From: Jonathan Robie (jonathan@texcel.no)
Date: Thu Feb 19 1998 - 14:46:45 EST
At 02:05 PM 2/19/98 -0500, Brrolan@ra.rockwell.com wrote:
>Hmmm. O.K., I must be confused. In this verse "while her husband liveth,
>she be married to another man" she has either divorced him, or hasn't. If
>she hasn't, she is married two men at once and commits polyandy.
>
>You did not comment on what I said about the overall theme of Paul's
>argument here:
>"I believe that the point of this verse is "you cannot have two spouses,
>(the Law and Grace)"
>
>Paul uses the example (seemingly already assumed by his readers), that
>one's first spouse must have died before remarriage is possible, in order
>to show that the law of sin and death must be dead in us in order to have
>Christ alive in us. If this simile is utterly meaningless if divorce &
>remarriage is allowed, how much more so if multiple marriages are allowed!
To me, the Greek is quite clear that the woman LEAVES the first husband,
and the focus is on the fact that the woman is under the authority of the
first husband. Why doesn't she just leave while he is alive? Because that
would be adultery. In polygamy, the woman would remain under the husband's
authority, there would just be other women sharing the henhouse.
So I do not believe that this directly speaks to the issue of polygamy in
any way.
Jonathan
jonathan@texcel.no
Texcel Research
http://www.texcel.no
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