Foreigner ARRANGED marriages

[Jester]

Your making the part about the virgins being alone with the bride groom. the traditional interpretation is that this is a wedding party, where the virgins are waiting in the wee hours of the morning to or the middle of the night to join the group. The ones that go off to buy oil for their lamps miss the groom's wedding party when it goes by.

(1) Read the parable aloud to your wife, the so-called "traditional" way. Bridesmaids are attending a party, solo for some reason, no male escort. Okay fine. Picture the images in your mind as you read it, like it is a movie.

(2) Read the parable my way. The virgins are at their wedding. Picture the images in your mind as you read it, like it is a movie.

What were your reactions each time?
Which time did you and you laugh?
Which time did your wife giggle?
Which time did Jesus's point about being ready REALLY become crystal clear?

From what I've read, Jews of that era were monogamous. It doesn't make sense that they would have read polygamy into the text.

Do you have any evidence for polygamists in Biblical times marrying multiple wives with one party? Jacob was to give Leah her week first.

Leah was the girl who "snuck in". She conspired with her dad, Laban, to pretend (in the dark) to be her sister, Rachel. (For those who dont know the stroy, both girls had voluptuous bodies, but Rachel had a pretty face, Leah didnt. Yeah, this stuff is really in the Bible).

Her scheming dad probably didnt want Leah shucked aside and ignored, when he gave Rachel (Leah's sister) to Jacob next.

And apparently it was considered nasty to get two sisters naked together and have a threeway with them. This was later mentioned when God gave the Law to Moses. It was banned (in the Law) to marry sisters. Not because it is evil, but because harem-style sex was and is normal, and sisters should be sisters, not having "their nakedness (i.e. sex, orgasms) revealed together." Basically, it is OK to marry sisters, but sleep with them in separate tents, on separate nights. Like Jacob did.

So to sum up my point here, evidence number one that multiple marriages took place is specifically the Mosaic Law, which banned marrying sisters explictly for the reason you shouldnt have sex with sisters together.

Evidence number two is the verse from Isaiah I quoted above. Here's a YT vid I just ran into, about lezzies threatening to husband-up with men. Isaiah's prophecy is showing its first fruits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0Be8LnuG3U

Evidence number three is Matthew chapter 25, as quoted above.

Evidence number four is an interview I read from a rabbi, not a polygamist, just a history expert, who said that polygamous marriages, including two or three girls at a time, were still happening in Jesus's time. Many if not most Jews had become city people (I guess) but some were not yet completely Hellenized and Romanized, fashionably monogamous. Sorry a quick google did not turn up the interview.

Evidence five is human nature. Ads picturing men often show multiple women around a man, pawing him. It looks good at a limbic-brain level - to both sexes. Thats because its natural. Like when women danced around David, returning from victory. All good. But ads showing multiple men pawing a woman would be considered gross, by both sexes.

[newlifeinphilippines]

Another advantage of off-the-books is that you do not have to lock yourself into just one. Jesus endorsed multiple wives in his hilarious parable in Matthew 25. I'm not pushing that lifestyle, just saying you keep options open if you keep things off the books. I am bringing this up because you do NOT sound ready to commit to one woman for life.

I would probably be at a loss for figuring out how you get polygamy out of Matthew 25 if I hadn't encountered that interpretation a few weeks ago on another forum online. I'd never heard of that before. Are polygamists using the parable of the 10 virgins as an argument in favor of polygamy?

The standard interpretation is that the virgins are a part of the wedding party, like bridesmaids in our culture. (Notice that historically we called brides maids 'virgins' too, since that is what 'maid' used to mean.)

whats your opinion on his idea of "religious marriage" not paper marriage?

In the Anglo system of law, it is my understanding that the state didn't register marriages until the English started doing so in the 1700's. They recognized church marriages under the law, though, and had some other legal allowances for other issues, like a man promising marriage to a young woman without going to the church and things of that nature. I'm thinking of one of Henry VII's wives, one of the Jane's, I think, who was accused of incest, but who had lost her virginity to another man who ended up getting drawn and quartered, though he slept with her before Henry was in the picture.

Personally, I think getting culturally married or church married without getting married with the state in our culture is a bad witness. When I was dating my wife, I felt silly calling her my girlfriend. She meant more than that to me, and I wanted her to be family. I wanted to be able to call her my wife. I also wanted her to be married in every sense of the word and to be able to hold her head up high. I wouldn't want her to be in a situation where people would have some kind of reason to call her a ho.

I know that topic is not a common theme here, loving a woman and wanting to treat her with respect and dignity. But that's important if you find one worth spending your life with.

do you think its "immoral" though?

[Jester]

whats your opinion on his idea of "religious marriage" not paper marriage?

Personally, I think getting culturally married or church married without getting married with the state in our culture is a bad witness.

If you marry, you acquire a duty to care for your wife and children. Otherwise I suppose you should have stayed single because of the terrible times we are in, as Paul advised.

So in the current situation, if you ARE married, what right do you have to endanger your marriage and your family by getting involved unnecessarily with a regime that seeks to break up your family, and enslave or pervert or destroy you and yours?

"Thou settest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies"
- 23rd Psalm, by David

Enslavement and destruction is not a "witness". Prosperity despite all hell breaking loose, THAT is a witness.

"For freedom Christ has set you free, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."