Interfaith marriage

by TheWonderofYou 5 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • TheWonderofYou
    TheWonderofYou
    5.Mos “If you go to war against your enemies and Jehovah your God defeats them for you and you take them captive,+ 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you are attracted to her and you want to take her as your wife, 12 you may bring her into your house. She should then shave her head, attend to her nails, 13 and remove the clothing of her captivity, and dwell in your house. She will weep for her father and her mother a whole month,+ and afterward you may have relations with her; you will become her husband and she will become your wife. 14 But if you are not pleased with her, you should then let her go+ wherever she wishes.* But you may not sell her for money or treat her harshly, since you have humiliated her.


    Until the Babylonian Exil it was usual to have an interfaith-marriages with Canaanites and other peoples in the holy land. The woman (not the man) according to the Mosaic Law went through some rituals. The law was respectful with the pagan parents and allowed the girl to mourn them.

    It is very interesting that it was not mentioned in the law that the girl had to change her religion and to believe in Jehovah but she should only cut her nails. If the change of religion would have been necessary the laws would have mentioned it here.

    Rahel also took along the idols of her father and the women of the kings since king Salomo all remained in their religion and celebrated the pagan rituals.

    Moses gave the example and married a foreign woman. His wife Zippora was the daughter of a midian priest! Later he married an Ethiopian woman. Aaaron and his wife disagreed with that marriage. But Jehovah showed that he blessed this interfaith-marriage and punished Miriam. Moses obviouslly was never married to a "hebrew" woman from his people but only to foreign women.

    4.Mo 12, 1 Now Mirʹi·am and Aaron began to speak against Moses because of the Cushʹite wife he had married, for he had taken a Cushʹite wife. So Jehovah’s anger burned against them, and he departed from them.....10. The cloud moved away from over the tent, and look! Mirʹi·am was struck with leprosy as white as snow.

    As Moses himself was married to foreign women he could not make a Law against interfaith marriage. This would have been implausible.

    Moses was not urged to marry daughters of idolworshippers but he did from his own effort..

    Later under the Judges the custom of interreligious marriage was commonplace

    So the Israelites lived among the Caʹnaan·ites,+ the Hitʹtites, the Amʹor·ites, the Perʹiz·zites, the Hiʹvites, and the Jebʹu·sites. 6 They would take their daughters as wives, and their own daughters they gave to their sons, and they began serving their gods Judges 3,5

    Note: Only after the Exile a marriage to canaanite and other people was forbidden. There was no "wonderful old glorious time of old Israel", where such a marriage was forbidden and "jehovahs witnesses" married only hebrew men and women, who believed in Jehovah..

    Nobody was punished , stoned or excommunicated for such a marriage to idol-worshippers, it was perhaps not ideal, but it was normal.

    ----

    Simson also married a foreigner, sorry more than one, he was anointed by God and he married a Philistine girl. Read Judges 13,3 and 14,4. You will see that Jehovah wanted that marriage with the foreign woman because he had an agenda with the Philistine.

    ___

    I read an old book and found these arguments which I find interesting. It is a book from the year 1842 about sacrifices in Israel.


  • blondie
    blondie

    I notice that Israelite men could marry non-Israelite women but not Israelite women marry non-Israelite men...it is a headship and a property issue supposedly. The WTS assumes that the women above had no family left since the Israelite soldiers had slaughtered all of them so were separated from contact with false religion.

    The WTS likes to quote Deut. 7:3,4 but skips Deut. 21:10-18. Deut. 7 only talks about Canaanites.

  • NikL
    NikL

    Wow Blondie,

    I just looked at those verses. Funny to see them next to each other as they seem a total contradiction.

    Wonder what would happen if I mentioned that at the next witness get together I go to? :-)

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    This rubbish shows me what kind of god joke-hova is. Go into innocent nations that are trying to abide by Belt of Orion Law (which is natural law) to impose Pleiades Law on them, slaughter those who refuse, enslave those who comply, and plunder everything you can get your hands on from those nations. This includes taking women (and children) they did not slaughter, raping them, and then using that as a pretext to marry them. And, whatever material wealth they do not plunder, they destroy in the name of joke-hova.

    And they have the nerve to call SATAN evil?

  • Fisherman
    Fisherman

    And don't forget Esther, Queen of the Nochri, having a Bible book named after her, the sacrificial pawn, who married a heathen king so that Agag could be exterminated and to manipulate the king in favor of the Jews. There was no Christian neutrality back then or Paul to counsel not to become unevenly yoked with unbelivers.

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    Evidently, Jehovah allowed certain exceptions.

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