# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1878_S24
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

— 24 —

in the Old Testament is polygamy, which was nevertheless customary among the Israelites, punished; nor is it anywhere mentioned that a saint of the Old Covenant did penance for it: rather, Deuteronomy 21:15 ff. and Exodus 21:7 ff. show that, because of the hardness of the Israelites' hearts, to prevent worse abominations, polygamy was permitted by God, although it stands in contradiction to the original will of God as revealed at the institution of marriage, Genesis 2:24. One should also consider that God Himself says to David, 2 Samuel 12:8: "And I gave thee thy master's wives into thy bosom." Would it not therefore be safest to remain with Luther's understanding, as it is expressed in his translation of Leviticus 18:18? Everyone must indeed concede that the expression "one to another" is quite a Hebrew idiom; but it cannot be proved that in a suitable context, such as the present one, these words could not also have been used by the Hebrews in their most literal meaning. In particular the literal understanding loses everything strange, if one compares the manner of expression used in v. 18, "and thou shalt not take a wife to her sister," with the quite similar one in v. 17, "thou shalt not take a wife and her daughter." It would be questionable to depart from the interpretation of the most numerous and most eminent expositors of the Lutheran Church, to which the Weimar Bible too, indeed even the more recent expositors, subscribe.

Against this it was pointed out: If one appeals to Luther and other orthodox expositors in order to support the opinion that in our passage marriage with a sister-in-law is forbidden, one does so wrongly, since one cannot assert that they would have rejected the interpretation to which Hafenreffer was the first to draw attention. They simply did not have it before them as a counterpart to their own interpretation. Moreover, the first authority remains that of the holy writers themselves and not that of the expounding theologians. And from the fact that God tolerated polygamy it cannot be proved that it was permitted. On the contrary, polygamy is already forbidden to kings in Deuteronomy 17:17: "Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away." To this last point it was replied that from the "not multiply wives" one cannot assert that polygamy is forbidden therein; for it also says: "but he shall not multiply horses to himself; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold." From this it follows that here not several are set in opposition to one, but many to several. —

Since the Synodical Conference (*Synodalconferenz*) was aware that the proof for the prohibition of marriage with a relative by marriage would not be impaired by the differing interpretation of Leviticus 18:18, since that proof lay elsewhere, it agreed not to linger longer over the different interpretations, but to pass on to the second part of the thesis: