Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religions (10 page)

[
The New English Bible with the Apocrypha,
ed. Samuel Sandmel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976)]

THE DAMASCUS DOCUMENT OF THE

DEAD SEA SCROLLS

The Qumran Community, which existed in the Judean desert from the second century bce to the first century ce, was a messianic group that led an ascetic communitarian life awaiting the cataclysmic End of Days. Discoveries in Cairo and Qumran over the last one hundred years have yielded a rather complete document regarding the community’s code of conduct, known as the “Damascus Document.” While it echoes some practices of other Second Temple Jewish groups, most scholars agree this community was extremely small demographi-cally, ceasing to exist by the Jewish Revolt in 70 ce.

The document begins with a biblical view of history, identifying the present age as defiled through sexual impropriety, but redemption being near. Like other Qumran documents, the majority of the text is its prescriptions for proper conduct, with many biblical laws cited. There is an abiding concern with purity, especially related to food and sex, but marriage and procreation are not discouraged.

Judaism
25

Document 1–16

Listen now all you who know righteousness, and consider the works of God; for He has a dispute with all flesh and will condemn all those who despise Him.

For when they were unfaithful and forsook Him, He hid His face from Israel and His Sanctuary and delivered them up to the sword. But remembering the Covenant of the forefathers, He left a remnant to Israel and did not deliver it up to be destroyed. . . .

The
sons of Zadok
are the elect of Israel, the men called by name who shall stand at the end of days. . . .

During all those years Belial shall be unleashed against Israel. . . .

The “builders of the wall” (Ezek. 23:10) who have followed after “Precept”

. . . shall be caught in fornication twice by taking a second wife while the first is alive, whereas the principle of creation is,
Male and female created He them
(Gen. 1:27). Also, those who entered the Ark went in two by two. And concerning the prince it is written,
He shall not multiply wives to himself
(Deut.

17:17). . . .

Moreover, they profane the Temple because they do not observe the distinction (between clean and unclean) in accordance with the Law, but lie with a woman who sees her bloody discharge.

And each man marries the daughter of his brother or sister, whereas Moses said,
You shall not approach your mother’s sister;
she is
your mother’s near kin
(Lev. 18:13). But although the laws against incest are written for men, they also apply to women. . . .

None of those brought into the Covenant shall enter the Temple to light His altar in vain. They shall bar the door, forasmuch as God said,
Who among
you will bar its door?
And,
You shall not light my altar in vain
(Mal. 1:10). They shall take care to act according to the exact interpretation of the Law during the age of wickedness. They shall separate from the sons of the Pit . . . they shall not rob the poor of His people, to make of widows their prey and of the fatherless their victim (Isa. 10:2). They shall distinguish between clean and unclean, and shall proclaim the difference between holy and profane. They shall keep the Sabbath day according to its exact interpretation, and the feasts and the Day of Fasting according to the finding of the members of the New Covenant in the land of Damascus. . . . They shall love each man his brother as himself; they shall succour the poor, the needy, and the stranger.

A man shall seek his brother’s well-being and shall not sin against his near kin. They shall keep from fornication according to the statute. They shall rebuke each man his brother according to the commandment and shall bear no ran-cour from one day to the next. They shall keep apart from every uncleanness according to the statutes relating to each one, and no man shall defile his holy spirit since God has set them apart. For all who walk in these (precepts) in 26

m i c h a e l s . b e r g e r

perfect holiness, according to all the teaching of God, the Covenant of God shall be an assurance that they shall live for thousands of generations (MS. B: as it is written,
Keeping the Covenant and grace with those who love me and
keep my commandments, to a thousand generations,
Deut. 7:9).

And if they live in camps according to the rule of the Land (MS. B: as it was from ancient times), marrying (MS. B: according to the custom of the Law) and begetting children, they shall walk according to the Law and according to the statute concerning binding vows, according to the rule of the Law which says,
Between a man and his wife and between a father and his son
(Num.

30:17). . . .

And all those who have entered the Covenant, granted to all Israel for ever, shall make their children who have reached the age of enrolment, swear with the oath of the Covenant. And thus shall it be during all the age of wickedness for every man who repents of his corrupted way. On the day that he speaks to the Guardian of the congregation, they shall enroll him with the oath of the Covenant which Moses made with Israel, the Covenant to return to the Law of Moses with a whole heart and soul, to whatever is found should be done at that time. No man shall make known the statutes to him until he has stood before the Guardian, lest when examining him the Guardian be deceived by him. But if he transgresses after swearing to return to the Law of Moses with a whole heart and soul, they (the members) shall be innocent should he transgress. And should he err in any matter that is revealed of the Law to the mul-titude of the camp, the Guardian shall instruct him and shall issue directions concerning him: he should study for a full year. . . .

And the law concerning a man with a flux. Any man with a flux issuing from his flesh, or one that causes a lewd thought to arise or . . . the woman . . . the man who approaches her will have the sin of menstrual uncleanness on him.

And if she sees blood again and this is not during the uncleanness of seven days, she shall not eat sacred food and shall not enter the Sanctuary until the sun has set on the eighth day.

[Geza Vermes,
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
(New York: Penguin, 1997), pp. 127–148]

JOSEPHUS ON MARRIAGE LAW

Flavius Josephus was a first-century ce Judean who, having survived the Jewish War of 70 by defecting to the Roman side, wrote several works that are our major testimony to Jewish history and culture of this period. Aside from his voluminous historical works, preserved in Greek, he authored an apologetic work,
Against Apion,
defending Judaism against its Greco-Roman detractors.

Originally titled
On the Antiquity of the Jews,
it refutes anti-Jewish contentions among Near Eastern Hellenists and then goes on in part 2 to show the inner value of Judaism and its ethical superiority over Hellenism.

Judaism
27

In this selection Josephus emphasizes the procreative function of marriage but also underscores how Jews preserve their character among a Gentile majority by educating their children in the covenant’s laws and the nation’s history.

The family is clearly the unit of survival and distinctiveness, and he ends the section with other familial obligations.

Document 1–17

fl a v i u s j o s e p h u s , o n t h e a n t i q u i t y o f t h e j e w s , a g a i n s t a p i o n , b o o k 1 1

25. But then; what are our laws about marriage? That law owns no other mixture of sexes but that which nature hath appointed, of a man with his wife, and that this be used only for the procreation of children. But it abhors the mixture of a male with a male; and if anyone do that, death is his punishment. It commands us also, when we marry, not to have regard to portion, nor to take a woman by violence, nor to persuade her deceitfully and knavishly; but demand her in marriage of him who hath power to dispose of her, and is fit to give her away by the nearness of his kindred; for
,
saith the Scripture, “A woman is inferior to her husband in all things.”1 Let her, therefore, be obedient to him; not so, that he should abuse her, but that she may acknowledge her duty to her husband; for God hath given the authority to the husband. A husband, therefore, is to lie only with his wife whom he hath married; but to have to do with another man’s wife is a wicked thing; which, if anyone venture upon, death is inevitably his punishment: no more can he avoid the same who forces a virgin betrothed to another man, or entices another man’s wife. The law, moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing human kind: if anyone, therefore, proceeds to such fornication or murder, he cannot be clean. Moreover, the law enjoins, that after the man and wife have lain together in a regular way, they shall bathe themselves; for there is a defilement contracted thereby, both in soul and body, as if they had gone into another country; for indeed the soul, by being united to the body, is subject to miseries, and is not freed therefrom again but by death; on which. account the law requires this purification to be entirely performed.

26. Nay, indeed, the law does not permit us to make festivals at the births of our children, and thereby afford occasion of drinking to excess; but it ordains that the very beginning of our education should be immediately directed to sobriety. It also commands us to bring those children up in learning and to exercise them in the laws, and make them acquainted with the acts of their predecessors, in order to their imitation of them, and that they may be nour-ished up in the laws from their infancy, and might neither transgress them, nor yet have any pretence for their ignorance of them.

28

m i c h a e l s . b e r g e r

27. Our law hath also taken care of the decent burial of the dead, but without any extravagant expenses for their funerals, and without the erection of any illustrious monuments for them; but hath ordered that their nearest relations should perform their obsequies; and hath shown it to be regular, that all who pass by when anyone is buried, should accompany the funeral, and join in the lamentation. It also ordains, that the house and its inhabitants should be purified after the funeral is over, that everyone may thence learn to keep at a great distance from the thoughts of being pure, if he hath been once guilty of murder.

28. The law ordains also, that parents should be honored immediately after God himself, and delivers that son who does not requite them for the benefits he hath received from them, but is deficient on any such occasion, to be stoned.

It also says, that the young men should pay due respect to every elder, since God is the eldest of all beings.

[
The Works of Flavius Josephus,
trans. William Whiston, 4 vols.

(Grand Rapids: Baker, 1974), vol. 4, pp. 224–225]

MISHNAH ON PROCREATION, MARRIAGE,

AND DIVORCE

The Mishnah, Rabbinic Judaism’s first text, was redacted by Judah the Patriarch in Sepphoris in the early third century ce. Composed for oral performance in Rabbinic learning communities, it brought together the preserved traditions of two centuries of diverse sages into a coherent, rational system dubbed “the Oral Torah,” parallel to the Written Torah of Moses.

Within a short time the Mishnah, with its succinct style and topical organization, became the unchallenged central text of the Rabbis, who were fashioning the most salient form of the Jewish tradition in northern Palestine and Babylonia, Jewry’s two main centers. Wide-ranging academic expositions of the Mishnah evolved into the Talmuds of these two communities and ultimately formed the basis of medieval Jewish practice.

The selections below, taken from units called
tractates
within the Order of Women, address how one effects valid marriage or divorce and define conjugal duties and the commandment to procreate in straightforward, legal terms.

Document 1–18

t r a c t a t e y e v a m o t 6 : 6 [ o n p r o c r e a t i o n ]

A man should not abstain from [the commandment] to procreate unless he already has children. The School of Shammai says: two males. The School of Hillel says: a male and a female, as it is stated “male and female He created them” (Gen. 5:2). . . . If he took a wife and lived with her ten years and she did not bear children, he is not permitted to abstain [from the commandment to procreate, but must take another wife]. . . . And if she miscarried, one counts
Judaism
29

[the ten years] from the time she miscarried. The man is commanded to procreate, but not the woman. Rabbi Yochanan ben Beroka says, “Of both [men and women] it says “God blessed them, and He said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’. . . . ” (Gen. 1:28).

[
The Mishnah,
ed. W. H. Howe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1883), translated by Michael S. Berger]

Document 1–19

t r a c t a t e k i d d u s h i n 1 : 1 , 2 : 1 [ o n b e t r o t h a l ]

A woman is acquired in three ways, and acquires her freedom in two ways. She is acquired by means of money, a document, or sexual intercourse. “By money”: the School of Shammi say a
dinar
[ ס half a
shekel
] or an object worth a
dinar
; the School of Hillel say a
perutah
[1/192 of a
dinar
] or an object worth a
perutah
. . . . And she acquires herself through a bill of divorce or by the husband’s death. . . .

A man betroths [a woman] personally or through an agent. A woman may accept betrothal personally or through her agent. A man may offer his daughter in marriage while she is still a maiden (younger than 12.5 years). . . .

[
The Mishnah,
translated by Michael S. Berger]

Document 1–20

t r a c t a t e k e t u b o t 5 : 5 , 5 : 8 [ o n m a r i t a l o b l i g a t i o n s ]