Hi, I’m from Holland (Europe) and I have one wife and two daughters. After having browsed this forum for over a year, I finally decided to join.
A couple of years ago I had to write a survey paper on Song of Songs. Applying the historical-grammatical method (rather than the allegorical method), I was surprised to find this book is all about the joyful expectation of marital intimacy in a polygynous context. The book is like a musical with chorus and solos of the bride, the king, and the sister-wives. The whole theme (or lesson so to speak) is for the bride to learn that she cannot claim her husband, while the sister-wives welcome her showing their joy and support. The only book in the Bible fully devoted to marriage, which is titled by the Holy Spirit as “the song of all songs,” is all about polygyny! I could hardly believe it. I turned my paper in and I could not sleep that night. What if I am wrong? I was afraid to be expelled from seminary. But nothing happened. My paper only included the plain truth of Scripture. My eyes were opened.
The years that followed, I had to go through the entire Scriptures because of my study, passage by passage. I learned from numerous passages that Biblical marriage is polygynous by nature, whether a man has one wife (his first) or more than one. I also learned about the importance of the polygynous nature of marriage as a prophetic picture of our union with Jehovah. In my search for answers, I also stumbled upon this community. I was impressed by the way you all communicate (in love) and over time I had this growing desire to join this community, to have brothers and sisters I can share and discuss with and learn from.
A couple of years ago I had to write a survey paper on Song of Songs. Applying the historical-grammatical method (rather than the allegorical method), I was surprised to find this book is all about the joyful expectation of marital intimacy in a polygynous context. The book is like a musical with chorus and solos of the bride, the king, and the sister-wives. The whole theme (or lesson so to speak) is for the bride to learn that she cannot claim her husband, while the sister-wives welcome her showing their joy and support. The only book in the Bible fully devoted to marriage, which is titled by the Holy Spirit as “the song of all songs,” is all about polygyny! I could hardly believe it. I turned my paper in and I could not sleep that night. What if I am wrong? I was afraid to be expelled from seminary. But nothing happened. My paper only included the plain truth of Scripture. My eyes were opened.
The years that followed, I had to go through the entire Scriptures because of my study, passage by passage. I learned from numerous passages that Biblical marriage is polygynous by nature, whether a man has one wife (his first) or more than one. I also learned about the importance of the polygynous nature of marriage as a prophetic picture of our union with Jehovah. In my search for answers, I also stumbled upon this community. I was impressed by the way you all communicate (in love) and over time I had this growing desire to join this community, to have brothers and sisters I can share and discuss with and learn from.
“Van” in Dutch names are part of the last name. “Van de Groot” is a last name, in which “van” means “from” and “de” is a definite article “the.” This goes back to the idea of last names, where it referred to a family. So “Jan Van De Groot” means Jan from the family Groot.
I actually never heard of Holland yet, I'll research on it a little bit.