

I'm curious why you think Jesus included the phrase "...for you have had five husbands..."? Wouldn't it have been enough to simply say, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for the one whom you now have is not your husband"? Leaving out the five husbands would still have communicated both her adulterous state and Christ's prophetic knowledge of her current estate.

Keep in mind, the Greek word translated "husband" in John 4.16-18 could just also mean "man" (the latter is the more frequent translation of the word). Having a man is different than having a husband. I don't think the context makes it clear - Christ never uses words like marriage or adultery as He did elsewhere (Matt.5 and 19, for examples). In v. 16 the phrase is "call that man/husband of yours" and in v.18: "he whom you now have is not your man/husband." Why does Christ ask her to call her man/husband? At face value, it seems likely that Christ is saying/emphasizing in v.18 that she currently has someone else's man/husband - it's likely not that she couldn't call him, but that she wouldn't want to because to do so would expose her/their shame.
 
If you could supply Christ's definition it would end this thread, so please don't hold back.

I'm curious why you think Jesus included the phrase "...for you have had five husbands..."? Wouldn't it have been enough to simply say, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for the one whom you now have is not your husband"? Leaving out the five husbands would still have communicated both her adulterous state and Christ's prophetic knowledge of her current estate.

Keep in mind, the Greek word translated "husband" in John 4.16-18 could just also mean "man" (the latter is the more frequent translation of the word). Having a man is different than having a husband. I don't think the context makes it clear - Christ never uses words like marriage or adultery as He did elsewhere (Matt.5 and 19, for examples). In v. 16 the phrase is "call that man/husband of yours" and in v.18: "he whom you now have is not your man/husband." Why does Christ ask her to call her man/husband? At face value, it seems likely that Christ is saying/emphasizing in v.18 that she currently has someone else's man/husband - it's likely not that she couldn't call him, but that she wouldn't want to because to do so would expose her/their shame.
It seems that all of the possible views of this passage are somewhat conjectural, making it somewhat tenuous as a basis for your belief here - does it not?
 
It seems that all of the possible views of this passage are somewhat conjectural, making it somewhat tenuous as a basis for your belief here - does it not?
I don't define marriage based on this passage - I agree it's unclear and the purpose of the passage is not to teach about marriage. I think it is clear throughout the OT that sexual union initiates marriage and that such relationships should be honored (or punished) accordingly, and I believe this is confirmed in the NT in passages such as I Cor.6 and Matt.19. I apologize for introducing confusion by bringing up John 4 in the previous thread - I believe the other passages can help interpret John 4, not vice versa.

Accordingly, I believe consummation must occur or it is not a marriage. In cases where a man and woman cannot do so, then I believe Christ's teaching in Matt.19.10-12 applies.
 
There is absolutely no question that sexual union, the physical act of becoming one flesh, is very significant in the eyes of God. That said, nowhere in the Bible is it ever indicated that a woman becomes a man's wife as a result of the physical consummation. On the contrary, scripture says, "Adam knew his wife". Marriage is not a creation of the physical union, but a creation of God - it is God who made them male and female, and it is God who united the man and the woman together. And in the presence of God, Adam proclaimed that she was a part of him, and that a husband and wife "shall be one flesh". This was before he knew his wife.

So the idea that a man and a woman can come together and establish marriage without having been brought together under God's authority in order to proclaim their oneness is completely foreign to God's created order.
 
Right, but what does "in the eyes of the Lord" mean? What Biblical standards (preferably from didactic, not narrative passages) are you referring to?
That is why I started the thread; I want to know, reasoning from Scripture, what constitutes such a marriage. You seem to believe that sexual relations do, citing 1 Cor 6. I am not sure whether "becoming one flesh" is synonymous with marriage.
 
One opinion in the latter link is tied to an understanding of John 4 that the woman at the well was in serial sexual relationships without being legally/officially married; thus sexual union constitutes a marriage, where it is not adultery/incest/rape.
I confess I don't see the relevance of this passage. Is it necessarily the case that we are sure that Jesus is talking in terms of ideal, biblical marriage, as opposed to the practices usual in Samaritan culture? We know that even in certain branches of Pharisaic Judaism it was possible to divorce very easily and so engage in multiple serial marriages. They could well have been 'legal' marriages; either way they weren't good.
A statement in the other thread was "Common law marriage is still recognized in most jurisdictions, so it is legal generally. "In the eyes of God" is most often a shift for justifying a sinful, selfish union."

I hold to the second view. But what what then should be the approach to couples living together who start attending one's church (by the Elders, not by me)? Do we say, you are legally "married" in the eyes of the law, so it's fine? I think this overlooks the sin of fornication. Should they not be told that they are living in sin and should be married in a biblical way, not just a legal way? To what extent are vows before witnesses integral to marriage?
This really is a pastoral challenge; slightly different here in the UK where there is no common law marriage, but still acute.

Do we have to be quite careful with our definitions here: simply categorising people as married/not married seems inadequate. If we say they are married, and nothing more, then we are saying that marriage is a private, personal matter, rather than a public one which concerns how the broader community relates to them - and that's wrong. If we say they aren't married, and nothing more, it implies that they could just walk away from the other person, and have no outstanding obligations to them - which can lead to some awful situations.

Therefore this question needs to have an answer that's a bit longer than 'yes' or 'no'; at the very least, we need to have the category of a marriage that's deficient, and so to call people to living out the full beauty of Biblical marriage. Focusing on those who are living together (for whom things are clearest): they need to be told that they have taken on, by their actions, the moral obligations of marriage - to care for someone, to stand by them, in short, to love them. They are 'married' by their actions, and yet that marriage is deficient. Even if marriage proved for some complicated reason to be impossible, they could not simply throw the other out of the house, for instance.

In order to move people towards healthy marriage, the challenge is then to show what they are communicating to one another and to the world by not legally/publicly marrying. They are saying that this is a personal matter that doesn't involve the community, something that gives in to the spirit of the age. They are preserving for themselves the legal - if not moral - freedom to marry someone else without a divorce first, when someone who is truly committed to another should be glad to bind themselves to their husband/wife in every way they can. They are likely (even in places where common law marriage is allowed) making it difficult or at least complicated for their spouse to legally inherit if they die.

And, finally, they need to be simply, plainly honest about what this communicates to the world. We live in a time where living together without legal marriage is common, and it is common for the simple and plain reason that those people do not wish to commit. They want to keep their options open, to be able to leave, to be able to 'fall out of love' and pursue someone else. That is why our secular neighbours live together without legal and public marriage; when they see Christians doing the same, they will assume we are doing it for the same reasons, and we will be dishonouring the name of Christ.

Indeed, we should be clear about the reason that governments became involved in registering marriage. The primary motive was to prevent bigamy and abandonment of spouses - and in most places the law still offers some protection against those things to married people. That is good, especially since in modern society (unlike ancient) people can move around so much more easily and thus avoid neighbours knowing how they are failing the person they are committed to.

For that reason, I think it can be a blind alley trying to split hairs about precise definitions of marriage - and that the pastoral response is wider and deeper than simply setting rules around that. We have a broader challenge to those who are not living up to the Bible's ethics in this area.

In reality my experience with couples who are living together unmarried is that one of them at least tends to be reluctant to marry because they really do want to keep their options open, or at least to be able to get out of the 'marriage' without the fuss of a divorce. It's common with those who have been previously married and divorced (another issue!) or whose parents had messy divorces. Again, simple definitions of what is and isn't marriage don't help all that much here. You've got to move hearts to see the beauty of biblical marriage.
 
There is absolutely no question that sexual union, the physical act of becoming one flesh, is very significant in the eyes of God. That said, nowhere in the Bible is it ever indicated that a woman becomes a man's wife as a result of the physical consummation. On the contrary, scripture says, "Adam knew his wife". Marriage is not a creation of the physical union, but a creation of God - it is God who made them male and female, and it is God who united the man and the woman together. And in the presence of God, Adam proclaimed that she was a part of him, and that a husband and wife "shall be one flesh". This was before he knew his wife.

So the idea that a man and a woman can come together and establish marriage without having been brought together under God's authority in order to proclaim their oneness is completely foreign to God's created order.
I would agree with Ben above that "The garden is utterly unique…" The one-fleshness of Genesis 2.21-23 is unique. I do believe the end of Genesis 2 defines marriage. But why does Adam say "This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh" (emphasis added)? Scripture is clear only a rib (bone) was taken and used to create Eve, so why mention that she was his flesh?

I'm not sure we can conclude from Genesis that Adam and Eve did not enter into a sexual union before Genesis 4 - that is an argument from silence. In fact, if the "one flesh" language of Genesis is the marital vocabulary (and I believe it is), it would seem there was a sexual union in Genesis 2, especially given the final statement that "they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." Why mention their nakedness? Because "nakedness" is used throughout Scripture as a reference for sexual union (see Leviticus 18, for example).

So the idea that a man and a woman can come together and establish marriage without having been brought together under God's authority in order to proclaim their oneness is completely foreign to God's created order.
I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "a man and a woman can come together and establish marriage without having been brought together under God's authority." Marriage is an institution of common grace thus the confessional statement: "It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord." (WCF 24.3) But I do agree that much about sexuality and marriage today is completely foreign to God's created order.

In order to move people towards healthy marriage
I think this is key - there are all types of marriages, but people often focus on the ideal as their definition of marriage. But there are many marriages that are not ideal and yet are still marriages.
 
Thank you so much for your thoughtful, nuanced response.
If we say they are married, and nothing more, then we are saying that marriage is a private, personal matter, rather than a public one which concerns how the broader community relates to them - and that's wrong.
How would you show this to them from Scripture?
Focusing on those who are living together (for whom things are clearest): they need to be told that they have taken on, by their actions, the moral obligations of marriage - to care for someone, to stand by them, in short, to love them. They are 'married' by their actions, and yet that marriage is deficient.
Is it also sinful? Thus, would sexual relations in such a context be included in porneia, and thus be a sin of which to repent? It feels that way to me, but perhaps it is less of a black-and-white issue than I thought.
We have a broader challenge to those who are not living up to the Bible's ethics in this area.
Can you perhaps point me to further reading on Biblical ethics specifically concerning marriage?
 
I confess I don't see the relevance of this passage. Is it necessarily the case that we are sure that Jesus is talking in terms of ideal, biblical marriage, as opposed to the practices usual in Samaritan culture? We know that even in certain branches of Pharisaic Judaism it was possible to divorce very easily and so engage in multiple serial marriages. They could well have been 'legal' marriages; either way they weren't good.

This really is a pastoral challenge; slightly different here in the UK where there is no common law marriage, but still acute.

Do we have to be quite careful with our definitions here: simply categorising people as married/not married seems inadequate. If we say they are married, and nothing more, then we are saying that marriage is a private, personal matter, rather than a public one which concerns how the broader community relates to them - and that's wrong. If we say they aren't married, and nothing more, it implies that they could just walk away from the other person, and have no outstanding obligations to them - which can lead to some awful situations.

Therefore this question needs to have an answer that's a bit longer than 'yes' or 'no'; at the very least, we need to have the category of a marriage that's deficient, and so to call people to living out the full beauty of Biblical marriage. Focusing on those who are living together (for whom things are clearest): they need to be told that they have taken on, by their actions, the moral obligations of marriage - to care for someone, to stand by them, in short, to love them. They are 'married' by their actions, and yet that marriage is deficient. Even if marriage proved for some complicated reason to be impossible, they could not simply throw the other out of the house, for instance.

In order to move people towards healthy marriage, the challenge is then to show what they are communicating to one another and to the world by not legally/publicly marrying. They are saying that this is a personal matter that doesn't involve the community, something that gives in to the spirit of the age. They are preserving for themselves the legal - if not moral - freedom to marry someone else without a divorce first, when someone who is truly committed to another should be glad to bind themselves to their husband/wife in every way they can. They are likely (even in places where common law marriage is allowed) making it difficult or at least complicated for their spouse to legally inherit if they die.

And, finally, they need to be simply, plainly honest about what this communicates to the world. We live in a time where living together without legal marriage is common, and it is common for the simple and plain reason that those people do not wish to commit. They want to keep their options open, to be able to leave, to be able to 'fall out of love' and pursue someone else. That is why our secular neighbours live together without legal and public marriage; when they see Christians doing the same, they will assume we are doing it for the same reasons, and we will be dishonouring the name of Christ.

Indeed, we should be clear about the reason that governments became involved in registering marriage. The primary motive was to prevent bigamy and abandonment of spouses - and in most places the law still offers some protection against those things to married people. That is good, especially since in modern society (unlike ancient) people can move around so much more easily and thus avoid neighbours knowing how they are failing the person they are committed to.

For that reason, I think it can be a blind alley trying to split hairs about precise definitions of marriage - and that the pastoral response is wider and deeper than simply setting rules around that. We have a broader challenge to those who are not living up to the Bible's ethics in this area.

In reality my experience with couples who are living together unmarried is that one of them at least tends to be reluctant to marry because they really do want to keep their options open, or at least to be able to get out of the 'marriage' without the fuss of a divorce. It's common with those who have been previously married and divorced (another issue!) or whose parents had messy divorces. Again, simple definitions of what is and isn't marriage don't help all that much here. You've got to move hearts to see the beauty of biblical marriage.
I understand your reservations, but I personally believe Genesis is prescriptive inasmuch as it pertains to the intention of God; we know Jesus used Genesis in a prescriptive fashion to argue against divorce. We know that Paul used Genesis in a prescriptive fashion when establishing male headship in the church. The fact remains that it is in Genesis that the whole created order of man is firmly established. And in it we clearly see that the male and female of beasts were not brought together and united by God - we don't hear of a she-ass being taken out of a donkey, or a ram and a ewe being united as one flesh. Whereas beasts simply copulate, the marriage covenant was established specifically for man. And it was in God's presence that Adam declared himself one with Eve. They were brought together under God's authority, and a vow - a declaration, was made. So it is fitting that a man and woman come together under the authority of the law, as all power is vested by God, and in the presence of many witnesses enter into the marriage union, declaring a lifelong covenant with one another. We do not simply go out and copulate as beasts. A man and woman must first enter into a lawful covenant in the presence of witnesses. This is a part of God's created order.
 
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So it is fitting that a man and woman come together under the authority of the law, as all power is vested by God, and in the presence of many witnesses enter into the marriage union, declaring a lifelong covenant with one another. We do not simply go out and copulate as beasts. A man and woman must first enter into a lawful covenant in the presence of witnesses. This is a part of God's created order.
But civil authorities above the family level were not part of God's created order, nor, when he instituted them for Israel, did they seem to play a role in solemnising marriages. There is no evidence of priestly or civil sanction of marriage either in the old testament or the new. At best there was sanction of marriages by the families of the man and woman, although even this doesn't seem to be strictly true or may have been purely transactional in some cases. Again with divorce, there was no requirement for civil or priestly sanction, only a unilateral letter of divorce, although elders did become involved with cases of abuse or abandonment, as with other matters of justice.

It wasn't until the 12th century and the Cathar heresy that Rome declared marriage a sacrament and it became a matter of church and civil sanction.

The created order seems to have much less accountability in terms of marriage as an official status than many Christians now would be comfortable with.
 
If you could supply Christ's definition it would end this thread, so please don't hold back.
I was responding to this proposition and calling it out as false and contra scriptural:
One opinion in the latter link is tied to an understanding of John 4 that the woman at the well was in serial sexual relationships without being legally/officially married;

Jesus said she had been married multiple times. "One opinion" says she hadn't been married. You can follow "One opinion" or you can follow Jesus.
 
"One opinion" says she hadn't been married. You can follow "One opinion" or you can follow Jesus.
Where is the one opinion saying she hadn't been married?

Jesus said she had been married multiple times.
This is an assumption placed on the text: "Jesus says to her, 'Correctly you have spoken "A ἀνήρ I have not" for five ἀνδρός have you had, and he whom you now have is not your ἀνήρ.'" If you think she has been married/divorced 5 times you then translate ἀνήρ / ἀνδρός as husband/husbands (and that may be the predominate interpretation). But it could also be translated man/men.

Consider passages such as Mark 10 - which is talking specifically about marriage: "Then the Pharisees came and asked him, if it were lawful for ἀνδρὶ to put away his wife, and tempted him....And if a woman put away her ἄνδρα, and be married to another, she commiteth adultery." (vv.2,12). Some translations like the KJV and NAS translate it "man" in v.2 and "husband" in v.12. In Matthew 1.16 these same translations translate this word as "husband" in reference to Joseph as the "husband of Mary" but in Luke 1.27 they translate the same word "man" when they refer to the "man whose name was Joseph." Was Joseph her husband or her man? Scripture is clear they were not married and that no marriage had been consummated (Matt. 1.18, Luke 1.34 & 2.5).

We cannot assume what have become cultural norms in our societies (and churches) regarding marriage back into these texts (we cannot even assume Jewish legal norms in John 4 as Jesus is interacting with a Samaritan).

The words for marry/married/marriage are not used in John 4 - saying she had been married 5 times is an interpretation. Jesus does not say she had been married multiple times - he says she has had 5 husbands or 5 men (and He is not teaching about marriage here so is it profitable to be dogmatic about one specific interpretation in this discussion?). For what it's worth, I do believe she was married 5 times prior, but I believe such an interpretation is derived from other Scripture defining marriage, not from John's text standing alone.
 
Andrew - the Jewish world didn't countenance shacking up, but it did happen... but that didn't make them married.
The word for man/woman is husband/wife is man/woman, but that doesn't mean that there is real uncertainty about when one is meant rather than the other.

Look at the linguistic absurdity you introduce into John 4 to suggest that marriage isn't "necessarily" in view when Jesus says she has had multiple "men" and the one she has now isn't her "man." It's husband. Similarly, you cherry pick some verses and leave out others, such as Matt 1:19 which calls Joseph "her husband" and notes that (although no consummation) divorce would've been necessary)... and then v.24 says he "took his wife" but ( - pointed out inv.25) didn't consummate until many months later.

I'm not sure what you're playing at, but there seems to be a disingenuous attempt to quibble about this subject. What is it exactly that you're trying to justify?
 
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