PBUH,
You have not produce any explicit statement where polygamy is not allowed. You have not produced any explicit statement where polygamy is not desired by God.
Even if I haven't given an explicit statement, so what? I only need to show that it follows "by good and necessary inference." So all I need to do is show that monogamy follows from Jesus' understanding of Genesis 1 and 2. I have done that.
This is pure speculation that Lamech was a vicious thug because he was a polygamist. Cain was the first vicious thug. He was not a polygamist.
First of all, you're twisting the words. Wenham didn't say that he was a thug *because* he was a polygamist. Wenham is saying that the comments on Lamech's actions (both bigamy and thuggery) are clearly meant to be received with moral disapproval in the narrative. Second, your point about Cain is irrelevant since Wenham didn't say "all thugs are polygamist". You're just setting up straw-men.
There are errors surrounding the story of Sarah and Hagars. Ishmael was not a child when he left with Hagar but a 17 year old young adult. The bible has portrayed him as a child. There has been some playing with the translation in later version but it is clear that Ishmael is seen as a child. The link below is the bible encyclopedia portrayal of the 17 year old Ishmael.
Genesis 21 Bible Pictures: Hagar and Ishmael leave Abram
I already deconstructed these arguments in a different thread. You're just repeating lines from your script that I already refuted. You reduced yourself to just saying "it's obvious!" over and over and showing pictures... Now I certainly hope you don't take the same tactic here and simply shout how obvious it is that God approves of polygamy over and over or "no explicit statement" over and over.
Last time you got stuck on the "child" presupposition and kept repeating that over and over. But, thankfully, after I addressed it on about three or four different occasions you finally seemed to give it up... at which point you moved to showing us pictures... I'm not saying this to demean you, I'm simply trying to preempt us from wasting time going over the same point five times: I point out there is no need for explicit statements, you just assert it again, I point out that there is no need for explicit statements, you just assert it again... Like the "child" incident.
There is no explicit statements against polygamy here either.
Which is irrelevant, as I pointed out above. The entire point of Wenham's book (Story as Torah) is that the narratives are not simply communicating factual information in an encyclopedic form. They are trying to communicate messages, ethical messages. The reader of the narrative is supposed to make ethical evaluations on the actions of the persons in the narrative and Wenham argues that the narrative casts these polygamist episodes in a negative light.
Again no explicit statement against polygamy.
Irrelevant.
If God does not like something God will let you know, there is no need to guess.
There is no need to guess in this instance either. When God instituted marriage in the garden it was clear.
I have shown where polygamy is mentioned explicitly by God.
In Exodus 21:10 where God states, hey don't forget your first wife rights if you marry another.
In Deutoronomy 21:15 God states the first born has his rights regardless of whether he is to the wife you love or not..
Clear rules surrounding polygamy. Why are these ignored and other scriptures are bent to try to align God's will with man ?
You're just repeating an argument I've already responded too on these particular verses. You don't interact at all with my counter-argument... you just repeat your initial argument. Look, I've already been over how this works with you in the last thread:
1. You give argument.
2. I respond to argument with rebuttal.
The next step should be:
3. You respond to rebuttal.
Not:
1. You repeat initial argument.
That's how a discussion works. We can never have real interaction if you just repeat your script again and again and again (like repeating the line about "child" again and again and again). I shouldn't have to go through this same process with you over and over each time we talk.
I've already shown how these verses are insufficient grounds to infer that God approves of polygamy. If you want to talk rather than soapbox you'll need to address that instead of just repeating yourself.
God may or may not hate divorce but God is clear through his prophet the scenarios where God does not want a divorce. God does not want a divorce done if it is just to marry another woman.
This is irrelevant to the point I made through God's hating divorce. God hates divorce, yet he allowed it under certain conditions for certain reasons. Thus, laws restricting divorce are not grounds for inferring God approves of divorce. Likewise, God restricting the practice of polygamy are not grounds of inferring God approves of polygamy.
Nothing you said about divorce was relevant to that point.
I think the reference to Geneis 2:14 is incorrect.
Yet you don't give any argument. Please don't fall back on the "it's obvious" and pictures routine.
This assertion is incorrect.
The evidence for it is the LXX's translation in the context of the rest of the argument given by David Instone-Brewer. So it's not just an assertion... although your assertion that it is incorrect is just an assertion (an incorrect one).
Polygamy was lawful as indicated in the bible verses above.
An assertion which ignores the arguments I've made. And even if it was lawful in the OT (Instone-Brewer argues that Jesus made it unlawful), it doesn't demonstrate that God looks favorably upon it and that it isn't a violation of his intention in creating marriage. Divorce wasn't part of God's intention in creating marriage either. But he allowed as a matter of civil affairs because of men's stubbornness. So nothing significant follows from your references to polygamy in Deut. or Ex. But then I've already said all this before...
Polygamy for christians was not banned by Jesus
Which simply ignores the argument I quoted.
it was banned by Augustine 400 years after Christ.
This is just false. Actually it was spoken against far much earlier than this. For instance, Justin Martyr (Dialogue With Trypho, 134), Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 1:28:2), and Tertullian (To His Wife, 1:2) to name just a few. So if the teaching against polygamy was not learned from Jesus' teaching on Genesis 1 and 2, it will be hard to explain how the Christians suddenly and almost universally made the idea up out of thin air as early as the second century.
Again a man overturning what was decreed by God.
Which simply begs the question (assumes what needs to be prove).
Of course if the orders of God stated in Exodus and Deutoronomy were followed, it would have remove the justifications these people used to ban polygamy.
Right, and I guess we would still have slavery and the like too. But then we realized that God's laws do not necessarily fit an ideal society but are, very often, attempts to restrict evil, stubborn men as much as possible then when we get the chance to achieve a more ideal state (not having divorce or not having slavery or not having polygamy) it is good to do so.