Texts in Conversation
Genesis says God created humankind male and female. The Damascus Document from the Dead Sea Scrolls quotes this line as the principle of creation to forbid taking a second wife while the first is alive.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 1:27
Hebrew Bible
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.” 27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”
CD 4:21
Damascus Document
Dead Sea Scrolls, Sectarian and Community Texts
15 the three nets of Belial, about which Levi son of Jacob spoke, 16 with which he catches Israel, and he makes them appear to them as three kinds of 17 righteousness. The first is fornication, the second is wealth, the third is 18 defiling the sanctuary. Whoever climbs out of one is caught in another, and whoever is delivered from one is caught 19 in another. The builders of the wall, who walked after Zaw (Zaw is a spouter, 20 of whom it says, “They shall surely spout”), are caught in two: in fornication, by taking 21 two wives in their lifetime, whereas the foundation of creation is “male and female he created them.”
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Notes and References
“... The writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls even took the significant step of presenting the reform of marriage in terms of a return to the single-hearted solidarity of the first couple, Adam and Eve. Those who took another wife while the other was alive (possibly by practicing polygamy) sinned against ‘the principle of Creation . . . Male and female created He them.’ ...”
Brown, Peter
The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity
(p. 40) Columbia University Press, 1988
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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