學(xué)位論文：Biblical Attitudes toward Marriage

Biblical Attitudes toward Marriage

Introduction

With the rapid development of technology and human society, people’s values are greatly different than before, which is reflected in the more open attitudes toward marriage, and has caused many old customs and traditions to be broken. This change is specifically manifested in stressing of the individual privacy in marriage, instead of emphasizing getting permission from law or society for marriage. Some taboos of choosing a spouse have been broken as well, such as homose*uality. Marriage, divorce and remarriage are common affairs nowadays. There are two kinds of change roughly. One is the change of family structure that not only contains traditional family, but also contains going Dutch system marriage, Dink family, weekend family, contact family and even virtual family. The other is the change of family function. Traditional family function such as se*, reproduction and affection can be realized by means other than marriage such as one night stand, surrogate mothers and cyber love at present.

These changes illustrate that the value toward marriage or family are going from unitary to diversity, indicating that people are more and more open. Howe
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“A garden locked is my sister, my bride,
a garden locked, a fountain sealed
……
a garden fountain, a well of living water,
and flowing streams from Lebanon.” (Song of Solomon, 2:12)

“Awake, O north wind,
and come, O south wind!
Blow upon my garden
that its fragrance may be wafted abroad.
Let my beloved come to his garden,
and eat its choicest fruits.” (Song of Solomon, 2:16)

The words “garden” and “well” here is an obscure e*pression for women’s se*ual organ. Song of Solomon is full of the description of love and se*. No wonder there is an opinion that “of all poems describing se*, there is none better than Song of Solomon which boldly shows se*ual love and undisguised represents the beauty of human body.”(Zhu Weizhi, History of Foreign Literature, Naikai University, 1991, page 61) What is worth noticing is that the desire and praise of se*ual love is mostly e*pressed by women. Song of Solomon e*plicitly indicates that se* is good and beautiful because the creator wants it to be so. The poet sublimes se*ual love to the pursuit of eternity. For e*ample:

“Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
it would be utterly scorned.”(Song of Solomon, 8:6-7)
Song of Solomon is written in a form of dialogue, which e*actly demonstrates that love is a dialogue in nature – a dialogue between one soul and another.

In addition, a question has to be asked: Cannot single people enjoy the good and beauty of se*ual love? The other question following this is: Is not life good and beautiful without se*ual life? The answer of the first question is of course no, because in modern society people of celibacy do not equal ascetics. The answer of the second question is no as well, which is self-evident in the Genesis of the Bible because creating men and women has good and beauty in itself. The first two chapters are two stories of the creation of human. In the first story, god creates men. “And God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created humankind in his image.”(Genesis, 1:26-27) In the second one, god creates women. “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner……So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Women, for out of Man this one was taken.”(Genesis, 2:18-23) This firstly shows that the life of Adam and Eve is united for her is his “bone of bones and flesh of flesh”. Secondly, the role and function of men and women are complementary. The purpose of god to make a woman is clear according to his words. He wants a “helper” for the Adam. Therefore, the good intention of god is self-evident.

Then we cannot help asking that are there any sentences that support celibacy in the Bible? Yes. In the New Testament when talking about celibacy, Jesus says, “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 kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew, 19:11-12) Jesus here illustrates a possibility of celibacy: some people, such as Catholic priests would rather to be single than to get married. Obviously, Jesus does not encourage celibacy because it is not an easy thing and only those who is “given” could make it.

However, Jesus himself is a celibate, which mak ……（未完，全文共30040字，當(dāng)前僅顯示5403字，請閱讀下面提示信息。收藏《學(xué)位論文：Biblical Attitudes toward Marriage》）