Ecofaith 20 June 2010

Transcript Ecofaith 20 June 2010

Sex and relationships

In evolution, the Old Testament, New Testament and Today

A ridiculously fast rush through the changing nature of sex and relationships, from the origins of life, through the Old and New Testaments, to today. Questioning old answers, and starting to answer new questions.

NCYC 2014- Jason John

(you’ll need to be able to see the speakers notes) The booklet which covers some of this material is at: http://ecofaith.org/books - worshipping evolutions God

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Include the walking with humans video where our recent sexual relationships, parenting, etc etc etc evolved

Welcome

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http://unitingearth.org.au

Acknowledgements

acknowledged limitations

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We don’t need evolutionary biology to encourage us to rethink marriage and sex in the Christian faith.

– The church’s attitude to both has changed over the millennia and is not unanimous now – recent discussions rooted in “sociology”

We can’t argue directly from evolution to morality and ethics evolution doesn’t say all there is to say about marriage and sex

sex is fun

Link to poem: http://ecofaith.org/articles/sex_is_fun.html

Or the book the poem is in which covers some of the areas in the powerpoint: http://ecofaith.org/books/worshipping_evolutions_God.pdf

EB propositions

• • • • sexual reproduction evolved – – asexual -> homo/uni sexual -> heterosexual But not a unidirectional, linear trend gender evolved – none -> dual (xy, zw)-> variable sex initially an advantage against pathogens expansion of the function of sex – – reproduction -> pleasure (mammals at least) primates do not only have sex to reproduce

EB propositions (2)

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relationship of parenting and sex in life

– no parents -> no parenting -> – dazzling array of parenting/partnering styles • •

relationship of parenting and sex in us

– nomadic: monogamy rare, shared care of kids – agricultural: marriage forms emerge (next week) • polygamy, polygyny (rare), monogamies

Sex without parenting: for fun!

Creation stories compared:

Genesis 1 assumed everything is fixed and planned (and God said… and there was…) But life (gender, reproductive strategies, parenting/partnering strategies, community structure) is: fluid and adaptive.

driven by environment/context.

We will see this in the OT, NT and ask what it means for us in our context.

Sex in the Old Testament

Song of Solomon

My love is a gazelle, a wild stag.

There he stands on the other side of our wall, gazing between the stones.

Your breasts are two fawns, twins of a gazelle, grazing in a field of lilies.

Kiss me, make me drunk with your kisses!

Your sweet loving is better than wine.

Awake, north wind! O south wind, come, breathe upon my garden, let its spices stream out.

Let my lover come into his garden and taste its delicious fruit.

With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

"How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden! You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. O may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth. I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go out early to the vineyards ... There I will give you my love."

Sinead- dark I am yet lovely (4mins)

“Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah , and the name of the other Zillah.” Ge 4:19

Sarah, Abraham’s wife, took her slave Hagar and gave her to her husband as a wife. He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. (Ge 16) So Jacob went “in to” Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah (Ge 29:30) [but] when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; the Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth... do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. (Malachi 2)

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to

your neighbor. Ex 20.17

When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. [but] ... If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone (Exodus 21:2).

Then Laban said to Jacob, “Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” After seven years, Jacob said “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” So that night Laban held a feast, but in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said, what is this you have done! (Ge 29) So the congregation sent twelve thousand soldiers there and commanded them, “Go, put the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead to the sword, including the women and the little ones; every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction.” And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man and they gave them the women.... (Judges 21)

If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives (Deut 22:28) “ When a man dies and has no son, his brother shall go into the wife, taking her in marriage, and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. (Dt 25:5)

“My child, keep your father’s commandment, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.

... to preserve you from the wife of another, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.

Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;

for a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another stalks a man’s very life.” prov 29

Ge 38 Tamar put off her widow’s garments, put on a veil, and sat down on the roadside. When Judah her fatherinlaw saw her, he thought her to be a prostitute, for she had covered her face. He went over to her at the roadside, and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” She said, “Only if you give me a pledge of payment…Your signet ring and the staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her, and went in to her… Then she got up and went away About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the whore; moreover she is pregnant as a result of whoredom.” And Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.” As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “It was the owner of these who made me pregnant.” Then Judah acknowledged them and said, “She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not lie with her again.

“We have broken faith with our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land, but even now there is hope for Israel in spite of this. So now let us make a covenant with our God to send away all these wives and their children, … [if any men refuse] all their property should be forfeited, and they themselves banned from the congregation of the exiles.” (Ezra 10).

If a man becomes jealous of his wife and thinks she has had an affair, but cannot prove it, “Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, ... if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had intercourse with you... now may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, and your uterus drop!” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen.” Numbers 5

“For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. (this bit is quoted) I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth. (this bit isn’t)

Recap: evolution

• • • • • sexual reproduction evolved – asexual -> homo/uni sexual -> heterosexual gender evolved – none -> dual (xy, zw)-> multi and variable sex initially an advantage against pathogens Parenting and partnering styles adapt to environment Sex is fun for primates, and not always about reproduction.

Creation stories compared:

driven by environment/context.

We saw that in the Hebrew Scriptures…

The Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament: Assumes polygamy, at least for the fairly wealthy; condones having sex with prostitutes but not being one; recommends prostitutes in preference to married women insists on female virginity but assumes male promiscuity; makes men who force sex on virgins pay compensation to the father and marry the victim; allows men to divorce women except in a few circumstances; insists on divorce in the case of mixed marriage; and insists on termination in the case of infidelity.

The environment was: Small population; Men died in wars; men owned all property (incl women & kids); husbandless women vulnerable; barren women shamed/cursed; no protection from STDs; contraception = withdrawal (20% pregnancy vs % effective- vs 15% for none) The purpose (of life/the laws): Grow the small population (expand the Jewish kingdom); maintain stable patriarchal community, protect male property rights; protect women from abject poverty.

The Gospels and early church: Assumes polygamy, at least for the fairly wealthy; condones having sex with prostitutes but not being one; recommends prostitutes to married women insists on female virginity but assumes male promiscuity; makes men who force sex on virgins pay compensation to the father and marry the victim; allows men to divorce women except in a few circumstances; insists on divorce in the The environment was: Smallish population (more urbanised); less war (pax romani) but more oppression; men owned all property in Jewish system, not in gentile one, but Christians called to renounce $; husbandless Jewish women vulnerable; barren women shamed/cursed; no protection from STDs; contraception = withdrawal (20% pregnancy vs % effective vs 15% for none). Growing (then fading) conviction of the equality of women .

Thought to be about to end!

The purpose (of life/the laws): Focus on the coming kingdom, renounce property, redefine community, protect vulnerable women

Paul to the Corinthians 1 st letter: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” 2 But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. ... This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am.

But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am . But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.“ ... If his passions are strong, and so it has to be , let him marry as he wishes; it is no sin ... he who marries his fiancée does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better. Why? What is the context?

Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, f and I would spare you that... the appointed time has grown short ; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none,... and those who buy as though they had no possessions... For the present form of this world is passing away.

I want you to be free from anxieties . The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; 33 but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman and the virgin are anxious about the affairs of the Lord, so that they may be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to put any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.

And Jesus:

"His disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching , but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.

” (Matthew 19:10-13, NRSV)

Jesus on the family

"Then Peter said, “Look, we have left our homes and followed you.” And Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children , for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”" (Luke 18:28-30, NRSV) "Someone told Jesus, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” ... pointing to his disciples, Jesus said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother .” (Matthew 12:47-13:1, NRSV) "But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth , for you have one Father—the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called masters, have one master, the Messiah." (Matthew 23:8-10, NRSV) Undermining the family? Any modern echoes?

for you

and Jesus on possessions...

"“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple... So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not get rid of all your possessions.

. (Luke 14:26-33, NRSV) " Jesus said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens... Consider the lilies... And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. ... Instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. ... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit;" (Luke 12:22-35, NRSV) (but) " Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources. (Luke 8:1-4, NRSV) Undermining everything? Any modern echoes?

Old Testament: Love God, and neighbour as self.

Grow population and maintain property rights, protect women (build an earthly kingdom) : Marriage (polygamy) good, Breeding good, Men in control, women vulnerable, contraception minimal, safe sex non existent, prostitution morally indifferent. Barrenness shameful.

EARLY New Testament: Love God, and neighbour as self.

Spread the gospel before the end comes.

Money irrelevant, so marriage irrelevant (and a hindrance) Destabalising biological family and hierarchical/partiarchal/capital based society.

Greco-Roman women more independent, Jewish women not (church mostly Jewish) LATER New Testament: Love God, and neighbour as self.

Spread gospel, but world hasn’t ended, property relevant (gentile women and men have access). Share, don’t renounce it all.

Being persecuted, need to build esteem in community (bishops, elders...)

30AD (Jesus). Singleness “accept it who can.” Unless you forsake all you have... Hate mother, father, wife, children, life itself... Nobody who has left wife... Children...

AND: opposes divorce.

54AD (1Cor): If single stay that way. If married don’t dump unbeliever.

Not a sin to marry if you can’t control yourself.

Patriarchal: Man head of woman, image and reflection of God... BUT in the

Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman.

60AD (Colossians, Ephesians): Wives be subject to your husbands. Husbands love your wives and never treat them harshly.

Christ and church is like husband and wife.

64AD (Timothy): bishops only one wife. Must be well thought of in society. Young widows marry rather than go on pension. 2Tim subordination based on Eve’s stupidity in listening to serpent.

65 (Hebrews): marriage bed be held in honour by all.

Jesus and DIVORCE: Mark (about 60AD): Jew/Gentile church Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “ Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “ Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Jesus and DIVORCE: Mark (about 60AD): Jew/Gentile church Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “ Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “ Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces (puts away) his wife (in order to) marry another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces (puts away ) her husband (in order to ) marry another, she commits adultery.”

Jesus and DIVORCE:

Matthew (70ish): Jewish

Copies much of Mark, plus...

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity (porn) , causes her to commit adultery ; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

And later whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity (porn), and marries another commits adultery THINK JEWISH Say the casting off is not legitimate. She has been discarded. To survive she needs to find another man. The divorce is invalid (in God’s eyes). But he makes her commit adultery. Jesus is transferring the guilt to the dumping man.

Man marrying a divorced woman sounds good, doesn’t it? Why does he commit adultery?

Jesus and DIVORCE:

Matthew (70ish): Jewish

Copies much of Mark, plus...

But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of “unchastity” (porn) , causes her to commit adultery ; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

And later ...whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity (porn), and marries another commits adultery THINK JEWISHER Maybe its about her having to remarry in order to survive (like Mark) OR: In the less liberal (and more common) view, unchastity/porneia its the only allowable reason for divorce. So if she is dumped, she becomes in everyone’s eyes, an adulteress. He makes her an adulteress (by reputation). And what man would then be with her (people would think) except her lover: the one she is assumed to have committed adultery with!?

So because of the current community view, dumping an innocent woman makes her tarnished as an adulteress, and casts aspersions on any future partner who would “lower” himself to be with her.

Jesus and DIVORCE:

Matthew (70ish): Jewish

Why unchastity (pornia)? (and only that?) is it worse than: abuse, lying, theft etc etc?

could just be following the commonest view of the Law CLUE: JESUS’ “DAD” “When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss ( divorce /put away) her quietly. “ So in Matthew, it has to be ok/righteous to divorce an unchaste woman.

Mark has no birth stories, and so no exception?

Jesus and DIVORCE:

John (95ish). Jewish/Gentile Church

...

“Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, and, tired out by his journey, he sat by a well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) ... They talk theology... The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ...they talk more theology...

"Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”"

Jesus and DIVORCE:

But also:

“Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children , for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”" (Luke 18:28-30, NRSV) Paul: don’t divorce unbelieving partners, but if they leave don’t feel bound to them.

summary: divorce Mark: Dumping your wife (into poverty) in order to marry someone else may be legal, but it’s not moral: it’s still adultery.

support: Jesus many sayings against the wealthy and their greed and oppression Gospel is good news to the poor.

Woman divorcing probably added by Mark for his context. Irrelevant in Jesus testing

Matthew : EITHER Dumping a woman makes her commit adultery to survive, and bears the burden of guilt. Whoever she then marries is also an adulterer (for legitimising the dumping?) Only porneia nullifies a marriage. Issue: poverty.

OR Because porneia is the only grounds for divorce according to most, dumping a woman makes her an adulteress in people’s eyes and any future partner is implicated as the presumed guilty party. Issue: shame.

support: Jesus is about restoring honour.

(in John: the half breed female serial divorcee becomes the first evangelist.

the woman with perfume “what kind of woman this is...” to the adulteress... “neither then do I condemn you...” The bleeding woman..

Why is the porneia clause there at all? Matthew’s story/Jewish sensibility

support: missing in Mark. All that Jesus said about unconditional and unlimited forgiveness. Jesus addressing poverty/shame not making a rigorous sexual ethic

summary: divorce Removing “the porneia clause” and the gentile women qualification: Dumping your wife in order to marry another is immoral, whether it’s legal or not, because it impoverishes her. Also, it stigmatises her: both for being discarded, and when she is forced to seek another man: the guilt of which stays with you.

Is divorce always bad for Jesus?

Nobody who puts away house... wife... or children... Will fail to receive 100 times more...

Why would you put them away? If they are preventing you pursuing the kingdom (love God, self, neighbour)... as Jesus family tried to do to him.

Decisions are about the kingdom: restoring love for God, self and other, good news for the poor, removing shame.

Matters because : recent studies, USA divorce higher amongst fundamentalists and Baptists than mainline churches and agnostics, not noticed in those churches because divorcees tend to leave or keep very quiet. Shame alive and well. (http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm)

New Testament compared to today

Doesn’t really deal with “sex before” or “sex after” marriage in the way we need to.

Legal age of marriage: Jewish man 13.5 years, Jewish girl 12.5. Often betrothed earlier.

Puberty about 15.

Life expectancy limited.

A gap of 10-20 years between puberty (now about 12) and first marriage (legal at 18, common at 30) did not exist and so is not being addressed in the OT or NT.

Long periods of “single” life after divorce or widowhood probably did not exist. Women needed to remarry to survive. Life expectancy about 75/85 vs 40ish Marriages now may last 60-80 years, vs 17ish Population growth in OT was highly prized, bareness a curse. Be fruitful and multiply- fill the Earth and subdue it. Non reproductive sex an anathema (contraception and maybe male:male sex)

Take a breath

Same-sex in a nutshell (NT) Like “single people’s sex” there is no “homosexuality” in the bible as we often talk about it today, or gay marriage. There is male temple prostitution; boys who fulfil a “soft” role for men, whose wives are kept home; slaves (boys) who are “soft” for roman soldiers (who are not allowed to marry.) Paul uses men lusting after men and women after women as a sign of the lack of the “natural order” of the pagan religions: assumes that all humans knew God (since Noah) and some had abandoned “Judaism” at the tower of Babel.

along with men having short hair and women long hair, and men being in God’s image and women in men’s. Women inferior, demeaning for a man to

act like a woman.

as an argument against the Christians “ Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. “ Nothing from Jesus...

Nothing from Jesus except....

maybe healing the centurions’ “pais”/boy/servant “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can." Clement of Alexandria: "the true eunuch is not unable, but [merely?] unwilling to have sex." Old Testament “There blood is upon their heads...” If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. .. (Leviticus 20:10, Ezekiel 18) If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; If a man lies with a woman having her sickness, he has laid bare her flow and she has laid bare her flow of blood; both of them shall be cut off from their people. (Lev 20, Eze 18) You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. But I have said to you: You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess (all justifies dispossession of the aboriginal inhabitants) ABOMINATION: not immoral, but what they do (shellfish, mixed threads, pork...) A man who eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbour's wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, takes advance or accrued interest; shall he then live? He shall not. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die;

his blood shall be upon him

. (Ezekiel 18)

Nothing from Jesus except....

One more recap…

Pre Human, social: Support neighbour, love self.

Neighbour = pack, partner. Maximise Breeding & Protect young -> Guard territory. Old Testament: Love neighbour as self.

Neighbour = Tribe/Nation. Maximise breeding & Protect property (Guard territory) -> protect women & young. Guard territory- Build an earthly kingdom. Marriage (polygamy) good, Breeding good, Men in control, women vulnerable, contraception minimal, safe sex non existent, prostitution morally indifferent. Barrenness shameful.

Early New Testament: Love neighbour as self.

Neighbour = all (Christians?) . Breeding and property irrelevant. Heavenly kingdom Rejecting biological family and hierarchical/partiarchal/capital based society.

Distinguish from pagan religions (temple sex cults). Protect women (divorce) LATER New Testament: Love God, and neighbour as self.

World hasn’t ended, protect property but share. Breeding ambivalent. Women have more equality. Being persecuted, need to build esteem in community.

The actual values regarding sexual acts, relationships, property and children have changed in different contexts, as have the rules/guidelines to enact those values.