Traditional Biblical Marriage

May 7, 2009, 6:38 am by dc-agape.

The next “Last Words of…” will be from Naphtali.   You are correct; Naphtali was one of the least documented “tribes” of Israel.  In fact, I bet you neither know how to spell his name, nor is anything, place, or person using this name today!  Of course, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, and Gad have the same consideration.  What survives of this Tractate is a story that is not in the Old Testament.  It is the story of how Bilhah and Zilpah were given as handmaidens to Leah and Rachel.

Laban is well spoken of in this passage.  For Laban saved the grandfather of Naphtali from captivity.  In the process, Laban gave this unnamed man a wife who is named as Hannah.  Hannah has two children: Zilpah and Bilhah.  Then Laban chose these two daughters to be handmaidens for his own two daughters.

The passage ends with the return to the Book of Genesis.  The point of return is where Rachel continues to not bear children for Jacob.  It ends with the concept that both Dan and Naphtali were born to Bilhah as a result of Abraham having sex with his wife’s handmaiden (slave). 

From a gay Atheist point of view this is “Traditional Biblical Marriage”!  Abraham either has two wives and two concubines or he has two wives and two slave wives.  Love is only mentioned between Jacob and Rachel; the other three women are left in the cold.  The purpose of these three women is to “pop out babies” and nothing more.  Is this the “Traditional Biblical Marriage” that the Defenders of Marriage are trying to protect?  YHWH saw nothing wrong with this arrangement.  So does this not tell us that the original and correct “Traditional Biblical Marriage” is to have multiple wives without the emotion of love involved?

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