Every generation thinks they are smarter than those that came before, thus the patriarch bashing and false pride that comes from feminism and idea that we have more today than our Fathers of the Faith did in the Lord when the physically walked with Him and were called His Friends in their personal conversations. The "New" covenant somehow does away with all of God's Law, and with Patriarchy negated, the society is rapidly destroyed due to an absence of authority and heirarchy.
The forum that you are a part of had one woman that commented something like, "why do we always have to go to the greek?" in exasperation, as if the actual truth of what was intended is not important. We will see more and more (just like we do with our constitution) that people will openly admit that they don't care what the real or intended meaning was of those that penned our laws, because we are clearly smarter and know better. Of course, we all know that...
“Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” Edmund Burke
I apologize in advance for this lengthy block and copy below, but it sums up nicely what I think is accurate regarding how easy it is for false teachings and beliefs to enter in to the church. I think the last reprint of this book was in the 1850's. I do not agree with the assumption that there was no science or literature, but you can't agree with everything someone writes....
"POLYGAMY AND ..... The Bible is a book written in a remote age, and in languages which have long since ceased to be spoken in the world. It was penned among a people comparatively rude; with little literature except that which is found in their own sacred writings, and with little or no science; in a land where the prevailing institutions, habits and opinions, were exceedingly unlike those of modern times; with no apparent anticipation on the part of the writers that the productions of their pens would be subjected to the rigid scrutiny of enlightened future ages, and no underlying idea that the doctrines and laws of the book would ever need to be adjusted to institutions and opinions which would spring up in far distant ages, and in lands of whose existence these writers never dreamed. It has come down to us through the darkest ages of the world, and has brought along with itself many of the opinions of those ages on moral subjects, and many of the interpretations which were affixed to it in those times. There is nothing more difficult to remove than interpretations long affixed to any book ; and especially if those interpretations become incorporated with religious doctrines.
The interpretation and,the doctrine become, in popular estimation, identified, and the one is regarded as being as sacred as the other. They are alike sanctioned by immemorial belief; they become a part of the creed of the church ; they are upheld by all the authority of Synods and Councils; they enter into the literature of those times, and constitute a part of the history of the world; they are venerated for their antiquity; they are loved as truths that have guided millions to a better world—that have sustained the saint on the bed of death, and comforted martyrs amidst the flames. It should be added, also, that those opinions may become the basis on which the superstructure of a powerful hierarchy has been reared, and the very props of a religion that has secured a universal ascendancy over mankind. To detach the interpretation, therefore, from the book is to undermine the foundation of the edifice:—and in the apprehension that this may be so, all the real love of truth in the church, and all the affected zeal of an interested hierarchy will be aroused-; all that there is of love for the venerable, the ancient, the pious, the holy—all the attachments to the system formed from interest, from the love of power, or from the hope of heaven, will be quickened into life. Accordingly, in the history of religion, nothing has been found to be more difficult, if not more hopeless, than to detach false interpretations from the Bible; there is nothing which is more likely to involve men in peril than the attempt to substitute a new and- more rational interpretation in the place of one that has been hallowed for ages.
It is well known, that in the views which prevailed in former ages in regard to the structure of the earth, it became a most difficult thing to separate these views from the prevailing interpretation of the Bible ; and for any one to entertain contrary views was regarded not merely as an error in science, but as a much more vital matter—a heresy in the church. The prevailing views in regard to astronomy and geography became identified with the doctrines of the church, and to promulgate a doctrine on those subjects at variance with what the Bible was supposed to teach, was regarded as justifying the extremest forms of persecution for heresy. In a council of clergymen that met in Salamanca in 1486, to examine and test the views of Christopher Columbus, a considerable portion held it to be grossly heterodox to believe that by sailing Westward the Eastern parts of the world could be reached. No one, it was held, could entertain such a view without also believing that there were " antipodes," and that the world was round, not flat:—errors denounced not only by great theologians of the golden age of ecclesiastical learning, such as Lactantius and St. Augustine, but also directly opposed, it was alleged, to the very letter of Scripture. "
They observed," says Washington Irving, " that in the Psalms the heavens are said to be extended like a hide,—that is, according to commentators, the curtain -or covering of a tent, which among the ancient pastoral nations was formed of the hides of animals; and that St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, compares the heavens to a tabernacle or tent extended over the earth, which they thence inferred to be flat."*' Thus, also, it was in the well-known case of Galileo. * Life of Columbus.
The doctrine which he was required by the Church, to "abjure, curse, and detest," and which "he was never again to teach, because erroneous, heretical, and contrary to Seripture" was the doctrine of the earth's motion and the sun's stability. The doctrine derived by the Church from the Bible—a doctrine which had become as sacred as any other doctrine held by the Church—was, that the earth is the centre of the system, and that all the heavenly bodies revolve around it; and it seemed no less difficult to separate that doctrine from the teachings of the Bible, than it would have been to detach from it the doctrine of the Fall of Man, or the doctrine of the Trinity. So Voetius, a celebrated Dutch theologian of the seventeenth century, says, " This we affirm, that is, that the earth rests, and the sun moves daily round it, with all divines, natural philosophers, Jews and Mahommedans, Greeks and Latins, excepting one or two of the ancients, and the modern followers of Copernicus."
To show with what tenacity an interpretation of Scripture that has been received for ages as the true one is adhered to, and how difficult it is to detach such an interpretation, however absurd or erroneous from the Bible, it may be proper to refer to an argument of Turretin. He is arguing, " in opposition to certain philosophers," in behalf of the Ptolemaic doctrine that the sun moves in the heavens and revolves around the earth, while the earth itself remains at rest in the midst. " First," he remarks, " the sun is said in Scripture to move in the heavens, and to rise and set. ' The sun is as a bridegroom coming out of his chambers, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.' ' The sun knoweth his going down. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down.' Secondly. The sun by a miracle stood still in the time of Joshua, and by a miracle it went back in the time of Hezekiah. Thirdly. The earth is said to be fixed immovably. ' The earth is also established that it cannot be moved.' ' Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.' ' They continue this day according to their ordinance.' Fourthly. Neither could birds, which often fly off through an hour's circuit, be able to return to their nests. Fifthly. Whatever flies or is suspended in the air, ought by this theory, to move from west to east, but this is proved not to be true, from birds, arrows shot forth, atoms made manifest in the sun, and down floating in the atmosphere."
From reasoning such as this, one of the most accomplished theologians of his age, and that age not a remote one; one who lived after Tycho Brahe, Kepler and Galileo had finished their labors; one who lived in the time of Isaac Newton—for when the work containing these sentiments was issued from the press, (1695,) Newton had attained his fifty third year ; one whose system of theology has been long used as a text-book in the Princeton Theological Seminary, and whose views have been regarded as the standard in training men for the ministry in the nineteenth century,—set himself against the most remarkable discoveries of his age or of any age. It is not wonderful, therefore, that old interpretations of the Bible, though founded in error, yet long retain their hold on the-public mind, even amidst the light of a very advanced age of the world. It has long been an opinion extensively held in the world, that the Bible is adverse to ... and polygamyand so on, and so on....
