I thought it was more of a 'don't be a pimp' injunction.
Ha. Fair enough
But I think God's heart on the matter would still be what I said also: love your daughters/women and care for and protect them as the weaker gender, etc..., right?
Shoehorn....you translated porneia from the LXX as fornication, and then used that as proof that porneia must mean fornication. That is circular reasoning. The substitution in the OT would work just as well in all cases with 'sexual immorality'. Many of the verses you cite the BDB calls out as meaning harlot (i.e. prostitute for hire); which is more specific than simply fornication.
I'm with you on this. Fornication as a word in English even specifically meant spiritual sex/temple prostitution, in which case even in english the word (like porneia) was meant specifically to refer to the MIXING of spiritual adultery with a physical component which MAY OTHERWISE NOT have been wrong. In other words, if a man wants to take a hooker as his wife, the porneia/fornication part of that would have been that the act was spiritual/had spiritual connotation (of mixing spirits and worship), not neccesarily the physical act of sex (which may be adultery anyway, but the physical form). So yeah, there is spiritual adultery and physical adultery, but to say the two are the same is ridiculous.
When it comes to physical acts, there is a very limited list of the sexual things God deems inappropriate and against His design. Off the top of my head, these are: men having sex with men, men or women having sex with animals, men or women having sex with family, men having sex with other men's current wife(s). We can note that multiple wives, sex outside marriage, prostitutes (theoretically), and female-female sex are not on this list. I'd put forth that this is because as with all the proscribed sexual acts, the purpose is protect and support a patriarchal clan structure centered around the husband and protecting his family, investments, and offspring.
When the Bible lists porneia or the english translates it as fornication/sexual immorality (such as when Paul tells the gentiles to just 'abstain from sexual immorality'), clearly we need to know what that is. I mean, what is considered 'sexual immorality' is so vastly different between cultures and nations...Paul obviously wasn't telling the Mongolian peoples that it was ok for them to wife-swap, right? But all he said was 'porneia'. So how would anyone know what that was? Easy, it was already written down. In a list. For our convenience >.< I don't know why anyone ever feels the need (or, hell, WANTS. Why would you WANT) to add more to that list?! Let's not add more chains like the pharisees, eh?
Re: covenant... God definitely presents Himself as a covenant-maker (and thus, a vow-maker). But I also think it is worth pointing out that in all of the covenants God presents (far as I can recall, I could be missing something), He is always OFFERING stuff. Promising to do and give things. Thus, it is voluntary. I don't know anywhere where God says He 'has' to make a covenant to accomplish such-and-such a thing. He just does it because He wants to. So I'm not sure 'God makes covenants' is a REQUIREMENT for us to also do so in marriage (especially to specify the CONTENT of the covenant). Obviously we can draw conclusions from what God commands about what sorts things a good husband/wife do (a husband provides for and protects and sexually satisfies his wives, a wife supports and follows and sexually pleases her husband), but the Bible's silence on and lack of direct instruction to/how to make a marriage covenant/vow to me says that is something we humans have invented. I don't anywhere see God requiring it of us. We're not God, remember. We may image Him, but we are NOT Him. Which is important. None of us is capable on our human lonesome of perfectly keeping vows anyway. It's WHY God says not to make them. Why tempt fate?
Either way I don't see anywhere that a covenant is required for or even a neccesary part of marriage. Now, I DO think that (what that other thread about where marriage begins was trying to address) marriage is started with intent. Why? Because marriage is a matter of heart identity. It's a part of who you are. It's why there are roles and why it doesn't disolve with divorce per se. Because marriage is about who we ARE. I AM my wife's husband. She IS my wife. Period. That won't change. As immortal spirits, it never will. It is always a part of our identities. So where does divorce come in? Clearly, when that identity is lost/broken. But my point is marriage is started when we acknowledge and choose to act out our identity as man and wife. We become/realize who we are. I was always made to be my wife's husband, and she was always meant to be my wife. As we walked through time, we arrived at the point where we met each other and thus acknowledged this part of who we are: each others' spouse. Then we began to act it out. The 'look' of that is irrelevent. I'd say words do need to be said, but from my experience, that can just be "I want to be your husband, do you want to be my wife? I will always love and protect and BE your husband". "Ok, yeah I want to be your wife, and I will always love and follow you and BE your wife". Period. I think the idea that sex can form a marriage can be right too, in the sense that sex is SUPPOSED to IMPLY those words/that bond.
