From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sat Feb 22 2003 - 11:11:28 EST
I am well aware of the matters you cite & there is really no need to belabor the
point that endogamous marriage was strongly encouraged in Israel (as in many cultures),
that it eventually became a matter of law, and that Jews today consider it esential for
their faith.
But what you refer to as "exceptions" were not all that exceptional, and the
various arguments you give to minimize their significance are inconsistent. Sure,
Joseph, Moses &c were before Sinai - but so was Jacob. So if one is irrelevant, so is
the other.
As far as the kings of Judah are concerned, it is likely - though not certain -
that the wife of Uriah "the Hittite" was also a non-Israelite. She, of course, was the
mother of Solomon. & it's also worth noting that the mother of Solomon's son Rehoboam
was "Namaah the Ammonitess" (I Kg.14:31). Putting this together with David's partially
Moabite ancestry means that the succeeding kings of Judah were less than half "pure
Jewish" in a strict biological sense.
(Of course the fact that Rehoboam was obviously a nitwit might be seen as
partial validation of your views about "quality births"!)
You may reply that Solomon's marriages with foreign women are condemned in I Kg.
11:2 as violations of the Mosaic law. Yes - but here one has to ask if those provisions
were in effect in Solomon's time. Many biblical scholars would see those laws and this
passage as a later developments, in part motivated precisely by the type of syncretism
that Solomon symbolized. & even if this law was in effect at the time it seems that it
was violated pretty often.
Your dismissal of the importance of Ruth is invalid. That book belongs to the
same part of the Hebrew scriptures as Ezra & Nehemiah. & besides the simple historical
fact of claiming Moabite ancestry for David, it seems to be aimed at precisely the sort
of views on marriage found in E & N. The latter can't be ignored, but neither can Ruth.
& you are conflating several different things: Endogamy, concern for "quality
births" and marriage within a faith community.
Shalom,
George
RFaussette@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 2/22/03 8:10:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, gmurphy@raex.com
> writes:
>
> > Again I simply cite the examples of Joseph & Moses from torah which show
> > that, however significant endogamy may have been in the pre-exilic period,
> > it was not considered something absolutely binding upon Israelites. (The
> > priestly status of Joseph's father in law is irrelevant to the point under
> > discussion here.) Moreover, the children of an Israelite father & a
> > non-Israelite mother were considered Israelites, as the examples of Ephraim
> > & Manasseh show.
> > Shalom,
> > George
> >
> >
> >
>
> The media often mistake the exception for the rule as I believe you are doing
> so I have to go to an authority on Jewish marriage practices. The following
> is a definitive explanation from Maurice Lamm's The Jewish Way in Love and
> Marriage, Harper and Row, 1980, ppgs.50-51 should you wish to confirm the
> text. His brother, Norman Lamm, past president of Yeshiva University and a
> number of rabbis are acknowledged in the book.
>
> "Thirty-nine kings of Judah and Israel reigned for three hundred and
> ninety-three years and only two married out of the faith. Exogamous marriages
> were contracted by Judah, Simeon, Joseph, and Moses, but these came before
> the legal restriction was pronounced at Sinai. (it is traditionally assumed
> that all their wives were converted.) Jewish literature in different
> centuries cites interfaith marriage as the cause of a number of communal
> failures and historic tragedies. The blasphemy recorded in Leviticus 24:10 is
> specifically ascribed in the Torah to a child of a mixed marriage (an
> Egyptian man and his Jewish wife), and the inordinate difficulties of the
> Jews during the early period of the judges is blamed on those who "resided in
> the midst of" the local nations (judges 3:4-5). King Solomon's decline is
> ascribed to marriage to foreign wives "who sacrificed unto their gods" and
> caused him to "do evil in the eyes of God" (I Kings II: 1-6). The murderers
> of joash (11 Chronicles 24:26) are listed as children of mixed marriages of
> Jewish fathers with Shimat the Ammonite woman, and Shimrit the Moabite woman.
> The prophet Malachi attacks interfaith marriage: "Judah has dealt
> treacherously and an abomination is committed in Israel and Jerusalem. For
> Judah has profaned the holiness of the Lord. For he has loved and married the
> daughter of a strange god. May the Lord cut off the man that does this, that
> calls and answers from the tents of Jacob, and offers an offering unto the
> Lord of Hosts" (2:11-12). , The cornerstone of the interfaith-marriage law is
> Deuteronomy 7:3, which says: "And thou shalt not make marriages with them;
> thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou
> not take for thy son. For he will turn away thy son from following after me,
> and they will serve other gods ... 11 This refers to the seven idolatrous
> nations that occupied the Promised Land, but the Talmud inferred that the
> prohibition applies to all, because the Torah's reason refers "to all who
> would turn their children away" (Deut. 7:4). Exodus (17:8-16) speaks of the
> Amalekites, the arch-enemies of the Jews, who were to be blotted out of
> existence by God. Naturally, marriage to them was prohibited. Ammon and Moab,
> who refused the Jews bread and water and hired Balaam to curse them, were
> prevented from marrying "into the assembly of the Lord even unto the tenth
> generation . . ." (Deut. 23:5). Milder, but still vigorously prohibited, was
> marriage to the Egyptian, "because thou wast a stranger in his land" (Deut.
> 23:8); to the Edomite, "because he is thy brother" (Deut. 23:8); to the
> Midianites (Numbers 31:15-17); to the Sidonites and Hittites (I Kings 11:1-2)
> because of their worship of Ashtoreth; and to the Ashdodites (Nehemiah 13:23)
> because of their cult worship. With Ezra comes the most dramatic historic
> enactment of the interfaith-marriage prohibitions. When the Jews returned
> from the Diaspora, he mandated that they set aside their heathen wives (Ezra
> 10:11). Zerubabbel set about the task of separating from the Israelites their
> foreign wives, children of mixed marriages, and descendants of Solomon's
> foreign slaves. He established family records and set up a special court to
> investigate problem cases. The idea of purity captured the imagination of the
> Jew. The Jewish community was "holy seed"" and the heathens belonged to the
> uncleanness of the nations. Mixed marriage was thus considered defilement.
> The ethnic aspect of Judaism, which encases the religion, was never to be
> compromised.
> The absolute rejection of interfaith marriage has been charged with emotional
> force from that day to this. The charisma of Ezra's personality and the sheer
> moral power of his idealism gave the problem of interfaith marriage an
> awesome importance that continues into the twentieth century. Ezra taught
> that it is not only a terrible problem for Jews; it is nothing less than a
> choice between existence and non existence."
>
> I think that's pretty clear.
>
> Now, you may say that this only cropped up post exile and that may be
> historically accurate but I suggest in my paper True Religion that the focus
> on quality births in Judaism first arises in Scripture in Genesis with the
> story of Jacob and dull-eyed Leah and that it complements Abraham's
> abandonment of child sacrifice (to Moloch) guaranteeing Jews quantity births
> (Abraham) and quality births (Jacob).
>
> In the case of Abraham (Father of the Jews):
>
> We see immediately the effect of abandoning child sacrifice (abortion).
>
> When Abraham first arrives in the Philistine town of Gerar, Abimelach its
> king welcomes him but years later Abraham’s son Isaac, now a grown man with
> children of his own, is no longer welcome in Gerar. Why the reversal?
> Abraham’s descendants are greatly multiplying. The Bible tells us “Isaac
> sowed seed in that land, and that year he reaped a hundredfold.” Isaac’s
> household has grown so rapidly (and presumably seized so many local niches
> from the indigenous people) the displaced and alarmed Philistines envy him.
>
> In the case of Jacob (Supplanter):
>
> We see that the offspring of dull-eyed Leah do very poorly in comparison to
> the offspring of Rachel, Jacob's first choice for mother of his first born
> who is later Joseph who rises to become counselor to the pharoah and though
> NOT first born becomes prince among his brothers and the elders become
> subject to the younger.
>
> rich
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> In a message dated 2/22/03 8:10:47 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> gmurphy@raex.com writes:
>
> Again I simply cite the examples of Joseph & Moses from
> torah which show that, however significant endogamy may have
> been in the pre-exilic period, it was not considered
> something absolutely binding upon Israelites. (The priestly
> status of Joseph's father in law is irrelevant to the point
> under discussion here.) Moreover, the children of an
> Israelite father & a non-Israelite mother were considered
> Israelites, as the examples of Ephraim & Manasseh show.
> Shalom,
> George
>
>
> The media often mistake the exception for the rule as I believe you
> are doing so I have to go to an authority on Jewish marriage
> practices. The following is a definitive explanation from Maurice
> Lamm's The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage, Harper and Row, 1980,
> ppgs.50-51 should you wish to confirm the text. His brother, Norman
> Lamm, past president of Yeshiva University and a number of rabbis are
> acknowledged in the book.
>
> "Thirty-nine kings of Judah and Israel reigned for three hundred and
> ninety-three years and only two married out of the faith. Exogamous
> marriages were contracted by Judah, Simeon, Joseph, and Moses, but
> these came before the legal restriction was pronounced at Sinai. (it
> is traditionally assumed that all their wives were converted.) Jewish
> literature in different centuries cites interfaith marriage as the
> cause of a number of communal failures and historic tragedies. The
> blasphemy recorded in Leviticus 24:10 is specifically ascribed in the
> Torah to a child of a mixed marriage (an Egyptian man and his Jewish
> wife), and the inordinate difficulties of the Jews during the early
> period of the judges is blamed on those who "resided in the midst of"
> the local nations (judges 3:4-5). King Solomon's decline is ascribed
> to marriage to foreign wives "who sacrificed unto their gods" and
> caused him to "do evil in the eyes of God" (I Kings II: 1-6). The
> murderers of joash (11 Chronicles 24:26) are listed as children of
> mixed marriages of Jewish fathers with Shimat the Ammonite woman, and
> Shimrit the Moabite woman. The prophet Malachi attacks interfaith
> marriage: "Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination is
> committed in Israel and Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the holiness
> of the Lord. For he has loved and married the daughter of a strange
> god. May the Lord cut off the man that does this, that calls and
> answers from the tents of Jacob, and offers an offering unto the Lord
> of Hosts" (2:11-12). , The cornerstone of the interfaith-marriage law
> is Deuteronomy 7:3, which says: "And thou shalt not make marriages
> with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his
> daughter shalt thou not take for thy son. For he will turn away thy
> son from following after me, and they will serve other gods ... 11
> This refers to the seven idolatrous nations that occupied the Promised
> Land, but the Talmud inferred that the prohibition applies to all,
> because the Torah's reason refers "to all who would turn their
> children away" (Deut. 7:4). Exodus (17:8-16) speaks of the Amalekites,
> the arch-enemies of the Jews, who were to be blotted out of existence
> by God. Naturally, marriage to them was prohibited. Ammon and Moab,
> who refused the Jews bread and water and hired Balaam to curse them,
> were prevented from marrying "into the assembly of the Lord even unto
> the tenth generation . . ." (Deut. 23:5). Milder, but still vigorously
> prohibited, was marriage to the Egyptian, "because thou wast a
> stranger in his land" (Deut. 23:8); to the Edomite, "because he is thy
> brother" (Deut. 23:8); to the Midianites (Numbers 31:15-17); to the
> Sidonites and Hittites (I Kings 11:1-2) because of their worship of
> Ashtoreth; and to the Ashdodites (Nehemiah 13:23) because of their
> cult worship. With Ezra comes the most dramatic historic enactment of
> the interfaith-marriage prohibitions. When the Jews returned from the
> Diaspora, he mandated that they set aside their heathen wives (Ezra
> 10:11). Zerubabbel set about the task of separating from the
> Israelites their foreign wives, children of mixed marriages, and
> descendants of Solomon's foreign slaves. He established family records
> and set up a special court to investigate problem cases. The idea of
> purity captured the imagination of the Jew. The Jewish community was
> "holy seed"" and the heathens belonged to the uncleanness of the
> nations. Mixed marriage was thus considered defilement. The ethnic
> aspect of Judaism, which encases the religion, was never to be
> compromised.
> The absolute rejection of interfaith marriage has been charged with
> emotional force from that day to this. The charisma of Ezra's
> personality and the sheer moral power of his idealism gave the problem
> of interfaith marriage an awesome importance that continues into the
> twentieth century. Ezra taught that it is not only a terrible problem
> for Jews; it is nothing less than a choice between existence and non
> existence."
>
> I think that's pretty clear.
>
> Now, you may say that this only cropped up post exile and that may be
> historically accurate but I suggest in my paper True Religion that the
> focus on quality births in Judaism first arises in Scripture in
> Genesis with the story of Jacob and dull-eyed Leah and that it
> complements Abraham's abandonment of child sacrifice (to Moloch)
> guaranteeing Jews quantity births (Abraham) and quality births
> (Jacob).
>
> In the case of Abraham (Father of the Jews):
> We see immediately the effect of abandoning child sacrifice
> (abortion).
> When Abraham first arrives in the Philistine town of Gerar, Abimelach
> its king welcomes him but years later Abraham’s son Isaac, now a
> grown man with children of his own, is no longer welcome in Gerar. Why
> the reversal? Abraham’s descendants are greatly multiplying. The
> Bible tells us “Isaac sowed seed in that land, and that year he
> reaped a hundredfold.” Isaac’s household has grown so rapidly
> (and presumably seized so many local niches from the indigenous
> people) the displaced and alarmed Philistines envy him.
>
> In the case of Jacob (Supplanter):
> We see that the offspring of dull-eyed Leah do very poorly in
> comparison to the offspring of Rachel, Jacob's first choice for mother
> of his first born who is later Joseph who rises to become counselor to
> the pharoah and though NOT first born becomes prince among his
> brothers and the elders become subject to the younger.
>
> rich
>
-- George L. Murphy gmurphy@raex.com http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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