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The listed scriptures do indeed include Paul's instructions to some leaders to be both ''married'' and potentially monogamous. The Greek in the New Testament is not as definitive as the critics might wish. The text can "be read as excluding (a) the single, (b) the polygamous, (c) the divorced, [or] (d) those remarried after being widowed. The words can also convey the connotation 'devoted solely to his wife.'"{{ref|barney1}} One's attitude toward polygamy will probably influence the interpretation one chooses—but we must not lose sight of the fact that it ''is'' an interpretation. | The listed scriptures do indeed include Paul's instructions to some leaders to be both ''married'' and potentially monogamous. The Greek in the New Testament is not as definitive as the critics might wish. The text can "be read as excluding (a) the single, (b) the polygamous, (c) the divorced, [or] (d) those remarried after being widowed. The words can also convey the connotation 'devoted solely to his wife.'"{{ref|barney1}} One's attitude toward polygamy will probably influence the interpretation one chooses—but we must not lose sight of the fact that it ''is'' an interpretation. | ||
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Plural marriage |
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Critics point to New Testament scriptures such as 1 Timothy 3꞉2; 1 Timothy 3꞉12; Titus 1꞉6 to argue that the early Christian Church was opposed to any plural marriages.
The listed scriptures do indeed include Paul's instructions to some leaders to be both married and potentially monogamous. The Greek in the New Testament is not as definitive as the critics might wish. The text can "be read as excluding (a) the single, (b) the polygamous, (c) the divorced, [or] (d) those remarried after being widowed. The words can also convey the connotation 'devoted solely to his wife.'"[1] One's attitude toward polygamy will probably influence the interpretation one chooses—but we must not lose sight of the fact that it is an interpretation.
In any case, Latter-day Saints agree that the 'standard' instruction to all believers is monogamy—exceptions can only be commanded by God through His prophet (see Jacob 2꞉30).
However, critics go too far when they conclude that early Christians believed in an absolute prohibition on plural marriages.
Tertullian's perspective is strikingly similar to Jacob 2꞉30, in which monogamy is the norm, but God may command exceptions to "raise up seed."
Justin Martyr argued that David's sin was only in the matter of Uriah's wife, and echoed a common early Christian idea that marriage was a "mystery," or sacred rite of the type which Latter-day Saints associate with temple worship:
Justin saw the patriarchs' marriages not as corruptions or something which God 'winked at,' but acts with significant ritual and religious power.
Even Augustine, a towering figure in Christian theology, held that polygamy was not something that was a crime before God, but rather a matter that depended more upon cultural biases:
The Latter-day Saints do not take their doctrine from ancient Christian writers, but from canonized scriptures and the living prophets. However, the perspectives of early Christians demonstrates the plural marriage was not the absolutely forbidden idea that some modern sectarians might wish it to be.
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