Samseau 
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RE: There's Nothing In The Bible That Prohibits Premarital Sex For Men
(02-26-2016 08:51 PM)Prophet Wrote: Quote:The contention you raise has been central to the entire debate of this thread, and it was first raised Scorpion on page 1. It does not seem the quotes you have provided prove your contention.
I agree it is the central issue. And while I also agree that "prostitute" was what many of the ancient authors had in mind (as it seems to be more common than consensual, non transactional sex), the term is much more fluid and broad than one might think. Here is some more contextual support for the idea that whore can also mean promiscuous woman (as well as concubine, courtesan, etc.)
From the introduction to "Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World" edited by Christopher A. Faraone, Laura K. McClure:
Quote:As the sociologist Iwan Bloch observed in 1912, any study of prostitution must contend with the difficulty of defining the practice; clear boundaries between nonmarital sexual relations, such as concubinage and adultery and sex for pay, are often elusive. The promiscuous woman often has the same social meaning whether an adulteress or prostitute: in ancient Rome, for example, both the prostitute and the woman disgraced by adultery donned the male toga (McGinn 1998c, 240; see also Olsonin this volume). As observed by several contributors to this volume, terms for prostitutes are much contested in nearly every ancient language, not only in Greek, where the exact relation of hetaira (courtesan) and porné (brothel worker) has long been debated, but also in the languages of ancient Mesoptamia and in biblical Hebrew. In the Greco-Roman tradition, the preponderance of euphemisms and metaphorical terms that refer to sexual activities and practitioners generates further confusion. The problem of terminology reflects in part our inadequate access to the social practices depicted by literary accounts, even as it reveals the ambiguous status of such socially outcast and marginal figures in the ancient world.
Among Hellenists, there has been a long and vigorous debate about ancient Greek terminology for prostitution, particularly the words porné and hetaira. Both James Davidson (1997) and Leslie Kurke (1999) have argued that these terms express a binary opposition between two types of prostitutes that in turn reflect competing social and political ideologies. The term "hetaira," the feminine form of "hetaira" (male friend), denoted a woman, usually celebrated, who was maintained by one man in exchange for his exclusive sexual access to her; typically she did not reside in his home. She participated in and embodied an economy of gift exchange that maintained, rather than severed, the connection between individuals. Alternately seductive and persuasive, providing her services in exchange for gifts, the hetaira perpetually left open the possibility that she might refuse her favors; indeed, "the very name hetaira--'companion,' 'friend'--is ambiguous, a euphemism" (Davidson 1997, 135).
Nothing quoted here suggests that prostitute can also mean promiscuous woman. All that is mentioned is that there is the hetaira, which is a whore in an arrangement, (think seeking arrangement.com) and the common street whore who does a trick per night.
Quote:She continues:
Quote:The porné, in contrast, belonged to the streets, she as the hetaira's nameless, faceless brothel counterpart and participated in a type of commodity exchange that continually depersonalized and reified, exemplified by crass transactional names such as "didrachmon" and "Obole," both terms for Attic currency (Davidson 1997, 118-19). And yet, as reasonable as these distinctions might sound, the two terms are frequently applied to the same woman in all periods of the Greek literary tradition (McClure 2003, 9-24; see also Cohen in this volume).
Adding to this in another of her works "Courtesans at Table: Gender and Greek Literary Culture in Athenaeus", Laura McClure writes:
Quote:Already in the classical period, there is significant slippage between the terms hetaera and porne, as Kurke as observe (Kurke 1999: 178). Clearly, porne is what a speaker resorts to when he wants to insult a woman, or her male relatives, while hetaera is a more euphemistic term. And yet, as comfortable as that distinction sounds, the two terms are frequently applied to the same woman, even in the classical period...The term hetaera, the feminine form of hetairos (male friend), denoted a woman who was maintained by one man, or occasionally two, in exchange for his exclusive sexual access to her; typically she did not reside in his home, at least not when respectable women were present. Only in a couple of contexts does hetairos refer to a woman's male lover...there is no clear dividing line between a courtesan who is installed as one man's mistress, perhaps for quite a long period, and any other woman who happens to live with a man without being married to him (Brown 1990:249)...To describe Timarchus' long-term affair with Misoglas, with whom he lived, Aeschines uses a form of hetairein but switches to porneuein when speaking of his promiscuous liaisons with a series of other lovers as he moved indiscriminately from house to house (Aeschin. 1. 5152). By plying his trade in the house of citizens, Timarchus in effect turned them all into brothels.
Sorry, but none of the above is relevant to our discussion. Different words for whores, such as hetairos, porne, etc, are irrelevant because they are all still whores.
No where does it mention a woman who has sex outside of marriage, for say, purposes of love.
Quote:Another interesting source is Philo, who advocates for male virginity prior to marriage. In his De Iosepho, the patriarch speaks for the author and on Jewish sexual morality. When Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph, he resists “like a free man, worthy of his race” (Ios. 40–42). He tells her:
We descendants of the Hebrews live according to a special set of customs and norms. Among other peoples, it is permitted for young men after their fourteenth year to use without shame whores, brothel-girls, and other women who make a profit with their body. Among us it is not even permitted for a professional woman to live, but it is ordained that she will be sentenced to death. Indeed, before legitimate marriage, we know no sexual intercourse with other women, but we enter marriage as pure men with pure virgins. (Ios. 43)
Again, never considered is the possibility of having sex without marriage simply for reasons of love alone. It barely existed back then and therefore this isn't practical advice for today.
Moreover, you're quoting OT Mosiac law (not 10 commandment law) which was ultimately dismissed by the Apostle Paul as not needed to be followed perfectly.
Furthermore, if you were to take that passage you quoted seriously then you would be pro-death penalty for whores.
Quote:And one of the Church Father's Gregory of Nyssa:
Quote:For some who are more exacting, it is held that the sin pertaining to porneia is also adultery, since there is only one legitimate union for both the wife with her husband and the husband with his wife. Everything, therefore, which is not legitimate is completely illegitimate, and he who has what is not his own clearly has what is another’s....
He's saying here that porneia, or prostitution, is adultery, even though the woman in that case wouldn't even be another man's -- the point is -- it's not his.
This is proof by assertion. The first premise - that porneia = adultery - is never proven, merely assumed to be true.
Furthermore, in Deuteronomy there is the clear passage of how if a man takes a girl's virginity he must marry her or pay a hefty fine. The girl was not killed as a whore, nor was the man killed as an adulterer. Therefore from this passage we know that merely having sex prior to marriage is not whoredom nor is it adultery. The original assertion claimed by Gregory here is therefore false.
Quote:Now, to answer your response.
Quote:The first quote from Leviticus are rules concerning marriage. It does not talk about the rules concerning men via consensual sex outside marriage.
Yes, but the category to which you refer would be a foreign one. In the OT, most everybody was either married, a virgin, or a whore. We wouldn't expect rules concerning something that no man would want (sex with a non-virgin outside of marriage)?
Men didn't want it because they had better alternatives. Had those men been alive in today's world, where fewer than 10% of women remain virgins before marriage (it is probably much lower), those men would be forced to take what they could get.
Furthermore, you're quoting Leviticus which were rules for Priests, not laymen. Priests were expected to get purer wives than laymen so they could serve as an example for their people. It is unknown if there were any laymen who wived up non-virgins in those days. It could have happened, it might not. There is no evidence either way, but there is nothing in the Bible which explicitly forbids such a thing except for Levitical priests.
Quote:Quote:Therefore, the secondary reason it lists, of promiscuity, is the only thing that makes sense as the primary reason for defilement, not merely sex in itself.
We are in agreement, and I think that's what the author meant too. Let me fill in the blanks: "primarily on the basis of having had sexual relations with other men [not her husband]." Hence, a woman who has been divorced (because she had sex with someone not her husband and he divorced her), or was a whore or polluted. Widows wouldn't qualify there.
That's not what the author you quoted said. Go back and re-read it, you'll see it clearly. We are in agreement though, in that the author you quoted was wrong.
Quote:Quote:There is a distinction between the polluted and the whore, even if both classes have similarities.
I agree there is a distinction, but as I have shown, they can be applied to the same woman (even if the woman was not actually a whore).
You have not. The passages you quoted above refer to different words for whores, it does not make any distinction between the polluted (non-virgin) and whores.
Quote:Quote:How can he say it was merely sex outside of marriage that reduced the woman's status, and not having sex without consent, i.e. rape?
I believe the point is that the term "whore" is being euphemistically applied to someone who is clearly not a whore. The rape was non-consensual and non-transactional and violated the father's property rights, while sex with a whore is consensual, transactional, and violates no man's rights (hence, why it was not illicit in their society). The only similarity is that sex has occurred outside of marriage.
Not true. A whore violated the father's rights in ancient Jewish law, which is why if a girl was caught whoring she was stoned to death. So the rape of the sister clearly violated the father's rights just as if the girl were to whore herself out.
Moreover, you still did not answer my objection of the girl being taken outside of her will, which is an obvious dissimilarity to a girl who is merely a slut.
Quote:Quote:Sorry, does not follow from the passages above. It only supports women who are defiled, not men.
The priest is defiled, or contaminated by sexual contact with a defiled woman. Now that was just for the priests, and not the congregation. But I think the New Testament follows a similar logic. Allow me to also quote the Apostle Paul again: "Whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body," and "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh." Would not he who unites himself with a polluted woman likewise become one with her in body?
Nice try, but you're applying NT logic to OT rules. Doesn't work that way. The Apostle Paul was clearly against Mosaic Law (any law outside of the 10 commandments, such as Deuteronomy) being necessary for salvation, which is why he did not believe the Greeks needed to be circumcised in order to convert to Christ.
Therefore, although it is true that sex unites two into one body, it does not follow that both become polluted - in fact the polluted could become purified, as strange as that sounds.
We know this because Jesus said that it is nothing that comes from without which pollutes the body, but that what comes from within the heart - evil desires.
Matthew 15 (YLT):
Quote:17 do ye not understand that all that is going into the mouth doth pass into the belly, and into the drain is cast forth?
18 but the things coming forth from the mouth from the heart do come forth, and these defile the man;
19 for out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, whoredoms, thefts, false witnessings, evil speakings:
20 these are the things defiling the man; but to eat with unwashen hands doth not defile the man.'
We know from this passage that it is the intentions from the heart which God judges us by, not merely the consequences nor merely how our bodies are treated.
And continuing with Jesus's logic, it is the desire to merely have sex which leads a man to whoredom, but a man who desires love and sexes a woman because he knows she will not love him in return unless he takes her is not defiling (aka polluting) himself.
Therefore, a man who is pure with intentions and bangs some polluted skank is not necessarily polluting himself, even though the two are becoming one flesh.
Quote:Quote:Why would anyone want to marry a non-virgin?
Not me, but with the rarity of virgin women nowadays, there are a lot of Christian men who would be ok with it, if the woman was repentant. Hot, godly, virgin Christian women do exist though, I am about to propose to one.
Good for you. Happy to hear it, may you have a big and beautiful family and may you raise your children well.
However, keep in mind if we were to apply the logic of never marrying non-virignal women or having families with them, it would quite literally be the end of Christianity is just about every part of the world because there simply aren't enough virigins to go around.
I seriously doubt God, whom we know to be merciful, intended for his people to die out following archaic laws, don't you think? It is good that the OT shows the value of female virginity, but until the patriarchy is restored within civilization it is madness to throw away every woman who isn't a virgin.
Quote:Quote:I have brought up this issue to priests and Orthodox canon lawyers.
I am interested to hear what they say. And thank you for your response.
No problem. More info forthcoming. Appreciate your well-thought out responses and challenges. It took me a few days to think your arguments through and decide if they were consistent with the Bible or not. I hope I have represented the Word correctly, I do it as best and honestly as I can.
Contributor at Return of Kings. I got banned from twatter, which is run by little bitches and weaklings. You can follow me on Gab.
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(This post was last modified: 03-03-2016 11:26 AM by Samseau.)
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There's Nothing In The Bible That Prohibits Premarital Sex For Men
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