When did Christians & Jews Become Monogamous?

Join us as we explore the fascinating evolution of marriage traditions from polygamy to monogamy within biblical, Roman, and early Christian contexts. This discussion delves into Old Testament laws, New Testament teachings, and Roman cultural norms, shedding light on how figures like Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon navigated polygamous practices. We also examine the impact of Roman culture on Christianity and Judaism, the role of marriage norms in societal stability, and the modern implications of these historical traditions. Reflecting on both ancient and contemporary perspectives, we dissect the complex interplay between monogamy, polygamy, and cultural evolution, offering a thought-provoking take on the roots and consequences of marital practices.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Understanding, the meta narrative of the evolution of monogamy was in the church as a norm. Tells a deeper story that is missed if you attempt to misinterpret them to make your modern sexual mores.

Look like they were the mores that were had at the time of various parts of the bible being written which which hides from you I think a deeper and more interesting truth it is kind of weird that the Bible isn't that explicit about one husband, one wife, but seems to assume it in the New Testament, where in the Old Testament, it seems to assume that wealthy men have multiple wives.

Yes, yes, actually in Roman cultural norms, it was one wife. , Rome definitely represented a, The core of of civilizing force

And I think what we see here is civilization crashing into religion, creating something that is a merger of both of them. [00:01:00]

Speaker: It's law.

Speaker 2: Roman law. Is there some other form of law, you wretched woman?

One thousand apologies.

Malcolm Collins: One, In the form of Christianity, but also in the form of post second temple Judaism. And this is where things get really, spicy

Speaker 3: You must guarantee, of course, to keep your Jews in line. They will do as I say, or they will suffer the consequences. Congratulations, then, Herod, you have the full backing of Rome.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Be talking with you today. Today we are going to be talking about an issue that I think just doesn't get a lot of good and honest coverage, which is What does the Bible actually say about taking multiple wives? And the reason why you're not going to get good coverage of this is [00:02:00] Christians generally sweep under the rug that there's a lot of people of the Bible with multiple wives because now it is normal within modern Christianity to only have one wife.

And it's the same with modern Judaism. Modern Judaism is mostly a monogamous religious system. So they just, you know, the, the people who are like super pro Christian or super pro Jew generally don't dwell on this point too much. So when you go and you're reading about this, it's usually people who want to dunk on the Bible or who want to dunk on Jews or who want to dunk on, you know, early, whatever.

Right. And I think. Because of that, people miss interesting things we can learn about the development of Christianity and Judaism by studying both one, what does, what are the actual rules laid out in the Bible around this? And two, how and why did they develop and change over time?

Simone Collins: Okay. I'm excited for this.

Any thoughts? I, I, I'm, I'm kind of afraid of what we're going to [00:03:00] learn. Is it, is it more in the end biblical to just I'll give you a

Malcolm Collins: summary of what you're going to learn, because this is really interesting. So it is kind of weird that the Bible isn't that explicit about one husband, one wife, but seems to assume it in the New Testament, where in the Old Testament, it seems to assume that wealthy men have multiple wives.

Yes, yes, yes. And I thought it was really weird. I was like, it's almost like, the cultural norms changed before the New Testament was written. And so I started to study the issue more. And what I learned is actually in Roman cultural norms, it was one wife. And so, The area of Israel being a Roman colony at the time, it would have been culturally normative for them at that period, at least within like the, the power structure of society to default to monogamous [00:04:00] marriages.

And so Jesus was, when he was preaching to people assumed that they all knew we had already made the switch to one one.

Simone Collins: So it's almost as if, like, if the new Testament were written, when the Macarena was the dance of the season. Then everyone would be doing the Macarena in the Bible, and we would just assume that it's biblically correct.

To do the Macarena.

Malcolm Collins: Kind of, I actually would word it a bit differently, and I'll go into this conception more in a second. But I think that you can see Christianity as a marriage of Roman culture, or the first true civilization. In terms of, from my perspective, like the, the descendant of modern civilization.

When I look at something like Egypt, it wasn't like a modern civilization. The real precursor to the modern state. So you may have Greece or something like that, but I think that Rome is a successor state to the Greek culture. And what Christianity is, is that what we call the Western cultural canons, marriage with the Jewish cultural canon to [00:05:00] create Christianity.

And I think that once you understand through the story of how it relates to monogamy, that it is this marriage, then you can better understand the role in the Western tradition That pre that marriage, the Jewish branch of the system should play and the Roman slash Greek branch of that system should play

Simone Collins: that actually really resonates.

And I've never thought about that before that. In the end, there's a ton of Roman culture in both. the New Testament, but also the Catholic Church in general.

Malcolm Collins: Catholics more than anyone else have adopted the Greek slash Roman side of this cultural marriage in their elevation of great thinkers of Greek among their own great thinkers.

Yeah. We did a very good job of pulling in and marrying that canon and creating something which is. fairly unique to Christianity as a religious system, which is a presumptive assumption of a separation of church and state. Which is to say that, you know, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. This is what, you know, the famous Jesus line, which, which [00:06:00] assumes that, Church and state will be separate, which I think was one of Christianity's greatest strengths in terms of its growth, and very unique.

That's not true of Judaism. That's not true of Islam. That's not true of Confucianism. That's not true of most other religious systems, but let's get into this. Okay, so arguments for monogamy that could be made. The best argument for monogamy in the Old Testament is going to be Genesis 2 24.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And you, you generally see the Adam and Eve narrative is played out here. They're like, Oh, Genesis. But unfortunately if you take the interpretation we take of this line, which I think is the correct interpretation, a husband and wife do not become one flesh when they have sex.

That's insane. They become one flesh when they make a baby. That is when a husband and wife become one flesh. And so If you take that assumption, there's no reason that a man couldn't also become one flesh with other women. This is not a line laying out that he [00:07:00] should only have one wife. Nor is the Adam and Eve story laying that out.

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