Poly No More

If we study the actual accounts of David’s life he blew it more than with that Bathsheba thing. There was that time he counted the army when God had commanded him not to. And that time he cut off a portion of King Saul’s robe and was then conscience-stricken. And the whole thing with him being a HORRIBLE parent such that most of his children didn’t even attempt to serve the Lord and one even hated him so much he slept with several ofp his wives on the rooftop in front of the nation. Plus God said he was unworthy to build Him a temple because their was too much blood on his hands. Sometimes those hindsight accounts of how wonderful the Old Testament “saints” were have to understood as creative human record-keeping and not factual accounts or even God’s actual opinion of them. The bible is completely true in that it truthfully records events that happened and things that were said but that doesn’t mean that everything faithfully recorded in it is God’s truth on the matter. For example, t...

The question was asked of whether people living after the time of New Testament should use accounts in the Old Testament as models or justification for their personal relationship choices. Specifically of whether Esther’s being as they put it “a second wife” is an example that God condoned remarriage after divorce. It must first be noted that the interpretation that King Xerxes divorced Vashti before eventually marrying Esther is unsupported. Xerxes was polygamous and kept a harem. Vashti was Queen in that she was the Chief Woman if that harem and her children alone would have royal legal right to the throne. When the book of Esther recounts her dismissal as Queen, the inference is that she was sent back to harem to “live as a widow” as we hear both Tamar, Judah’s daughter in law, and several of David’s secondary wives ie. concubines had to do. Vashti was not divorced and set free to remarry, she was banished to the harem to live without hope of sexual contact or children again. “ ...