Male-only Priesthood, the Urim & Thummim, Sad Multiple Wives Stories...
In Dennis Prager’s The Rational Bible, Exodus, he writes that sometimes the Torah describes…
“… an evolutionary, rather than a revolutionary, approach to abolish what God opposed.
Dennis’ books on the Torah explain the culture of the time and rational reasons, or speculations, for events in the Old Testament. Evil behaviors are often ingrained in the culture and lives of societies. Through the Torah, God may ban the evil practice outright or He may use roundabout methods to help His children abandon the evil they don’t even recognize. For example, He may replace the evil practice with something else. He may put cumbersome restrictions on the behavior until it disappears. He may provide painful, dramatic stories to emphasize good over evil.
What follows are my newfound insights on some Old Testament scriptures. My quest is to try to better understand how God works with His children generally and how this relates to polygamy specifically.
Problem: Sexual Activity in Worship—Solution: Male-only Priesthood
In Exodus 28:1 God tells Moses that his brother, Aaron, and Aarons's sons will serve as priests. Dennis provides an explanation for why women were excluded from being priests:
“The priesthood is an exclusively male institution. The primary reason is the Torah was adamant about de-sexualizing religion; having priests and priestesses would have made that impossible... priests were meant to be seen solely as vehicles to holiness.
The surrounding polytheistic religions all had male and female priests and ritual sexual activity was a major feature of their religions.
As with all cultures, the ancient Old Testament culture had its share of human-created problems. They were surrounded by religions that worshipped many gods. In these religions, both sexes shared the priesthood which provided a tailor-made opportunity for sex to be part of their pagan faith. God removed the opportunity by confining the role of priests to men.
The LDS speculations about why women don’t have the priesthood always left me with more questions than answers. Dennis’ explanation is simple and rational; hence, rational is in the title of his Torah books. God did not want sexual activity to be mixed up with worship and He solved the problem by restricting the priesthood to one sex.
Problem: Human Sacrifice—Solution: Animal Sacrifice & a Dramatic Story
This story found in Exodus 22 is called the “binding of Isaac” in Hebrew, rather than the “sacrifice of Isaac.” Isaac was never sacrificed although human sacrifice was the norm. Dennis refers to what Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher from the Middle Ages, taught:
“…animal sacrifices were instituted to wean people from the universal practice of human sacrifice. This substitution of animals for humans was made clear when, after God stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac, Abraham immediately sacrificed a ram.
Egyptian Animal-Gods were Sacrificed
Dennis explains that bulls and rams were worshipped as gods in ancient Egypt. So they were sacrificing their Egyptian Gods—bulls and rams—to the one true God. To turn His people away from multiple gods and pagan worship, the priests’ induction ceremony involved sacrificing Egyptian gods to God.
Digressing from Dennis’ perspective, I see another meaning to animal sacrifice as a Christian. In Alma 34, Amulek teaches that there will be a last, final infinite atonement. While animal sacrifices had meaning, there would be a sacrifice of endless meaning. It would not be an animal sacrifice—not of beast, fowl, or even human. This final, infinite sacrifice would be the Son of God to atone for the sins of the world.
A Painful Lesson to End Human Sacrifice
Abraham and Issaac’s story was dramatically and painfully told to correct the universally held belief that sacrificing children was necessary to appease the gods.
“Only by understanding how universal human sacrifice was, can one begin to appreciate how radically different the Torah was from ever other society.
Human sacrifice is morally unacceptable to God. God had no interest in the sacrifice of Issaac—and has no interest in the sacrifice of any other human being. God had two interests here: to see if Abraham would pass the ultimate test of faith and to teach Abraham and the rest of humanity that the one true God prohibits human sacrifice.
Later, the sixth of the Ten Commandments would forbid murder with the command, “You shall not murder.” Hebrew has two words for taking a life and this commandment uses “murder” not “kill,” emphasizing that innocent human life should not be taken.
I’ve never liked this Abraham-Isaac story. From my 21st-century perspective, the idea that God would test someone by making them sacrifice their child seems atrocious. While I still don’t like the story, I now see it was a lesson for that time to convince those people to end something horrific and common. Once again, God knows all and God is good.
The purpose of the binding story was to end human sacrifice. Animal sacrifice may have served as a replacement to move people away from human sacrifice.
Problem: Divination Practices—Solution: Urim & Thummim
Magic and divination practices were common at the time the Urim and Thummin were introduced. Below is part of Dennis’ explanation for Exodus 28:30 which says Aaron will carry the instrument of decision, the Urim and Thummim, inside the breastpiece of decision over his heart. (The King James Bible uses judgment in place of decision).
“The Urim and Thummim were worn by the High Priest and functioned as a kind of oracle, providing yes-or-no answers to important national questions.
According to the Italian Jewish scholar Umbertao Cassuto, the Urim and Thummim were the Torah’s response to the magic and divination practices common in all parts of the ancient world. The Torah sought to abolish all such practices, but it would have been impossible to do so at a time when they were universally practiced. The Urim and Thummim may thus be considered a temporary indulgence to satisfy the people’s innate yearning to receive messages from God.
Morover, such inquiries could only be addressed to the High Priest, and only, as Cassuto notes, by the ‘leader of the people, and only in respect of public needs.’
So even the Urim and Thummim were thereby limited in their ability to discover God’s will—only the leader could do so, and only on hehalf of the whole nation. That ended all individual divination.
The Urim and Thummim were a way for God to wean his people off another practice He opposed: magic and divination.
Problem: Slavery—Solution: 8th Commandment & Restrictions
While the Torah didn’t ban all forms of slavery, it banned slavery based on kidnapping outright in the Ten Commandments.
“The Eight Commandment, “Do not steal,” was understood first and foremost as prohibiting stealing human beings…It is not true to say the Torah did not ban slavery. What is true is the Torah did not ban every form of slavery. Most of the slavery discussed in the Torah is indentured servitude, wherein a person worked off a debt over a set period, or the destitute found room and board working for no pay.
For the other forms of slavery that weren’t banned, the first laws God gave following the Ten Commandments in Exodus 21 concern the proper treatment of slaves. Exodus 21:2 says:
“When you acquire a Hebrew slave he shall serve six years; in the seventh year he shall go free, without payment.
When the slave goes free after six years he doesn’t pay his master for his freedom. The first word in this verse is “When” but the Hebrew says “If”. The Torah does not encourage slavery, but rather if you have a slave it states the complex laws that must be followed.
“Though it did not immediately abolish all forms of slavery, the Torah both demanded and legislated a radically new attitude towards slaves, one not only more humane than the laws that prevailed in the ancient world, but more humane than laws that prevailed until the abolition of slavery in the West thousands of years later.
Slavery was ingrained in ancient culture. While God used the revolutionary means of banning kidnap-based slavery (the 8th Commandment), the means to end other forms was evolutionary. Cumbersome restrictions protected slaves and caused His people to gradually withdraw from this practice.
Problem: Multiple Wives—Solution: Negative Narrative
I Digress again…
To begin with a digression, the Book of Mormon was given to end disputations; 2 Nephi 3:12 says the descendants of Joseph of Egypt and the descendants of Judah will write. The result will be the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Together these books are to confound false doctrines and lay down contentions.
The Book of Mormon is an anti-polygamy book even though it’s associated with those who adopted polygamy. If it had been studied and applied, it would have confounded this false doctrine. But even without the Book of Mormon, Gwendolyn Wyne's view of Biblical scriptures has convinced me that God flatly forbade multiple wives from the beginning and throughout history. Reading non-LDS material, as with this easily understood post, I realized that other Christians have likely known this all along.
Learn from Torah Stories
However, the purpose of this post is to focus on Dennis’ Torah books and what the Torah says about this practice. After Adam named the animals, Adam is directly quoted for the first time in Genesis 2:23-24. In verse 24 Adam says:
“Hence a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, so that they become one flesh.
I find it significant that the first utterance of man in the presence of God references monogamy. Dennis says that although the Bible, in keeping with the customs of the time, permitted polygamy, the very phrasing of this verse makes it clear monogamy is the highest standard to aim for because it alone allows for relationships of equality and reciprocity. He explains that:
“While the Torah allowed polygamy, its ideal is monogamy, which is why every instance of polygamy described in the Torah is described in a negative way. And Torah narrative is as important a source of values as is Torah law.
The Messed-Up Stories Support the God-Made Book
The Torah is not ashamed to describe the people of the book, the Jews, in a negative light. Dennis reiterates that this provides support that the Torah is not man-made. After all, had Jews made up their story, they would never have portrayed themselves as critically as the Torah does. “History is written by the victors” did not apply to the Torah and the Jews.
Sarai’s Well-Intentioned But Bad Idea
Dennis’ description of the Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar story is a very different interpretation from what we read in D&C 132. Rather than a command from God to take Hagar, it was “Sarai’s well-intentioned, but bad idea.” This bad idea did not come from God and resulted in heartbreak. Sarah’s lack of confidence in God’s promise to Abraham motivated her to use Hagar as a surrogate. Dennis clarifies it was customary at the time:
“According to the Laws of Hammurabi and other ancient Near Eastern legal documents, it was common for an infertile wife to provide her husband with a concubine in order to bear children for the couple Those children were considered the wife’s children as much as biological children would be.
Rachel and Leah: One Beloved and the other Hated
The other frequently cited story to support multiple wives is the story of Jacob, Rachel, Leah, Bilah, and Zilpah. Rachel and Leah’s father was Laban. Laban, and I suppose Leah, tricked Isaac into marrying Leah rather than Rachel. God was not part of this deception.
Jacob married Rachel only one week after marrying Leah, although he committed to work seven more years for Laban. I had previously misunderstood this. Isaac did not have to wait another seven years but waited out the customary bridal week.
The Torah doesn’t deny reality, and once again, it depicts this polygamous marriage as an unhappy one. The Bible, according to Dennis, assumes this is almost always the case. While laying out inheritance protections for the offspring of multiple wives, Deuteronomy 21:15-17 begins with:
“If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated…
Dennis observes that no husband in the Bible loves his two wives equally. My observation is that no sister-wives in the Bible love each other at all.
Laban is not portrayed in a positive light in Genesis. He put his daughters into this multiple wives system yet even he recognized it was bad. When Jacob left with his wives and possessions, Laban said in Genesis 31:50:
“If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee.
Sneaky Laban revealed he was still a father who cared about his daughters because he didn’t want any more wives added to the mess he created. Even without the Book of Mormon’s added clarity, the negative Torah stories teach that multiple wives are harmful and that the ideal is a monogamous marriage.
Problem: People—Solution: God & His Word
To conclude, here’s one of Dennis’ countless insights on the Torah:
“Genesis is a statement of how troubled the human condition is. The rest of the Bible, especially the next four books, provides solutions to the troubled human condition.