Was one of those not supposed to be taken from the KJV?
-
Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.
Marrying Twins
- Thread starter rockfox
- Start date
Was one of those not supposed to be taken from the KJV?
Both #1) and #2) were taken from the KJV, but #2) was missing the conditional part which would make a difference in the implementation.
#1) is the word of God as delivered to us, #2) is lacking some of what God said - thus is not reliable.
#2) taken from the KJV without having the rest of what God said changes the meaning as happens in other cases where people leave out bits and pieces to establish a pet point. So yes, I would say #2) is not to be accepted / taken as if it must be implemented absolutely as if the particular modifying condition contained in #1) did not exist. (This is aside from whether it is from the KJV or another version). In other words, we should not take a picked-out phrase and ignore the rest-of-verse context; qualifiers matter in understanding the import of the whole.
"You shall not marry a woman in addition to her sister as a rival while she is alive"
That is a command to a man not to marry sisters. No leeway there that would allow it if the sister agrees.
However, it does read as a second marriage; in other words, you married one sister some time ago and now are looking to marry her sister. So it could be read strictly to not prevent marrying sisters at the same time (IF we ignore v17). In other words, if you marry both at the same time, they presumably might have some say in the matter, but if you marry one later, the first wife (sister) has no say in that matter. So it's a protection for the first wife from vexation.
But that doesn't take into account the nakedness problem.
Because 'to vex' could be read in the same was as 'to uncover her nakedness', an inevitable consequences of marrying her sister; instead of reading it as a conditional motive that makes certain such marriages unlawful. In other words, it could be read as defining marrying your wife's sister as vexing her. The very act is vexation.
Now part of my struggle with this verse is the twins who refuse to marry different men. They seem to be an exception that could work. Yet even there some of their same testimonies speak of regular struggle to have everything the same (i.e. fighting against vexation in everyday life, even without a man).
That's good, puts it in a real world context that makes sense. But it doesn't really solve the 'close relatives' problem. If it's wrong to marry your wife's granddaughter (not by you) because she's a close relative of your wife, how is marrying sisters any better?
Although, a counter argument to that would be that, while sister/sister is genetically closer than grandmother/granddaughter, in the former case the second woman isn't a direct decedent, not her same flesh.
Amen, my brother. Context is everything.
"It shall greatly help thee to understand scripture, if thou mark not only what is spoken or written, but of whom, and unto whom, with what words, at what time, where, to what intent, with what circumstance, considering what goeth before, and what followeth after."
Miles Coverdale (1488-1568)
Coverdale Bible (Prologue to the Reader, 1535)
Amen and Amen! Excellent thought and thanks for the quote.
I think we might be over complicating Lev. 18:18. Read simply, it says don’t have sex with sisters at the same time if it is vexing to them.
My own personal opinion is that Moses had the story of Jacob and Rachel and Leah in mind when he wrote that portion.
Now that is a different interpretation, and it brings up the point that there is variance in the translations; I suspect that the Hebrew grammar here is unclear.
Once could almost take that interpretation from the KJV...
Especially since it says "beside the other". Except that it says "neither shalt though take a wife to her sister". No point in saying 'don't marry' if all you really need to do is not have a threesome. And no point in mentioning "in her life time" if it was communicating 'no threesomes'. So that doesn't make sense.
The NIV sounds like you could take her sister as wife, so long as you were celebate with her...
But that kind of defeats the point, so it doesn't make sense.
One thought for thought translation (marked to children) puts it thus...
They entirely leave out the two sections which are often put in comma's; indicating they are explanatory for 'do not marry' rather than pat of the command. That might be true, but it's a poor proof.
But the Septuigent is interesting...
In all they have 'while living', so clearly one can marry a sister of your deceased wife. Why would that matter? Because the rival and nakedness could not apply.
That is an argument in favor of being able to marry so long as your motives were pure. But it's an even stronger argument that it has nothing to do with motive. If it is to be interpreted "do not marry with impure motives", then there is no point in mentioning 'while alive'. But if the problem is bringing in a woman who would inherantly be a rival (as sisters are won't to be) then it would be necessary to mention the living so people would be free to marry a sister after the first dies. Now, twins likely wouldn't be rivals. That could be why they also mention nakedness. For some reason having sex with two sisters (at once or seperately) is a problem.
Alternatively though, one could view "to uncover her nakedness in opposition to her" as an explanation of how that rivalry is provoked. Which we can see in the example of Jacob's wives. For really close twins, that might not be a problem. The only issue with this line of argument is: this issue can be a problem with any wives, regardless of relation.
And that points to this being a close relation (v17) problem.
But maybe the problem here is in reading this legally and theologically. Maybe Jolene has it right, this is talking about situations; that's how most people think. v17 is talking of the step-daughter step-granddaughter situation (since sometimes grandparents end up caring for grandkids) and v18 is talking about the marrying her younger sister situation.
From that perspective, marrying twins at the same time is a different situation (and one often without vexation).
And that makes sense in the historical context; since most of the time daughters would be married off as soon as they came of age. The usual time a sister would be available is when the next one came of age (or if one got divorced / widowed).
It sounds like you are saying that Moses wrote from his own understanding. That these instructions do not come from Yah.
That's a very good point, thanks. I just hope I can remember it when I need to pull it from the resource chest!
I didn't take it that way. Every Israelite would think of those three when reading that passage.
Not to derail the thread and create a kerfluffle, but it sounds like you are saying that Moses was a transcriptionist instead of The Legislator.
To put it very simply, the degrees of accuracy and prophecy that the laws and pictures and feast days that Torah contains convinces me of the divine inspiration of the Torah. However the degrees of prophetic inaccuracy or silence convinces me that Moses wrote from inspiration instead of full knowledge, thus he was a prophet and legislator, not a transcriptionist of one with full knowledge (Christ) He wrote from a position of seeing thru the glass darkly, and did a phenomenal job of it.
I also think that the Masoretics did a masterful job of presenting him as a transcriptionist, especially seeing as how the normalcy bias at the time of Christ (150 years previous) indicated that it was common knowledge that Moses gave additional laws after being requested by the people.
So, to recap:
I also do not believe that he intended to bring reproach upon Jacob, but was intent on preventing a reoccurrence of Jacob’s family drama, thus the phrase “to vex”.
Also Moses himself had married sisters and was likely speaking from experience.
Also wherever man is involved there is fallacy as man is fallible.
Sorry it's taken me so long to type this in: I most trust the Concordant Version of the Old Testament (CVOT), because it is an ongoing 100+years translation project dedicated to translating literally from the original Hebrew and Greek, with preference on the Hebrew over the Greek and an attempt to consistently translate each Hebrew or Greek word in just one way throughout Scripture wherever possible. As you read this, note that the bolded words are direct translation from the original languages (instead of being re-translated from a previous English, German or Latin source), and the unbolded words or parts of words are added in simply for ease of reading or to make the text sound more like people would talk now (therefore, feel free to ignore them entirely):
"And you shall not take a woman to be a rival to her sister, by exposing her nakedness (on)to her in her lifetime." Lev. 18:18 [CVOT]
@rockfox makes a good point, that the "in her life" part indicates that this could be pointing away from any threesome prohibition. In addition, the interpretation of "to" is that we should understand it as "onto," which further emphasizes the idiomatic expression "exposing her nakedness" (translated elsewhere as uncovering her nakedness) as indicating that Lev. 18:18 is prohibiting a man from putting sisters into a position in which they are being vexed or turned into rivals in regard to engaging in sexual relations with each other. Some of the translations actually truncate the full meaning of this passage, probably to align it with their own antisexual agendas, but when reading this full literal translation it becomes more clear that, at most, God was prohibiting men from marrying sisters for the purpose of putting them in competition with each other, most specifically in regard to being sexual with each other. This verse does not say, "by exposing her nakedness to you and her sister's nakedness to you."
"And you shall not take a woman to be a rival to her sister, by exposing her nakedness (on)to her in her lifetime." Lev. 18:18 [CVOT]
@rockfox makes a good point, that the "in her life" part indicates that this could be pointing away from any threesome prohibition. In addition, the interpretation of "to" is that we should understand it as "onto," which further emphasizes the idiomatic expression "exposing her nakedness" (translated elsewhere as uncovering her nakedness) as indicating that Lev. 18:18 is prohibiting a man from putting sisters into a position in which they are being vexed or turned into rivals in regard to engaging in sexual relations with each other. Some of the translations actually truncate the full meaning of this passage, probably to align it with their own antisexual agendas, but when reading this full literal translation it becomes more clear that, at most, God was prohibiting men from marrying sisters for the purpose of putting them in competition with each other, most specifically in regard to being sexual with each other. This verse does not say, "by exposing her nakedness to you and her sister's nakedness to you."
The problem with this is it does not take into account the motive added "to vex". If God wanted to say not to marry two sisters he could have done so, the same way he said not to marry a mother and a sister.
So it seems clear to me that the motive is a key element to the charge, and if it is not vexing to the sisters then there is no prohibition.
Boyaah!
Last edited:
It is not clear to me from the grammar if vex is a preconditional motive or an explanation of the prohibition. One could have completely innocent motives and yet taking a sister as a wife could still be vexing to her; it is a normal outcome of sisterhood rivalry, even if they thought they'd be ok with it at the first.
That wasn't the only reason given, there is also "to uncover her nakedness". Are you going to avoid having sex with your new wife?
Not true. In both cases he said not to marry and both cases he gave a reason. For the mother/sister it was "They are close relatives; it is depraved".
Then at least that is not the case in the "sisters"-verse as it is phrased otherwise. And I keep having a hard time believing that God would sin Himself as the Bible clearly states that He took both sisters into marriage. You have a valid point on the addition of the uncovering, but that should then relate to something else.
I think the prohibitions of close relatives are related to lineage and a mixing up of two generations in one family (in that case your mother-in-law is your wife at the same time, and your daughter is your wife at the same time. When children are born, a child of the daughter is both your child and grandchild). As the sisters are of the same generation, this argument does not apply for them.