Based Camp - When did Christians & Jews Become Monogamous？

00:00:00.000 understanding of the metanarrative of the evolution of monogamy was in the church as a norm

00:00:05.520 tells a deeper story that is missed if you attempt to misinterpret them to make your modern sexual

00:00:13.040 mores look like they were the mores that were had at the time of various parts of the bible being

00:00:18.640 written which which hides from you i think a deeper and more interesting truth it is kind of weird

00:00:25.460 the bible isn't that explicit about one husband one wife but seems to assume it in the new testament

00:00:32.840 where in the old testament it seems to assume that wealthy men have multiple wives yes yes actually in

00:00:39.860 roman cultural norms it was one wife rome definitely represented the core of of civilizing force and i 0.54

00:00:48.000 think what we see here is civilization crashing into religion creating something that is a merger 0.94

00:00:56.760 of both of them that is not just it's law roman law is there some other form of law you wretched woman 1.00

00:01:07.920 one thousand apologies one in the form of christianity but also in the form of post-second

00:01:17.340 temple judaism and this is where the jews get really spicy you must guarantee of course to keep your 1.00

00:01:24.960 jews in line they will do as i say or they will suffer the consequences congratulations then herod you 0.77

00:01:34.980 have the full backing of rome would you like to know more hello simone i'm excited to be talking with

00:01:42.240 you today today we are going to be talking about an issue that i think just doesn't get a lot of good

00:01:48.580 and honest coverage which is what does the bible actually say about taking multiple wives and the

00:01:55.640 reason why you're not going to get good coverage of this is christians generally sweep under the rug that

00:02:02.360 there's a lot of people of the bible with multiple wives because now it is normal within modern christianity

00:02:07.720 uh to only have one wife and it's the same with modern judaism modern judaism is mostly a

00:02:12.060 monogamous religious system so they just you know the the people who are like super pro christian or

00:02:17.600 super pro jew generally don't dwell on this point too much um so when you go and you're reading about

00:02:24.660 this it's usually people who want to dunk on the bible or who want to dunk on jews or who want to dunk on

00:02:30.960 you know early whatever right and i think because of that people miss interesting things we can learn

00:02:39.120 about the development of christianity and judaism by studying both one what does what are the actual

00:02:45.820 rules laid out in the bible around this and two how and why did they develop and change over time okay

00:02:52.800 i'm excited for this any thoughts i i'm kind of afraid of what we're going to learn

00:03:00.000 is it is it more in the end biblical to just not what what well god yeah no let's i'll give you a

00:03:07.740 summary of what you're going to learn because this is really interesting so it is kind of weird that

00:03:13.440 the bible isn't that explicit about one husband one wife but seems to assume it in the new testament

00:03:20.360 where in the old testament it seems to assume that wealthy men have multiple wives yes and and i thought it

00:03:28.400 was really weird i was like it's almost like the cultural norms changed before the new testament was

00:03:36.340 written and so i started to study the issue more and what i learned is actually in roman cultural norms

00:03:42.700 it was one wife and so the area of israel being a roman colony at the time it would have been culturally

00:03:51.700 normative for them at that period at least within like the the power structure of society

00:03:57.060 to default to monogamous marriages and so jesus was when he was preaching to people assumed that they

00:04:05.620 all knew we had already made the switch to one one so it's almost as if like if the new testament were

00:04:11.120 written when the macarena was the dance of the season then everyone would be doing the macarena in

00:04:18.120 the bible and we would just assume that it's biblically correct to do the macarena kind of

00:04:24.440 i actually would word it a bit differently and i'll go into this conception more in a second

00:04:29.160 but i think that you can see christianity as a marriage of roman culture or the first true

00:04:37.180 civilization in terms of from my perspective like the the descendant of modern civilization when i look at

00:04:42.580 something like egypt it wasn't like a modern the real precursor to the modern states you may have

00:04:47.840 greece or something like that but i think that grome is a successor state to the greek culture

00:04:51.920 and what christianity is is that what we call the western cultural canons marriage with the jewish

00:04:58.600 cultural canon to create christianity and i think that once you understand through the story of how it

00:05:05.000 relates to monogamy that it is this marriage then you can better understand the role in the western

00:05:10.920 tradition that pre that marriage the jewish branch of the system should play and the roman slash greek branch of

00:05:16.860 that system should play that actually really resonates and i've never thought about that before

00:05:20.560 that in the end there's a ton of roman culture in both the new testament but also the catholic church

00:05:28.460 in general catholics more than anyone else have adopted the greek slash roman side of this cultural

00:05:34.380 marriage in their elevation of great thinkers of greek among their own great thinkers yeah they did a very

00:05:40.620 good job of pulling in and marrying that canon and creating something which is uh fairly unique to

00:05:47.200 christianity of the religious system which is a presumptive assumption of a separation of church and

00:05:52.940 state which is to say that you know render unto caesar what is caesar's this is what you know famous

00:05:57.920 jesus line which which assumes church and state will be separate which i think was one of christianity's

00:06:03.700 greatest strengths in terms of its growth and very unique that's not true of judaism that's not true of

00:06:09.580 islam that's not true of confucianism that's not true of most other religious systems but let's get

00:06:15.000 into this okay so arguments for monogamy that could be made the best argument for monogamy in the old

00:06:20.960 testament is going to be genesis 224 therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast

00:06:27.700 to his wife and they shall become one flesh and you you generally see the adam and eve narrative is played

00:06:34.200 out here they're like oh genesis but unfortunately if you take the interpretation we take of this

00:06:39.420 which i think is the correct interpretation a husband and wife do not become one flesh when

00:06:43.660 they have sex that's insane they become one flesh when they make a baby that is when a husband and 0.97

00:06:48.720 wife become one flesh and so uh if you take that assumption there's no reason that a man couldn't

00:06:55.160 also become one flesh with other women this is not a line laying out that he should only have one wife

00:07:01.280 nor is the adam and eve story laying that out and i think that in the original interpretations of both

00:07:06.000 these stories we have that laid out as very obviously not the mainstream interpretation

00:07:10.340 given that like pretty much every powerful jewish person in the early bible has multiple wives

00:07:15.380 so i don't think that that's a strong interpretation the next here you have jesus reaffirmed this view of

00:07:21.340 marriage stating have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and

00:07:27.920 female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast with his wife 0.57

00:07:32.560 and the two shall become one flesh but again i don't really see this necessarily exclusively being

00:07:37.580 monogamy if you take one flesh to mean make babies well also when you yeah when you think about how 0.93

00:07:43.360 things are described in a nature video for example like and the male manatee will made with the female

00:07:49.360 manatee it doesn't imply that the manatees are monogamous it just implies that this is how the

00:07:54.320 reproductive yeah it's it's not an implication of that at all uh then here you have corinthians 7 2

00:08:00.880 where paul states each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband now this is

00:08:07.540 in the new testament i think the strongest place where it is just like really obvious there is an

00:08:13.180 assumption of monogamy however i don't know like to me because these are in you know the letters

00:08:19.240 right this is more to me like well when you're talking to your people we know because we're romans

00:08:25.800 that it's a monogamous relationship right like that's the assumption there and then the next

00:08:31.920 line here you know if you look at like timothy 3 2 or titus 1 6 they also seem to assume monogamy

00:08:37.260 especially among the wealthy people which is when you see polygyny more commonly specifically with

00:08:43.160 lines where paul states when talking about the qualifications for church leaders being quote the

00:08:48.040 husband of one wife end quote now here's the interesting thing simone you might have just

00:08:54.600 heard that quote and thought something in in in in in in in in in timothy and titus when they're when

00:09:02.780 they're laying out what the qualifications for church leaders are it says i'm just wondering what

00:09:09.300 what question is brought to mind for you the qualification for having leadership was in the church

00:09:14.380 being quote each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband who is that a problem

00:09:21.240 for priests catholics yeah it's a problem for catholics do you know how they get around it

00:09:28.620 it's actually pretty interesting i was i was sorry she's teething really sharp teeth wear a wedding 1.00

00:09:35.740 ring and they they marry jesus essentially so so the way that catholics get around this is is i've read

00:09:42.120 two they go it's meant to be taken metaphorically that's my favorite where i'm like what what like

00:09:49.320 you believe the craziest stuff like you're literally eating christ's body and blood and that's not

00:09:55.300 metaphorical no you're like ah that was probably metaphorical but then two they'll say well it doesn't

00:10:02.860 explicitly demand that they that they must be married it's meant to be read as they can't have 0.99

00:10:10.020 more than one wife it's saying that church leadership shouldn't be polygynous and i guess

00:10:15.820 it can technically be read that way but that's quite a squirrely reading of this and seems not to be

00:10:20.320 what's intended the husband of one wife so what they mean is that what they say is it means that not

00:10:26.400 more than one wife but but even then it's clearly saying that church leadership should like broadly

00:10:32.500 speaking be married like yeah that's i i didn't i haven't it's been a while since i've read corinthians

00:10:41.420 so i guess that's what this is from right i guess i missed that part wasn't paying attention as much

00:10:48.080 as i should be because that's pretty striking yeah now here's the thing with jesus though if you remember

00:10:57.640 the quote earlier i mentioned where jesus says have you not read that he who created them from the

00:11:04.700 beginning made them male and female and he said therefore a man shall leave his father and mother

00:11:08.880 and hold fast with his wife and the two shall become one flesh what he's actually doing what jesus

00:11:13.760 you know and in context when i think about jesus i think about jesus as a jewish preacher in the early

00:11:18.760 days preaching to jews he is quoting two parts of genesis and trying to use them to make an argument 0.76

00:11:24.920 that changes i think it is possible that he was trying to argue for monogamy there and if he was

00:11:32.240 he was doing it in the way a classically like a jewish rabbi would have done it i don't know i feel

00:11:36.140 like he's jordan peterson hanging which you know he's like get out of your family's house get a job

00:11:41.880 make your bed instead of specifically get married and be monogamous what i'm what i hear when i read

00:11:47.920 when i hear that statement is you need to leave your parents house start your family and become

00:11:56.160 independent i can see what this was said in response to yeah because the context of it does make a really

00:12:01.280 big difference if he's saying this specifically with regard to the type of composition of a marriage

00:12:08.720 or adult life then i can get that maybe it's an argument for monogamy but this sounds more to me

00:12:15.760 like you gotta grow up and start your family and and that could be

00:12:19.660 you know he's using the most common form of pairing for your average person and of course the average

00:12:27.800 person who's not super high wealth or high status is going to not have more than one wife

00:12:33.000 getting an answer here so this is specifically about divorce apparently

00:12:36.880 yeah he's using against he's arguing against an easy pass to divorce

00:12:47.080 okay which i can see now could be a stronger case for this being about monogamy specifically so

00:12:58.620 because because this is being said in response to divorce have you not read that he who what created

00:13:04.860 them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore therefore a man shall leave his

00:13:10.340 father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh that it could be

00:13:15.480 taken to also argue for monogamy with the implication of well then why not just take another wife here

00:13:21.620 i don't see it as being that strong an argument for it but i definitely see it as being an argument for

00:13:26.040 it and and no the reason why it needs to be a strong argument is because what this is evolving

00:13:32.240 is the old jewish traditions which now let's start to talk about these because oh actually

00:13:38.600 but before i go further there is actually another change in marriage tradition that happened during

00:13:44.260 this period is pushing away leverite marriages or marrying brothers dead spouses yeah because there

00:13:50.260 was there were a bunch of rules in the bible and there's a bunch of rules in the talmud about this

00:13:55.600 generous thing you would do historically you know if you're in one of these cultures where women 1.00

00:13:59.700 wouldn't have had a way to support themselves they might have had other kids with a man it's 0.95

00:14:03.180 your genetic closest relative it's actually almost like a perfect system like if my estate was going

00:14:09.220 to a wife and she was still genetically fit evolutionarily i would want the kids that she 1.00

00:14:15.540 bared to if they can't be 50 percent me because they can't be literally my kids they can be 25 percent

00:14:19.720 me but then that for every two kids it's like one kid that i had with her or more you know given

00:14:24.380 that you know the the amount of genetic similarity siblings have that is a really easy system and a

00:14:30.700 really good system but because the culture in rome was beginning to move away from that you had

00:14:36.240 things like paul further developing the this teaching by reversing the old testament command for

00:14:41.360 a man to marry his dead brother's wife instead paul said that widows can marry whomever they wanted

00:14:45.460 this is corinthians 7 39 in the old testament there is only one section that could be used to argue

00:14:52.020 against polygyny one man having many wives specifically deuteronomy 17 17 which again

00:14:58.080 this one is not great for catholics he should and this is speaking of the king right he should not 1.00

00:15:03.440 acquire many wives for himself lest his heart turn away nor shall he acquire for himself an excess of

00:15:09.260 silver and gold so it's that just sounds like moderation i'm hearing too many not many i mean like

00:15:15.060 too many and this you many is more than a few i think he's just saying like relevant when you consider

00:15:20.320 the the the context of this which is solomon being punished for 700 wives that is in my mind

00:15:26.920 too many wives well especially when you compare it to wealth i think this is about again not having

00:15:32.840 too much and and many is more than a few though of course we don't know the original um this is a

00:15:38.360 translation i'll tell you 700 is more than was intended by this line hundred wives 300 concubines

00:15:45.040 so but i but wait oh whoa wait okay so a total of a thousand a thousand yeah this guy wasn't even

00:15:52.520 sleeping with all his wives at this point like this is just wasteful not wasteful at this point

00:15:56.980 yeah you can't possibly have a cycle that would work for impregnation with a thousand women some of 1.00

00:16:03.420 these women must have grown old without you there's only 365 days in a year you'd like marry her at 23 and 1.00

00:16:09.580 then finally you consummate the marriage when she's 30 or something yeah this is this is no this is 0.73

00:16:15.280 ridiculous but i i'd also say here that what's really important here is the immorality of having

00:16:22.120 too many wives in deuteronomy is said to be the same type of immorality as having too much gold 0.88

00:16:28.600 wives and gold similar forms of immorality here okay well no i mean it's just you often get people

00:16:36.460 like oh the bible doesn't say having lots of wealth is the bad thing especially not like

00:16:41.120 religious institutions or leadership having lots of wealth and i'm like it says it like everywhere

00:16:45.400 it says it um but anyway and for people who want to go to the tabernacle and be like yeah but the

00:16:50.940 tabernacle had gold in it you got to watch our track series specifically track eight we go into that

00:16:55.360 a lot now arguments for polygamy all right so several prominent old testament figures practice

00:17:01.060 polygamy without explicit condemnation including abraham jacob david and solomon and potentially

00:17:08.020 also moses but i i didn't get that one confirmed some old testament laws seem to regulate rather than

00:17:13.660 prohibit polygamy such as exodus 21 10 which states if he takes another wife to himself he shall not

00:17:19.440 diminish her food her closing or her marital rights which by the way i love the line there it's saying

00:17:25.300 when you take your second wife you can't sleep with your first wife less she's gonna she's gonna get a 1.00

00:17:30.600 say in that okay and then deuteronomy 21 15 17 uh provides inheritance rules for children of

00:17:38.200 multiple wives implying acceptance of the practice and then samuels 12 8 could be interpreted as god

00:17:45.520 giving david multiple wives quote and i gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms

00:17:51.300 there is no explicit blanket condemnation of polygamy in the bible yeah so basically

00:18:00.240 nowhere in the bible does it say polygamy polygyny bad and if god had really really felt this i think

00:18:06.060 that would be there however have quotes like quote have you allowed all the women to live he moses asked 0.99

00:18:12.640 them quote now kill all the boys and kill every woman who has slept with a man but save for yourselves 0.97

00:18:19.780 every girl who has never slept with a man so this is moses saying like okay when you're conquering a 1.00

00:18:27.580 region you've got to kill the men you've got to kill the wives you've got to kill the boys but 0.99

00:18:33.860 the young girls who haven't slept with a guy yet those are those are for the taking and then there are 1.00

00:18:41.040 lines which give rules about taking what are essentially

00:18:47.460 what's the word that i can use for this mex slaves captured women could be taken as wives after a period of 1.00

00:18:57.460 mourning but had to be set free of the man no longer wanted them as a wife so it's deuteronomy 21 10 14

00:19:02.380 um here is the full quote here from a different section if a man has sex with a slave girl who is

00:19:09.500 engaged to another man but has not yet been ransomed or given freedom there must be an investigation

00:19:14.680 but they aren't to be put to death because she wasn't free the man must bring a compensation

00:19:20.760 offering to god at the entrance of the tent of meeting a ram of compensation the priest will perform

00:19:27.020 the ritual of atonement for him before god with the ram of compensation for the sin he has committed

00:19:32.740 then he will stand forgiven of the sin he committed so what this implies here just for people who aren't

00:19:40.400 quite putting all this together when you are conquering a territory in the ancient jewish days 0.63

00:19:45.360 you know we may think of these people as wives but it doesn't say like they're allowed to say no 0.93

00:19:52.160 it says yeah you take them gives them a a period of mourning but after that yeah you take them as a wife

00:20:00.760 and it's clear here that take them as a wife is not the same kind of wife as a jewish voluntary wife 0.53

00:20:08.460 why do we know that because different rules apply to them specifically the rule that they can be

00:20:14.340 divorced and that if you divorce them you set them free or they can be divorced more easily it seems

00:20:20.380 here and with this other one it's saying oh if somebody else has sex with them in the meantime 0.85

00:20:24.920 i mean don't kill them but you know they should like apologize and tomorrow or tomorrow i don't know

00:20:31.140 when the next episode of this series is going to go live because i want to make it like a series of this

00:20:35.060 we're going to go into what the bible actually says about slavery and what the real rules are

00:20:39.260 around slavery in the bible now let's talk about extramarital relations in rome because this gets

00:20:45.260 interesting while marriage was monogamous roman men often engaged in other sexual relationships 0.76

00:20:50.820 sexual activity with slaves prostitutes and women of lower status was socially acceptable for married men 0.90

00:20:55.680 and not considered adultery under the law powerful men frequently had multiple sexual partners in addition

00:21:01.020 to their wife a practice sometimes called male resource polygyny a man having a long-term unmarried

00:21:07.200 female partner existed though its prevalence and legal status in different periods is debated so 0.97

00:21:12.760 i i i should note here that in rome it wasn't like fully modern in its understanding of monogamy

00:21:21.760 it was a monogamous system where you had one real wife that produced errors but you know you would

00:21:30.640 have sex with other women if you were a powerful man in many ways i might think that the roman system

00:21:36.680 is actually morally superior to our existing system in the west because in what way and just that 0.57

00:21:42.320 it's less uptight less brittle it's less brittle because it's more honest as i've pointed out when

00:21:50.000 people are like christianity we need to go back to the old ways and be monogamous and i'm like okay

00:21:54.360 like what do you consider like old ways monogamous christianity and they're like catholicism and i'm

00:22:00.300 like you mean like louis the 15th like what was louis the who is louis the 14th louis the 14th the

00:22:06.400 height of the catholic empire in terms of its culture in terms of its wealth in terms of its

00:22:11.760 technology and the most powerful man had tons of concubines uh but it's still seen as a classically

00:22:18.040 french thing where any married couple there will be dalliances of course you have your mistress of 1.00

00:22:25.220 course you're seeing someone on the side that's still a french trope i don't know it it's one of those

00:22:30.300 awkward things because catholicism being pervasive in the country and this is also an issue with louis

00:22:34.640 the 14th is the the church was constantly like threatening to not give him communion you know

00:22:41.520 threatening of this and in in in france still there's this constant thing of well it's not okay

00:22:46.620 to do this but at the same time everyone knows but at the same time yeah so it's like if you can't if

00:22:51.600 you can't when you guys control like literally the the this is like the height of your cultural

00:22:57.680 influence on humanity and this is still happening like i'm not like okay well clearly the system's

00:23:03.100 not working and you you as i point out there's no such thing as a non-politious society the question

00:23:09.300 is just where is the slider on how wealthy and powerful a man has to be to be allowed multiple

00:23:14.760 wives without anyone blinking an eye as you've all seen on the news our country is facing a major crisis

00:23:20.200 why why are rich successful men suddenly going out and trying to have sex with lots of women 0.80

00:23:26.060 why would a man who's famous and makes tons of money use that to try and have sex with lots of

00:23:31.820 different women and these rich celebrities have perfectly good wives at home why would they even 1.00

00:23:38.140 think of sex with others damn it i want answers of course we all know the normal healthy male thinks 0.99

00:23:46.540 only of sex occasionally and has no desire for sex with multiple partners definitely true yes we all 0.99

00:23:53.500 know that go on but you see i think pervasively in um non-french like societies or non-roman style

00:24:01.660 societies today even is now just serial monogamy where and in the end men appear to have multiple

00:24:08.620 wives just not exactly at the same time just one after another so i don't even i feel like yes the

00:24:14.140 roman system is better it's less brutal it's more honest and i think a lot of relationships would be

00:24:18.680 better off if men could just sleep with people on the side when they needed to or maybe occasionally 0.79

00:24:25.640 women too you know it gets kind of complicated with that but like if we were just open about it instead

00:24:30.600 of being like no it has to be in a marriage or one after another or the marriage ends once the man

00:24:35.560 sleeps with someone else because that's not practical it seems yeah well i will say that this reading the

00:24:43.400 the the bible this way and understanding i think what is intended by the meta-narrative of the evolution

00:24:52.360 of monogamy was in the church as a norm um that i think tells a deeper story about sort of the soul

00:25:00.920 of christianity and the true nature of christianity that is missed if you ignore these lines or you attempt

00:25:08.280 to misinterpret them to make your modern sexual mores look like they were the mores that were had

00:25:14.920 at the time of various parts of the bible being written which which hides from you i think a deeper

00:25:20.440 and more interesting truth so in some of our videos here i talk about how my ancestors were savages until

00:25:28.680 they were when i say savages you know i'm talking about like the ancient celtic people of of britain

00:25:34.520 you know killing children sacrificially and burying them under bridges to ensure that bridges stability

00:25:40.040 like savages savages you know evidence of human sacrifice at stonehenge like genuinely savage monstrous

00:25:47.720 backwards people who didn't produce anything but mud huts and i think we as a world are going to become 0.97

00:25:55.480 more mature and get better able to deal with our differences and our histories when we can admit

00:26:02.200 that most of us come from traditions when i one of my favorite things is is and i often mention this

00:26:08.600 when i'm bringing this up somebody's like we can tell he's a white nationalist because he named his

00:26:12.440 kids roman names i'm like the romans colonized and conquered my people that's like saying we can tell

00:26:19.000 this person's a black nationalist because they gave their kids victorian names it's like what that makes

00:26:25.000 no sense but what they are showing which is what is true is that i look upon rome the seat of

00:26:33.960 civilization at the time and rome did not invent civilization modern civilization evolved out of the

00:26:39.880 greek city-states i think that is the birthplace of civilization which spread from there it spread to

00:26:45.720 the romans the romans helped spread it around the world the britons then helped spread it around the 1.00

00:26:50.360 world faster and it was one of these things where it was a meme i saw once it was women looking towards

00:26:56.120 their ancestors and it was that you know you know women looking at like of different ethnicities 0.93

00:27:01.160 looking to ancestors of their their ethnicity and then it was men looking at their cultural ancestors

00:27:06.280 it was one of those superimposed things was men of all the different ethnicities sort of overlapped

00:27:10.520 staring back at like caesar and it's like it's so true you know there's the famous quote like men think 0.62

00:27:16.120 about rome x many times per day or whatever but i don't think that that's wrong i think that rome

00:27:21.960 and it was one of the baton holders of civilization that is not just it's law roman law is there some 0.96

00:27:33.480 other form of law you wretched woman 1.00

00:27:36.920 one thousand apologies and i don't think that like i don't glorify for example rome over its successor

00:27:46.600 states whether that is charlemagne or the holy roman empire or the victorian british empire but i i do i i

00:27:56.520 will say that for a time it definitely represented the core of of civilizing force and what christianity

00:28:04.280 represents is when rome contacted the jewish people if you go to our tract eight you know we go into a 1.00

00:28:12.600 lot of the genuinely savage stuff that was happening in the temple like ripping off doves heads then

00:28:18.360 ripping them apart by their wings sacrificing goats you know blood would have been running from it every

00:28:23.720 day that's i mean when jesus was flipping stuff over it was with the the money sacrifices for buying like

00:28:28.040 animal sacrifices to sacrifice at the temple and we argue in that track that i think that that's

00:28:31.960 actually a form of volite worship and this is made very clear and it wasn't ever meant to be done

00:28:36.040 within the the true religion and i think what we see here is civilization crashing into

00:28:43.960 a truly divinely inspired religion creating something that is a merger of both of them

00:28:52.680 one in the form of christianity but also in the form of post second temple judaism and this is where

00:28:58.680 we're going to get really spicy here which is to say that like everyone when they're first colonized

00:29:06.280 the jewish people and this was the people who you know the king would have 700 wives

00:29:10.360 this was a people who you know ripped apart animals and did all these animal sacrifices this

00:29:15.080 was the people who otherwise was fairly they they may have been more civilized than my ancestors when

00:29:24.120 my ancestors first contacted civilization uh but rome was doing them a favor it was bringing them into

00:29:30.520 the era of civilization and the jewish people resisted and the jewish people resisted 1.00

00:29:38.840 you must guarantee of course to keep your jews in line they will do as i say or they will suffer the 1.00

00:29:47.400 consequences congratulations then herod you have the full backing of rome um and eventually i believe

00:29:57.640 that god used the roman empire to smash the temple for their incalcitrance the other forms of really i i 1.00

00:30:07.320 i'd almost say sort of tribal polytheistic worship that doesn't feel like part of like the one true

00:30:13.480 religion helped them get out of this cycle of you know polygynous tribal culture and move into the

00:30:23.480 civilized culture and this is where i you know just kind of by normatively rubbing off on them

00:30:31.000 yes because jews did move out of and we'll get into a second how they moved out of polygyny as a

00:30:35.880 cultural norm um that is obviously no longer a cultural norm in most forms of modern judaism and

00:30:42.200 many many roman things are no longer cultural norms in modern judaism and this is one of the

00:30:47.480 areas where people see our show as being like overly filio-semitic uh that means like overly pro-jew

00:30:52.440 and we are very pro-jew like i have respect for the the modern jewish people and the ancient jewish

00:30:58.040 people but i would say that you know when i am reading literature do i believe that time equivalent

00:31:06.360 stories in the old testament versus ancient greece who was culturally more sophisticated

00:31:12.200 it was the ancient greeks i'm just like civilization was more sophisticated and that i think what

00:31:18.200 allowed for the modern jew to become what they are in this absolute powerhouse of a cultural tradition

00:31:25.240 was the sort of smashing of the old temple which freed the jewish people from all of these these 1.00

00:31:32.120 ancient polytheistic like traditions and allowed them to evolve into the modern form of judaism but

00:31:39.080 people could be like oh that's so anti-semitic to say that point they're like how could you say

00:31:42.360 that judaism now is fundamentally different than what it is and i think that people who argue that

00:31:46.280 post-second temple judaism isn't fundamentally a different religion from pre-second temple judaism

00:31:52.680 i think that that belief is mostly driven by a theological motivation and not a practical or

00:32:00.680 fact-based motivation where i would argue that they're probably about as different from each other

00:32:06.600 as christianity is to pre-second temple judaism maybe maybe a degree maybe like half as much

00:32:12.680 more different i mean but keep in mind like you didn't have books like the kabbalah during that

00:32:15.880 period and stuff like that like that they added a book we added a book like things change things

00:32:20.600 evolve that doesn't mean that you don't have the right to say we still have a connection to these

00:32:26.040 ancient people but i think that the the structure of the religion is quite different now but simone

00:32:32.840 thoughts before i go further here no that makes sense but what you're saying though is that biblically

00:32:39.640 speaking there's nothing saying that polygamy is a bad thing and it was more of a normative and

00:32:49.480 the civilizational stability development where monogamy came in which is to say that monogamy is more

00:32:57.240 normative now within religious cultures not because morally or biblically it is superior but

00:33:05.240 from a civilizational stability standpoint it is correlated with more flourishing that is to say

00:33:12.440 you're going to have a more stable culture if monogamy is pervasive because you have fewer 0.97

00:33:17.320 free radical uncoupled men who are likely to cause violence in society research that we talk about

00:33:22.440 is monogamous cultures generally outcompete non-monogamous cultures in a historic context

00:33:26.600 you have fewer unattached men which cause civilizational instability because they're 0.97

00:33:31.160 basically genetic free radicals that have no reason not to become terrorists or do something else crazy

00:33:36.680 and you see this there's been a big study that correlated monogamous versus non-monogamous cultural

00:33:41.720 groups that are otherwise equal and you saw lots higher rates of lower trust and business transactions

00:33:47.080 in the non-monogamous group you saw lots of cheating in in more murder you saw more terrorism you saw

00:33:53.880 more prostitution it's just generally not super healthy from a cultural environment i actually

00:33:58.840 think the roman system is probably the best but before we get to that because then you can have well

00:34:02.840 okay before we get to that i want to go here with what it actually means that this is in the bible this

00:34:09.080 way what it means is if in the future for some technological development reason i can't imagine

00:34:17.320 now we moved into a world where polygyny was the norm that would not be outright counter-biblical

00:34:24.120 as a way to live however the bible especially the new testament is leaning towards a stronger monogamous

00:34:34.120 interpretation and here i would note how this began to change several early church fathers spoke

00:34:41.160 against polygyny including justin the martyr 160 a.d who rebuked jews for allowing polygyny 0.93

00:34:46.600 irenius 180 a.d who condemned gnostics for practicing polygyny tertullian 207 a.d who explicitly forbade

00:34:55.800 polygamy and methodius 290 a.d who argued polygamy had ended by the time of the prophets

00:35:02.680 and then at the council of neocrestria in 315 a.d there is reference to a purification period

00:35:10.280 for polygamous indicating that it was considered sinful at that time now you might wonder okay so

00:35:17.400 you have some prophets here but you don't actually have like any of the catholic councils them outright

00:35:22.280 banding polygyny do you know why they never outright banned it even though it became a cultural

00:35:27.480 norm why monogamy i imagine it would be hard to find the specific grounds so you would just be

00:35:36.200 no super hard oh because you'd have to give up your wife your extra no not give up your wives you have 0.77

00:35:44.040 to make a number of women homeless you you no longer look like a good guy if you are coming into 1.00

00:35:51.240 a tribe somewhere and you're like oh well the chief has to choose one of his 10 wives and the rest

00:35:57.560 get to be homeless like that's not a super awesome thing to do and so the way that they would typically

00:36:04.200 do it is they took this softer line interpretation and then they'd say well intergenerationally like

00:36:09.800 just you know like the bible doesn't explicitly ban it but like it's not super cool with it okay so like

00:36:15.480 maybe just don't do that anymore yes so now let's talk about the decline of polygyny among the jews 0.77

00:36:22.440 in the talmud fourth fifth century ce uh treated monogamous marriage as the norm though it still

00:36:28.920 discussed polygamy theoretically um and here i would note that while by the time of jesus many jews had

00:36:34.840 come to agree with the roman view against polygyny it wasn't officially outlawed and we only have one

00:36:39.880 jewish family history from this period it was found in a cave and we know from it that there is on part

00:36:45.240 of it one additional wife where one person had two wives so like the only sample we have shows two 0.65

00:36:50.360 wives now what's very interesting about this incident is the wife came into the marriage with

00:36:56.040 property in an estate so she wasn't doing it for economic reasons it might have been for love it

00:37:01.880 might have been for any number of reasons it might have been a levite marriage and we don't know

00:37:05.640 okay maybe she was hot for the other wife oh getting spicy there i mean uh then we have the first 1.00

00:37:14.120 outright ban on polygyny for ashkenazi jews came around 1000 ce rabbi gershman ben yoda issued the

00:37:21.160 ban tanaka on polygyny for ashkenazi jews in germany and france this ban was initially for about 250

00:37:29.080 years and became an entrenched tradition afterwards reasons for the ban included reducing friction with

00:37:34.040 christian groups preventing men from taking advantage of wives avoiding and fighting between rival wives and

00:37:39.480 concerns about properly providing for multiple wives during difficult times of exile isn't that so

00:37:44.200 interesting that they jews ended up banning it not for legalistic like god reasons but just a 0.99

00:37:51.800 this is causing for kind of the same reason the mormons did like this is causing unnecessary 1.00

00:37:56.120 friction with surrounding christians yeah let's just not push it it's kind of a pain in the butt anyway 0.95

00:38:01.320 yeah then for sephardic jews polygyny was never officially banned but became increasingly uncommon 0.59

00:38:07.480 over time it survived longest among the yemenite jews until their immigration to israel in the 20th

00:38:12.200 century in 1949 the newly founded state of israel made polygyny unlawful socioeconomic factors also

00:38:19.320 contributed for the decline of polygyny it was financially straining to support multiple

00:38:23.240 households rabbis and religious leaders generally did not practice polygyny themselves so yeah it just

00:38:28.840 basically fell out of fashion over time so what is your wider thoughts on all this

00:38:34.680 that apparently it's totally biblically okay and the only reason we don't do it now is it

00:38:40.920 kind of isn't seen as socially cool and there are some societal reasons why it's not in the best

00:38:46.200 interest of any particular society or government yeah but i mean like basically if if you want to do it

00:38:54.520 and you can make it work go ahead and do it just know you're not going to be getting any rewards

00:39:00.280 socially for it in mainstream society yeah well i mean yeah i guess i just say it's not anti

00:39:07.320 abrahamic and and and it may be anti-chatholic for example like different religious subsets have added

00:39:14.040 new rules uh you know what's funny here is the christian group with the most explicit rules against

00:39:20.600 polygyny biblically speaking or in their in their actual like theological literature might be the

00:39:25.720 mormons because they had to ban it and so they have an explicit ban on it oh my gosh however as

00:39:31.880 none of the other christians do which is really interesting that is hilarious and as to my thoughts

00:39:39.560 on it and i've talked about this before specifically as it's framed as polyamory first i don't think it

00:39:44.680 ever makes sense to have a relationship where the woman can sleep with multiple partners that's just 1.00

00:39:48.840 stupid there's no reason for it historically there's no reason for it evolutionarily genetically 0.98

00:39:53.720 family-wise like no culture in history has ever done this no there's one into that there's the one 1.00

00:40:01.560 that was in the mountains where they a wife would sometimes marry two brothers yes that wasn't a

00:40:07.400 successful cultural group like it almost immediately died out it's like a weird thing that we know about

00:40:12.680 but it's just not done because humans don't do it whereas multiple wives is done many times so why

00:40:18.920 what do i think about this in terms of and i love so many poly people they're like oh yeah like we're

00:40:23.560 truly poly and yet like when they're rich i know what they always mean is this one guy and a few girls

00:40:28.760 and maybe the girls will have some extra girls on the side but very rarely do i see additional guys in

00:40:34.120 these sorts of relationships but interestingly i've seen people try it and it just hasn't led

00:40:41.000 to polyamory where i've seen it tried over long periods hasn't been stable like i'm not intrinsically

00:40:47.240 against it i just haven't seen it stably work and i think that the roman system is probably best

00:40:53.320 where you have side checks the side check system yeah you can have side checks but you have one wife

00:40:59.960 i think that's probably the most stable system but i don't hate levite marriages either like i think

00:41:06.520 what you're missing here though is that it wasn't

00:41:13.640 many of the side chicks in ancient rome were married and i think that there there are actually

00:41:20.760 advantages to this where there's kind of this black market thing going on when you have a mostly

00:41:26.520 monogamous society and yet men have mistresses and women sometimes sleep outside of their marriage

00:41:35.720 i i think that in some cases faster evolution it's going to lead to faster evolution it allows

00:41:43.000 for women for example to sleep with more fit partners for example more desirable partners and then 1.00

00:41:49.560 have children with them that are raised in the end by other men who've been cocked but 0.98

00:41:53.400 you know it still leads to theoretically more desirable traits being passed on to future

00:42:00.520 generations yeah i mean a society with a lot of cucking is definitely going to evolve much

00:42:05.400 faster than a society with a small amount of cucking yes well and i was just reading some

00:42:12.520 research on trait selection and and sort of what we've seen actually play out through history and it

00:42:19.240 appears to be that the most common form i'm going to butcher this i think is is negative selection

00:42:26.440 in other words like bad traits get removed that's how we evolve it's not like multiple good traits are

00:42:33.080 selected it's more that people who have for some reason traits that just aren't very competitive

00:42:39.880 are just less likely to see those genes passed on and in a society that's monogamous that's only going to 1.00

00:42:44.920 happen very efficiently if women are taking on side pieces as well i yeah well and i think that i mean 1.00

00:42:54.280 you could fix this was with polygenic selection and so i think that polygenic selection you know

00:42:59.080 society-wide could be used to prevent a dysgenic spiral um but this is actually one of the things

00:43:03.560 i've talked about is we have created one of the first societies was almost was was very very low

00:43:09.400 cooking because of the really tight child support laws which mean that like me sleeping with somebody

00:43:15.800 else and risking getting them pregnant is really potentially dangerous to me and so a lot of high 0.90

00:43:22.200 value men aren't going to do that while low value men are still going to do that at a very high rate

00:43:27.560 and so you know that i want to argue too women in ancient rome weren't always sleeping around to get 1.00

00:43:34.680 pregnant by other men there was i don't know if it was a daughter or sister of octavian but

00:43:44.680 there was some letter or something where like she had signaled to someone that she knew what she was

00:43:50.600 doing that she was being careful and she knew like to never set sail unless her ship already had cargo

00:43:58.840 oh yeah spicy never set sail unless my ship has cargo that is a great form of a birth control 0.93

00:44:10.440 already being pregnant by your husband yeah so you know she wasn't gonna mess up or anything but she 1.00

00:44:16.840 could still have her fun so i i do you know so i'm just gonna push back a little bit on the 0.68

00:44:22.040 now obviously it will piss men off immensely for women to cock them you know have kids that aren't 1.00

00:44:31.640 genetically theirs or even sleep around but there do seem to be i would say genetic advantages to it

00:44:36.680 in some cases for like a population on the whole and it happens so you just have to admit that simone i

00:44:43.160 would i would push back on not selecting for good genes like for example i don't think that i like i think

00:44:49.480 i'm unusually maybe intelligent or have unusually good ability to read people which is a good gene

00:44:56.600 i don't think i have any like bad genes and yet you know i had such an easy time getting people to

00:45:01.000 sleep with me when i was younger but i had many people actively pursue me where were we in a society

00:45:06.600 like rome or something like that would i be getting lots of people pregnant yeah probably you you had 0.96

00:45:13.160 people who had boyfriends sleep with you like you benefited very from this female propensity 1.00

00:45:20.200 like what's your argument that's the exact argument i'm making that he's saying that it only removed

00:45:27.160 bad traits it didn't increase the rate of good traits oh i'm saying that my own background shows that

00:45:33.320 it does it potentially increase the rate of good traits okay but you're not wanting to pay child support

00:45:39.400 now if i had been in rome i probably would have had the exact opposite motivation because you know

00:45:45.240 it's frankly more fun when someone can get pregnant right and you know another guy's gonna care for it 1.00

00:45:50.200 so what's the problem that's i've mentioned this in another episode but i think that men are hard-coded

00:45:56.280 to find it more attractive when they are um sleeping with somebody when they know another guy's gonna have

00:46:02.120 the kid because as i noted on the girls when i would sleep with another guy's girlfriend uh my standards 0.95

00:46:07.320 were much much lower because i found it really hot and i've noted i'm not the only one trump has said

00:46:12.360 the same thing trump has said that he prefers to sleep with i don't know if that's a golden standard

00:46:17.800 for well i'm just saying if people like malcolm you can't admit to this horrible fetish you'll never

00:46:22.200 get far in republican politics admitting to that and i'm like trump did it and admitted it so you know

00:46:27.320 apparently that's not true he broke so many so many glass ceilings so many glass ceilings so many glass

00:46:32.360 ceilings anyway love you to death simone love you too gorgeous

00:46:39.560 i tilt your camera down a bit and we're gonna do slaves oh if you are watching this and wondering

00:46:44.360 where these clips that have to do with rome come from i pity you in the extreme it is from the tv

00:46:50.760 miniseries called rome probably one of the best shows ever put to film i strongly recommend if you

00:46:58.360 haven't watched it maybe because you're young and you weren't around when it came out it is

00:47:03.240 dramatically better than something like game of thrones and it is educational to boot so you really

00:47:09.240 have no excuse to not try at least to the first episode and then see if you can stop watching how

00:47:14.440 fitting that we welcome this new beginning by swearing in the youngest consul in the history of rome

00:47:22.280 gaius octavian caesar my father died on this floor butchered by men he called his friends

00:47:35.880 who will tell me that is not murder who will tell my legions who love caesar as i do that that is not

00:47:42.360 murder who will speak against the motion

00:47:52.520 pumpkin pie yeah does it smell good oh i hear something

00:48:00.200 it smells so tasty yeah what does it smell like look look mommy mommy yeah oh the oven is preheated

00:48:10.920 so then we have to roll out the pie crust so you guys ready to do that next yeah

00:48:15.560 look it's almost done excellent shall we

00:48:27.400 all right and did you put them all together did you dump them in

00:48:33.560 what did we put in

00:48:34.440 did we also put in pumpkin yeah did we put in cloves yeah and nutmeg yeah and cinnamon yeah

00:48:47.960 are you wi know excellent all right oh you're ready it's a mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix for mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it mix it Share

Based Camp - October 15, 2024

When did Christians & Jews Become Monogamous？

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